A Tall Girl's Adventures in a Tiny World

I know a thing or two about colons, both grammatically and physiologically, and I'm a big fan of each. In writing, a well-placed colon makes us stop and pay attention to what's coming. It's dramatic and sometimes even a bit sexy. Not so with the other colon. Although it can make us stop and pause (and run to the nearest toilet), it's rarely dramatic nor sexy. Let's face it: Our colons are poop pushers, and nobody really likes to talk about poop. (That is, unless they are any of the three males living in my house.*) My mom died way too young because she was embarrassed to go to her doctor when she started having poop problems. I'm still so angry with her about that, 20 years later! Even more, she didn't just die, she really suffered. For years. First through painful surgeries, then the indignity of a colostomy bag, then countless rounds of chemotherapy that left her bald and weak. And let's not even talk about the pain she endured as cancer ravaged ever...

I don't think I wrote about it here, but my word for 2014 was Grace. I selected it from a bowl at church and pored over it for a few months, studying the morphology and religious and lay interpretations if the word. I found over the course of a few months, the word grace came up often in sermons and speeches, but also in conversation, readings, or general "symbols" around me. Maybe because I was thinking about it and paid more attention...or maybe because the universe was trying to get me to pay attention.  In fact, when I came to Portland for my interview -- the one that eventually led us on the giant leap-of-faith relocation adventure we've been on -- the company took me out to dinner in a beautiful restaurant that had previously been a church. Its name, I'm sure you'll guess: Grace. I smiled inwardly throughout dinner, grateful and gracious (and hopefully graceful) and winking at the universe for this big flashing sign that everything about this idea wa...