The Fourth of July is a nostalgic time for me. I remember with pleasure and wonder blankets under the sky at Jackson, Mitchell, Wilson, and Juneau Parks. I recall parades and curbs and decorated bikes. While there were traditions like soupy Jell-o and potato salad that needed monitoring for temperature, there were also steady changes…
Over the next several weeks, I will be very active in transitioning leadership of the organization I founded to its new executive. There will be scores of details to address, skeletons to exhume, and introductions to make. Today, I am hitting the pause button on my regular blog posts. This current post is the 100th…
She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never…
When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, “My father died, my father died.” My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I…
My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. ― John Burnside, A Lie about My Father: A Memoir I must have been about seven or eight, certainly no more,…
I’d love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I’d love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I’d be one day to look inside it. ― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks This past…
Don’t be scared to connect the dots, Dig for gold in the parking lot. Find love, then give it all away. – Clem Snide (Eef Barzelay), Find Love I confess to a certain odd challenge to reality in my waking moments. There are sometimes things about which I am completely certain. I mean that I have…
Don’t let hurricanes hold you back, Raging rivers or shark attacks. Find love, then give it all away. – Clem Snide (Eef Barzelay), Find Love In an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, David Oyelowo made brilliant commentary on the effects of racism and the world history of slavery on the hearts and minds of…
You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. – Tom Brokaw Most nights when I let Dexter out at about 9:30 PM, I…
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. – Oscar Wilde Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. It is hard to say if I fight this statement more as a teacher or as a student. Having taught…
Creating Community for Everyone 