holding the actual O magazine summer reading issue in my own two hands for the first time

I still cannot believe this. 

I bought three copies.

That's what kind of girl I am.

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What does our time on earth add up to?

I'll be joining the writers of Agnes Irwin on the sloping terrain of Chanticleer today; we'll be at work on memoir.  Last night, while again not sleeping, I found these words in Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend from Far Away.  They are the right place to begin.

"We are a dynamic country, fast-paced, ever-onward.  Can we make sense of love and ambition, pain and longing?  In the center of our speed, in the core of our forward movement, we are often confused and lonely.  That's why we have turned so full-heartedly to the memoir form.  We have an intuition that it can save us.  Writing is the act of reaching across the abyss of isolation to share and reflect.... Often without realizing it, we are on a quest, a search for meaning. What does our time on this earth add up to?"

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Traveling Library

Over the next ten days, I'll be back and forth to New York City on behalf of a fundraiser for Penn, the BEA (thank you, Egmont, and can't wait to see any of you who may be there on Thursday, May 27th), and the Book Blogger Convention (thank you, Amy Riley).  Travel means time to read, and at the moment, I've got these books to choose from, thanks to some aggressive recent book buying:

On Whitman (Writers on Writers) by the extraordinary (in person and on the page) C.K. Williams

Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

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