Taking a Breather

Can finally just chill out a bit. Needed a rest.

On my professor's door:

What the Living Do
by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

"Hopeless hope hopes on and meets no end."
-Clare John

The reason for being so busy is because then I don't have to think. I don't have to think about you.

I don't care if I don't sleep for the next three weeks and start tripping off the fucking walls. I'm going to write this grant proposal for HP, even if it kills me.

"For although we are friendly neighbors, you don't really know me. You don't know the depth of my humiliation. And you don't know what I can do. You don't know what is beneath my doing. "
-Marilyn Chin's Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen

Prayer for the Dead

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace.

Amen.

'Make the answer, "Yes, yes, yes." '

Instead of doing work, I was reading stories about angels. It's weird. I never really paid attention to them for some reason. I've always been interested in spirits, in vampires, in werewolves, in all those darker entities, but angels? They seem surreal and out of reach.

I started to look up stories about who have encountered angels and the stories I read gave me goosebumps, in a good way. (It gives me hope that maybe I have a guardian angel, that maybe God sent someone to watch over me because maybe I might be worthy enough to be protected.)

And in one of those stories, the person met a random man in a park who said to him, "You know, He doesn't give you anything you can't handle."

I have no idea what's going on with me. I have the sudden urge to see Pastor Jim because I feel that somehow he will have the answers. Any kind of answer that I'm looking for, though I don't know what the question is.

Sometimes the outcome isn't worth the effort.

Six Word Stories

"For sale: baby shoes. Never worn."-Ernest Hemingway

"Secretary broke leg; rediscovering plumpy wife."-un passant

Mine for class:

Go-go dancers. Gay bar. No condoms.

Without restriction

It's Easter morning and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I feel like I should be in church, but I don't feel comfortable there, especially with Pastor Jim gone.

I know I should have known this, but only until lately have I come to realize that the past should stay as the past. There's no point in trying to relive it because I'll have expectations that won't pan out. Reliving the past is basically trying to recreate that moment in time I really enjoyed, hoping that I will be able to or even hoping that it will surpass my expectations.

And though, I linger a lot in the past, wondering and remembering. I'd rather move forward and have my dreams bring back these past faces without restriction (I dreamt that Pastor Jim returned and it was good to see him again).