When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
In the 2017 Thanksgiving season, I am thankful for many things—not the least, friends who are willing to drive almost 2,000 miles to visit me, a fiancé I can Skype every night, and family who sends me care packages. But one thing stands out in my mind this particular year: my gratitude for graduate school.
Read MoreIt feels only fitting that on the one year anniversary of my last day in England I should be planning a trip that my best friend, Mary, and I have been dreaming of since freshman year of high school: a two-week backpacking trip through the United Kingdom (with a surprise layover in Iceland). A year later, I will be traveling back across the pond to my home away from home, ready to hand over copious amounts of money to the first crêpe cart I see. But both Mary and I will have just graduated from college, which means—you got it—we're broke. This means I've got to get creative if I want to be able to afford all those sidewalk snacks (not to mention airfare).
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