for friends

I have tried so many times to walk and had always almost done so. Until something turned me around. But you turn dizzying after so many times. How long, how long? I don't need to know. I have tried to run but something pulled me back when I lost breath.

I no longer gasp. I breathe. Fully. Deeply.

I learned to walk: ever since, I let myself run. I learned to fly: ever since, I do not want a push before moving along. Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me. -Nietzsche

then you shoulda put a ring on it

-four hours from Mineola to Cortland, somehow passing out to the sing-a-long but waking up when so many sopranos collided
-leaping on Emeline
-okay, I'll do a beam routine. And make it. Okay, I'll vault. And make it. And of course I'll do a floor routine. And love it.
-I'll always love it.
-Very literally, very loudly screaming when I turned and saw Angela.
-sweet potato fries
-coffee talk with Angie Baby, with discourse running from semi-celebrities to the epic b.d.! How ever will it all shake down?
-frolicking to our old haunts
-chocolate chip pancakes by Beth
-sharing a bed with Beth
-being a non-real person with Beth
-phone calls from awesome Southampton people to inform me about Battle of the Buildings and inquire about the meet. That's always appreciated :-)
-getting off to a very, very slow start
and
-having the most epic dance party imaginable on the GW, seeing Steph's old coaches, and scaring a carful of guys away with "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!"
-followed by changing at Hicksville and returning home to see that Mindy had, of course, already uploaded the pictures to Facebook.

Conclusion:
I think I made the right choice this weekend!

I-81 N/S

Left or right?

Pinky Stone--who knew? Carousel Mall winter session freshmen year where we bought skirts and Cold Stone and forgot for a bit that we were broken. ECAC's. Salsa. Utica. Potsdam. Albany. Rochester, Brockport, Buffalo. Constellation Drive. 3:45am to Cuernavaca. How long is Pennsylvania in our quest for North Carolina? My friend goes to Roanoke! Snow, rain, sleet, sun. Always picking up on that first curve as the road rose around the hill, feeling the rush of tractor trailers swinging past, feeling the engine buckle then fire. Leaving, going. Home, always home. Raquette Lake with secrets spilled on that curve. Crying as I drove back from the airport after October Break because nowhere was safe. Walking to Pleasant in the dark and watching the lights, wanting to run north over the hills. Run south down the hills. Leaving junior year convinced that I'd missed something, that I should have stayed. Should I have stayed? I could never stay. I belonged to the road more than anywhere.

This is the part

where you give too much of yourself in a word, a look. And she knows. And she keeps talking, grinning all the while. And you want her to stop talking, you don't want her to know, you keep your eyes on her lips on your eyelids on anything but noise, and finally she falls silent but dammit, still. smiling.

Walk me down your broken line

I take the broken ones every time. I prefer you in fragments. Somewhere between shambles and solidity. And we make it there. We make ourselves.

writing poetry the day it's due from semi-divine sources

Well, I've made it to spring.

And isn't it beautiful?

"Drive safely," shouting and clapping, this one beautiful on beam, this one's eyes on mine with panic as she competes the floor routine we just walked through--forgot there, nope, she's got it--this one crying with joy after her 8.0 on floor, full splits and back extension rolls today that will never make an appearance at practice, their eyes lighting up when I hand out their cardstock rewards, best score of the season, poems in progress--

and I am glad that I decided to be here.

..
I could be more. I ought to be more. But I think I will be.

Today I wish I hadn't spent so much of my life on one thing because that would make the rest of this easier or, in fact, very very possible instead of hands up, stop-and-laugh. I don't know what any of this means or what I should do but I find that I am moved instead of moving and that maybe for now, it's all right.

ketchup and butter knives

And it happens: the entire class and the professor are laughing. Really laughing.

..

I have to remember that this won't be easy. That certain lights must be turned to dim. To dark. But isn't that how I prefer to live?

I've been ready for a long while. Now I might finally be willing.

Write them in a letter that says "reborn"

4:47 am: Well, I'm not asleep, but it might be time to lay down.

5:30 am: I want to sing country songs, the ones I play loudly when I drive by myself.

7:00 am: My mind gives up. Dreams glide in.

7:45 am: My mind wakes up. So does the rest of me.

9:00 am: Nothing cries "NATURE" and "SUSTAINABILITY" on a deep blue sky morning like the chorus of crickets in Amagansett.

12:36 pm: After returning from Macarthur and eating a fruit cup without utensil, there is no other reason to remain conscious.

1:23 pm: She resurfaces.

2:00pm -- 1:00am: driving, eating, coaching, laughing, writing writing ranting shouting writing, driving, drinking, laughing.

1:28 am: I want this all again.

the names will change

I believe that what we fear in other people is actually what we fear in ourselves. That all the time I spend worrying that you will or won't is because I wonder, Will I?

And what does it mean if I do?

Because now I feel differently. Before it was almost all futile but now I'm not sure. This is precisely the way these things happen to me and I know what I always said then and how I tried to run and twist away but now--

I want it.

"This is going to be interesting."

"Hey, what's up?"

"Oh, not much. Just driving to Deer Park..."

After the text fest en route--oh, the GPS fail, taking the eastbound exit to the LIE, "Exit 52 and 53 are connected...I just missed it," and before the post-meet limp of the coaches to their cars:

Many missed squat-ons, three medals, two in tears, a decent insult and a pretty humorous insinuation, and one hyperextended elbow later, I wonder if it's them or me but either way it's all of us. I want the best for you--God, I'd do it for you if I could--I wish you all burned the way I do, but at the end of the day, most days, today is one, you all walk out laughing and maybe that's all I can ask for.

..

I have a secret.

!

Dear God,

I'm sorry. But the "no chocolate" thing can't go on any longer.

I'm sure I can find something comparable to give up, however. Like "not not eating chocolate." That will do.

Also,

Thank You for a cousin who perfectly understands my motives. ;-)

at the end of a Wednesday

I'm back to making deals with my body. If you can just hold out for four more weeks...last year when I fell off beam as my knee ached. And now as I start to run and the patellar pulls taut. No. And the hamstring screeches. Not now.

Oh, but it's quite all right. I'll get around you all.

But I have missed pain. Missed stretching and wincing in still-dreaming mornings. Missed fear, missed hands burning, wiping feet before sprinting, bumping off beam and mats then laughing. Missed bouncing and landing.

I don't have a teammate but I'm not alone. We smile at each other. "Through the Fire and Flames" comes on and my layouts miraculously gain power. Those splits and leaps, they've never gone away. Matt bounces on trampoline and keeps an eye on me. Here and there. Okay, she's still in tact.

It's quite right.

I feel a whole lot cooler

(and yet a bit more lame) for learning how to make this!: ♪

Though it will never rival the thrill I got from creating this: ¿!

--

Last night in dreams I have to get away from these Germans who are trying to capture me and I try to shout, "Ich spreche kein Deutsch!" but wake up and realize I'd actually exclaimed, "Ich spreche kein Englisch!"

Pero

my life is absolutely beautiful the way it is.

1001

How long must we, I mean, I, sing this song?

Although I should finish reading for class in forty minutes,

Beth has inspired me to think that Walgreen's needs to make a new T-shirt: "What happens in the Cortland Honors Lounge stays in the Cortland Honors Lounge."

Through the fire and flames, we carry on!

"I understand these things," my professor says to my Dear "John" letter. "I wasn't always eighty, you know."
..

I think of what I want but even in shin-deep snow, I am full--really full--reading and running by day, flipping by night, writing even later at night. I have the songs to keep me singing--the laughter--the intrigue--

Calm and concrete enough to say, What does it matter?
..

And in keeping with letters:

Dear Sarah,
I miss you!

snowball sieges,

"There's a sh*tshow at the end of my block," "Sorry, Jake, but we're only in fourth grade," "Can you spot me for my dismount?" "We should just call you Bono," "That's not a rerun--it's a tap and go," "I love you because you understand," "I SWEAT your poem," and other such flights of the human spirit never fail to keep me laughing.

snow glazed sunrise highway

at night.
watch the swirl and you will be spun.

--
Diablo, mi amante constante:

I know you've more or less written me out of your life by now

if you want to think so.

so I guess I just want to know

(Do I want to know?)

that, you know, I could call you if I ever felt like messing up my life.

Anytime.