Be Here Now

The art of sitting still is not a skill I am good at. I am constantly moving my foot, hair or fingers. My mind is always thinking about 6 different things and I think it is my bodies way of keeping them straight. I spent some time downtown Fargo at Broadway Square. Sometime I can relax more outside, sometimes it makes things worse. Today was a good, comfortable sitting though.

I chose to sit here because I have eaten sushi here a couple times after getting take-out from Wasabi. I am now doing an assignment for studio about how to better the park for teenage girls. I thought the assignment was a little stupid at first, but then I really started thinking about what me and my friends did as teenagers. I think the world has changed dramatically in the last 7 years, from when I was 16, but public spaces haven't. All we ever could find to do was sit in basements, or cars when we got our licenses, there wasn't a good, cheap, easy place for us to hang out anywhere. today I find it impossible to get away from technology, every young person has a smart phone and it now seems to dictate social order in schools, it almost doesn't matter where they hang out because everything they're doing is on their phones.

My family likes to take trips in the boundary waters on houseboats. Those weeks are the very few times I am able to put down all my electronics and everyone else around me is forced to do the same. I remember all of these trips more than any other places I have been, and more fondly. Its not that Broadway Square in the middle of downtown Fargo is reminding me of these houseboat trips, but the wind is. We usually try to go up north in august, as the water is warmest and the nights are coolest as fall teases us. Today the wind smells like fall. People think I am crazy for preferring the cold, but I think I really just enjoy the changing of seasons. its exciting and entertaining to me, a person who gets bored with everything obnoxiously fast.

I have a tattoo that says 'be here now' to remind me to live in the moment. I think any of the people closest to me in life would tell you I am terrible at keeping in touch but awesome to be with in person. I often lose my phone because I rarely use it while I'm around people. Part of me hates to be a part of the negative stereo-type of young people on their phones, but the other part of me genuinely doesn't like the obligation to be reachable at anytime in any moment.

There isn't a single cloud in the sky today and I'm in the weird in between of being cold and hot. There are people around but the wind is rustling the trees so much it seems like they are much further away. I think that itself is an under-looked design feature, especially here where it is windy almost all of the time. Construction down the street is another thing I cant block out of my hearing. the end of construction season is insight with the smell of fall, so I can tolerate it a little longer. I often dream of moving to New York and can't imagine the noise or the smell of the wind there.