This
Journal

January
2000

1. Happiness Is Worth Not Looking For

If you wake up with a tiny headache in a strange room and see that the sun has been up a while, and if you sit up slowly and remember that you're on the second floor of a house on a high sand dune, and if you see through these open blinds the faintest curve of the earth out there where the blue water meets the blue sky, then you'll know that it's still good to be somewhere. Since at least one good soul left the world yesterday, you'll know that your being here is such a perfect accident that it must have been on purpose.

At this age you'll know that the headache is not from some wild party, but from an unfamiliar bed and stupid crummy old pillow. I was in Michigan City again with my friend. We watched some pretty good movies in between talking and eating and watching 2000 become. I hadn't wanted to go, but I had a pretty good time - still, I would have been happy to stay here with the cat. I hadn't wanted to go because I'm a homeboy who doesn't want to go, who is happy to stay put. Still, I had a pretty good time.

I hope your new year will become the thing of Beauty and Interest that you so deserve.

Funny that we can talk of a new year, a year which does not yet even exist, as if it were already something. And of course, once it's gone - like this one just past - we still find it substantial as a thing. But gone. A memory that might fade quicker than we can name it. I guess that accounts for the picture up above.

Still, I do wish you some joy and real peace in the coming year.

{Smartypants}

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.
Leonard Cohen

What are the chief effects of sanctifying grace?

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