Verb.

This blog has died, and I'm not sad about it.

I've made a conversion from words to actions--when I feel something, I don't write about it, I don't wax poetic on exactly what it means or wonder if I should perhaps feel differently. I just act on those feelings. Which is good--I'm spending a lot less time living in my own head and more time engaging other people, discovering what I have in common with the rest of the world and what aspects of me are blessedly mine. I treasure both.

Actions give me strength, purpose, a list of things that I could point to at the end of my life and say I did this. And words, I notice more and more, just descend in to hollow meaninglessness with time and repetition. Even the most powerful words--inspiring campaign promises, for example--lose their potency when "Change we can believe in" is just something we say, not something we see or feel. Even "I love you" can turn into just something one says instead of something one does. Over time you can become so depressed by a word's lack of any real meaning that the most positive words, instead of filling you up and buoying you, just kind of hollow you out. Someone has wasted your time by saying something so worthless as "I'm here for you" when they're never, ever physically there.

Actions are concrete, harder to misinterpret, easier to explain, and I think more impervious to that weakening over time. I am trying to live in verbs now, trying to make myself known and my intentions clear not just to those who bother to read or listen to what I say. I teach in Africa, everyone knows that I care about poverty and the opportunity gap and my generation's future. I wear a uniform, everyone knows I am dedicated to serving my country.

...I wish I could make that list longer. Soon it will be. I think it's too much to hope that I can influence others to live the same way. But at least i can value from this information and know who to trust, who to respect...and who's just blowing empty words in my direction.

Lilith Returns.

I jacked my mom's 2-disc set of lilith fair songs about 3 years ago, and it's been one of my favorites ever since. Now, the all-women's music fest is coming back...and it's coming back with Norah Jones and Teagan & Sarah and tons of the other beautiful women who have burst onto the music scene since these tours went on hiatus.

It's going to be in Philly on July 28. i4c birkenstocks, muddy legs, and more lesbian music duos than one could shake a stick at?

Ink:

I dream of it.

From the brilliant Dr. Berner.

These are the crucial teachings of Buddhism:

That everyone matters, that we're all connected, and that every action--every smile--every glance we make affects other people and the world around us.

This is how I'll say goodbye

I depart as air .... I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you

New theory: Walt Whitman was an American Buddhist.

How Quickly, Part 2.

How quickly we forget...to write...for a year.

How very, very quickly each year passes, the acceleration so impossibly high, it's incalculable. The magnetic poetry on the mini-fridge is still arranged into messages about surviving the winter, but winter's long gone, the last wisps of the depressive state blowing off my body the way leaves blew off the trees "just yesterday." I can count the weeks on one hand til I'm home forever, forever equaling approximately three months, two of those spent in the Caribbean, one spent sleeping on a futon in an office. Next weekend: dining out. Next weekend: work. Next weekend: home for a refuel, a birthday, a show. Next weekend: Phi Mu Formal. Next weekend: Home free.

How quickly we discover adventure isn't leaving for some foreign land for six weeks, then rediscovering the comforts of home. The true adventure is packing boxes and relocating for good. Some days I feel ancient. Other days the truth reveals itself: My life is a mountain and I haven't even made it out of base camp yet. Possibilities are spread out in front of me. How terrifying, how thrilling.

How quickly we forget someone's listening. Or maybe we didn't forget, we just never noticed because we were so busy trying to catch someone else's attention.

How quickly we forget the power of words. In journalism we talk about how blogs are stupid. How writing about yourself is stupid. But Whitman wrote "Song of Myself" and last I checked, that's all about him. Last I checked, I cry every time I read it. Now I'm no Whitman but I reserve the right to call him 'Uncle Walt' and give this thing a try again.

"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."