thanksgiving

Super blessed to hang out with these kids last week, during a quick but totally-worth-it trip to Charlotte, NC.

Last week.  Was that just a week ago?  Because it feels like a solid month.  I miss them already.  Thank goodness for Snapchat - the Snapchats are priceless.  I really can't believe it's only been a week since that day - when we were still in Thanksgiving food coma and exploring UNCC's campus and roaming IKEA.  That was a good, simple day.  Totally different than how my next 14 days are looking...  

Not sure if these next two weeks are going to be the longest ever or fly by.  There are moments of gold, and there are flashes of light - wait, no, totally kidding.  (I have had Celine in my head for a couple of days though!)  There are moments, sure, when the fear starts to creep in and tries to take over.  But there are many, many more moments where I am so incredibly calm, it surprises me.  Totally throws me off, actually.  I'm not supposed to be calm, I'm a 1L.  I'm supposed to be panicking, right?  Too often we forget...nowhere is that written.

Nowhere does it say we should give in to fear.  Nowhere does it say that we should prepare to fail.  Nowhere does it say that we should just try harder, and pull it off from our own strength.  Everywhere it says the opposite.

Do not fear.  Take heart.  Peace be with you.  I have overcome.  I have overcome.

There is nothing to fear.  

That is why we give thanks.  That is why Thanksgiving is every day.  Not only the day(s) that I got to hang with my cousins, eat, sleep, watch football and Duck Dynasty, and laugh together.  But also today, when I get to sit here and work on negligence hypos and my Civ Pro outline.  And also, believe it or not, next Tuesday, when I have the first of four 4-hour exams, all of which play a fairly substantial role in how the rest of law school, and potentially the rest of forever, starts to shape up.

Hear me again.  Better, hear Him again.  There is nothing to fear.  Only thanks, always.  And that, friends, is about as good as it gets.

Yesterday, I met Sam.

Every day I walk a mile to and from the law school.  Every day I pass apartments, bus stops, a hotel, and the UK hospital.  I stand on street corners with undergrads, pharmacy students, hospital janitors, patients, and surgeons.  And every day, we march together to the beat of Lexington's drum...

Beep-beep, beep-beep.  
Wait.  
Beep-beep, beep-beep.
Wait.
And then finally: South Limestone.
Walk sign is on to cross South Limestone.

Yesterday, towards the very start of my walk home, I found myself right behind a boy in a red hoodie.  We walked at an almost identical pace, so that it would have been impossible to try and pass him or for him to really distance himself from me.  We walked awkwardly in this rhythm for three-fourths of a mile, even stopping to cross at all of the same crosswalks.  And neither one of us ever said a word.  Until...

After about 15 minutes of walking and waiting, boy in the red hoodie turns down a side street.  "Good," I think.  "I can walk faster now."  But before boy in the red hoodie gets too far away, he turns over his shoulder, grins, and yells - "Nice walking with you!"  To which I stop, look after him, shake my head, and die out laughing.

I continue walking, taking my usual shortcut through the hotel parking lot, and thinking about the boy.  About how much nicer that walk would have been if we had talked to each other the entire way.  About how, when I first started school here, my least favorite thing was that no one on my daily walk would speak back to me when I said hello as I passed them.  About how, four months later, I had become just like them, exactly as I vowed I never would.

I make it through the parking lot to turn on Waller and realize boy in the red hoodie is back, now about fifteen paces ahead of me and walking up the steps to his typical campus-area house.  He sees me.  I yell to him, and he waits for me on his front porch.

Boy in the red hoodie is no longer boy in the red hoodie.  He is Sam, UK student who lives around the block.  And he knows a faster shortcut than I do, through a grassy area, behind the hotel.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sam jolted some life back into me.  Sam reminded me that just because the Deep South's hospitality and friendliness I grew up with isn't exactly the common thing up here, that doesn't mean it isn't the right thing still.  Reminded me that, despite hundreds of pages of dense reading and impending final exams and a largely auto-pilot lifestyle, I do not live in a world of cardboard cutouts.  I march to the beat of Lexington's drum with immortals, with very real lives, and very real souls.  Even if the voice telling me when it's time to cross the street is automated, the people I cross the street with are not.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all."
[Oscar Wilde]

Thanks, Sam.  I meant it when I said I hoped you have a great rest of the week.

harmony

Make anyone else want to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou?  Add that to the Christmas list.  Only 10 days of class, a trip to North Carolina, hours of studying, one paper, and four exams to go.  

P.S. If anyone wants to get me Avett Brothers tickets for Christmas too, I'd be ok with that.

quoted: the original george w

A little bit of post-election perspective, from the man who started this whole presidential thing anyway:

"We must never despair; our situation has been compromising before, and it has changed for the better; so I trust, it will again.  If difficulties arise, we must put forth new exertion and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times..."

[George Washington]

For the record, I am not thrilled about the results.  But I'm standing by my Rule #1 - just don't freak out. Roll with the punches, guys.  We (Republicans, Democrats, Independents, non-voters, I don't care who you are) have just been given an occasion.  Time to rise to it.  

Ready...set...GO.

#USA

the times, they are a-changin'

October has slipped into November.  70 degrees has changed to 40.   The general law school attitude has changed from distant thoughts of finals to panic because finals are now only a month away, and a month cannot possibly be long enough.  I want the break to come quickly so that I can see my brothers and sisters in Mississippi, go to Maine, celebrate the holidays, and rest.  But at the same time, I am scared of what I face until then, and while I would consider myself more emotionally stable than a lot of people at this point, I'm just saying.  If I could get a hold of Hermione's time-turner, I would be totally down with that.  

But the times, they are a-changin', and if I have been in denial about that at all, I have had this tree to remind me.  I pass it every day, on the way to school and back.  And it's as good an example as any that 

The leaves have changed,

changed some more,

and finally fallen.

Can a girl get a pause button around these parts?  Where does the time (and the leaves!) go?

But that's the challenge, isn't it?  We want life to speed up, we want life to slow down, but regardless of our personal desires and wishes life goes on.  The only real choice is to go on with it.  So here's to embracing the changin' times - the new month (although I will always and forever mourn the end of October), the colder weather, the barren trees, even the studying.  It will all be beautiful in its own way, regardless of what anyone tries to tell us.

Even still - if you want to find me a time-turner or a pause button for the sake of my Contracts exam...  I'm just throwing that out there.  This may be the hardest month and a half of my life to date, but tonight, at least, I think I'm feeling up for the challenge.  Outlining, flashcard making, tea, and apple pie await...

come gather 'round people wherever you roam

and admit that the waters around you have grown

and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone,

if your time to you is worth savin', 

then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone

for the times, they are a-changin'...

[bob dylan]