We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

~ T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding, The Four Quartets

Last week was finals week, and this morning will bring a blissful calm to campus as students take a break before the final push onward through spring term and the completion of another academic year. All last week tent kiosks popped up along Monroe street with banners announcing text book buy-backs. When I see these kiosks I ponder much longer we will have printed texts, which as a book Continue reading →

Like many children, my step-daughter struggled with the transition to middle school. Going from a small neighborhood grade school, where more often than not she had the same teacher for two years in a row, to the larger, less personal middle school, with its expectations for greater autonomy, left her feeling alone, overwhelmed, and uncertain. Trying to find ways to help her navigate the situation, I asked if there was a teacher to whom she was drawn, and with whom she might be able to share her struggle. At first she replied with a series of less than plausible reasons why asking a teacher for help would not work, and when she realized I wasn’t buying fully into her ideas she finally said in exasperation “don’t you remember what it was like? Wasn’t there anyone you were afraid of when you were my age?” In that very moment I was transported back fully to when I was near her age, and yes, yes indeed, there was such a person. MB. She managed the local stable where I took riding lessons. Continue reading →

This morning brought another round of snow to town. With it came that lovely quiet that happens when everything is still very white and fresh, before the neighborhood kids wake and realize it is a snow day. Soon, the streets and yards will be filled with children making the most of this late burst of winter, and I will have the pleasure of watching them play through the windows of my home office.

On our way back from our morning walk I couldn’t help but notice all the signs of spring – the small buds on the trees, winter Daphne all pink and ready to burst forth, the bunches of bright daffodils tucked up against the wall of my neighbor’s house where the sun reaches most of the day and warms the soil faster than anywhere else. And in my own yard, the little shoots of bulb flowers standing a few inches tall against the white snow. When I walked out to fill the bird feeders, I noticed how many signs of spring are emerging from the ground up.

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Each year as the Season of Busy begins to wind down, I select a new biography to read in the coming year. Last year I chose a marvelous and inspiring biography of Beatrix Potter (by Linda Lear) whom I learned was far more than just the author and illustrator of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other children’s books. In fact, Potter’s life was so complex and interesting, beginning set against the back drop of Victorian England, and ending as a respected sheep farmer and conservationist in the Lake District, it took me most of the year to make it through the book.

What I find fascinating about biographies is the detail, the back story, to the person described in the book. Invariably, these stories are ones of struggle, determination, and setbacks, that are reflective of the personal grit we explored in this blog in the past few months. While the stories are typically ones of eventual success, it is what happens in between the beginning and the fame that is most interesting to me. Continue reading →