That was the original title of my second article, which DSKB published in last week’s Friday edition.  Karen retitled it “Running in Hangzhou,” which also works…I guess.  🙂  Oh, editors.  (I feel like such a grown-up writing that.)

I feel quite lucky to have been published twice now and to have orders for more columns; Karen said that she’ll take as much writing as I can give her before I leave China because she’ll continue to print it.  She even asked me to move my planned trip to Huangshan next weekend so that I can cover a photography event for them instead (I was flattered, but turned her down).

Last week, several of my students who’d read the paper brought my original article in.  They told me that they showed it to their parents and friends, and a few even said they were proud of me.  I can’t express how happy I am to be doing something that I love, or how thankful I am for the myriad ways in which so many of you inspired me to try this in the first place.

In my first draft of this post, I started a list of the people in my life whom I admire and the reasons for my admiration, and I had to stop for 2 reasons: 1) it was getting crazy long, and 2) I was bawling my eyes out.  So.  Suffice it to say that if I know you, you have at some point made my world better because of your Courage To Try.  A new job, a new baby, a different spiritual path, a long race in a new sport, a faraway trip, a course of study, a lifestyle, a comeback, a new outlook, a new recipe, a vineyard, for crying out loud- my family and my friends are the bravest people in the world.  I should tell you that more often.

Which means that soon, instead of running away from home, I’ll be heading back towards it, but looking forward the whole way.