I am….

Blackness and Whiteness

I am me, Bekah. A grad student extraordinaire. A procrastinator to the last mili-second. I like to bake and take pictures of everything. I tweet compulsively and am an open book.

According to random Facebook quizzes, I love with my whole heart and have a deep passion for being. Apparently, I am idealistic, loyal to my values and to people who are important to me. I want an external life that is congruent with my values. I am curious, quick to see possibilities, and can be a catalyst for implementing ideas. I seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. I are adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

I try to always be patient and kind, without boasting or full of pride. I dislike being rude and self-seeking. I work at not being easily angered, and I don’t hold a grudge. I want to live my life in a way that is trustworthy and persevere through hope. I love the Lord and want to glorify him. But, welcome to the fallen nature of man; I don’t always succeed. And when I acknowledge that I don’t, I am slowly refined and build those characteristics of the quality person that I trust I will become.

I’m a lover, not a fighter. But I will fight for my my values and those I love. When I feel compelled, I do. I like to live in my mind and played make-believe as a little girl. I am both a writer and an un-writer. I read like a writer. I dissect everything. I like to try something new everyday. I drink my coffee extra sweet and tan. I am passionate about sharing my passions for language, and art, and understanding, and life. I drive my pedagogical philosophy from these passions. I love, love, love what I do. I would rather live in a cardboard box and be content and in love than live with riches that you can’t take with you. I like mashed potatoes and Slurpees. One flavor is not enough; I mix every flavor of Slurpee into one gargantuan Slurpee cup. With the cool spoon straw to boot. And that’s me, one random fact at a time.

– Bekah

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney