Revolutions
7.8.22
I turned 25 today.
Now that I've had 4 years of experience drinking alcohol, and 7 shooting guns & ripping cigs, I'm finally ready to rent a car.
Thanks to a lot of amazing people & hard work, I'm also able to wake up in the morning extremely grateful and wink at my reflection as I floss my teeth.
Around this time last year, my ship left its port. I've since casted a wide net, caught a lot of fish, and sampled enough sashimi to tell you a yellowtail doesn’t want the bed of rice.
Between us, I don’t see any land in my horizon, but I’m sailing straight enough to know I’ll strike the shore with enough omega3s to baseline the brain chemistry of whichever post-pandemic society I land in.
To 25, liking who I see in the mirror, and the act of fishing.
-Love
7.8.23
I’m 26 today and the only thing that’s changed is I’ve dropped the chopsticks and begun eating with my own two hands.
Turns out I’m better working with the tools I was born with than the ones I’ve adopted.
This helped me digest how this world operates in loops and whirls.
At 25 I was becoming of 26 and at 26 I became of 25. I hope to one day became of 26. I think the becamed would say that the old “he” didn’t need his hands to stuff his face and digest.
If you’re a part of my past, present, or future, I thank you for guiding me to this place in which I am already full.
With wonder, awe, and love,
Nitai
7.8.24
At 26 I got in touch with my loops & whirls - the cycles of life.
On this day last year, I wondered what “the becamed” would have to say about the nature of that work.
What I didn’t understand about “the becamed” is that it never “comes to be”. We do.
The image of “the becamed” is eternity (0^0 = 1). Within eternity, the cosmos mixes the paint, time stretches the canvas, & we are painters - bloodying our carhartts throughout the process; sometimes for the look of it, & other times a byproduct of the actual work.
As a painter, I’ve come to realize that we can’t look to eternity for its image. As the becoming, we can only experience processes. For us, the image always changes.
To depict eternity, the “beings” that paint it must eternally “be… becoming” (0.999…repeating = 1).
After 1 year of finger painting, I just realized that I have 8 whirls, and my 2 loops connect my pinkies to marry the left & the right hemi-spheres. There’s both beauty & truth in that.
So who’s the real artist?
To 27/♾️ & becoming eternity together.
- love
7.8.25
At 27,
I willed forward with hunger,
waiting for the veil to lift
somewhere between my fingertips.
But when it came,
it wasn’t revelation.
It was a curtain call at the end of an old act,
whispering,
“You had it backwards.”
I wasn’t the actor.
I was waiting to clap
to a performance that had no end.
At first, it felt like loss.
But in truth, it was relief.
I was never becoming.
Because there only is.
I asked to know love,
so I built walls
just to feel what had never left.
I asked for communion,
so I became an island,
until the ocean spoke my name.
I asked how the world was made,
so I forgot the sky
and became the soil.
It’s funny now.
How I thought I could see my way
beyond sight.
Thought I could think my way
back to the beginning.
But there was never a beyond.
And no back.
Only here.
Now.
We forget to remember.
We lose to find.
We cry until we laugh.
We bleed so that light might see what reality looks like
from the inside.
We live to love,
and if we could only love to live,
we’d hear it again.
That song we’ve been humming
all along.
This was the year I stopped trying to make meaning
and started noticing
It’s been everywhere.
The path:
a circle drawn
by a barefoot god-child
with dirt on his face
and a hell of an imagination.
To 28,
and going back to 1.
All over
/
Again.
- Love
7.7.26
When you bury me,
I’ll miss the smell
of my memories here.
Sweet spring,
with enough green
to go around
time and time again.
I’ll miss my walks,
where each scent
came and went
like the colors of leaves
learning to let go.
I’ll miss the clouds,
those endless shapes.
I’ll miss the rain’s
gentle taste,
and the wind
brushing against my skin,
as if it always knew me.
I’ll miss sunshine,
how it made me feel
like a child
who could play outside
forever.
I’ll miss the sound
of running water,
and the afternoons
trying to understand
how cool decides to flow.
I’ll miss the songs
of East Coast birds,
circling the secret creeks
that listened
when I’d speak,
and stayed
when I had nowhere else
to go.
I’ll miss
the years I believed
myself alone,
and those
turning that place
into somewhere
more inviting.
I’ll miss
carrying what was
while reaching
for what’s to come,
scraping my knees
over words,
thinking
I’d wandered
from the plan.
I’ll miss wonder.
Awe.
And the agonizing questions
all the same.
I’ll miss seeking
when,
and why,
and how
I’d look up
at the sky.
I’ll miss
those long hours
alone,
where one sentence ended,
and another
held its hand.
I’ll miss the few words
that found themselves.
Also,
the blank pages,
where nothing was written,
and everything happened.
The slow
Pennsylvania sidewalks,
their dirt,
and the way the earth
slowly taught my feet
to recognize themselves
in everything.
And you,
dear reader.
The way you meet my words
with no reply.
There’s something
I’ll miss
about that.
So keep them.
Keep the walks,
the birds,
the rain,
the questions.
One day,
they will become
the fragrance
of memory.
There you go.
Here I am.
Turning.
Twenty-nine.
The blank page
where nothing is said,
and everything
happens.
