Skipper

{The Summer Day}

By: Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

We all miss you, Uncle Skip. What a wild, precious and laugh-filled life you had.

Rest in Peace 7.19.11

All I Need

Time is a flyin'

{image via}

I apologize for being so MIA for the past, uh, month? Or has it been more than that? I guess I could check by just going to my last blog post, but that would require saving this page and backtracking, and frankly, right now I'm just too tired to do so.

These past few weeks have been a roller coaster, a whirlwind, the colors of the wind as Pocahontas might say (I'm so tired that I'm just making up stuff). It has been a mishmash of feeling overwhelmed, excited and nervous. There's been lots of snapping, lots of waking up early, lots of going to bed late, lots of realizing "Oh my god this is the reality of our education system in America," lots of paperclips, more paperclips, making copies, looking tired, circles under the eyes, missed calls from my mom and dad (I'm sorry), feeling behind, feeling inspired, working harder than I ever have, lots of smiles, lots of frustration, lots of being grossed out by dorm bathrooms, too many emails, more emails, lots of sweating, more sweating, even more sweating, a wee bit of crying (sometimes happy tears, other times not so much), lots of laughing, lots of hope.

I think that just about sums it up, and yet, I could probably ramble on for a good hour with my thoughts. I won't though. Again, as I said, I'm really tired. I'm not thinking too clearly. I tried making an analogy the other day about loading my plate up too much with pot stickers on top of pasta on top of pizza on top of salad and so on. It made sense in my head at the time, but everyone else just said, "Kathleen, you seriously need to go to bed."

And so I guess that's what I'll do. I just wanted to pop in and say "hello!" If you are reading this, I hope you are doing well. I hope you have found some quiet time to read outside under a shady tree. I hope you've drank a glass of cold lemonade at least once this summer. And I hope you haven't been using a dorm shower for the past month, but if you have, I feel ya pain.