the busy heart

On a whim I submitted a variation of this post to Segullah and they'd like to put it up in the next few weeks(!). I'll let you know when. Thanks for all of your sweet, wise comments.

When I lived in Mississippi, I wasn't very nice. I mean, I was, but I wasn't all that friendly. I wasn't a good friend, is what I mean. The depression was raging, and I was afraid of everything. We've discussed this. You've heard this story. It's boring. Anyway, the point this time is that there was this poet in my program, Dan, who was(is) married to a lovely woman named Kat . Kat, my friends, was(is) just brimming with good taste. They invited me over for dinner once, and I couldn't stop squealing over all the delightful, beautiful things she had in their house. I mean, even her salad servers were stunning and unique. Were they carved wood trees? Or carved wood people? I can't remember, but I think about them often when I serve salad. Anyway, point is, I stumbled on her blog awhile back, and it's now one I check obsessively. She always has something lovely to say and something lovely to look at. Her world is full of treasures and wishes. And that...

[pretty day for running] Sam and I had today off work/teaching for Patriot's Day, a handy MA holiday that coincides with the Boston marathon. We decided to take the train and see a movie, and when we reached the train stop, low and behold, runners. Runners and runners and more runners, and a crowd lining the streets cheering them on. For some reason, I found this incredibly moving. I thought I would weep, right there. So many people doing this really hard thing, so many other people there to say bravo. It was just beautiful. I took my camara, so you could see: [church, runners] [can you see how many there are? crossing the street was like playing frogger.] [sam + book (he wasn't feeling picture-y)] [a few blocks from our place, 2 miles from the finish line] [train coming] [dapper, no?]

On Monday I visited a college campus to meet with a professor. I observed a class he was teaching, and as I watched, I wondered if I missed it. The teaching, I mean. I did, some. I missed the students coming in and I missed standing in front of the room. I missed seeing the looks on their faces when I made them laugh or when they "got it." Still, I suspected I was glad to sit where I was sitting, watching it happen as a third party. I thought: Maybe I just love teaching and learning; everything about it is fascinating to me, so it's nice that I'm still involved in some capacity. Or maybe I really miss it, I thought. Then, near the end of the class, the professor asked a student a question about a poem. Her response: "I don't like poetry. I don't really care for poetry, to be honest." This was, of course, a complete non sequitur. She was telling him something about herself, rather than the poem, as he'd asked. And I thought: Yes, I'...

I'm still not eating treats, and the world is a better place for it. Treats and I don't get along: I love them; they hate me. And so, I drink tea. This makes me feel like something special happens, which is all I'm really looking for when I have a treat. On Saturday we watched "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" (which we LOVED), and I decided to amp up the specialness by cleaning out a decorative teapot and using a pretty cup. One of Sam's students gave him a set of these cups as a gift for writing a letter of recommendation (nice kid, no?). While I like them, I decided I need/want a really fancy teacup. Maybe I'll hit up the thrift store? [cat, teapot] [teapot, husband] [i like this one because he looks like he's pontificating. i think he was telling the cats not to fight.] [girl, tea, a quiet world]

Yesterday was my sister Amara's birthday, and all day I remembered and reminded myself to call her, call her, call her. And still ... I forgot. I'm a failure at life. So happy (late) birthday, Ammie! In the middle of the night, when I remembered my failure, I was thinking about Amara. She's twelve years older than I (right?), the oldest of the six kids in our family, and it's been really something to watch how those twelve years have seemed to shrink and shrink. When I was 8/9, she was in college, see, and so I didn't really get to know her well until we became grownups (whatever that means), and Amara has really taught me what it means to be a grownup. Or no, that's not it. Teaching me how to be a grownup sounds like she's boring, and she's far from boring. Really what she's taught me, what she continues to teach me, is how to be a woman (can I say that?), a woman who gracefully does what she loves and takes care of those she loves with more e...

New camera in the house, yo. I'm slightly obsessed. (The kitties were patient models.)

(title comes from Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur" ) Morning walk, things I loved: *elegant New England houses *remembering what a "pediment" was on said houses *passing through the smell of fabric softener coming from silver vents *mossy tree trunks and mossy stone walls (a minor but lovely side effect of the flooding rains) *few (but gorgeous) blossoms on the trees; millions of tiny green buds that promise blossoms *sitting on a bench to pray, feeling the world reduce down to my prayer, birdsong, and a breeze that seemed to split at my nose and travel deliberately over both my ears, like a whisper