Kiltartan Cross

Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

----

Those lines from Yeats's "Irish Airman" have been coiling through my mind all day.

----

What I really wanted to do for a living -- what I really want to do for a living -- is massage. I get so sick of words and images, keyboards and monitors.

The moment I yearn for is that moment when I lay both my hands lightly on a person's back and just listen, listen to their body. Listen for the distress. It's so clear, usually. And the love then doesn't have to be translated or justified or excused or isolated or extenuated. Follow the path of the distress, and hear it with my fingers, and work with it, till it opens in my hands. That's a love that I've never mistrusted. That's all I ever wanted to do.

I bought a massage table, a few years ago. It sits in my closet. Never been used.

First Gentleman. And just how would you put two children through college, then?

Second Gentleman. "All you ever wanted to do?" Oh, really! It seems to me I've heard you voice some other desires, from time to time. I must have been mistaken.

Yeah, yeah. I know.