When I was in seventh grade I had a powerful crush on a boy named Cory, who was a sk8r.  He often wore a shirt with "enjoi" written on it in graphic lettering.  I remember how impacted I was by the word, which I later found out is the name of a skateboarding company.  At the time I was struck by the simplicity of the concept.  Enjoy.  Doubtless some of the attraction (maybemost of the initial attraction) was sparked by my feelings for the boy, and by the presentation of the word; the spelling, which I couldn't understand at first, and then was surprised when I'd puzzled out the meaning: enjoi = enjoy.

Now I've been thinking about the word's meaning for a while now, six or seven years, and I think I may only recently have begun to be able to live with "enjoy"--to think about its implications and its presence as a word in intimate relation to my own life.

I guess pleasure and enjoyment (joint words, often) are sometimes difficult to come to terms with, because there's so much else that comes to take priority in a person's life--and so to sabotage the space p & j might otherwise occupy.  For me, it's difficult to return to a more sensual way of experiencing the world, in part because I've spent so many years practicing a very analytical, abstracted way interpreting/finding meaning/learning.  Now I'm trying to re-learn how to think about things.  At the heart of this reeducation is enjoyment (something strange, becoming more familiar...).

A couple weeks ago, when I was going through a wild emotional upheaval, I was sitting on the doorstep w/Noah, trying to puzzle through the mess.  We were petting Sailor who was nestling in Noah's lap, and I believed then, and told my friend, that the kitten was probably one of the main causes of my anxiety.  

So much of my attention and energy was devoted to figuring out the cat's needs, and most of my days were spent in the apartment, with a sleeping sister and a sleeping kitten (a utopia, actually).  Sailor just acted like a baby animal, and he is incredibly well-rounded.  In fact, I haven't been able to find any quirks in his personality.  He's loving, and loved, and to be around him is to feel as though you're in the presence of something very--simply--good.  A joy.  It was hard for me to go back and forth between that and: school, uncertain relationships with others, & Noah, who reminds me of Sailor, but who insists, as a warning, that he is "a fucked up human being."

It's hard to maneuver these seeming-dichotomies sometimes, but maybe I can make "enjoy" something of a constant mantra, even when among something that is painful, confusing, or difficult to untangle.

Anyway, I enjoy these photos: