Hello, lamppost, whatcha knowin'?

Got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.

And when you write a poem, I know the words, I know the sounds, before you write it down...

The other day I had a conversation with Henry, who is from El Salvador and speaks very very little English. We stumbled through an exchange of information, swapping between broken Spanish and even more broken English. He told me about his wife and kids who are still in Central America, and I told him that I would miss my family too much that far away.

"Miss?"

"Miss... ermm... uhhhmm... miss..."

"Girl?"

"No, miss... to... hm... to miss... to.... hmm."

So I looked up "miss" in a Spanish/English dictionary, but it only had definitions for "miss = missus" and "miss," like you miss a train and "miss," like you miss a target.

Among its nine entries, Webster offers these two definitions:

1.) to notice the absence or loss of
2.) to regret the absence or loss of

What a strange and terrible feeling! What a difficult concept to explain! What a sad sad word!

Ultimately, I looked up "to long for" for in the dictionary, and a light went off in Henry's eyes, and even though it wasn't quite the same, he knew what I was talking about.

"To notice the absence or loss of." "To regret the absence or loss of." Well stated, Webster.

How odd it is to feel happy, to be content, to know that the world is right, while still this feeling lies buried in the pit of my stomach, not a pain or a bother, but a presence, a slow creeping pressure that nudges my organs from time to time. Even as I celebrate my life as it is with my friends who are here, there is absence and there is loss, and I both notice and regret these things.

I began to wonder why there wasn't a more suitable title for this important emotional state, but I suppose it would be a redundant adjective when it came to describing the people we love. We would be better served with a word that describes that change of life, that point at which we begin to permanently miss someone or something.

There is no burning pain, no searing hotness that calls out at your absence, friends. Not usually, anyway. Instead, it is the gentle pulling that I feel on my heart strings, the permanent knowledge that you are there, and I am here. I notice this. I regret this. I cherish this, too.

These daily tugs, these subtle reminders, they are evidence of your presence in my life. However transient our actual time together has been, you have made a indelible mark on me, and I thank you for that.

This is where I forget to breathe, and all the things I scripted, they sound unfounded...

Today someone missed the toilet at work, and, as the discoverer of said accident, I decided to clean up. I'm snapping on my rubber gloves and taking a few deep breaths outside the bathroom door, steeling myself for the ugly odors and the messy chore before me, and in my head thoughts about Special Session are chasing each other like Wile E. Coyote after the Road Runner, buzzing and frantic and mad with power. It was an absolute take-over, sparked by something mundane and unpleasant, a welcome and forced escape from the reality of 40-hours-a-week and bedtime without milk and cookies.

These moments will come less frequently as the year passes, but still they will come, unexpectedly, caused by other mundane tasks on other mundane days.

It's amazing for me to look back on my years there, to observe the evolution of my role at camp and of camp's role on my life. This summer, like last summer (like next summer like next summer like next summer), I spent a week with God's chosen people, a race of misfits and lost gigglers, working and playing and love love loving.

For an all too brief moment, I was thrown back into cabin life on the first night, in the very cabin that started my Special Sessions, with a camper from my very first year. Sockets were shot and tantrums were thrown and pajamas were missing and holy hell, what a nightmare! It's beautiful, though, don't you see?

Do me a favor. Go grab a couple iron rods. I'd check local junkyards first, maybe a neighbor's backyard. I'll wait here until you return, or you're welcome to take the metaphor by the horns and play along with pencils and paperclips. Make them stick together. Go ahead.

If you've really embraced this exercise, you may have spent a good minute and a half clanking those rods together, making loud noises but failing rather miserably at adhesion. Those of you who are more persistent (or at least more inclined toward following directions) may stack your bars and apply pressure, or you may even attempt to bring outside forces to bare: tape, glue, string, an unused tie or perhaps a hair clip. Alas, the effort is in vain, but you knew that from the beginning, stubborn though you are. Even if you have managed a temporary union of the two cold rods, you aren't so cocky as to think it will last.

You see, to make metal stick to metal-- to make iron stick to iron- you must heat those heavy rods to a crispy 2750°F. Now, quickly, while you're wearing those bulky gloves and you've got that space age mask on, you can jam those red hot balls of melted metal together, however crudely or poetically you desire. Give it some time, let the metal cool. Then try to pull them apart. Go ahead. Task number two. Try your damndest.

I wash my hands of this metaphor. You get the picture. You were ten steps ahead of me the whole time, weren't you? You knew all along, but you humored me, and I appreciate it.

Those chaotic first nights have left me with a few scars and a lot of stories and some bonds that won't be breaking. Unmade beds and late showers and impatient blind women have upped my temperature, and I'm smack dab in the middle of an iron web. Thank you and thank you and thank you, goodnight.