ants

Have you ever found a wounded wild animal and decided to take it home and nurse it back to health to eventually release it back into its habitat strengthened and ready for its next round of survival? Generally you find some kind of box to put it in, add a warm comfortable place to sleep, access to food and water, and a little area reserved for the creature to release its waste. Many of us do not stop there. We add a few rocks or leaves or plants to try to make the place resemble the animals natural habitat and make them feel more at home. Do we really belive that a few twigs and stones feels like nature?

I'm sitting in a public library in downtown Fresno.
Appearanty it is the only one in town, and it took me hours to find it.
Driving around this town I feel like that animal in it's box. This town has every thing you need I suppose, but something seems to be missing. I have yet to meet a person here who doesn't seem exhausted. There are tiny ants crawling all over my body from sleeping on the floor at my friends mom's house. One just crawled across my cheek.

I've been traveling for almost a week now with my friend Chrisopher Blue. We're both at a crossroads in our lives, and this trip has largely been a space for us look at our lives while standing at a distance from them. It's funny how the things that made me feel uncertain about leaving Seattle are starting to disolve the further away I get from it. I like being a stranger in a new town because it makes more sense than feeling like a stranger while surrounded by friends.

The ants that piled into my purse last night while I was sleeping are now emerging. I feel like one of those villans in a comic book whose power is derived from insects. I roll into town dressed all in black with ants crawling all over my body and surrounding areas.
I think I might be hungry.