a bit of magic

this morning as i was riding the subway to work, "invisible ink" by aimee mann started playing on my i pod. i don't know what it was about the song, but i started to think about how much i wanted to call my mom. thinking about the sound of her voice, i started to tear up as i walked up the steps behind earl hall. i felt so empty, i just wanted her back. i thought to myself how nice it would be to see a hawk on campus today. i only saw a hawk once before on campus, but i thought if my mom had an emissary on this physical plane it would be a red-tailed hawk... after a few glances at the empty branches of nearby trees and the blue-gray sky, i finally saw one... just sitting quietly on an upper branch of an oak tree several yards away. i stopped to sit down on a cold, cement bench, overwhelmed by my emotions, and the hawk flew down to a lower branch closer to the path. as i walked by her, i was maybe five feet from where she sat, glancing at me briefly before returning her gaze to the squirrels scurrying beneath her, ultimately chasing one down a grassy knoll alongside low library.

i've was never raised to believe in a biblical heaven, but i've also never really doubted the existence of some kind of "life" beyond the physical one we experience with our five senses. little events like this one make me almost sure that our consciousness lives on in some non-physical way. sometimes it's comforting... knowing that my mom is still there... somewhere... other times it just reminds me of how much i miss my physical mom... the sound of her voice... the feel of her cheek next to mine. other than this morning, i've been feeling a little better since coming back to new york after the holidays. the pain is a little less constant. maybe it's just having the holidays over and done with. maybe it's a little didstance... maybe it's guitar hero... i'll take it though.

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new toy

this afternoon i got a new laptop. i waited maybe 24 hours after the first zig-zagging lines appeared on my old laptop screen before zipping over to the apple store on 5th ave to buy myself a new one. it is a beautiful little machine, and it zooms through documents five times as fast as my old powerbook. as much as i am enjoying my new toy, i can't help but feel a little disappointed in myself. recently, mil and i started a habit of going to these quaker meetings. though we have yet to make any kind of a commitment to one religion over another, we seem to like the silent spirituality of the unprogrammed quaker meetings. i try to use the quiet time to decompress and process the week. i also contemplate the possibility of becoming less materialistic. so far, i haven't had much luck (case in point stares back at me blankly). i try to de-newyorkify myself a bit as well... smooth out some of the prickly bits of my character that have built up after 12 years in the city. unfortunately, by the time friday rolls around any mellowness achieved in the meeting is long gone. all it takes is a woman sneaking in front of me at the exit turnstile at 116th street station... or a couple of folks walking side-by-side on a narrow sidewalk, not bothering to make room for me coming in the opposite direction. it's amazing how long i can let something like that steam me up for absolutely no good reason. 13 hours later i'm still wishing bad karma on that first lady. anyway, all i can say is i'm working on it... that's good for something, no?