Green

I read of the Crimson Guard and thought about the nature of goodbyes. I sat in a freezing gym and watched my third grade junior high students bid farewell as they head off to high school. I thought of all the goodbyes I’ve said— of how many fleeting and of how many permanent.

Soon it’ll be closer to three months than four that I leave this island. But as the time winds down, the rough edges of the island are smoothed. I find myself appreciating the sunshine. The edges of the land sticking out into the ocean.

It is now that we are here. I think of second lives and third and fourths. These two years have been a life unto themself.

In time, this will be something that guides rather than what is.

I think of today— with the merriment, tears, nerves, laughter. I think of the sleepy hours in the office following the ceremony. I think of the run through Green Park and the drive back. The window down as Marty O’Reilly sang, “sipping something stiff and trying to hum the dial tone.,” the lyrics following better with his cracked hound dog yowl.

I think of the ache in my shoulder and tightness in my feet. I think of my final class at Kanda elementary tomorrow and what the last semester will bring.

There is no storyline plot— just a collection of lyric essays bound together by the ship that is my body that holds my mind. The vehicle for the soul— of where it hails or heads we don’t know.