from Wednesday with love

Apparently, Wednesdays are going to become "talk to a random stranger in the commons of building 3" day for this term. I'm ok with that... It's just funny to me how these people find me. First Catarina and now, this last Wednesday, I spent most of my 2 hour break between classes talking with a woman named Michelle. She has children about my age and is taking a Spanish class in the room next to mine so we ran into each other at the table I always sit at before class. It can be difficult to get people in the city to come out of their shell, their routine, or whatever but Michelle found me and was more than willing to bridge the distance.

She told me about her studying nursing for her second career. She will be over 50 years old when she graduates her program. She asked about what I was doing and we connected on not picking 'womanly' professions (she used to be a truck driver). We talked about her daughter, about her friends coming to her to understand 'man speak' or their husbands coming to her to understand women better. She thinks it's funny because she herself was married once, divorced, and decided she is 'not the marrying kind'. And yet, people keep coming to her for advice.

It wasn't until the end of the conversation and the beginning of my class that we exchanged names. When I asked hers, she looked surprised like she didn't expect me to care. It is funny how much more personal a name can be than all of the details that make up one's living and moving about.





In other thoughts, I need an art project. I have a back log of art projects. But none of those will do. Regarding the one project I would really like to finish, I am at an impasse. I broke it and, well, I know how to fix it... but I can't. I don't have the money. And so I wait. Artistic pressure is building up inside me and I may well burst if I cannot relieve it soon.

I want to move. I want to change. I want something... different. It is time for a new thing. I know it is coming. I know that even if I beg it to, life will never be static but still. Every time I find my footing, surface from below the breakers, and remember the taste of Oxygen, I long for the undertow again. If I am not nearly drowning, I am not living enough. Or so my impatience seems to indicate. I should learn to enjoy just breathing. And maybe that will be the foundation of some art.