To celebrate the completion of our project, Natural Histories, Susan and I spent a Friday together. Wandering through rural Virginia, stopping here and there, letting loose. The person who writes in this space is well-controlled and careful and mostly proper. She is sometimes a killjoy in her need to follow the rules. But the version of me that is most real is incredibly corny and funny and deeply sincere. Maybe even earnest. I’m so tired of trying to corral her. She is begging to be let loose, and maybe the time has come to embrace the complicated truth of who I am.
Dear Susie, Thank you for helping me to remember that I am capable of forgetting myself and having fun!