Playbook

August 13, 2013 Photo of the day:

"A Place to Dream While Awake"

Since I will be teaching an American Lit course this year, I decided to look through my college notes for ideas. Amid hundreds of French, English, and American lit books in my old cedar chest, I found my copy of Sark's Journal & Playbook. I remember buying this book in graduate school and filling it with doodles and inspiration. Although somewhat silly and embarrassing, it's amazing how nearly twenty years later, so many of my thoughts and feeling have remained the same (while some are completely different)! 

On one page, I listed Audrey Hepburn, Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, James Dean, Elvis, Shakespeare, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Sting, JFK Jr., Joan of Arc, Oprah, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Jimmy Buffet, The Virgin Mary, and Shaun Cassidy (my first "love") as ideal guests at a cocktail party! 

For the most part, I stand by my choices!

(Disclaimer: I hope this doesn't qualify as TMI)

These were a few of my favorite things :)

I still love almost all of them except

I no longer have time for naps and bubble baths,

and ever since a painful sunburn in Nice in 1998,

I really don't like the feeling of the sun on my skin.

This seems a bit cliché, 

yet wouldn't it be wonderful?

I was honest about my fears. 

Though some remain, I have overcome others.

Here were some of my favorite quotes

as I prepared for life after grad school.

Twenty years later, 

I have accomplished many of these goals:

I live in a beautiful home, 

albeit not on the water (someday!)

with a fireplace and garden 

(but not a jacuzzi - what was I thinking?)

that I share with the man I love.

I have a successful career 

where I work to make a difference.

I strive to see beauty & inspiration,

and to be creative 

in my writing & photography (Project 365).

Though I have traveled extensively, 

I continue to suffer from perpetual wanderlust.