there is something slightly undignifed about having a blog. blogs are usually portioned to middle-aged men who want to be professors and mothers who save coupons and seventh-grade girls who bare their souls through the medium of water photos and passive-agressive blog entries. it’s okay: sometimes I judge myself for having one, so you can, too. but by now it’s a habit.

spring in chapel hill! there is a rythmn, a cadence; a soul that I have found and do not want to lose. africa is close, and I’m thrilled. but now I’m clinging to the azaleas and the afternoons on the quad where time is this pleasant, nonexistent element that slips somewhere between murphey and wilson library, hiding in a bush or behind a brick, and emerges around four together with the heavy afternoon light and chime of the bell tower. april light is a miracle, lemme tell you. when I remember to wake up alongside, it is light and spacious and fresh, and then it is remembered by the heat and the oak trees become hospitable; and then in it is evening and magical and found in pockets on the quad where the bushes and trees link arms and stretch towards something, somewhere.

that’s the way it is. here is what I’m grateful for:

tennessee williams and lungs and old friendships and weathered friendships and friendships that are still emerging like all those green catepillars that hang off trees. people who speak truth to me, and waffles and waitresses and older brothers. forgiveness, for my emotions are a volatile and undependable being. elton john, but wisteria, more likely. spontaneous people who play spontaneous music. prayer and communion and wine. the awakening, even when edna makes me mad. tambourines and sprawling beach porches and stars on docks. and quiet rides home where the sunset and caleb’s impeccable music taste merge together comftorably into the sand.

evangeline mee, I want to live life with you following the sound of music from front porch to front porch. where you are, there will always be banjos.

here is what I’m excited about:

rwanda for a long, long time and in a way that I don’t really know how to measure yet. the mountains, and you, and all of that often. new sneakers. the gospel and space that I can breathe in. the farmers market and cooking and probably nina simone.

so anyways, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m just very, very grateful. not because I have anything good going on, but because everything around me does. and because I learn daily that growth is this miraculous thing that happens and happens and happens and my heart moves round the board like a parcheesi piece. and that’s good, I think.

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today, waiting for my shots at the travel clinic, I flipped through the magazines. the boy beside me was clearly restless, so in an act of genuine compassion, I handed him one.

“here, you can read this family circle. it’s a really good issue.”

I don’t really think he thought it was s funny as I clearly did.