It's been quite a strange week, and that's all I'll say about that, as vague as it may be. I try to be intentional about realizing just how lucky I am--how good my life already is--but there are times when it's hard. This year has had its fair share of hurdles already, and I just hope that I'll soon start hitting my stride. Until then, I'll be getting as much fresh air as possible and reading deep into the infinite wisdom of dear E.E. Cummings.

[Tulips in Charlottesville, March 2012]

Spring is like a perhaps hand

E.E. Cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere) arranging

a window, into which people look (while

people stare

arranging and changing placing

carefully there a strange

thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps

Hand in a window

(carefully to

and fro moving New and 

Old things, while 

people stare carefully

moving a perhaps

fraction of flower here placing

an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

--

Tonight I'm having dinner with some wonderful girlfriends of mine, and tomorrow I'm off to DC for the day to shower Melissa with love as she fast approaches her upcoming wedding! And in just one week, I'll be in Minneapolis hanging out with Rob. The bright side, people. We've got to stay on it.

March always feels really hopeful to me. 

I find myself making a list of things to be happy about as spring approaches.

Warmer afternoons with sunny skies.

Flower buds poking here and there out of the earth.

An anniversary coming up and three (three!) visits this month.

Longer days, iced coffee, wedge sandles, and polka-dotted skirts.

Any reason to read and read and read E.E. Cummings' in Just. 

Here's to a bright new season, where the world is puddle-wonderful.

PS I posted almost twice as much as usual this week.
Hope you didn't miss out on some of my favorites here and here and here.

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

--Carlos Sandburg, Fog

Election day yesterday reminded me of where I was four years ago, and it startled me to realize that I was already a junior in college at that time. The way I felt as I approached my senior year of college was so different from the way I feel now. 

No matter how fast time flies by, and as much as I loved everything I read in college, I always find myself going back to American poetry. Especially in the fall and winter, when it's cold and I feel nostalgic for the pages of my old Nortons.

There's just something there.