a moment like this

There's always that odd little moment between one stage and the next - like the pause when the swimmer comes up for air or when a figure skater leaps and the world leans in to see if she will land it. In moments like that, and this, in the midst of the breathing and jumping, the acter always feels a sense of, "what am I supposed to do with myself?" Like the first time one gives a speech, "where do I put my hands?" Or the first date, "where do I put my hands?" (As in, do I hold hands or grasp them behind my back as I stroll along?)Like on a tight-rope or a good down-hill on a bike, there is the instant when one realizes that this is indeed what is going on. Do you look down? Do you pause? Or do you just let the world continue to happen?

Have you ever looked into a tide pool, with all of its brilliant colors and seen that one bright star fish or hideously ugly sea cucumber (mmmm, cucumber) and known that that is what makes the difference between a splendid scene and a merely pretty one? Is the star fish aware of it's place in the tableau? Or that there is a tableau?

Probably not.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky,
Like a puff of dandylion about to explode at the extreme pressure put on it from horribly strong winds,
And climb the stair,
with my short hair,
while they whisper of Michelangelo.
I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled
so that I don't get sand on them while I'm at the beach.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
billowed, willowed, and green
looking for futures yet unseen
Until human voices awake us, and we drone.

I have that delicious feeling of knowing that i don't have to awake before the dawn, which is lovely because I am not in the least bit tired yet, although I do have to go to the dreaded work tomorrow, but ONLY TO ONE JOB!!! Praise be!

Maybe I am getting old. I yearn for simplicity. Just like I want to have a skinny body so that there are no extra parts to get in the way, I dream of having a skinny life. Nothing to drag me down when I'm energetic and want to run and nothing to drag me down when I'm tired and want to float on the surface of the waves. Just simple.

Instead of going on diets myself I put my belongings on diets. I think that it is very good for them. If every few months I go through my things and skim off anything that I really don't need, or that actually isn't that good for me, then when I die I will only pass on treasures to my posterity and not crap. I put my books on a diet this weekend. I detest having things that aren't useful and part of what makes a thing not useful is when I have so many things that I will never be able to use them all.

I really have been going to too many funerals this spring. I kills me to look at these adults my parents' age who are so bogged down by their late parents' possessions that they can't even begin to sort out what to keep and what to get rid of and where do you throw that away at anyways? Or do you put it on ebay? And oh wouldn't mother just cry if she knew that I wasn't keeping this? gack. far too much. Talk about curses of sin falling on the fourth generation. Or what did you think possessions are?

The saddest time for me this Spring was when after all those funerals I thought that my hermit crab had died. But she didn't; she just molted. So I felt better then. But I still sort of want to get rid of her before she actually does die. Does anyone want two hermit crabs?

There was also the moment when I realized that Josh has inadvertantly deleted all of my work from my bachelor's when he switched my computer. He thought that I transferred it to my new one, and I thought that he was going to do it. I had only transferred my student's grades and my Master's work. So then I cried. And then I felt a lot lighter. The next day I threw away most of my notes from my bachelor's too, and I felt lighter still.

Two years ago today I was going to bed on a mattress located on the floor of a bare room with white walls. That is where I slept the night before I got married. All of my things were cleaned out and actually, I liked that room a lot more that way than when it had been full of all of my things. There is a lot to be said for the beauty of empty space and sunlight on the wooden floor. Dappled light peeking through the blinds and the armour with its doors flung open - as if shrugging at its emptiness, saying, "isn't that what it all comes down to anyways?" If you were made to carry things and store things your whole life, and then for a night you were empty, wouldn't that be the most relaxing night?