Getting There

Pithy takes pause, amid sporadic bouts of breathless panic where we wonder how we will balance the next fifteen weeks of too many classes, way too much reading and too little sleep--fifteen weeks of staring at a page, at a screen, at a professor--our eyes move but should not be mistaken as signs of life--fifteen weeks of calls, skipped meals, and the imminent pressing in of the snow...we take pause to remind ourselves that it's been a year. Overwhelming is just part of the package, as is the sense of satisfaction for completion and the knowledge that the fifteen weeks will end, and when they do we will be able to say that we made it, that it was worth it, and that we're one step closer to obtaining our super-hero suit and moving on to our mission impossible. We'll get there...watch out.

Show Me

You could plant me like a tree beside a river. You could tangle me in soil and let my roots run wild—and I would blossom like a flower in the desert…But for now just let me cry.

You could raise me like a banner in a battle—put victory like fire behind my shining eyes, and I would drift like falling snow over the embers…But for now just let me lie. Bind up these broken bones; mercy bend and breathe me back to life, but not before you show me how to die.

Set me like a star before the morning, like a song that steals the darkness from a world asleep--and I’ll illuminate the path you’ve laid before..But for now just let me be. Bind up these broken bones; mercy bend and breathe me back to life, but not before you show me how to die. No, not before you show me how to die.

So let me go like a leaf upon the water. Let me brave the wild currents flowing to the sea—and I will disappear into a deeper beauty…But for now just stay with me. God, for now just stay with me.

-Audrey Assad-

The Best Part of Going Back to School: or the intersection of August, money, and depression

August is a big month for Pithy—involving preparations, taking stock, saying goodbye, saying hello—we’re quite confident that we won’t be ready but that it will happen anyways. Much of the first two weeks of the month is largely devoted to denial, that August comes after July—what the hell happened to June? No one—not even Hermione—is so psyched for school that they forget the mournful afternoon spent accomplishing the studied motions of nothing. We live the summer days down to the last weekend of the last week, down to the dusk of summer.

Although summer is only goodness, moving forward is not without its excitements, which brings Pithy to the third best part of school (after, of course, the summer and Christmas breaks): back to school shopping. It’s exhilarating—the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, the ecstasy of purchase—the truly competitive American spirit of the check out lane when a cashier opens another register. Pithy is tempted to buy things that history tells them they probably won’t use: pencils (they prefer pens or eversharps when they actually have to resort to physically writing something without the computer), lunch boxes, glue sticks—the odds of going into a store for “a loaf of bread” and only coming out with a loaf are about three million to one. The season inspires the imagination—we can write if off as a tax deduction…now where were those jeans? Do they come in extra-medium?

Pithy is learning the difference of college summers and high school summers—that a high school summer was time set apart to earn tuition and as much school shopping money as we wanted to work for—our return to the halls of education could be as glorious or shabby as we wanted it to be. College summer affords no such time, barely having the time to make rent, car, grocery, and gas payments, while trying to prepare for the bill due on the first day of class. Textbooks stack up. Keeping positive, Pithy refuses to let growing up steal the shine from the sacred renewal of backtoschool. However, and however hard we protest, it’s less shiny this year. The budget word reminds us of the mathematical confirmation of our suspicions each month. The experience, we are told, is supposed to educate from all angles—that lessons come from many avenues—most of the important ones having little to do with a classroom. I guess we will see if this lesson is mastered or not when Pithy comes to themselves outside a shopping mall, disoriented, thinking, "what have I done?"

Rain

It gets hot in July, and August is little better (and by little we mean not at all). Just as we begin to surrender to the exhaustion—the mirage of autumn where waits respite—the clouds gather, the air expects—and humidity suffocates us into holding our breath…waiting. It starts slow; a single drop falls to gravity, its weight too much to balance on the insubstantial precipice of sky. Another follows signaling the final surrender of cloud to earth. The heat breaks; we release our pent up breath, echoed by the thunderous sigh of creation.

We’re the plants. We’re the wilted. We’re the dry dust ground to fine powder. We open, slowly at first, scared by the violent torrent—the foreign, almost forgotten miracle of monsoon; but we open, the water distilling on our parched perspectives, restoring our stature, adjusting each step with bare feet and mud puddles.

The world always looks better after a rainstorm. Golden sepia enriches—enhances—a new lens curbing the harsh, direct gaze of the sun into a promise…a promise of color, spectrum, and each piece together. People look better too. Less burnt. Less burdened. Quiet. Conscious of the sacred moment after cleansing.

We would like to take a walk, visiting each plant, each person, knowing they’ve all been touched—that the rain comes for everybody. We would like to call hello to people we don’t know—the rain likes them, maybe we would too. We would like to cup the dew-scent in our shaped palms and store it away for December. But we don’t. We inhale it all now, greedy. And we stay inside with the door open…