Meet me on the equinox.

Or, in this case, a few days after it.

There are so many things to say about this weekend--glee at a successful conference presentation, joy and gratitude at the wedding of a dear friend, the warm glow that comes from being in the right place in my life--but for now, I'll start with this.



My state is beautiful.

"Failing and Flying" --Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Loving teaching.

After an exhausting day at school today, I was carrying my tired self and many bags of homework to the parking lot when I spotted a few of my students. At first, I figured that it would be "uncool" for their teacher to say hi...then I figured, hell with it, and called out a hello.

"Hey, Ms. A!"
Some fussing in the group.
"Hey, don't I have your class tomorrow?"
"Yeah, you do!"
"See! Told you I did! Are you gonna be there? If you're not there I'm not going!"

Aww. They do like me. And I like them back--there's definitely a sense of "those are my kids!" developing along with the overwhelming sleepiness. Teachers have such early bedtimes.

Hum.

Today was a sprint day--that's not terribly unusual, one of those usually comes every week. I run at a middle school a few blocks from my house: there aren't many kids hanging around the building after school, so I can train without worrying about my students coming over to visit.

The street runs parallel to the part of the field I run on, so occasionally there will be another jogger or a dogwalker, a family out for a stroll, or other similar company. Today, there were a few people like that, but one unusual visitor in particular.

A car paused at the stop sign just before the school as I finished one leg of sprinting and jogged back to the start. I thought it was a little weird that this car hadn't moved from the corner, but wrote it off as a lost driver. Reaching my start cone, I stopped, pivoted, and took off for another sprint.

Now, it may have been that the driver suddenly realized where he was and continued on his way past the school...but I'm going to choose to believe that he wanted to race me instead. (He won. Oh well.)

Just another instance of the universe sending just what's needed.

This has been making the rounds on many blogs I read or am considering reading, and I love it enough to take it for my own.

Beautiful day for a walk.

After a week of century-plus heat indices, last night's rainstorms brought things down to a brisk 90 degrees or so. It was perfect for running errands: little brother and I picked up food supplies for the fields tomorrow. (I even ordered everything in Spanish!)

I found some time to explore this new place called home, too. Collegetown is very familiar to me, since I came of age there, but I have no idea what to do in my own hometown as a grownup. When are the best nights to go out? What's the best coffee shop? Which bookstores have the coolest recommendations? Where can I find some knitting buddies? These are pressing questions.

What a perfectly portentious portal.

I passed this school on my walk today, after three glasses of perfectly cold iced tea and perfectly lovely conversation in a local cafe. They say red doors are lucky...having them on a school seems appropriately hopeful. The rest of the neighborhood was beautiful, old houses with lots of charm and varying amounts of upkeep, mainly divided into apartments or rental units. I'd always figured on saving my money instead of "throwing it down the drain" of rent, but walking by places like these (whose property values are astronomical, I'm sure), I start getting mightily tempted to drain a little cash. Very soon, I'll have a job to support the place I live and the style I choose...within reason, sure, but if having an apartment on a beautiful street is a priority, I'll spend accordingly.

Family vacation and...

HARRY POTTER LAND.

I may be well past my teenybopper phase and imaginary love affair with Draco Malfoy*, but I was still downright giddy as we walked into the new Harry Potter section in Universal's theme park. My brothers and I kept finding more cool things to see and do...usually signaled by small shrieks (on my part) or laughter (on theirs).



It's fun to be a kid sometimes. The books have merits of their own beyond being a good story, but my brother pointed out that's what brought all of us together that day: a good story, crossing oceans and ages and cultures, and the desire to see it all come true.

Plus, it's HARRY POTTER. It's fun. I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter to come...someday.

*Or, you know, not. A girl can dream.