8.29.22

Yesterday night, we sent ____ off to start their monastic training. I was sad, for a moment, wondering if we'd see each other again like this. Maybe both of us would be different the next time. 

Stepping into the station, I sensed that suddenly everybody was in a rush. People began to run up the stairs, even though the train had not yet arrived. 

Earlier in the day, ____ told me there have been only two places in the world where they haven't felt tired, where they've felt at peace. One of those places being the monastery. I was jealous that they felt as if they've decided on a destination. Often, they've asked me to join them. There's a pull in me - if you can understand - to surrender to an imagined life in peace, in the woods, among books and prayers. But there's something else that keeps me - that quickens my pulse, that stirs darkness and all that might be created from it. I wonder which ancestor is this. How many. I mean - doesn't every mistake make my life my own? 

It's true that I still don't know where I'm supposed to be going. 

At the station, I was worried about what everybody else would think. There were people in front of me and behind me. So I began to run. I mean --- it was late and I was afraid of being trampled or left behind.  But when we got up to the platform, the train still hadn't arrived. The sign said - 10 minutes.

We didn't need to hurry. But if you were there you would have understood -

the way we were being pulled forward like that.