This is the house where you were born:

At the crest of the great hill towering above Ouachita’s campus, a tiny little park is hoisted. From there, one can see past the softball field for miles, tracing the little black asphalt road which twists and curls under the horizon.

During my freshman year of college, I made it a particular point each Sunday afternoon to take a foot-long Subway sandwich to this treasured spot, flip down the tailgate of my truck, and position myself so that my bare feet dangled in the gelid breeze.

Somehow, it was always Fall there in the park, and even in May the ground was somewhere hidden by an impenetrable coat of shimmering, orange Oak leaves. It was in that place where I first grew comfortable with my [not-so-mild] introversion; a Eureka! of how necessary it has always been to take moments to myself to reflect on how I had/could/should relate to others, and what must be done to make right anything wrong. I needed a step outside of Context to look back in on it.

It was in this park that I first began to process the events of my eighteen years prior, and through this, I finally became awake to a host of things that had effected the person I’d by that point become. After hemorrhaging in the surprising awareness of who I was [or, wasn’t], I began to develop a deeper and more honest sense of self [so how to deny it]. And though I discovered a thorough comfort in that broadening awareness, I was a little disheveled by the responsibility it extended.

In my later years at the University, I made more visits to the park during the night, finding that the some-time past 11 pm was most suitable to the beholding of a day’s events. I liked to imagine that the darkness – especially there at The Ozarks’ Feet – carried in it a silence that was surely, to some extent, an impartation of Divinity. And that was not to be missed, by any means.

As it often works out, the memories that remain most explicit for the longest are those which embody either extreme joy or its counterpart. If I could look at all my experiences collectively – the task I imagine would be some giant equation in which the Bests are added to the Worsts and the Sum is divided by two. Perhaps this is the Spirit’s reminder that the greater portion of journey is to be traveled on neither the High road nor the Low, but that the Middle Way - Balance - is the one most righteous.

In one of these [hauntingly] explicit mind-scenes-of-mine, I find myself sitting in a 1997 white Ford Ranger at Arkadelphia’s little hilltop park, then a Senior. And I am watching the playground swings in my rear-view mirror solemnly drift with the evening current.

Creeak. Creeak. Creeak.

From what I can remember, there was but one light in the entire park, and it stood mightily near the place where I was parked. Directly beneath it those swings swayed resiliently, occasionally borrowing the light’s sparkly reflection on their chains.

“I will never sit in one of those,” I thought, looking deeper into the image on the mirror.

It was always Fall there, and it was so Imperfectly remote.

My good friend Andrea Wheat is well on her way to total domination of the stationary realm.

Some of her pieces:

Hire her.

In Graeco-Roman culture, a pedagaigos [the word from which we derive “pedagogue”] was a family slave made to serve as the educator-disciplinarian under which children of the household were raised unto adulthood. The role of the pedagogue was essentially this: to guide the young of the family onto the path of Right behavior in accordance with the worldview in which they were found.

The pedagogue – particularly within the Diaspora – was responsible to impress upon the child a variety of things, but namely his heritage as a member of God’s Chosen People. As such, the pedagogue was to reinforce the necessity to live faithfully in all God’s commandments [after all, God, in His grace, was so faithful to have given them], so that he might, as one created, live a life wholly pleasing to He who is Creator. As a Jew, the pedagogue’s thesis statement would be this: Love Yahweh with one’s entire heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love one’s neighbour as one would love oneself.

But what must be noted is that the pedagogue’s function is not atemporal. That is to say: the pedagogue must, at a certain point, relinquish the child to his own. The designation child itself implies a period of time through which a person passes, and the specific function of the pedagogue is inseparable from this temporality. For after a while, the child is no longer a child, and the pedagogue must trust that his investment in this stage will provide sturdy groundwork for the next, when freedom will append a responsibility which further and more deeply effects growth.

When the pedagogue’s time with the child is up, the surface appearance might be that his work is complete. But can progress be separated from tradition? Or, are Past and Future really two different things? And is one able delineate one section of life from another without some measure of loss from either [both]? The student is without volition to loose of himself the ethos of his teacher, and the values he has been taught provide both [at least] the context for and [at most] definition of all future behavior. One can not make a step forward without first lifting a foot from the one before.

There’s a lot of big questions I’ve never asked
There’s a lot of questions never asked.

When I first arrived on Ellsworth’s front soil only a year ago, I was not honestly aware which questions I was asking of myself, or, arrogantly, whether any at all were to be asked! In spite of my immaturity, [or, because of it] Ellsworth took me under its guiding, strong wing, and over the course of a year assumed the responsibility of ushering me towards maturity. And though I have yet to reach a place of growth with which I am content [I did say Growth - not Grown], I am indebted to Ellsworth as pedagaigos. As I continue on, I am able to speak with assurance on the measure of quality groundwork on which I’ve been given to build.

At a younger point in my life, I found it easy to type the words “places are things people fill.” Writing less from a belief that a place is a something made valuable only by the humans who occupy it, I was speaking from a less pure motive of Self-comfort. For it was at that time I was preparing to move somew[here] more Purgatorial [I thought] than Paradisical. It helped.

But a place is not bereft of value without persons to steward it, and I am awake to the truth that people are as-of-yet free of neither space nor time – if those are indeed two different things. As it is, people and place are woven so inextricably that it is simply impossible to identify one without the other. They are fibers of the same fabric, and with the same Hand and Needle that stitched them together in the Beginning, the corporeal, cosmic Cloth is now being re-stitched to its original Newness. And all things weaved into[gether] share a Hope of the benefits.

Why should we gain from His reward?
We can not give an answer.

I wonder about the extent to which Ellsworth will attach itself to the stories of this new family much like it did my roommates’ and mine. I wonder how Ellsworth will apply its discipline to their lives, moving them as a household into Mutuality and Commonness; the way of Right living.

I hope that it will, as it has with each of us [and Us as unit], afford them the true sense of Transcendence-in-Immanence – that the Future dwells among the Now – and from this Reality follows that the rips and snags are Already being repaired and sewn. There is only One who able see the entire Fabric, and therefore only One who can Hem to its edge.

And now I stand at the coast of the great sea which separates Ellsworth from Vickery, where the liquid molecules of my Past mingle with Future’s. But it is for the first time – from here – that I am able say Places are things people fill without denying the converse: People are things places fill.

Context has been woven so intensively throughout human existence that it would be a supreme mistake [or, misunderstanding of Reality for that matter] to ignore the essential purpose of the places in which our lives are being spread. Through them, we are taught and urged to see and to nowly-experience the Atemporal Place where we will [are] – as humans and as Humanity – [be] Mended and made Wholly One.

Consider the lilies of the valleys;
Neither do they toil or they spin.

Still, a quiet Hand is watching over them.

If I were to compile a list of daily elements which made my time in New York exciting, at the top, you’d find “Checking the Mail.” Unlike any other place I lived, my daily peek into the tiny mail-slot just inside that front stoop off East 97th Street was a moment wrought so deeply with anticipation, that, if the box marked Trew/Taylor/Shepherd lay empty, I honestly might have experienced some difficulty finding sleep later that night.

In Manhattan, or during that time there, a piece of mail was much more costly than gold; it was a sanctifying grace. [Maybe not, but at the least a letter every now and again was meaningful.] I couldn’t forget the first time I peered around each name above the mailboxes in the entryway, and how strikingly apparent it was which tenants had been occupying their space the longest, and who hadn’t.

The longest-tenured names had been scripted carefully upon a yellowed note-card clipping in a manner with which I’d previously thought only my Grandma Naomi capable. The more recent names had been etched with a red pen in all capital letters, and some had been printed using a label maker, back when such machines were still widely accessible.

The remainder of names had been scribbled on little stickers, stacked layer upon layer, and much like the rings of the tree, one could easily see an entire history by peering beneath the outermost layer. Our apartment was of this variety. We lived in a “turnover suite,” and from the assortment of nameplates above the mailbox, one could easily get a sense for the deep rift between the transplants and residents of New York City.

On Friday afternoon, Bob, Landlord of Vickery, handed me my set of keys. Since the mail-room in Manhattan had become such a sanctum for me, my first instinct was to find the corresponding area here. Not that I was expecting any mail just yet, but I was curious to see how Dallas’ take might compare.

When I arrived to the front of the building, I immediately observed how much cleaner are things here than they are in Spanish Harlem. But, it wasn’t that that set me into motion. Like before, what intrigued me most were the names - or - the stories they embodied.

I quickly scanned them all, memorizing each, as well as each’s position among the others. Printed stately in Adobe Garamond, and each perfectly consistent with the next, I could see no visible differences among any of them, and as a result I had no clue to the length of each’s tenure, unlike in my previous apartment. But it seemed as if I were able to save this scene’s image to my mind I might be able to glean something of each individual’s character and his or her relationship to the whole.

Right next to SHEPHERD is WOLFE, which is humorously appropriate. Across from WOLFE was HUFF, and next to HUFF is CROSS. CROSS hangs next to DAVIES, and on its leftmost edge is FANT. Directly across from FANT and next to WOLFE on the perimeter of the space was a box with no name at the top. And the space where the little 2″ X 4″ nametag belonged was a large void, and it was nearly haunting.

Just today as I was locking up my apartment before a trip to Target, a meddlesome man in his late thirties burst into the hallway from outside.

“DWAYNE!” He shouted.

“DWAYNE!” I shouted back, reflexively.

“Hey there. I’m Dwayne. I’m the new guy!” For all he knew, I had lived here my entire life.

“Yeah?” Rejoinder was on its way.

“I’m Andrew, and actually, I’m the new guy. Just moved in yesterday.”

“No Shit!?” Dwayne was confused. I could smell the marijuana on his purple cardigan.

“Cool man. Well. I’m gonna run and get a shower curtain from Target. Sure I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Welp, you ever got computer problems, man, I fix whatever shits ya got yerselves into.” Dwayne seemed like a nice guy.

In the two days since I moved in, I’ve met only one other tenant, and her name is Ivonne. I met her during my first day, when I’d locked both my keys and my phone out of my apartment with no way to get back in or contact anyone for help. I sat hopelessly sweaty for upwards of two hours, but unlike all other living situations of my past, this time I had no roommate to compensate for my forgetfulness.

Ivonne pulled into the driveway in a late 90’s, primer grey Toyota Corolla. She slowly steered into the spot next to my car, and after she parked, I saw the driver’s side door crack a little.

“Do you live here?” I eagerly asked.

After I heard a quiet “Uh, Yeah?” I asked if she might not mind sharing the open door with me so I could get back inside.

She asked if Landlord Bob hadn’t informed that beneath one of the unit’s breaker boxes an outdoor key was hidden. When I denied that he had [followed by a murmur that that detail would have been a nice one to know] she grinned, as if Bob was regularly guilty of this sort of oversight.

I wondered about the ways Bob might have let her down in the past, but what was at least obvious is that he’s been consistent enough in his habits to push this grin into her cheeks. Still, I resisted asking anything else of her. Two questions, I thought, had been enough for our first encounter.

Opening the door, she allowed me in first. She followed closely after, burdened by a heap of fresh laundry.

“Thank you sooo much,” I offered, sincerely.

After a bashful nod, Ivonne walked into the apartment where Phantom of the Opera was blaring, and softly shut her door.

Looking back, I might not have preferred to meet my first neighbor in another way. And I quickly concluded: “What better way is there to enter into relationship with this girl than to display my complete reliance on her for my well-being?” If not for the grace which I am given by others not unlike Ivonne, well, then, I am no more than a helpless, hopeless sweaty guy in a proverbial parking lot.

I do hope that my time at Vickery might mean my envelopment into a comm-unity whose life has nothing to do with isolation or alienation [apart from embodying our Freedom from it], but is caught up in the cordial Rhythm of People working as one towards one Goal - going Home.

The Way there was not one designed to be traveled alone, so along it, it is imperative that we seek out neighbors with which to share open doors - and likewise seek out doors with which to offer openings. Neither the neighbor nor the door by themselves tell the whole story, but rather, they together take part[icipation] in The Sharing. And in that beautiful act, neither are lost, and both are fulfilled. From my first meeting with Dwayne and Ivonne, I can’t help but imagine that a beautiful Unity-in-Diversity has, even now in these early Vickerian stages, begun to work itself out.

God, please bring The Rain.
Yeah, bring it soon.

The wall before us is a pale Green
literally; the paint is that color.
And the ceramic dish under my feet
Is all shards and shit. Sweeping

5:56 into a pile of laments: Too quickly
the future from 5:33, which is the once when
I’m jarred by the jangling sirens of the alarm
dopplering by and on down the block.

I rolled from my palette, cotton and spring,
Pattering softly atop the cedar in socks
Until I noticed my roommate made himself
A missing person. I’d never tell him

What deep delight are the mornings made
In the kitchen before Dayspring breaks-
Free to clank the pan upon the stove full
Of wet yolks and sizzling margarine.

Returning from the kitchen, converting
The pattering to pounding, the feeling found
Beneath my lumpish heels is but is not as
Liberating as the privileged sensation

Of a thick omelette sliding down your throat
Unchewed, not unlike the two years I lived
Considering size of a butter dollop, or whether
To add to my Black a spot of cream or not.

Still beneath this space the heater frizzles
and burns my shin-hair, when I notice the Red
Demitasse from this unique morning only
two weeks ago, nodding its cocky little head.