"This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I keep saying I'm sorry. I know it's strange."
It's funny how those things we stumble upon so randomly can seem to be made just for us, like they've been waiting to be found and we're only just beginning to understand what we've lost. I found two of those things this week. A week wrought with stress and best guesses for problems I haven't been asked to solve.
Somewhere in the middle I found myself, sitting in the red plush of a Giffel's seat with a thirty-something poet in front of me. She read to a crowd of more than two hundred people and I've gotta admit; I went because I love to hear poetry floated out on breath and I'd never heard of her before. But I walked away with both of her books in one hand and the feel of the cordial handshake in the other. Her words, wrapped in forms I run from like a man on fire in a wood of dried leaves, hung from the crevices of my brain all night. They weren't perfect. They weren't once-in-a-liftime rhymes. They were just right. Right for me right now.
Yesterday I was browsing the poets I've come to call friends, the ones using myspace to bring performance poetry to one or two or maybe three people who maybe might've never known the power of words. Among the friends of friends I scanned, one stood out. Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. Just one more group Shane has linked himself to. One more way he has found to remind me how to hope when I forget to remember why I should. I can't stop listening to their tracks. "This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine."
Last night I talked to a girl I should talk to a little bit more than I do. A girl I have loved for six years, whom I spent five years with, and whom I walked away from; probably farther than I set out to and certainly farther than I should have. Though there has been no love lost for her, I hold nothing romantic for her. I haven't for a long time. Longer than it has been since I left her. But somewhere along the way I forgot how well she knows me, how vehement she has been about believing in me when nobody else thought I stood a chance. I bounced the idea of joining the Peace Corps off of her and her new boyfriend, a good friend of mine. It seemed to make more sense to her than it made to me. I honestly don't know why it hadn't entered my mind earlier or why it took her to convince me that it is perfect for me. Travel and helping people. The only two things I love as much as loving those in my life.
So yes, the academic might walk away from this for a little bit. It's hard to say right now. I'm in the midst of an M.A. program that has me wigged out and wound up, hibernating with book after book in a cozy apartment while so many in this world are suffering, are starving, are in need of a helping hand or genuine smile. And I know that for all the things I've done wrong, making people smile is one thing I've learned to do just right. I can sand a wrenched heart into hope with five minutes and a little bit of try. So why shouldn't I try to be bigger than this man that I am, or have been, or will be if I walk this path of scholastics to its dead end. Today, tomorrow and the next day hold cross-roads. I'm aware that, somehow, none of them are perfect but they all have the potential to be perfect for me.
So what do I do? Where do I go? Who knows. But I'll let you know when I get there.
It's funny how those things we stumble upon so randomly can seem to be made just for us, like they've been waiting to be found and we're only just beginning to understand what we've lost. I found two of those things this week. A week wrought with stress and best guesses for problems I haven't been asked to solve.
Somewhere in the middle I found myself, sitting in the red plush of a Giffel's seat with a thirty-something poet in front of me. She read to a crowd of more than two hundred people and I've gotta admit; I went because I love to hear poetry floated out on breath and I'd never heard of her before. But I walked away with both of her books in one hand and the feel of the cordial handshake in the other. Her words, wrapped in forms I run from like a man on fire in a wood of dried leaves, hung from the crevices of my brain all night. They weren't perfect. They weren't once-in-a-liftime rhymes. They were just right. Right for me right now.
Yesterday I was browsing the poets I've come to call friends, the ones using myspace to bring performance poetry to one or two or maybe three people who maybe might've never known the power of words. Among the friends of friends I scanned, one stood out. Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. Just one more group Shane has linked himself to. One more way he has found to remind me how to hope when I forget to remember why I should. I can't stop listening to their tracks. "This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine."
Last night I talked to a girl I should talk to a little bit more than I do. A girl I have loved for six years, whom I spent five years with, and whom I walked away from; probably farther than I set out to and certainly farther than I should have. Though there has been no love lost for her, I hold nothing romantic for her. I haven't for a long time. Longer than it has been since I left her. But somewhere along the way I forgot how well she knows me, how vehement she has been about believing in me when nobody else thought I stood a chance. I bounced the idea of joining the Peace Corps off of her and her new boyfriend, a good friend of mine. It seemed to make more sense to her than it made to me. I honestly don't know why it hadn't entered my mind earlier or why it took her to convince me that it is perfect for me. Travel and helping people. The only two things I love as much as loving those in my life.
So yes, the academic might walk away from this for a little bit. It's hard to say right now. I'm in the midst of an M.A. program that has me wigged out and wound up, hibernating with book after book in a cozy apartment while so many in this world are suffering, are starving, are in need of a helping hand or genuine smile. And I know that for all the things I've done wrong, making people smile is one thing I've learned to do just right. I can sand a wrenched heart into hope with five minutes and a little bit of try. So why shouldn't I try to be bigger than this man that I am, or have been, or will be if I walk this path of scholastics to its dead end. Today, tomorrow and the next day hold cross-roads. I'm aware that, somehow, none of them are perfect but they all have the potential to be perfect for me.
So what do I do? Where do I go? Who knows. But I'll let you know when I get there.