Heron R.
Photography by Pranav Volety
If you are reading this, you hold within you the fire of life. Use its warmth and energy to explore, create, and love as I am trying to do, and know that I am grateful for you because you are trying with me.
I am grateful for your life, and the explosion of other beautiful lives around you. As you peel back layer upon layer and discover the sensational balance in which it exists, fragile yet resilient, dark yet brilliant, grow to love it more and more. Some days you are overwhelmed by the smell of rain or the sound of a train, others you let your mind wander to the far extremes of its capacity, the vastness of the universe and the smallness of an atom, both equally mysterious and inconceivable.
Most wonderful of all are the people with whom you share this gift and burden of thought that allows us to create and destroy and to love and hate. You are learning to seek out uniqueness in friends and experiences, not only day to day but year to year and moment to moment. You have found opportunities in new creative outlets and ways to relish the health and strength of your body, like swimming in a half-frozen lake or writing about a beautiful girl in a cafe. You have become a reader, and laughed and cried at stories both real and contrived, though all find some middle ground in the majestic confines of language.
Only through this exploration have you unearthed your own power. You have saved a life with a hug, held for an extra second, brought a smile to a tearful face with a gentle tease, or even made a new life, that sprang forth from your own. You have spread love where you could and cherished it when it was offered in return.
Heron R., University of Wisconsin
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