I am sitting here. Listening to the silence between the thunder and the lightning.  My dogs lay petrified and panting at my feet.  I have just finished turning in my last set of grades.  Teacher’s remorse settles round my shoulders, my heart, my soul.  A pall.  This is my last set of these useless evaluations. …

I am working on a playlist for the rest of my life. I am fond of saying that “X” marks the start, not the spot. I also love the expression, “Planning to start, not planning to finish.”  Retirement for me is not the end of something but the continuing beginning of every day I am…

Wendell Berry’s poetry is never very far from my consciousness. This poem resonates now as I contemplate a change in story. My story now, as I edge day-by-day toward “retirement,”  is a litany of this, “Well, that’s the last time I assign that or mark that or do that or share that.”   In Berry’s poetic…