while i am writing...

it finally snowed. what beauty in those individual white crystals that bring new dimensions to the cold wintry season. the mississippi is frozen and speckley with the white dusting... there's something really magical about snow...

i am trying to write up my thesis... and finish up bits of the data summary that you discover that you maybe should do while writing things up... generate scripts to plot figures... it's difficult... not least because i've never written something this complicated... and it should be substantial enough to warrant all the time you took... and because there's also a lot going through my mind... as well as a lot of question marks... Neruda sums it up eloquently for me... he often does.

"While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I've gone.
I would like to know if others
go through the same things that I do,
have as many selves as I have,
and see themselves similarly;
and when I have exhausted this problem,
I am going to study so hard
that when I explain myself,
I will be talking geography."

from "We are many"; Pablo Neruda,
translated by Alastair Reid

i really like this stanza... its simplicity and truth... and am real glad to have discovered it. in the same collection "Extravagaria", lie many other beautiful, simple, profound verses... i'd like to be able to write poetry in that way... better still, to write a poetic thesis. but i am sure i'd be glad when it's all done, poetic or not.