Okay so I was digging through my ‘Fiction’ folder in google drive, looking for a thing I’d written for a new project I wanted to start, and I saw a journal entry from April 19, 2020 (happy birthday Tyler!) floating around very NOT in the ‘Journals’ folder. I was dying of curiosity, I mean was this a mistake? or did past me put it there on purpose for future me to find for some very specific reason I couldn’t remember? or… was this a mistake? Okay. Anyways. I opened it. And I scanned it and was like okay yeah whatever BORING just another typical journal entry from me. But then a thing caught my eye so I had to keep reading it and it turns out it’s about me making a discovery about love and that seemed like the very best thing to post on Valentine’s Day as the first ever post on a blog that just seemed fun to write. And okay it’s fun for me, why should you read it? WELL. You probably shouldn’t. But I guess if you do maybe you’ll also think about how fun it is to fall in love without even needing “love.” (“Love” is the romantic kind that Valentine’s Day was created for but we all know that’s silly and love is better than “love” but you’ll probably disagree with me and yell that I’m wrong but that’s okay I can take it.)

Okay so. Here it is. UNEDITED oh boy. On love (on April 19th my brother’s birthday but also on today, Valentine’s Day, the birthday of “love” or something):

Sometimes i try to capture the beauty of the world with my camera, but my camera’s not good enough and i’m not good enough to capture it the way my eyes see it, and the way I feel it, and so I end up wanting to capture it in words, which can’t possibly match the eyes or the feeling either, but I always try anyways. 

Tonight, I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom, banned from the living room area part of the apartment because it’s podcast record night. But I’m sitting on the floor cozed between my bed and my window, my big huge window that frames an entire fifth of the sky, a frame wide enough for the palm trees and magnolia trees and jacaranda trees, a window big enough and west-facing enough to capture the majority of the sunset, the pink-speckled clouds behind the silhouetted palms, the palms with their fronds swaying and rustling, back and forth back and forth, the noise soothing, an ocean noise, a life noise, all while the sky moves behind them, changing quickly, brightening for brilliant moments before darkening , first to grey, then to night. I just finished a homemade dinner full of sweet bright nutrients, every vegetable I could scrounge from the fridge, the quickly emptying fridge, brought to life with heat and salt and basil and lots lots lots lots lots of garlic. Those nutrients sit simmering in my belly, nourishing my body, fueling my immune system, the one system i love and appreciate and need so much right now, that we all need, that I’ve been boosting every chance i get, with love and gratitude and vitamins and garlic and sunshine and joy. I’m filled with gratitude these days. Every day, and most moments of every day. But I’ve gotten so far off track and I haven’t even finished setting the scene, and the sky is darkening next to me, my trees becoming more and more shadows, fragile memory dream things, and my bedroom is still filling with the scent of fresh-baked chocolate chip zucchini bread, because I just pulled it out of the oven, just before being banned, i pulled it out and snuck it into my room with me, where it can cool and tempt me, because I know how good it’s going to be, from the smell and from the batter i licked clean off the spoon. 

There’s so much joy in every single thing I’ve written on this page. What I mean is that I just listed every single thing that’s given me deep joy over the past two hours—oh wait! That’s not true. I’m missing THE MAIN beauty. Music. Music music music. How could I forget music. And the dancing I did while I baked and while I cooked. And the red wine I drank after, with my dinner, the single glass that filled me with a sweet looseness but not the tiredness I avoid, just that soft sweet slippery openness. The kind that doesn’t cause the joy, just enhances it. Takes whatever was there before and helps it blossom a bit wider, helps it push aside the anxiety that might have clouded it before. 

All of this makes me so so happy. And writing it down, it doubles the joy, kind of like the glass of wine. It takes all the joy I felt when I was in it, and it puts me right back there, but amplifies it, so I experience it again and again, and every time it’s a bit sweeter, a bit fuller, a bit more lived. I’m in love. 

I say that and it sounds cliche but I really mean it. This feeling right now? This is the same EXACT as the feeling of falling in love. The clenching in your chest. The aching. The sweet deep aching, the longing, the cherishing wrapped in a tiny fear of it ending. But most of all that joy. The singing soaring joy. The body-filling mind-bending heart-sweeping joy. It’s just the same.

This is blue tank!

That’s all and this is Blue Tank, please enjoy.