Dear Ivy,
On behalf of the Admission Committee, I am pleased to inform you of your admission to Guilford College as a transfer student entering in Fall 2008.
(Signed, Guilford Committee Person)

One simple sentence that contains so much.

Words fail me.

I am going to Guilford.

the air in utterable coolness

It feels as if my existence has been consumed by school. It is the thought that hovers over all other thoughts, the deadlines coursing through brain in a constant stream.

"I had nightmares about missing exams for years after I graduated college," my mother tells me.

I sigh, and moan, and return to my desk.

And yet life goes on.
The grass grows, the sun shines, the birds sing. There is a family of foxes living in the woodpile behind our house. My sweetheart calls almost every day. Today it is raining, but it is not the cold, dreary rain of winter. No, it is warm, spring rain. It pounds out of the sky, creating rivers in the red clay. It drips off the trees, makes the road glisten and the grass shine. It releases those strange, dark, earthy aromas from the ground and they wind up into my brain...
Summer broods on the horizon, sweetly beckoning. Soon enough it will be here. Right now there is nothing I want more than to just let go. But I am going to hold on a little longer, just a little longer now.

Poetry, which for so long I did not fully appreciate, now soothes my tired brain. e.e. cummings has lately captured my heart:

        i have found what you are like
     the rain,

             (Who feathers frightened fields
     with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

     easily the pale club of the wind
     and swirled justly souls of flower strike

     the air in utterable coolness

     deeds of green thrilling light
                                   with thinned

     newfragile yellows

                       lurch and.press

     -in the woods
                  which
                       stutter
                              and

                                 sing

     And the coolness of your smile is
     stirringofbirds between my arms;but
     i should rather than anything
     have(almost when hugeness will shut
     quietly)almost,
                    your kiss

Remember

I can hear an owl hooting somewhere in the dark woods outside my window... I have not heard him for a long time. He is accompanied tonight by a host of night sounds - all the nighttime creatures are awake and on the prowl. I can hear crickets chirping away to each other in the grass, another sound not heard in many months... The owl is my favorite, though. That otherworldly sound he makes always catches my ear and my imagination. His cry captures the mystery of night.

I cannot wait for long, warm summer nights when cares are put away for later and nothing exists but that moment; the cool tickling grass underfoot and the stars wheeling away above... This is what I dream about when I am sitting in a cold classroom, staring out the window and willing my brain to focus on the effects of the bubonic plague and negative linear relationships.

Tonight was a night of time stolen out of my "schedule." I ignored my homework for a short, blissful period. It was worth it. I still feel like I am floating, un-encumbered. Reality will sink back onto my shoulders tomorrow, but that can wait. I am learning, verrrrry slowly, to take things one day at a time.

I have been thinking a little bit more about faith, and what it even means these days with all of our rationality and knowledge (supposed). And I have realized that without some sense of faith, (or trying to reach for a sense of faith,) my fear and self-doubt and sorrow would be absolutely crippling.


so if you wanna burn yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
and if you wanna cut yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
and if you wanna kill yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead
send me an IM, i'll be your friend

-Kimya Dawson

To Be.

What is there to say? Eventually I run out out of words, not because I am empty but because I am so full that nothing comes close to describing it.

These past days have been just so. So full, yet they fly by at a rate that surprises me. I do sometimes wish to regain that childhood focus on the now that makes the days seem so much longer. It's tough when you pick up so many balls to juggle because then you end up simply focusing on keeping them in the air. However, I am thrilled by this dance, thrilled by what I've picked up and thrown blindly into the air, hoping desperately to make the catch.

I have been confronted recently with the sheer irrationality of my faith. It's a little disturbing because questions have been asked that I cannot answer. Faith in something (anything) you can't prove may be ridiculous but I don't want to let go... I've worked too hard to get to this point to turn and walk away. It occurs to me also that answers come not on my time, but when they are meant to.

(Once again, dear Mr. Rilke has the perfect words)

Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I feel that it might be slightly repetitive of me to quote that great man once again, but he expresses things in such a unique way that I can't find anyone else more appropriate.

The only thing I have left to say is that I am quite genuinely happy; the happiest I have been in some time. To be is very, very powerful and I hope I never lose sight of that.