matt pond pa, anyone?

i guess i'm writing a post about having a desk in front of my window again. i guess my life isn't quite as epic anymore since the only thing i could think to write about is a desk. there aren't trips to wonderfully beautiful places, there aren't many - or any - spiritual insights; my job is fine, my life is fine, my camera has been demoted to drunk party capture-er and maybe all of this is okay.

my great aunt is dying. so we're getting rid of a lot of her stuff - which includes the desk. sitting at the desk, looking out of the window and seeing all the way to downtown, watching people walk on friendship avenue, seeing the sunset - this all makes me feel finally at home here in my room. it makes me think about all of my other desks in front of windows. on locust street, there was a big beautiful tree outside of my window. i did homework from that desk. kept in touch with high school friends, said daring things in emails that i would have never said in person, listened to nick drake and watched the tree change colors for 2 years. there was the desk in the big blue apartment building in highland park. i could see all the way downtown - i was on the 20th floor. i saw all of the seasons come and go, watched birds fly, felt at home in the sky. i cried at that desk, a lot. i saw the tops of trees turn colors, lose leafs, turn to statues covered in snow, and then turn to green again. i watched butterflies fly at that desk. i always had flowers at that desk - as if they were the only things keeping me alive. there was the desk on siebert street that looked out onto lawrenceville. i watched hipsters walk home from the brillobox there. i listened to bon iver on repeat. i watched the birds fly at 5:00 every day. i got my masters degree from that desk.

the illusion is that this time is meaningless. the lie is that things have to be epic to be amazing - or that things have to even be amazing in the first place. who taught me this lie? the truth is that i'm learning a lot - more than i've learned in a while - i'm learning about weird, new things like compromise and sacrifice and love and selflessness - and i'm learning to still be myself in the midst of this. i'm learning about being faithful to a God who i do not feel or recognize lately. i'm learning about commitment - to a church, a job, friends, a place, a city that are imperfect, and i think i'm learning that it's good to stick around. none of it is fantastic. none of it is feels like a mountain top. but maybe that's just okay.

i was getting excited for the tree outside of my window here to turn green. i realized, recently, that it's not going to. here, my tree, is dead. in fact, so are all of the plants in our apartment. except for a cactus. i keep meaning to throw the plants out and i keep meaning to be upset that the tree is dead, but i can't seem to get around to it. maybe death is okay. maybe things can still be beautiful and true even if they're dead. somewhere in the book of job it says, 'for there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again' - i'm not throwing the plants out anytime soon, and i'm keeping my eye on that tree, and i'm letting myself be because of this hope.

edward abbey said everything i'm trying to say better when he said this:
"you can't study the darkness by flooding it with light."

renee sent me this poem, which also says everything i'm trying to say better than i have:
Let Evening Come

Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.