renaissances of wonder

i find myself, always, drawn back to lawrence ferlinghetti (ironic, i know). to this wrinkled man, with his white beard, with his 'radical' ideas wrapped in an old body.
"i am waiting," he writes, "for my case to come up. and i am waiting for a rebirth of wonder. and i am waiting for someone to really discover america. and wail."
* * *
since embarking on this "new chapter" of my life (you know that one you start after college? the growing up one?) i've felt torn between practicality and idealism. between a job, a move towards a lucrative career versus pursing a highly impractical (lets soften that by saying idealistic) ph.d...it feels too often like a choice between a vague educational pursuit or a "life" with a house and a husband and the guarantee of maintaining or exceeding whatever privilege i was born into.

and it occurs to me that i, like ferlinghetti, have been waiting. this is why his poem runs occasionally and unexpectedly through my head. i, too, am waiting for a rebirth of wonder. i am waiting, like ferlinghetti, for my case to come up. i am waiting for a moment when we value, really value, education. and nothing more. i am waiting for my idealism to renew itself.
* * *
and this is the key really. these years of getting my ph.d. cannot be for me about anything more then my own education. this is not a journey with a career necessarily at its end. it's just a journey. one that i am lucky enough to allow myself.

so i will wait. and experience, and observe, and allow...

awaiting, perpetually and forever, a renaissance of wonder.