Because I love books, because I mark notes and symbols in the margins, because I too am wondering about my old self:
"Marginalia" by Deborah Warren
Finding an old book on a basement shelf--
gray, spine bent--and reading it again,
I met my former, unfamiliar, self,
some of her notes and scrawls so alien
that, though I tried, I couldn't get (behind
this gloss or that) back to the time she wrote
to guess what experiences she had in mind,
the living context of some scribbled note;
or see the girl beneath the purple ink
who chose this phrase or that to underline,
the mood, the boy, that lay behind her thinking--
but they were thoughts I recognized as mine;
and though there were words I couldn't even read,
blobs and cross-outs; and though not a jot
remained of her old existence--I agreed
with the young annotator's every thought:
A clever girl. So what would she see fit
to comment on--and what would she have to say
about the years that she and I have written
since--before we put the book away?
Maginalia
The Last REAL Summer
Even though Union let out at the beginning of the month, I took a stats class (my first and last college math course) that crammed a whole semester of material into three weeks. But today I finished! All five tests are over, and my homework has been handed in. I'm ecstatic. I don't think I'll know what to do with myself until June 10 when I leave to work at camp.
Actually, I do know. Work on cleaning my room and my office, finish Alias, catch up on TIME, hang out with friends, get my teeth cleaned, start packing up again, go to a wedding and my brother's high school graduation, write some poetry, wash my car, get my camera fixed, schedule gallery exhibits for the rest of the summer. And while that's a pretty decent-sized list, I don't care because school isn't in the mix anymore! I love summer.
In the middle of it all, I need time to think. I have a lot I want to figure out, and I need to make it a priority. So many questions are begging answers, and I need pay attention to them instead of covering them up with busyness.
But all that will come. For now it's sleep. It's weird thinking that this is my last, true summer. Next year around this time I'll have graduated and summer will be a thing of the past just as homeleaves are to me now. Believe me, I'm living this one up!
