Torn

Breaking temporarily this early evening at another roadside beach just shy of Crescent City far too breathtaking to pass by. The redwood drive tried to steal my heart but I have a long way to go in the next couple weeks before satisfying my thirst for big water. I'm torn even right now over paying big money to camp beach side in some state park, or driving inland for cheaper on the National Forest.

It still fascinates me how intimately I associate feeling any emotion strongly with wanting to sit down and write. Also, it's still a little mystifying to me how that's my only signifier for experiencing emotion--the certainty that I'm freaking out in some direction, the stirring in my gutt and the squeezing in my throat, and the almost overwhelming desire to sit and spill it all on pen and paper. It took me a couple of hours of driving today to figure out exactly what my emotions were connected to, after Ellen called and told me that two of my girls ran away last weekend and still haven't been found. This has never happened before at Open Sky. I felt instant panic and fear, as waking up and finding students gone is up there with all of my worst nightmares, if not the worst professional one. I felt a bit of vindication and relief, as I'd predicted exactly this with those very girls going down when I left last week, and really really really glad I'm not there to manage the aftermath. I feel sorry and concerned for staff going into that mess today at changeover, and for those involved from the get go. I feel a bit perplexed and challenged by the outcome, and my attachment to it--curiosity and my perpetual need to have everything wrapped up and packaged in the end are doing battles in my mind right now. Its feeling hard to be away from the rumor mill in Durango right now, and I am pushing myself to set it aside for later and not get involved.

This coast and the color make me want to write poetry.