Am I Too Far Gone? (College Essay Intro?)

We are taking our senior class picture: One hundred and fifty kids on the front steps, arms thrown up like a roller coaster ride. But the reality of graduation is stuffing the screams, for me, it is all muted. The let-down of our "legacy" is holding fast the camera's clicks, wrapping the school bell in a silent ring.

A ring that is a mosquito stuck in my skull, as a mideival torture device, a bell rung in an ear to drive one mad. Or, it is a ring that I wear in marraige with this high school experience, a heavy and permanent reminder, as the coffee ring on the table, from hours of reading and drinking and reading, looking up to see the ring around the moon, the day gone by.

(ring --> city)

You see, the city lights spell out truths at night. They do. I've stood on rooftops reading them. They say: "It is all in here", "it is all elsewhere". In a constellation, they spell the words of Robert Creeley: "It is, rather, that there is no relief, no solution or ending to come to. Only place itself can offer a place to be, a chance to recognize the world with whatever one has brought to it."

You see, the city lights reflect a thousand twinkling moons into the river, enough little moons for us all to drown reaching for. A person can pay their whole body and mind for that thought. And a person can drown in it. The secret is to stand firmly in balance, frame wide, and to begin and end with questions.