My friend Heather....

Back in college I was presented with the opportunity to spend a semester to study in Bath. I met some of the most amazing, talented people. People I've been able to recently re-connect with thanks to Facebook. What I miss the most about my trip was the accountability we provided one another as writers. We were writing EVERY DAY. Sometimes we'd be writing ALL DAY. We'd write in our personal journals, our travel writing journals, our letters home, required classwork essays, poetry, short stories...on and on. I hate to admit this but I was as home sick as a helicopter mom's pathetic kid on his first trip to summer camp. But the writing helped. The accountability helped. I haven't been through my old writings in some time and hope to pull it out now that I'm "nesting" and dig into it.

The point of bringing this up is to introduce a very talented friend who is also expecting her first baby any day now. I have so many vivid memories of Heather and our time in Bath, but one that sticks out includes our last week there. We had a group of about 25 students and 4 faculty members on the trip with us. Some English majors, some Theater majors and some just major idiots. Just kidding. Kind of.

Anyhow, I was never unaware of how unbelievably talented Heather was so I told her it would be a fun thing to write a poem for the final dinner to read in front of all of our colleagues and faculty. BUT, knowing full well how fantastic of a writer  she was, I told her we had to write it in 5 minutes and could only include what we came up with in that time frame.

Why you ask? Well, I figured if people knew that I only had 5 minutes to prepare something they would be much kinder and not hold the same level of accountability as if I had 5 hours. That's a big difference to a writer.

Anyhow, Heather liked the idea and came up with something amazing in 5 minutes but decided she wanted to craft it and turn it into something much more special. And it was. "Sometimes a Chard" is what it was called and all I can remember about it's contents is that I teared up and felt much too silly to read the something "fun" I had written in 5 minutes. It would be like Katy Perry following Pavarotti.

Blink
Blink
Blink

See I am self-conscious just like the rest of you.

Anyhow, today Heather has her own blog filled with many amazing posts. In fact anytime I visit her blog I am filled with calmness and always leave inspired. You can tell I've taken her idea of including images into my posts as she has in order to make my posts that much more "decorated". I hope the saying holds true: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and I hope she feels flattered to have me share her work with you. She has been on some amazing adventures including a recent BIG move from Patagonia to the States that I won't spoil for you here. She can be found at http://www.ameasureof.blogspot.com as well as on my "Can't Get Enough Of" blog roll. I've printed out her most recent post and carry it with me as a reminder.  I'm not sure any book I read will comfort me as much as her poem has.

If you ever read this Heather, thank you for the inspiration, accountability and I wish all the blessings for you, S and your soon to be family of 3.