Keystone State of Mind

Hur hur, I'm so funny, thieving from Jay-Z. Because everybody should do that at least once in their life. And yes, I did just investigate the grammar of that last sentence. Shh, if you don't tell, I won't. Onward!

Corn stalks, though fragile, can form quite a formidable barrier en masse. I can sympathize with Bing Crosby as he begs meltingly, "Don't fence me in." Somewhere between September 8th and the present day, my piedmont hills with their fur of rye, alfalfa, and the inescapable corn have lost their charm. Now where once they romanced my soul and left me longing to send my roots down into their soil, they crowd around me as if they would eventually enfold me entirely. I once said that I would like to be buried without a casket in the sweet, dry dirt of a field, but I didn't think that my world would take me seriously.

And no, while I have my personal paranoias, that's not really one of them. It's merely a means of describing the shift of perspective that I have undergone since leaving IMPACT: my "Keystone State of mind." Working 50 hours or 6 days (one week, all 7) with no end in sight has trapped me, strapping on a pair of binoculars that funnel out the great wide world and leave only Lancaster in view. I am so tired and bound up in it that I don't even care about school anymore. This is what it means to trudge.

It's not so horrible as I make it sound. When I typed the word "trudge," I was thinking of an early scene in "A Knight's Tale," when they meet Chaucer who is walking naked on the road. They look at him askance when he remarks that he is trudging, and he explains thusly: "To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on." It makes me laugh, even as I find myself seconding the sentiment.

And in the midst of this increasing awareness of an increasing change, I called Kennedy. He was texting me a week or two ago, and I sincerely wanted to call him but forgot/had no opportunity when recalling until today. He certainly doesn't change, although the call was surprisingly brief. Even his encouragement was standard Kennedy fare. And yet it was exactly what I needed someone to tell me. That my future matters. That I will not be holed up in Lancaster, working 3:30 to close Monday to Saturday and bemoaning the overripeness of avocados for all of my days. That through me, God has blessed somebody somewhere no matter how much I feel like I'm permanently stuck on myself, and that He can and is still using me.

And so the flame burns on, though it wavers from time to time.