Dear Road,
I'm so enamored by you. You are full of signs to follow and turns to make. I didn't know how comforting the wheels would feel. How quickly hundreds of miles would pass from my window. 

Dear Donuts,
Stop following me. And being so delicious. 

Dear Gin-Buddy,
I only want to play with you; even when you win. 

Dear New Orleans, 
You're warm. I could dance to the jazz and tie the cherry stems, forever.  

Dear Nashville,
You make for great BINGO.

Dear Hummus,
We could eat you every day. 

Dear Athens,
You're a place of the gods, in the middle of Georgia. 

Dear Farmer's Markets,
You're free breakfasts in samples and fresh berries. 

Dear Pens-I've-Stolen,
You live at the bottom of my backpack, where I cannot always find you but need you. 

Dear Coffee Shops,
Thank you for the free hot water and the various mugs and paper cups and game tables. 

Dear Stools and Carpets and Stages where I have sung, 
I am grateful for your wood and your rough and your four-legs. You are sturdy. 

Dear Amagansette, 
You let this mermaid swim in your waves, wake to your sunrise, laugh to your jokes. You are too many mosquitoes, not enough time, and just enough "fo shizzle." 

Dear Polka Dots,
You're my favorite. 

Dear striped headband,
You are the way I've chosen to hide my crazy hair. Thank your for making me fashionable (and saving me $10 on a fake-discount). 

​Dear Suitcase,
Living out of you is mess and fashion faux-pas but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Dear Barn Shows,
You sing ANNIE and THE WIZARD OF OZ and I want to nibble your cheeks. 

Dear Family,
You are pretty spectacular. I'm lucky to know you. And grateful for your homes to stay in.

Dear Strangers,
I'm ever so surprised by your kindness. 

Dear Kayak,
You were special. 

Dear Austin,
You're movie nights and hillside shows and bar-b-q and Shiner and Springs in the middle of the summer. 

Dear Double-Rainbow,
You were such a good omen. But I'm the luckiest. 
Dear 
​

I have never been the type to make waves.

I used to believe that the entire ocean traveled towards the sky in one giant wave. That, no matter where you were, you'd feel the same micro-pulsation. But, when you look out at the ocean, five-feet tall, the waves seem to take from parts of the water and give to others; rolling across the deep blue, on a race to some sandy finish-line. No two people will have the same wave experience. Like two sides of a long-lost friend. Older still, I know that all a wave brings to shore is energy. Not a single drop of water from foreign bodies. It's an optical illusion, like tomorrow. 

I was swimming towards the frothiest parts of the water, catching my breath in heaping gulps that felt like promises too big to put down. When you're swimming towards the waves, you feel alive. The air above the water, healing. I've been chasing a good wave. The kind of wave that questions your existence; that pulls you from side to side; knocks the wind right out of you. If you stay under even a little longer, if there isn't time to breathe between the next wave; the kind of wave that might inhale you, for energy. 

Off the beach, waves are often frowned upon. Perhaps for their energy. Bringing too much of themselves to the shorelines, people often run away. It's no wonder the wave takes every last drop of its water back. Even the things most necessary to survive are rarely appreciated. 

So maybe I make more waves than I'd thought: just being a person seems to add a murmur to the universe. And maybe that is why some people grow silent, like the parts of the water that never seem to make any waves at all.