One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited - Andrea Gibson

who with a heart can stomach / how much they can stomach? / all your blood in the water / and i could still wade through, / and i will again and i will again / and i will again with everyone i lose. / what i want most is to live / the rest of my life desperately / wanting to live it.

I grew up in the town that received the first distress signal saying the Titanic was going down. It was the only thing we were ever renowned for. In fact, we prided ourselves on our failure to save the sinking, which is maybe part of the reason I prided myself on drinking my first fifth of whiskey at twelve years old. It's cold where I come from. I learned to drown young.

That I commit to a life of opening and learning, that I commit to learning at a speed that is vigilant and awake, that I commit to knowing where my empathies lean and why they lean there, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what raises my voice, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what lulls me to silence, that I be haunted by the ghosts of who my silences have harmed, that I acknowledge that haunting is love, that I trust love lives in whatever points at the dark, that I acknowledge that shame would likely be my laziest gesture, that I stop denying I am a whole person, and my wholeness is often unlovable, and my wholeness is often lovable, that I own the possibility that there isn't a thing one could say about the person I am that I could wholeheartedly deny; All of it-yes, all of the ugly - yes, all of the beauty-, yes, I have failed and will continue to fail,

I have loved and will continue to love, I am committed to leaning and opening, I want people around me who are committed to learning and opening, people who are failing and loving, people who are stalking their own vigilance, the speed of their own compassion saying, 'FASTER FASTER FASTER.