Picking Sticks

This photo was taken yesterday. The sun has been back out again but my drive is still lost and cloudy. I can't seem to shake this funk lately. It's been harder and harder for me to put up with conversation. Yesterday I met a girl who reminded me of myself when I was nineteen and didn't know better. She was so lost. There's something I've always found beautiful in lost people; I think that's why I try to run away so often. I don't want to be found. 

I remember writing this blog every day sneakily in Etan's office. I spent my afternoons daydreaming of adventures I'd take with Shay and sending out emails anticipating a new career. I remember feeling inspired. It's weird now because the word sounds undefined for me - inspired. 

What does that even mean? To envy? To want? To hope for? It's an open ended word that feels like a memory or a feather. I felt so light, feather light when I was locked in my cave and dreaming. Sometimes when I write I feel that person still inside of me, she's like this set of eyes sitting inside my bones. She lets me see myself when my fingertips type out little patterns of thought. 

She's the same eyes that used to write about the boy that wanted to be remembered and the reason I'd collect photographs of picked up sticks. 

I want to believe that every one I meet is worth collecting sticks of. Maybe that's what's lacking lately. I don't see people's collected selves anymore, I only find their pieces scattered in our conversation and their sadness feeds me. 

I feed off of people's sadness and collect stories. I used to talk to everyone about their lives but found that most of us talk about ourselves as if we're some protagonist and we're waiting to find a prince or fight wrong with right.

The real world is sad and flightless. It's lackluster mundane existence eats people away. LA is this little road trip to sadness I take every day and I go back because I love being comforted with misery.

I like my job. I like taking photos. I've been focusing so much on taking photos of who and what is beautiful that I forget the ugly things in life have more use and love and depth. 

I feel a bit wrapped up in the game right now and I miss the hobby. Writing is a hobby. Sadness is a hobby. Some hobbies are better than others. 

I hope that self that sees me sometimes is still there. 

I hope she's the one pushing these fingertips.

I miss photographs of picked up sticks.