on rabbit holes.

 

i keep thinking, keep thinking, as a term, i am meaning that every morning and at least ten times throughout the day, i repeatedly convince myself, that a. tumbling down the rabbit hole every single day isn't so bad or b. i am too old, far too old, to keep falling. i have weak wrists from gymnastics and my knees ache when it is about to rain. i sleep more, i sleep a lot, and i think about that Milosz poem where he sleeps a lot and so does St. Thomas Aquinas, only the poem is not about sleep at all. it is about death. 

yesterday one of my students asked me that why do all the stories i teach about death have names like "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and stories that are funny have names like "The Death of Justina". I did not answer this question because I was thinking about how death could be funny too and how the only difference between the two is if death happens at the beginning (comedy) or the end (tragedy) of a story. 

last week i went to a sewing expo, and between modeling lace tops for a bunch of older ladies during a lace technique lecture and sewing new ways to stitch seams, i sat at the hotel window thinking about how, in numerous ways, my life is following the same lines as Plath's. grading papers in a damp hotel room in lakeland, florida probably does nothing to instigate any positive thoughts. this world of ours has some strange circumstances. 

i love my life. i do. i love the schedule of it i love what i do what i've taught myself to do the things i am still learning to do the things i enjoy i love the people around me but i still have the dreams. last night i had a dream i was teaching a class in a pair of red and blu striped boy's underwear, pearls and heels. i looked like a girl dressed as a girl version of superman, because super woman i was not. and this terribly tiny awful girl that i didnt think was in my class came in and she was cruel and unusual and i tried to connect and yikes. and then this group of tech students, all wearing dockers, all with big, shiny faces, came in and i was standing in my underwear. and this guy i used to know, this strange old guy, told the tech professor that i was cool, that i was good. and they both nodded. then the awful tiny gremlin girl came back and said something foul about my clothes, and i responded with, "well, i've never seen high water pants on a midget." and i felt bad.

so i went outside and saw my old friend with the red hair, a friend i never knew so well and her hair was so so long and beautiful. she looked like a mermaid but she was crying. and i asked her if she was still friends with everyone and she said she did not know. and just then, another old girl friend rolled by on rollerblades and she was smiling and pale and wearing not a lot of clothes. and the red head girl sort of shrugged that the girl on the roller blades just rolled by and i left and thought, well at least i know we are not friends anymore. and i felt okay about that. down the rabbit hole.

last sunday at 8a i went indoor surfing for the first time, which is nothing like surfing at all. seriously. and i had to share the wave with these 2 eleven year old girls that do indoor surfing competitively. they were made of rubber. it was the first time, in my life so far, that i felt far too old to be somewhere.