Cowboy

Due to formatting issues, I'm directing traffic from this one blog post to one of my photo blogs. What I wanted to post here looks better here.

The Essence of Life

One day I kept my [then] two-month old granddaughter, Piper, while her mom was at work and her dad ran some errands. She arrived snugly tucked into her car seat, eyes wide, not sure where she was or how she had gotten there. She'd been asleep in the car and apparently woke up while her dad was carrying her in. I've often thought about how it must seem to babies that they're continually traveling to Oz, because so often the people, places and things have completely changed when they wake up from a catnap. They're put in their car seat at home, they sleep on the road, and then they wake up in an entirely unfamiliar place. The looks on their faces seem to be saying that they're not ruling out munchkins or flying monkeys.

That day I stood over Piper and caught her eye, telling her softly that I was so glad she had come to see me. She smiled widely. And then the second after her father left, she decided to exercise her lungs. Big time. I reached to get her out of the car seat but I couldn't figure out how to unhook one major piece of the harness. The harder I tried, the harder she cried. I finally had to locate my glasses so I could see the blasted thing, but by the time I figured it out and sprung her she was inconsolable. She screamed. She cried. She stiffened her legs and clenched her fists. She pulled her own hair (which she had a head full of.) She sputtered and gasped and pushed so much air through those tiny baby lungs it could've inflated a moonwalk. Usually I was able get her quieted down within a few minutes, but this time she was not even remotely responding to my tricks. Five minutes passed. Then 10. Then 20. By that time I was afraid the neighbors might call Child Protective Services. Finally, after 25 minutes of non-stop shrieking her eyelids began to flutter closed, as if Tinkerbell had laid fairy-sized bags of sand on each lid. I rocked her from side to side while she was doing what my mother calls snubbing: sucking in tiny involuntary breaths that echoed the wails that preceded them. Piper finally succumbed to her siesta, and as I turned her over to lay her on a blanket I noticed the onesie she was wearing. It was decorated with colorful embroidery that spelled out two words:

"Love Me."

I stopped and stared. Amidst all the howling I hadn't even noticed it, and for some reason it hit me hard, as though someone had pounded me once with a blunt object. I stopped what I was doing and within a matter of seconds it occurred to me that we all arrive on this planet with those two words indelibly tattooed on our being. "Love me!" We crave it, so much so that as we get older it often drives what we do, what we reach for, what we demand. In America we are bombarded with messages - spiritually, materially, emotionally - that tell us we can be whole, we can be satisfied, we can be loved "if." In many church circles, it's if you follow the rules. According to advertisers, it's if you drive this car, if you wear this cologne, if you lose the weight, if you drink this beer. Sometimes our parents or family members tell us if we're "good" we're worthy of love, but if we dissent from the family "status quo," we deserve to be castigated and abandoned. Love is often conditional at work, at school and in various types of relationships, whether they're friends, colleagues, or lovers. No matter where it's coming from, the message is the same: If you'll jump through the hoop that's being held in front of you, you'll finally get what you came for. It's no wonder that we often get tangled up in things that promise to supply that precious commodity, but profoundly fail to deliver it.

Today my husband and I were in a crowded airport and I started looking at everyone I passed as though they were wearing a sign around their neck that said, "Love Me." And it was a pretty eye-opening experience. Among other things it left me feeling a little more compassionate and tolerant. Could it be that the people who are the most difficult are those who've not known much love? Might their unkind actions and obstinate ways be nothing more than their version of a 25-minute screaming fit? Certainly it's not healthy to tolerate abuse or to stay in close relationship with someone who is rude or obnoxious. And I don't think that our happiness should depend on how people treat us. But I wonder how often I would put my dukes down if I could just recognize that some people are simply angry and hurt because they're not loved well.

Image Credit: SharonaGott on Flickr
Licensed under Creative Commons

Blue

Climbing on the bed
I reached for the treasure
in the top drawer
of her dresser:
a blue velvet drawstring bag
resting in my hand
like a rare bird,
like a memory
eager to fly.

My transformation began
with the clunky, chunky bracelet
trimmed in rhinestones:
some as dark as sapphire
others
infused with an azure ocean
the kind where you can stand waist deep
and still see your feet.
It was a Caribbean vacation
for my wrist.

I riddled through her bulging closet
to find evening wear:
a long silky nightgown
a black felt hat with fishnet blusher
high-heeled shoes that slapped my heels like a flag in a furious wind.

Once attired
I stretched my arms toward the sky -
perched on tippy-toes
to reach the ultimate accessory:
her prized mink stole.
I wrapped it around my shoulders
and buried my face in the welcoming fur,
a simulation of the embrace
I regularly craved.

Afternoon soap operas
were my theme song
as I walked the tiny runway
in my grandmother's living room.
I was an eight year-old supermodel
fueled by the glorious certainty
that my presence on planet earth
really mattered
to her.

Suddenly
she looked up from the television.
The doctor's prognosis,
the woman's affair,
and the chronic ache for revenge
all droned on in the background,
but all eyes were on me.
All two of them.
And she adored me.
Each and every gaze
repaired a sliver of my brokenness.
Time stalked us like a shadow
hungry for years,
and before I knew it
she was gone.
But I still have the bracelet.
And I hope she somehow knows
that her fervent love
saved my life.

I think nature has a lot to tell. From time to time I wake up and realize that I've been on autopilot, deafened by the demands of everyday living. A few months ago we took my mom to see Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town." The plot is too much to fully go in to here, but to understand the context of the quote below, all you need to know is that a young mother, Emily, dies during childbirth. She gets an opportunity to go back to earth for one day, and immediately starts trying to think of the best day she ever had. Her guide strongly encourages her to select one that is uneventful and ordinary, but she persists in her quest to relive a special day. They finally agree on her twelfth birthday. She lands in her family's kitchen as they're getting ready for the festivities, though they cannot see her. She sees her brother and aches to reach out and touch him. She longs to hug her mother, to be back in the mix of what's going on in front of her. She sees the beauty of everyday, ordinary living. At one point she exclaims,

"Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you." Then she turns to her guide and says, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?" He replies, "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some."

And then Emily eventually returns to her "afterlife," painfully aware that she let the beauty and wonder of her once-mortal state escape her.

I can relate.

I wrote a song many years ago that starts out,

Winter turns to spring
And we don't blink an eye
The sun wakes and warms
As we pass on by
The mountains and the hills
Burst forth in song
Bellowing with beauty
As we hurry along.

That's the story of my life. In the chaos of everyday living I often completely miss the joys of living on planet earth. My family and friends are so precious to me. I can't imagine being in Emily's predicament, where I am no longer able to laugh, cry, celebrate with or hug those around me. But without a doubt, it will happen.

Since the dawn of time people have speculated and argued about what happens when we die. I wouldn't dream of trying to unpack all that here. But I do want to say that I think nature strongly hints that there's something beyond what we can see. Elton John's "Circle of Life" song from The Lion King comes to mind because it speaks of a life/death/life cycle. Here are some of the things that I've observed in nature:

• The sun. It rises (birth), sets (death) and rises again (birth.)

• Mortal sleep patterns. We wake up in the morning (birth) we go to bed at night (death) and we rise again (birth.)

• Regarding sleep, when we go to bed (die) we reside in an alternative world -- dreams. It's on a completely different plane than the "awake" space we live in, and other than the sketchy details that we remember (and soon forget) we have very little access to it. Think about it: every night we are ushered in to and "exist" in another world.

• Butterflies. They are born as caterpillars (birth), retire to a tomb-like cocoon (death) and then they emerge as a completely different creature (birth.)

• The seasons. Living things bloom in the spring (birth), expire in winter (death), and are reborn in the spring (birth.)

I know there are many more, but I can't think of them right now. I'll add them as they come to mind. Can anyone out there think of another example of birth/death/birth in nature?

Photo Credit: Daniel Garcia Neto
Flickr
Licensed Under Creative Commons

Learning to Talk

Here's a little video of when Piper (our two year-old granddaughter) was about 20 months old. Her mom and I were trying to get her to say stuff on camera. And despite our noisy attempts to extract words from her, she managed to think about what she was trying to say, and blurt it out. You can totally see the wheels turning in her head. She even asks her own questions (mom translates.)



I took a linguistics class a couple of years ago and one of the units was on language acquisition, also known as language development. I had never really thought much about how babies acquire the ability to communicate, and became pretty fascinated with the theories (especially because at the time my granddaughter was just learning to talk!) Experts disagree on how we "learn" to speak. Some theorists say that it's strictly learned or imitated, but that doesn't account for the fact that kids put sentences together that they've never heard. It also doesn't account for the fact that kids make mistakes in predictable ways. For example, it's common for kids to say, "I goed home" instead of "I went home." And they've likely never heard anyone use the term "goed."

Noam Chomsky, one of the most famous American linguists, believes that language is an innate thing, that somehow our DNA gives us the raw capacity to learn verbal communication. So a child who is born into a Spanish-speaking family will use the innate characteristics she has to learn the Spanish language, and a kid in Japan will do the same thing with the Japanese language.

I kind of believe that it's a mixture of innate ability and learning. All things considered, kids aren't given much information (i.e. stimulus) but they're still acquiring new words and phrases all the time. Yes, they hear us label things and learn to imitate that, but we don't teach them how to structure a sentence, they just eventually learn how to properly arrange nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc. And really, little kids can understand so much more than they can say when they're about a year old. If I say, "Haven, where are your eyes?" my genius little seventeen month-old granddaughter points right to them, even though she can't formulate the sentence.

Watching kids figure the whole language thing out can be so fun. A few personal examples:

• About three months ago Piper and I drove through Sonic. I was going to get her a kiddie ice cream, and I said, "Piper, which do you like better: chocolate or strawberry?" She replied, "No, I don't." She got strawberry; easier to clean.

• Last weekend Craig asked her if she was tired, and she said, "I don't tired."

• I recently went to pick Piper up so I could take her to the park. I said to her mom, "Maybe we can get ice cream while we're out!" Little did I know that Piper had asked her mom to pack some creamy yogurt in a cooler so she could eat it at the park. She heard me make the ice cream remark and had a startled look on her face, as if to say, "Listen to me!" I waited for her to formulate the sentence, and it came out haltingly, like this: I! Have! Yogurt! And then she smiled from ear to ear, because she was so proud of herself for telling me.

• Recently Piper spent the night with us. The next day she kept saying she wanted Popeye's.

Popeye's?? Fried chicken and biscuits??

Craig told her no, that we had stuff to eat at home and weren't going to Popeye's. She threw herself down on the ground and started crying. Later on I called her mom and said, "Do you guys take her to Popeye's a lot?" She replied, "Mom, she's saying "Pop Ice, as in the frozen popscicle things." Piper didn't have the ability yet to separate the two words, especially when there's a "p" at the end of one, and a vowel at the beginning of the other. The "p" and the "I" run together - try saying "pop ice" and you'll see that you do it too. The difference is that as adults we know to enunciate them separately if we need to.

Here's a video from a few weeks ago. You can see how much she's progressed. She even knows how to tell me that she's not going to do what I'm asking her to! Her phrase "No, I don't" has become somewhat iconic around here. I baited her to try and get her to say it, but when that failed I just flat out asked.

My Excellent Adventure on the Circus Train

About four years ago my youngest daughter Anna was turning18. At the time a lot of things in our world were turned upside down, and I wanted to do something completely different for her birthday. It just so happened that my dear friend Michele has a Russian friend named Zhenya, who is tight with a bunch of Russian circus acrobats (top THAT, Kevin Bacon!) So when we learned that the circus was coming to Austin, Michele called Zhenya, who contacted the performers, and they arranged for us to get free tickets to the circus. (To my animal-loving friends: I in no way condone how circuses treat animals, but I needed to wipe the celebration slate clean and was out of tricks!) Knowing what a difficult time we were all going through, Michele's friend also had the acrobats somehow fix it to where Anna would "win" a picture painted by an elephant during the pre-show. In other words they bent over backwards for us. Mega generous. The seats were great and we laughed a lot (which we desperately needed.) The whole experience was a mini-oasis in a season of personal drought.

The day after the performance Michele called and asked if I could swing by and pick up one of the acrobats named Sergi; he wanted to go shopping. And I jumped at the chance. Yes, I wanted to return the favor because Sergi and his friends had done some really nice things for me. But if I'm keepin' it real, I've got to admit that that wasn't my only motivation. Did I want to spend a few hours hanging out with a Russian acrobat who lives on a circus train? Heck yeah! Who wouldn't? (Well, I can think of several people, but my adventurous spirit nearly always trumps caution and rationale. Besides, I had heard lots of stories about Zhenya's friendship with the Russian acrobats, and I knew in my heart that they were good people.)

So at the prearranged time I drove up to the Frank Erwin Center, and sure enough there was Sergi, standing on the corner waiting for me. When I waved he raised his hand and smiled, as though hailing a cab. As he opened the car door and got in I realized that he was a lot bigger than I thought he would be (aren't acrobats supposed to be small?) He also had really huge biceps. I found out later that he is the one who hangs upside down on the trapeze and catches the little people who do tricks in the air. Anyway, you might say that Sergi had a stereotypical Russian look about him. A generous head of blond hair framed his square face, and his features were chiseled, which made him look distinctly eastern European. I'm guessing he was around 40.

Being the extrovert that I am, I started in on the small talk right away.

"Hi! How are you?"

"Fine, fine."

"Hey, thank you for the tickets last night. My daughter loved it."

He nodded once, firmly, like I Dream of Jeannie when she's granting a wish. He wore a hint of a smile.

[Crickets chirping.]

"Are you having a good time in Austin?"

Sergi nodded his head affirmatively (I later found out that circus performers see little more than the train and the venue in any given city.)

We sat in silence at a very long stoplight. Or was it the silence that was long?

I asked him where he wanted to go, and with a very thick Russian accent he told me that he needed food and some alcoholic beverages. I mentioned a few places we might go, and his eyes lit up when he heard "Wal-Mart." So even though I am morally opposed to Wal-Mart on a number of levels, I figured I didn't have the right to deny someone else the choice to shop there. So off we went, into the wild, blue yonder my friend Michele calls the seventh level of hell. Wal-Hell.

As we drove to the Supercenter I continued to make small talk, because he clearly wasn't going to initiate any conversation. I also made small talk because I am the type of person who fills awkward silences with babble. Don't get me wrong: Sergi was nice and was clearly grateful that I agreed to shuttle him on some errands. But he wasn't as interested as I was in cross examination: What's it like to ride with the circus? Did you go to trapeze school? What do you think of the United States? How is it different than where you live? Do you have a family? Do you have circus friends? Do you ever get to hang out with the animals? Are the clowns as nice and fun as they appear to be on stage? These are just a few of the things I wanted to ask him. Instead I turned on the radio, reminding myself that I'd have other opportunities to chat with him later. He seemed a bit relieved to hear the background noise.

When we arrived at Wal-Mart I followed him in, though his stride was brisk. Once we were standing in front of all the checkout lines he very carefully and politely told me that he'd meet me at this exact spot in about 20 minutes. I was disappointed. What? He doesn't want a nosy American woman following him around and talking his ear off while he buys snacks and toiletries and whatever else Russian circus people buy? Clearly, the answer was no. As he walked off I weighed my options. Theoretically I could've browsed and shopped, but I wouldn't because I don't buy things at Wal-Mart. I could've wandered around and pretended to shop, so that maybe I'd run into him and see if he needed help finding anything (yeah, right. Like I know where anything is in Wal-Mart.) Or, I could've done some people watching while I sat on the bench in front of the checkout lines. Reluctantly I decided on the third option and plunked myself down on the hard metal bench. I was a little irritated that I was watching greeters and cashiers and coupon hoarders while there was a real live circus acrobat walking around the store.

About 20 minutes later I spotted him at the checkout. He was buying quite a lot, maybe six or seven plastic grocery bags full. When his transaction was complete I strolled up to him and casually asked him how it went. How it went? How does grocery shopping usually go, Laura? When we got in the car he told me that the one thing he couldn't find at Wal-Mart were alcoholic beverages. I quickly got the drift that he wanted hard liquor, not beer or wine. (Duh! Perhaps it's a myth, but almost every time I hear of Russians drinking, it involves Vodka or some other equally potent spirit.) I told him that in Texas you have to buy such things at a liquor store. He stared at me in disbelief. A store that only sells liquor? I started thinking about where I could take him because I figured we didn't have a lot of time. At some point he had to get back to the train in time to leave for the show, and I probably should've been getting back to work. Costco, I thought. They're cheap, they have everything, and it's not too far from where we are. So I told him where we were going and he seemed pleased that he'd be able to get what he needed.

As we fought our way through traffic Sergi opened up a little more. As it turns out, he has only a few friends in the circus. Mostly the performers just keep to themselves (or at least those in his unit do.) I also found out that he had a wife and a twelve year-old daughter, though he and his wife were currently separated. I could tell he missed them both, which is understandable given that he travels with the circus 42 weeks per year. The crazy thing about it all is that he only gets to perform 10 minutes per show. Now I've never been good with numbers, but I just had to do the math: if he performs seven times per week (which takes into account travel days and matinee performances) he is away from home 294 days per year so that he can "work" just over two full days (49 hours.) Wow! What would motivate someone to do that? Without thinking I snapped into journalist mode and asked him if it was worth it to be away from his country and his family for that long. He told me that the money is better than what most people can generally earn in Russia, and then added that the trapeze something he's good at.

After circling the lot we finally found a parking spot and headed in to Costco's liquor store. It's a smallish building so Sergi was stuck with me. He walked up to the only clerk in the store and asked him where they kept the cognac. Cognac? I wondered. Isn’t cognac what men in smoking jackets drink out of a brandy snifter? Though I'd heard of it many times I couldn't think of what it was. (It's like when someone mentions Kyrgyzstan, you know it's a country but have no idea where it's located.) The clerk walked toward a shelf that was stocked with quart-sized bottles of liquor and picked up the cognac. He handed it to Sergi, who studied the bottle as though he were Sherlock Holmes and the velvety amber liquid was a prime suspect. I imagined that made me Dr. Watson. I stood with the clerk and waited for a response. After a few moments, Sergi tucked the bottle under his arm and asked for something else, signaling that the only cognac Costco carried would suffice.

We didn't stay long. Within 10 minutes Sergi had made his selections and we were back in the car. As I turned on to the Highway 183 frontage road I casually mentioned that I had never tasted cognac. You might've thought I had just confessed to having twelve toes. He looked at me as though he expected Ashton Kutcher to come out of nowhere and say he had been Punked. Never tasted cognac? He reached for his bag in the back seat and started pulling out the bottle. "You must taste it," he said. I told him that I'd love to. As he started to open the cognac I suddenly realized that he was going to try and give me a swig right there on 183. "No!" I said, anxiously. "That's illegal here. You can't have an open liquor container in a moving car, much less drink it." He seemed surprised. He gave me his best ambivalent shrug and put it back in the bag.

I suddenly realized that I had no idea where to take him. I was hoping he'd want to go back to the Erwin Center because I could probably drive there in my sleep. But no. He wanted to go back to the circus train. "Alright," I said. "Where is it?" It dawned on me that I was about to let a Russian who spoke very broken English tell me how to get somewhere in a city he had never been to. What are the odds we'll end up anywhere near that train? I wondered. While I was having visions of a wild goose chase, he was racking his brain for a street name. Finally he blurted out, "Seventh Street."

"Do you mean east Seventh?"

"Seventh Street," he reiterated.

So I headed downtown. When we got to Seventh Street I turned east, because I couldn't imagine a circus train being anywhere west of the highway. As we drove slowly down the road it appeared that he was looking for anything that might seem familiar. I could tell by the look on his face that so far there was nothing. As is almost always the case on east Seventh Street there was lots of construction going on, so the ride was bumpy and slow. We must've traveled a mile or so before coming to a bridge. Sergi's face lit up. "There!" he said. "Right there." As we drove over the bridge I looked to my left, and sure enough there was the circus train, stretched out like a massive silver snake. Once we crossed the bridge I turned on a side street, which took us to a dead end ― a stone's throw from the middle of the train. I couldn't believe we had found it. I pulled up and started to help him get his groceries out before I left. As I picked up the bags he motioned to the train and said, "You come try cognac?" Is he inviting me to get on the train? My heart started beating faster as I realized I'd have to make a split-second decision. "Yes," I said casually, as though I often visited people who lived on circus trains. Being the no-nonsense Russian that he was, he grabbed about 2/3 of the bags and started walking toward the train. I juggled the ones I had in my hands so I could lock the car, and then started out after him. There was no path, only rocks. He deftly maneuvered the terrain while I took it more like an obstacle course. I probably looked something like Bugs Bunny when he was walking over hot coals.

We passed about five long cars before Sergi jumped aboard. I followed him down a corridor that felt somewhat like a midget's hotel. Inside the train there was a hallway of separate doors, which were not much bigger than the door of an airplane bathroom. Each one led to someone's living quarters. When we got to his unit he turned the key and invited me in. I'm not sure what I expected, but when I stepped in I was taken aback by how small and cramped it was. There was a built-in bunk bed high up on the wall across from the window, and a little hot plate "kitchen" below it. I can't remember every detail (and I'm horrible with size calculations) but I'd guess the entire footprint of the room was less than 100 square feet.

Sergi motioned for me to sit down on a little one-person bench across from a miniature table that jutted out of the opposite wall. He opened the door of a tiny refrigerator and pulled out a lemon. A very small built-in TV was on in the background, though the volume was turned all the way down. The reception was horrible. Sergi began slicing the lemons and then laid them out on a bright white paper towel. He opened the cognac and poured us each a shot. The time had come, and he was ready to explain the process. He started out trying to tell me what to do, and because he was at a loss for words he decided pantomime it. He picked up a slice of lemon and gestured as though he were popping it in his mouth, and then grabbed his shot and pretended to down it. I don't know why he didn't just do his first, though maybe he was just trying to be polite by letting his guest partake before he did. Anyway, I was ready to get on with it. I took my lemon, popped it in my mouth and bit down. As lemons tend to be it was super pungent, and I involuntarily screwed my face up. It probably left me looking something like a subject in one of Picasso's paintings. Sergi became alarmed. "No, no!" he cried. I spit out the lemon and both of us started laughing.

"That's what you told me to do!" I said incredulously.

"No," he said, shaking his head, smiling. "I don't know how to say it in English."

I grabbed the shot and tossed it down. The tangy acid taste in my mouth and throat turned to fire. I'm not much of a shot person, and I don't even really like hard alcohol. But I wasn't going to pass up a chance to get on the circus train, and the cognac was my ticket in. Though it burned going in, the cognac went down smooth. Sergi licked his lemon and downed his shot, and all that was left of my first cognac experience was two empty glasses on a table that might have fit in Barbie's Dream House. He picked up the bottle and motioned to my glass, as if to ask if I wanted more. I nodded my head no, but thanked him graciously for the offer.

I would've loved to ask Sergi a lot more questions about life on the circus train. It was a culture I'd never encountered, and probably never will again. But he wasn't the chatty type. Though the journalist in me wanted to hang out and observe circus life from the inside, I knew it was time to go. The space was so small it would’ve been uncomfortable if we weren't drinking cognac or playing cards or something. I thanked him for introducing me to his favorite alcoholic beverage, and he thanked me for taking him to run his errands. In order for me to leave he actually had to step out into the hallway. I waved goodbye as I walked down the tiny corridor, toward the afternoon light at the end of the tunnel. I stepped off the train and onto the rocky ground. I wasn't drunk or even tipsy by any means, but the trip back to the car seemed easier than on the way in. I walked past car after car of circus performers, but never once saw anyone other than Sergi. I guess they really do keep to themselves. For that reason I count myself lucky to have been able to get a glimpse of what I consider to be an alternate universe. It never ceases to amaze me how many different facets there are to the human experience. Who knows? If Sergi had come back to the office with me, perhaps he would've felt the same way.

Looking Back

It's been awhile.

Yeah, I'm really stretching the "awhile" definition since the last time I posted on here was in January. I imagine I was wearing a sweater when I wrote my last blog entry, probably had the heater on, and might've been looking forward to hot soup for dinner. It was cold outside. As I type this it's 93 degrees in Austin, which is still pretty mild for a Texas summer. I'm wearing a sleeveless dress made out of t-shirt material, and I have both the air conditioner AND the ceiling fan cranked up. I think I'll have a Popsicle for dinner. In other words, it's not been days or weeks since I've blogged; it's been two whole seasons!

In January I finally gave up trying to keep my writing blog current (though I managed to attend to my photography blog here and there.) I had just finished my hardest semester in college and was headed into another one. In fact, within twelve months I earned 48 college credit hours, while at the same time running my own business, getting married, moving, meeting siblings I had never known, starting another business, and helping care for a mom who has cancer. As I just re-read the last sentence I was hit with the weight of it. Am I crazy? Apparently so. Who in their right mind thinks they can do that many things at once? That would be me (though I question the "right mind" part.) Anyway, all that to say I was so covered up in academic reading and writing, I didn't have the energy or the time to write for pleasure. Yes, for me, blogging is a pleasure (at least it is today; ask me in a month or two and I might be singing a different song.) Why might I change my tune, you ask? Because I'm turning over a new leaf. No, really. I'm tempted to make a pledge to write a new blog entry every single day -- even if it's just a few lines. But that sounds like a trip to Ball and Chain-ville, and I've vowed not to visit there this summer. No, I'm going to tone it down a little. For the next month I'm going to try and offer something twice per week. And if I don't deliver, well, I'm going to forgive myself. I don't think I have many regular readers anyway (two, perhaps?) We shall see how it goes.

In the meantime I am happy to report that I've finished my coursework and in August will officially graduate from St. Edwards University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing and Rhetoric. Whew. It's been a wild ride but completely worth it. I wouldn't change a thing, except that maybe I'd divide the last twelve months into equal parts and give myself two or three years to get it all done. But that's hindsight now. And I'm just not that in to rear-view mirrors anymore.

Image Credit: Littledan77 - Flickr
Licensed Under Creative Commons