Happy B-Day to S.K.

" I don't want to talk about my age, or longevity or anything else like that. I think everybody knows I'm no youngster. So here is my poem: The Long Boat."

- Stanley Kunitz


Stanley Kunitz is a two time poet laureate. He has in the course of his lifetime received a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and the National Medal of the Arts. And yesterday, July 29th, 2005 he turned 100.

And as I listened to him speak yesterday on my drive home I heard a well-worn voice intone in a scratchy hum just above inaudible the three sentences above. Here was a instrument grown tired from over use, rusty from lack of care, or both. After a brief "by the way" condescendingly explaining that the Long Boat of the poem referred to a Viking tradition of sending one's dead out to sea in a boat to "drift for an eternity" Kunitz cleared his voice, once, twice and then began to read.

Here the needle hit the record a bit more solidly, confident, as if this was a place in which it more suitably belonged.

When his boat snapped loose

from its mooring, under

the screaking of the gulls,

Here the pops and crackles so notable in his opening speech seemed appropriate and necessary as if almost a underscoring of sound accompanying the poem.

He tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.

Kunitz slowed and lingered over the sounds, as if rolling them in his mouth to taste each syllable individually.

Too tired even to choose

between jumping and calling,

The voice changes, softens or loosens, I'm not quite sure. Clearly a smile has come across the face of the reader.

Somehow he felt absolved and free

of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:

And now as if questioning or pondering, his voice loses its gravel and becomes light and free as if wistfully recalling things he has lost and cannot quite remember.

Conscience, ambition, and all

that caring.

Here the voice once again becomes solid, resigned almost, if thoughtful.

He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle:

It slows, stops after each word as if tasting them. Looking for what they're made of.

Buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.

Here the voice regains the gravely age-worn quality. This time though it is harsher, cracking and popping under the weight of anger and resentment

Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;

And finally Kunitz quiets again to a whisper, a plaintive mew. So soft and trembling one gets the sense every fiber aches to cry out in pain, or sorrow, or fear.

As if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

This is a poem written by a man about to embark on his own Long Boat journey into eternity. In a way I admire Kunitz's need to plunge ahead into his poem. To gloss over the previous awards and accolades. To ignore the obvious desire by many to re-hash his long and full life. The only thing he came on air to do was to give us all he's ever offered. And I like that bold statement. That even at 100 we are allowed to be people in the present and not merely functions of our past. Kuntiz's reading says to me: I will not let you put me away. I will not use the rest of my life to get ready to leave it. I will use it instead to live. You might think I would rest on the laurels of all that I have. That I should be content, that this is enough for me.

No. We will not do it like that.

I could have sat and given you an interview of my life. Instead, I give my preferred choice of expression. I prefer it because it is a poem that exposes, in its way, my life as a poet while the other is merely an exposition on the poetic life. One is beautiful and the other is not. One is art and the other isn't. One speaks from the heart of one person to another when the latter simply resigns itself to a column of numbers and banal factuality.

For Kunitz is not content to let the world announce his centennial and ride along as a display. Kunitz is not a exhibit. Kunitz is a poet. And a poet by definition writes poetry. And that is his birthday present to us.

Resigning off...

A while back I wrote a post about expectation and the ways it informs our lives.

Recently, I've been thinking about that subject again and expanding upon some of the feelings I had then. No, I'm not going back on what I said before, I think that my views about expectations and the way we do or don't let them rule our lives are pretty much the same. What I have come to ruminate on instead is the way that expectation and resignation become linked as we get older.

Expectations are hard little things to have. Though we try to hold on to them, keep them in check, every once in a while they go running off by their lonesome. And when they do this they can get so big, so strong, that even when we know they got that way from being free wheeling and fancy free, they start to make sense to us. And when, as inevitably when has to come along, one of these larger than life expectations bites off more than it can chew, it hurts, and it often hurts bad.

When we're younger it seems these wounds heal pretty quickly. "S'ok." we tell ourselves, "I know now what I can expect." And we make extra careful to keep an eye on that particular expectation. We hold its leash close, closer usually than we might have before, because we don't want it getting away from us again. And that's only logical, humans are creatures of their environment, we're born to learn from our pasts. Sometimes we let go a little again, trusting those expectations have learned their lessons. Once in a while they go back to their old devil-may-care ways and hurt us again.

And as we age it seems harder to trust and give second chances with our bruised egos on the line. If our surroundings have taught our expectations to keep themselves in check who are we to disagree? So we stop listening to the expectations and start deciding what we ought to be striving for now that we're real live adults. And as we travel along the line of life we trade pieces of that child-like naivete for something better seeming, an "attainable" job, a "solid" relationship, a "good" home. This solid and tangible something surely has to be better than an ephemeral if seductive nothing, doesn't it?

But somewhere in the thick of things, I think that we start to forget our environments grow and change with us. Though the situation that created an impulse to settle may have disappeared, and in fact maybe that expectation doesn't need that stranglehold any more, we're wary of putting ourselves through the anguish again. Sometimes the pay off for letting go isn't big enough, or we don't feel strongly enough about it to take the risk. Sometimes we're correct in assuming that we'll probably go back to the old mistakes. But sometimes, so focused are we on not doing whatever it was we did before, we never even let ourselves think about what the new outcome of trying again might be at all. And slowly we cut out choice after choice, block up avenue after avenue of option. Added up in large enough quantities and eventually "What do I expect?" starts to consistently become "What am I resigned to getting?"

Ok, deep thinkers. Dictionary time!

res·ig·na·tion (n.)
1) The act or an instance of resigning.
2) An oral or written statement that one is resigning a position or an office.
3) Unresisting acceptance of something as inescapable; submission.

Don't you love when dictionaries use the word as its own definition? I do. The second one I include for completeness' sake. But number three. We know how much I love to deconstruct wordings. Pretty grim, number three, no? Acceptance of something, well I'm generally pretty positive on acceptance, but accepting a situation as inescapable? Better be really really sure you have to accept that one. I mean.. Yikes, if there's ever an out clause for acceptance this might be it. Reminds me of being stuck in a tiny box with no way out. Unresisting doesn't seem much fun either. A logical person might be tempted to ask why someone would force acceptance of something so seemingly bleak. And what's the deal with submission? Submission to what? The unresisting/inescapable thing!? Ah! Help! I'm trapped in a box of my own life and I can't get out!!!

Deep calming breaths...

Really when you think about it, there's no external boxes, there's no iron fist, and there isn't a written statement telling us what our lives are allowed to be. If anything what we're really submitting to is nothing more than ourselves. Unconsciously brainwashing our minds to believe that we don't need more than what we've already got. Which brings me to another amusing definition:

re·sign (v.) - Acceptance of despair.

And for good measure let's pull that thesaurus out and throw in some synonyms:

acquiescence, compliance, conformity, deference, docility, longanimity, lowliness, meekness, nonresistance, passivity, submission, submissiveness, sufferance

Bleh! If you ask me that section reads like an adjective list for mindless depressed people about to join some weird Kool-Aid suicide cult. So after all my ponderings about expectation and its best pal resignation I think I've come to this:

For those like me that create specfic and very real expectations, disappointment can become debilitating. So much so that it's often just easier to resign oneself to less than you might wish/dream/hope for so that you don't have to worry about not living up to your own set of high jump bars. But despite its deceptive name few people are really consoled by their consolation prizes. So stop and take stock because if you aren't already jumping for joy, or at least giving a sideways smile, if you really have to resign to whatever it is you're resigning to, then it probably isn't what you really want. And if it isn't what you want, why are you still holding onto it?

Quotation Station

I was re-reading some of my books on Khalil Gibran today and was smiling at some of the aphorisms. I didn't feel like adding anything in particular to them so I thought for today, since it is technically my vacation at home, I'd share some of the ones I liked best.

------------

Remembrance is a form of meeting.


Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.


There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.


Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost the key. Perhaps I have only mislaid it.


The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.


If winter should say, "Spring is in my heart," who would believe winter?


They dip their pens in our hearts and think they are inspired.


If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry. But you say that I always choose badly.


Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.


Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.


No longing remains unfulfilled.


We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

The Truth About Ferns and Slugs

I had a revelation this weekend. A revelation concerning slugs.

I began the weekend simply and without pretense of heavenly messages from on high o'er the subject of our slimey evolutionary underlings: Setting up shop in Wildcat Mountain State Park, walking amoungst the Black Stem, Fiddle and Maidenhead ferns lining the hiking paths, even scaling the peak of Mount Pisgah. Though I must admit that a mid-westerner's definition of a mountain is a bit mild to say the least. A top the mountain one could overlook the Kickapoo River valley for miles in all directions, all the way to the closest town of Ontario (WI not CAN), population 435. The Kickapoo River itself, a placard nearby explained, owes its moniker to the Algonquins and their native tongue and means "He who goes here, and then there." Metaphysicalize it if you must, but if you ask me that's a fancy way of saying, "That's one crooked river, yo."

All of the above stands purely as context. A setting of the scene if you will. A short introduction such that you might understand the state of mind I was occupying when I decended upon an area of dense underbrush, squatting over a plastic wash basin in order to wash the dishes from our campfire dinner. As I bent down to begin I noticed a slug a few feet away. I watched that slug amble over a pile of leaves, stop, eat, meander some more, stop, eat, bumble its way along, etc while I did the entire batch of dirty diningwear. And by the end of my cleaning and observing period I had come to a great, however inevitable, conclusion.

Slugs for all intents and purposes, suck.

You laugh. But you shouldn't. It's that kind of attitude that lets these creatures get away with their destructive and demoralizing behavior in the first place. Acting like their seeming neutrality isn't hurting anyone is only adding fuel to the raging inferno. Slugs should be taken on. Slugs should be dealt with. Slugs never did no one no good.

And here's why: Have you ever thought about what a slug does? I hadn't before two days ago. And now I know. What does a slug do? It, Well... It doesn't. A slug, in my highly scientific viewing period, is never really doing anything. What a slug does is spend its days "not" doing. It anti-exists. A slug undoes day after day after day and no one seems to notice. Here is a creature who has by nature recreated itself as descriptive form of speech. One can be a slug or act sluggish. "Henry, will you please stop working so sluggishly?" Slugs so verily embody a negative attribute that we deplore it in others. Why then do we continue to allow the very living emblem of that negative trait to persist?

The slug is a creature who chooses to be willfully uninteresting. To live as a slug is a passive aggressive's paradise. The slug cannot, rather will not fight for anything, its territory, its food, its mates, in the end the lowly slug will not even fight for itself. Its own life will not draw out the slug to defend or attack, in fact, a slug's only line of defense is its own consumate blehness. Because in the end a slug is an unsatisfying foe. What pleasure can we take in vanquishing an enemy whose response to attack is "squish"? Bother it and it simply tenses and tries to make itself smaller, as if to say, "Maybe if I just stop existing you'll leave me alone." At most a slug will pluck up later walk around for a bit and goo in your general area.

Tell me I'm anthropomorphizing. I'm ok with that. They still suck.

And this kind of attitude will not stand with me. I do not cotton to those who sit around and slug themselves to death. At least with the ignoble badger someone somewhere had to say, "Hey! This rodent thing is badgering me! What is this weird thing? Umm. It's a... badger. That's right. A badger." You have to find something to get riled up about. Something to get up off the couch for.

And dear readers, you think about that. And the next time you see a slug, give it the evil eye. Not that it will make the slug any less worthless. But at least it will know how you feel.

My jeans are soaked

At this moment I'm waiting out the rain in the Walnut Street library. I have a meeting in exactly 96 minutes leaving me just enough time for it to be useless to go home and seriously annoying to sit without a book. My first instinct was to head to Barnes and Noble down the street, but I'm in the middle of 4 books and feel bad buying another one wholesale just because I didn't plan ahead well. So I came to the library instead.

I have to admit that while the idea of a library is a good one, I have a hard time reading books out of a library. I get very attached to books I read and end up enjoying, so much so that I like to have the book on my shelf to periodically look at and sigh, "Oh yes... That was a good one." So the idea that I would check out books I might potentially want to do this with is hard. Because if I do really like the book then I'm faced with feeling guilty for buying something I've already read and am just going to put on the shelf. But I can't check out and make myself read books I think I won't like, even I realize that's silly. My neuroses are strange, but not that strange.

So instead I'm using my last 24 minutes of reserved PC time to post here before getting on a plane to Chicago to visit the fam. So if you don't hear from me for a bit, it's because I'm off camping in Wisconsin with them.

Anyway, this is a fun game I like to play while here at the library: Checking the memory bank on internet pages. Seeing sites people have recently visted on public computers is highly amusing. So I'm sharing here some fun ones I found today.

Someone needed to find an ultimate uber list.

Someone else aparently had a hard time remembering that long complicated web address for hotmail.

And somebody needed some urgent info on ass.

There was at least one Russian speaker online here.

A person who is no cat newbie needed some advice on kittens scratching.

Some one needed to check the payout for the PA lottery on June 22.

A concerned citizen with a carpet had to compare vacumm prices.

An unsure writer needed to check the exact definition of the word alphabetical.

Forgetful Nellie forgot to provide a last name.

A person weighed in on the episode they felt Northern Exposure went bad.

And finally and angry ebay customer left some nasty feedback about a person leaving them in the lurch over a bass head.

It's not earth shattering. But interesting to me anyway. Over and out for now.

Live at 10!

Under normal circumstances I won't have anything to do with Fox News. But these, you'll have to admit, are pretty extraordinary circumstances.

Let us back up. Rewind to yesterday about sundown, say 8 or so at night. That magical hour of the evening known as the witching hour. I am in my room eating dinner, a light meal of tuna pasta and diet coke, when I hear an explosion out side my house. And not the regular exploding noise of the metal back door of the restaurant behind me being slammed to the ground. Oh no, this was bigger and much much closer. So like any person hearing a giant potentially dangerous noise, I had to get closer so as to investigate the scene. I went to the back window opened it and poked my head outside. And a few seconds later a giant pyrotechnic bomb went off maybe 20 feet from my face.

"Cool!" I thought to myself, "someone has scored some seriously illegal fireworks." I shut the window and settled in to watch a bit of the show. At first, I was impressed, because well... big scary fireworks tend to be very impressive. Nor were we the only neighborhood to have such a display. As I looked out the window it was clear this type of unlawful behavior was happening all over South Philly. On the same token however, I couldn't totally feel at ease with giant flames continuing to drift nearer and nearer towards my fire-trap dwelling, especially as the fireworks seemed to only grow in size and perceived level of danger to those in the surrounding area as time passed. It would seem Johnny McSingedm'self and his pals Dan Toastyhand and Pete Kidsburntup had amassed a veritable Disneyland of 4th of July treats. This was the real, licensed pyrotechnicians only, kind of deal going on in my back alley. And soon I realized the whole "nearly launching a missile-like object into my house" thing was not a one time fluke.

In fact, the relatively large crowd gathered to watch the display seemed to enjoy more the "mistake" set offs than the real ones. The twenty or so people, about half of whom were little kids, got a big kick out of seeing a real live firework go off within mere feet of themselves. The applause for a ground level release always seemed to be a bigger response than those for an airborne one... So much so that it almost appeared, at least to this untrained eye, that the "accidents" were beginning to outweigh the successes.

Granted I'm a person who gets nervous leaving a candle burning in my room while I go take a shower. I don't like unguided fire. I think burning to death and/or smoke inhalation would be one of the worst ways to go. Good thing I didn't live in Puritanical times, I'd so have been burned as a witch. Suffice to say, I get nervous when people who I don't place high on the Darwinian "I've got the survival instinct to make it" scale handle things that could set me or my home ablaze. So maybe I'm the wrong person to talk to. But when a firework launched directly into the crowd of people and the small children scattered in blood curdling screams, I found it a little disturbing. I toyed with calling the police but figured it wasn't my place. If you want to ignite your offspring, well, maybe those genes shouldn't be passed on. But, whether or not I felt like it was my place to spoil the "festivities" of the block, I didn't want to upset myself any more by watching a hand or face get burned. So I just went in the other room. I watched a movie, cleaned my room a bit, read for a while and at some point went into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

I saw the flickering first. Not the pretty colored kind that appears for an instant in purple, green or magenta but the orangey, dull lapping kind that one tends to see from a campfire or a log in the old chimney. I was sort of puzzled really... I could see no source for the light to be coming from, at which point I realized that it was probably from the ground below where the guys had been lighting things on fire.

It was then I heard the gas tank explode.

I didn't see it for myself. No, though live action reporters may have prompted me to say otherwise, I wasn't watching directly when it happened. But it was loud. I went over to the window and saw a van in the lot behind my house, ablaze. I guess one of the "accidents" really caused an accident. Sadly, the van didn't even belong to the stupid people who obviously caused the whole incident. They all ran for cover as soon as they realized they'd fucked up big time. The police and fire department followed quickly. The fire was soon out and this morning I was treated to a lovely view of a very burnt back end of a car. But you know, these things happen. At least in my neighborhood they do. So I went to work, did some errands, and made my way back home like any other day.

As I approached my house I saw the prettiest man I've ever seen outside my door. And when I say pretty I don't mean attractive. He wasn't attractive, he was too soft, too shiny for that. His hair was coiffed and stayed perfectly in place despite the slight rain and occasional gusts of wind that would pass. His perfectly pressed light blue shirt and satin tie were almost hypnotic, only slightly less so than his twinkly eyelined eyes. He spoke in a soft soothing voice and introduced himself, Chip or John or Walt, some monosyllabic strong American name. Chip/Walt/John was with "The News" and wanted to know if he could ask me a few questions.

"Uh, I guess so. About what exactly?"

Walt or Chip or John explained that several men had been arrested and charged with 4 felonies in conjunction with the car explosion from the previous night. His already bright eyes became almost iridescent when I admitted I'd seen some of the events. He looked ready to weep as I related the plight of the poor children involved, looked inquiringly as I explained my concern about my own home potentially being under threat, and winked knowingly when I said it was probably not up to fire code.

Chip and/or Walt and/or John and his camera man went up into my apartment to see the lot from behind and then made their way down to street level and asked me to follow them. They then made the Asian owner of the restaurant open the gate to his burned van several times in a row, directing him to look a little sadder and do so a little slower as they zoomed in. Then they got a shot of a police car that randomly happened to pass by. They took extensive footage of the burned vehicle itself and then it was my time to stand in the spotlight. My starry eyed guy then asked me to answer his questions just as I had before.

"Oh and, can you start with the line, 'It was totally nuts out here' please."

"Ok, I don't think I said that though."

"Can you start with it anyway?"

"Sure, John/Walt/Chip, [thrusts microphone with Fox insignia in front of me and points at me to go] It was, uh, totally... nuts out here."

I didn't know if he wanted me to look at him, given that he was staring me down rather intently and holding the mic in my face or look directly at the camera and plead with the masses to learn the plight of the fire safety impaired. I sort of vaulted back and forth between the two, although I also spent a lot of time looking at neither, gesturing to things in retrospect I realize the TV audience won't be able to see. Not to mention I was thrown off by the fact that it was Fox News. They hadn't previously identified themselves and I had assumed they were a real news station. But once I had started talking on camera it was a little late to stop and say, "Hey wait, your corporation is evil. No car fire info for you!!"

The interview followed pretty much as before with some leading questions like, "And why were you concerned for your safety?" and "Can you tell me more about the children?" I knew what he wanted me to say, and yeah I'm a sellout, I pretty much described it as he wanted me to. It was, after all, true and who am I to stand in the way of some old fashioned American sensationalism? In any event, like most bewildered non-camera ready bystanders I will go down in action news history as looking slightly deranged. You can watch at 10 tonight on Fox. My TV persona will let you know exactly how it all happened.

Geppetto in the Gizhetto

Sometimes I walk through the ghetto. That said, I do this not for the same reasons as my friend Mr. Z is guilty of. I, unlike the boy, do not feel that "tempting fate" is enough reason to brave the South Philly Sarajevo. Nor do I believe, as he does, that the technique of "pretending to be a zombie" will ward off would-be attackers. A gunshot to the head, as is generally the easiest solution in most of the genre's movies seems as though it would still hurt whether or not one is only pretending to be one of the undead. I also have never had the pleasure of crossing that third world country chic terrain east of 6th and south of Washington and smiling when the answer to my relatively benign question, "What time is it?" turns out to be "Time for you to get the fuck out of here Whitey!"

No... I walk through the ghetto because I may soon live there. And that's only if my application gets accepted.

It might come as a shocker to some of you out there but working in the performing arts, especially the vibrant sector of that arena known as avant garde theater, is not the gold mine it might purport itself to be. I know! I was surprised too. That being what it is, I can't really afford to "spend any money" on a "habitable residence." Hence the Ginger Bread fiascos of the past year. [GB Side Note: You'll be happy to know The Bread is safe and sound and back in jail after spending a few weeks back downstairs. Before the law caught up with him for honest to God killing a man (at least we're pretty sure) he managed to stink the whole building of stale cigarettes, put me on a first name basis with two friendly officers named Danny and John, and threaten my roommate with physical violence for removing his illegal cable line] Basically, I am essentially what as known as "in the poor house."

A lot of people might just get a crap apartment anywhere in a decent area within walking distance of the city and resign themselves to living in squalor. Get some horrid little 5 by 5 foot hole in the wall. Unfortunately, I seem to have an overdeveloped sense of aesthetics about my living situation. That and a lot of stuff. Like my giant queen size bed. In other words, I really can't stand to live in a shithole, especially a tiny one. Damn, damn, damn. What's a girl to do?

Well, it would seem that there are lots of big, roomy apartment houses that are pretty darn cheap in this city. And some of them, like the one I saw today on my walk through, are old and beautiful and appease some inner sense of serenity, the kind that comes when one feels they could be very at home in a place. The downside being of course, the house is, well... not in the best of neighborhoods. To put it mildly. But people, this house, it had a garden and a giant living room. And a big kitchen with windows and crown molding and high ceilings. And arched doorways!

And it's just so cheap. It's a three bedroom that is about 2 times 2 times 2 hundred (5 x 5 x 2 x 2) dollars. [Ed. Note to Mrs. Valfer: See! I use my factorials to this day.] Do the math and be amazed like I was. Even leaving the third bedroom as a study we'll be paying nothing apiece. And hello, we'd have a freaking study. Not to mention they pay for your water bills! Man, it's too good to be true. Maybe if I just go in my beautiful house and don't leave. Then I'll never notice that it isn't the happiest, soon to be gentrified thanks to folks like me, place on earth.

So there it is. I'm just going to turn in my application and see what happens. If I'm lucky I'll be the next Whitey being told to get the fuck out of the ghetto.

Leafy Greens

"I am what I am. And that's all that I am."

- Traditional Maritime Folk Song


Let's just be honest, writing a blog is a weird exercise in self-indulgence.

It's a fine line. On the one hand you have to have an interesting enough life, or at least enough experiences with the real world, to have something to put down on the keyboard. On the other, get too busy and wrapped up in experience and there's no time to reflect on what you're doing. Is it bad to be so busy with life you don't really have the time to stop and think about it? Do we need to analyze ourselves to try and figure out what we're doing or should we just get off the couch and go do it?

Many successful blogs seem to have a lens through which to focus themselves, movies, politics, a specific interest like say, technology or praying mantises (mantisee? mantesii?) which gives a purpose to the urge to communicate with the faceless masses of the internet. It gives a rhyme and reason to post, a new development in the field, a statement made concerning the topic, the latest release to sort through. You've got something to say and a specific thing to say it upon. Well done! Thanks for the thesis statement. But the problem for those of us then writing about life, or somewhere around it, is that specificity of purpose is a lot harder to come up with. Who knows what I'll do today. Shop for food, fall in love, set my house on fire. Maybe I'll even drive to Atlantic City. Doubtful yes, but you never know for sure.

There are lots of reasons to put things down. Some days I write to vent about something bugging me. Other days I write what I need to hear, what I want to believe. From time to time I write because I know someone is listening. And sometimes I write so I can let go. Release whatever's running around, trap it into definite form and shape, however imperfectly. And part of me secretly wants to build a giant fan base of people who think I'm insanely talented and hilarious and clamor daily for a dose of my vim and vigor.

But that's a delusion I only encourage once in a while.

Really, in a small way, it's just a chance to make a teeny tiny mark on the world, albeit virtual. Part of me doesn't even need anyone to read it. Some of my posts surely were created and immediately forced to reside in a little cave where they live all alone and where only I continue to visit them. And that's ok with me. Because revisiting my periodic outpourings reminds me that I'm not just wandering in field of Now all by my lonesome. It reminds me that I'm connected to the hundreds of other "me"s that are hatched every day. Reminds me not to throw away my former selves in lieu of an idea of what they ought to have been. They had experiences and graduation speech-esque or no, it's important to hold onto them.

So I invite you to continue to share with me. Or don't. I'll keep on plugging away. Just so's I'm leaving a little line in the sand that says, "I am. I have been. And for a while, I will continue to be."