There is nothing on earth that could make my immediate world any better. I've come from my job interview-- which really couldn't have gone better, not at all-- and I feel very happy about it, and I've just completed Winter's Light and now I'm sitting looking over the woods and it's raining so hard. It's all so beautiful and green and raining and the temperature is perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and here I have all the tea I want to drink, and my beautiful home, and the knowledge that soon I might have a job. These moments are special.
Reading this Women of Influence book is causing me to remember another of my great childhood loves -- "The Miracle Worker," the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. It was Anne Sullivan I really loved, and still love -- it always made me heartsick to think of her sacrifice, devoting every waking minute to another human being, with almost no life left to herself, until she died in old age, and Helen Keller required another translator. But God -- she must have known it -- that's the best way to live -- it is to have every moment of your life swallowed in supreme goodness and satisfaction. No wonder I loved her, and no longer do I feel sorry for her -- I envy her. I thought of her today perhaps because when I was around eight or nine I grew aware that she and I shared the same initials "AS." Today is the first day that I am Amanda Monteleone at work, and I have written my initials "AM" dozens of times already. It's strange, but the satisfaction of...