January again. The table has rings now because people are people and coasters are ambitions. I like the rings. They are receipts of joy. In a house where absence used to sit at the head of the table, evidence of presence is a kind of religion.
On the anniversary of the day I wrote “Your era is over” in my head, I stood in front of one hundred freshmen at a state school and said, “Some of you will be pressured to be a ladder. Ladders are useful. You will get people where they’re going. You will also be stepped on and left outside in the rain. It is an honor to be useful. It is a curse to forget you are not a tool.” The teacher in the back wiped her eyes and whispered “God, I needed that ten years ago.”
Me too.