Woman in the Moon:Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Write a Really Saccharine Post

Near the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the play-within-a-play, one of the day-laborer types plays Moonshine. After being interrupted twice, he breaks character and addresses his audience: "All that I have to say, is to tell you, that the lanthorn is the Moon; I, the man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog."

Today, during a brief stroll around the ol' alma mater, my world resounded with, "This grass is my grass; these bricks, my bricks; this building, my building." That's where I visited Dr. Sachs's hidden little office for the first time. We had class in that circle of benches once with Dr. Ingram, during those contagious first days of spring. I learned to write in that building, and to read in that one. I went up on the porch of Phi hall and cried a few happy tears for the beauty of growth and change. If ever a place was skirted in stars and soaked in magic, if ever a place was a crucible for refinement, if ever a place was a character in a story, it is Davidson. What a resounding, loaded, momentous word. Davidson.

I was there for a wedding, and to comment on that I'd like to quote myself circa 1990, from a stack of childhood papers I recently exhumed: "Love is the Best thing in the Whole Wide World. it makes weddings and things likethat. it's the very Best thing of all." Still true! I used to think I'd be bitter or jealous when my friends started marrying, but it turns out I like it a great deal. Since I'm in no hurry to get married, I just get to be happy for my friends, and I always see other people whose singular beauty I'd forgotten.

Aren't friends wonderful? I could go on and on about how great my friends are. It would sound remarkably like a greeting card, though, so I'll spare you. (At least temporarily--bwah ha ha.)

In short, everything is illuminated. Life is beautiful. It's a wonderful life. I think everything is a miracle, and I don't care if you hate on me a little for being so upbeat. That's how it is, sucker. You're just going to have to learn to deal with it.