hey stranger

Hello cyberspace. It has been eons since I've written anything here. Long story short, the past few months have been incredible. I love Chiang Mai and I love my life here. Teaching is good--nothing compares to when students come bearing the gifts of cake, donuts and a blue coffee mug at the end of the semester. I was sad to see them go. Writing and music took a backseat to an end-of-term grading spree, but I'm excited to get back in business. Tomorrow night I'm playing a concert at a friend's gallery. Time to bust out some new songs!

I'm learning how to paint. It's strange. Half the time I don't know what I'm doing, but it's always tied to a feeling--more like a trust--that this is taking me somewhere. I went up to the mountains one weekend with some artists, and an old-timey painter told me, "Sign and date everything. Put your paintings on the wall. Put them in order. After a while, you'll see where you're going."

Everything else can pretty much be summed up by the following poem, which I had the great pleasure of receiving in a letter:



Whelks
Mary Oliver


Here are the perfect
fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit—
and here are the whelks—
whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist,
but always cracked and broken—
clearly they have been traveling
under the sky-blue waves
for a long time.
All my life
I have been restless—
I have felt there is something
more wonderful than gloss—
than wholeness—
than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is.
But every morning on the wide shore
I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for whelks, whose edges
have rubbed so long against the world
they have snapped and crumbled—
they have almost vanished,
with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy,
back into everything else.
When I find one,
I hold it in my hand,
I look out over that shaking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often,
but now and again there's a moment
when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long blue body of light.