R.I.P. AJS...

I am standing upon the seashore
A ship at my side spread her white sails to the ocean
She is an object of beauty and strength
I stand and watch her until at length
She hands like a speck of white cloud
Just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all
Her diminished size is in me.
Not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There she is gone!"
Other voices take up the glad shout:

"Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

A Poem
by Henry Scott Holland

it's all of the good that won't come out of me...

The end of August has always been my least favorite time of year. It has always signaled a change of the status quo. I've always enjoyed getting older and the social changes that have accompanied that but I think I have this latent dread from my childhood over every new September spent in the knowledge that a stage in my life is over and another chunk of my innocence gone. As a kid my family moved a lot during my early elementary years. Septembers meant a new school and a new set of friends to make and new changes to adapt to. Some kids are able to use this constant instability to their advantage and are able to pick up on the small social clues and use this knowledge to have an easier go about it. I don't think I was ever really able to do this well as a kid. I think I was maybe too sensitive to it all and thusly took nearly everything to heart. I wasn't entirely a weirdo, I did have friends, but mostly the friends I had were outcasts too and kids who fit in even less than I did. The girl who's father pirated software and shot porn films in their basement who was arrested on my mother's birthday, was my best friend for 2 years.

When my childhood finally settled in one location it was at the weirdo age when all children start to realize the power of social interaction. While I found my place and eventually made it through OK, I still to this day feel perched upon this precipice of insecurity when it comes to change. I know I've sort of become a one note symphony in the last few months about this but in 2 days I'll be burying one of the most influential people in my life, marking this August like so many before it, a turning point. I don't know what cliff I am standing on top of this time though.