Then there is a conference proposal. Then there is a sabbatical application that I haven't gotten to in two years, because that goes to the wayside, because I'm too busy doing work to apply for time off to actually get the work done.
Ah, but the weed in the crack of my driveway bloomed this morning and it was as I predicted...a sunflower. It's so random, and I don't mind leaving plants to fulfill their better destiny. I'm sure my mailman is like, "Why aren't you trimming this shit?" Well, it's because it doesn't belong and I want to see what it will do. I'm thankful that Friday's lawn company didn't take my experiments down, either.
I got dizzy with the screen around 10 p.m., after reading kid-writing for the past two days. I did have a moment, however, of pure pride when I came across a piece by Sebastian, a student in Ubuntu Academy who came out of nowhere with a poem inspired by A Sea of Lemon Trees and our language workshops on the meaning of home and cultural history. This is why we do what we do...to see how we can shape the next generation of writers and thinkers. I love when they provide me evidence.
Though Life Is Connected by Sebastian Petit
I used to think
that the world was built
from separate things—
stars from people,
ocean from mountains,
memories from tomorrow.
Then a physics teacher
said something simple
“Todo está conectado.”
At first
I thought he meant equations,
gravity, forces too large
for human hands.
But the longer I listened,
the less it sounded like physics.
A star dies,
and millions of years later
its light reaches my eyes.
A seed falls,
forgotten by the wind,
and one day becomes
the tree that shelters a stranger.
One conversation
changes a decision.
One decision
changes a lifetime.
Perhaps the universe
has never believed in coincidence.
Maybe every heartbeat
is an echo of another.
There is a word in my language—
Querencia.
It is more than a place.
more than a memory.
it is the invisible thread
that keeps calling us back
to where our soul recognizes itself.
Maybe that is how the universe works.
Not through chance,
but through countless invisible threads
pulling every life toward another.
The atoms in my hands
once belonged to ancient stars.
The breath I exhale today
may become someone else’s tomorrow.
The kindness I almost forgot to give may outlive me.
And perhaps curiosity
—the question that refuses to disappear—
is simply the universe
trying to understand itself
through us.
So maybe
life is not a connection
of separate stories.
Maybe it is only one story
told through billions of voices,
connected by things we cannot see,
yet somehow
always feel.
