At Wesleyan's 2009 commencement, Anna Quindlen reminded graduates of Samuel Beckett's bold proclamation, "To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now." Instead of tidying the mess, or assuring graduates that things were not as messy as they appeared in the chaos of that May, she simply said,

We leave you a mess. And I won’t apologize for that. Instead I want you to see it for what it is: an engraved invitation to transformation. Certainty is dead. Long live the flying leap.

A long-time fan of Anna Quindlen's, I especially loved that last declarative: long live the flying leap.

And so, here goes my flying leap. As I travel to Japan, back home to run my first math camp for middle-school girls, and then to France, I will be flying in more ways than one.

Monday, June 21, 2010

And we're off!

I am sitting on the floor of C's bedroom, while she is wandering around, hopping my outstretched legs, singing a little made-up song to herself and kind of swaying back and forth. I think she's excited.

As for me, I can't believe that we are actually going to be in Japan in a little more than 24 hours. I printed out all sorts of directions to various places today, including a whole page of Japanese characters that we are advised to show our driver if we want to take a taxi from Kyoto rail station to our hostel, Ikoi-no-Ie. While a week ago I might have imagined this short story to be overkill, I'm beginning to think otherwise.

But before we get to Japan, we first lay-over in another new country for me: Canada. Two birds, one stone.

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2 comments:

  1. AnnaJune 22, 2010 at 8:10 AM

    Bon Voyage, love! Thank you for setting up this blog, I'm anxiously awaiting each new post with your tales of fantastic adventure. Enjoy every minute, I hope you get lost and find a lot of unexpected surprises <3

    ReplyDelete
  2. JoeJune 27, 2010 at 10:15 PM

    How the hell have you never been to Canada?!

    ReplyDelete

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