Apology in Absence

A friend asked me once why I always preferred the backwards method of handwriting my essays and papers before retyping and submitting them for classes. At the time I found that I had no answer for her, it was simply the way I had always wrote and never gave a second thought to it. Yet this question stuck in my mind and, just for my own curiosity, the next time I wrote a paper I tried to jump right into the typing portion and skip the hand writing. You know what I discovered? I hated it.
It was not that the paper was any more difficult to write than any previous one or that I received a worse grade, the problem was it simply was not...enjoyable. To stare at a computer screen is to stare at the world in all its immensity. The internet, computer games, facebook: distractions, unknowns, fears, hopes, expectations, questions. One click and all is laid bare. My mind buzzes too loudly, its voice too soft.
A piece of paper, now there is my sanctuary. There is nothing on it, a blank space, no expectations, no future plans, no distractions, just my pen strolling along on its less traveled path. It is the journey of writing that I seek, not the concluding word. My mind wanders while my hand follows, page after page. My sanctuary, my wooded cove. For me, there is very little else as peaceful and freeing as the simple act of writing, I can only hope I never lose my way.

I titled this blog Apology in Absence because I felt that it has been entirely too long since my last blog. I could say that it was because of my entirely too hectic schedule but something pulls me away from that excuse. More so, I think, it is that my thoughts have been unwilling to be written. As a senior, it is becoming increasingly clear that this world I have constructed for myself here at MSU is quickly coming to an end. My own apocalypse draws near and eventually I must lift my veil and look upon the world beyond these mountains. What will I take with me?

Last week I had the tremendous opportunity of being able to interview Senator Jon Tester about his views on climate change policy for another seminar I am taking. It was an eye opening experience for me in so many ways that I am still contemplating my paradigm shift. Here I am, asking a United States Senator about what he believes are our chances of preventing wide spread destruction and misery while really wondering if he has ever heard of a Nicholas Urfe. Why that particular thought was in my mind I could not honestly tell you but there it was none-the-less. It is an interesting feeling being able to passively dissect the questions of man's mortality and the roles of gods in the same classroom as the one I had just beheld the secular gods of our possible destruction, mother nature and man's ignorance. I struggle to find the bridge that I know must link the two but how does one look past the ridiculous notion that I equate to reciting a Shakespearean sonnet on the congress floor during a debate on climate change? Again, what do I bring with me?

Answers are death, I am alive, therefore I have nothing with me but questions and nothing but the future ahead of me. Perhaps Mother Nature looms there and nothing I do now can ever take away the fears and apprehensions that come with that thought yet, for now,....there are still golden leaves on the trees.

"I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, 'No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don't worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her 'I will see you again very soon.'" - Thich Nhat Hanh