Fragments

Shelley and I were talking the other night about that child poet who died and was memorialized on such manipulating shows as Oparah and Larry King Live and how prophetic he seemed and she said he strangely restored her belief that maybe when you become a self-actualized person you just die.

After that massive train wreck the cable news channels repeatedly show an interview of a local police officer of some sort. I don't remember anything he said except "I'm not too proud to cry." I'm not too proud to cry, I'm not too proud too cry: I'm too scared to cry.

This just in: Wolf Blitzer Reports: Was Lincoln Gay?

This week I have found fragments of the perfect hue of blue in: a tsunami crashing into a small Southeast Asian town, The Life Aquatic, a building on the Portland waterfront, his eyes.

I've invited my mother to come visit my school. I hesitate too long when she asks if she can sleep on my couch for the night. My voice is echoing into the phone and I feel like I'm yelling into a well.

Sometimes experiences feel united, sometimes they feel terribly divided. I idealize growing up as some gelled communal experience. Not you over there and you over here, but all of us in the same room.

I start school on Monday. I'm ready to be busy: I'm not ready to be back in that crowd. When I'm there, I feel like I'm living two lives.

I don't want to complain. I want to want. And I also want room for it all.