The Elders

Hope for the world.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/EXERES/59C0C017-4A63-4F97-9D91-D1A336A2B83A.htm

divisadero

Michael Ondaatje has a new novel out, which I discovered by chance through Wikipedia yesterday at work. It must have been orchestrated by the stars because this novel is really brand new (as in The Stranger reviewed it this week). My heart is pounding, and this morning I am craving and savoring the possibility of buying this book and losing myself in it. It's lust in the truest sense: is that wrong? Possibly.

July

I feel restless – alert when I need to be tired and tired when I need to be alert. I am ready to go to bed at 7:30 only to feel wide awake at 10. I wake up at 5:30 clear-headed and by 7:00 AM I’m stumbling through the day. I can hardly drink coffee.

I spent the last two weekends at home and just felt weary but also pleasantly surprised by an ache in my side. Gazing at the great arched backs of gentle warrior mountains, I no longer felt tied to the sweet air and the blistering sun. I felt ready to leave and finally to say: this is not my home and this is not my family. This is something else, once removed.

My family is growing from my limbs, from the soft tissue of my side, from somewhere deep in my heart – I think. Love, now, is thicker than skin. Even if we decided we didn’t want it, it would still choose us. Love is like breath. It slides between our angry gazes and our sharp words and keeps us close.

I like you close. Sometimes you are the only person in the world that I can tolerate. The only person who keeps me sane or keeps me calm. And sometimes you are the one I cannot tolerate, the one who makes me crazy, makes me angry. But that’s ok. I still want you near