red cheeks

i look around the library and, though the temperature of the room is cold (we're wearing sweaters), people's cheeks are red from the stress. every once in a while i'll see someone doing what i'm doing--putting my cold fingers to my cheeks, hoping to cool the burning, just for a moment.

the floor is silent except for the typing on laptops and the occassional coughing. i am the loudest, perhaps, because i have drank too much water today & keep getting up. faces look generally concentrated and men and women alike twindle their hair, ironically absentmind, while sorting out big questions.

at the start of the semester i gave a little donor thank you address when i talked about how sometimes harvard is the charicature of itself--all these serious people, doing serious thinking.

a nearby student takes a deep sigh--the problems are sometimes too big for our little papers. yet, we try again and again, somehow convinced that writing about it might make a difference.

this is the rhythm. if i romanticize it, i don't hate it.