Today, as I was coming home from exploring the Smithsonians in D.C., I was struck by the afternoon sun. You know that light: the kind that seeps through the trees, blinking like camera flashes, and has a heavy golden feel. It shows up between 3:45-5pm and creates a perfect time of day. It is different somehow, beautiful in a haunting way, and it was following our car in the rear view mirror the whole drive home. Each us of stopped and said "hey, are you seeing this? Do you see the way the sun is weighing itself down? Do you see the way it's hitting the hills? Do you see how wonderful everything it touches becomes?" It was funny - we spent the whole day seeking out beautiful things, and yet, something profound and lovely just caught up with us, hunted us down even, when we were least expecting it.
Going to a museum is a trip of discovery. You go to seek something out and get something in return and you believe that your expectations will be met. You walk in aware of the soaking-it-up and the mind-expanding-with-creative-pieces-of-art and the new-things-you-are-learning-that-you-never-knew-before. So we had that and then we were in the car with the afternoon sun, and I realized that I think of life like I think of going to a museum. When I imagine learning something, I expect to gather up my knowledge of truths/beliefs/ideas as easily as going and picking up bread&milk at the grocery store. I think I ask and an answer is given. Ba da bing, ba da boom. But life doesn't work in such a simple equation. The best discoveries aren't simply a planned ride on the metro and a bag check away.
It's been funny, the start of college, the way I thought I could just walk in and say "OK, I want to learn how to be a good writer and a good reader and an appreciator of beautiful things. Let's go." and how I thought that the responses and answers to these questions would be handed to me in picture-perfect boxes. Hey, I asked for them, so won't the answers come right away? Can't I walk around the displays for awhile and then walk out saying "Wow, that was wonderful. I think I know all there is to know now"?
With the blessing of hindsight and time to reflect during this break, I've realized that it has just been in living that I've gained the most of what I think is true. Yes, the showing up to class and the pursuit of my own education is crucial. But most of the time, my teachers and required readings and assignments have just left me with more questions about myself that I want answers to. There have been no written out plaques that say "and now you've read all the crucial books that will make you a great writer someday." or "here is a fabulous poem that will inspire you. please don't use flash photography." The things that will make me into the person I will become are not being handed to me because I ask for them. They are being given to me as I walk down the street or run into a friend or get lost in a strange town. They are discoveries. They are not exhibits that I know how to find.
Discovery is hard though. The past two years at UVa, I've come to see how my ideas of things are so often like inside-out t-shirts. I walk around wearing them, letting them rub against my skin, and then I pass a mirror or meet up with a good friend and I realize or am told that there is a different way of seeing things. And then there is the process of removal and trying something new on and walking around in it and maybe eventually finding a fit. That whole ordeal of discovering YOU (what you believe, what you think, what you do, what you write, who you are) involves a degree of naked-vulnerability and it's embarrassing and scary. but it's worth it, I think. I hope.
"Discovery" is maybe a broad word, but I think it's kind of a crucial one we must define. In terms of discovery in our day-to-day lives, are we letting ourselves see only what we look for? Or are we open to being shaped by the things that chase us down and rise up from the dirt? Can we be OK with asking questions and not getting answers right away? Can we be OK with changing who we are when we run into things that force us to reexamine what we've always known? Do we believe- really, deep down believe - that the world has in store for us things that will show us who we ought to be? It is comforting for me to think of all the characters and settings and metaphors and eloquently-worded sentences that are piling up in the universe, waiting like treasure for me to stumble upon them. Maybe I won't know the things I want to know on my own time, but maybe discovery is like driving in the car and suddenly looking into the rear view at the afternoon sun. You are in the right place at the right time and you are living and you can finally squint and lift your eyes and say "My God. So that's what it means to be beautiful."
we made it down the creepy green stairs all the way to the pits of Alderman, where we gave the one girl studying there quite a show with our singing. 
