Summer News

Dear Maria,

Well settled into summer now, and a good soaking yesterday—three and a half inches in my gauge. The only cloud of late, metaphorically, is the arrival of Japanese beetles that are chewing on the roses. First time for such an attack since I planted the knockouts three summers ago. Yep, this is summer number four.

Last week, I chanced to post a story on my Facebook page about the death of a promising young writer in a car accident. She was the passenger. Somehow that detail makes the sting even worse. I say chanced because there is a very public back and forth going on between a young musician and the young daughter of a musician who died before his time as the phrase goes. At issue is whether an early rock’n’roll death is being romanticized.

I posted the story about the young writer because, for me at least, the loss before a real opportunity to fulfill whatever promise of talent and energy and passion is freighted with a little extra sadness. Like a bridge just rising at the water’s edge, to be halted. A plane with front wheel just leaving the ground and never to climb into the sky. A rose bloom just beginning to unwrap itself that will never reach full flower. Maybe I am overly sensitized to such loss after all those years working with teenagers and believing that their lives were just beginning in so many ways.

Of course, the writer could have been a chemist, a college student, a stay-at-home mom.

This morning I had an email waiting for me from a former student who is wrestling around with the notion of a meaningful life as he nears the end of his college career. Coincidentally, I happen to be reading Seeking Wisdom, even as I am closer to proclaiming that wisdom does not exist and that we are all doing the best we can—even if the best is sometimes awful.  Is that wise?

Yes, I promise that a novel is next in the stack. By the way, the bird book did take my mind off the slavery history. The thing with feathers, indeed.

A sudden shower— The windows were up in the truck. Yes!

Hope you are doing well and the family enjoys some time together. Already, the 4^th beckons.

Yours, srk