Sorry I'm late. But read on--I have a poem for you at the end of all this. Even better: IT'S NOT MY POETRY!
So, I miss you guys, and I miss being the cheeky, moxy-afflicted personality of the Cheap Bohemian.
But out in the world, a lot has been happening. I keep meaning to come back here and look at all of it through my Cheap lens, and maybe even impart some money wisdom. But a lot of what has been happening has been so profound (and frankly some of it, so profoundly not funny) that words have failed me. Repeatedly.
That's a good thing. I really wouldn't want to live the kind of life that could be summed up in mere words.
Since about February 2011, there's been every kind of challenge to a budget-minded non-consumer like me. Note the conspicuous absence of links around some of the most important things:
love,
family illness,
major diet changes that doubled our grocery bills but are still cheaper than medical bills,
marriage,
leaving teaching (last day was in December!),
starting back to my work as a full-time writer and bearing the huge swings in cash flow that come with it.
beginning to permit more silence in my life (thank you, Eliza King).
Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, terrible things have happened everywhere, wonderful things have happened somewhere, and the sky continues to arch over them all. I remain maxed out on debt and slowly coming out of it, just as I was doing in 2010. Also: I am wildly happy a number of days every week.
But that is not why you are here. Today you are here for a poem.
Today, that poem is Naomi Shihab Nye's "Famous." I won't be reproducing it here. I will simply say that as I warm up to write today, this poem asserts itself again and again. I don't know why yet, which is why I am sharing it with you. Maybe you can help me connect to it with my head, for surely my heart already knows that
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
[photo taken by the Lisa Schamess in London, 2010.]
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