of beets and rain and crushes, and most of all, pouring

i walked home in the rain today. i mean, when i set out, it was not raining. it was obvious sun behind many clouds. it was the alternative of when i am on the airplane, and the thick layer of clouds below but the sun so shining on all of us flyers, and we can't believe those below aren't just soaking it in. but then, nearly there, only 10, 15 minutes left, and it's really coming down. i love how the rain varys in intensity, but no one is skimming the dimmer switch. when it's raining, it's remininding us of another fourth demention, that the sky is 3-d, too.

all over today, it's fall. i have not experienced explicit autumn since 5 years ago. how i like it, how it makes the smells grander, and the colours richer, and the textures more canyonous. rubbing a bit of shrubbery between my two fingers all the way home, transferring hard earned chlorophyll from it to me. so fresh it smells. biking is good, very good, but in the end, walking is the better. 'walk along little children, take each other by the hand, we will all live for ever when we make it together, walking to the promise land.' today i noticed that the little berries that i'd been riding over, pondering over, are acutally olives. many of them are still connected to trees. can i harvest them (do not eat freshly harvested olives, too bitter, no no, one must marinate them first. attenzione)? i will find out from a stranger in the polmology department, which i have been itching to get into, but lamentably is closing after this quarter. the last polmology department in the country.

but when i get home, after passing also persimmon trees and pomegranates ripe, it is time for the wine. coming home to the glass(es) of wine is coming home to a lover. the lover is my academic self. it is the reflection of the hard work and the romanticism in reading. oh, we have a toast to the new words and the way our heads spin with the new ways of thinking, to drown the hard paper edges and soak in the rich thinking for thinking's sake alone.

tonight it was the beets i have been harboring for the past 2 weeks. lately too lazy to put in the beet effort. but tonight, after that walk, after the autumn aroma, it was time. everytime i eat beets it is a celebration, a religious rite. blame it on tom robbins, and on the way they stain like that. but tonight, a new fact did the beets give rise to. as i was lauding writer tom to poet megan, she informed me that salome (of other, non-beet, tom fame), daughter of some famous queen (one we've surely heard of, but don't be so quick to label her sheeba), after performing her enchanting and irresistable dance of the seven veils, was granted anything she wished by some famous king (one we've surely heard of, but don't be so quick to label him herod). and so, after consulting mommy dearest, salome requested the head of st. john the baptist. and so came the death of my old testatment/new testament crush.

but it is a different crush altogther, a biblical friend (for reasons to be discussed later. dear god, only so much bible study in one night, please) that leads me to the last topic. that of pouring. it all out, that is. oh, this is a theme that comes in and out all the time. knowing when to speak and let the floodgates open, and when to keep quiet. until i crossed paths with a certain majestic one whom i truly admired and adored, i had not known the virtue of quiet. of keeping one's own counsel. now i believe in it, like a creed, like a beatititude, blessed are those who keep their own counsel, they shall find their own reward. but perhaps it is not in my nature - i certainly have not determined this yet. but again this shabazz rears is vocal head at a time when, in other avenues, i am forcing my mouth open and words to come out. today, a triumph of speaking in class, in both classses, and reason be damned, i do not care if i sound foolish or un.phd.educated, for it is what i'm thinkin', i just let it flow - about honor and the american dream as it applies to chicano youths in chicago in the 70's, about the changing concepts of community. ah, sure, why not?

but beyond why not?, a bigger question arises for me today.
do we ever truly hear the sound of the wind, or just the sound of the wind rushing through other things?

little rascal

does it look different? it's coming from my very own - my very own little computer. it's white. i will refrain from referring to it as cute. i feel like i've been searching through pet stores and shelters and i've finally taken home the pup i've been searching for (it's true, i've never had a real pet before save for some shortlived goldfish, so i'm still looking to place those kid - my dog is my best buddy - feelings somewhere). anyways, now i have no excuse, and together we shall enter a new era in which times ten will flourish. though, i'm sure that times ten will flourish because of excuses... not to write papers, to take a break from reading, to avoid my workstudy job...i'll excuse myself

was it for this my life i sought?

during my four years studying civil engineering at the undergraduate level, i had the fantasy of being a sociologist. towards the end there, when i was really beginning to freak out about not knowing what i was gonna be when i grew up, and watching all my overachiever engineering friends head straight into grad school, there was a lot of nervous laughing for me. a lot of manical laughing, too. i used to joke that i would get a masters degree in sociology, but i never really laughed at that one.

and now, as my fellow CEs head back to bethlehem pennsylvania this month for our 5 year reunion, i find myself in a graduate sociology class. and the fates are laughing up a storm. because in that class, and the education course on experiential learning, and in the community development theory class, my head is spinning. but not with the joy of an academic world opened wide to me, that i have made my entree into a lifelong dream. no. it spins on an axis of incredulity, that we can spend an hour discussing what "learning" constitutes. and how about "experience"? that a group of highly educated phd students can sit and be perfectly serious about this winding conversation, thinking that it will actually achieve some higher purpose. i'm experience a jarring culture shock this week - it's the canary culture of practicality versus the academic social science culture of blather. it's my lists and agendas versus thier mental wanderings. the thing is, i know that i have to lose this competition. i have to put up the white flag and give in, and not only accept but participate.

in one week of classes, so many times have i wanted to bring attention to the class at the seeming unnecessariness of the conversation, but instead i am calling attention to myself. to force a redirection in approach and way of thinking. i don't know if that's really possible to the fullest extent - i'm me and i'll bend, but i won't break. i thought that moving to a new town, departing from one social scene and entering another, doing homework, that these would be the hardest. i never imagined that my biggest challenge would be stomaching my own dreams.