One Wild and Precious Life

First, thank you for all of your congrats. I almost bought a baby boy little romper thing today at Old Navy, but stopped myself at the cash register, since I have to wait a few more weeks to find out. But I really think it's a boy. :)

Now, onto the Wild and Precious Life. There's a lovely poem by Mary Oliver called The Summer Day, in which the narrator asks, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Each year, Harvard Business School asks their graduates to respond to this question and some of their responses are really inspiring.

My 7th graders, on the other hand, were assigned to do this as their final piece in their Autobiography Portfolio that we have been working on all year. Their responses were not always inspiring, but they were definitely funny. I have selected a few of their most choice lines. Laugh along with me at these darling 13 year-olds:

On the bucket list, [I] want to smash a pie in someone’s face, sled down a flight of stairs, drive a monster truck, and punch someone in the face who really deserves it.

The “ride” is the first 30 years of your life and any time after that is your destination. (My note: if that's the case, I've wasted most of my life!)

If I don’t be careful, I will eventually be in debt. To me, debt sounds like death, and neither are good.

If I had a boy, I would take them to sporting events, chaperone their field trips, play catch with them in the park, and watch him group up to be a man. If I had a girl, I would talk to her about her feelings, take her shopping and watch her smile as she would try on clothes and gasp at how “cute” they look, and finally, I would walk her down the aisle to her fiancée and to the rest of her life.

A life is a life, not a video game where you try to rack up as many points as you can before the buzzer goes off. I say, go ahead and rack up those points, just be sure to wear a gorilla suit while you’re doing it. Make it interesting for gosh sake.

Another animal [I would like to have] could be a cat (a playful one) or a tame lamb that would be treated like a dog.

I would like to get married to a woman who is not a snob, who is kind and has small faults, who is a person who likes doing the things I stated in the preceding paragraph and who likes clothes. That would make her perfect. She would be the “precious” in “one wild and precious life.”