Recently while at dinner with friends, someone commented admiringly on my current style of hair. He said I "look like a poet." I was simultaneously flattered and crushed. The tragic irony in what he meant only as a compliment was that -- regardless of how I look -- I am not a poet, and yet how I've longed to be. Over the past year I've written hardly a line I've liked. I'd like to blame it all on the utter misery my current schooling causes me, but truly I think it goes much deeper than this. Yes, school has sapped my strength of spirit, and left me with little to no time to wander as I must to see what I must write in night hollows and the common passer-by. But the current silence from my pen stems from something more existential than academic ennui. Perhaps it is as much medicinal as it is painful.
Orthodoxy may have something to do with it. I've learned while journeying in that I have very little to say on many matters I would have previously waxed on about to no end. It's not that I've lost all confidence; indeed, I feel I'm growing into a greater confidence that the vain pursuits I had so set my heart upon before were simply that: vanity, which stirred my passion to no fruitful end. Orthodoxy is slowly instilling in me an otherworldly security, one which begins with the spirit and begins to grow outward, leaving me with the simple hope that it will slowly and surely begin to shine forth as light from this ebbing frame: the light of Mount Tabor come to illumine me, soul and body.
Tonight we've entered Great Lent, and tomorrow begins the fasting. I've tried to finish off all the foodstuff I have left that won't be eaten during the fast, but unfortunately I just couldn't drink that much root beer. Hopefully I needn't throw it all away, and can find a suitable home for what soon will be orphaned food and drink.
<-- This, by the way, is my "poet's hair." A big muddled mess of medusaic locks. I honestly don't know what a poet looks like. I'd much rather grow into the practice of being one.
