Poem of the Month: August 2002

      What we want
      is never simple.
      We move among the things
      we thought we wanted:
      a face, a room, an open book
      and these things bear our names--
      now they want us.
      But what we want appears
      in dreams, wearing disguises.
      We fall past,
      holding out our arms
      and in the morning
        our arms ache.
      We don't remember the dream,
      but the dream remembers us.
      It is there all day
      as an animal is there
      under the table,
      as the stars are there
      even in full sun.

- Linda Pastan

Journal prompts:

• What do you want?
• Write a list of things you've always wanted but never got. Choose one and write about its absence in your life.
• Write about something you thought you wanted, but discovered it wasn't what you had hoped it would be.
• Write a journal entry titled "One year from today..." and project what your life will be like in the summer of 2003. What will you have accomplished? What is left that still wants to be done?