Celebrity Guest Blog: Topics in Life, the Universe, and Everything

Hello Papa's Readers!

This is Rory's favorite daughter, Sara Swenson. He's been asking me for quite some time now to "pop on and do a guest blog." So I'm popping. He said I could write about New Year's Resolutions, or a review of 2007, or even talk about my Christmas vacation (that just goes to show you how far behind I am on my "To-Do" List); I could ramble on about college or writing or, really, just anything in general.

So I think I'll write about all of it. In that order. And Color Coded for your convenience.
Wish me luck.

My New Year's Resolutions have been recorded as follows:
1.) I will publish my novel.
2.) I will find a job somewhere. Sometime. This year.
3.) I will finish my first year of college. At Hamline. In the Spring.
4.) I will finish reading the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut Junior.
5.) I will attend at least ten yoga sessions.
6.) I will attempt vegetarianism but forgive myself upon failure. Again.
7.) I will seek out three Poetry Readings.
8.) I will accomplish something completely unexpected.
9.) I will do something strange.
10.) I will grow up a little and continue to enjoy life.
11.) I will try to write a poem every day and a short story every two weeks. For fluidity. If I opt out of the poem, I may journal.

In Review of 2007 and College, I would have to say I wish I'd done things differently. I wish I'd chosen a different University to attend right away, being as that would have saved my family and I a lot of time and money in my transferring. That's right, folks. I am without a doubt transferring Universities in Fall 2008. Hamline is definitely not the right school for me and I knew that going in. Still, if I had told myself that a year ago, stubborn little me never would have listened. So this has been a valuable learning experience.

Let's see... I remember early in 2007 being terrified of turning 18. I felt so old. I realize now that it is not so old. I realize now that I am still very much my very young self and not much has changed in my theological, astronomical, or meteorological positions in this world. My major realization was that birthdays are just dates. No matter how old you are, it doesn't mean that the floor is going to suddenly fall out beneath you or you're going to be struck by lightning. Another year has passed, that's all. And that's nothing to be so nervous about. I have a feeling that I will maintain this realization even after I turn 81. Birthdays can never be so scary anymore.

What else?

I remember graduation, and the fear, the excitement surrounding that adventure.

I remember the following summer - lazy summer of pancake-style unemployment (flat as a pancake but sweet as syrup). I remember adopting the oldest tree at Gregory Park for my friends and I to picnic under, and playing hours of chess on our screen porch with Dain Hanson. A very good summer: 2007. A very good summer, indeed.

I remember walking with my Dad and my brother last August - out to a place we call the end of the world, where all of the streetlights end. It was my last night at home before I headed out to college. And we laughed and we counted stars and everything smelled like summer and the moon was so bright it cast shadows. Just beautiful.

I remember the thrill of making new friends at college - all of us a doe-eyed, enthusiastic bunch with everything to expect from the world. I remember the cold unfamiliarity of our dorm. Slowly settling in. I remember frustration with classmates and boredom and anger. The feeling of being cheated after all the hard work of high school - the classes were so slow and so easy. I remember feeling trapped and then... letting go. Realizing that this was life. That I could transfer. That this wasn't the end of the world.

I remember Thanksgiving break and finals week and snowy evenings and French horn lessons and free desserts in the dining hall and coming home for Christmas and Thornton Wilder plays and reading good books.

I remember 2007.

My Christmas Vacation was fun. My dog got two new hedgehogs and my brother made me a skirt, which was awesome. I'm not taking a January class at Hamline, so I don't go back until the 30th. I am using my time to help out with the high school's One Act Play. It's fun. My dad keeps giving me a hard time for oversleeping! Ah, La vita bella. This is the good life.

I was extremely excited to hear back from a literary agent just five days after declaring my first New Year's Resolution. (In an active memory practice, I am going to make you go back and look that up yourself.)

While the agent has not accepted my novel and I do not know whether or not he is serious about representing me - it was fun to have even gotten this much. I never expected to have a literary agent look so far into my work, and it has been quite encouraging to my publishing endeavors. Again, wish me luck.

Well, I hope that was good, for a guest blog. I have given myself, here, Celebrity Status, as only an 18 year old daughter can!

I suppose for lack of a better conclusion, and in promise of a "just anything in general," I will leave you off with one of my favorite poems.

This is "A Noiseless Patient Spider," by Walt Whitman.

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to
connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor
hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

I think that describes, very much, human relations in this world. Flinging strands, flinging strands, flinging strands of gossamer filaments out to one another, hoping, some days, that they will catch.

Let this be my gossamer filament to all of you. I certainly hope that it has caught.
Take care, everybody.
Back to you, Dad.


Rambling over,
-Sara Ann