Yesterday, I saw my best friend sitting next to the love of her life. I've heard of their relationship in one form or another for nearly ten years, and yet have never seen them together. Unfortunately, it wasn't in person, but electronically through Skype. But even then, I felt this calmness, this content for several hours after hanging up. It felt so right, to see her smiling at his side, playing with her hair in the middle of a conversation at his side, looking over at him. She's a confident woman. At times, annoyingly confident. It almost feels like I've known her all this time, but have only just seen her, in all her vulnerability, overcome by love. I wonder if she realizes how much more this suits her. I never imagined that I wouldn't be able to be a part of her wedding. I feel like I've written this line a hundred times, because I've thought it over so many times. There are a handful of people who you always imagine seeing on their wedding day. She's one of them.

I just coined a word for my dissertation--giantism. To mean the 'identity' of a community of giants. Yes, that is JUST how cool my major is.

Spin

Spin me
     so my colors blur
     and you mistake my legs for my arms
     my face for my brown hair died blonde
Tighten me into a ball of yarn
     somewhere rural, and foreign and unknown
     where one man's roof is the other's front yard
     leave me at the doorsteps of an old lady’s home
Where she can knit me in a jumper, a pair of tiny socks, a hat, a cover
     she can drape over her worn out legs
     or over a teapot for tea faster brewed.
Don’t let me unravel
            this time
            and form only borders
            empty spaces.

To put it lightly, graduate school takes your confidence and blows it out of its nose. I’ve realized just how thick-skinned you have to become to make it out of graduate school unscathed. I had a bit of an emotional breakdown this term, because I just realized that my work was no longer just ‘work’, and was beginning to define me too much. Life is strange, because in the week following my emotional breakdown, I was faced with so many strange situations. It was as if the universe took a week off to give me perspective. One of those odd occurrences from this week was that my friend randomly gave me a canvas, a paintbrush and four bottles of acrylic paint. We’ve never spoken of painting before. In fact, I don’t paint. I’ve never painted. I’ve never even held a paintbrush in my adult life. But I’ve started painting, and I love it, not because I feel like I can paint, but because it puts my head and body in a different place. I like the feel of paintbrush on canvas. It’s gentle. It’s quiet. And its reminded me, more than anything, of why I love writing. Writing in graduate school has been so loud and so fierce—the constant tap-tap on the keys in this laptop have begun to sound like a teacher thrashing a ruler against a desk, reminding me of how far behind I am, and where I need to be. But I’ve begun to see (again) the soul of writing in painting. Writing is gentle. It’s a whisper. Every letter a detail in a landscape. I don’t think there’s anything quite as beautiful.