Hi Princess. It is one of those pumpkins that have a bluish-green cast. I just love them! Thanks for visiting.

Hi Pamela. You are so right – what a “lovely gift to give a daughter.” I was lucky enough to grow up watching Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs, and reading Ms. Magazine and Gloria Steinem during the “second wave” of the women’s rights movement. My dear grandmother was too far ahead of her time – she desperately wanted to go to college, but her bellicose and chauvinistic father chose a husband for her and absolutely forbid her to continue her education. She stood up to him enough to choose my grandfather instead of the fifty year old farmer she was destined to wed, but college was a poor third place loser.
So not only my father (and mother) but my grandmother were expecting me to be a well educated “person.” I was very lucky.
And homecoming. It ain’t what it used to be! My daughter goes to an art school and they don’t even have a football team, so I don’t know what they were coming-home to. She had fun, however, so I didn’t tell her that “back in the day” each class built a float in a secret place so it didn’t get egged by another class, and there was a parade with the floats and the high school marching band, the football game was the most important part of the event, and we danced to records in the decorated gym. Oh well.

I do firmly believe in the old maxim that the only way to truly fail is never to try in the first place. I also believe that success comes in the form of your definition and can be and is as rewarding as the world’s idea of success if not more so. It is all about courage when it comes right down to it. Courage and the willingness to not allow ones own fears and hang-ups to become the excuses that keep them from stepping out and trying.

I am so glad you enjoyed your gift and that it arrived safe and sound. I am also pleased that you savored the moment. I love finding special ways to wrap gifts and knowing that it sat there just a bit longer in the same state that it left my hands makes me smile. I hope you mark and mark and mark again your copy.

Hi Carl,
“the pain of trying something and not experiencing the success that we personally expected may be the kind of pain that is too difficult to move past”

(and I have been highlighting like crazy!!)

I love the idea that when you give so much, as you do in your posts and more, something good comes back. I know things “come back” in many ways, but I am thrilled you have your own copy of Bird by Bird, so imaginatively wrapped. What joy I “heard” in these words, echoes by the photos. I’m smiling.

Thank you, Jeanie. I am so pleased you were moved!
The “come back” thing is so absolutely true. When I was in the classroom, I tried to convince my students of this, but they weren’t sure about it. They expected an immediate payback if they did the right thing, and if it didn’t happen, then “what goes around comes around” couldn’t possibly be true. Of course, unable to understand this, they were very far from understanding the simple pleasure gained in doing the right thing, or giving, or whatever. I just have to hope they get it someday!
I have gained so much from writing here, reading other blogs, trading comments – it really has been a great writing and communication venue for me. Thanks for being part of it!

Hmmmmm, a rock star…… that would be fun, wouldn’t it? Just kidding – I think I’m too old, though I am younger than Mick Jagger!! You are absolutely right, however – the emphasis has to be on the doing. “The trip” versus the goal is where the pleasure is, for sure. I have often found the goal changes along the way, too, which can be very exciting.
The picture is by Arthur Rackham. I love his fairy pictures, too. I had the title under the print, but it somehow disappeared.