so it stops again after the reading and writing and talking and thinking and planning and making... after the grading and grinning and whining and hoping... after the fortunate and unfortunate mistakes... after the funny things and the sad things.... my 26th year of teaching stops and ain't gonna be seen no more...

though this might be a bit premature. the contract doesn't end until june 5. the yearbook doesn't stop until... it stops... sometime next week, please all the angels and saints. the planning for august 15 and beyond just begins. and i suppose the potential remains for this or that unhappy customer to get off his or her final shots. and still... most of it has stopped.

and i have begun to plant some things... white flowers and purple and pink and yellow flowers. but you have to use your imagination right now, since there are no flowers but only little green hopefuls working hard to get themselves rooted somehow in this new dirt not really new, not store-bought, but dirt that's lain fallow for many years beneath the pine bark mulch of what has been called "the rose garden" right off our patio. all that remains of said roses are a thin planting around the outer edges. only one bush has conquered years of neglect. the others are poor little ragamuffins that squeeze up a bloom or two each summer then poop out. duty done. last weekend i bought four new rose plants on sale and slapped them in, but i do not have much hope for them.

kids love these days... the first days of freedom... i've come to hate them. and i feel bad about that. but they are a dangerous time. bad changes happen at this time... or the good ones don't. there's the sudden silence, like what you don't hear right after a loud and frightening crash out on the street. there's the dead dirt tired weariness in the faces and bodies of these other guys... zombies all... which comes more from the end of work than from the work itself. who are we now?

dominic has gone home for the summer to be with his dad. and i have agreed to "be in charge" in his absence. this means i run to the bank and pay the bills and answer the phone and welcome the guests and do a little shopping and deal with whatever and whomever as they present themselves. dominic does a lot. and dominic is a good friend of mine and i will miss him this summer.

and our carmelite provincial chapter, held once every three years, happens next week. down I-55 at darien. i've signed on for the whole week and will be staying at the mariott near argonne labs, but it looks like i'll need to bounce back up here midweek to attend to the cat and the flowers and things in general. i've been hoping to get the flowers well-rooted by then, but we all know they won't be. we all know they'll be shrivelled up browny things before i can get back to them. such a desert. but maybe that's where i'm sposed to be.

The purpose of the deserts was to give them access to that pure and perfect climate of solitude without which they would never fully be themselves.

Thomas Merton
on carmelite deserts