The end of the semester and the daffodils are blooming:

Working on the end of the semester chapter revisions which is both good work and tedious to no end. I sort of cherish the heavy mental lifting required by scholarly work, which is different from the sort of mental dancing necessary for creative work, but it doesn't quite provide the same pleasure. Ah well. All necessary "evil."

The past year was a LOT of hard work for me personally and has paid off in a fair number of publications as well as some personal emotional evolutions. I'd never submitted anything to be published until November of this 2016, so this has all been so heartening. It's true I also probably should have been doing it before, but I'm doing it now and that's really all that matters. (And isn't that mostly the secret to life? To work and try and when we understand new things to do them to the best of our ability and remain open, to know vulnerability for what it is--strength, and to forgive ourselves and those around and carry on? I think so.) That said, good lord I have some BIG writing goals for he summer and that will be a fun adventure of itself. 

And in thinking about this idea of evolution, in thinking about how most people are doing the best they can, in how sometimes you can almost take for granted someone who accepts you for who you are and STILL finds you dreamy, the following-- 

Say "I love you" when the spirit moves you. We're all gonna die soon.