I left the the monastery this morning at 9:00. They invited me to stay until today since the Escondido fire, north of San Diego, interrupted monastic functions for two days. Three days, really, but one of those days was "lazy day" with no schedule. I would've been perfectly happy to have left on Friday. I saw the events of the fire and evacuation as part of the experience; part of my experience there. Things happening for a reason.

But I left the monastery happy and giddy, emotionally sensitive and squishy and smiling, listening to Broadway musicals for more than half the drive back home, which I did in one seven hour and fifteen minute shot, with one quick stop to put $20 of gas in my car.

"What good is sitting alone in your room
Come hear the music play
Life is a Cabaret, old chum
Come to the Cabaret"
- Cabaret

"Someone to crowd you with love
Someone to force you to care
Someone to make you come through
Who'll always be there, as frightened as you
Of being alive"
- Company

"The sun today will be scrambled for my souffle
I don't know whether to float or to fly
First I'll find something I don't need to buy
Something sweet like
(A hat with a belt, a blue parakeet
Whistles to blow as I dance down the street)
Beautiful candy, too pretty to eat
Stop living for reason
Time to start living for rhyme
I'm on a spree and I'm
Gonna make sure it's a perfectly good waste of time"
- Carnival

"See that star, I just might
Fly up there and shine as bright
But for a while I will, stand completely still
My heart's trying to tell me something
Yes, my heart begin, speak or pound or spin
Tell me something"
- Carnival

"Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears"
- Fiddler on the Roof

"Just join the circus like you meant to do
When you were so high
Pitch your troubles under a tent
And you're bound to lose 'em by and by
Say so long to fair Schenectady
Greet sweet Santa Fe
Toss your hat and cane in a sack again
Shoulder your pack and then hitch up the shay
Kiss the cat and never look back again
When the circus comes your way"
- Barnum