world, meet sea salt.
I am easing myself into online exposure with Sea Salt, and hope to add something meaningful to the seemingly endless collection of online musings. Feel free to let me know how you think this quest is going...
This is as perfect a time as I can imagine for creating a blog. Since the beginning of the summer, I have: moved away from the buses, students, and unreliable red line of Somerville for a quieter existence by the sea; begun teaching a class of college freshmen who call me "Miss" and depend on me to teach them how to write; achieved one of the biggest goals of my life - publication.
These changes have necessitated an unprecedented amount of time to myself. I've had ample time to reflect while unpacking boxes, hanging pictures, preparing lessons, grading papers, and typing/formatting/printing/addressing/stamping/mailing submissions to any contest, literary magazine, and journal that will read my work.
And lately, reflection is easy. My grandparents are older, my parents are older, my little sister is older. I've passed the age where I have to listen at the door to know what's going on - now I get a phone call, an email, or a text anytime something is new, alarming, concerning, relieving, unbelievable, remarkable, anticipated, wonderful, or tragic in the family. I also make these calls when something is off, when my grandfather says the wrong thing, when I haven't heard from a sister, when I'm feeling low and don't know why.
I also reflect on everything that's good and right - a person I love deeply reached an important goal, a friend's mother is cancer-free. I wake up every morning warm, clean, and well-fed. I give and receive love, I have wireless internet in my apartment, I go running along the beach and sense my own smallness next to the ocean.
As I write, submit, teach, connect, and change, I hope I learn to accept everything with grace...and leave a little grace behind.
This is as perfect a time as I can imagine for creating a blog. Since the beginning of the summer, I have: moved away from the buses, students, and unreliable red line of Somerville for a quieter existence by the sea; begun teaching a class of college freshmen who call me "Miss" and depend on me to teach them how to write; achieved one of the biggest goals of my life - publication.
These changes have necessitated an unprecedented amount of time to myself. I've had ample time to reflect while unpacking boxes, hanging pictures, preparing lessons, grading papers, and typing/formatting/printing/addressing/stamping/mailing submissions to any contest, literary magazine, and journal that will read my work.
And lately, reflection is easy. My grandparents are older, my parents are older, my little sister is older. I've passed the age where I have to listen at the door to know what's going on - now I get a phone call, an email, or a text anytime something is new, alarming, concerning, relieving, unbelievable, remarkable, anticipated, wonderful, or tragic in the family. I also make these calls when something is off, when my grandfather says the wrong thing, when I haven't heard from a sister, when I'm feeling low and don't know why.
I also reflect on everything that's good and right - a person I love deeply reached an important goal, a friend's mother is cancer-free. I wake up every morning warm, clean, and well-fed. I give and receive love, I have wireless internet in my apartment, I go running along the beach and sense my own smallness next to the ocean.
As I write, submit, teach, connect, and change, I hope I learn to accept everything with grace...and leave a little grace behind.