Beneath the Pines

20.2.16

"I wonder if after I leave here I'll ever write the date the old way again. 

I suppose I'll have to. 

Now I'm swinging in a hammock, the Mexican sunlight warm (but in the gentlest, softest of ways) on the right side of my face. Above me, the long, slender needles of the pino chinos shower from the branches. They form a lovely curtain for the sunlight to peek through. All around me, el cielo muy azul. I love that it's the only thing I can see for forever. The way it wraps me up.

Here, I think of many things. I try to memorize the way the sunlight looks when my eyes are closed and the place between awake and asleep. Here, I read samples of many books and of course think of how this is the perfect place for writing. 

I think it's funny that people come into my life and never really leave. Even if I leave, they stay with me. Shared conversation and memories and locations and experiences connect us forever. And along the way I collect pieces of people that become part of me. And even when I am far away from these people even for a very long time, the pieces remain with me. And the craziest part of it all is, I never know which people will become the biggest pieces or in which place or in which space. It just happens. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes when I least expect it, and sometimes when I wish it wouldn't. Either way, once people enter my life, something strange and funny and sort of magical happens and no longer can I remember life before they were in it. 

These are the things I think about beneath the China pine trees in the hammock in the warmth of the Mexican sun."