last year

      A year ago, I wasn't in too great a place. I couldn't go to church because I was petrified of running into him. A year ago, I didn't know what the next year would hold. I still don't know what the next year holds. A year ago, I had very few goals beyond getting out of bed in time to not be late to drag myself through yet another dreaded day of school. I didn't go many places. I didn't see many people. I was very shy and could barely get up the guts to talk in class. I had such a terrible stage fright that I had to enunciate carefully in order to not have my words come out all jumbled and disoriented. I was disoriented. I could barely keep my thoughts separated from my conversations. My stories from books I'd read. My dreams from movies I'd watched.
   Now: I start mini conversations with drive through people. I sometimes get a minor glare from my teacher telling me it's time to be quiet. I go to church ever Sunday. I have goals. I have even more stories but I can keep them straight. I watch fewer movies but my dreams have exploded. Sometimes I wake up barely rested because of my dreams. I actually have to wait on the clock sometimes in order to not show up at my charge's place before he's ready to go. It's a good change.

9/11

    Today, nine years ago, some one left there child at day care and never got to pick him up. A man kissed his wife good bye but never hello. A daughter was too rushed to call her mom and never got the chance. Someone got on a plane and never walked off. Someone had dinner plans and never showed up. Someones baby never breathed air. Today, nine years ago, lives were lost. Let's never forget them.

voices and music

    I have a confession. I hear voices. I'm not talking about schizophrenic, talking to myself and twitching sort of voices. It's background noise voices. I also listen to music in my head. A lot. I'll read my Literature to a marching band tune with tubas and snares, and I'll absorb my Algebra to a grand orchestra. Science is jazz.
    But getting back to the voices. I will think "out loud" to myself. I will write parts of my many half finished "novels". I will replay segments of conversations in my head. The funny thing about that is that sometimes the voices of people I know and hold dear to me will become distorted and change and though I will know who it is, I just can't hear their real voice. And strangers. Sometimes I can't forget their voices. The exact enunciation of their words. Sometimes the hello from the Wal*Mart greeter will play over and over in my head until I realize that I've composed an imposing refrain with the echoes of the stranger's voice. The superficial dip for "to" will be a resounding low tenor and the slight rise in "Wal" will promote itself to a resonating crescendo. I will close my eyes and picture myself as the small boy from August Rush, directing the orchestra that plays in my head. Then I'll get distracted by how cute that T-shirt is or how cheap the chicken is and the song will be over. Later in the day I'll try to get it back but it will be gone.
    Have you ever tried to remember what was just circling you mind? It's hard, but it is possible. Our brains are never silent. They bug us nonstop and the only time we can really tune them out is when we lie, inert, in a deep dreamless, sleep. But the alarm sounds and we are instantaneously bombarded by questions and thoughts and sections of barely remembered songs. Sometimes we went to bed too late the night before and we don't accept thought back into our heads for a few minutes but just because we close our eyes, does the world no longer exist? 
   Have you ever read your newest discovery in an accent? I do that. I use that technique to help me to remember the content of my Social Studies and last year's Biology. Scottish is my favorite accent. I can't speak it, but in my head, it's perfect.