6.14.2009

Commitment

"The irony of commitment is that
it's deeply liberating - in work, in
play, in love. The act frees you
from the tyranny of your internal
critic, from the fear that likes to
dress itself up and parade around
as rational hesitation. To commit is
to remove your head as the barrier
to your life."

For you literary trivia people out there, I pulled that off my Starbucks cup this morning. It really could have been any morning though as I'm convinced it's the only cup my neighboring Starbucks stocks. But I don't mind. The message is eloquent, and the the topic is one I've considered often--minus the eloquence--in the last year.  

See, I'm a commitment-phobe. I believe in keeping doors open. The idea that I'm standing on the origin, surrounded by infinite space, with a sharpened pencil and straight-edge, poised to draw my life's vector in any direction of my choosing used to give me warmth and tingles. As if to be young and promising was, in itself, success. The part they don't tell you, or that you don't believe, is that no matter which direction--if any--that you choose, time's trucking forward and you're riding shotgun. The only thing worse than choosing wrong is not choosing.

But while commitment means not second guessing decisions, it doesn't really help us to make them. So you add up all the things that matter and try to ignore the things that don't. You focus on where you want to be in ten, twenty years - not where you want to be right now. You try to accept that the safe decision is usually the wrong decision and understand that what is difficult today will be impossible tomorrow. Change is life's only constant and to move against it is to move against life itself. 

This Fall, I will start a ten year journey into unfamiliar territory that will be harder and scarier than anything I've ever done. Wish me luck.

1.15.2009

I've Been to the Mountaintop

Though we won't officially observe it until Monday, a great man would have turned 80 today.  These were his last words.  He was shot and killed the following day.




1.14.2009

Jujubee

You are not a suitable mate--
not at all--
but no bother;
I have improved you in my head.

You can keep your rosy brunette and also those tongue-in-cheek shades
that could be Prada or Frada.
Keep your books too because it's hard to knock a girl who reads Tolkien.
And, though it's trite, I hope you will keep your smile
as I have sometimes imagined us in the kitchen with wine,
and I've said something charming,
lazily embracing as they do in films.
You would chuckle behind your lips and toss back your eyes
and I might tease you lightly under your ribs.
The moment would be quick and tricky,
but soon our views would cross and lock
leaving us to balance on nothing but each other.
Your lips would part to draw a nervous breath,
as if to mean "I love you,"
and my heart would stop its beat to listen.
And then a smile,
slowly warming the space between us,
that says "you already know."

Keep these things but discard the others.