Soon to be Post Collegiate Thoughts,

Its raining, and I'm probably heading home to my island after graduation. So, Billy speaks to me.


Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here.

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

You say goodbye.
I say hello.

Hello, hello.

My Viking Soul is Unsettled

This morning, at 2:22 AM my first thought was that my feet were cold.
Then, I made a mental to do list for the next few weeks.
Then, I briefly considered how much easier my life would be if distances didn't need to be traveled.
Then, I thought about Norway.

I thought about how really Norway shouldn't mean to me what it does. I don't think it is literally possible to love the ocean because my ancestors did. I don't really believe that my lungs could want to breath Norwegian air or that my feet could know the feel of the roads in Farsund any better than the roads in Staten Island.

But somehow, tonight with morning creeping closer and closer I thought about Norway and I cried. Its been too many years since I have slept under a down comforter that smells like the sea. It is the first place I felt my comfort zone stretch, and now I want to go back to feel that way again.

When I'm writing, sometimes images occur to me that make perfect sense but I realize don't seem all that logical. I am fond of saying, for instance, that in the last week of July I feel like a stretched out rubber band. I don't know why that comparison seems to illustrate everything I need to say. I really don't even know what its saying exactly, I just know that its true.

I like when I stumble upon images in songs that seem to resonate so truthfully with me. When I find them, I tend to wish I had written them. In Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut says that he wishes he had written Our Town. I haven't found the book I wish I had written yet, but I do wish I had written the words to this song.

Circle me,
and the needle moves gracefully,
back and forth.
If my heart was a compass you'd be north.
Risk it all,
cause I'll catch you if you fall.
Wherever you go,
if my heart was a house you'd be home.