first, you journal.

I don't care if you "don't like to write". You should journal. I really can't think of a reason not to. You should process through your life. You should record the things that are important. You should look back through and learn. You should pause and take note of this world, everyday.

Here's my other two-cents on journaling. It should be your own process. I've heard people say that they feel bogged down by trying to record all the details of their day. I feel that way too when I try to simply list the activities of my life. Give yourself the freedom to journal about anything you want, not everything. Write about what is significant. Write about how you're struggling. Be totally honest. It's for you. You aren't keeping a boring list of your schedule. You should be capturing the vibrant, strange, exciting surprises of your day - it should be fun, not a burden. So figure out how to make it that way. Don't feel like there is a formula, because there isn't.

One way I like to journal is to do it sort of poetically (are you surprised?). I like to take moments or thoughts that were significant to me and just go with it in the loose shape of a poem. Oftentimes, these thoughts and ramblings get edited into "real" poems, and those are usually the pieces that tend to hold the most weight in my heart.

Here's an example. This is the last thing I'll post about Nica for a long time, I promise :)
I wrote this in response to walking along the edge of Chureca last week. I'm excited to sort of dig into it later and edit it into something else, or take a piece of it and grow that into a new thing. I find that the best writing I do comes from something journal-inspired, because it is where I give myself the most amount of freedom and honesty. And those are two important things to have, wouldn't you say?
So go journal. It's good for you :)


Two days ago, I walked along an edge of this place,
up to a small point where the lake begins,
which meant passing over condemned cardboard advertisements,
collapsed doll-faces, series & shards of cloth,
and walked until I felt I would rip into two pieces,
until I felt like separate levels -
no staircase between them - because
the smell began to shred my stomach, and the indignity
of it all...and I had to close my eyes. had to.

and then there was the sound.

it was the lapping of water against the land.
that's it.
that's what it took to divide me up like nations at war,
to feel the wounds of this place internally.
that small little sound.

because there inside the smell, knowing a hollow-cow was
picking through piles to my left,
and knowing there were kids searching for things to sell
a few paces behind me,
was the most gorgeous sound I've ever been a part of,
the way the lake reached out again and again,
said BEAUTIFUL over and over without fail,
like it was seeking something.

and it was lovely.
Lovely in the trash dump.
and I stood with my eyes closed
and let this lovely thing just wash against me
again and again and again
until I retreated back through the trash,
raw and hurting,
and wondered how I could keep hearing it
still,
when I left,
when I'm far away from that lake,
its nightmare-cows,
its hidden beautiful sounds.