what happened to july?

so I got back from my trip home, and somehow the entire month of july escaped me in the midst of work, work, and more work... I had some crazy deadlines, but the good news is - I met them :) I finished the written materials for my qualifying exams - dissertation prospectus, introduction, a chapter, and bibliography - and my oral exam is on the 21st of August... just days away... suffice to say, life has been hectic... and I also taught for the past six weeks - dreaded college writing 2 but that's over now and it was actually fine. Being back in da'ville has been challenging - I'm missin' home fa real. But I returned with a renewed sense of urgency - to get shit done - an' dat is kinda what I did... July brought me stress and success - perhaps the universe does work in three's - cause I met my major deadline, found out that I won a fellowship I applied for, and five of my poems got accepted for publication - so all in all, summer madness has brought to bear worthwhile and fulfilling fruit...

And even though I got all this stuff done, I still look back on July and wondered what happened to it? where did it go? an' august threatens to slip away just as fast. As soon as I cover its pages of seconds, minutes, hours, and days, the weeks rush through my fingertips as my calendar becomes dated, my notes no longer make sense, and all my promises are broken... perhaps these are not so much promises, but rather they are all these unspoken notes written in memory during showers, dreams, and car rides, notes that promise I will do this and that, call so an' so who I haven't talked to in ages, mediate, exercise, spend time wit' me, listen to that album I've been dying to hear, file old notes and bills, and oh yes, while I'm doin all this, somehow get my work done to... cause isn't that why I 'm here - to get dat paper... an' in the midst of writing, thinking, and sorting out all the shit in my head to make it sound like what I want to write about for the next two years, nothing makes sense anymore, but it comes together - ready to be seen and heard... I finished something and it felt so good... I wanted to scream from the ocean's edges, tell my spirit guides, my ancestors, that I think I can actually do this. I was beginning to doubt myself and the stress started to get to me... which is why I had to check out, so all I did for weeks was write, think, reflect, write some more, take mental health days, and take care of me... an' while home had so many blessings, it also came with difficult and painful memories - most I try to escape but they catch me unguarded and ill prepared to feel all that again... I hope for days when it won't be so hard, when they will only tug at me ever so slightly and I can smile through them...

so what in the hell does this have to do with july? this is where it went - lost between my work as a phd student and my life as I search for well being and reconnecting to my spiritual truth; july 2006 - trapped forever between my 30th birthday and my tenuous august 1st deadline - with my mother's birthday among the ashes and my journey to discover her again and again.

an' now we in august, i look forward, wishing for more positive three's an' wibes.
I have no insightful reports and riveting debates to start right now - all I have is this and these words that probably only make sense to me and my lost july...

Angelique