the morning began with a lost wallet and a missed class; filing paperwork at the admissions office and then an interview which I all but flubbed. I wanted to crawl out of the room when my twenty minutes were finished, paralyzed as I was with the knowledge that I knew I had come across about as dynamic and enaging as a derivation. somehow, the chemistry just wasn’t present in this paticular interview, and even at the end, when they asked what else I could say about myself; I was vague and uninspiring. I wish I could have conveyed just how much I want to be in the program and the real zest for being alive that grows, alive, like a bacteria in my heart. what I wanted to say is this: that I desire to live a life full of risk and depth; a life that is wrapped around both the idea of humanity and eternity. that I believe that people’s most basic desire is to be known and to know God; and that I at least desire to reach the first instinct: to reach into that longing to be known and so cultivate in others a passion to fully engage in their own lives and seek Christ. that my greatest fear is living a small, selfish life. that I have an exhuasting list of faults, that I am not a born leader nor a good one, but I want to be one. that I love to learn and that I want to climb mountains (answering john muir’s call, as best I can my freshman year give me men to match my mountains!) and dance to jay-z and read good books and learn how to make jam and hold people when they’re crying. that I want to live with eternity in mind. that I want to make the world a better place. that I LOVE carolina. that I want to learn to love carolina better.

but I didn’t say any those things and so I may not be an nc fellow, after all. but these things happen. I don’t have to be in a program to believe and live those things.

the rest of the day:

Hummus, Falafel and meeting the beloved people I’ll spend my summer with.

Rwanda and stories about wine; meetings and business details; the claustrophobic staircase of the y and the tapped wood floors.

SPEED DATING: awkward hello’s, awkward goodbyes, adventures.

Reading night: three hours of Emerson, Carl Sandburg; all my favorite people under the dim apartment light and quiet of honey and homemade biscuits. It’s so heavenly to have that Thursday night space, where all my questions, where all the week’s discussions of Biblical allusions in Melville; socialism and capitalism, how to prove ~q, how to be a woman, the ethics of reintroducing endangered wolves back into the ecosystem…all these things fade away into simple joy and rest. And then I can come back and read a letter from Wolfe; decompress and sleep with the beautiful knowledge that tomorrow I’m going HOME.

home, is wherever I’m with you, let me come home…