Let me begin my first ever blog entry here at Gaia with a bit of background. My name is Kathy and I am 17 years old, hailing from the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am an aspiring artist with much to learn through experience. I found Gaia through Fastweb, which is a website made for easy and orderly access to scholarships. I will be a senior in the upcoming year of high school .. a situation I can't even begin to relate myself with. I've found myself in many such situations this past year - which I will be sharing in this community in due time. I find Gaia to be warm and intriguing .. and I feel I must learn more. But first, I wish to write my response to the scholarship questions which brought me to this community.

So here's to a warming experience to be found within the people that make up this Gaia community. May I find home here!

I stumble into your quarters, a territory familiar, however forbidden, thus lost in the shroud of mystery coated with excitement.
my feet lightly tread so as to not make a sound, my presence unheard, otherwise expelled.
I found myself in your laboratory, lenses plastered upon the wall, various trinkets and creatures resting or thriving in their enclosures.
your notes upon the table told of strange studies - the nerves connected to the heart, and how they would fair with stretching too far a distance for one to bare.
my eye passed through the telescope and submerged into a whirlpool, its waves crashing with such pressure upon the walls,
and the white speckled salmon broke free from the rapids, leaped to and fro, falling to the foaming disasters at the length of the waterfall somewhere below.
I fell before them, watched as they faded to stars screaming away in the night sky.
I crashed to the pale grass bed, the earth welcoming my body, a bleached rock cushioned to rest my head,
and I slumbered upon your mattress, where you have so many nights before me.
your pillow is full of your thoughts and dreams which leaked through and are held securely within -
will I e'er have them projected to my own mind?,
or shall I bear an offering of my own deepest desires, to be mixed in with yours?
and perhaps we will find each other there, if I may think of you alone before my consciousness falls victim to the blackness of sleep.
and the golden-feathered quill rides the drifts and swirls about me in the darkness.
the shades are lifted in the west, your face, looking with puzzlement into the distance.
I look, and before us, a crowd of seen and unseen, heard and unheard of.
the golden feather takes flight, you following not far behind,
escaping me through a door, and I refuse to lose you.
finding my way in, you stand behind a mirror, straightening your dressy attire.
I come forth to claim you, black material trailing my dress, and hold your smoothen face in my palm -
but my hand is found foreign upon your cheek, my lips colder yet.
disheartened, I exit through the door into the world, deposited into a barren parking lot
with a single streetlight towering over me, emitting a misty gleam.
I look towards it, find a stream of green swirling about it.
as a voice shouts behind me, I recognize my father in the ghostly shroud, and he calls me to.
I leap from my feet before the voice captures me, to join him -
and I pull your blankets ever closer, so that I may fill my aching lungs with you.

With the turn of the third month came the rolling thunderclouds of April
With message of a place I had long forgotten, summoned me to where the rainfall lingered.
There, ahead of my path where heaven met earth, was an element missing from the hill,
Where I fell to my knees in discovery that the oak tree had been destroyed.
I knew not what to believe, having been so long void of feeling for this place,
Where once I rested in his warm embrace – but now the new breeze came bitterly upon me –
Where once I listened to the crickets’ hymn, watched heaven’s star sink to her silhouette frame,
Where once-entrancing blue eyes and light breathing gave way to whispered vows.
Entangled in the oak tree’s branches, we lost our minds, were blinded from reality.
This oak tree lived a time long before, in the far-off land of Kaleva,
Had sprouted from ashes and stretched out her branches,
Scraped them upon the sky and stopped the clouds in their courses,
And with her twining fingers grasped from the world the gleaming moon.
I have stumbled among her branches in search of the light she stole from me,
Ensnared by her deceiving arms I swayed hither and thither,
Awaiting the voice of Vainamoinen to sing me from a dream.
Eight months later I awoke from my reverie, disconcerted,
Crawled from behind the walls of a strange room, gathered my things,
And meandered down the fenced path that followed the river,
The banks serenely flowing with the rainfall of yesteryear.