this teacher, this book -- how it came to be mine -- i am unsure, except that i loved poetry and i loved it wholly, completely, unflinchingly. i didn't care that other people didn't care and probably rolled their eyes at the questions i asked. i think he was happy to have someone who just loved poetry in his class of people who were tired and just writing their thoughts on the matter to check the box he wrote me a letter of recommendation to his alma mater and i did not get in. so it goes. he was not one of those weird teachers, one who would get too close or make odd comments or look the other way. i would have forgotten his name, honestly, if it weren't written in thin red letters on the inside of this thin book, well read, pages frail.

and actually. my college creative writing teacher gave us each a book she thought we would like, and mine was perfect for me, and i loved it so much. a collection of short stories, so specific. i remember she wrote on the saddest and maybe my favorite poem i ever wrote, 'come see me' and i don't think i ever did. i also remember all the cringe things i had to write and get out of me, and in all of this she circled in red what i had written,

kafka and i hold hands as bugs

and wrote "great" with an exclamation point ("!") after, and she never wrote exclamation points. the gift of a book, some i can remember so clearly. my highschool boyfriend got me an anthem of neruda poems i still have because what idiot throws out poems.

and i remember anne carson, reading the poems in the desert, a love letter to each other, little by little night by night.

the arrangements of the state of flux:

“so ingenious are the arrangements of the state of flux we call
our moral history are they not almost as neat as mathematical
propositions except written on water –”

(anne carson, the beauty of the husband)

to a blossoming pear tree. little leaves, that are not leaves, but leaves in secret. fall is around the corner and that will always remind me of my first fall, that i wrote about and through and after. august, and everything after, always.

oof. that poem is like a missile. history will always be... history.

and something i drafted to my friend inimitable, on the reappearing nature of the people we have known: history will always be... history. mine, i see with rose colored glasses. my then-favorite person in no way compares to my current favorite person, but he was still my favorite person for many formative years of my life. that doesn't just go away because of time (or does it). maybe that's my excuse for sending a text to his number last week when i know it doesn't even work anymore, to see if any of our old texts were saved on my phone, to see what i said back then.

last week, holding hands, he said, "i want to be with you more than i want anything else."

i don't know what permission i think i need to move forward, to choose, to make choices.
a dog (what kind? if i could have a big dog, i'd already have a golden retriever 5 years ago; so a corgi, a king charles, a beagle, a westie? i love every dog i see). a different job (sometimes the thought of continuing on as i do makes me feel like the walls are closing in and yet i feel the same about a 'regular 9-5' which in my industry is anything but that, and sometimes i feel so ambitious, like i can do anything, and other times i feel like it's gone and i don't want to do anything but find some new hobbies, like gardening and learning a hundred new recipes.)

in other news, tomorrow i think i'll call my PT and go to the spa.

anyways, some guideposts as of late:
cooking new recipes. food and wine salmon with baby tomatoes and capers. chimichurri.
eating three meals a day, not really snacking.
bear the new dog. new ipad. new bamboo pillows.
feeling like setting everything on fire. cleaning and organizing my desk.
purging all the lulu. d working a million hours pre launch.
the best trip to my parents house ever. so many walks with the dogs, hanging out with my mom, watching n&a with my dad in the ollie, getting to be a daughter and not have to worry about anything else. so grateful for that time and space.

x


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