. Spinning .

A first, I think, first thing this morning.  A Great Crested Flycatcher tipping the tip of a swamp birch.  At first I thought it was a baby Bluejay, a bit scruffy looking, surprised at life and me.  Bright yellow belly gives it away though, and I wish him many flys to catch today.

Me, inhaling.  A treefrog calling for a mate.  The breeze through infant leaves.  The sounds of night in the garage, back door open to the yard in blackness and I do not see what may be scampering about.  Skunk, rabbits, deer, fox, coyote; the turkeys are asleep.  Maybe, if I’m wrong, lost souls are wandering about as well. 

Inside again, tv, laptop fan, spousal snoring calling to his mate.

One of my most favorite things, watching a storm move in.  The stillness ruffled here and there and soon the sound becomes the foreteller as the wind picks up and bends the tip-tops of the trees.  Maple seeds helicopter through the air, and birds have found a spot to hunker in and wait it out. 

Sky, pure creamy white, unmarked.  But in the west, blackness moves amoeba-like, pseudopods crawl it along. 

I smell the freshness in the air; though I still reek of old-man’s aftershave.  Old people night tonight for dinner.  In by four and out by five, grey whirlwind of man that moves so slowly, leaves his scent upon my shirt for all the long night left. 

Ah, it may have passed, the darkness on its way northeast.  It leaves no scent behind.

Trip to town fraught with worry and delay, like a band of wild Indians after my wagon. 

The ride in held up by a muletrain, or maybe a muleheaded woman doing twenty-five tops.  Braked at corners, but not for the stop signs, she did.  Town librarian informs me they don’t have the H.S. yearbooks so I can’t look up the varmint I’m framing to make sure he’s the right one.  I’m the hold-up at the grocery store since the grapefruit juice is mismarked and not two for five dollars.  Lady in front of me in the pharmacy with a new insurance card that of course doesn’t work.  Then the lady ahead of me at the register doesn’t have the money to pay for what’s in her basket.  But she rummages through her purse anyway, mumbling about the old man having her card.  The trip home, all the way home, by the river, uphill and all, is right in the tracks of my guide, an overfilled  dumptruck.

And today was the day I was gonna work outside.

Boy, I have never, ever been so close to clicking away a degree than I am this morning.

Every time I login to my summer course, I find I can only last about three minutes and need to get out of there.  I have dropped a course before–this one, as a matter of fact–but with the thought of taking it later.  This time, I just don’t want to follow through with it at all, but the stakes are higher.  It means giving up the degree.

I wish I’d had the sense or the direction to have found the way to get this substitution made last year.  The "walk" part of the deal was just a stall, and one I found that many, many students had taken advantage of.  Both graduates on either side of me at the ceremonies were doing the last elective in this summer session, one is in my course.

For them, they need this.  For me, well, how important is it, really?  I want to do the things that the education has directed me towards, and even this eight-week session is a delay and a serious time consumer.  The usual argument would be that I’ve come this far, suffered through language and math and essays and exams and I’m so close to the end.  The counter argument is naturally, why put myself through more when it is interfering with what I really am destined to do and nutrition has no part in it, nor does the course help as just another way of thinking. 

Man, this is going to take all the resolve I have to punish myself with going through with it and put off the pleasure and rewards of that part of education that has given me the drive and a glimpse of my goals.  When I took the step to enter higher education, the thought was simply to get the needed "piece of paper."  That’s changed.  What I see as the value now is what I’ve learned in doing it.  About myself, about new ways of thinking, and about the path that’s most clearly marked for me to travel.  Even these damned eight weeks of reading, exams and heavy participation are a roadblock on that path.  I could have instead been learning more about what has me excited in learning about.  At my age, that piece of paper is useless, except what it represents in my own journey, and that already has been made clear to me.  I’m following the road beyond the point where I need to turn off, but that piece of paper says I have to stay on the main road.

That line of poetry I mentioned that keeps going through my head is shouting now:  I do not want to.

Which in truth is more courageous, to follow through with the original plan and put off temporarily a no longer important result, or to jump into what has become important as an unexpected early result of the plan?

(Note:  This happens to be my 1900th entry–on Spinning only.  Isn’t it obvious where my heart lies and where my feet must follow?)

(Note #2:  I apologize to Feed readers for the constant updating of this post.  I did warn you once before–I write directly into Typepad, and so second thoughts and added insight are always an option.  Switch me, if you can, to "don’t show updates.")