feeling emotional

i think maybe the reason i want to be a writer so badly is because of how i find my self so affected by what i read.

i've just scrolled through my inbox, and i'm on the verge of tears here. as much as e-mail, and the internet, language in general, and arrangements of electronic signals from my loved ones specifically do not exist in any tangible reality, and though i am sitting quietly here at panera's and everything seems to be what it is every other day, inside i am fallen on my face.

to tell the truth i haven't really deeply missed buffalo since i've left, for whatever reason. i'm not homesick, because where i am now is strangely homelike. i miss specific things like people, friends, family, lovers and loved ones. i miss the towers of the psych ward. i miss bidwell park. i miss the smell of the air.

i got an e-mail from my dad this weekend, which i just now happened to read. several of them, actually. in one of them he sent me this poem:

If You Think

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world you find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind.

Full many a race is lost,
Ere ever a step is run;
And many a coward fails,
Ere ever his work's begun.
Think big and your deeds will grow,
Think small and you'll fall behind,
Think that you can and you will;
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the fellow who thinks he can.

i know: corny, right?
i don't like posting quotes often, or other people's writing. its nothing personal, its just this strange reservation i have. but this, i have to post.
i grew up with this poem; it was something my dad used to quote to me often, in snatches, and i think i remember most of it being in a frame on an office wall or a desk of his. i had forgotten it had ever existed until he sent it to me. maybe its my tendency to edit out bad poetry or bad writing from my memory for fear that it will infect my attempt at high art. i know, i'm a pompous jackass.

i hadn't realized how overwhelmed i've been feeling, Out Here, away from everything i ever new. i hadn't really realized how much self doubt had caught me by the throat lately; how i've been choking under its growing weight, until i read this. yes, its corny. what's cornier is that it almost made me cry.

there have been a lot of self given pep talks on this blog. often i've got to talk my way out of hopelessness. its the only thing that works, words are the only thing that work for me. medication? not really. therapy? only in as much as it includes the use of words. there is nothing worth more to me than a right word in the right place. there is nothing worth more than being able to frame the right thought with the appropriate words.

i've grown up with this poem -- it is so close to me, i'd overlooked it for years. its words are appropriate, and they are in the right place.

it occurs to me now that the determination i've manifested over the past year, the dedication i've been able to pull out of the quicksand of my lazy self has a lot to do with the sentiment of this poem. this isn't a poem about positive thinking. its poses a question: what is inside you? what is it that you know you can do? where can you take yourself? can you carry yourself to where you want to be?

my grip on the belief that i could has been shaken over the past couple of months; can i really write the way i want to? can i write what i want to? every day the world seems to be what it was the day before, and i'm not seeing any changes, i'm not making any changes. i'm not what i really want to be. every day the world seems to be what it was yesterday, the mundane, the daily, the routine rears its head too often into the plans i have for myself.

i know that i can do what i've set out to do. it may takes years. a life's work should consume at least that much. i know what i am, i know what i can do. it just takes the effort of the reach. it is up to me to meet my own capabilities. that may sound like a tautology, but somehow we lose sight of the simplest truths, because they're so simple, because they're right next to us.

if you think you dare not, you don't.

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i'll miss fall in buffalo -- i have favourite trees there, favourite places to be when the leaves shed. there are more trees Out Here, but i don't know them as well, and i have no favourite paths to walk yet. there is this sort of exciting sadness about autumn to me. the back cover of summer has finally closed, and is ready to be shelved; no more smell of hot asphalt or lilacs. the year has matured, and perhaps you have too; now the air smells of cultivated wood burning in cultivated fireplaces in the respectable houses of responsible, childless, happy, turtlenecked adults.

i thought one day i might grow up and be one of them; but i'm grown up now, and i don't have anyone to share a fireplace with...and i don't own a turtleneck. i like who i am more or less, but i thought i'd grow up to be different.

i had talked about this, briefly, with Sarah. she'd seen Colleen recently, a friend of ours from Canisius days. one of the few people i knew who'd started out in school for engineering and actually ended up working in the field. Sarah said she was so put together, and i wasn't surprised. Colleen was always a class act.

Sarah said she felt like a girl in front her. Sarah is a girl, though, and thats part of her charm. its a lot of what breaks down the walls i had tried to build against her while we weren't speaking. she has the girlish energy of an ocean surf, the tickling sea-foam eating walls into sand dunes. i resisted as long as my heart felt i had any right to. but erosion always wins.

i let her back in, into my life, and she came back to buffalo, and it was like the old days except better. she still smells like summer.......
......and she is on her way out of my life again...

i got an e-mail from her this weekend: we seem forever backing into and out of each other's lives. we are seasonal. we are here for a too short summer, and spend drawn out schoolyears apart. this is just how it goes. she is like the ocean surf. ebb and flow. tidal. there are other forces of gravity that tend to her, and that she is required by laws of physics to obey. and i am just shifting sand....

this time, i tell myself, is different. i'm not mad. i'm not bitter, anymore. i understand. still, it feels the same. "back in the alcove, back in the attic," i told her..."packing peanuts and bubble wrap."

this is the time of year to put the seasonal items back into storage...wrap up the summer knicknacks, box up the shorts and t-shirts. time to pull out the heavy blankets, clean the flue; time to break out the turtlenecks....

its that time again. the year has matured, and maybe you have too. summer vacation is over; summer vacation is a myth, now. what was the schoolyear is now your workaday life, and it never ends. winter is on its way. summer itself fades out of thought and memory. out of reach.

she's got to take a step in another direction. i understand. and i'm not mad. even if its off a ledge, and away from me. its fall; its time for the leaves to let go of their trees, else they both break under the weight of winter...............
how can i be mad? she is autumn....

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