wide awake and dreaming ...

it's always a trip to look at yourself through the lens of another's camera or in the mirror of someone else's eyes and note the impressions we make, at times fleeting and others lasting, upon the surface of their self.

got two messages today, one via email and another via facebook (ironically, it was from a 60+ y/o on facebook and a peer, at least similar in years, through email). both of these are people that i have had relatively few and limited interactions with yet what they had to say today in two totally unrelated exchanges struck a chord with me that is vibrating into the afternoon. maybe it'll incite me to play ...

the elder is a relative of a relative of a relative ... so not, as far as we classify it, a direct relation to me but by marriage only, and then marriage again. i've met this person at a few family gatherings and our conversation has been limited to small talk from what i recall. she was simply asking how i was doing and what life in the south is like (as if i can comprehend it, let alone explain it). i replied, we exchanged a few messages throughout the day (apparently she spends a lot of time in front of a computer at her current job and uses much of it to track her younger family members' comings and goings and doings and other things on facebook)and a couple correspondences later she wrote;

"Since you will be in the south for a bit, I do think it's time to begin your novel. You have an incredible gift for words and you have an inner feeling for people that draws others who are open to you, and you to them. I don't care if you write fiction or non fiction, humor, self help, sadness, tragedy, etc. but start writing! Write about the people who you met in life or the students that you teach. Write about anything but just begin to write. These gifts we are given are meant to be shared and I hope to see you share your insights and deep love for people with the world. I believe in you and I know you can make the NY Times Best Sellers list." ... she also mentioned that she would be the first in line at a Water Street Books signing. made me laugh, but also made me pause ... and think.

especially since earlier the same day i received a similar, in a way, email from another acquaintance whom i have had very limited interaction with. now, i'm a huge fan of fate and the implications that apparently chance occurances have on our lives if we choose to pursue their complicated webs of possibilities, and i met this girl on a rainy night in williamstown while i was working a shift for somebody else at the gym front desk. i was a senior (finally). she was visiting town on a tour of the berkshires with her elderly mother, from texas, and since it wasn't pleasant weather to be walking outside she decided to come work out ... she was beautiful, of course i let her in without williams id. we spoke briefly, went out that night to a bar with a few of my friends and kept in touch such that she came back the following weekend (she had graduated a few years earlier and was now working in hartford, ct). we spent the night together, but around 4:00 am she suddenly grew self-conscious about waking up in a college dorm room (though my room was pretty incredible and not at all typical, unlike the tapestry-hanging, black-light days of an underclassman) and decided to leave (did i say she graduated a few years earlier ... more like ten). we've had limited contact in the three years since ... just the occasional text message. she emailed out of the blue last week to say she'll be in texas for a while and was wondering how far away from austin i lived if i wanted to visit. i wrote back (too far and poor timing)and mentioned that i was still teaching though getting tired of the hamster-wheel of bureaucratic incompetency in public education, particularly low-income/high-need schools. she replied ...

"it saddens me to even detect a spec of cynicism from you as I know your heart to be so passionate and driven to improve the lives of everyone you touch in a positive and educational way. Dan, knowing you has impacted my life in many positive ways...rea ipsa loquitor... and, we haven’t even begun to unravel the yarn of intricacies of one another yet. you simply exude love of everyone and everything. i would go on but have limited time. so, just know that I think very highly of you, care very much about you and know how much it means to you (or, I think it does) to be a leader by example for any and everyone you interact with in this world in hopes of influencing the minds, bodies and souls in a way that promotes positivity, energy, questioning/pondering life, choices, education, etc ... I’m just babbling here (sorry)!"

i need to emphasize at this point that all our relationship consists of is that first night at the bar and the second evening a week later when she visited, both several years ago, then roughly one or two texts per year since.

ariadne's thread is long and might lead me back to the same place where i started, but i'm sure i wouldn't be the same person upon arriving there. i think, what i fear the most, is that i am seemingly no longer free (via responsibility) to pursue those threads ... and that ipso facto (to piggy-back upon the latin maxim usage), i fear the comfort that disregarding loose ends, or sitting on a particular terminus, might imply.

that aside, my mirror on the (facebook) wall and my message in a bottle (of google goodness) made me a little happier and a little sadder today.

here's to promotions, new beginnings, old dreams, turning corners, turning back the hands of time and turning 27 (like all birthdays, a sweet juice with a bitter after-taste).


pax.