...I have an impulse - more of an old urban reflex than an impulse, thank God - to say something mildly caustic about the twenty-four young ladies, just back from big weekends at Cambridge or Hanover or New Haven, who will be waiting for me in Room 307, but I can't finish writing a description of Seymour - even a bad description, even one where my ego, my perpetual lust to share top billing with him, is all over the place - without being conscious of the good, the real. This is too grand to be said (so I'm just the man to say it), but I can't be my brother's brother for nothing, and I know - not always, but I know - there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. There isn't one girl in there, including the Terrible Miss Zabel, who is not as much my sister as Boo Boo or Franny. They may shine with the misinformation of the ages, but they shine. This thought manages to stun me: There's no place I'd really rather go right now than into Room 307. Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly...

Buddy Glass as written by JD Salinger in the final paragraph of: Seymour an Introduction.

this monday night, preparing to begin another week in los guido, i'm thinking of how the tutoring center is my very own room 307. i too share in that old urban reflex - finding myself entertaining caustic thoughts about those precious children and that beautifully difficult place. but, as is said, i know, i simply know, there is nothing i do more important than entering into that tutoring center everyday. and really, there is no where else i would rather be than occupying that tiny little piece of Holy Ground. this is truth. and it is good to be reminded.

and now, i shall just go to bed. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

a few weeks ago i went to california. and i want to talk about it. i've been wanting to talk about it. but, you see, i don't really know where to start. not really. i mean, how to sum up nine days so heavy and yet simultaneously so full of sweetness? how to articulate the goodness of all that prying and poking and painful pulling back of the layers? i don't really know how. not really.

i boarded that return flight with my back to california, feeling very aware of the richness of great friends. of these three ladies in particular. But also, also i was taking with me the heaviness. it stuck to the bottom of my shoes and made its way into the pockets of my backpack.

this weightiness.

it is the complicated parts of my personal life and the ugly pieces of my character - dragged out into the sunlight where they cannot be ignored. it is the rubble that only can be reached and unloaded by dear, brave friends.

it is also the seriousness of entering into a loved one's pain. life is messy. can be filled with darkness, loss and entirely absent of easy answers. several times that week i was rendered helpless, unable to provide a neat or tidy or even possible solution to precious friends. i could not fix things. or erase the pain. i couldn't take back the months of her suffering, or remedy the broken and piercing relationship. and with another, i didn't have a solution for what defines "home" and how to decide where to make it. and even another one still, i couldn't heal the damage of a chaotic upbringing, or ease the turmoil of the existential search. i was made powerless in the face of such enormities of this life.

and so all i did, all i could do, was simply sit and be present with these friends. enter into their loss or pain or confusion with them. listening, questioning, sharing tears and being silent. i felt it. i sat in it. and i tried my best not to be afraid to hold it all with them. to take what i could and hold it for them.

and to be honest, all of this felt entirely insufficient. lacking and inadequate. but really, i think at times it is the best we have to offer. this presence. all we have to offer. and i hope, i just hope that it was enough.