Today was odd. I think everyone in the world has felt overlooked before. Perhaps you've done something and no one seemed to notice or care. A fantastic story or beautiful picture, but no one paid it any mind. Thats when the seperation between those you succeed and those who don't occurs. Those who succeed are the ones who stop trying to impress other people and instead do the most fantastic things for themselves and those who they love. They expect nothing in return, but in truth deserve so much. Eventually, with luck and perhaps the rare moment when mankind isn't filled with morons, their talents get the appreciation they've earned. Those who don't succeed are the ones who continue to burn themselves out in an attempt to impress other people. They want recognition and praise, and before long they've forgotten the original joy in loving what they do.

I may not succeed in life with the few talents I have, but I still use them because I enjoy them. I enjoy writing and painting. Its fun to me. For me. I don't think I've reached the stage where I am completely passed caring what other people think, but I do think I've learned not to expect too much. Whether thats a good or bad thing is a topic I still debate with myself.

None the less, when I was in the cafetaria line and a girl a few years younger than me comes up and compliments me on the work I had done in art class, I was thrilled. And slightly surprised. I didn't know the girl, but still she had obviously asked someone who I was. It was a good feeling to know that someone seemed to like what I'd done, but I think her age shocked me a bit. See, when I said a few years younger than me, I meant she was probably only 10 or so. A part of me still thinks of the age 10 as a magic age. And not good magic. Thats the age when the simple delights of childhood seem to wear off. Thats the age when we start wanting, and expecting, more. I did it and you'd be lying to yourself if you said you didn't. That specfic painting she complimented was an abstract piece and I felt mine ended up a bit more fairytale-ish than some of the others. Thats one of the reasons the teacher and some of the other students didn't seem to like it. They called it childish. So a part of me is beyond thrilled that a person enjoyed my work. Another, bigger, part of me is estatic that some one who has reached the changing age of 10 still enjoys the simplest childish things.

I wonder if any of you remember the age you were when the sun seemed to have less of a mystery about it? When the moon and the stars went from being magical to being explained? When the trees stopped catching your attention anymore? The age when you "grew up". I can't count the many romance novels or love letters or movies that included someone saying how they wished they could stop time and keep their love forever. Far too many to count. But I think thats something I want to happen. I want time to stop moving and the moon to hang in the sky for ages onward. I want the repetiveness of each day to stop and the horrific things we see to freeze and be whispered away. But not so some love can last forever, but rather that the terrible act of growing up and what that act brings, stops. To let the whole world remain young and carefree. For when you are young there is no language barrier, color difference, or complex thoughts to rule your days. There is only you and the wind on your face and in your hair. There is only you and all the world. Simple, thats what it'd be.

There must be some people out there who think they are different than their friends. That they don't seem to be on the same wavelength as their peers. I think that difference can be explained away easily. You, and me I suppose, kept some part of our soul from aging and stopped the process of growing up, if only for a corner of our mind. So while these complex thoughts that rule the days of 'grown-ups' do come to us, along for the ride is the simple view point of childhood. They merge and dissolve together until to us there is no difference. We think grown-up thoughts and  our opinions of them are that of children. I enjoy it. Don't you? Don't you enjoy the way the simplest things can capture your attention and free your imagination? Don't you love the look on other people's faces when you say something they haven't thought for years?

And all of this came from the simplest thought that today was odd. A simple, childlike thought that was quickly broken down into grown-up ideas.

Ever wandered through a busy street and not hear a thing, but simple let the colors wash over you? And then the noise hits you, like a thousand ocean waves that beat against you; threatening to drown you with their intesnsity. And soon the colors and the sounds merge; reality is created then. But what if I could seperate them? Would the world make more sense? Would this crazy whirl-wind life around me be easier to understand?

Thats what I love about Junkanoo. Its a Bahamian thing, I guess. The colors merge together and the sound is all over the place, but thats what life is. What we think hardly ever matches with what we then do. The beautiful colors don't match with the ear-splitting sounds. Yet their differences complient each other in a way reality never seems to.

I am Lita. Gabrielita, as my abuelita called me when I was little. And I suppose in some senses I am still so little in this world. I am Lita.

Strange how school takes over our thoughts. Strange how at first we try, knowing that by the end we will have given up. I'll do my homework perfectly, in the evening, for the first few weeks. Then as the days becoming long and tedious and the work becomes a game of repetition, the boredom overwhelms me and homework ceases to happen in the evening. Instead it is hurried in the morning, right before class. On the bus or at break.

Sometimes I think thats my greatest fear. That life will imitate school. So wonderfully exotic and intoxicating at first, but quickly become a tedious chore that we no longer enjoy. And before long it had passed us by and we have missed too many sunrises that we can't make up. Will that happen to me? To you? To all those around us?

I wish to write and draw. To document what is around me, for that too will surely slip away if I wait too long. I want the colors to consume me and pour across my canvas. I want the sounds to echo in my mind and translate through my pen and spill across the immortal page. Perhaps I am not an artist or a writer. But whether God created this world or some other strange force, this world around us Was created by some brillant artist and a writer too. For He spilled so many secret tales into even the smallest flower bud and colored the world so vividly that should be stare too long we are blinded by the heavenly beauty. We stain the canvas with the smoke of factories and smudge the book's elegant writing with thoughtless words.

I will not be alive in 200 hundred years to witness what by then will be a covered world that hides the beauty till its forgotten. But I will be alive today, and today I can stand on a busy road as cars honk and swirve around me. As people hurry about and yell to each other. And for now, I can still see the beauty in the horizion no matter how tall a building tries to block it. And for today, I can give in to sleep knowing that this beauty, this mysterious life, truly exist. And so I intend to do so for as long as I can. I intend to continue looking for the vaguest hint of beauty even in a foggy day so that I might at least hope that life won't pass me by. That these colors won't fade until my body has already faded away.

Let your mind never be on a hiatus, on a break or pause. Let it never go on strike or wander away. For even if its just for a second, you could, you Will, miss something. And you'll never get that something back.

I am little in the world. A newborn babe in Earth's eyes. I am Gabrielita. Little Lita.