Feeling Pennsylvania

Recipe for Proper Celebrations of the End of an Era:

Two beloved friends and intentional conversation
Sushi boats and coconut milk
Sidewalk prayer for sending off
Making up history as one walks the mean (and suddenly park-less?) streets of Providence
Hugs tempered by humidity (New England, I still love you)
Planning visits to Japan
Writing lists like this
Reading things like this
Weekends that arrive ahead of schedule
Train rides
Laughing with first-year friends in between Rounds 5 and 6 on the steps of the ICA
New babies
Iced drinks and iPods
Being a third-party witness to other people's kindness
Thumbing through the spines of old, beloved books
Not wanting to read a THING for the first time in my life...
...but eagerly seeking book recommendations for next week, when such temporary madness will have passed
Cleaning rooms and making floors shine like the sea
Families that refuse to stop growing
Good news from afar
Road trips with my best friend
New music
Leaving the scene of the crime
Waiting.

The bar exam closes a chapter, and I'm taking some time off before the next one begins.

It's Showtime, Kids.

"Delight in me, and I will give you what your heart truly desires. Fret not -- it only causes harm."

Ready.

"Dual Purpose" Evidence

...of both how I feel right now (missing some hair, boobs have shrunk from stress), and how maybe American prisons are potentially not as wholesome as those in the Philippines.

Perspective

We set the pace.
But this press of time --
take it as a little thing
next to what endures.

All this hurrying
soon will be over.
Only when we tarry
do we touch the holy.

Young ones, don't waste your courage
racing so fast,
flying so high.

See how all things are at rest--
darkness and morning light,
blossom and book.

- Rilke

One more week, and this will be another goal achieved -- not more than that, but not less.
Rebecca and I will be leaving for Albany Monday night to take the NY and multistate portions of the bar exam. We'll be driving straight back to Boston on Wednesday night and taking the MA bar on Thursday. Bryan and I will be driving down to CT directly following the bar to say farewell to Kenji and Katie M., who've overwhelmed me by delaying their departure to Tokyo on my behalf. We'll continue driving to PA that night because there's a new wee babe in the family to meet and some Philadelphia to be seen.

One more week, and the summer will finally arrive!

In Dreams

What I find most difficult about studying for the bar exam isn't the amount of material I'm expected to memorize or the inane head fakes from the examiners we're told to expect. I've learned to ignore oft-repeated statements like these, which I've heard countless times in my bar prep course: "If you leave the exam feeling good about yourself, I'd worry. You probably don't have a good enough understanding of the law to appreciate how difficult the questions were." The bar will happen, and then it will be over. I will pass, or I will fail; in the latter case, I will suffer the slings of outrageous embarrassment and retake the exam. Or will I? I don't know. So much remains to be seen these next months.

It's the isolation that gets to me. Bryan turns the handle to my front door so rarely these days, of necessity; when he does, I find myself greedily inquiring about ordinary things. Errands. Traffic. Weather and sailing conditions. What it feels like to be outside on an ordinary day, to have an afternoon to oneself. I am dreaming, too, about the ordinary in great detail: signing a lease; painting rooms in the new house and potting plants; hosting dinners; making friends with my sewing machine and journals; books to read, letters to write, hikes to take; talking my neighbors into turning down their music; sweeping porch steps; plunging a toilet; even taking a nap! In each instance, I have awoken, not wondering whether all imagination's fled even my subconscious in this process but refreshed and eager, knowing that the plain world lurks just beyond the brink, waiting.

This poverty of time enables countless quiet encounters.

I gotta admit,

some days are just absolutely Lovely.

Fourth of July: A Play in One Act

Oh, well.
Love to you all,
Signed,
Dangerous with a Macbook
(there will also be waterparks)
(and childproof locks)
(safety features!!!)
(I hope)
(although I am tall enough for every ride)
(I hope)