Second Semester, a few days on

Yesterday my son calls, full of news from his second semester, sophomore year. Every single class fits right, he says. He reports on the small details, the general themes, the meals squeezed in with friends. I learn, by virtue of him, about the strange fungus that fueled the odd behavior that led to the Salem Witch Trials. I get (secondhand) an insider's perspective on the business of TV. I hear about the high and low art of a recent film. He laughs through the retelling of some story that got told in class that is now his to share.

The world opens wide. It keeps on opening.

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The What Next

I've seen it in the children with whom I've talked stories, words, and writing. I saw it among the young photographers of Centro Nueva, who joined me not long ago for an afternoon of seeing, recording, bearing witness. I see it every time I talk with my son, who is home with us now, an entire month between college semesters (he talks logic, he talks hymns that become rock anthems, he talks libertarian media and its counterpoints, he talks about yielding to a truer self). What knowledge does. What learning makes one hungry for. How learning begets wanting begets needing begets passion.

It's the passion that we want most of all for our children. That we want most of all for each other, for ourselves. The waking up to the moon, the urgent now. The question, jolted through: What next?

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