Sickness and Artistic Enlightenment

Hello there! This week has taken its toll on me. I developed some mutant sickness last weekend that caused my throat to swell and feel as though someone had run razor blades repeatedly across my tonsils (not strep OR mono…thus mutant sickness). Since I have involved myself in so much here, though, I hardly had a moment to rest, which is probably why I woke up sick again on Friday after a day or two of feeling better. It’s tough around season changes at a small college—once one person gets sick, you can see it coming. I often call my dorm building a petri dish around this time because the sickness spreads so quickly (though, that’s probably just dorm life in general, no matter where you go). Luckily, our amazing campus nurse hooked me up with some wondrous throat lozenges that enabled me to survive going to class, though they didn’t do much for my voice, which must have dropped at least two full octaves.

Anyways, with so much going on around campus, I haven’t gotten to talk about one of the coolest things that I have experienced lately. As you may have gathered by now (or maybe not, but I forgive you), I’m kind of a poetry fanatic. My enjoyment of poetry started with Shel Silverstein’s silliness when I was a kid, then gradually developed as I read more and more throughout my school career and on my own. When I was a freshman in high school, I fell in love with Wendell Berry’s poetry, and it is a love that has persisted all these years. The first poem I ever read was “To my Children, Fearing for Them,” and it hooked me immediately. To know that someone from Kentucky could make this much of an impact as a writer gave me something to daydream about. I never imagined then that I would have the chance to hear him read his poetry, but that’s exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago—chalk another fulfilled wish up to Transy, specifically the Delcamp Visiting Writers Series, which brings prominent writers and poets like Berry to campus every year. I was completely star struck when Berry took to the podium and began reading. I leaned all the way forward in my chair (maybe the words would reach me just a little bit sooner?), and I drank in every syllable. I left that evening completely inspired and even scribbled a few lines of poetry myself afterward, something that I have unfortunately neglected this semester due to intense leadership and academic commitments.

This is another reason why Transy was just right for me—it’s location in the center of Lexington puts not only Transy’s, but also UK’s, the Lexington Opera House’s, the Lexington Children’s Theatre’s, and numerous private galleries’ and businesses’ artistic showcases and performances within walking distance. I value the arts and humanities greatly and it means a lot to me to have such an abundance of performances so close to me at all times. Though I may not have time to attend them all, I know that another one, probably one just as good if not better than the last, is always right around the corner.