The Beginning

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

So in celebration and expectation of this adventure, I think that a quote from Haruki Murakami's Kakfa on the Shore is perfect. As I read this incredible book in Paris, after an insanely complex last semester of my undergraduate career, I changed and in many ways, I healed. I found words that released parts of my soul that I didn't know had been caged or if I had, didn't know how to open.

Maybe I should write a little about why I decided to start this; I am starting law school at Florida State Law this fall - August 24th to be exact. I want to keep in contact with my family of friends that I left in Boston - and share with them (maybe even prep them) for what the 'real world' in law school. I also want to practice. Writing and legal writing. Practice in legalese, I will need. After all, I was a classics major. In some ways, September cannot come soon enough and in many other ways, I never want it to come.

I think the best thing about Florida may be the thunderstorms.