What do you do when you feel discouraged?  What do you do when you feel distant from everyone you love?  What do you when you feel disconnected from the harvest you worked so hard to sow?  What do you do when you feel you can’t go on anymore like how you are?  What do you do when you feel you can’t start over again, again?  What do you do when the word “trust” sounds sorely unattainable and the word “persevere” seems all too unbearable?

What do I do now?

My God.  Oh, my God.  My heart.  How it hurts.  Not the one that beats physically but the one that breaks figuratively.  The one that has already broken.  My God.  Oh, my God.  Fix me.

I wonder if trees could talk, what would they say about autumn–the suffocating death of their leaves?  “Injustice!  Objection!  Nooo!  Wait!  What is happening?!  This hurts.”  Then again, what does their protest really matter?  The cold will come.  The sunlight will clock out early.  And the leaves will be forced to release their grip and return back to their roots, literally.

The tree calls it, “Painful.”

The public calls it, “Beautiful.”

The Creator calls it, “Natural and necessary but, most certainly, not the end.”

TAKE HEART.

With the minimal approximation of 23,000 domestic miles+10-ish cities+6 months, we have…

1 HECK OF AN EXHAUSTED MALIA.

[Honolulu, HI]

They always told me to shoot for the stars.  Well, I did and in aiming for them all, I realized that I am not actually reaching any particular one.

My life has always been more of a compilation of extracurricular activities rather than a single concentration.  What can I say?  I love a lot.  I do a lot, but I also doubt a lot.  Consequently as this Favorite Photos section has somehow turned into the What-I-Am-Currently-Feeling-Via-Pictures section, I selected this next one because lately I’ve been really struggling with the invasive voices of doubt.  It seems I just can’t get them out of my mind.  Then again, there are those damned utterances telling me that I can’t.

For that reason, during this time, place, and season, the one thing I ask, the thing I seek most is Wonder–the inexplicable by-product that follows when I choose to open instead of close my eyes to the circumstances and stare them down with a resolute hope that the no’s are really bumpers to my lucky strike and and the question marks, suspense-building tools to my compelling memoir.  For when I reflect back on my twenties as I do now on my adolescence, I want to be wowed!  I want to declare, “Everything turned so much better than I could have ever imagined!”

I desire that my sense of Wonder would grow, and I intend for it never to stop.  Thus as I work to calculate the precise coordinates of my celestial intent, I will shoot for Wonder.

I am utterly convinced my starry answer will be along this trajectory.

WONDER.

[Charleston, SC]

Thank you for that reminder, random street art sign.  I was beginning to get discouraged for a bit there.

THE MISSION.

[New York, NY]

I have no words, no polished thoughts, no definite updates at this present moment.  This is all you get because this is all I want to do.

NAPTIME.

[Querétaro, MX]

Some people call it “exciting.”  Others call it “frightening.”  I personally think it “crazy.”  Then again, there’s really no need for lengthy explanations.  I just call this

YEAR #2.

[Waianae, HI]

The objective: to move to a place where I didn’t know anyone, to thrive in it and eventually come to love it.  The date: summer 2010.  The destination:

THE CITY BY THE BAY.

[San Francisco, CA]

San Francisco is one of my most cherished places on earth.  Admittedly, coming here was delayed and then cut short when two immensely dear individuals unexpectedly passed away, bringing the total time here about six weeks.  Nevertheless, I consider this place one of my homes; for so many of the roots that hold me up to be the woman I am today have been planted in this wonderful city and the things I learned and experienced here.

—–

The objective?  I’d say–accomplished.

In my world of “One day I will _____”, I’ve always wanted to compile a collection of my favorite photos.  Well, that day is today, and I am thinking every Sunday from here on out.  That is, every week, I will be publishing one of my favorites!…I think.  Yes.  Committing.  For now.  We’ll see.  So.  With that!

THE ONE THAT STARTED IT ALL.

[Querétaro, MX]

It was my first week of art class in México, and the assignment was to take a picture of something, anything…or so my friends relayed since I couldn’t understand Spanish, save for greetings and the conjunctions pero and entonces.  Anyway, off I went with my new camera and new set of eyes, and oh how I remember that day so vividly!  It was as if the entire town was dancing, and even the simplest of street props now vied for the spotlight of my lens!  I was fascinated.  I was hooked, for what I used to see as common was now art and the ordinary, intriguing.

That day in Mexico, I went out looking for something, though I didn’t know what.

What I found was a love for taking pictures.