wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere...

Things I've seen, experienced and appreciated on my 23 birthday...

Eating breakfast with an El Salvadorian family and happily surprising myself with my ability to understand exactly what they were talking about most of the time.

A kind taxi driver with a huge salt and pepper beard and a old corduroy cap advertising a backwoods grill in Oyster Bay.

A man taking his two young kids to the beach for the day on the train, sharing bits and bites snacks while telling them about all the different animals and birds that could be at the beach today.

An old native woman standing before a raging bonfire in the woods, grinning and waving at the train.

An elderly couple walking through airport security together holding hands. When the man went through the woman continued to walk beside him on the other side of the glass until he had found a spot to sit and wait for his flight. She put her hand against the window and said she loved him and to remember that the keys were in his pocket before he blew her a kiss and she walked back to the car.

A road sign that proudly announced "Welcome to Comox...Expect Deer on our Roads!"

Listening to Sufjan Stevens, Eddie Vedder and Broken Social Scene as I sped along tracks cut so narrowly through the coastal forest that evergreen branches reached out and ran along the glass.

Watching other people, people watch when they think no one else is looking.

....As I am not yet home, I'm sure I will have more but I may save them for my next post...

when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire...

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. They only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way - I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

- JD Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"