There is much of this place I want to share. I found an old writing and thought it a good place to begin.
11.2.07
“Went to Dallas with mom and dad last weekend. Time is significant and I was glad for the journey. There’s so much to tell of late and it was difficult to wait for the right times in conversation to relay. And I had a fear of telling them how I feel like I’m failing and am. It always seems like after that’s out, after I tell of the bad news and rebellion, there is a breath and relax. It’s strange, the aging together. I wonder what they think about it. Mom said shes made an attempt to give room. Thank you, I said. Some don’t and I’m not sure what is good or not I just know that I know they love me and that is enough. We are family. The school is good. The building is not much architecturally, but there is a great backyard and it is connected to the dorm. We ate lunch in a really scene part of town and I don’t want my time there to be that. I don’t know if I could get into that again, but I want what I’ve learned here to continue, and to find a group that wants to learn the same. Everyone is just looking for people like them, I guess. Aren’t I? I did find a pub I’d like to visit and I’m glad to be able to.”
So I’ve moved. I live in a new city with new people and weather and buildings and street names. It’s strange how something so new and confusing can begin to seem almost familiar. I’m asked what direction I’ve headed and I say to and away from downtown. Seems right, doesn’t it? I’m told it can’t be so. Certain things here make a space recognizable in moments. A tapestry, pictures, maps, books, lanterns. Good advice from a friend about words. It hasn’t rained yet, and I feel like I am waiting for the consummation. Time here has been filled with people and talking and roads. A familiar stranger.
We went to the art museum in the first days and I broke away and stood in front of a painting by an Italian long dead and scribbled down the name so I could look it up again. Wondering if the view from the foundation had been familiar, had been home, and who must have lived or died there, and if they loved. Or if he only wished for such a place and view and love. And wondering what he meant. Thinking of all this, David walked up behind me and asked my opinion. I couldn’t reply so well because I really didn’t know. In these thoughts, of a scene of reality or not, I felt what Giovanni must have been. And of a friend who told me once how hard it is to write because when or how it will be read cannot be controlled. I wonder that Giovanni knew his painting would hang in a room with a dozen others I would walk by in beginning in this city and that someone would pause to stand and look at his and what he might say to that. If he had a message, it came through a glass fogged with time and place and circumstance, but I held on to what I thought it might be and was grateful for the scene he offered.
Now returned from a weekend of familiarity and comfort. Words of kindness and love and pajamas and sleep. Back in my room, the rain was silent and I hardly noticed it was falling. After looking out the window I realized I had known for some time.
