The Future in General

"I believe in things
that take a long time to make
like trees and books"
-- Arne Ruste from poem "Say More, Speak like Rain"

In a month I will have another birthday. My sister says we lose our cuteness at the end of a decade and are really cute at the beginning of a decade. I'm making the turn into rusty years-- the rough side drag of a decade. It's gonna be a long three years til the return of cute. I have marshmallow tendencies, even in all the bull work I've been doing. I feel soft in the middle. Squishy. I want to be formidable, not diffused. I want to say enough is enough. I want not to have to say it. I want my question: Would you like _____? to be answered on the first try. I'm unhinged by the guessing game. I'm related to people who answer in their heads and never
say what they want. This is a real problem because the receivers who never voiced what they want look perplexed, maybe a bit peeved. I didn't ask for this, they say, indignantly.
Yeah, I know, I decided. I don't know why I run my home as a democracy. I came from a home that was Monarchy. New World, Old World, This World. Now I think I made progress this summer. Pilgrim that I am, I have said the unsaid. I have given my feelings voice, and by doing so I feel liberated from the things that tie me up (my imagination, my tendency to create speculative fictions). When I stuff resentment, I think: suffer and die, suffer and die, which was
a mantra from childhood. To live with that fog in my chest is just too much. I blew it out in one long steady woosh.

Confessional versus Autobiographical. Domestic versus Other. These are the topics rolling around in my head. It's a constellation of my own making. See diagram:

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* * *_______.



I want to make a paper boat and set a lit votive candle in its belly and let it sail the lake tonight.
This is making a way clear.