Leaving Carolina.

This is it. T-5 days, sort of. I leave Chapel Hill Monday afternoon to go to my dad's, and then leave Carolina early Wednesday morning. I honestly do not know how I'm going to do it. Seriously, I cannot see myself leaving Chapel Hill, knowing I won't be back for a while, much less getting on 95N and driving North. I have a fear that I will turn around in Virginia, and just come back. I've tried to put into words the reasons I love Chapel Hill and North Carolina so much, but words fail me. They're just not adequate. Chapel Hill is one of those towns that, when you try to explain it to someone else, it doesn't sound the way you want it to. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine, almost exactly 4 years ago, that I would stay here. I definitely wanted to BE here - Chapel Hill was almost mythical to me - but I never thought it would evolve into my home, with people I cared about and places I became part of. I could not have imagined the amount of people that would touch my life, touch my heart, and make me a better person for it. I never expected to learn so much about myself and about life. I think I have grown more here than I have anywhere else, and that is something that will always stay with me.

In some aspects, it really doesn't seem like it's REALLY happening. My head cannot wrap itself around the fact that my time here is seriously limited. My heart hurts even writing this. The tears are inching out the corners of my eyes as I blink them back - it's too soon to cry, I just won't do it. I can't even listen to James Taylor right now because the waterworks start.

So what am I doing? Planning my last dinner out here - I think I'm going for a similar thing as my 30th birthday, a quintessential Chapel Hill theme. Dinner at Top of the Hill, then cupcakes at Sugarland or a walk down Franklin St. See the Old Well one last time for a bit. Breathe in the Carolina night air. Take snapshots of memory up and down Franklin St, at Pepper's, Spanky's, Yogurt Pump, etc. I'm also trying to distract myself with work, and thinking about going running, although the heat is pretty oppressive at this point. I'm also stress eating my way through a bag of Doritos. Good times indeed.

Chapel Hill, I love you.

I have a little more than a week left here. Holy fucking shit. Writing it made it real. And I don't want it to be. I was talking to an author today at the store who teaches in the UNCW MFA program, and yet again, thought to myself, why did I not apply there? They have the #2 program in creative nonfiction. To the best of my recollection, it was because I was already spending so much on application fees, GRE fees, trancript and score fees. And I thought I'd surely get into UNC-CH. Well. Weren't we all in for a surprise. sigh. But what's done is done.

The past 4 years.....have been wonderful. A friend from the MPH program and I went to dinner on Franklin St the other night, and it was great. Afterward, we walked around, went to Yogurt Pump and then walked around UNC's campus, and I took a picture of the Old Well. I remember the day I moved to NC, and I drove down Franklin St. I'd never really been on a college campus with such a picturesque "main street." Shops advertising Carolina blue apparel, Tar Heels everywhere, little restaurants and the ubiquitous Starbucks. This is the street of the huge annual Halloween party, and the place where students went after winning NCAA basketball championships. It is the stuff that movies are made of, really. I've studied with friends at Starbucks, celebrated my 30th birthday at Sugarland and Top of the Hill, had drinks at Spanky's, celebrated my 27th birthday at Tallulah's and eaten huge plates of hush puppies at Carolina Brewery. It is where I had my graduation dinner at 411 West, eaten bowls of Cold Stone Creamery while walking down the street, and just off Franklin St, gone to Fridays on the Front Porch with my old roommate.

I remember wanting to be a Tar Heel in high school, but in an abstract way. All sports kids liked Carolina, the powerhouse of athletics. When I finally got in, I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to live in Chapel Hill. Where even the fire trucks are Carolina blue. I cannot describe the small-town feel of it, especially after the students leave. I have never lived in a place like this before, and I really dread leaving.

But it is the people I will miss most. Many of my friends have already left, but I have friends still here that are amazing. I have made wonderful friends at work, and when my boss asked me how excited I was to be moving, I started tearing up and couldn't talk about it. When my coworkers tell me they are simply refusing to believe I am moving, it makes me sad. When my running group talks about running races in the fall, or being in denial that I'm going, it tears at me. Thinking about not seeing all these familiar places - Southpoint, Estes Community Park, the Chapel Hill library, Caribou.....makes me sad.

I know I need to go to NY, because this is where I need to go to get where I want to be. I just wish I could have done it in NC.

On a brighter note, I've received some swag from Kiel James Patrick and will be giving it away soon to a blog reader. :) Stay tuned.

you can't curl up with a Kindle.

Before deciding to apply to MFA programs and doing all my research, despite all of my reading and English/lit classes, I hadn't heard of many great writers, both past and present. Sure, I read some of the classics, and of course Joan Didion, but I'd never heard of Wallace Stegner. Or Dan Chaon. Or Aimee Bender. Of course I knew about the Iowa Writers' Workshop, but the Stegner Fellowship? Nope. Never heard of the Pushcart Prize or the literary magazines Tin House or Ploughshares. I vaguely knew of Glimmer Train, but had never really picked it up. Did I really know how cutthroat MFA admissions were? Not a clue. If I'd known, I would have probably been a lot more nervous than I was. And I was pretty damn nervous.

So, now, as I prepare for my new program, I've read Aimee Bender, Wells Tower (Columbia alum), Alice Munro, will be reading Dan Chaon soon, and this summer, I discovered the amazing writer that is Wallace Stegner. I read his book "Crossing to Safety," and loved it. I wanted to savor it, so I read it in small pieces. I can't explain how crisp and cool his writing is, almost like you're running through a waterfall. That sounds ridiculous, but that's how reading "Crossing to Safety" felt like for me. I just got his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Angle of Repose." Several regular customers have recommended it to me, and while it's not typically the kind of story I go for, I'm excited to start it. I will never get a Kindle or NOOK for this reason: the tactile experience of reading. I've picked up the book multiple times, felt its weight in my hands, sturdy, reassuring, and stable. Gazed at the beautiful cover and read the back several times over. Looked at the spine, at the name "Wallace Stegner" and thought about the man who wrote these important pieces of literature. Flipped through the pages and inhaled the smell of freshly printed pages. You book lovers know what I'm talking about. There is just something about a book......writers don't dream about the day they can download their books; we dream of holding our book in our hands, knowing how much labor and love has gone into several hundred pages. A book is tangible proof of hard work and effort.

I'm not really sure what the point of this is; I just had to write about this. Maybe it's working at an indie bookstore, maybe it's because of the internet MFA groups I've joined - I've become a bit of a booksnob, almost. :) There's just so much great writing out there that isn't commercially popular - because that's not the point. But I'd bet there's a lot more people who've read Dan Brown and consider him a great writer, than there are who've read Dostoyevsky or Nabokov or Michael Chabon. I have so much to learn about writing and literature and this world, that I really think this program will be wonderful. I can't wait.

witness to your life.

I was thinking about the twists and turns my life has taken in the past 10 years, and I'm struck by a common thread that I didn't really notice before. Everything I've done has to do with connecting with people. Psychology - obviously, working with a client and bearing witness to their stories, etc; public health/cancer; and writing - when someone reads a book, it's a very personal experience. At least, it is for me. I've emailed numerous authors to tell them how much I loved their books, or how much it impacted me. In the words of E.M. Forster, "Only connect."

I'm just thinking about this because I downloaded some new songs, including Lori McKenna's "Witness to Your Life." Because in the end, isn't that really what we want? Another person to acknowledge we were here?

for real.

Holy shit. It's finally really starting to sink in. And anytime this happens, when I make a major decision or whatnot about Columbia, it's like my body suddenly has an attack of Crohn's disease. Not pretty. I've paid my housing deposit, applied for all the necessary loans, signed the promissary notes, sent in my class preferences and am signing up for health insurance. This is really happening.

It's mid-July. Where did the time go? Some days I am excited about New York, other days I'm sick to my stomach about it. I know it's just nerves. Once I get a routine and know what is expected of me, I will be fine. The start of any program is nerve-wracking. I can feel myself starting to pull away from Chapel Hill and the people here, and I don't want to do that. I want to be present for the entire time I'm here, to soak up every last morsel of Carolina. This will be a good exercise for staying in the moment.

Signing up for preferred classes was a trip. We had to rank our preferences for seminars, lectures and workshops.....here I am, ranking workshops with Philip Lopate and Pulitzer-prize winning Margo Jefferson...what. the. hell. I will actually have the opportunity to sit in a classroom with these people and learn from them and with them. It blows my mind. I felt this way at MSKCC, too. It's like, they actually do exist, and aren't some nebulous literary geniuses floating around out there. I have to admit, while I was ranking the classes, all I could think was, you have got to be kidding me. But in a good way. There were so many amazing classes from which to choose.

This is real. It seems like a whirlwind. But on the other hand, it's been a long time coming, in a lot of ways. So many things in my life have been leading me up to this. So many peoples' encouragement and enthusiasm about my writing that have helped nurture it. Other people taking my writing seriously, and demanding I do the same.

I'm going to really enjoy this.

independence day.

Sometimes we forget how lucky we are. We forget that not everyone has the luxury to go to the food store whenever they need something. We forget that many people are very close to losing their homes. We forget to be thankful for our families, or our educations, or our friends. When we have had things for so long, that are so ingrained in our daily living and our world, it can be very easy to forget, or choose to forget, that not everyone is so lucky.

Yesterday at the bookstore, a couple came in with a child of a different race than them, so I assume (maybe wrongly) that he was adopted, and I think the child had cerebral palsy. His arms and legs, so thin it was painful to look at them, were twisted in a spastic manner, his knees bent inward and his gait halting yet bouncing at the same time. His mother held him by the hand, gently pulling him along, and he was working hard to keep up with her pace. The degrees to which his legs were twisted seems almost impossible and inhuman, and yet he found a way to walk. He greeted everyone with a garbled "Hi, how are you doing today?", and I could hear him laughing with his parents in the children's room.

And yet. And yet....I could not help but think to myself as he walked by me, there but for the grace of G-d go I. We forget that not everyone can do something as simple as walk "normally." It is easy to forget, even for a graduate of a maternal-child health MPH program, that not every pregnancy is healthy, that even when all the tests show normal results, something could still be awry. I hesitate to use the word "wrong", because I think if it were my child, I would never call anything "wrong" about him or her. But it is so easy not to think about things like this. We take for granted having a healthy child. When my nephew was born, I was so grateful that he was healthy, and I am forever thankful. And yesterday, after seeing this child, I could not help but thank G-d for my nephew's health.

We forget how miraculous, how wondrous, a healthy pregnancy and child are. We forget to be thankful for the littlest things.

There but for the grace of G-d go I.

the written word.

I've been reading a lot lately, trying to prepare myself for the 2-3 books per week that I will have at Columbia. I used to be able to read a book in one day, but I got out of practice, and have worked slowly toward that. Not there yet with all of them, but some of them. :) I recently read Anthropology of an American Girl, by Hilary Thayer Hamann. At 500+ pages, it's not a beach read. But I loved it. It was originally self-published and caught the eye of Random House. It kind of reminds me of a female Holden Caulfield, during the late 1970s and early 80s. I'm currently reading Heat, by Bill Buford, about his experience as a writer, learning how to cook with Mario Batali. The writing is so good that it makes me want to eat my body weight in tortellini every time I read it. I have piles of ARCs next to my bed. ARCs are Advance Reader Copies. Bookstores, editors and other writers get these from publishers so they can see what they want to order, tell their customers about, blah blah blah. It is also the best perk of my job - and I love my job. I'm also reading Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok. Kwok is a Columbia MFA alum. I've been trying to read lots of books by professors and alums before I get there. Let me tell you, I get a strange thrill every time I look at one of the displays we have at the bookstore, because it has both Kwok and the book of another alum, Wells Tower, on the display. And that's not counting Lipsyte's The Ask or Maureen Johnson's YA books that are out on display. Or Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story and Oliver Sacks' new book - both profs at the school. It makes me catch my breath, that hopefully I will follow in their footsteps.

I don't think I realized it, or let myself realize it, that I really, really want to go to this program. I don't think I let myself get excited before. The cost was overwhelming and I didn't think it would work out. But now that a huge portion of that is off my plate, this is really happening. I still can't believe it.

Annie Dillard once told her students that, whenever they are in a bookstore, go to where your books would be shelved, and make a little space there with your finger. I do that.

I can only hope.

I (heart) North Carolina.

When I first applied to UNC for my MPH, I honestly never thought I would get in. I was working full-time as a medical assistant in an ob/gyn office that I'd worked at off and on during grad school since 2001, and was debating doing a post-bac pre-med program, or an MPH. I applied to a variety of places for public health, mostly up North, with the exceptions of USF, Emory and UNC. Once I found out that UNC was ranked #2 for public health, I actually ripped up all the information and threw it out, because I didn't think I'd have a shot. When I came to Chapel Hill to interview, I flew down and back in one day, but I knew that I loved it here. The street signs on campus were Carolina blue, it was a beautiful spring day......in short, the day I interviewed here was a perfect Southern day. I ended up getting into GW and was waitlisted here, and DREADED going to DC. I could not see myself living in DC, and just wanted to be in Chapel Hill so badly. And the day after my nephew was born, I got the call that I was in, if I was still interested. I'm pretty sure I told Yvette, the Student Services person, that I loved her, when she called with the news. I was so excited. I could not believe I was going to be a Tar Heel. Looking back, I don't remember being nervous. You'd think I would be nervous, moving down South, away from everyone I knew.....I had moved to FL before, but at least I knew people then. But I don't remember being nervous. Instead, I remember being very excited, like I knew this was going to be the right thing.

I remember moving here, and though I was homesick a little, I loved it. True, the slowness of it got to me at first, but as the months went by, I really started to feel at home. And slowly, it began to feel like this was the place for me. Did I miss NY? Of course. And when I interned in the city, I loved it - but I also missed Carolina.

I have less than 2 months here, and I miss it more every day, even though I haven't even left yet. New Jersey, where I grew up, does not feel like home as often as it used to. There are very few places in the world that feel like home to me, and they include Israel, NY, and NC. I have built a life here. I have built connections and forged bonds and become part of the community. Right now, my goal is to come back here in 2 years, when I am done at Columbia.

Some of my favorite memories are here, studying at Weaver Street in Carrboro, or eating homemade ice cream in rocking chairs under the stars at Maple View Ice Cream, or the Belted cows at Fearrington, or music on the green on Sunday nights at Southern Village.......and so many more. Late night shakes at CookOut. Walks on Franklin Street. Wandering around A Southern Season. Getting my nose pierced at Blue Flame, in Raleigh. Brunch at Crook's Corner. Birthday dinner at Penang. Watching the final March Madness game on the deck at the bar. Walking Izzi on the paths through the park in Southern Village. Sugarland cupcakes. Running the trails in the Estes Community Park. I love how I can see people around town that I know, or that so many people know each other. I've grown to love hush puppies, although they irritate my stomach. And ironically, though I've held out for 4 years, all of a sudden I find myself saying "y'all" and sometimes drawing some vowels out with a Southern-like lilt.

I never got the "big school" experience - I went to a small, private, liberal-arts college that barely anyone has heard of, unless they're pre-med, theater or dance. We were Division III. Being at UNC has given me that big school feel in a way, and living in a college town that everyone in the country has heard of has been quite the experience.

When I moved down here, I was subscribing to the New Yorker, New York magazine and Time Out New York. I was stubbornly holding onto my Yankee-ness. And when I move back up North? I'll probably start subscribing to Our State magazine and Chapel Hill magazine.

I moved down here a cynical, jaded, hard Northerner. And I'm now....well, still cynical, still jaded, but somewhat softer. I'll always be a Northerner, but I love Carolina and am proud to call it home.

work of the heart.

When you ask my nephew to spell his name, he bursts out exuberantly with T! R! E! Y!, each letter with its own exclamation point. His smile, full of trust and childish belief, has tattooed itself on my heart, and I am a better person for it. When we cross the street, his small hand curls inside mine, our palms touching, my grasp tight, to keep him from falling behind or running away into the unknown or a space of danger.

Sometimes it feels dangerous to love him. Dangerous because the terror of losing him, G-d forbid, or of something bad happening, inhabits the flip side of a love that great. He has carved out a space in all our lives that can only be filled by his laugh and his excited speech. Children bring out the best in ourselves, they help us remember who we once were and maybe who we wanted to be. They bring us back to a pure space inside, and crowd out any cynicism and sadness.

I approach this from the point of view of an aunt. I do not pretend to know what it is like to be a mother. But I do know this: I would die for that boy. I would do anything in my power to make his life a little easier, to ease his way through this difficult world. And so would almost everyone in his life. He is helpless to take care of himself; he depends completely on others. The choice to have a child is a choice to give yourself over to this person for the rest of your life, to some extent. Your life will never be the same, and it is said that the decision to have a child is the decision to have your heart walk outside your body for the rest of your life, which is a pretty apt description.

I realize not everyone feels this way about parenting, and I will never understand that. It is not your right to be a parent; it is a privilege. And those who don't realize what a gift it is.....well, I feel sorry for you.

leaving the ground.

Women are taught, from an early age, to be agreeable. To smile, be sweet - sugar and spice and everything nice. We absorb messages to not be too aggressive, too assertive (lest we be called bitches); we don't want to intimidate others with our wants, needs and ambitions. Things have changed a little bit, but there is still that glass ceiling - believe me; my friends and I have seen this firsthand, when guys on dating sites are less likely to contact a woman with more education than them. (which narrows the pool considerably for many of us, just sayin'). It can be hard for us to admit we want more. More of everything.

Which makes me wonder how this will be taken, because sometimes ambition can be seen as a bad thing....which is sad, since I believe the newer generations are lacking ambition, actually.

I want to be great. I don't want to be "good" at writing, I want to be excellent. I want to write books that people read, that changes people's lives and makes a difference. I want to go into a bookstore and see my books on the shelf, I want to work with other writers to help us all realize each others' dreams. I want to do author readings and meet and greets. I want to make enough money to pay back all my student loans and provide for my family and give them back everything they have given me, and then some.

Don't get me wrong. That's not the sole reason why I'm doing this. I am doing this because I love it. Writing is when I am most honest, most free. But I want to refine my craft, to actually get instruction and polish my writing, and take it to levels I never dreamed of.

When I read about an author with which I am having dinner on Tuesday getting a million dollar advance for her debut novel, or Tea Obreht winning the Orange Prize at the age of 25 and being the youngest of the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list.....I admit, I am envious. But I am also inspired. I have 10 years left to make that list, and I will try my heart out. Long shot? Maybe. But I'd rather aim high and land a little low than never get off the ground.