After Letterman

It seems I do my best thinking between midnight and 2 am. Once again, I am up after Letterman, with refrigerator hum and luke-warm decaf, typing on a borrowed laptop.

Life has been hectic recently, and yet eerily still. I'm waiting on translators, bureaucrats, co-workers... I feel robbed of duty, robbed of busyness. It is profoundly good for me, but it's messing with my head.

For some reason my creative juices have kicked into gear recently in a way I don't remember happening in the past. A lot of it probably has to do with having more time (or at least a more flexible schedule) to reflect and create. Also, not writing 40 hours a week at work helps.

I never intended on writing poetry. In college I didn't understand it and I didn't like its ambiguity (except for TS Eliot--I fell IN LOVE with the Four Quartets my senior year and I'm still enthralled). But these days I don't have a choice concerning poetry. It flows out of my head in fragmented sentences, momentary glimpses that are too small, and too large, for a short story or novel.

On a recent train trip I saw a odd-shaped field of clustered scrub bushes. Clearly a piece of unused land next to the tracks, the plot had been left alone and these round bushes sprouted up in bunches. That small field, with its varying hues of dust and green, the smooth outlines of the scrub, the asymetrical and perfect groupings, the overlapping shadows...I could have watched it for hours and walked away thinking I hadn't truly experienced it.

If there is that much beauty and truth to be found in an abandoned triangle of land somewhere by the railroad tracks in north LA (and there is!)...what hope do we have of ever understanding and appreciating this world we are in? I am often overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of this world we live in. I begin to dive deep, only to be lured by something distant; I swim up and down and back and forth, diagonally in every direction. I know that no matter how much I learn, read, experience, explore, travel, listen, think--I will never get more than a taste of what is there for the taking. I need to be OK with that. (or do I?) As of now, I'm not. You who are out there LIVING and story-telling, whether that be through music, visual art, story, poetry, emails, phone conversations, documentary, or simply in the way you ask a question... you give me hope.

This transition to France is unlike any other I've had. It's much more gradual, and much more alone. There is no packing list. There are few guidelines. There isn't even a set job description on the other side (#1 professional duty: define my professional duties--I'm starting a new department of sorts when I get there) There is no one to walk this path with me. I have plenty of sympathetic on-lookers (and for you I am grateful), but when it comes down to it, I'm going to the consulate alone. I am giving presentations alone. I'm going to get on that airplane alone.

I am so thankful for all of you out there who are helping me through this. I need each of you SO much. Sorry if I get a bit ... scattered at times. I'm trying to keep a bunch of balls in the air, and I never learned to juggle.