Slammin'

I'm on spring break. I took the opportunity of a week with no classes to do something I haven't done since I graduated from high school--I went to New York City. I love that city. I mean, I really, really, really love that city. I love the way it seems to breathe. It heaves and exhales, and I want to be in the center of the air rushing past. In the process of traveling, I find myself. It's ironic, really, because when I travel I feel the most free of the personas I inhabit in my everyday life...teacher, student, daughter, sister, friend...but perhaps it's in stepping away from those obligations that I am clearly able to see myself for who I am. This week has been good for me in that regard. I'm currently sitting in a train station, waiting for the train to arrive to carry me back to MyCity--or for the fische lithe to fereden me to londe--whichever. The closer I get to stepping on that train, the more I'm processing these things. I should be grading my students' papers while I still have wi-fi, but somehow it seems more important to process this while it's still fresh.

We went to several shows and a poetry slam this week. The poetry slam may have just been the highlight of my trip, but the shows (barring one notable exception--Mamma Mia! is a complete waste of a theatre on the Great White Way, and all I can feel about it is a numb disappointment in the human race), were also amazing. Great art always makes me think, and I've done quite a lot of that in between the awesomeness that has been this trip.

I'm working on understanding why God has put me on this path. This isn't where I thought I'd end up, and most of the time, I'm excited by what I'm doing. But every once in a while, I realize that another road would have taken me someplace entirely different, and I love the thrill of the adventure enough to wonder what that would look like. So, no, this is not where I thought I'd end up. This isn't, truth be told, the plan or intention I had for my life. But I love learning. It's part of who I am, and I can't deny that or pretend like I don't need the intellectual stimulation. This week I was confronted with a couple of those paths--the most obvious of them being that I always secretly wanted to spend a year or two living in the city--and all around me were people who are living that life. I realized some important truths about the state of my heart and my plans for it, but that's still too vague of a thought to even blog about just yet. It's so important to me not to live with regrets, but I suppose they'll always be things we wonder about, things we wish we had done. The reality is that we only have one life, and my curiosity about the world means that there is much I want to do, but limited time, energy, and money with which to do it. I'm certain of only a few things in my life. One of those things is that God has led me here, to this university, for such a time as this. And honestly, that's enough for me right now.