Ceiling of the Night

People who look through open windows from the outside never see as much as the people who look through closed windows. There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more rich, more obscure, more telling than a dark window. What can be seen in sunlight is always less interesting than waht happens behind the curtain of dark. In this black but luminous hole, life suffers, life dreams, life lives.

Last night, beyond one window, I saw a girl fearless as she danced around the room. From her face, her clothes, her gestures, from almost nothing really, a story was constructed. The moon, a dragon's eyes, as it stared through clouds cold as murder, wrapping me in shadows of breath, syntax, pause, the language of slow blooming flowers left trembling between a lion's mouth and the electric screams of the wind.

I heard once that people will forget what you did, forget what you said...but they will never forget the way you made them feel...like names printed on the ceiling of the night.

Six-Word Memoir

Here's one for everyone: come up with a 6 word memoir for yourself. Post it here if you want to. This is a prompt for the Literature Based Research class Iteach. Here's mine: "For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn."

"The Witness"

drinking wine on a beautiful Sunday evening...just watched "The Witness" with Harrison Ford. AWESOME movie!! I so love the Amish.

Why I Want to Learn Spanish

Recently, I’ve become obsessed with learning Spanish. This is partly due to the fact that my last three trips have been to Spanish speaking countries and partly due to my job. At least once per day, I encounter some lost non-English speaker looking for something and wondering if I abla espanol? With each encounter, all I can do is shake my head and then inwardly scold myself for not having studied a language I took all through high school and a good part of college.

Most Americans can boast to speaking at the very least, ‘high school Spanish’ but unfortunately, my Spanish is limited to a very unuseful assortment of commercial catchphrases and film and television quotes that I picked up over the years. My childhood Spanish instructors were the Terminator (Hasta La Vista, Baby) and a talking Chiquaqua (Yo qui ero Taco Bell). In college, my Spanish instructors were more of the same, except in a college kind of way. I may not speak high school Spanish but my movie Spanish is damn, near passable.

But it doesn’t get me very far, which becomes especially apparent when I travel to a county where English is not so sufficient. I always think I go places full prepared, equipped with a Spanish dictionary (which I inconveniently seem to misplace the first day of the trip but that’s beside the point), and I try to memorize a few important phrases like, “Donde esta Emilio Estevez?” and “No mas Cocaine, por favor.” You know, useful things like that.

It’s for this reason and more that I think I want to let go of my “I-hate-everybody-that-speaks-Spanish-because-I-can't" and enroll myself into Espanol 101. And not in a classroom, but somewhere exotic and cool...

I’m thinking Guatemala…

"Country Roads" ~John Denver

"...All my memories, I get around her, by this lady, stranged to blue water
Darking dusk see, paint in all this sky, mister taste the Moonshine,teardrops in my eyes

Country roads take me home to the place, I belong West Virginia
Mountain mama, take me home Country roads..."