exponential potential

still vacillating... two days ago it was, "i'm definitely staying until next january." yesterday it was "i'm absolutely going to leave in july." today i am caught on the line - or else i've realized that it really doesn't do any good to try and figure out these kinds of things until the reality of my decision is more pressing. long live procrastination!

and yet a definitively compelling case can be made for staying here in two ways: 1) the weather. here's a nice snippet from the forecast for tomorrow night in the berks: "Wind chills may approach -15F." i went swimming yesterday at my boss's country club and while i was floating upside down in the pool, looking at the perfectly blue sky above me, i thought to myself, "why exactly is it that people would choose to live in a place that's cold for half the year?" (actually, i used to think it was because all warm places were like south florida - i'd sleep outside in an igloo if that was my only other option.) and 2) absence makes the heart grow fonder. sure, there are things here that drive me crazy (for example, the negative possibility of finding tamales after 9 o'clock on a saturday night - the basic principle of more demand equaling more supply is a concept that certainly hasn't crossed the border yet) and there are times when i start weeping at happening upon a review of a restaurant in my favorite neighborhood, but i appreciate the places i've been so much more. and, god willing, they will still be there in 6 months or a year or fifteen years - and i'll probably still be here, too.

and on a totally unrelated note: i astonished myself this week by actually working hard (a capability i thought i had lost in the process of toiling 60 hours a week for a pittance to address the world's woeful shortage of color-coordinated body hair). the lens i've been seeing the world with for the past week or so seems to be filtering for exponential potential, which is to say that i've been seeing how things can fuel themselves, that they often only need to be ignited, so to speak, to be set into motion. i see it in my "professional" life (can't conceive of myself as have an actual professional life right now, hence the quotations... although i recognize that this is the beginning; that, despite what the headlines say, at least this grad's degree is going to good use) when my students' successes fuel my own investment in planning lessons and curricula which hopefully in turn helps them to learn more, to learn faster and more completely. and i see it in my own growth. if you will pardon the new-age bent of this metaphor (although who am i kidding - mexico has only made me more earthycrunchy, and by the looks of things, i'm going to be a petrified clod of granola and patchouli by the time i come back), the less debris in its path, the faster the water goes, taking with it whatever was left behind, until the whole thing is clean and ready for whatever comes next. and that's how i feel when i feel most myself - like a big empty noodle that receives life one minute at a time without judgment, and with joy.