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04.10.04 - 7:58 p.m.
"the cruelest month" if april is the cruelest month, then the weekends of april are downright torturous. i exaggerate, though not really. this pain is situational, not personal. the wound is not sharp, not even wounding. just a dull distant throb. an older familiar hurt. it's transient. it will pass. remember, you've been here before.
afterall despite snow showers, april sun has peeped out from behind grey clouds. the days are longer, which means that sunrays *are* out longer even their touch still feels frigid on my back. hibernating people *are* emerging too from their isolated caves...not rushing from heat spot to heat spot, but lingering awhile. strolling, not slipping on the ice. i saw m__ today rollerblading, i wonder where her other _s_ is these days. i walked by kids playing basketball and skateboarding too. for an hour or so, while i walked on rt.13, i felt myself also rising to meet the sun. a type of pedestrian feminism if you will...i love when i can walk by all the passing cars and feel not bitter about myself, but pity for them. how can anyone stand to drive from place to place on such a rare day as this when the sunlight can ferry your body forward? so yes, for a few hours i felt like the lucky one.... a sister doing it for herself... but then that hurt of walking alone on a weekend in april returns again. i pull my sweater closer; i tug my bag across my chest. i want to be seen, i want to hide. here's where the cruelty returns. i look directly into the sunlight, defying a childhood fear that if i look directly into the sun i will surely go blind. i won't. i don't. i ask the sunlight to be by my side, accompany me, come to me. cradle me. hold me and fill me up. please. the sunlight won't talk back. and in fact, fleeting cruel, the sun turns distant. disappears into a forgettable sunset that happens so quickly, i didn't even see it vanish. not fair. come back...please don't abandon me, when i need your strength to reassure me that i can make it through the next 48 hours. i can. sing with me sun. please. i survived her disappearance. as the universe would have it, while i huddled in a cafe an new m.f.a. poet from trinidad (whom i so wish i had more time to befriend and know much better)happened to come in to read for a while. i'm proud of myself for not acting like i wouldn't appreciate her company. i made a space at my table, invited her to read there for a while. she did. 60 minutes passed more smoothly than all the minutes of that day combined. i grade a few more papers. then the @%^@%^ cafe had to kick us out for a music concert scheduled for that evening. so the amazing L__ took off in one direction, and i returned home again. that's okay. some company is better than none. some minutes of sharing human space with a friendly ally, is better than a whole day in silence with my own thoughts. i'm home now. must refrain from checking emails every other minutes. it's the weekend after all. a weekend in april. everyone's out somewhere playing with their other. and i have some 'play' to keep me occupied. a good 35 more papers to read and grade. only i can grade them. so i will try discipline. dedication. my students need me to finish my remarks and return their hard work back. so, i'll go to it. get cracking. tune out the world. tune into a job to be done. only i can do it. i alone. a weekend night, sunless, alone in april. how cruel. not cruel, necessary, circling
i don't care!! still feels cruel.
don't care. just do, okay?
not okay, but i will keep on. loving, me
MUSIC: Movie: Secretary
READING: Jacqueline Rose, "Peter Pan and the Impossibility of Children's Literature"
FEELING:on the wrong side of okay
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