Dear friends, I am going to tell you a story.
Once upon a time there was a girl. A girl with summer skin, trying to find a place in life where the soul meets body. It was difficult task, but she didn't feel right where she was, it just needed to be done! Sadly though there seemed to be a strange lack of color in the girl's life, no sunlight anywhere to be found. She realized the ice was getting thinner, and she was starting to get a little crazy. So crazy in fact she found comfort in a talking bird! And she was scared, scared to take this journey without really even knowing what she was looking for.
Then one Monday morning as she was watching the portable television, some boys with crooked teeth came. They started talking and, maybe out of pity and fear, said to her, 'someday you will be loved.' She found a new lightness with this news, and so at the beginning of the new year she decided to attempt her important journey to find where soul meets body once again. She put her worries aside and set out, across the bixby canyon bridge, past the marching bands of manhattan, and on tiny vessels over the ocean only to find herself trapped in the passenger seat of a strangers car. As she was contemplating her next move and strange music coming from the speakers (later she found out she was listening to the stable song) she came to understand the driver's name was Sarah. Sarah had a lot to say. She told the girl,
'You are a tourist. You felt that way in your own town and that is why you felt compelled to go on this journey to find your soul. At the moment, your heart is an empty room waiting to be filled with the one that will follow you into the dark. The one that will say you can do better than me, but in all reality will be the only one to posses your heart. It will be hard, and you will pass through many grapevine fires, you might even find that your home is a fire, but doors will be unlocked and open to you so you will be able to find a way. You will first have to go through title and registration, calculate out some long division, but don't let the codes and keys intimidate you! There are different names for the same thing, that means there are many possibilities for you to find a way. So stay young, go dancing! Listen closely, and you will one day be able to hear the sound of settling.'
The girl thought about what Sarah said, and was entirely confused. So she ventured to find a spot underneath the sycamore tree with an unobstructed view of St. Peter's cathedral, a place where she could ponder. And here is where she first felt the true sense of the word transatlanticism. She now understood what Sarah was trying to say! The one she loved was far away, in some unknown land waiting to be found! Maybe even looking for her too. And her journey was to find this person, so the emptiness in her heart could be filled. The place where soul meets body. So off on the road she was once again. As she was traveling, she met a couple brothers on a hotel bus who said, 'we look like giants, but at least we have each other.' Strange she thought. She asked them where they were going and they said, 'to the expo '86, to find where our souls meet our bodies.' She laughed, because she knew they would never find what they were looking for there.
As she climbed into her new twin sized bed that night, and dreamt of the death of an interior decorator, she realized that she had to let go of her fears! Let go of the fear of never finding what she was looking for. Let go of the fear of letting someone in, exposing her heart. Being vulnerable. She could no longer be afraid because the place where she would find her soul and her body, would be in the arms of someone who would take a death cab to a dead end just for her, the cutie.
When there's a burning in your heart
An endless yearning in your heart
Build it bigger than the sun
Let it grow, let it grow
When there's a burning in your heart
Don't be alarmed
18 days :)
Tourist of the Island,
Hannah
