Adults.

growing up.
A possibility of taking any one piece of my uncultivated self and focusing upon it 1000 beams of light and love, well, thats scary, because the higher you

grow, the further you are from the furthest part of yourself, your toes, squelching through the mud-streaked grasses and the gravel and the dirty pavement and the trash.

Can you still see and know and feel the ground, once you've set yourself on the path of soaring; do birds think of their feet as feet anymore? A reality in which there is an AWESOME version of me that doesn't forget how to love being average...Roots and trunk and sky-scraping,

manifest, self-actualizing trees. Growing UP. A big big tree that kids weave all their memories through and around and around and around.

Every day I'm shufflin'

On this side of the edge of glory in a million ways. Physically exhausted including this pulling on my heart piece that comes from challenging and tender moments with people (new friends, old friends, strangers) places (the top of a mountain,the sea, a geisha training house, in the shadows of glicka man, on a boat on a river, in the floating gardens above Osaka, and every train, bus, taxi and hair salon in between AND things (tequila, takoyaki and my Giants jersey--shinnosuke!!).

My body is filthy, where da soap at?! the painting smock onesie I'm wearing isn't the high end fashion it was when I started this trip, it's dusty and grimy; my sweat has dried in it to an extreme in the sopping heat of the kansai area. my flip flops have been flattened by the weight of my tread-heavy self and such is the lfe of a vacationing vagabond.

But, despite....as a friend said, I've had a Japan-affirming week, my soul needed a break from the soullessness, and I feel soulful hopeful and happy yet again.

Dear friends, all friends, every friend. No place would be worth traveling to without friends. Every Kinkakuji temple is just a wooden house with a cute gold leaf paint job unless you have someone with whom to share your water, take photos of or one day reminisce about. And the friends we tell about it to are the family we struggle to keep close even as they are doing the sightseeing version of their own lives.

Best. Birthday. Ever.