Hee! About 21, I’m thinking. We met in early 1989 when we were both 20. This is definitely a college photo; could’ve been anytime in 1990 or ‘91. I cut my hair in the spring of ‘93, so that’s how I date things.
HAH! I cut mine in ‘89 or ‘90, I think, grew it back by ‘94 or so, and alarmed all my friends by cutting it off again. Then we moved out here in ‘99, and it was long again, and I cut it all off in ‘02, and alarmed a new set of friends. And it’s really long again, and I’m debating cutting it off again… I seem to have a 5-7 year cycle of growing it out and cutting it off. If I wasn’t so vain to need my highlights, I could donate it. Alas. Need the highlights to hide the grey now!
(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)
Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Twitter Updates
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
And how old were you in that picture? 12?
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 8:16 pmHee! About 21, I’m thinking. We met in early 1989 when we were both 20. This is definitely a college photo; could’ve been anytime in 1990 or ‘91. I cut my hair in the spring of ‘93, so that’s how I date things.
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 8:19 pmHAH! I cut mine in ‘89 or ‘90, I think, grew it back by ‘94 or so, and alarmed all my friends by cutting it off again. Then we moved out here in ‘99, and it was long again, and I cut it all off in ‘02, and alarmed a new set of friends. And it’s really long again, and I’m debating cutting it off again… I seem to have a 5-7 year cycle of growing it out and cutting it off. If I wasn’t so vain to need my highlights, I could donate it. Alas. Need the highlights to hide the grey now!
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 8:24 pmI was just going to say “Ohmygoodness you look twelve!” and then saw that Mamalion beat me to it! 21?!?! Seriously?!
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pm21? No way! My vote would be 16. Of course not the sort of thing a sophisticated 21 yo would want to hear.
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 12:31 amYou are totally cute, and I am 4 years older than you. lol.
You still look young, but now I bet you consider it a compliment!
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 5:35 amEveryone else beat me to it, but it looks like you are 12 in that photo. Of course, Scott doesn’t look much older there.
Posted on December 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am