I love words. Here are some of my favorite ones ever spoken: “There will be an answer. Let it be. – The Beatles……....“I did it my way.” – Frank Sinatra…..…. “Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey……....“I read, much of the night, and go south for the winter.” – T.S. Eliot…….“Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.” – Woody Allen……….“All good books have one thing in common. They are truer than if they had actually happened.” – Ernest Hemingway……….“Would a journey not be worth taking if at the end of which, in the other world, we were delivered from all the pretend judges here? – Plato, Apology……….“You are my only love. You have me completely in your power. I know and feel that if I am to write anything noble and find in the future I shall do so only by listening at the doors of your heart.” – James Joyce to Nora……….“Basically I’m for whatever gets you through the night. But it prayer, tranquillizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels.” – Frank Sinatra………. “He [Shakespeare] was not of an age, but for all time.” – Ben Janson in To My Beloved Master William Shakespeare………. “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl. Year after year. Running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fears?” – Pink Floyd………. “We live as we dream. Alone.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness……….”Yet now I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France.” – Shakespeare, Hamlet………. “I’ve always known myself, but he was the first one to recognize me. And the first to love what he saw.” – Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre………. “There is only the fight to recover what has been lost. There is only the trying.” – T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets……… “The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth and a truth which is beauty, is the aim of both. Is not the charm of one of Plato’s or Aristotle’s definitions, strictly like that of Antigone of Sophocles?” – Ralph Waldo Emerson…… “The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the face of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.” – Marge Peircy………. “It’s a fierce game I’ve joined because its being played anyway, a game of both skill and chance, played against unseen adversary – the conditions of time—in which the payoffs, which may suddenly arrive in a blast of light at any moment, might as well come to me as anyone else.” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek………. “If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” – Charlotte Bronte………. “All one has to do to be a writer is write. We’re writers only when we’re writing.” – Alan Shapiro

Friday, September 3, 2010

From South Dakota to South Boston

Well today marks the one year anniversary of my time spent in Boston, Massachusetts. I had hoped to keep up this blog better (I wonder of that type of sentiment isn’t one of the most common in the blogosphere). But, nonetheless here I am – ready to recount what was arguably the most exciting and scary year of my life.

September 2nd of 2009 was one of the worst days in my recent memory. Sick with the flu, sick with nostalgia and packing until 2 in the morning. These big risks seem like such a great idea. Months out. But that night, perhaps more aptly stated, that week I was regretting my decision. We’re talking more than my regret at not voting for John McCain. And my impending move was scarier than Obamacare too. But that’s another blog…

I’m trying to think back and find one moment in my last couple years when I decided to move. Can’t do it. Sure I could send applications to the East Coast, but that was the extent of my commitment. I guess even anxiety-ridden homebodies like me get the itch for adventure.

And adventure is what I’ve got. I’ve seen the blue of the Atlantic, the green of Fenway Park. I’ve visited the homes of Emily Dickinson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I’ve seen Jude Law play Hamlet on Broadway. I’ve eaten lobsters in Maine. I’ve heard the Goo Goo Dolls sing “Maybe” on the Boston Waterfront. I’ve sailed that waterfront on a Harbor cruise with my Mom.

I used to just read Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. This year I would weekly find myself in the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books Room holding first editions of their books and even manuscripts of their now-iconic works-in-progress.

I’ve seen the colors change in New England’s fall. I’ve looked right in the face of Monet painting and in the same week crashed someone else’s college reunion with the most amazing friends anyone could hope for. I’ve done a cheers in “Cheers” and I’ve sat in the TD Garden and cheered for the Celtics.

And then there’s those random nights with great people a girl from South Dakota should never have met, bottles of wine, and talk of the meaning of life. Cheesy but true. Cheesy but treasured.

I’ve even done a little schoolwork too. Halfway through my Master’s degree I’ve clung to a 4.0 and this semester, believe it or not, they’re going to let me teach my very own college class.

For those of you keeping track of me (those kind enough to read my poor neglected blog) I appreciate it. The support of my friends and family has meant the world, or it’s meant at least half the country to me. Thanks for believing in me – arguably the last person that should be writing a blog like this. And for those of you who didn’t believe I could do it (and with good reason) I happily prove you wrong today.

Happy Anniversary to me.

It hasn’t been easy, I’ve had to squash my own bugs, ride and trust the subway, build every piece of furniture in my apartment. And, most importantly, I miss South Dakota all the time (especially now during political primary season).

I begin this school year with the best of intentions. Stay organized, don’t procrastinate, and above all else, blog. We’ll see how it goes.

For the record, I think it gets easier. 3:00 AM this year certainly was.
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