Sometimes a chocolate donut...

As you're aware, I am not a poet.

Sometimes, though, a line will come into my head, and I'll know that it's a part of a poem. A poem I must write. But I don't write poetry.

The line will usually be pretty random, sometimes downright mysterious. One time I was cleaning my kitchen in my old apartment in Beverly and I felt compelled to say outloud, "Well honestly, Bob." No idea.

Other times, the line is triggered more rationally: "Jeremy needs sensible shoes" is a poem I actually went ahead and wrote about 16 years ago while witnessing my friend Jeremy walking down a muddy hill in fashionable pumps.

Generally, the line comes out of a feeling of almost debilitating melancholy. It's as if when my psyche is beat down, word-control (in thought and deed) gives way to gushes of banality and sentiment.

A few minutes ago I was walking back to my office from the computer center in what should have been a euphoric mood because I'd just taken my Absolutely Dead and Blank computer to them and they'd 100% revived it. But I'm still feeling down. And a voice, almost audible, says (I think it's my voice), "Sometimes a chocolate donut..." That's all I got, but besides hearing this line in my head, I'm also totally sure that it's supposed to develop into a poem.

Which brings me to reflecting on my melancholic state. I feel overwhelmed and weak.

And I was wondering, are we supposed to be fragile, and to accept, even embrace, this reality of humanity? Or, are we supposed to be trying all the time to be strong? Ya, I suppose the answer is both.

While Smitty sings in one ear, "So be strong, and courageous," Whoever (I googled it and found at least four supposed authors of the classic children's song) sings "I am weak and he is strong" in the other ear.

I always tell my kids that a worldview assumes the way the world is and the way it should be. So even though I am fragile, shouldn't I still be trying to be strong?

Sometimes a chocolate donut is the only thing.

I guess I'll go to Dunkin Donuts now, to fortify myself emotionally for a rough afternoon of advising, grading, prepping, encouraging, exhorting, organizing, guiding, and all the things I don't feel equipped to do right now.