march 26there is a playground that i pass through whenever i walk from my dorm to campus. abandoned tricycles are scattered about, their front wheels cocked all the way to one side, and tiny scooters lay where they were dropped. people always comment that it looks like an apocalyptic scene from terminator 2... no playtime anymore. i always find it kind of ironic... college students must pass from through this space to get to the place where they are trained to be adults. this preschool is the beginning of the process that we started years ago, and we are reminded of it every day.
we can lament the loss of inocence, but that is an excercise in futility in many ways... i've never quite known what to do about that. for a while i figured i'd try to return to a state of blissful childhood ignorance, wandering around continuously amazed at the world. but that can be done without abandoning all these years of growth... photography and writing help me realize that... the world is still something to be constantly amazed by. that doesn't mean that i don't feel like i've lost some sort of connection with the magical aspects of the world... it was, at least, much stronger when i was younger, and it takes special moments or ritual even to find it now. like staring out a window at rapidly speeding clouds, or walking in the wind, or staying up late with friends to the point of a certain delirium. full moments... balanced out in both worlds.
and i, a practical college student, am also a dreamy college student, and intelectual and a journeyer.
talking to rat next to me... if we could save something from a fire, it would be our notebooks... journals, old notes from class. i have a set of notes from highschool that is sacred, and my smaller travel notebooks. i tell her that i love to scrawl (we're atlking about handwriting versus computers... computers are faster link between mind and communication) we show eachother our handwriting... hers is very neat, incredible. this stuff intrigues me... how people record their thoughts and scenes from the world.