life, lately

not pictured: talking, listening, sharing, laughing, crying, writing, dancing, stretching, living, breathing.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: all my photos. copyright me and my imagination. please no stealing.)

today, yesterday, and the day before that

after spending every day last week in the city, i kicked off the new week the only way i knew how…

in the city of course!

at the beach in particular (and the park. and the concrete avenues of the sunset district).

with a guy in particular.

on a particularly gorgeous day for san francisco in january…

i woke up in a particularly good mood this morning.

see, the thing is this: a few days before new years i met someone new. well, actually, i re-met him. but the other day marked the first time we ever legitimately kicked it. can i just say i have never felt more of a connection to another person so quickly? is that weird? maybe don’t answer that.

regardless, the past couple of days have left me stupid-happy and little girl giddy. i know not to carry myself too far off into fantastical lands but a woman’s gotta dream a little dream, right? right. especially when this new guy is a (brilliant) spoken word poet, deeply soulful, honest, creative, and a male i feel comfortable enough with to call a man instead of a boy. tough thing to do at this age, or so i find. interactions feel fluid. i don’t feel the need to keep my guard up, around my personality or my body (though, nothing outside of the most excellent of cuddles has happened. i move sloooow.) my perspective is shifting as life shifts. something in the universe is supporting me and protecting me. i feel it. 2012 is bringing something special for the mind, body, soul, and heart.

now, if you’ll excuse me. i’ve got a room to clean and organize!

how has 2012 treated you so far?

namaste

zoe

welcoming the new year

last night ended up a success.

and by success, i mean i danced my ass off, abstained from over drinking, met new people, laughed too much, stayed up too late, and spent the early hours of the year sharing words with a pretty exciting new person (more on that later).

i am confident the coming months will be peaceful, grounding, inspirational, and educational. i am also confident 2012 will be the year i release completely and start a new. i am excited to watch the year unfold, day by day. honestly, i anticipate a pretty beautiful year (also, i read my tarot cards for the year and damn. so satisfied with the results.).

today, despite waking up five hours after i went to sleep, i mustered up enough energy to treat myself to a sunny walk followed by a little yoga. you bet i brought some sort of camera. i mean, it’s still sunny! that and i live by the water. kind of picturesque if you ask me.

i hope the first day of your year brought you blessings, light, and love!

namaste

zoe

spend a little time on the hill

i live on a hill.

(panoramic view!)

a hill you can climb. so i did. with my lovely friend lizzie, just the other day before all the fog rolled in and officially claimed december.

i played around with my camera, too!

(lizzie took this without my knowing! the sneak )

(i’m starting to learn it all a little bit better!)

there are swings up on that hill.

the view from the swings, well, it’s great.

it was a seriously beautiful day. grateful for all this sunshine in the middle of winter.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: again, i think it goes without saying but…these are my photos. please don’t steal )

on love, in sadness

i am sorrowful today.

filled up with sadness. bound by melancholy. yet, surrounded by beauty.

december and all its winter accessories have yet to make an appearance. cooler temperatures don’t match the blue of the sky outside my window. growing underneath that blue bannered heaven are trees. so much green in the dead of winter. no rain. no snow. just short days filled with sunshine and cold, crisp, clear night skies.

i just spent an hour on my yoga mat, unwinding and reinvigorating. heart openers left me emotionally shaky. you see, right now, despite the beautiful weather, despite the love i am surrounded by, despite the support holding me up, despite all the abundance in my life, i still find myself living in fear. in sadness, anger, frustration. i am living in negativity, resentment, and agitation. instead of living in kindness, compassion, peace, patience, gratitude, humility, and openness, i am just mad, turbulent, humiliated, and scared. instead of releasing, i am holding on.

the heaviness of old and current issues alike sit on my chest daily. they immobilize me, press the light and life out of my soul. i am tired of struggling, of fighting. a change is necessary yet i don’t even know where to begin. i don’t know how to release all this heaviness. i don’t know how to just be and stop thinking and feeling too much. i don’t know how to be soft with myself, either. the gentleness of my nature only extends to others. when i turn it inward, it disintegrates within days.

emotional waves swell and crash the second i wake up. it’s life, i know, but i seem to react in extremes. yesterday, i cried through out my entire hour long doctor’s appointment (yes, i was really embarrassed). then, during the afternoon i felt dreamy, talkative, and happy. then it was right back to tears and discomfort in the evening. on monday my therapist urged me again to consider seeing a psychiatrist, mainly because she suspects i might have some low-grade bi-polar disorder. my doctor urged me in the same direction by the end of my appointment yesterday, too.

i just want to live. i don’t want to be utterly devastated by sadness or uncomfortably buzzed and jittery by happiness anymore. i want to love life throughly. i want to love myself, my environment, and everyone and everything. i just don’t know how or where to begin.

do you have any advice you can offer me? what helps you? (last night my brother told me he does into his room and listens to music when he feels funky. love that idea).

i’m starting to realize just how much support i need right now. i continually underestimate how many resources i need to rely on, if only to help keep me stable until i feel strong enough to be more on my own. also, i’m starting to see that seeking help is okay. in fact, it’s probably for the best.

i know one thing that helps though. music. music always helps. (and i just got a killer pair of big, noise canceling headphones for hanukkah.)

namaste

zoe

(p.s: sorry for the downer of a post.

p.p.s: i apologized to the guy i treated so rudely the other night. all is well.

p.p.p.s: i. love. american. horror. story.

edit: p.p.p.p.s: i couldn’t help myself. i had to do this: zoe, with gratitude.)

self-love sunday

ah, sunday.

my most favorite day of the week. funny how, as a kid, i loathed sundays. mainly because monday followed sunday and monday brought with it a new week of school. now i am a year out of school (pause: when the fuck did that happen?) and out of work on mondays so i can truly appreciate the lazy in lazy sunday. (though, usually, mine consist of enjoying the sunshine).

usually i wake up slowly, bike ride to some brunch, and return home to hammer at my key board. some sundays i struggle to figure out what i want to share. not this sunday.

i want to talk about something very specific: appreciation and acceptance of all bodies.

the topic keeps wanting to be written and, seeing as natalie brought it up earlier this week, i figured today was the perfect time to finally write it out.

often times, in an effort to settle into love for our own bodies, we openly discriminate against other, different bodies. pride or envy or insecurities drive many a person to tear apart another person, body part by body part. i am speaking mainly to the female gender here. labeling women “real” and “unreal” perpetuates animosity. all bodies are real bodies. no matter how you choose to categorize people, every human being has bones, blood, organs, and skin. short, tall, round, flat…we come in all different sizes and shapes. no one body is better than another body. the only reason we think so is because, for some inane reason, our society indoctrinated into us the “good” and “bad” way of thinking. there is no “good” and there is no “bad”. there is just beautiful.

i don’t want to go on and on and on (because i can). i just want to make a simple point. bodies are amazing pieces of art, no matter how the pieces differ. the more you appreciate your own body for the masterpiece that it is, the more you’ll see the artistry around you and the less you’ll feel the need to pit yourself against others.

you know?

anyway, beauty exists outside of bodies. why not appreciate that, too?

(i went disk golfing yesterday instead of the city. save the city for the night time!)

namaste

zoe

another perspective

first: wow dude.

why did i always assume no one picked her cuticles? it sounds like a lot of us share the (apparently way common) self-soothing habit of picking. weird how people can develop similar strategies of coping miles away from each other. see? we’re all connected somehow.

i digress…

second: i am learning to flip the perspective more fluidly.

it used to be second nature to immediately sink into negativity. dragging myself down when i was already down made sense. you know? but now i question every negative thought. i try to see the positive, if only to try and drag myself up and out of the hole i am digging.

last night i basically binged really hard and purged. thoughtlessly. eventually i rolled myself into bed, sick-full, half sugar-comaed, and fucking deeply disappointed. where did the urgent binges come from? what hole did they crawl out of to sabotage me?

i expected to wake up sad. depressed. murky. destructive. somehow though, i managed to stand up. i managed to shower. i managed to withhold judgement. i managed. without getting attached to (i.e: becoming) my emotions. i also managed to have a bit of a tough-love talk with myself…

i took my feeling better for granted. i definitely used the positive space to excuse negative behavior. like over eating and not calling it a binge. like allowing myself to skip meals and calling it normal. like indulging in foods i know make me feel sick and calling it okay. no more excuses. health and happiness require attention in the early days of its blossoming. shrugging off unhealthy behaviors is like shruggling off responsibility. people will not always be there to slap your wrist and tell you to knock it off. if we are unable to build solid foundations, we’ll all eventually crumble. health and happiness, i’m starting to see, require diligence. especially right now, while i am building my foundation.

and, right now, i am torturing myself slowly by refusing to give up small habits severing me no purpose. it feels like i’m losing my proverbial last “five to ten pounds”. you know? it’s the stubborn habits that won’t shed themselves from me. i floated away there for a second. beginning the process of regrounding myself today.

one of the best ways to flip the perspective? look through a different lens! (yes! win for pun-ey camera jokes!) but, really, i am falling (back) in love with photography. did i mention i took it in high school and for a semester in college? black and white film. now-a-days i shoot more on the digital side. regardless, it helps frame the world for me in brighter hues.

today i flip the perspective.
no more fear.
no more hostility.
no more bullshit.
just a gentle, mindful awareness.

today’s the day i start over.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: all photos are mine. please don’t steal.

p.p.s: all photos came from my iphone. camera-camera photos coming soon.

p.p.p.s: anyone else on instagram? come find me. @zofasho.)

chasing the sun

after work today i biked feverishly to catch the sunset.

i worked my way through nearly ten odd miles of golden lit paths, breathless against the bite of the wind and the far-away warmth of the sun. it felt good to feel my heart pumping madly.

i saw another super dope hawk!

and felt again the gratitude which lightens my days.

now i find myself dressed up and wearing make-up for the first time since burning man. it’s b-man decompression night up here! i.e: IMMA DANCE MY BOOTY OFF.

namaste

zoe

(northern) california love

i went solo hiking today.

broke in my hiking boots.

saw a squirrel.

and a hawk!

i live smack in the middle of a handful of state parks. if you don’t know much about sonoma county, know it is beautiful.

seriously beautiful.

that i love it.

and i’m so damn lucky to be here.

namaste

zoe

(guess who played with her new camera todaaaayy ?)

life, lately

namaste

zoe

(all photos are my own, taken by me. please don’t steal )