And so the Summer goes.....

The community college where I teach celebrated graduation on May 14th--and it is a celebration.  I'm so proud of my students and what they've achieved because the majority of them are handling high-hour work loads, busy families, and full-time classes.  I know that feeling, having returned to college after my youngest entered elementary school, and the blessed awareness that one part of the educational journey has been successfully completed. 

Our college president, a Scotsman by heritage, instituted an inspiring "tradition" for faculty and students as we enter the graduation hall--he has the playing of the pipes (bagpipes) and drums lead us in for this time. Just imagine--a fine May evening, back-dropped with beautiful mountains highlighting the twilight, a river just over the field, and the lovely sense of coming summer in the air.  Mix in excited family members, beaming students, and smiling faculty--and down the path comes the Virginia Highlands Pipes and Drums, filling the air with music that feeds the soul, especially if one's ancestors came to these blue hills from Scottish shores.  It is a marvelous evening. 

So, I should have left the evening exhilarated....and for the most part I did.  But it has taken a week of rest to recoup from the semester and the demands thereof.  Like so many community colleges around our state and nation, we had a hefty enrollment increase coupled with a lack of funds to meet the demand.  Translation:  I faced overloaded classes that revolved into, at least for this English/Literature professor, many late hours of grading essays.  Yeah....yeah....I know the solution could be to assign less writing, but that doesn't help the student develop a clear analysis process.....and when my students move on to that 4-year campus, I want them to be ready.  That's my job.  

But rest and renewal did come after graduation and with it the vision of all the things I need to do here at home.  It's the positive after-effect of knowing that the light I hoped was at the end of the tunnel actually was at the end of the tunnel.  My garden shows good evidence, but don't look anywhere else.  The house is still waiting.  I've learned after many years, those needs won't go anywhere--they will wait.

Even so, I do appreciate the energy I've regained, and it turned up in a great place the other night--Supper!  Having also been raised with a healthy dose of "make-do" perspective, I was viewing the remains in our frig and came upon the leftover cheese, some wonderfully tasty sausages (made from chicken, mind you), and on the counter, some bright red plum tomatoes.  I've always had a special fascination with bread as well, and the possibility of a hot, juicy dish swirled in my mind--a cross between bruschetta and focaccia with all the trimmings.  It worked, too---delicious!  Leftovers are looking good as well.....

I also turned an eye to some much needed organization---one attempt that was noted here some months ago--and I rallied my spirits to tackle that stack of printed knitting patterns that grows persistently as I explore more temptations.  Some dent was made in the stack's size as I sorted these gems into brightly marked binders--they look so nice with their printed covers.  In the effort I was reminded of the sweaters and an enticing shawl I want to make for myself, but the bear I'm knitting still needs a head--and my return to it will be the third time I've tried to "get it right."  How can one bear be such a challenge???  Has anyone else had such problems with a knitted toy??

Alongside this little fellow is another gift, in Carolina Blue, that I can't show until after a shower that's coming later this summer.....and then September will be here, along with the bear's new holder--a baby boy we cannot hardly wait to see.

Yep--it's amazing what a few days of consistent sleep and good food will do for mind, body, and soul.  I'm going to go find some bagpipe music to relish, look out at my backyard filling out toward summer, and count a few blessings.....what a gift is this time.

Seeing the forest ....and the possibility.....

I don't remember when I first met Peter Rabbit--yes, THE Peter Rabbit--but I wasn't a young one.  I also don't remember where I met him.....but like so many others, when I saw him, I was smilingly and irresistibly drawn to this curious fellow.  Later it was his creator that I admired, but I kept returning to his stories and his friends, especially as my girls grew and came to be curious about Peter and his antics.

Not quite a year ago, I came upon Linda Lear's biography of Beatrix Potter--and found a friend.  The life of this woman writer and illustrator is fascinating, in a quiet way, and I'm sure that's what drew Lear into the lengthy study she has created of Potter.  But for me, the pleasure has been finding a kindred spirit--a woman who looked at the world with both an eye to keen observation and a bent to the joy that comes from that looking.  While she loved the real creatures that inspired her child-literature, her pleasure in a good wink is just as obvious.

And she loved the land--the beautiful Lake District of northern England and the hills of Scotland--so much so that her estate went to the National Trust of England, ensuring that her lands would be protected and accessible for the generations to come.  Mercy, I love this woman.

But the kinship is the gift.  Potter loved fungi.  She studied them and drew them and pondered their existence with a keen eye to scientific detail and questioning.  She marveled at them..and I'll bet she smiled at them.  I do.  There's that element of possibility that resides in a good fungus, and I get the feeling, when I see one, that something has to have just taken place right where it stands.  I just didn't see it.

But I can imagine it. 

As I read about Potter's draw to the study of fungi--a growing fad in her era in England--I could see how much her clear handling of specifics and her objectivity in her study informed her writings for children.  Her images bring real nature to rest in a perfectly believable fantasy world of rabbits with blue coats and ducks with kerchiefs. In this time of so much contradiction and falsehood reeling out on printed pages, the sweet paradox of a purposeful fantasy informing a real world is an immediate source of pleasure.

So Potter was with me on my too fast trip to Big Sur....she smiled, I'm sure of it, when the little ground squirrel caught us off guard and waited to see if we might have a bit of something for him as he scoured the ground and bushes.  I could see a little tam o'shanter sitting a bit cocked on his head and a crisp little comment setting us straight.  If you walk on his path, you better have some crumbs with you.

We didn't...and good thing, too, because we were in a natural reserve and definitely wouldn't want the wrath of rangers sending us home.

I'm not trying to "cutesify" the natural world or bring unwarranted personification to this amazing little creature.  But in reading about Potter's life, her choices, her disappointments and perseverance, and her great sense of being, I think we need a bit more of that understanding in this world where so many false dealings make us wonder if anything's real.  The joy of a good story, and the knowing that goes behind it, just does a body good.

In just a few months, we will welcome a sweet baby boy into our lives.  I can't wait to introduce him to Peter and all the others, and to share the natural world with its wonders--a few fungi here and there, a bevy of bugs to explore, a bright leaf and the look of the sun shining through it.  I know I'll be smiling and laughing and Potter would understand completely.  She's a good friend.