Waiting for the Exhale.

I cannot tell you with what great agony I begin yet another paper.

I have been diligent. I have been as focused as my body will allow. I have been committed. And yet, I still only have 3 days to read about and write a rather large paper on the book of Revelation. I finished a different large paper yesterday and turned it in. Today is a new day! And a new paper.

My mind is explosive.

I have exactly the minimum amount of time to do this. If I use my time well...if I keep trying...if I push hard, I can do this and all the other tasks which demand my attention.

But there are tasks which will never make such demands. Those are my favorites. They are not pushy because they are fragile and will quickly be trampled and drowned if they assert their own importance in the ocean of errands. They are kind, giving me more than they ever take away. They do not seek to be my master and they know only a little of discipline, of struggle, and of pain. They are polite...always respecting whatever decisions I make and never holding my lack of wisdom against me.

These tasks are labors of love and imagination. They are not concrete or physical and they cannot give me a leg up in the world. What they can give me is all that I want and it pains me to deny them space and time to be. I make empty promises which I hope to be able to fill knowing that merely wishing it were so changes nothing.

These empty promises grow hungry and gnaw upon me from the inside.

I become vacuous.

What was once going to explode begins to shift, turn inward, and give me new fears. The mass of my hopes, fears, and promises may be enough to draw me tightly to my core in one final inhale as I implode.

I'm just waiting for tomorrow, whenever tomorrow comes.

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.