I had such a good night tonight. Brian went out with Colin for drinks and I wanted to get to bed early so I stayed home. I was just playing around on the guitar and it suddenly hit me, how good it feels to be alone. We often take that quiet time for granted. I mean, sometimes even when I'm meditating, I'm conscious of..."this is me...meditating." As if I'm assuming there might be someone else watching me. But when you have a really private moment, just yourself and you and god, it's reminiscent of being a kid again, when the adults didn't bug you and you were left alone to just sit and BE a part of the universe, just your consciousness as the energy that radiates OUT into an edgeless expanse.

I've been so focused in life about everything I need to do, everything other people need me to do, everything other people want me to be, and everything I am because I'm afraid to be otherwise...I haven't had time to think about the things that I would like to do, and should do.

I'd really like to go out into the woods somewhere, during rain season when there's always that crisp, fresh smell in the air that just fills you with energy and life... and camp where there's no one around, with my guitar and my journal. My favorite memories as a kid were of that week at science camp in the 5th grade, just being out in the woods. And that smell...that damp fall smell of the fresh rain breathing life into a sleeping forest...it damn near brings me to tears. It was everything outside of the box that growing up in the city had forced me into; I never really thought of the world as anything more than a jungle of paved roads and man-made parks. But here...it could go on forever. To be so close to nature just gave me so much comfort. Every sound...every smell...the droplets of dew dripping off of redwood wings onto their fallen brothers as the air symphonically hummed...the way you could feel every twig, sliver of grass, layer of soil shift under the soles of your shoes as you walked, and sometimes, you honestly couldn't tell where you ended and the earth began. You could feel the comfort of the womb from which all people come from, wrapping you in its gentle arms, its pulse beating to the rhythm of your own heart, and just know that you are loved.

God, what I would do to experience that again.

Children are so beautiful. To have glimpses back into what it was like to see the world as a child is one of the greatest gifts God toss out every once in a while.