"If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." Mohandas Gandhi

A sweet beginning :)

What teaching taught me:

How little I know.
How much I know.
How much I care.
How lucky I am to be able to read. Really read. And enjoy it.
How I’m a bit off-base teaching English and maybe I should be teaching something else.
How important it is.
How I took my teachers and professors for granted.
How God provides.
How planning can only take me so far. A lesson I continue to learn.
How a few, real intellectual connections are worth all the bored sighs.
How I know I’ll always do it, somehow.

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree." -- Emily Bronte

It's Fall somewhere, I just know it.

I'm ready to say goodbye to a blazing hot steering wheel and wardrobe dysfunction (hot outside, frigid at work), and to hurricane season. We need rain, but does it have to come in such a violent way? I'm ready to relinquish the self-tanner on my pale legs and body dysmorphia in general.

I'm ready for burnt orange and blazing yellow leaves. For my Nandinas to turn crimson. To sleep with the windows open and burn pumpkin-scented candles. To stir huge pots of chili and layer under light sweaters. For big, sweet apples and family gatherings. For the anticipation of Christmas.

Come, Fall, and briskly.

"All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, to, and why." - James Thurber

28 years today, and I'm still running. Grateful for that fact in itself - so grateful that even my weariness (and there is weariness) is almost like a gift. I can live in such a way that I'm tired.

Joyfully, magnificently tired.

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence" - Robert Frost

Almost every day I feel like I've just begun learning. I hope I never lose that feeling. MLA 08.02.08

"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." - Arlo Guthrie

Even when we are climbing mountains, every once and a while there will be a meadow, a friendly spot right up there where the gravel ends. A place to rest and remember that there is another truth, and in fact that is why we are climbing in the first place.

People turn 30 all the time. But this is the first and last time my husband turns 30. I think he's about the coolest guy on the planet and I'm thankful for him everyday.


To the next 30, to our dreams, to our one-day home up there in the mountains. We'll get there. I know it. I love you, John.

"Among those I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." -Auden

Congratulations to my beautiful sister and new brother-in-law. I hope you always keep each other laughing. Love. 7.12.08