i'll be yours.

these past couple months have been kinda crazy, for me & my boy both.

he's taking a kajillion math & science classes & being school president & keeping me from becoming entirely crazy

& i'm a little overwhelmed somedays with school & work & internships

& meanwhile we're both workin' on planning this union of ours & finding a place to live in the winter, all while trying to win mcdonalds monopoly & get enough surf time in to keep us brown & thus ready for marriage.

i'm good at forgetting & chase is good at remembering all of the little things we need to be grateful for every day.

so today, i'm thankful for true love.

i'm thankful for chase & his huge smile & the way he makes me laugh so hard my belly hurts every day. for his incessant kindness & the way he loves & takes care of me.

i'm thankful for hours spent surfing or paddling in the sun with my love

& sushi dates & apple pie ice cream in waffle cones

& watching the sunset together on the beach.

i love my other half.

love.

august 9th i flew into honolulu & chase picked me up with my favorite shrimp panang curry & coconut rice.

we drove home & he led me back down into our secret cave where we had our first kiss. he & his friends hung baby glass jars all up & down the cave & lit them up with candles & lined the ground with rose petals.

chase got down on his knee & asked me to marry him.

i said yes.

i love being in love.

it's the greatest.

live in the sunshine.

a fair description of my life the past couple weeks would probably be:
pancakes, laughing, books, sunburn, wrestling, goat cheese, milkshakes, singing, mangoes, surfing & being in love
got back to hawaii a couple weeks ago & it's been good. so good.
chase proposed the night i flew in! in our secret cave where we had our first kiss. it was perfect.
i turned twenty, which i understand to mean i can no longer justify stupid decisions with the reasoning that i'm still a teenager. i'm finally grown up.
chase & i have been on a very exhaustive milkshake hunt, trying to find the best shake on the island. still in progress.
i got an internship with honolulu magazine for the fall! i'm incredibly excited about it.i've also been interning with a travel website called dguides.com, writing articles about the island.
mostly i've just been enjoying being a bum, taking online classes & working a bit but otherwise playing in the sun, surfing, reading books & singing songs.
but.. i miss my girlies!i miss my maggie elize & her sweet sweet voice.i miss cat & her creativity.i miss em & denise & my little persian creature.i miss girls surf squad.
can't wait for fall time.

my heart is an apple.

there's something so sweetly summer about plucking a raspberry from the bush & popping it straight onto your tongue.

my sister claims the kids eat two berries for every one that makes its way into their buckets.

. . . i guess i'm still just a kid.

mountains beyond mountains.

i love

mountain air, sisters, sunshine &

singing shamelessly

lately

storytelling.

some leftovers from earlier this year.

people will forever be the subjects i love most to photograph, paint, or just stare at.

it's overwhelming knowing that the untold emotions contained within me, as a single person, are shared with billions of other people living all around me.sometimes it's easy to feel alone in my thoughts & become entirely consumed by my personal narrative. especially when experiencing grief or heartache or disappointment or regret.

but it's comforting to remember i live in a world of billions

& although all of our experiences vary

the human condition applies to all of us.

i love the words of plato:

be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

and i guess that's why i love photos & paintings & people watching;

because a story is contained in every picture.

it might be less fulfilling than reality television, where no gruesome detail is spared,

but for the few minutes i look back at the person captured in front of the camera, i leave myself & imagine the battle at hand--

of existing & being such a small part of this big big world,

& trying to find our proper places.

we are tall weeds.

dirt

under my fingernails

encrusted into my knee caps

& smudged across my temples:

gardening in the morning makes me feel like a child in the best way.

sunday bike ride.