25 April 2008

birds

I'm currently sitting in the library of my college campus attempting to write a reflection paper that's due in a few days. I'd like to finish it today because then I won't have anything to do next week during finals. But of course, I'm distracted. By birds.

Outside on the corner of the library is a bird's nest. For the past half hour 12 or 13 birds have been flying around in circles. Flying, squawking circles. And I'm thinking "what the hell is going on??" The birds appear to be rather small, but they sound eerily familiar to a type of parrot that lived in some trees near the house where I grew up. These parrots were much larger than these birds and usually stayed much farther away from humans than these birds are doing. I've concluded that these are the same parrots, but considering that it is spring, they must be baby birds and they are learning to fly.

I feel as though I could identify with them on some level. In just one week and one day I will turn my tassel towards another life. One in which I do not return to another year of schooling in the fall. I'm taking a new step. I'm leaving the warm comfy bird's nest of formal education that has consumed the last 16 years of my life. I must learn to fly. I must leave behind what I know and journey elsewhere. Even though I have these grand visions of life beyond the nest, I stay nearby and fly in circles. Desperately hoping that I can navigate this in between world of staying in this city, near many friends, and a new life. Which isn't even that "new" because I will go to grad school fall 2009 for another three years of education. I can't seem to get beyond that circular formation because my heart and my fears tell me to stay with the nest.

This feels like a dreadfully formulated analogy.

"Fiddlesticks, boy. Feed the birds and what have you got? FAT BIRDS."

03 April 2008

rain

I haven't washed my car since August 2007.

Now one might immediately think that I would have a disgustingly dirty car, but it's really quite the opposite. Every single time that I have thought "I need to wash my car," it rains. My plan was to take my car to a car wash place this morning. Yesterday afternoon, it began to rain, thereby defeating my intentions. This has happened once a month or every couple of months without fail.

Maybe God looks down on me and pities me because I'm pretty much broke right now and can't afford to pay someone else to wash my car for me and I don't have time to wash it myself.