Gardenia

Lately I've been thinking about growing up and what that term actually means to me, to my peers, to my mother, my brothers, my sister, past lovers, to Annie, to Janet & and to the King of youth and naivety: Peter. It is summer days like these that I begin to melt into my furniture and engage in such lucid thoughts. The fact of the matter is that one day I will wake up and be a flower. I can feel that I'm on the verge of blooming and there's simply no stopping it. Problem is: I'm perfectly content with the blissful ignorance of being a seed, shielded from the elements, cocooned by the soil in the Earth. So, what's a boy to do?

 I feel bashfully blunt when I say that we all share this insecurity and fear of growing up. As I gather my thoughts I've come to conclude that there isn't really anything I can do about it. One day I'll bloom, and whether I'm ready for it or not, it will be beautiful. If you're struggling with similar thoughts this week you'll find joy( maybe even a joyful tear) in Gardenia and the work of Germany's Carsten Witte.

"Mohn- A metamorphosis" by Carsten Witte

&

"Gardenia" by Jasmine Mans and Jennah Bell performing live at The Strivers Row showcase, Dean's List 3.

Jack Kerouac

I've been quietly  obsessing over Jack Kerouac these days. I've been collecting words of inspiration and comfort for the past two years and it recently occurred to me that these quotes were all coming from the same person. With this new information, I turned the clock backwards to engage in the life and times of Jack and I can't help but feel like I've encountered a long, lost friend. If we break the boundaries between reality and the spirit world there are always friends to be made and lives to be cherished.

And this is how it was. at 15 and at 20

I love Turkey Dinners. I went home for the first time in weeks and I stumbled upon a world I used to know.
My room felt like a dream. I could drown in the navy carpet and fly in the sky blue of my walls.
I traveled back in time at the sight of old photos and lingered on a few old journals. At 17, I shared a poem with the best grade 12 english class and it still speaks to me today. I hope you are better for reading it.

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Billy collins