shewholaughs

The past few days - glorious high summer days, all of them - I've been in the grip of a sudden, confounding and pervasive melancholy. I've been alternately restless and pensive, pacing and retreating.

Last night, we lounged on Adrian's porch and I laughed so hard that my cheekbones still ached in the morning. Tonight, the air in the house is hot and still, and Bernd is snoring loudly down the hall.

I'm not melancholy for any one obvious reason. As far as I can reason, I am (and have been, and will remain) stuck in a holding pattern until we determine our next moves. Why should I invest time and energy seeking a new job now when I may be hunting for jobs across the country within the month? Even my ever-present desire to forge new friendships seems temporarily on hold. So that's something.

And I wonder about my expectations--not so much what I expect to receive from the outside world, from those around me, but what I expect of myself.

I wouldn't call myself an optimist, but I am an immensely hopeful person. Yet I think we live in an unjust and unkind place in an unjust and unkind time. And I'm a participant. I participate in this injustice and unkindness. I can't exempt myself.




It's the height of summer. Moments of pure exhilaration are not infrequent. Biking through the city, cat-napping in the park with George Kennan and Paul Nitze, striking up a conversation on the bus, dancing Wednesday nights until too late and walking tenderly Thursday mornings taking big gulps of coffee, the voices of faraway friends sweet in the whorl of my ear.