shallow

It doesn't feel like holidays up here. I'm too perfectly isolated here--from the old thoughts, from the common faces--to really connect, for more than a moment or two, with the usual patterns.

I do wonder, in brief moments, about the potential of my imminent return--if the pattern I predicted--which, truth, slipped slightly from expectations last semester--will reach a bigger climax than my first four-year interim. I wonder . . . but not like I expect I would if I was in Illinois.

I wonder how many of my older friends (which means, pretty much, all of my college friends) will be back? I wonder if that weak, unexpected greeting was the last time I'll ever hear that particular voice? I wonder if I'll actually finish a /new/ something before June?--But only in passing . . . only so briefly, for five, ten minutes . . .

No, no . . . I would trap myself in contingency planning if I was closer to the stage.

I suppose that's a good thing . . . at least for now--that I'll actually be fully charged, for once.