chalk

Chalk is the movie I watched tonight. It's a faux documentary of the lives of high school teachers. I thought it was surprisingly good, capturing both the highs and the lows of what trying to be a good teacher feels like. It reminds me of those days, those battles to engage resistant students, the humility of having one's sense of maturity and knowledge tested by a sixteen-year-old telling you to shove it up your ass, the reward of finding a way to connect across what sometimes feels like an unbridgeable gulf. It makes me both think I could never go back to that world, and wonder how I ever could've left.

The word 'ache' means something to me lately--I find myself using that word to describe a lot of the things I've been feeling. Maybe it means that I'm getting some sensation back, somewhere, that's been numb for too long. My friend Rebekah burned a cd of her music for me, and the tone matches my soul these days. A tone that manages to be mournful and celebratory at the same time. Serious and cynical and dismissive all together.

We're lucky for this life. Buddha said that the origin of suffering is attachment, and I think I might finally be ready to start figuring out what that means. It's a funny thing that my ability to commit to someone again depends on my being able to let go.