Kinda Blue...

So it started to snow again today, after a two-day run of 40-50 degree weather. Those fluke days from even my time in Michigan, some random day in February when the bleakness of a monotonously grey-smeared sky was suddenly sliced through with a huge blue blot of promise and light, and everyone seemed to crawl out of any rendering of a crevice, crack or opening and sprawl out to bask in the long awaited streak of warmth. So hot, in comparison to the days prior, that you could see the condensation evaporate off the blades of permafrost grass and soil, the bricks that lined the quad expanded and released vapors of that paralyzing cold. Almost like that exhale you take in exhausted relief, because when you might have just about lost hope--there it came, to save you from what would have been a grief-ridden sigh.

And it's hard to explain--this snow. On the first day of March, the start of the spring, or at least, that inbetween month that somehow can't seem to make up its mind--so in frustration, lets down the white ice, but gently and firmly. There's no way to escape it. and there's no way to embrace it either, except. On a day like today, it just seems fitting, to feel the release of nature on itself...to see the extremes act in harmony.

Today, I've begun to realize how much I have struggled with myself, and how small it seems to be, in lieu of all that I have struggle to confront, to acknowledge, to own, about my life. I think I still take it upon myself more harshly that with all my good intentions, I still could not have written one more letter to my grandmother, or made one more phone call to my grandfather, or spent one more hour with George. And it's selfish, I know, but whether it would have been for my own sanity, for my own feelings of integrity, I think ultimately, I sense that I have missed out on one more opportunity to be taught, to have learned, to perhaps have grown up a little more by way of the experiences, words, and presence of those I have loved and respected.

So then it is with a heavy heart still, that I realize how much love takes time. That love requires so much more of the giving. and how much I lack the ability to love. To love my relatives, to love my students, to love myself...and at times, I believe I can't be loved as a result. Don't get me wrong, it's not a plea for pity...but if anything, I guess, I'm trying really hard to believe that I can truly live out the following words of Theodore Roosevelt: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

And in trying to understand the circumstances of my life, this is where I am. I am mystified by the secrets and unheard stories of my family, of even the tidbits that I am now beginning to hear and see about my colleague. And I am eager for spring to come, so that I can finally play a round of golf with the golf team for George.

It's supposed to snow all throughout tonight into the morning tomorrow. But it's okay. It'll be beautiful and quiet, and just the way it should be.