beat 100 - sincere

"my heart. oh my god, my heart.

my heart feels everything. everything. it's like a sponge, soaking up all the highs and lows and triumphs and tragedies of the world.

it hurts a lot, my heart. but it swells a lot, too.

it feels it all, this heart of mine.

my eyes get teary and my face goes red--the physical, visual manifestations of what my heart is experiencing--when i hear a certain song--it could be from 'the sundays' or mozart or 'm.ward' or an opera aria or 'the brian jonestown massacre'--, when i read a sentence in a beloved, dogeared book (the catcher in the rye, written on the body, elegy, sophie's choice...), when i see a gorgeous flower bursting with color, when i see the cambodian sunrise over the verdant, green rice paddies, when i smell apple pie baking and it conjures up memories of my mom.

i can feel my heart melting--drip, drip, drip--when my nephew hugs me, when a cambodian child squeaks, "hello! hello! hello!" at me when i ride by on my bike, when i touch my friend lisa's ever growing belly, her baby safely and warmly tucked inside.

my heart shatters into thousands of shards when i recall in my mom's last moments how she struggled to kiss me--and she did it!, when i see the gravestone of my never forgotten but long gone sister, when i look at my now ringless wedding finger. crack!, it echoes. crrrrrrack!

this heart freezes solid when i am faced with judgmental people and snobbery and elitism and racism and homophobia. it's icy cold and makes me shiver.

it pounds loudly from kisses, from sincere and real hugs, from emails and correspondence from people i adore, from gratitude.

i once felt it flip upside down and inside out from simply looking at someone right in the eyes.

oh, this heart of mine.

it feels, it feels."

-Elizabeth Kiester, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Wanderlust