10. grief days

Today is a heavy grief day. I'm not sure, exactly, what set it off, if anything. I'm just moving through it. One thing about grief as compared to other heavier emotional states (such as anxiety, depression, etc.) is that any point in a normal day, the most mundane and illogical thing can just set the grief off, out of nowhere. You'll just be going about your day, and BOOM- it sneaks up behind you and…

09. missing George Michael

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqX_8gViBs George Michael at the Olympics Closing Ceremony 2012 singing "Freedom" This popped up in my YouTube feed this morning and it actually made me cry a little bit- what a great, great loss losing George Michael was. His album "Listen Without Predjudice" is easily one of my absolute essential of all time. When I was a teenager, I was firmly rooted in my world of Depeche Mode/The Cure/The Smiths, New Order, but George Michael…

07. home and away

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My daughter is headed off to college Tuesday. (And here is where I wrote a bunch of stuff about her, and then deleted it, because it always feels icky to talk *too* much about her because it's her own story to tell.) Of course, my only kid leaving for college is a huge deal. But it's also not. The college that ended up being her "ultimate dream college" is, ironically, ten minutes away from our…

06. “Italian Lesson”

the boy plays with the wooden horse       il ragazzo gioca con il cavallo di legnothe seasons change       le stagioni cambianoI have never seen a volcano       non ho mai visto un vulcanowe need wood for the fire       abbiamo bisogno di legno per il fuocothe wet wood is not good       il legno bagnato non è buonohe saw smoke in the sky       ha visto fumo nel cielothen it is a volcano       allora è un vulcanothere is sand in my shoes       c’è sabbia nelle mie scarpethe children…

05. genuine connections in the age of social media

Sonnet My thoughts through yours refracted into speechtransmute this room musically tonight,the notes of contact flowing, rhythmic, brightwith an informal art beyond my single reach. Outside, dark birds fly in a greening time :wings of our sistered wishes beat these walls :and words afflict our minds in near footfallsapproaching with latening hour’s chime. And if an essential thing has flown between us,rare intellectual bird of communication,let us seize it quickly : let our preferencechoose it instead of softer things…

04. If someone asks, this is where I’ll be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8JhOSps_0 "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" Talking Heads "I can't tell one from anotherDid I find you, or you find me?There was a time before we were bornIf someone asks, this where I'll be, where I'll be"

02. restarting

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I have been thinking a lot about the idea and feeling of "longing" these past few months. There's a lot of definitions and interpretations of what this can mean for people- nostalgia, acute desire, etc. but for me, it’s more of a yearning to find a source for a specific state of deep contentedness and joy, which has been pretty elusive to me my whole life, but something I can actually feel and imagine when…