I do what I can. In the past I've struggled with the reality that I am far, far from who I want to be. Somehow from all that self-hate and turmoil, I surfaced with this notion: in order to become the man I want to be, I have to let all my hate and worry and disappointment float away like dry leaves on a creek, forgive myself, and be patient with myself. And so I do. Sometimes it is difficult.

Precepts: Keep it simple. Appreciate beauty and create beauty, but know that the life you lead is your greatest creation.

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.

- Henry Thoreau

Walking through the grove this morning, the wind whipped through the trees, paused, and changed direction. It reminded me of those Butler Island mornings when the choppy lake sends waves beating on the shore at regular intervals, and the sound is omnipresent. The predictable whoosh of those waves or of this wind soothes me like the patter of rain.

What a blessing, to be transported to that little island on Lake Champlain by a sound and a memory. Peace. I let the feeling wash over me and fill me up.

Even on a clear day in late September, the Pennsylvania coal region seems barren. We pass through Shamokin, an expansive town with tiny houses stretching to the horizon, and enter Coal Township. No name could be more appropriate: on one side of the road, black heaps of coke disguised as natural terrain; on the other side, an orange creek running rich with sulfur from the mines. The coach bus rolls past a "Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful" sign. I look around at the gritty landscape, the utilitarian byproduct of human greed. "Don't Litter," the sign explains. But litter isn't the problem.

The lone bench just off the crumbling sidewalk means we've arrived. The bench's back slats read Centralia -- 17927. The streets are laid out like a town, but almost every lot is empty. Intersections are marked with four-way stop signs, but no traffic. You might heed the signs out of habit, but their new purpose is to allow you to ground yourself in this ghost town. Stop. Look around. We walk up a gravel path to the area where the mine fire started. In all directions, steam can be seen rising out of the ground in noxious wisps. At the top of the hill is the town cemetery, but buried farther below and ignored like a corpse is the Problem. Every now and then people like us stop to pay their respects. We travel down the fractured highway on foot, quietly board the bus, and leave the mine fire behind.

It is 4:47 a.m. I woke about twenty minutes ago, with the cord of my earbuds running under my shirt and down to my iPod, which was resting between the couch cushions as I slept. My heart was pounding. The song was Paul Oakenfold's mix of Paul van Dyk's "Words (For Love)," from Tranceport. I put that album on to fall asleep, and I did for a while, but now all I wanted to do was combust in place, and die happy. Instead I lay in darkness, opening my eyes but not seeing anything, breathing deeply, meditating. I could feel the blood coursing through me as each song climbed to the slow plateau of clarity and then flung itself upward and off the peak, into ecstacy. I guess that's trance for you: as close as you can get to doing drugs without doing anything but listening.

When I finished Tranceport, my iPod shuffled to Sufjan Stevens' Seven Swans, an album so hinged on his delicate vocals and banjo plucking that it must be the complete opposite of trance; not ecstatic but measured and careful, and the perfect music to bring me down. Now the sky has lightened and I can hear the first birds reveling in their morning ecstasy, the way humans can't or won't. And I can't go back to sleep. All I can think is how grateful I am for music.

Yesterday: Black crows fucking or fighting in the back yard, like blots of ink in the parched grass. It is too hot. The other birds aren't singing; only the sickly hymn of the crows. The neighbor's cats kill mice and leave them scattered around our property. One is on the steps leading down to the deck, half-decomposed and covered in flies. Two flat black beetles crawl into the carcass.

Today: A clump of downy feathers where the crows were, but no crows and no explanation. It is too hot. The first fallen walnut of the season, small like a green olive, lands near the horseshoe pitch. Its acrid odor stays on my fingers, and I carry it with me as I walk around the yard sipping whiskey and water from a coffee mug. It is Saturday and my friends are far away.

This is the summer of the crow.

While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me.

– from Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Tonight I turned my computer off for a little while so my room was completely silent. Again, the soft patter of rain outside was the most calming thing I could imagine. I have been on edge recently with so much to do. Tonight I'm worried about my nonfiction essay, which I've left untouched for far too long. Instead of writing, though, I sat in bed with my ear to the open window and only the light of my desklamp keeping me awake. Just listening was beneficial.

The rain adds another dimension to the way I perceive distance. Instead of a car passing, I hear a car splashing through a film of water on the road, and passing under raindrops which drum on its roof and smack the ground in all directions. The rain is loudest close-at-hand, singing more and more softly with the distance. The layers paint a blurry aural picture in my mind: the physical plant, the river, the highway, and home – nothing seems far away. The world is fuller when it rains, and the connection between all life is more obvious. Everything benefits from rain: the birds and the squirrels and the feral cats and the grass and my jade and me. I am less lonely now.

Now: tea as black as coffee, radio jazz and Greek translation. I wish I were Sappho; translating dumbed-down textbook Herodotus would be easier. No... I wish I were reading Sappho. I wish I didn't have so much work to do.

Later: Cherry Coke to keep my synapses firing. Latin homework, Latin take-home exam. Songs blur together and fade into the background and eventually the music stops. I don't notice. All I want is sleep. Eventually, with work left undone, I give in.

Later still: A shrill alarm. My heart thuds in my chest; I am terrified until I realize what the noise is. I stumble out of bed and, with an intimation of regret, hit the snooze button. I find my bed again and turn my back to the soft light of the desk-lamp. Nine minutes later: repeat. And again, and again, each time startled into consciousness, heart racing. Finally, I stay awake, knowing I have more work to do. Work gets done, a new day starts, and, slowly, being conscious gets easier.

At home for Thanksgiving break, I wrote the following:

Across the road, the ridge is the horizon, visible now because all the leaves have fallen. Between the shaking fingers of the trees, the sky rises up orange and gray and white and blue like a watercolor painting. Much to be thankful for.

I am thankful for family and friends, of course, but also for the little things that keep me going from one day to the next: Tea when I'm alone. James Bond movies. Girls with glasses. Dim lamplight. Interpol. "When I Heard at the Close of the Day" by Walt Whitman. Walden. Pablo Neruda. Clouds and leafless trees.

I have much to be thankful for.

When the river flooded, I walked down with two friends. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect because the town was in a state of emergency. There was no panic, though, and no emergency -- just the slow creep of the swelling river, each little ripple pushing further up the street. We walked around the somber night streets and onto the middle of the bridge, it's ends blocked and flanked by flares. No one said anything to us about breaking curfew, and it was obvious that we weren't the only curious souls in Lewisburg. In all, there were perhaps ten people on the bridge. I looked over the edge and listened. There was only the rushing of the river beneath our feet, it's flow interrupted by concrete pillars, and the great silence of all that missing traffic. It was a beautiful night.