11.20.15 All those late nights and delicious times

     I remember the hot sunlight on our faces, as we sat and ate lunch on the front stoop of the huge colonial rental in Montague. My three roommates laughing and telling stories, in the midst of long days, of part time jobs and racing somehow to UMass in a cascade of lousy almost working cars, and then dishes and burning the midnight oil, and then showing one a new song on my guitar, or listening to another after a late night ice car accident on a bridge. To another always about the ex, about the ex, about the ex.

           Til another came and moved in, and we all had a very nice time, even though they complained that I was never there.                                        

          Oh, all the hysterical famous group baths, with candlelight and everyone climbing in and out to take turns, passing plates of food and drink, dancing about with bubbles, putting cigarettes out in the cooling water, having long long conversations about politics and ways and means, and life.

          23,24, that amazing time. Of struggling to take flight. Of learning who you are and are not. Of scraping yourself out of near-really-bad-messes and reapplying yourself, with a newborn zeal borne of fear and yearning, that didn't let up.

         All those late nights and delicious times, learning to be absolutely great on your own, instead of endlessly wanting someone. Of building that structure within your depths, so that no matter what direction your life grew in, you would relish the ride.