since i can't write coherently

i spent a lot of time today
thinking
about whether i ever stopped having my mid life crisis
and i'm not sure i ever did

in some ways
i feel
like i've grown a lot
but it certainly isn't the way most people measure it

even as far back as
when i was going to go away to college
there was this one thing i kept coming back to
the places i liked
didn't give grades

at start of term
they had a contract
what i want to achieve

i felt instinctively
that that would be so much better for me
i felt like i would modify myself, always, for the grade
the making of the plan
freeing me up
to go beyond somehow

i'm sure i could have told you much more clearly then

but
i think
my sense about myself was right
i have to really fight myself back, sometimes
from going for steps up the ladder
even if what is at the top is not something i want

and don't freak out
i'm still drinking coffee

but i was recounting stories to my mom
and i realized i'd never told her before
and that i'd forgotten them
and then i realized
i may not have told you
a critical facet of my personality

i have this inner union organizer
talking about what i won't do

kind of an extension of how i introduced myself to you
for years
about what not to expect me to be

i'm both very very
whatever it is i am, nice, is that what i am
i don't even think that's right
but
people like me
i work and play well with others
and
stubborn
and, apparently a little more particular

on my last adventure
i found some oaxacan creatures
there was a coyote that i thought i should probably get
the trickster has been a totem
and i never had a proper totem for him

i didn't buy him
i kept getting called by a largish purple camel
which i also didn't buy
because he was too expensive
why i was so drawn to him
what did purple
or camels
have to do with me

sleigh/sled


i just figured that out



pretend
you're me