The First Days

I flew into Burbank on Monday and found the lovely Kleins waiting to hug me. Going from airport to airport, I arrived just in time to find a seat in Dr. Kraft’s (somewhat infamous) class at Fuller. (And I’ve got the picture to prove it.) Smiling with me is Amy G. She’s been in my MAGL online cohort, too. Cute that she commemorated my goofy-I’ve-just-arrived-to-California excitement. And God saw that it was good. The evening and the morning, the first day.

On Tuesday’s morning I borrowed a bike from nice Morgan Klein, and happily learned that the ride to school is all downhill. It’s about a half-hour joyride through palm-laced streets. I waved to approximately 4.5 grandpas and some smiling children in strollers.

Laying aside my bratty disdain for ugly libraries, I got acquainted with Fuller’s antiquated shelves. (The library from my undergrad uni, UMBC, was 7-floors high, filled with light, and immaculate. Beauty makes it easier to study, I say.) Happy as a clam, I checked out a gorgeous old copy of Elizabeth B. Brownings’ complete poetical works, inscribed to Sophia (with love) on September 26, 1913. Old Elizabeth’s sonnets are so thick. And she knew my Italy very well.

On the one hour evening ride home from Fuller I surmised why they call it Altadena. I will conquer that hill in better time, I will. But all the sweat reminds me that I’m alive. The evening and the morning, the second day.