return to innocence

summers were all the same before i turned twelve. twiglike, my sister & i we were sent to stay in the province a.k.a. the fat farm. a magical place where tablespoons of cod liver & poached eggs were forced into our young mouths each morning. year after year, my parents hoped for few more pounds while we slept, ate & played for a month. those experiments didn't yield the much hoped for results. our bodies weren't destined to be adorably chunky, the kind that strangers in the streets would attempt to pinch & fawn over. the fact that i came first was probably the reason why everyone in the family fussed over me.

but what a darling i was when i was 8 months old! i have this picture of myself being carried by my lola- queen of the fat farm. in her arms she held a milky ball of soft baby fat, with big round eyes framed by black curly hair. i know, that doesn't sound like me at all.

one of the photos that came after showed a skinny three-year old girl with a ridiculously big stomach bulging out of a red bikini. believe me when i say the image is too comical for words. but i was one confident kid. hands on my waist & a big gumamela in my hair, i struck a pose. with one flash, that moment was immortalized, forever etched in my family's minds and the generation that soon followed.

the next summer ladies & gentlemen, my parents bought me a yellow one-piece bathing suit.

i was too young to understand the implications of that noble action.

oh to be a kid again.

sleepwalker

the hardest person to give advice to is yourself.

i've recently told a friend in doubt to be true to herself. to go out & fulfill her wants and needs without having to hide behind lies & half-hearted efforts. but i know how hard it is to leave.

when i find myself in a bowl of confusion, it's so much easier to dial-a-friend and bore him or her out of his or her wits. it's more difficult to sit it out on your own and face your own ugly thoughts.

how many of us stay in this pattern? how many of us leave? and how many of us realize how aimless we all have been? we live, work, play, go on grand adventures and wake up one day to realize we've all been sleepwalking.

it's never easy.