20191104.0430

Today's my birthday, and I probably ought to take some time to reflect on growing older again. I've done it before, and more than once, as this webspace will attest. It's not inappropriate, as many might argue my poetry is (and the poems I've written recently have been fun to write for what many would call the wrong reasons). But it's also not to my taste at the moment as I sit in front of my computer right now and write. Instead, rather than looking back, I think I'll look forward for once--which is not something I often do, but something I probably ought to do more often.
I have things to which to look forward, certainly. I am in a pretty good job, and I have side-line income that is markedly helpful outside of that job. I get to do a fair bit of what I want to do for no more reason than that I want to do it (though some of it does help others in one way or another, which is good). I am in pretty consistent contact with a good bunch of people who support me, even if they've seen me only rarely in "real life," if they have seen me at all. (I still marvel that friendships that develop through physical correspondence are regarded as "real," while there is still disdain for those that develop through online correspondence. Is it a question of effort expended or material costs incurred? I still do not know--but I am happy to exchange letters, and I am generally quick about returning replies.) My family loves me--my wife and daughter, especially so.
That I recognize what I do have that is good does not mean I do not believe things can be better. I do, and they can. And I am in a position to be able to help make them so, if only in small, local ways. My job, of course, is one such thing; I work to help people with their substance use problems--and they are problems even when they involve substances that are legal or should be legal. And I've been working with students and with alumni to foster more of a sense of community than would otherwise have been the case. Too, I'm involved in school-support organizations that make things better for (other) students and teachers. And, when I can, I lift my voice in support of equity and right and against fascism and racism that still permeate too many places (I'm looking at you, medieval studies, that part of the country of academe where I had thought to settle and to which I still in some ways belong; get your shit together, tenured folks, and at least repudiate Nazis and Nazi-wannabes from your positions of protection--or get out and let those willing to do so succeed you). So I am doing what I can to improve things.
As I said, I ought to look forward more often.