Petrarch's letter to us

For all writers who fear everything that could be written has been.

"Put this concern aside, I beg you, and never let it induce you to be lazy, for certain ancestors of ours have already removed this worry, and I [,Petrarch,] will now remove it for those who come after me: for although ten thousand years may pass and centuries pile upon centuries, never will virtue be praised enough; never will there be enough lessons about how to love God and to hate sinful pleasures; never will the road to the discovery of new ideas be closed to eager minds. Therefore, let us be of good spirit: we do not labor in vain, nor will those do so who will be born many ages in the future right up to the end of this aging world. Rather, it is to be feared that men will cease to exist before their efforts in humanistic studies will have enabled them to penetrate the most secret mysteries of truth."

~ from Petrarch's letter to Tommaso da Messina found in Letters on Familiar Matters: Books I-VIII. trans. Aldo Bernardo. Albany State University of New York Press, 1975.

Teacher for Hire

I should have listened to my brother, who told me he was going into med school because he didn't want to end up like our parents, who couldn't afford to buy Chips Ahoy!. I, on the other hand, was going to be "noble". I went to school for writing. What good will medicine do if I can't enjoy the depth of philosophy? The farther I step back from my college years, the more pretentious I realize I was.

I grew to realize, in my second year, that I would have to pay the bills at some point. Oh, yes, people told me that before, but I never was confronted by the enormity of it until it loomed in the distance. So I defaulted: went into teaching and loved it. However, English teachers are a dime a dozen out here, and so I'm left at the place I once was so afraid of in my sophomore year: paying the bills with hopes and dreams (minus the hopes and running low on dreams).

I married an amazing man, but we're on a raft that could break at any minute. The economy that so frailly holds the wolves at bay is starting to crack. And then what are we left with? A teacher, a writer, and two dogs. Makings of a great story, but not a good life.

So, 59 cover letters and 12 versions of my resume later, I'm left trying to formulate a new plan. I can't return to medicine: no science classes in an English major. I can't return to writing: no monthly support to lean upon. So, I'm left listening to CNN and Obama's rhetoric of hope. I pray he's right.