Recently I've been losing a part of myself that once felt intrinsic.  I once saw serendipity as not just inevitable, but essential.  I once saw purpose or meaning in gaps and voids, in coincidence and chance; I believed myself connected with my surroundings in an inexplicable sense.  And it was a sense, for that's from where faith blossoms: the senses.  

It is uncommon for me, these days, to find the serendipitous where most might find coincidence.  I find myself corked, choked...  the very senses that are meant to guide us have faded into a secondary relevance, one that follows the guidance of my constant and thirsty desire for home, reminiscence, my past, and above all, safety.  I must force myself out of what shelters I've created in order to experience something new, in order to place importance (necessity) on the gorgeous opportunities facing me every day.  And I rarely gather strength enough to get myself there.  ...I'd rather find refuge, shelter, isolation.  

I moved to New Orleans.  And in itself, that was a kind of risk.  I wasn't sure what I'd feel and what I'd miss and for what I'd yearn.  

When people encounter anything, they are faced with a choice.  It is an option to either find importance or find the lack thereof.  Always.  We are always floating down a river.  And I don't want to call it time.  But whatever it is, you can struggle against the current or you can swim with the current or you can just sit in your raft and float with everything.  Lately I've felt like I'm just a guy standing on the riverbank, watching the river flow without him.  

I think of the image of a young boy stomping his boots into a puddle of water.  This is where I find myself against this New Orleans culture...  but I undoubtedly am the puddle.  ...Whereas I once (and over and over again) was taught to think that my actions were the puddle-makers, that I was the young boy, I now feel like I am the puddle, like I am the toy of some greater agency that decides for me how high I will travel, how far I will fly, for how long I might settle.  

And what can I do with this?  Not only am I lost, but I see the flow of those who are found passing right in front of my eyes.  Something beautiful: even as a bystander on the riverbank, I am still brought down with the flow of my own unique stream, of my own personal river...  

But the beauty lies in the fact that every time I am jumped upon, every time this still foreign culture jumps upon me, I have a choice of how far the droplets of my personality and my being will fly.  Even in the moments of absolute submission, there is still a choice to be made:  how will I react?  How will I act upon this act?  How will I prepare for the next puddle-stomp?  

My fingers have always been fat.  I am losing the hair on top of my head.  I attempt to write almost every day.  I am afraid of the greatness that I know I can (and still want to) achieve.  I look in the mirror every morning and see my face, looking back at me, questioning whether or not this loneliness is a part of the puddle or a part of the boots that disrupt it.  I am kinder now than I once was.  I am quieter.  I am less ambivalent to the active things, I am less action-oriented towards the quiet things...  There is a flow in me that I can't stop, and yet there is a seemingly immovable constant in me that I wish to kick-start; I am a man of unstoppable potential, and I am a boy of unvanquished innocence...  there will never be a precise meeting of these different people that I am, there will only be a time when I know how much force against or for I want to propel against the river of my life.  There will only be a time when the flow of things becomes my happiness, and vice versa.  There may be a time when I, myself, am a river, flowing through my culture and my life with an unstoppable force...  or there may just be submission.  

But I exist in this world.