I’ve listened to The Paper Kites for many years. But not many songs, and not very often. If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I like to save things, in case I want to go back, so I don’t forget, because I like to know.

“It's something I hold, something I hold
I take it with me all the places I go”

This is both a strength and curse. Because it also feels like I’m the keeper of things. I have to hold on to it otherwise, who will?

“You left me living with a lingering soul”

Because I hold on to things, I never feel quite settled. Like I have one foot here, one there. Above and below. Forward and backward. And all those other poetic contrasting words about never being steadied, leaving things unfinished.

The Paper Kites popped back into my existence last Tuesday, when a playlist ended and “Paint” shuffled into rotation. To me, music holds power over moments and memory. I remember the other times I listened to the song…What was happening in my life, how I felt, and I found it slightly eerie that it re-emerged. As it did, I instantly saw this photo in my head… A gray, foggy morning, along a forested path, and a long white dress, tattering in the wind, as a female subject ran, hair whipping behind her. As with any plan, real life emerges and things shift. Ready or not. I found no white dresses. I found no foggy, gray morning. No forested path.

But I did find the wind. On the prairie, where the grass prickles my legs and the colors melt together like a familiar painting I know all the brushstrokes to.

“It's all in my mind, all in my mind”

It’s becoming a little comical how much is in my mind, that which doesn’t match reality. And I really felt like running lately, like the picture in my mind.

So, I packed a bag, I took a flight, and found the house on the fruit named drive to enlist the help of my sister and the girl who grew from flowers. From the prairie, we are, so it’s the prairie we found, and I ran, as I have, a thousand times through the thicket. My legs are covered in scratches and bumps. TGWGFF’s almost ruined her Uggs. My sister’s legs cramped. But we did it anyway.

The part of the song that lingers, is this:

“Still, there's a wound and I'm moving slow
Though it don't show, though it don't show
I've got a hole where nothing grows
How little you know, how little you know”

43/52 // *I’ve got a hole where nothing grows.*

“I’ve got a hole where nothing grows.”
What a line. It got stuck in my head. So visual, but so… empty?

There are a thousand possible ways any one thing can go. What do they call it? The butterfly effect? The image I have this week isn’t the image I thought it’d be. A lot of things in life are like that. So maybe I should just go with the wind. Wherever it ends up taking me, transient.