The Budding Optimist

The word reverdie  refers to a type of poetry common in the Middle Ages. The word literally means "re-greening." This literature was a celebration of the return of spring. It was important because 500 years ago, the life-expectancy was a good 4 decades lower than it is now. There was a greater chance that you wouldn't survive the harsh and unforgiving winter than that you would. So, those who were still alive when the narcissus and crocus started blooming had enormous cause to celebrate. They had survived another bout of the Dark, and Life was coming back into the world! Reverdie. It very much feels as if I am in the midst of a dark and painful winter. Albert Camus wrote, "It was there in the depths of winter that I discovered there was, within me, an invincible summer." I have discovered no such thing. But what better way to confront Life's challenges than by giving onself even more  challenges? It's been years since I moved to New York for the summer

I've lived in my house for almost 7 years. It's 900 square feet. Up until 2 weeks ago, I always had at least one empty drawer. My friend Sarah found it when she came over for tea one night. She was looking for teaspoons and stared down, non-plussed. "You have an empty drawer." "What now?" I said. "Right here. Left of the oven. There's nothing in this drawer." "Sweet!!!" Even though I'd mostly forgotten that drawer was empty, it still freaked me out a couple of weeks ago when I bought a toaster and had to move all the spatulas into the empty drawer to make room.  Now I have no empty drawers. The psychological weight of living in a house with no empty drawers is perceptible. It's so heavy, in fact, that I wondered if I should return the toaster, thereby moving the spatulas back to their rightful place in a canister on the counter and returning my formerly-empty-drawer to its original glory. After all, I'd survived years with

When I used to teach The Giver, I asked students to create their own utopias. What would it look like? How would order be maintained? What would you eradicate that is present in our current world, and what would you add? How would you do it? It was an interesting exercise. It kind of made me wonder what a utopia would look like for me. I think it would be a world without decisions. I fkking hate decisions. I guess that's pretty ironic, given that the lack of choices in The Giver is what makes it a dystopia and what the protagonist works to overcome. It's weird how one man's dystopia is another man's utopia. I guess it's like John Milton said: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Today, I had a 2nd interview for a position teaching high school English in my SEVENTH district. Instead of preparing, I did the following things: * scrolled through friends' Goodreads updates * shopped for eye shadow, then dec