an introduction
hello, I am Raylene. you can call me Ray for short, if you like. I like to take long walks on the beach with the wind slapping my hair around and the seaweed clumps throwing salty ocean air into my nose. I like to watch the kites from the kite surfers fly around in the pale blue sky beyond the rock pile in front of me. they form a crescent moon shape every so often, and my heart smiles when it happens. the sunset light glistens off of the tips of the waves, and a man stands on the edge of the rock pile fishing. he is wearing stylish fisherman clothes and he looks like he knows what he is doing because the rocks are very high and he is barefoot.
my name is Raylene and I like to paint and I like to write. sometimes I like to read, but only occasionally and never novels. not in a pretentious way, more in an attention span way. I like short stories and poetry and essays; they are short and sweet, or not sweet, and they are usually a bit weird which I like. I also have a thing where I hate beginnings and endings. in a short story you start right, smack in the middle and by the time you’ve matched the characters to the faces in your head you are already at the climax of the plot. then a quick, painless ending. no dilly dallying, no beating around the bush. deal with it and move on. poems are the same, but prettier and more evocative. all small words and big meanings, you know. I love that shit. I love themes and metaphors and imagery, and so of course I love essays because they are like presents in written form. a bunch of paragraphs tied together with a ribbon and a tag that says these words are my ideas and they are from me to you, reader!
my name is Ray, and my bike got stolen today. I was very affected by it, as I am by many things (small or large). I ran the image of some man strolling up to my bike and confidently walking away with it at least a thousand times through my brain. who does that? I thought. I wracked my brain for the image of myself parking my bike yesterday. I probably didn’t lock it, that’s my fault. I am a person who wants so badly to have faith in the world that I leave my crappy bike unlocked. in turn, this makes me the person scrolling facebook marketplace on the train home for the best deal on a used cruiser bike. oh well! write about it. paint a picture of it. deal with it and move on.
I am Raylene, and I am a 26 year old woman with bad knees and weak ankles and large thighs. my birthday is in February, and I have a loud laugh and a bright smile and a sharp wit. I love coffee, my boyfriend and Joni Mitchell in that order. and I am still getting to know myself. I think I always will be.
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“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.” - Simone de Beauvoir
