My life needs some direction, or at least some more punctuation.

So I guess this is normal on the brink of 23.
I need a little direction here.

What am I doing with my life?
I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of public radio, cook quasi fancy foods and spend way too much time on the internet.
My days are characterized by what I hope is good work.
My nights are spent with friends, more often than not we are laughing, sometimes singing. Almost always we are drinking. (but not in a weird way. I realize that sentence might have made it seem like it was in a weird way...)

but the moments that make up my days sometimes don't feel like they add up to me.
I know who I am and what I stand for, but sometimes I veer off course...

...but, full disclosure here, I am actually watching 'Last Call with Carson Daley' right now. So I am not a decider of anyone's life meaning. Did anyone else know that Pat from the Disney Channel Original Movie Smarthouse is also the mom on Sons of Anarchy... yeah C Daley is interviewing her right now!

so when I need guidance (and maybe a mental hug) where do I go?
I go to books, naturally.
Chief Modern Poets of England and America, Fourth Edition to be exact.
(If you were going to guess the Bible that was a really great guess.)

Langston Hughes knows me better than I know me.
Carl Sandburg knows me better than I know me.
William Bulter Yeats knows me better than I know me.

So, if you will, a feast for the journey....

From Langston Hughes' Theme for English B

"...It's not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York too.) Me---who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach. "

From Carl Sanburg's Caboose Thoughts

"...IT'S going to come out all right—do you know?

The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.

They get along—and we'll get along.

Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting

And the letter you wait for won't come,

And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray

And the letter I wait for won't come.

There will be accidents.

I know ac-ci-dents are coming.

Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,

Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.

But somehow and somewhere the end of the run

The train gets put together again

And the caboose and the green tail lights

Fade down the right of way like a new white hope:..."

William Butler Yeats' When You Are Old


"... WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true,
    But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face among a crowd of stars...."

... then you need to go read The Catholic Bells by William Carlos Williams. 


We're all traveling home and we have a life time to get there. I find other people's words are pleasant company.