avoidance

i find this blog a magical way to avoid my homework. here i can write everything i am thinking about- drain it out of me and then maybe (just maybe) i will be able to focus on my essay. i'm supposed to be comparing robert frost and william wordsworth right now. ha! instead i am here, on the internet rambling to no one about nothing. i feel in some small way i am fighting "the man."

tonight as i read through these poems that i am supposed to be anazlying i started thinking about love. it's hard not to. that's what most poems are about. not always a romantic love, but always love. love of one's nation or one's self. love is such a tricky beast. on the one hand, caring for another person in a raw and desperate way can be the beginning of everything. i think that humanity has a much bigger capacity to love than they think. but giving someone a place in your heart like that takes such sacrifice. to let someone in is a scary thing. it can be the end of everything.

so how do we step out and love? well, i think that the very first and most important thing to remember is that loving someone is necessary. love your family, love your friends, love the woman sitting next to you on the bus. but that's a different kind of love altogether. that kind of love is easier to spread than you think. it is! it costs nothing and means everything. this picture reminds me that there is so much pain in this world we'll never be able to fix. most of these kids are HIV positive, they've lost parents and siblings to a disease that we have no way to cure. i can't do anything about that. but i can love them. i can swing them up into my arms, kiss their little faces and say, "i'm here." and that... well that is a little piece of heaven.

as for the jumping off the cliffs kind of love? i've never done it. so... i can offer no good advice. i can only cheer you on as you leap. i hope one day to join you in that big jump. so promise to let me know how it goes?