i've been thinking a lot about faith lately. and belief. or disbelief, maybe. spirituality. and religion. mysticism. how these things differ. and how the semantics here is vital. or is it? where is the crossover among all these things--the delineations?

i can't really speak to what it means to be a catholic. all i can do is to speak to my own experience.

in reaching into my mind--drawing the memory blanket over those countless sunday mornings i remember doughnuts paid for with quarters, advent wreaths, and the luxurious robes of priests.

i remember kneeling on the plush, green velvet, my little arms struggling to make it to the top of the pew before me. i remember countless prayers and incantations. the ringing of the bells and my mother's fist as she lightly pressed it to her chest.

i am a product of my catholic upbringing. it is where my beliefs began--where they were shaped. and in thinking over all the details there are two sermons that stand at the foreground of my mind.

1. i remember the day the priest explained why it is we read the same passages again and again. because they are metaphors, he said. because they are not meant to be taken literally, because there is always more--more to learn, more to cull, more to interpret.

in falling in love with writing i feel understand the bible and the manner in which it came to be better than ever before.

bottom of the cup.

she stared into the bottom of her coffee cup, looking for renegade pieces of bean--bits gone unnoticed by the grinder. she noted the formation of new bubbles against the hard, white clay.

feeling his eyes upon her she wondered if this was the end. or just the next step.

her elbow pushed into the dark wood of the counter.

whose move was next? whose answer would come first?

and in the silence, her dark hair cutting a half-mask across her face, she thought: this is when i ask him to fall in love with me.

instead she pushed back the stool and went to refill her cup.

the end.

she couldn't breathe.

it was as though the city was crumbling in on her.

it was on the subway when she first noticed it: the slow, inching end of her love-affair with new york. she had ceased to find any charm in the thousand little eccentricities around her.

she could no longer bear the plaintive cries of taxi horns or the cloying sense of loneliness in crowded elevators.

so she began to pull out detailed maps of the continental US. she traced the orange interstate lines back and forth, up and down, planning her escape. her fingers running over the rocky mountains, the great lakes, along the continental divide divining for answers, groping for meaning. the questions always, where to go?

she dreamt of closing her eyes, moving her hand along the folded ridges until she felt the need to stop. and that stop would be the beginning. the next move. the migratory edict.

but she lacked the courage to close her eyes.

and without an answer she was forced to stay.

a ride uptown.

the girl with the strange glasses sits directly across from me. sandwiched between two whole food's totes and reading bill bryson.

to her right is a beautiful indian woman with a man far too old for her. is this a date? is that a faint smile of adoration or despair?

in the crook of the doorway is a man sleeping standing up. his face pressed unnaturally against the subway window. he drops his soda can. then opens it. makes no motion to wipe the fizz from his puffy winter vest. sleep resumes. now the open soda can falls. he is slow to recover and an unnatural torrent of coca-cola makes its way across the car's floor.

the indian woman nudges the woman with the strange glasses. indicates she should mover her grocery sacks. bill bryson in hand the woman with in glasses migrates further into the subway car. the indian woman and {her date?} follow suit.

the man with the coke drinks what remains in the can. he doesn't care.

and train hurtles on, all of us in tow, past 168th street.

the A train.

she clung to his dark leather jacket as he leaned against the subway pole.

one finger nestled into the deep v of his zipper.

she didn't know the A train then.

didn't know where it would go or end up.

only that he knew.

that he would lead.

and she would continue to cling.