Still

I once knew a woman who couldn't sit still. She was never in one place for a day or two, running off to the airport with underpacked bags or overpacked bags, driving off in her car with animals in the backseat. She'd lost her husband, unexpectedly, a year or so before. It was clear that all this running around was as bad for her as it was good for her. She always seemed to be on the verge of panic. I remember thinking about with her concern, a little pity. She is avoiding pain, I thought. She is avoiding feeling, avoiding the fact that she doesn't have a home anymore.

That was years ago, and when I think of the person I was, the person who thought he had it figured out, I can't help but think about him with a strange mixture of feelings. In part I feel protective of him (I want to say, oh, just you wait) and in part I feel a tad superior--okay, more humble? I'm talking about the allure of certainty. You can be caught in the thick of that, and not even know you're stuck. And who could actually blame anyone for deciding what they think? We spend years and years not knowing anything, and it can be a relief to take on any narrative, a vocabulary of belief part our own, part something out there.

This is a long way of saying: I'm running around a lot, I'm realizing that. And though a part of me still wonders whether I'm running from something, I also don't think anyone is necessarily gets clearer to himself by staying put, sitting in one place, in one's room. The sentences started coming to me as I was driving south on Thursday morning. And here I am in Cape May--away again after only two days home. A whipped-up sea out the window of my hotel room, the surface all disturbed, like hair combed against its expected direction. Then goes where it's supposed to go.

World War II Observation Tower, Cape May Point

Ferry heading out into Delaware Bay, pre-snowstorm

Marine Debris Timeline, Sunset Beach, Cape May Point

My hotel room in Congress Hall

For warmer times. Chairs facing the ocean, Congress Hall

Patrick, whom you might recognize from a recent cover of AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW

Congress Hall by day

Congress Hall by night

From the beach. Congress Hall as floating palace.