This is It.

I decided to go to bed semi-early last night. Semi-early being around 10. Of course, once in bed, I couldn't actually fall asleep. Two hours later, I was up again, this time taking Tylenol PM in a desperate attempt to actually get some rest.

But, after mutliple episodes of South Park & Friends and one hell of a cat fight (between the new cat, Nellie, and our old one, Ginny), I eventually fell asleep and awoke this morning at 7:44--exactly 1 minute before my alarm was set to go off.

I took that as a good sign. I'm ready for this adventure and anxious to get it started.

I decided to leave my blog with this poem by one of my favorite American poets, Mary Oliver.

I will post again once I'm in either Germany or Denmark to let you know I'm safe.

blessings.
jon.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?