On turning 31

2002

I keep thinking I could share come kind of wisdom but I don't really have any.

B. says that it took him 5 years to learn how to think, 5 years to figure out that thinking does no good, and 5 years to learn to stop thinking. I'm about 31 years behind his curve.

Mary Karr wrote than in our twenties, we live among the ghosts of all the people we could become. I identify with that torment -- the myth that we can become something other than what we are. What a relief it is, finally, for Mary Karr to be Mary Karr, for me to be me, for you to be you.

I'm grateful:
My parents and grandparents are all still living, still full of life.
My sisters are bright and adventurous.
My roommate is an excellent cook.
My experience in Peru inspires me each day, still.
My law school teaches me how to be of service.
My friends in New York show me how to live. My friends in Oregon turned into yoga nuts, parents, and teachers in Taiwan, but we still share so much joy. Along the way I've loved and been loved and I'm grateful for that.

The music and the books let me feel my life in other people's songs and words. I'm grateful to Wallace Stegner for telling me about people who cross the county, make commitments, build things, fail, and keep trying. I love Steve Earle and Mercedes Sosa for writing music about justice when there is no justice, Garcia Lorca and Ginsberg for giving me Walt Whitman, and New York for nurturing me in this garden of ideas.

The garden, my garden, teaches me resilience- the force of lilies and gladiolas and tomatoes and pumpkins pushing through Gowanus soil into unbearable heat and thriving.

2012