Unbridled Passions (excerpt from an upcoming Wisconsin talk)

I’ve lived my whole life that way—wanting, reaching, exuding, falling, reaching again, wanting more. I was an ice skater as a kid—the one skating fast, the one jumping big, the one who could not control her spins. I left ice skating for track and field—to my mother’s chagrin—and there I wasn’t happy with just the 100 yard dash or the hurdles. I had to compete in the 200, too, and also in long jump, and also in high jump, and also in the relays (not just one but two), and come fall, I signed up for cross-country. It’s not that I was great at all of these events, or even that great at one of them. It’s that I made commitments—wild and huge—to live, to hurt, to want, to try, to transform myself into more than I was.