i finished last night. it’s over. for twenty-one days i have lived in middle-earth. i’ve dreamed of saruman and his wolves. i’ve seen myself in hobbit holes. i’ve cried with samwise gamgee as he dumped his cooking pots into a crack of mordor. i love this book. (and, as the incredibly informative introduction in my edition told me, it isn’t three books, but rather one epic novel in three parts.)
and i can’t stop thinking: it’s the hobbits that carry the ring. the littlest people. living on a forgotten edge of the world. the small things that collapse mountains and rebuild worlds.

Still has to be one of my favorite books of all time. This is going to sound really campy, but sometimes during the darkest days of my mission, I would think to myself that if that small furry-footed Frodo could fight a carnivorous spider, than I could certainly do what I needed to do.