APSI Training: Pre Gaming

This morning being awake did not agree with me. So I dutifully fell back asleep. No worries about driving to Fayetteville later in the day. That would have to wait. Around 10:00 I woke up with a laundry list of tasks.
1) do actual laundry
2) clean the dreadful litter box
3) pack, pack, pack
4) locate twin sized sheets and comforter from my parents (where the yesteryear gear lives)
5) shop for snacks and traveling supplies
6) eat lunch

Around one I realized lunch was in order. Delicious Vietnamese lemongrass tofu and thai iced tea did the trick, and somehow, after shopping, and the trip to the gas station...followed by a three store filled hunt for a transmitter for my cd playerless car, I got on the road. I should add that I had just an hour to make the deadline for check in at the campus where the training was going to happen.

Fast forward to now; skip the two hour drive (I swear it took less time with my cruise control speeding); skip one confused Saira standing in a parking lot, wondering what "quad" building I needed to enter; skip the bothersome trek with way too much stuff for a four day trip. These dorms are compact--dare I say cute, even? I met my roommate next door, a 23 year old statistics teacher from Chicago. I am impressed that this may be a nation wide event, and that I didn't need to hop on a plane to get here. I offered "Jessica" a car ride should she ever need one, and I fought with spotty internet. Now I'm considering my dinner options, and I think frozen yogurt sounds much yummier.

I'm excited about learning how to teach smart people. I hope I become smarter in the process.

peace out from a few floors up,
Saira

untitled

my laughter rang in your ears and resonated in your heart
my smile became the subject of a song you wrote in earnest

I giggled uncomfortably
no one had ever written me a song
but you did
I never forgot that

some nights when I lay my head on my cool pillow
I look to my right and I close my eyes
your fingers interlace between mine
rolling on your side, you let me trace your spine
with my thumb and first finger

when I awake my bed is empty
you were never there
yet you were--
you are everywhere I go
everywhere I look
in my mind
on a mountain top
but housed in the depths of a secret cave

I want for you to be real again
I want to shout my love for you
to anyone who will listen
grab you by the throat and kiss you in public--
in front of everyone you hide me from now
so that their gaze will judge me
though neither of  us will care

open your hands and let me place my tears between them
keep them safe, and give them validation
let this silence receive an answer
your answer
the voice that only
God can keep me from returning to

where does the heart go
when it dies a silent death?

I have no doubt that true love is redeemed
reunited, restored, replenished

I am but a pebble, but you are water
you carried me down the river
but I washed upstream
and now I'm alone
on dry land