rhythm

It took some time, right about until now, that the burden of my homeland has begun to slide off my back.

The stress of the news and divisive politics, the distance between the haves and have nots and the stress of keeping as far as possible form the latter while the former run faster and faster ahead.

The general distrust and separation, the things that happen when there are so. many. people.

I met an American turned Kiwi today who is keeping bees. He lived there too long I guess, the whole time he was doing the American thing of making a case for himself.....making sure we understood him like he understood himself. Nice guy, good conversation, but I don't miss that "look at me" attitude.

Not at all.

The sea is my new girlfriend. I've spent two days all up in her and the whole night dreaming of her.

On a surfboard for the first time in my midwest-born life and it's better than I thought. In the water, I'm not goal oriented. I'm just full of wet salty love. When I spill it's as good as when I'm up, I really love tumbling into the sea as much as staying up with the wave. It is so all good.

I'm paddling into the shore as she builds behind me, and my view is misty mountain over black sand beach, flat as.

I have to focus on what's happening under me (as the actress said to the bishop) but the view is so stunning sometimes I'm just too melty to stand. Melty in love.

I've stopped making definite plans. That's a lot for an Midwesterner of German heritage to do, but it's true. If I find a job somewhere I don't expect at a time I didn't plan for, then it's stay for me.

I've found my rhythm.

I've found my paradise.

It was at the bottom of the world in the island underbelly. The soft, wet untouched underbelly. The peach fuzz sweetness, the belly button peek-a-boo, the rub your cheek across over and over again underbelly.

Kisses all over you my love. Kisses all the way to the dark, cold, hard shoulder. The freckled, often seen, overlooked and over used shoulder.

If my invitation means anything, if I can impress upon you the taste of my new religion enough to convert you, then come. Come to the island underbelly and never stop coming.