Today

Today I met a boy on the train. He was smart faced: sharp cheeked, sharp nosed. Gray, flecked eyes; skin dusted with freckles.

I offered him chocolate because he looked at me. I wanted to say. A gift is a simple thing. (If you drop it, it will accelerate towards the center of the earth. I held it. Now you.)

Sadness

What is sadness? The word sad is derived from the root O.E. sæd, which mean "sated". I am sad when I am full of the world; there is no more hunger in me. What is the relationship between sadness and satiation? What is the relationship between satiation and stillness? When I am full, I am heavy. When I am heavy, it is difficult for me to move. When I am full, I am without hunger. When I am without hunger, I am without reason to move. Perhaps, without desire to move.

What is happiness? The word happy is derived from the word hap "lucky," from hap "chance, fortune". Happy is something given, mysterious. What is luck?

Luck is fortune, is beyond reason.

Sadness is caused by fullness. Happiness is given without reason. Why are there not reasons for happiness? Because we expect to be given happiness in the same way we have been given life without reason or cause.

When we are full, when we do not have a place for the world inside us. When we are full there is no room for our mind's tiny hands to apprehend the bits of beauty in the world.

We accept hunger, but are not hungry. We become empty so we can breath. We breath the world into our emptiness, and let it go. When there is no space inside our bodies, there is no place for the beauty of the world to be perceived. No room for our imagination to get lost in its dark.

Beginning at Beginning

from bi- "be" + W.Gmc. *ginnan, of obscure meaning, found only in compounds, perhaps "to open, open up"

O.E. *steortian, *stiertan, Kentish variants of styrtan "to leap up" (related to starian "to stare"), from P.Gmc. *sturtjan- (cf. O.Fris. stirta "to fall, tumble," M.Du. sterten, Du. storten "to rush, fall,"

If beginning is opening, it lacks trajectory. There is no towards open. A thing is either open or closed.

I open a door. I feel it in open in my hand. I shift my weight first from first foot to second, to first. It swings on two arms, mine and its own. A door opens around my body. I open with it.

If starting is leaping, it is defined by trajectory. It is not a change of state. It is an orientation towards a finishing.

When I start my, finishing necessarily remains out of site, since if finishing were in site I would not be starting.

By starting towards that which is out of site, I limit the extent to which I can see all that is finishing nearby.

I forgo opening and being opened, closing and being closed.