and if we're lost

I keep hearing songs in my head that creep up on me. That I haven't heard in a while. They just begin. Like "the stars are strange and beautiful tonight."
And then I want to go outside and look at them and see if it's true.

I feel weird. I don't feel like I'm settled into something I could get used to.

what it's about.

Today I drove to work with my sunglasses on and my window rolled down and I thought about how nice it would be just to keep driving. I could have stayed on the same road and gone straight to jasper. I could have eaten ice cream in Jasper and gone for a hike and written in my journal at the base of a mountain.

But I turned onto 184th Street and went to work, because that's what my life is about. It's about going to school. It's about studying and doing homework. It's about data entry at a boring job. It's about confinement.

I want it to be about driving to the mountains on a moments' notice. About making decisions that just affect my day, and not the rest of my life.

without

I just read a book of poetry in twenty minutes at the library while compiling research for a project. The book completely absorbed me. Pulled me by my bones into the poet's state of mind. And I can't stop thinking about it.

It's called "Without" and it's by Donald Hall. It's a collection of poetry about the sickness and passing away of his wife, a fellow poet named Jane Kenyon. It was so close and sore. So beautiful and heartwrenching.

I cried under the brim of my hat at the table amidst students who were all concentrating on their work, heads bent, pencils scribbling. And I was turning pagest as fast as I could, letting a big tear drop slip down my cheek.

And I tried to go back to planning my research presentation, but I couldn't. I need to sit and think about Jane; I need to let her settle in my mind before I can move on. I need to let my own experiences with cancer and best friends settle down, return to the pit of my stomach where they usually sit. Let Jane and Tanya sit in the pit of my stomach and not interfere so much with my heart so that I can get some work done.

There is so much work to be done.

And so many things I haven't.

copied

My office smells like photocopies.
Like ink and hot paper and mechanisms.

I photocopied everything in the world, just now. I'm tired. It wasn't the photocopying that really took it out of me, it was many other things -- but I just don't like the smell.

less small

I've been thinking about how much she'd love the new barn. About riding through tall grass and looking behind me and seeing her bareback on her old horse, right there like she always was. And about feeling confident and valued. About friendship.

I would give anything to drive up the long, treed-in driveway and see her car parked next to the others, and feel relief for once in the past year-and-a-half. And I'd like to feel that the world doesn't have total power over me. I'd like to feel a little less small.

lights will guide you home

It's 12:38 AM, and I should be sleeping. I have to get up early tomorrow to go out to the barn and catch horses for the farrier. I'm not in a very sleepy mood right now. I'm in the mood to get an extra-large coffee and go for a long drive. Maybe listen to Coldplay.

Or I could try getting into my bed, lying down and closing my eyes.