i'll let you know when i get there

for every word i don't say- the suggestion toward hope i meant to give- i wish i could see past myself far enough to draw you in. the way months turn into years- and the way you waited on the other side of the line- the way you'd repeat what i didn't hear- and the way what was ours was mostly mine. it's a relative term you've only seen one side of a line you can cross but not uncross a knowing you can't get rid of with time- did it change you? do you wake up every day with a question on your mind?

to close to release is longer and not so close

Retreat and return. Return and retreat. The Exit and The Welcome indicating home something fixed outside or inside (or. or.) door. a step is a choice. The wide world or very familiar rooms.

violin strings move the moment to catharsis every time.

how many people washed away with that wave? how much money and time and carefully arranged furniture and files filed in alpha beti cal order? how many wave goodbye without an answer for why?

someday, when i am being interviewed by Michael Silverblatt, i wonder if i will look back on this day when, driving home from work, it seemed so real i could taste it. i will try to ignore the annoying nasal of his voice, because he really does ask good questions. a sense of urgency and a sense of taking my time both. i feel it all. i feel it all.

Yeats believed that history worked in cone shaped, widening spirals. A major, world changing event would take place that would change everything. Intensity. Passion. Conviction. All of humanity responding intensely to the new way of seeing the world (i.e. Christ's life and it's effect). But over time, the focus would get lost somehow. Intensity would wane. There would be a forgetting and a loss of focus. A restlessness until at some point the focus would get so far removed from the source, that history would be ripe for some new epiphany to take its place. Some revelation. Something different, or the same under the guise of new. To bring about order again. To bring about a sense of purpose and focus. Don't hearts work that way, too? After awhile, we lack focus. After awhile, we don't remember quite what it was we were centering around. After awhile, it takes some great event to deliver a sense of purpose. Passion. Conviction. To return us to so...

i get to learn: sometimes my job feels like a fantastic book club. we learn from each other. this week, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Insightful Student A: "But why did Janie wait 20 years to say how she felt? That bothers me. Doesn't that make it her fault in a way?" and a few days, few chapters (few lifetimes) later... Insightful Student B: "This is the first time Janie is actually listening to her gut and trusting herself. And standing up for herself. She's stronger than before because now, when she feels like something isn't right with Tea Cake, she says something and she doesn't feel bad about how she feels." Insightful Student C: "And that's why Tea Cake is different from Logan or Jody. Even though they fight, they're learning how to communicate. With Jody, she was never brave enough to stand up for her feelings, and he never valued her feelings anyway." i get to teach: walked by Ignorant Student A's...

Perhaps it's not quite time for sober dreams. (but there have been these moments... These moments of transcendence in all this where I can view it all from a great distance. Such calm. Clarity. Grace, not from some outside place, but encoded in my core. Where even the confusion seems simple enough. Where I can hear my own song so clearly. Where just knowing that I am singing at all becomes this precious, important thing. Louder and louder and breaking through some block that was but is no more. Listen and you'll hear it. Try to understand.)