The View Up Here

Having spent the last several days in the Land of My Birth, hanging out with my best friend JEB, my nephew and his family, my brother, and of course swimming in my beloved sister Atlantic, I am more ready than ever to jump into my new life - whatever that may look like. Here's to LA-LA land, and a couple bottles of the Good Pinot Grigio .

This morning my cat, Spaz, woke me up around 4:30. We snuggled for awhile, then she took to giving herself morning ablutions. I was awake for good, so around 5:00, I got out of bed and decided to go for a pre-dawn walk. Can I just tell you how really amazing it is to watch the sun rise, and hear the birds start their morning chorus? I've never been a morning person, but in the last couple of years, I've found myself waking up around 5:00 a.m. I usually roll over and go back to sleep, but I'm thinking maybe I need to start getting up and going for a walk every morning instead of grabbing 2 more hours of admittedly poor sleep. As I walked the quiet streets of my little neighborhood, in that almost-light that precedes the sunrise, I thought about how perfect this summer has been, and then it dawned on me (heh) that we're already half-way through August. And I have no idea how that happened. "Where does the time go?" We ask ourselves this question, as if time wer...

As it now stands, I have finished teaching at the Cornell Summer College, and all my little students are back in China and Turkey. I've received lovely emails from a few of them, though reading their messages, I wonder if they paid any attention at all to the grammar lessons. Still, I am honored to have been a part of their academic careers, even for such a few weeks. On the heels of that, I attended a gathering of friends from far and wide to engage in a weekend of tenting, hiking, storytelling 'round the fire, s'mores, and a few bottles of home-brew. A lovely counterpoint to the 6-week sprint of the summer intensive program. And now, a week later, I am focusing on my L.A. job search, connecting with new friends and old ones, working through the terror of stepping off the ledge. I suppose this is what Joseph Campbell meant by "Follow your bliss." I always used to think that was for tree-huggers and dope-smokers. There's an amazing quote by Maya Angelo...