This is what it’s like being a science experiment when you’re both subject and scientist. It’s been voluntary and mandatory all these years, and my work is brought to you by the letters “U” for universe and U, and “M&D” for Mom and Dad.

I have journals that log my research. They are shoddy at best, filled with poor grammar. They drift off into polemics, occasional etymology, epistemology, the contemplation of poetry–language– as survival.  Most often my journals are dedicated to the weather, my pulse, barometric readings for the week, to-do lists, shopping lists, stuff i gotta remember not to forget, but then… I never go back and read my old entries.

I’m a study in chemistry, what I add and take away in what quantities, shaken, stirred, or left to evaporate.  Nutrition, what I feed this ambulatory shell and how it feels in the morning when it’s had a long, sweet night of rest under a night sky, white with stars after hiking just for a little while, bones and muscles melted but oh so happy.   What makes me dizzy? My heart race?  Can I do it on command, or is it all involuntary as my fear of the yellow jacket?  Why does my body respond to salt water but not icy crunching beneath my boots?  Why do I retch at the smell of banana but I’m learning to love avocado?

My journals chronicle hormones and what drives me now but not back then, and I wonder if my dreams–those dreams–are simply fueled by testosterone, or can I prove a hole in the soul makes the life force seep away?  Makes no sense, scientifically, of course.  But I knew a man who believed that dreams were real. I invite him to come to me tonight and tell me something I need to know. What will chi look like when I meet it on the street?

I take apart astronomy, astrology and I know my place between them, my flash in the pan carbon lifespan vs. the hands of a force that guides me unseen.  My studies are neither qualitative nor quantitative.  They are notes without equasional proof, for the journeys are impossible to map, coordinate, define, and corral into thesis or leather-bound tome that says this is wisdom for all time, heed it!

Perhaps I will prove seawater is home for the soul.  And poetry.  And you nanobes out there can suck it when I do!

*animus defined here as:   “the mind, in a great variety of meanings: the rational soul in man, intellect, consciousness, will, intention, courage, spirit, sensibility, feeling,