Teaching (cue jaws music) . . . middle schoolers! Somehow I got the job, even though the interview started with the woman saying, in an ominous tone that made it clear that this was a bad thing, "You're very smart."
On the way home, I saw a man crying in his car. A middle aged Asian man in a Toyota Corolla with dealer plates, really crying hard and wiping his eyes. I felt bad for invading his privacy, but also thankful. Seeing strangers in their own moments of intense emotion is a gift, I think.
I thought about whether I should blog about seeing him or try to write a poem about it. I once heard a lecture (which included many wonderful thoughts, including the fabulous Walter Benjamin quote "Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience") that said that if something is good material for a dinner party anecdote than it is bad material for a poem. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but I think there's a lot to it. It's easy to get too delighted by one's own voice telling stories and miss out on whatever poem alchemy needs to happen. And it's the same here, I think: good for the blog, bad for the poem.
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