On a Windy, Sunny Day

You ever feel like something's getting ready to happen, like today's your day, like the world is going to finally change and be on your side?

I do.

I woke up late, ran to class, got there just as my professor started, answered a question in lecture and actually got engaged in the topic, which is saying little, since it's Rome and I'm kinda taken in by the politics. I went back to my dorm and actually got ready for my day and felt like Something's Going to Happen. The wind is abusing my now-straightened hair and slipping through my coat and scarf to freeze me underneath two shirts, but it's enlivening to have something to fight as you walk. You're taking on something beyond just making one foot move in front of the other. There's life.

I've been waiting for so long for life to wake up and happen to me and I feel like today's the day. But then again, a long time waiting makes you think that maybe life's been waiting on you to wake up and happen to it. I feel like I could spend the rest of my life writing greeting cards or I could drop it all and go be an architect (why build something temporary like a building when you can have something that lasts, like a greeting card?) but I'd have to go.

So I'm sitting again at Caribou. I've got a paper to finish, a paper to write and a problem set to do. I'm going to be a productive student, I'm going to do well and I'm going to break the streak of mediocre academics because I care to be today. There's my pencil. Here's my laptop. I've got hours between now and practice and between practice and obligations tomorrow. I'm going to hunker down and focus and lose myself in Istanbul, Rome and the quantum world that hides beneath them both.

I wish someone would stop me.