Wow, as I write this it just hit me how tired I am. I think the excitement and people and workshops and conversations and heat have finally caught up to me a bit, that or I am just an old man as the youth I work with back home like to say. I keep thinking about tomorrow, dreading the long drive back home, and knowing that on Monday it’s back to being in a space where conversations like I’ve had, people like I’ve met, are few and even further between. An event this huge has been so overwhelming in so many ways, but at the same time so amazing that putting words to it has been so hard. Simply being able to connect with other Southern folks who feel the same isolation that I do, having that solidarity is comforting in a weird way. I know Monday there will be countless questions and tons of mail in my in box and I’m trying not to think of that right now and just be in the moment and enjoy what’s going on around me as tired as I am (okay and I’m totally thinking about the amazingly comfortable bed back at the hotel that feels so decedent to be sleeping in). To explain the USSF is impossible I think, it’s one of those events that is life changing and continues to affirm why I do the work that I do.