(no subject)

I stood on the corner of 12th and Market yesterday and couldn't see the tower of City Hall. The sky was utterly blank where the tower should have been; the tower was entirely lost in the grey fog. I felt the same way about my brain yesterday--lost in a fog. I was forgetful and boneheaded, old mistakes were revealed to me and new ones were made, disorganized thoughts swam through dense layers of cloud to get to me. I went to bed early, eager to put the day behind me, and spent all night dreaming that people were angry at me: Ms. E, my sister, my mother, my secretary...

And then I woke up this morning and finished October Light. And right before the end it suddenly turned so beautiful that all my frustration and eagerness to be done with it just evaporated. I was left fighting tears on the way back from my class--the class I'll probably only teach five more times. Staring out the window, the sky and the Delaware the same grey, made greyer by the dirty train window I saw them through, the bridge spidery and delicate in the distance, barely visible through the last of yesterday's fog, the fog still clinging inside me, head and heart still foggy--foggy and confused by bad dreams, by a January that doesn't feel like January, by a book that had been angry and grim and violent and then suddenly, beautifully, said, "Life can be good. Life is good. Love. Forgive. Forgive others and forgive yourself. There's beauty everywhere."