“The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.”

-Emily Dickinson

Today has been a difficult day. A student I’ve written about here ran from a homevisit with her guardian this weekend, and it hurts.

Such things go with my job. Standing aloof, at arm’s length, being a figure (of authority, stability) rather than a person.

The other side is being a person; showing that happy humans can live without drugs, copious anger, and dysfunction.

It’s hard to balance the two, and it is never perfect. Always, always a fight. And sometimes I go too far to either side: on one you become vacant and too distant to notice what occurs, on the other too involved to be effective. I may have been too far to the later, and am noticing it today. Now I have a smart, capable, and thoroughly fucked up 14 year old unanchored in the world, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I would badly like to.

On one hand, it’s my ego. I didn’t see it coming, and feel stupid; but in these things I am easily fooled. I like to believe that people are fundamentally honest. And do.

It’s also (and I hope not) another step towards a wasted life. Wasted lives do harm to us all.

The unexpected and unjustified is the hard to cope with. My grandfather died over the weekend, but he was old and alcoholic. Not only well at the end of his life, but unhappy. Sad, but neither a surprise nor (harshly) a waste. _____ seems like, for me, both. This is something I will not easily accept.

It’s a big day for the whole world:

The Iraq war enters it’s fifth year. (Four years ago I was deep in the Escalante, feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of the universe and missing M, who I had just started to date)

The Supreme Court began hearing the first high school free speech case in decades. High school being, detest it though we do, the cradle of American civilization.

Spring begins tomorrow evening.

A coincidence? To me that seems most unlikely.

The ancients knew the score. Perhaps a night hike and fire tomorrow? I may drag the futon outside and enjoy the sky from the porch this evening. For the moment, duty (grading) calls.