speaking their racket, alive
meltdown far away

I don't pray or believe in prayer, only response and action. But this moment in history feels burdened. Watching the waters in Japan, the buildings burn, the news countdown until the nuclear disaster. Seeing the environmentalists say "I told you so, and didn't you know we shouldn't...," like the same told-you-so's my hippie friends said after 9-11. Hearing the pundits mishmash and the Facebook profiles fill in with platitudes and multiple links to horrific images that mean a tomorrow full of nobody-knows-how. Back home, fighting Planned Parenthood's potential loss of funding, because breasts and uteruses and women apparently warrant less than war, or NPR or CBS, which ought to be outsourced to capitalism because they don't bullshit sides. And Obama not really being so much a leader as a beautiful speaker, and a hope, a symbol.

Remembering how my mom had to leave us at night when the tsunami sirens sounded in Kodiak and she was required to (wo)man the hospital, her two daughters sleeping in bunk-beds on high ground. I don't pray or believe in prayer, so I'm merely thinking of all the dead bodies washing up along the shores -- thousands, they speak in thousands. And the thousands more they expect.

It's strange to feel happy that the quarter is ending, that the papers are nearly all read, that there's more daylight available, that I've been reading interesting books, that I have plans for spring break... and summer, that my family is healthy and roller derby is back in session. That I look forward to a change in my own life. It's strange that everything is always happening all at once, but sometimes more than othertimes.

It makes me feel anxious and speechless and pathetic and attentive. It makes me think about all the stupid, horrible things I've done and promise not to do again. It makes me workout harder (panting and picky about music), and get fat harder too. And both hate and adore my students, their needs, their incredible insecurities. Also appreciate and dismiss compliments or attention, maybe even criticism. And feel sad and hopeful about what comes next after the end of before.

All of that, and
something like prayers for Japan