Dark Skies

The loss of writer David Foster Wallace to an apparent suicide this weekend darkened skies already darkened by Ike, by skurvy politics, by homes and home lives forfeited to an economy that can't got a hold of itself. Wind, rain, floods, and a man too certain that no more choices existed, that tomorrow wasn't something to be waited for or looked toward. He was a writer, a teacher, a husband, a son. He was loved.

I am reeling for him and for those who loved him, just as I am reeling for the boy at a beautiful college who took his own life last week. I am holding my breath for the freshmen and freshwomen everywhere who are finding their way inside new walls, feeling their way toward light.

Sometimes I think words are the most fragile things there are.

Sometimes they are my grounding, my earth.

Today I do not rise above or even rise to anything but this: Hope for tomorrow. Hope for healing. Hope for a coming easiness.