I am digging graves.

Lately I've been spending my time with someone from a past life. There hasn't been much to it, this us hanging out, and at the same time there has been so much. I don't know why, but she's helped me believe in myself again, or maybe not again, maybe for the first time. No, probably not the first time, but the first time in what feels like a long time. I'm starting to dream again. Real good ones, too. I'm not referring to the sleepy-time kind, I'm referring to the "this is what I want to do with my life" kind of dreams, the kind that all the kindergarten teachers tell you to hold onto and never let go of, or, err, onto which to hold and of which to never let go.

I dream of space. Space that's mine and mine to share with everyone. A place where I can share the things I have and the things I know and the things I know how to do and where others can share with me and with everyone else, too. A place where everyone can learn and teach and create and express and help and love. I think the word I'm looking for is community. I dream of community, true community. I've been reading and learning a lot about the idea that one's intentions and one's desires manifest themselves into one's realities. If this is true, if there really is some cosmic, universal force helping us all out, then this is my intention; this is my desire, my dream. The rest is up to the universe.

I swear on whatever there is left for us agnostics to believe in that I have not, in fact, turned into a hippie.

A friend of mine said to me recently that he wanted to get a job digging graves. He has the build for it, he said. Strong back, broad shoulders, an unhealthy fascination with his own mortality. Yeah, I should be a grave digger, too, I thought. I can dig a grave for everyone I've ever been and bury them deeply within myself where they'll nourish the seeds I planted there beside my ghosts and old despair and I'll grow myself a better world.

I am digging graves. I hope my back is strong enough.