from shallow to deep.

Well we're approaching the end of October and hence, the end of "Outward Appearance October." Do I feel more physically attractive at the end of this month than I did at the beginning? Nah. Probably because no serious effort went into this except for daily Whitestrips and two trips to the tanning bed. I suppose the fact that I don't feel less attractive is a positive thing. This is typically the time of year that I start to feel like the tan is officially gone and with that a few notches off the old Hot Scale. I'm just kidding... and anyway I've probably given more space than is deserved to this topic already.
Today was a GOOD day. I got a LOT of work done on my research paper... but that's not why it was a good day. It's just icing. The cake itself I'm not going to talk about. :)
But speaking of Spanish, I read a poem the other day (in Spanish) that I really liked. My guess is that those I know of who actually read this blog have little to no interest in poetry at all... probably even less in the Spanish variety. But maybe there's someone out there who will appreciate this like I do. By the way, this isn't the whole poem... just the parts that spoke to me, and translated as I understand it.
(ha ha, and as I'm re-reading it before I write it, I realize that it expresses exactly the opposite of the way I'm feeling today. Today is a good good day. But I've definitely had the bad ones too. The ones that are bad not because someone makes fun of you or you got a bad grade on a test... but because you feel alone and miserable being who you are. Been there? Maybe not. I have.)

Me moriré en Paris con aguacero,
(I'll most likely die in Paris... with a downpour outside,)
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
(one day (someday). I've already got the memory in my head.)
Me moriré en Paris- y no me corro-
(I'll die in Paris- and there's no escaping it-)
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.
(same time, a Thursday, like today... in autumn.)
Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto, con todo mi camino, a verme solo.
(A Thursday it'll be, because today, Thursday, as I write these verses, my humeruses ( he
means "forearm bones") have put me in a bad mood, and never like today have I returned
from the whole long walk to find myself so alone.
...(skipping some stuff here)...
son testigos los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
(They are whitnesses, those Thursdays and those humerus bones,)
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos...
(the solitude, the rain, the long footpaths.)

Hmmm... has anyone stuck with me this long? My brother would read that and think it sounded like nonsense. But I'll tell you what it says to me. It says exactly what I'm trying to say on those bad days. He says, "never before have I experienced a day where I felt this alone. Surely if this doesn't do me in, then the day I am taken will have to look just like this one. A gray, wet, autumn Thursday. I remember what that day's going to be like before it's even arrived."
But that's so many words... and its so "explanatory." And that's why I love poetry. Its not always full sentences or complete thoughts. His matter-of-fact-ness and the lonely phrases without a full sentence to complete them... they help you feel what he feels.
I remember the day I graduated high school. It was like that. I knew it was such a huge day, and yet it felt no different. I didn't know what to do to make it feel different, so I went into the woods behind our house and just walked. And no one was with me and I walked through spider webs and had to pick them off my face. I sat on a rock. I sat on the ground. I walked. I came back home. No one knew I'd gone. Nothing had happened while I was out there... and nothing would happen now that I was back. Except that I would be done with a chapter of my life just like that in one night and there was NO one there to tell... and nothing to tell them even if there had been.