Do you still laugh sometimes? Do you know how to lose yourself completely all over again in a moment of elemental joy—because of a view of houses, a human atmosphere, a song, a bit of landscape, a piece of film: in short a piece of good warm life? It’s something I love so much in you.
[Simone Weil, from a letter to Albertine Thévenon]

I am unpacking my suitcase from the trip to Ithaca (which has confused my geographic sense; just now I almost wrote my college address on a return envelope). I am also putting away things for the summer (food, clothes, my Durham life) and sorting papers that never got sorted during the semester (not as bad as you’d think; only one corner of the room is covered, and none of the stacks are higher than an inch). As I wandered from the kitchen to my computer and then to my closet, though, I had a moment of recognition: I am fast at certain kinds of thinking, occasionally. And at reading fantasy novels, and memorizing poems, and walking. And at making friends, and scrambling eggs, and falling in love.

Everything else comes slow to me. Cleaning my room is a process during which seasons turn; I make decisions at the speed of glaciers. But that is okay. It is not speed that makes life worth living.