Beth Kephart's Blog, page 189

carried by friends to Los Angeles and Texas and back again

I don't get out into that book world as much as I'd like to; my work keeps me here at my desk.  But I get to travel vicariously through people I've come to love, and last week, I was gloriously carried to or remembered at two major book events.



I'd begged the fantastic bloggers (and women!!!) Danielle, Amy, and Florinda to take me to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books—a running joke we had among us.  But I didn't really expect them to, you know, take me there.  I'm agile, perhaps, and I can still bend, but I don't fit into any suitcase.  Still, being the inventive and loving women they are, they found a way, and here's the photograph to prove it.  That's one bright happy moment, the three of them with this part of me.  It put a tear in my eye when I saw it late last night.



Melissa Walker, whose new book, Unbreak My Heart, is due out in May, also found me in her travels last week.  She was in Texas at the Texas Library Association meeting.  She snapped this picture and sent it my way, with a note, Great to see you at the TLA.  The thing is, though, that I really do want to see Melissa.  In person.  Some day.  We're working on it. [image error]

Last Day: English 135.302

We came together in search of something—

words, perhaps, or stories,

a path toward or beyond.




We emerge united in our understanding of what

truth is and

why it matters.




Around a thick, old table, we sat,

we wrote,

we listened.




We will remember.




A fond farewell to my beautiful students and to a semester I will not forget.[image error]

I will see Bruce Springsteen live: a bucket list dream answered

This is the glorious Asbury Park, a photograph taken in winter three years ago.  The Stone Pony is off the boardwalk to the left.  A glassblower is staying warm beside his fire.  Beth is singing behind the camera.



Springsteen, as readers of this blog know, has played a central role in my creative life.  I love and live by many of his songs. He takes me to a thrumming place.  I own the albums.  I know the words.  I dance alone.  I have seen his band play live.  I have not, despite a life-long yearning, seen him.



In September, that will change, thanks to an early morning ticket purchase.  I will be on the field at Citizen's Park.  I will see, at long last, Springsteen for myself.



There are no words.[image error]

the rise and fall of rain, end of Sunday

Except for an hour or so at church and a heated quiche at lunch, I have sat here at this computer since a very early hour.  The Berlin novel, first draft, is done.  My students' final papers are reviewed, graded, returned.  I made a teaching video for a friend.  And it rained, and it rained, and it rained.



I like the sound of rain, always.  I think, as I stand now, as I uncurl these limbs, that rain is like sun when you need the rain.  It rises on the day and sets.  It keeps you company.









[image error]

Finishing the Berlin novel, for Tamra's birthday week

I don't need to say much more than this:  the Berlin novel is complete.  There will, of course, be more things to do, as the story settles.  There is always more to do with books.  But the biggest part, the by-far hardest part, is done, as I say in this brief video.  It has been a blessed and emotional journey.



Happy birthday week, dear Tamra Tuller.  This one's for you.[image error]

my little house, in the flowery heart of spring

I've not gotten around to weeding yet (that isn't even on my infamous list).  But I did stop long enough to look at my world yesterday, and to feel gratitude for the life that I live.




[image error]

this one's for you, Little Miss M.

I write from time to time on this blog about the Glorious Miss M., who thrills us all at DanceSport Academy with her talent, her commitment, and her kindness.  We've watched her grow up from this little girl, snapped by my camera nearly three years ago, to the young lady who joins us adults on Thursday evenings in the intermediate group classes—not to learn (she knows this stuff already), but to help us find our dancing ways.  She gets a little look in her eye, as you can see.  It's not mischief, exactly.  It's, well, let's call it The Miss M. Sparkle Elixir.



Yesterday evening, while we sat on the couch together waiting for our lesson, Miss M. asked me about our time away in Beach Haven.  I began to speak of dolphins and sun.  "Oh, yes," she interrupted (however politely).  "I read that on your blog."  (How boring can one person be, I thought of myself at the time.)  Miss M. then proceeded to explain how, every day when she comes home from school, she heads to the computer to find out what I blogged.  She was smiling when she said it.  There might have been some irony there.  Still, just in case she's reading today, this one is for you, Miss M.



Miss M. is competing this weekend at the Philadelphia Festival DanceSport Championships.  I'm sending her all of my love.  If the judges know what's right and fair, she'll come home bedazzled with blue ribbons.

Leaning toward the end of the Berlin novel

There was fog this morning, but I didn't catch it.  The trees are outrageous—pinks, purples, yellow platters.  The lilacs are heavy on themselves, the viburnum stealthy.  It is all out there, and I am in here, in Berlin, the pages of the novel printing now on my HP LaserJet.



It is Tamra Tuller's birthday week.



I want her to have this book of ours by weekend's end.

taking my omens were I can find them (inside stale cookies)

[image error]

this is my list (and it scares me)

I am not, by nature, a list maker.  I like to think of myself as a parallel processor, an aw-come-on-you-will-do-it gal, an original but, of course, sure, absolutely.



But.  The nature of these days has foisted List upon me, and I have, with a gasp, discovered this:  There are 31 things due in the next three weeks.  Even earlier, my clients say, if I could, please.



See that orange tower, rising high?  That's my list—resounding, skyward.



I didn't go to Zumba today.  I ruined my eggs and thought I'd have some milk instead, but learned that the milk jug is empty.  I rose hoping for rain, so that beauty wouldn't distract me.  There's sun out there—sun and plenty of beauty.



I'm going to slip away now, do Thing Number One.  After that, Thing Number Two.  And so on.




[image error]