easter tidings

"Today was the day Jesus died."
This came up a few times in class today while I was teaching. It is interesting to me how the most important holiday in the Christian calendar--and the only one I give any real meditation-- is treated with such little regard. Those few kids speak in whispers--afraid of being alienated. They keep to themselves. "He is risen," one will say.
"He is risen indeed," will be the knee-jerk response. Kindof like peace be with you.

I guess it's good that Easter isn't something that is commercialized as much as Christmas. But what sort of ad campaigning can you do with a guy being crucified on a cross? I guess we should ask Mel Gibson. Either way it comes up yucky.

It feels strange this year for me. And yet, my absence in actively participating in Lenten practices or biblical readings, fastings, vespers and prayer meditation, my apathy and general lack of energy and interest has me wondering...

I am sitting here eating a Cadberry Egg and drinking a glass of wine.
And know what? I don't feel guilty about it. But I don't feel good--I don't feel--anything. Maybe that is the trouble. Somewhere between guilt and good.
I want to find that place.

Lately, I have started to workout mornings. My schedule does not allow for leisure after school sessions. I cannot remember the last time I showered in my own home.
Every morning I meet the same women in the locker room. We have become, in a sense, sisters. Sure, we are in various stages of undress, busily preening in place--most of the time naked while talking about our lives-- but the spirit in the cramped, upstairs quaters of the YMCA is charged and positive--it feels more like a sorority house than a health club.

I miss my private morning time and meditation, but the comeradity felt mornings before 7 is worth getting out of bed--most days.

So I'll be on the radio soon. First for the fund drive--eee gad.

Something is still missing...Where are you? What are you? Who are you?

family feud

"TO SLEEP"

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if it so please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passéd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

things that are difficult:
1. exhaustion without release
2. lack of appreciation
3. being misunderstood
4. lingering nightmares
5. loving and hating others at the same time
6. holidays without Lillian
7. seeking the joie de vivre
8. not seeing my cats
9. late nights with a card table and laptop for company
10. approaching weekends spent alone

first day of spring

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.

II
We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.



III
I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggots barren.
And boys are full and foreign to the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.

--Dylan Thomas "I See the Boys of Summer"

I am tired. The days are unbelievable.
But I get it. I finally get it.

I wait patiently for change.

Now, sleep, take hold and leave me be.

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.

II
We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.



III
I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggots barren.
And boys are full and foreign to the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.

--Dylan Thomas "I See the Boys of Summer"

I am tired. The days are unbelievable.
But I get it. I finally get it.
Yes I do. In life, in love, in work, in friendship.

I will not do this again.
Now, sleep, take hold and leave me be.