'light the corners of my mind....'

i just had lunch with michael and my fab friend sean. it was citrus chicken salad on greens with raisins and couscous, coffee....good conversation....warm sun bathing our table, misrepresenting the bitter weather whipping about outside the window. it was nice to pretend for a moment that it was something OTHER than winter....

i am finding, with each passing day that i am here in this city, that it is harder and harder to connect myself to the girl i once was when i first arrived here nearly 10 years ago....and i suppose, in many ways, that's a good thing. i have a lot of friends who recall their college days with a kind of whimsical nostalgia. for me, it was much about pain and loss, personal discovery and emotional wrenching. a lot of battle scars and experiential notches on my belt - mostly of my broken hearts and illusion-busting epiphanies. it's only been 5 1/2 years since i graduated from hopkins, but some days, it feels like 20. too much has come down the pike since then....too many doors have swung wide open, only to slam shut days later....too many thoughts rage through my mind on any given day. it's no wonder my heart sometimes races in the middle of the night....

i've walked what feels like miles through that proverbial valley in the shadow of a seeming death and i've only occasionally dipped my toe into the streams of cool water. something in me resists rest, but God help me - i've got to dive in.....