We all make our own pockets of space, through sheer force of will.

By one perspective, Pittsburgh, or at least my personal existence in it, is a pocket, grown from a mental void into a small life bounded by dwelling, school, and nascent social structures forming in much the same way as must have happened in the big bang, with particles forming, exploding, reforming; eventually cooling into stable states.

My own 'real-world' pocket, which I feared would be too small for me, has turned comforting. Not so big as to be cavernous, not so cramped as to be claustrophobia-inducing.

But of course that's only one of the pockets I live in.

Fury's grown from a tiny pocket that I and a very small number of other people frequent now and again, to a larger room, anchored by the ley lines of regular visitors. It has conduits to other pockets: when someone leaves a comment it gets pushed into email, in itself a bridge between an ether-formed pocket and the physical. SMS messaging punches straight through to the physical pocket directly (to my literal pocket, if you will.) Geographically removed from most of what I would call my life, I share an individual pocket with each person whom I'm close to.

For Ammy, it exists as an instant messaging window, where semantic meaning is laid bare through conversational text, or flat innuendo that is none the less subtle for the medium, but perhaps too subtle, as a ';)' of acknowledgement can be as coarse as a bursting laugh arising from a whispered comment during a movie.

For my mom, the pocket exists between my ear and my closed eyes. As I talk to her on the cellphone, thee's a part of me that concentrates on making the signal stronger by sheer force of attention and attenuation, while the rest is acutely aware of the narrowness and length of this pocket, shouting across a long, but ultimately thin, cavern.

For each friend there is a different pocket, unique in both texture and timbre. The characteristic they share is the geographic disparity responsible for their existence. Were I local, the person in question would live in real-world pocket, and any other pocket would be of the moment, and not the salient characteristic.

As it is, I'm amazed at the diversity of pockets I've found, made, and maintained in the past six weeks. Be it instant messaging, short email pingpongs, heart-to-heart phone calls, or emails so rare yet beautiful as to be works of art, their very nature calling for a commiserate work of art in response, they are all pockets, and they all hold jewels most valuable. Who could have known that the things I most lamented leaving on the left coast would be my most precious possessions here?

I know: Everyone but me.

Thank you.