Life in Every Breath

Hello at the end of the week, It is difficult to believe we are almost into the year holiday season. This coming week I will fly back to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with family. Certainly, holidays are a different time for each of us; they bring back memories, which for some are blessed and bringContinue reading “Life in Every Breath”

ABD and Buslife

Hello from the soggy Cumberland Plateau, The last 36 hours or so have been a struggle to get anything done as it has rained off and on since Sunday and now pretty much non-stop for the last day and a half. I had hoped to be on my way back north by yesterday. Now IContinue reading “ABD and Buslife”

Understanding the Consequences

Hello from the bus, It’s early morning, and I am sleeping on an air mattress in a sleeping bag (well, not actually sleeping because I’ve started this blog). It is September 11th, a consequential day in American history. It is also a day, where as a gun-owning culture, we are confronted with the shooting ofContinue reading “Understanding the Consequences”

The Pathology of Hostility

Hello from an afternoon break, I regularly find myself questioning how did we get here. How did we become so polarized the idea of working together is a pipe-dream, so divided that our response to disinformation or even an insurrection has become commonplace or we see such incidents of things from stalking to swatting asContinue reading “The Pathology of Hostility”

A Few of my Favorite Things

Hello from my office, I have caught up on my morning class requirements, need to work on Spring things, and I hope to get some cards completed yet today, but I want to write and reflect too, so it seems, for the moment, the writing wins. When I was in elementary school, my hometown hadContinue reading “A Few of my Favorite Things”

Where you Belong

Hello at the end of Finals Week and Grading, I remember finals weeks as a combination of merely wanting to finish and feeling exhausted while simultaneously seeing it as some sort of proving ground, wondering if I had done the requisite work over the past three months to demonstrate some sense of competency (which isContinue reading “Where you Belong”

When the Daily Norm is anything but . . .

Hello from my desk on the mini-Acre, I have been commenting, grading, and managing student writing most of the weekend. It is Sunday evening, and the 1st of October. We are into the last quarter of yet another year, soon what will be a third of another decade, and not that far away from anotherContinue reading “When the Daily Norm is anything but . . .”

Larger Voices Calling

Hello from about an hour from Oslo, I am in Norway, a country significant to my family heritage and childhood memories, but for the first time. It is a place I have read about, a country I have spoken about with both academics, classmates, or relatives – a country, which has intrigued me. That intrigueContinue reading “Larger Voices Calling”

“Are We Still of Any Use?”

Hello from my kitchen bar counter on a Thursday afternoon,  When I began writing this, we had just managed freezing weather, wind chills of the lower 20s in May, and then during a week of grading, yesterday felt like summer might actually be on the horizon (and even in my yard). It was a weekContinue reading ““Are We Still of Any Use?””

When Pointing Fingers . . . Perhaps Only at Ourselves

Hello from the kitchen, The routine is set, at least for the most part. I get up and make my bed before I do almost anything else. I have been that way for most of my life, so that is nothing new. I walk to my bathroom, shower and get ready for my day. SometimesContinue reading “When Pointing Fingers . . . Perhaps Only at Ourselves”