the delicate balance

After a lengthy spell of reading this morning, which included a lot of NY Times and even a little Pushkin, I came upstairs intending to bang out a quick blog post.  But then I heard the rarest of sounds -- Natalie, home for less than 48 hours after 3 weeks at Duke's TIP, on her way to a Spanish immersion camp up at New Hope on the way to Hillsborough -- had emerged from her room and intended to eat lunch.  During her brief stay at home, she has not surprisingly reverted to her traditional ways of cocooning in her room, mostly on her beanbag chair with her earbuds on, texting with her friends, and reading.

So I had no real choice but to go downstairs and observe her eating the leftover rice and beans that she claimed as her own, and to try to get her to talk.  But I didn't try too hard, better to let her chill and enjoy this brief spate at home.

She loved her time at Duke.  She made a number or new BFFs, from Texas, New Mexico, and -- just as if not more exciting -- from across town, girls who will go to (go Tigers!) Chapel Hill High School as opposed to East Chapel Hill High School.

In any case, any shards of deep insight I might have had, inspired by this morning's reading, have been dissipated by the prosaics of parenting.  But, honestly, I think that's what you, my readers, seem to prefer anyway.