Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life

The days fall away in words and books and minutes and lies. A neighbor makes his leaden way up the wooden stairs.

Slowly and, sometimes, not so slowly, the things begin to gather in piles around this living space: unopened mail and ambitious syllabi, groceries still bagged, a carboard toolbox, bracelets, sour fruit. A whole lot of Been-Meaning-To's.

And so the days fall away in words and books. A blink: Thirty minutes gone in their reading. The newsroom, a black hole. Hours go by whipping through e-mails and messages and stories and interviews and pictures and deadlines. A meeting at 9 a.m. A meeting in 45 minutes. Reminders to remember the next. The open road, a fearful, exhilerating, weighty place. Conquered, night after night.

Always seeking. Still ticking. Tomorrow, another day to finish today's unfinished. Another day to let your voice, your memory, guide me through the moments we forget to stop to breathe.

We do enough so that chosen freedom, carefully crafted, selected, is devoid of guilt. Inactivity's productivity. We remember to stop to breathe.


Photo of Maasai Warrior with Spear by Hugh Sitton from Corbis

Entry title from Grace Paley's Conversation with My Father