Ten on Tuesday: Ten Valentines I'd like to send

To persons, places, entities unlikely to respond, I'd like to send a little love out into the world.

1. Turtles. I love that you continue to exist in a world with your armor and slow movements. I've taken to stopping my car and moving you to the side of the road, beyond the little fences, hoping that's the direction you were heading, knowing that not everyone will stop. And some people will even aim. I want you to make it.

2. Tim Gunn. Thank you for using your voice to speak out for those who don't get heard, even when it doesn't seem like it matters that much. It matters to me.

3. St. Pius V School. Early in the mornings, looking out at the sunrise from my third story window, hearing a rooster from someone's yard deep in south city, thinking about the journey that brought me to these polished granite floors, these slate boards and built in wooden cabinets, hand me down textbooks and refugee children mixed in with Americans and me, me! I got to feel like I was doing something that truly mattered, for the first time in my life. I was part of what was making the world a better place. Thank you.

4. Carondelet Park. Walking through it as a child or sitting on the side of its one way meandering roads waiting on soccer practice or enjoying the view under the gigantic oak trees, I love this park, I love this park.

5. Heart shaped rocks. I can decide they are nothing, or I can decide they are love letters from the universe. Guess which I have decided. Love wins.

6. Algebra. The reconciling of disparate parts. The reconciling of disparate parts. I love that my job, my life, is the untying of knots and the tying of new ones. We can find the unknown. The answer is hidden in the details.

7. Juncos. The first bird I taught myself how to see. Yeah, everyone knows cardinals and house sparrows and red tailed hawks. But you, you tiny little bird dipped in slate gray, I saw you in my magnolia tree and knew I didn't know who you were. And I wanted to know you better. So I gave you my number and told you to call me sometime. Or maybe I just looked you up in the field guide and awaited your return each fall.

8.Soccer games, swim meets, tennis matches and cabaret nights. How lucky am I to get to watch them do what they love.

9. Mt. Cammerer Fire Tower, Tennessee,on the Appalachian Trail. I know you're there. When I lie down at night I know you're there, watching over the valleys on the stone outcropping. I am lucky to have placed my foot upon your trail not once but twice. Each hike pushed me to my limits and made me grow.

10. My readers. Thank you for reading. Thank you for loving me enough to want to read what I say. I love that you're in my life.