Arkansas

i went to arkansas. in arkansas, i:

• swam in a river. it was the first time i swam all summer. i jumped off the dam and tried to catch crawdads and tadpoles. a little girl named emily held my hand and we jumped off a wall into the water, laughing.
  
• ate ecuadorian food with my friend israel's family for his father's birthday. there were so many people there. i was the only one who did not speak spanish. i liked being surrounded by laughter and a different language and kind faces. i did not mind that i didn't understand. (but i still wish i'd believed my mom when i was ten and she said i'd wish i knew spanish one day.) i was welcomed so warmly, by strangers who seemed to like me, and who i hope i am like one day.
• was captured by tiny triplet children and told that i would be held their slave for 1000 years. they also offered me $5 for my gmail password. i politely declined, so they kidnapped me some more.
• wore very little makeup, if any at all, unintentionally and just because i felt so good.
  
• fell asleep to israel playing guitar.
• rode my bike with no hands (just for a moment) on a pretty country road.
• laid dozing in the grass under a cover of green leaves from a small tree in a park for several hours. i read william saroyan there and thought about what it means to be happy and what gets us there. i thought about how suffering often seems to have little to do with one's happiness. i listened to death cab for cutie and felt calm seep into me from the warm air and the cool dirt. i sat with a good friend, and i felt full inside in a place i forgot could be filled.
• watched some curb your enthusiasm.
• played with a horse named libby and remembered that i have some kind of weird equine energy inside of me that will always connect me with them. libby knew it too.
  
• sat in a cafe talking for hours with new friends and remembering that i connect easily and well with people, and that when i find such connections, i should honor them and never forget them.
• gave everything, because i had very little left to give, and learned that empty wells inevitably fill again.
• saw two movies, a good one (vicky cristina barcelona) and a bad one (pineapple express).
• ate at taco bell twice.
• sat quietly with my good friend.

i went to arkansas with the intention of loving myself and everyone. i was very tired in arkansas, so i'm not sure if i did as i intended properly. i hope so. i also got sick while i was there, and am now feeling on death's door, with no money for a doctor, but clearly, being sick isn't the part of arkansas that impacted me most.

here is a video that is quite boring of the drive to arkansas. it's okay if you don't watch it all.

i took only a few pictures, but here they are:

the road while driving through missouri.

me while driving through missouri.

me in the cafe in siloam springs, arkansas.

saying goodbye to arkansas as i drove away. (this is israel outside his garage-house.)