la.

i'm looking out at my temple right now.

working on my script.

waiting for brian to come home.

waiting for what comes next.

this is my home. the only place i've called home and felt it. and i'm going to pack it up and give it to strangers for a few years.

maybe. i keep waiting for another option to open at the last minute. this feels like a test.

my body has been transforming. i think body composition is determined by the mind sometimes. or maybe something bigger working through the mind. my weight went up 10 lbs despite same level of exercise and eating healthier in seattle. the last year my body was lean and angular. and now i'm still strong but with all these curves. sometimes i look in the mirror and my body surprises me, it's so new. like, brian has given me a hard time for as long as he's known me about not having an ass. how asian people don't have asses. that's how i know for a fact this booty is new booty. i keep thinking that whoever is coming up in the future must like a girl with an ass. maybe my body is preparing me to be recognized.

reality does seem more stratified. i can feel so many possible interpretations and paths, but it's harder to tell which ones can be agreed upon by both myself and those outside myself. it's getting easier to see people, but harder to interpret what it means in this plane of living. like when things like this happen:

i was waiting in the line outside of the women's room at the warriors game. i must have been deep in thought because at some point, i realized there had been a little girl wailing behind me for a really long time. i turned around and it's a hispanic girl about 4 years old--long brown hair and big doe-eyes, tugging at her mother's arm and wailing in spanish. her sobs came from deep inside her, unadulterated sorrow, vibrating beyond what a child should know. these cries were real.

the mother was a beautiful woman, make-up and outfit crafted carefully, a strong, seductive creature. cold. in this moment, she stared at the wall as an exercise in discipline, a rock with no ears.

i looked away, and the girl continued wailing the same line over and over.

you nunca dame me nada! you nunca dame me nada!

she had her mother's coat clutched in her fists and she pulled as she cried. she had the devastation of a woman begging for her lover not to leave. i suddenly realized i understood what she was saying.

i turned and asked her mother, "is she okay?" at the same time, i wrapped my arm around the little girl's bird-like shoulder, rubbing her arm gently, soothingly.

her mother looked surprised that i had said anything, then said, "you know kids. they're so spoiled. they see everything, they want you to buy it. they see a candy they want you to buy. they see a giant finger they want you to buy. just ignore her." she waved her hands in front of her face the whole time, the way people do when they want your attention to go away. the way they do when they're lying.

"that's not it!" the girl wailed. now her eyes were pleading me. she was saying something in a panic i couldn't understand.

"well, is there anything you can give her that will make her feel better? sometimes with children it's a negotiation."

"she's just being a drama queen," the mother said, again waving the issue away with her hand.

the girl wails louder, saying something really fast. i look to the mother and she says, "just ignore her."

but the girl is tugging at my hand with a desperation and all i want to do is pick her up and hug her and spend the rest of the night listening to her if i have to.

i bend down so i'm at her level and ask her what it is.

"she never let's me talk to my dad when he calls. i want only one thing and she never lets me talk to my dad."

she is heaving up her soul in these sobs, every word something red and beating, and i suddenly realize i'm an active witness to a girl who is in this moment, losing, and will one day have lost her faith in this world. and as she looks up with those eyes aging from the inside out, she's not screaming just for the love and mercy of an impenetrable mother, but for an echoing world of god, universe and angels to acknowledge her existence.

but i also realize the real world situation. father moves on leaving a bitter mother with a child she resents as a burden. child is used as a means of punishing him. a bitter life for all involved.

the mother pulled her away and into a bathroom stall. i worried she would beat her. the girl's sorrow reverberated around me like the ringing after an explosion. i felt great sadness for her. i felt great sadness for the conundrum of human experience, that we must be born out of pain so that we may learn why we live.

i couldn't touch the situation. but i wish i'd had more space to give that girl something to remember. that she is heard and does exist. that it won't always be like this. that people who want to give her all the warmth and love she needs will be there if she can just hold on and not believe this pain to be the world.

i have a feeling i know what the middle of the night is like for her.

i have a feeling that past or future, we have shared the same dream.

in the echoes, i can still hear her cries.