Bethalou

 Pay attention, this is what you need to know:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred mils through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver (page 222)

Yesterday I had a meeting with my professor for my English Capstone class. Some of you may know her; you could say she’s a notable person. I was supposed to be going in to show her my outline for my Paper, so that she could ask me (in my predictions) what the hell I’d been doing for the last month of research. For those of you who aren’t acquainted with this person, let’s call her the Quad for fancy’s sake, she’s wonderful. She’s more intimidating and demanding than any other person I’ve ever met, but this is a good thing. One of the things people will tell you about the Quad is that “if you just go and talk to her, she seems less scary!” Not so, she’s just as intimidating when you get to know her, partly because she’s so..engaged…in her work. Not the sort of person you shoot the breeze with, which is unfortunate because shooting the breeze is my style. However, somehow this woman and I became, I don’t know, acquainted? The relationship sways back and forth between mentor-protege and vague well-wishing. That’s a wide spectrum, but okay. So I went in, expecting to be excoriated, and she was chill (as the kids say). She was encouraging and maybe even slightly excited for me. It was disconcerting, and flew in the face of just about every other academic encounter I’ve had with this person. It was liberating.

So here’s the thing. I’m going to relax. I’m going to not worry about this paper, or about the graduate school letters coming in the mail deciding my worth and future, or about family or my boyfriend or my job or my weight or about leaving Concordia, home 3/4 home for four years. That part of my brain is checking out, so if there’s something you’d like me to really get my undies in a bunch about, save it. Just save it, cause not worrying about all these things is going to take quite an effort, and I don’t need another thing to not worry about.

Except maybe the Apocalypse. Where, I understand, there will be snacks.

Danceband has got the plan, you know we know exactly what to do! Ahh Danceband. They’re having a concert in Duluth right before finals and alls I want to do is go. It will be wondrous if we get to go.

Last night I played  the largest and most intense game of Catchphrase of my life. It was impossible and hilarious.

Today is sunny and warmish! Thank the gods for that; it was a long winter. I wonder if it feels as nice as it looks out there.

The Nobel Peace Prize Forum went well! Everything went off without major malfunction, and it seemed like everybody was learning stuff and getting all inspired. Woot. Speaking of inspired, I learned about a microlending website called Kiva. Check, check, check it out! I got to have lunch with Greg Mortenson and Nicholas Kristof. They mostly talked to each other during the meal, planning important things and such, but they did take questions from students, and I got to talk to Kristof on my own walking back to the Forum. He’s nice! and normal. We talked about his job, politics (a little), and our families. His parents are professors! I shouldn’t say that like it’s cooler than you know, what he does, but I thought it was neat. To save you some googling, in case you were curious, Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times, and the reason why I’m all “woo, Nicholas Kristof!” is because he’s won the Pulitzer twice. You should look up his stuff though.  Hippity hop, hippity hop…