Eater of Elephants
December 30, 2019

     I have been known to bite off more than I can chew.  When I was serving as Managing Editor of the Oklahoma Law Review during my third year of law school, I would often lament to my mother about how overwhelmed I felt by the necessary tasks and responsibilities of the job.  This was in the days before kids, of course, so my threshold for feeling overwhelmed was significantly lower – but nonetheless real.

      My mom‛s response to my moaning sometimes came in the form of a quirky, but apt metaphor: ‟Georgeann, it‛s like a fly eating an elephant.  You just take one bite at a time.‟  It was an idea that had gotten her through her own doctoral dissertation more than thirty years before, and it‛s similar to Anne Lamott‛s admonition to writers to take their subjects ‟bird by bird‟.

     So fast forward ten years (exactly) from my year as Managing Editor of a scholarly legal journal – the responsibilities of which ended up taking me about a year and a half to complete, by the way – and here I am, with growing children, a steady law practice, a budding farming practice, and deepening community ties.  To say my plate is full would be an understatement.  Hello, my name is Georgeann Roye, Eater of Elephants.