why we build the wall

this past wednesday i traveled to charlottesville to see anais mitchell in concert. she played this song:

after which, she paused and looked out at the audience and laughed a little and said, "i just want to say -- i just want to say this song is ten years old, so -- any coincidence to any current politicians is purely archetypal."

i laughed, because it's funny, in a dark sort of way, but the hair on the back of my neck was also standing up. 

i am nervous to watch the debate tonight. i am afraid of what my country has been/is/might become.

easter 2016

this weekend my housemates & some friends built a garden in a day! and now it is easter (resurrection day) and i am full to the brim with thoughts about new life, new growth, the hope of transformation.

i am so excited to see what the summer will bring, both in the garden and in me.

A Quarter Century

I'm 25 today but still a child a heart. Celebrated with good food, good people, games, and a Jupiter ice cream cake (complete with Great Red Spot!).

Here's to a 25th year of life.

2016!

i am so ready for this new year. (but maybe not ready enough -- i accidentally titled this post "2015" at first, haha)

goals/resolutions for 2016:
*more guitar skills
*more writing
*more biking
*read 50 books (?)
*apply to Physician Assistant programs

hopes:
*lots of board games will keep happening in my life
*my job will be a good fit
*no more mice in the house
*no more squirrels in the attic


----

and now, here, have an appropriate winter/hopeful poem.

Starlings in Winter

 -- by Mary Oliver 

Chunky and noisy,

but with stars in their black feathers,

they spring from the telephone wire

and instantly

they are acrobats

in the freezing wind.

And now, in the theater of air,

they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;

they float like one stippled star

that opens,

becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;

and you watch

and you try

but you simply can't imagine

how they do it

with no articulated instruction, no pause,

only the silent confirmation

that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin

over and over again,

full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.