synchronicity plays more than nice

First: it must be acknowledged that the flowers are out of control. The lilacs on C.’s block that we tour –and flower bunches we huff- at night (because the bushes are in the neighbors yard); they have peaked. the azelas in the front yard. They are feeling it. the bees.the hover. the notion. the flower. they are photogenic in kitchen light at sunset. you’d be at risk of falling in love with whomever happens to be in the same room, and for only that alone.

before I was lying when I said it was spring. now I’m for sure on it. like for authenticated real.


kurt knows the water like a pig knows pork

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and Flashback:
After my post about interesting jobs and the job search quite some time ago, Maggie wrote to me, in complete agreement about the conundrum of the hum-drum of the particular worry that goes into believing you might get an academic job, much less one that actually suits you. She knew well the game of it, it was like commenting on a basketball playoff we’d both been watching on TV the night before. yeah man, the job search sucks eggs.

that was the beginning of months of obsessing over cover letters, teaching statements, and whatever of the rest. and then some trips. some interviews. a lot of questions, a lot of smiling from the joy of curiosity. a lot of smiling other times because it is the Right Thing to Do. we all want to be friendly. sometimes moreso if they are considering hiring you (though sometimes, and conspicuously, not)

and for all that I can tell you this: I am moving to the Third Coast.
the Windy City. the kielbasa capital of the US of A.

... ...
Last Thursday at 3:15 pm exactly, Maggie was to come by the house. and then to a Gamalen concert in Chapel Hill. Why gamelan? because it is like listening to the voice of god in the your cupped hand. because it’s thin bronze and wooden tones make any reasonable person want to be unreasonable. all reasons are shot to hell. your ears are filled with the narcotic singing of Indonesian xylophones.



at exactly 3:15 I was half-way through a long week of thinking I might know something, while in fact knowing nothing. People were supposed to get back to me with Information. About if they thought I taught about apoptosis well, or made ants seem charming, and all of those sort of things.

at 3:15 my phone rings. the ring that tells me I have a message. and it is B. and she says: “we want to offer you a job!” and I flip my little lid. it is even one of those zip-lock kinds, but it doesn’t matter. this is good. and then Maggie steps to the porch, and wondering what kind of strange oracle-life she’s acting out, delivering on the air of her arrival very good news.

that I got the very work I wanted. that I had waited 7 months to hear about. and no one could understand more that meant than she, I’m thinking.

I’m also thinking about synchronicity, and this kind of it. about how it tastes at moments like an olive in your mouth- kind of slippery and pungent, and making you want to bite down. I will get to teach artists about biology. and how does that rock?

it completely rocks. it’s like a big, shiny pile of rubble, all fossils and jade.

and we went to gamelan. and had a beer on Franklin St. A margarita too. all those spacey sounds ping-ponged through our heads. mint on the tongue. blue-green on the eyes. a warm egg in your chest.
the good moments are better than best.