63.

lately i've been spending a lot of time with other people's words.

its friday and i'd be just fine sitting tonight with Alice Walker, reading her fictions, musing on the secrets they whisper to me in the silence of solitude.

I could also appreciate the history that is so much a part of me, although I am not within it, by learning about my long gone community from James Agee and looking at the soul stirring photographs of Walker Evans.

this is important.

today i led a writing workshop with some pretty entertaining high schoolers. we talked about journaling and travel writing, i gave them some tips, but shied away from rules. the only rule i gave them was that there is no wrong way to write in your own journal. emphasis on the "no," underlined three times in red dry-erase marker. i realize, though, that this is some transference of trauma that i experienced as a youngster who was interested in writing and reading...at some point in my life i felt that there was a right way to do both of these very personal acts. knowing that there was a "right" way meant that i must be doing it wrong. hell, i didn't even know what the right way was! point is: i was stifled, i was scared to be real, i was slow to pick up a book because i was afraid and if i did pick it up i wouldn't talk about it, save for a few classroom discussions. so my journey towards unadulterated appreciation of other's voices and words was one that i went at alone, in fear, and at a snail's pace. i don't want the kids that i'm working with to feel the same burden of "rightness" and "wrongness."

finding this comfort in words has also made me appreciate some of the other folks in my life and the wisdom that is articulated through songs they sing, emails they send, and long heart to hearts we have - lord knows i've been having a lot of those lately. bless my friend's hearts. and i've been really lucky as of late - the universe has blessed me with some kindred spirits, some good souls, and some wise teachers that have all taken the shape of, or something akin to, a friend.

i hope they don't mind, but i'm gonna share a tid bit:

"and my heart feels old too...it makes me want to fold into the road and surface somewhere where nobody knows my story. it makes me want to start over (even though you can't), and makes me feel like, "you'll fix it all somewheres else, boy" but what would i fix, you know? i'm so ready to settle in, courtney. funny, all you want to do is go and all i want to do is settle. our friendship rules - yin and yang.

i'm still jonesin after that ole' girl something fierce, but she's harder to read than a chinese newspaper. i call, she doesn't call back... then i call again and we have an 1.5 hr long conversation. i don't know. she's a tough one to crack, but i'm trying hard to not to turn away like i always do. but maybe that's dumb. masochistic. i doubt it, but who the hell knows. you just let me know where exists a woman who aint wearing confidence as a snare but's really got it, and has taken the time to find herself and likes who she found. i have yet to find that woman, but she's out there, damnit. feel it in my bones."

oh, and another.

"At one point you asked about hearts finding a home in stories...I think it's amazing that I can learn about the idiosyncrasies of human life and of myself from the stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez the same way my grandmother, Delia, who I never even met, learned about them more than 50 years ago or that Marquez learned about them from stories that he heard growing up. In that way, my heart has found a home in cultures and stories that existed over a century ago in a country I've never set foot in and suddenly those stories are, in my opinion, a legitimate part of my personality and history."

i'm feeling pretty lucky lately. i've learned that you start over at some point in your adult life trying to find folks who's essences rightly compliment your own, because well we change and as Heraclitus wrote and many pop bands have reminded us since, change is all that stays the same. anyway, i was hopeless that my spirit would be lonely up here, that there was some major element of my identity that would remain malnourished until i left. now my chin is up and my stride is a little more steady. and i know ya'll are sick of hearing it, but it has something to do with this southern identity that surged up like a thousand angry hanson fans (relevant metaphor from my wild weekend in NYC). maybe i just like to write and read about folks from the southland. maybe this southern side of me that the north has illuminated so much is really something. i like when boys want to take care of their mama's. i like when its okay for my sassiness to stir things up a bit. i like when people say "might could" in that sweet modesty (another shout out boot-slinger) that only the southern voice allows. its real and doesn't hide behind walls of pride and intellect. i almost feel like, how could it? why would it? what's more beautiful than the humbling truths of living?