The Four Letter Word

Love.

My relationships...always the beginning of
beautiful....friendships.  Damn you Casablanca!

Yep, I said it.  Sometimes it feels just as awful coming out as some of the other four letter words we know...sometimes it feels even worse.  My roller coaster with love is enough to make Carrie from Sex and the City apologize for being so lucky.  I could teach Romeo and Juliet a thing or two about being star-crossed.  Let's not even start with the chapters I could write about unrequited love.

It seems the fates have deemed that I be the lucky recipient of unconditional love from a lot of family and friends, and that sometimes I will sometimes get someone to fall in love with me...for all of 2 seconds.  My good friend and I often joke about the irony of our lifestyles.  All I ever wanted was for someone to fall in love with me and stay with me forever.  All he ever wanted was to live a plot-driven life.  He is happily married, owns a home, and planning a future family.  I am living in a studio apartment with my cat and have moved into a new apartment (sometimes a new city) every year or two since I was 18.

I'm not going to complain, however.  Because my plot-driven life has given me some good love stories that will keep me smirking for years to come.  I've done the goofy photo booth pictures and played in the rain on a playground.  One time, someone actually showed up at the airport in a dramatic goodbye, just like the movies tell you they should, and I will never feel the same way in an airport again.  Once, a man sent me a package filled with thimbles and each thimble had a little note inside that said, "*wink."  The package return address?  Peter Pan of course.  (If you don't get it, just believe that this guy knew me well enough to know I would get it.) Yeah, I've got some good stories.

"Peter, I should like to give you a kiss."

However, they all end the same and I have been with my cat for over 15 years now.  Despite all this, I'm about to embark on a summer with a dream come true and a whole lotta love.

Every two years, Simmons College in Boston, MA hosts a weekend children's literature institute. 
Over the course of the three days, lucky students get to learn from editors, authors, and professors of children's literature.  Each institute has some common theme woven through children's literature.  Past years have hosted themes of food, dance, good vs. evil, and more.  This year's theme?  Love Letters. 
Yes, it seems as if the year I finally get around to registering for this institute it is a marriage (pun intended) of the thing I know least about and the thing I know most about.  Love and children's literature.

Despite this, I am SOOOOO excited to spend a weekend rubbing elbows with some of my favorite authors.  Among the list are M.T. Anderson, Lois Lowry, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and Jack Gantos.  My summer reading list for the course is divine and I will post it very, very soon.

Here's a brief description from the website:

Although love and heartbreak might be the territories of the young adult novel, we find passion in picturebooks, revel in the devotions of early readers, and explore emotional depths in middle grade books. Nonfiction marries both knowledge and narrative.

Institute speakers will consider how books themselves act as letters. How do they declare love for a subject or to an audience? How does a lifetime inform every book written? Every book read?


I mean, how can this not be the best summer ever? Right?!  Now, as for the real L*$#.  Well, that sh*$ might come someday.  And if it does, I will certainly be well read on the subject.

One of the books on our reading list. 
Yep, already know that
one from reading it and life.