1. Grace is my favorite word and my favorite trait in another person.
2. Not only does my life have a soundtrack, but I like to sing along loudly. I think music is god’s way of telling us we’re not alone.3. My favorite smell is the ocean. I feel most alive on a beach.
4. My big sister (a talented doctor) helped deliver Ben. She was about 3 months pregnant herself and not feeling much like getting her little sister through 18 hours of labor. She has protected me like that many times.
5. I was the officiant at my best friend Dani’s wedding. Being asked to do that was one of my life’s greatest honors.
6. I am not able to describe how close I feel to my mom. And I did not understand how much she loved me until I was pregnant with Ben. I found the realization startling and humbling.
7. The judge I clerked for after law school is the wisest man I have ever met. He would stand at my enormous window looking out over the Cape Fear river and wax poetic about whatever he had read, painted, sculpted, invented, or talked to “his bride” (his wife of 50 years) about that day. When I remember those moments, the music in my head is Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” (see # 2).
8. My son Ben is a lot like I was as a child. He is stubborn, gregarious, mischievous, and the near-death of his parents. Being his mom makes me love my parents even more. Being his mom was my first experience with unconditional love.
9. My baby James makes me feel peaceful. He is an old soul. I sing “Sweet Baby James” to him at night when I rock him.
10. I named the high school I graduated from (well, I was the person on a student government committee who suggested the name that the School Board ultimately chose-- but the first sentence sounds cooler). It was Providence High. Very original. It sat on Providence Road.
11. I was a daddy’s girl and a tomboy growing up. I used to go with my dad to football games he refereed and hold the yardline chains. He taught me how to shoot free-throws and always came to my basketball games. When I played basketball at Oxford, he would read about my games on the web and give me pointers-- he was "there" across an ocean.
12. 2001 was the worst year of my life. It followed right on the heels of 2000, the best year of my life-- which probably made it feel even worse.
13. My girlfriends and I have GPWs (girl power weekends) that always make me feel heard, understood and/or loved anyway, and usually a little tipsy.
14. “Shadow Lands,” about C.S. Lewis and his wife Joy, is my favorite movie. It reminds me that your joy is your sorrow—that they are one in the same. That makes me love more boldly.
15. I always read Tennyson’s "Ulysses" right before I do something that is good for me but that nonetheless makes me want to throw up fear soup.
16. I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with Mexico City. I left a big chunk of my heart there (probably in a bar in Polanco near a shot of tequila and a taco al pastor).
17. I have kept a journal since I was 13. I love sitting in a coffee house and working out how I feel about something on a piece of paper. When I re-read my old journal entries, I am reminded of the last line of "The Great Gatsby": “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
18. I’m a Tar Heel born, I’m a Tar Heel bred. One of the first things people usually find out about me is that I’m from North Carolina. I am unusually prideful about my home state.
19. I used to sneak down to see my grandmother (she lived with us when I was young) after bedtime. She would cut an apple for us and read poetry to me from “America’s Best-Loved Poems.” My favorite was “The Female of the Species.”
20. I gave my high school graduation speech. In it, I read part of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” (yeah, I know that makes you wish you had been in the audience). As I was winding up, I quoted: “But which is more, you will be a man my son.” And at that moment, on stage, it struck me as rather unfair that Rudyard had only mentioned men. So I paused and said, “or a woman” and nodded in this indignant, self-congratulatory way. People in the audience chuckled. I’m afraid being raised by my mother and my grandmother made my feminism rather inevitable. See # 19.
21. I’m a picky eater. It’s one of the things I like least about myself.
22. If I could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, it would be President Lincoln. It used to be Jefferson. But I think Lincoln had more of #1 above, and I find that the trait most lacking in our leaders today.
23. I would like to learn how to cook and how to play the guitar. I think you are only “old” once you stop learning new tricks.
24. I wish I had done a tour with the Peace Corps. I have never met a Peace Corps volunteer I didn’t like and admire. I didn’t do a Peace Corps tour largely because of #21… I would have a hard time eating bugs.
25. About 10 years ago, Nick, without thinking probably, said one of nicest things anyone has ever said to me. He forwarded me the Word of the Day, which was “Gibraltar,” with a simple note: “You are my Gibraltar.” It was right after my dad died when he was, in fact, my Gibraltar. Since then, we’ve always found different ways of telling each other we are our strong place to lean.
