Only when it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Well again, I guess you didn't see that one coming. Or maybe you did. Maybe I only think I am shocking, but really everyone already knows me really well and is like yea, yea, what's new? I have been a vegetarian for about 16 years of my life. I still remember the turning moment in a restaurant in Herkimer, NY on a school field trip, 7th grade, 12 years old, I was eating chicken fingers and I suddenly felt ill. I was only eating chicken at the time, because several months to a year before that I had given up all meat but chicken. I put the chicken finger down and thought I will never eat meat again. I know many people have had similar experiences in their life and then choosen a healthier lifestyle for it. Now here comes the fun part. In 16 years do you know how many times I have been approached with the following: "Where do you get your protein? You eat chicken don't you? Do you drink milk? Do you eat cheese? Then what do you eat? God made animals for us. We...

I should win the romance novel of the year award with this title. "A love story and a broken anniversary" really Meghan? Should I read on? you say to yourself.  Go ahead....it's not what you think. Not much is, ya know. We realized while sitting on my friend Mariah's new green couch the other day that it had been exactly one year ago that I had broken my foot. That fatal day of sky diving where the parachute didn't open and I thought my life was over....no no no, actually I was standing in flip flops on a corner, about to j-walk across the street to my office, when somehow my foot slipped off the curb, the bags of books I was carrying prevented me from catching myself on my way down, and moments later I stood up again with the help of a kind old Chilean man, a little bloodier with a broken bone in my foot. Oh the clumsiness, it's hard to believe a year of my life has passed since that awful morning of walking in between doctor's offices and hospitals ...

It's normally the walk to Aldea that I like the most. For 6 months, I walked five times a week the 15 minute walk from the metro to the home in which I volunteered. The first time I ever did the walk with two older volunteers I remember thinking, where in the world is this place? After having a week of orientation and hearing the stories of some of these children and hearing about the neighborhoods from which they come, I remember walking through Puento Alto looking around and wondering if that was what poverty in Chile looked like. The houses look to me, like houses. Small houses with little gates out front, some paved roads, some not, usually a broken brick wall or sidewalk. What soon became extremely routine and normal however was the dogs. One by one as I would approach the one street in which the dogs live , I have deemed it quite possibe that those little houses were not Chilean families but rather houses filled with street dogs. Well everyday they come out ...

Well it's been a few interesting months to say the least! About two months ago I got to head way up north, to the good old state of New York to visit friends and family for about 18 days. It was an absolute blast. After a warm welcome from my family in New York and a birthday party for my now 5 year old nephew, I spent a week at my parent's house, which I realized when I was there, that that was the longest number of consecutive days in a row I had been at my parents house since when I lived there during summers in college, so about 6 years ago. I worked at my dad's store, Impressions Now, sold all my stuff from my storage unit, or the majority of it at least and spent several long wine filled nights on the deck with my parents and a fire chatting about life. Parker showing off his baseball skills Cassie and I in NY! At the beach with Kendra  Hanging out with Katie!  To cool for school in his shades  Introducing some pisco sours to my parents at m...

It was first the eyes that drew me to her depths unknown to me there are waves in there thoughts darker than night she'll tell me to go when she cries for me to stay abandoned. alone. full. stronger, harder, tougher It's not the emptiness that carries her it's the longing to be full again Once left over and over the pattern has been set repeating without sympathy without giving in a deeper cut when she sees the blood the wounds make sense how can I hurt without bleeding the warmth spills over spills from her veins how do we apply pressure to a wound you can not see my words echo in silence her smile resides within me a scream escapes my lips needs I cannot fulfill our eyes hold one moment longer until the cloud passes over -For Rosemary

"I have saved things much less beautiful than this," Brooke says as he stares at his homemade despidida card in a small tucked away bar in Bellas Artes. We watched him read it, touch his fingertips to the cloth front and smile, "thank you" he looks up and smiles with his eyes. Pablo stood and gave a very funny and yet heart wrenching speech of the last two years of knowing our director of the small NGO that has slowly become my second life in Chile. I am sure it had something to do with the dark lighting of the room, the 40 or so people crowded into the corner, the bottles of wine floating about the table, or watching Brooke's eyes as he opened his card, but I felt the warmth rush over. I understood everything that Pablo was saying, and I flashed back to a little over 10 months ago walking into a strange cold city with not much of a clue of what was happening. Time is nothing but what we make of it, if I didn't know that 10 months had gone by, I would tell y...

I wondered as I was walking where inspiration comes from. My earphones were in, it was a sunny day and I had on two pairs of pants. I walked quickly, cause as normal, I was used to being late to wherever I was heading, this time to pilates class and didn't want to miss a minute of my 50 minutes of relaxation and toning. Something had escaped me and yet was burning inside. I couldn't figure out what it was. It started when I woke up that morning. A sense of urgency, the inability to sit still, to hold a thought, to finish an email. I hated the computer that I worked on, I hated the chair I sat in, I couldn't keep my breath from exhaling loudly. Why was I so stir crazy. I wanted to be outside in the sun shine, running and jumping and basking in joy, but instead I had to send 74 emails, and 26 in Spanish which took me twice the time to write. A blessing and a curse it dawned on me as I hurried down the crowded sidewalk towards pilates . I thought all through the class, the ...

Thoughts from a micro ride at sunset. May 24, 2010 Tell me again why the world turns pink when the sun goes down.... We wondered what would happen if skin would melt into fire a golden hue of yellow left when the spark began to flicker we scrambled into the dark blinding light left for no one a leaf turned orange red falling into nothing gasping, yet reaching, and still holding as hands streched wide to take as if they could reach forever for to hold a world unlike their own pondering for more than there could be but always asking more than there was to give step back from the darkness a voice resides and yet a rustle of a branch that holds can you see yourself in such blackness as hands strech into flames and a flicker falls onto my torso i hold harder and stronger yet the wind has taught me the light will come my breath waits till morning shudders of silence pierce the trees until the piece of yellow breaks and all the world melts once again unto me

It's almost winter in Chile! Now when I say it's cold outside, it's really not, not to a New Yorker at least, or I should say upstate New Yorker. Its usually like a brisk fall day. At night, the temperature hits a cool 40-45 degrees or so and during the day stays usually somewhere around 50...now 45 degrees in March in NYS is almost shorts and flip flop weather after bearing through negative temperatures all winter. So why is it so cold? Because...drum roll please...there is no heat inside the buildings! Now I remember a time living on good old Margaret St and my parents refusing to turn the heat on unless the temperature dropped below 40 degrees...we sat bundled in hats and scarfs and I imed my friends with gloves on my fingers, so I guess I should be sort of accustomed to it by noq, but man it's cold. Its nice to have a brisk cold day and come inside and take off your jacket and warm up...but usually once inside and out of any sort of direct sunlight you suddenly ge...

There is always hope. This is the thing I like most about Chile, there is a different sense of hope here that doesn't exist everywhere. I have mentioned several times how I have a different feeling here, a feeling of happiness. Today I realized that it's an overall sense of contentment that fulfills me most of the time. I believe I have been very happy in my life, I was happy in love once, I was happy in school once, I had a great job and was happy with that...but here, there is nothing so specific, its not love or work or an amazing city...its just a feeling of contentment that spreads through the different areas of my life. Its a good feeling...and so there is hope. I saw what hope really is and is not when we ventured down south for the weekend to help build media aguas (shacks, basically) to the victims of the earthquake. It was as entering a war zone. Destruction, what once was, is not..not at all. I expected a bit to feel sad during the weekend, a sense of helplessness,...