Brave New World

Separated by light years on separate galaxies,
Still, I breathe your air.
Rocked to bed by the lunar waves,
I close my eyes and meet you there.
Over the hills through the folds in time,
To the place that's yours and mine.
We leave the pain of the past in our old lives
For new beginnings when we both arrive.
Hand in hand traversing through unexplored terrain
Where there are broken mountains, lush pastures and constant rain.
Two different worlds, too different eyes
Here together there are only truths and no lies.

Give & Grub Food Truck

What’s truly remarkable to me is when people come together with an idea and makes cool things happen.

Two For Tuesday

I do love these bits and pieces about St. Petersburg.

Kurdi's Mediterranean Grill in Tampa

A couple weeks ago I had a delicious time at Kurdi's Mediterranean Grill in Downtown Tampa for NHIE's #EatUp. The restaurant is great addition to the Tampa Bay foodie scene, adding more flavor to the explosion of eateries in the area featuring locally sourced ingredients. 

I got to sample a variety of dishes and everything was simply incredible. From the vibrant colored Fattoush Salad, to the perfectly seasoned Mix Grill Platter, lamb chops and flavor-packed Chicken Shawarma wrap... it was all very coveted and I couldn't get enough. 

Even the drinks were amazing. I had a Lychee Martini... and that just goes down like juice (dangerous!). Their drink menu has many other delicious cocktails and also offers locally brewed beers from Cigar City and Green Bench Brewery. 

It was great to get the chance to meet the chefs and learn more about what goes into the dishes and the inspirations for it. The are so many other items on the menu that I have to try on my future dining visits. 

Check out the little video of the dining experience with other fellow bloggers and foodies:

On Your Mind

Close your eyes and let your mind wander freely. Where does it bring you? What memory surfaces or what dream is born? Who do you think about first and why that person over the 7 billion others in the world?

When you’re driving down dark highways, do you think of me? The long stretch of those open roads, do they remind you of our long conversations? With her in the passenger seat and the darkness that backgrounds the shadows of trees, do they mirror the secrets we’ve withheld? Do the headlights of oncoming traffic light your way back to thoughts of me?

When the sun comes up and you open your eyes to her lying beside you. Do you wonder how you could possibly still feel so alone and empty on a bed of bodies? Do your thoughts rise back to me and the warmth of my gold dusted hands along your morning skin? What about the soft glow of our day's first smile? Or do they make you think of the last sunset of our sweet days?

When you sit staring at a blank canvas before painting your thoughts, do you imagine the outlines of my name? When she speaks to you, do you think of the curves of my smile, the shapes of my speech or the taste of my silence? Do you write your words and wonder whether they would reach me? 

I think of you. I think of your humor that lingers at the pit of my stomach like the last fluttering butterfly I couldn’t laugh out. I think of the dizzying daze you leave me in like the spinning blues record on my stand. I think of the doors left shut even as the windows were opened and the wind of our words freely passed.

I think of you. I think of the tender times that tally longer than my breath as I breathe you in. I think of all the steps you’ve taken on your way to Jupiter while I stayed on Earth. I think of the demons you fought to land back on the steps of my stoop.

And then I think of the headlights illuminating the long road stretching home.

The Great Escape Room in Tampa

This past Sunday I was locked in a room with 7 other friends and we had an hour to get ourselves out.  We ran around the room, pulled books and knick knacks off the shelves and pulled out our hair trying to figure a way out. This is not a plot for a scary movie, it was the Great Escape Room. 

So really I had the pleasure of joining my friends Never Have I Ever Tampa and company to experience the Great Escape Room in Tampa before it officially opens in a couple weeks. The premise of the game is: you are locked in a room for 60 minutes and Sherlock Holmes tells you that you have to work with your team to find clues hidden throughout the room and solve 4 puzzles to find your way out. It's part scavenger hunt and puzzle solving.

My team and I made it out just under 49 minutes. It's definitely a unique experience that I can't wait to bring my friends to! I actually wish I could just watch them all scurry around the room trying to figure it out. Since I already know where all the clues are and how to solve the puzzles, I'm sure watching them would be just as fun. I can't tell you how much fun it was trying to find all of the clues...  not to mention what a great feeling it was to solve the puzzles. They were a bit tricky! I am a nerd for these things. But everyone was so nice, the entire room cheered when each puzzle was solved. We even heard the other room cheering too. So much positivity, I love it.

There are are four other locations in Orlando, Miami, Michigan and DC. And now it's coming to Downtown Tampa! I can imagine how much fun it would be for birthday parties and team building!

If you're ever in the Tampa area and have an hour to spare, definitely check out the Great Escape Room and see if you can escape within the hour.

The Analog Clock

Eleven twenty.

It’s been 11:20 for weeks now. Months maybe. Neither of us wanted to take the time to fix the damn thing. Day in and day out we would look at that clock and clearly we see that it’s stuck. No more ticking. No movement whatsoever. Still, it reads 11:20 while time presses on anyway. There are other options out there to satisfy our need to know, so we walk away as we pull out our phones. How trivial it is to stop your day just to make it work. 

“I’d better change the battery. Tomorrow. Maybe she’ll do it first.” He thinks. 

“It won't work if no one tries to fix it. I’m not going to be the one to do it. I’ve done it plenty of times.” I think. Decisively.

Still, he walks right past it every day leaving me to sit and stare hoping that it’ll change. That it’ll start ticking again, like my heart beat. That the battery would be new, like a fresh breath into my lungs. That there would be movement, like the blood through my veins. That it’ll be unstuck, like my lips against your skin.

And every time we see that clock, we revisit the same question:

Will it finally work this time?

St. Pete Murals #6

Back alley behind 600 Block on Central Avenue

Mixtape: Because of You

Playlist with about 60 minutes of easy listening. Check it out here.

Saturday Morning

For Valentine's Day:

In an ordinary white, four-walled room, he sat in front of a not so ordinary girl. For almost two years he studied the way strays of her silky hair waved beside her temple to the crinkle between her brows when she was deep in thought. She was always deep in thought; in that brilliant, beautiful mind. He watched her fingers fondle the curve in the handle of the ceramic coffee cup before lifting it to her pink parted lips. 

Always three scoops of sugar and too much cream. Like her coffee, she was too sweet, too hot, too full of flavor and too strong. Strong willed. Strong minded. She didn’t know it. She was too busy contemplating existentially about this, that and the universe as the cream swirls in her cup. 

There wasn’t a sound in the room and they didn’t dare spare a word to break the peace. But there was music. A composition made of heart beats, rhythmic respiration and intravenous harmonies. A symbiotic symphony between lovers.

Her eyes darted around the room until she noticed his blanketing her. As if his glance disrupted whatever she was thinking, she froze. Her eye lashes swooping down. And there it is. She flashed that look. That look that made him fall in love with her in the first place. She bit her lip and let a smile crawled across her cheeks. She was bashful. Her eyes opened slowly, first looking down at her hands and then up until those brown eyes fell deeply into his. She was beautiful. 

They looked at each other for far too long. 

But long enough to know that one could not leave the other. 

Quarter Century

How does it feel to be another year older, Milynn?

A question we all get asked on our birthday. What's so different today than any other day, it's just another day isn't it? We are counting and keeping track of how many years we have enjoyed breathing the air of this earth. And this year I want to say it's different, because at 25, I've met a mile marker. The midpoint between the worst and most awkward years of my life and the point where I am supposed to achieve adulthood. Which I define as more control over the choices of your future, accountability and responsibility for the outcomes of those choices and more stability. What does it mean to be 25? Some people hope to achieve certain things at this age, whether it be starting a business, buying your first house, getting married or having kids. For me, I don't know what that is.

Have I achieved all I hoped for before 25? Well let's see now... at 18, I was excited about moving out of my childhood home and going to college, making the first step towards being a grown up. So high school graduation and acceptance into college, check. Double check. At 21, I graduated a year early and was excited about starting my career, getting a big girl job. Bachelors degree and a corporate job. Check and Check. At 23, I got my own apartment (check) and kept climbing the steps of my career. And that's really where it trails off now, a dull satisfaction of reaching the bare minimum of life's checkpoints. So again, have I achieved all I hoped for? No. But that's not to diminish my pride of those things I have achieved. I just have more goals I need to work towards.

Despite it all, I still find myself in discontent while building out a story my parents are proud to tell. It's funny looking back at all the things people warned you about growing up while you were growing up. They tell you how you'll make mistakes before you learn and how things will be ugly before they are beautiful. No matter how much prep talk, you're never ready for those hard lessons. I found myself in pieces making the same mistakes over and over again, and regretting missed opportunities. But still, I am proud that through the hardships and pain that it didn't stiffen my heart nor make me bitter. Just less naive and more pragmatic.

I learned a lot about myself testing my limits, both voluntarily and out of my control. Things against my better judgment. Playing with fire. Giving myself more to others than giving me more of me. Finding things I am good at and things I need to work on.

And as I cross over to this unbeaten path passed this mile marker, I wonder what lies in my wake.

Record Player

The latest addition to my apartment is this little record player setup in the corner nook of my home. It sits in the best place for spinning records during dinner parties, for kitchen cleaning and dancing in the living room. I've got just a few records to start my collection, but this B.B. King album is one of my favorites.

Other records: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Quincy Jones.

Sunset

5:58pm. 

What is it about a sunset that draws people out? 

A daily phenomenon.

A blazing eruption of color melting behind the waves that kiss the shore.

A serenity of a natural beauty, irresistible in all its glory.

A Few Good Things

I recently acquired a used record player of immaculate condition. Luckily my parents had a receiver and speakers lying around their house that I borrowed for my apartment! My dad also built me a cool shelf that gives it all a home. More to come on that.

Remember my closet store? I didn't, until I got a sale the other day. I will be updating it soon as I am ready to do another closet purge. Check it out soon!

I am finally going to Austin, TX in a few months! It's been one of those cities on my list of places to visit for quite some time now, so I am very excited about going! I will need some suggestions on places to visit :). I am looking at other places to visit this year too. Marking up my calendar with travel plans feel so good.

Feelings

"You know and I know
without having to say a word.
The things that drive us mad
are the things that can’t be heard."

 ******
 
Hello December! 

I can't believe we have reached the end of 2014. While I am taking longer breaks again between writing, as time to do so has become scarce, I have been reflecting on the experiences I've been through and learned from. I had so much to say and so much to share while emotions were raw and creativity ran rampant. I've broken from whole to dust, phoenixed and then ignited. I am nowhere close to who I was, far from it, but closer now to who I want to be. It seems that the unknown is always a driver for rallying our deepest fears. Yet, the unknown is where thrill-seekers run to, where million-billionaires are made and where we find ourselves and things we were never looking for. 

The unknown is 2015, and we are racing towards it. Come fire, come love. Whatever the case, it's worth embracing.

Two for Tuesday

Embark on a path that leads to your personal happiness.

Cafe Du Monde

"You have to get hurricanes, hand grenades and Cafe Du Monde." 

Basic consensus among friends who knew I was going to New Orleans. There was not one part of me that could say no to beignets and coffee. It was always clamoring with people, the lines were outrageous at all hours of the day. I loved it.

Mojo Coffee House

Happy Monday. Whenever I travel, I have to stop at a local coffee house. In Nola, I walked down Magazine Street and stopped in Mojo Coffee House. It was everything.

New Orleans: Bikes and Doors

 My back is against the door while my heart is on the other side knocking. 

New Orleans: Places

 It's where we've been that guides us home to who we are.