I've done it to myslef again, forced myself to be the last to leave the party. Last year when I left Clarion, I was the last person to check out of Owen Hall. It fell on me to inspect the remains of six weeks of writing and passion reflected in empty rooms, signs on doors of people who no longer lived there, and lounge furniture left in disarray.

Today I watched most of Clarion 2002 and the 35th reunion people walk out the door. The stupid litttle reminders of all the people are strewn about:
SGT. Stone dolls in fishnet stockings
Water guns
Critiqued stories decorated in red pen marks lay in
a corner (forgotten or waiting for recycling?)
Staunchy
The smell of the classroom in Van Hoosen
Old charcoal in the BBQ

Last year, four of us had one last lunch in Owen Hall - a sad, silent lunch of poeple in love and friends (me, K.S.S., J.G., A.O.) This year, six of the reunion attendees went out to lunch to stare at each other and remember how great our own Clarion's were. It's a testament to how much this place meant to each of us that we are delaying returning to work, to school, to home just to BE in the same place, just to see and feel the faded flowers of our lives.

I can't leave until Monday morning because I have to get my 2001 manuscripts from the Clarion office. I spent tonight alone, watching the reunion folks leave, then I went to Barnes and Noble and bumped a guy who went to Clarion a few years ago (forgot his name). It's warm and humid in East Lansing, sweat beads drop off my brow, but I feel cold and clammy.

In memory of Beth, I stopped and stared down both directions of the train tracks.

In all honesty to myself and to the dedicated reader, I've bought this on myself. It's a self-destructive impulse to feel a genuine emotion besidesmy normal self-serving obsessing to the exclusion of other people. How wonderful that the best way I interact with people is by their detritus.

Over time, pictures and mementos become more real than the people that made them. I'm no writer.

For the rest of the evening I'm going to drink the Amaretto that Cecilia gave me and sit on the outdoor lounge. Maybe the Powers that be will let me ponder the favorable future instead of reliving a past that I don't deserve to remember.

I feel like apologising to everybody.

And I'm tired. So tired and feeling sick. I need a job and money. I need to feel good in my own skin again.

But this much I promise to myself:

THE ONLY WAY I'M EVER COMING BACK HERE IS AS AN INSTRUCTOR.