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Sunday, February 17

Little bits

Today is much too beautiful a day to sit inside and study. The kind of day where you wish you had darker sunglasses only to pull them off and take in the fullness of the sun, springing back at you from every blade of grass, glinting in the slats of sides of barns as you pass, following you like a bright shadow. And still I find myself inside the same coffee shop where I am always at this time on Sunday afternoons, none before so bright as this, and wishing that I did not have anything left to read, and that I did not have to read it today.

I found a poem that I wrote in college. It was, in my opinion, probably the best thing I have ever written, and I thought I had lost it; among sheaves of papers or trampled in the numerous moves since then. But while I was looking for one thing, I found another, and it took my breath away. I wished I had brought it with me so I could show it to you. Another day.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon working: I helped to lead a teen writing workshop. And it was a beautiful thing for me. Only a few showed up, and one stayed, really intent to work on his writing the whole time. It dawned on me somewhere in the middle how much he was taking in--listening like I was the Buddha and following every word like it was drops of gold. And I realized it was: no one had ever spent the time like that to teach him the things he wanted to know. And I could do that for him. How many more are there like him, waiting for some one simply to listen, speak, care?
The experience has helped to solidify my decision to teach at the secondary level, though I'm still not a hundred percent convinced. I think the obstacles, the hardship I know will inevitably exist in that decision, is stopping me from committing my heart, even though my head is already there. I just have to decide to love it as much as I believe it.

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