We teach to the truth in schools, and we also teach to passions. Emotions. We talk about students “finding” their passion, getting to that sweet spot where the drive become intrinsic, where the 10,000 hours of practice to become an “expert” are not a burden but a delight, where time melts in the doing. The Talent Code, The Tipping Point– how many times over the years have these books and their authors been referenced?
Last night in Boston we enjoyed one of those gatherings of the Proctor family that we occasionally have. Usually our events are smaller, the venues more intimate, but last night was bigger and more structured. We had the vocal ensemble perform a medley from West Side Story, we showed a campaign video, and Patty Pond spoke to the healthy arc of a community moving forward with its values intact. Matt Nathanson sang a couple of songs. I spoke about investing in The Campaign for Proctor, and I discussed a challenging situation we are facing on campus.
Sometimes trying to wrap it into an essay is too limiting. Sometimes it is helpful to sit down, list, and skip the culling into paragraphs. Yes, it’s messier, the untended list. It’s a bramble and kudzu filled garden, more difficult to navigate, but this week, following Scott’s blogs posts on thankfulness, I look to moments that have triggered my gratitude over the last seven days. I often worry that in our rush to the next, the whatever next, the beautiful rustle of these moments pass unnoticed. A mistake. We should let these good moments touch us. We should slow down, look around, and actually build our gratitude lists. It takes practice, sometimes work, but it yields moments that nourish hope and optimism, moments that ground the spirit. My list from the last seven days:
This has been emotional. Tuesday night I was walking past Carriage House and saw the blue lights of television. In one common room a hockey game was being watched; in the other, the CNN election team was parsing results. I thought interest in the election might track that way – spotty and easily distracted and redirected by a good Bruins game. I was wrong.
Rain soaked the campus, and I cross the street in a mid-day downpour and noticed the Circle K wrapper. Soggy, dirt-speckled, floppy litter on the side of Route 11, so I reached to pick it up. What drives this impulse? What makes us care in this manner? To pick up after others, to tend to the place where we live? Over the course of this week I have been in several conversations about community and care, about how to nurture this impulse and how to better instill it. What can we do to better take care the Wise, Slocumb, the Brown Dining Commons, or the Adirondack shelter up at Mud Pond? Or that which is beyond Proctor? How do we awaken this instinct?
I have been in Chicago since Wednesday and flew back Friday afternoon. These are wild times in the windy city. Chicago hasn’t won the World Series since 1908 and Cubs regalia can be found on every street, white “W” towels and flags are ubiquitous, and people whisper about tickets. Who has them? How did they get them? They sell for thousands of dollars. There are whispers of forty- thousand dollars for a seat. A seat. Bars out near Rigley Field plan to charge a 200 dollars cover on game day. For that price you get to watch the game on a television close to the ballpark. That’s it. The lions outside the Art Institute of Chicago wear big, blue Cubs hats perched on their majestic heads. Clearly this city wants to roar. Is roaring hard.
There are stacks of books in our house. There is a pile steadily growing in my office. I look at the titles: Braiding Sweetgrass, Being Mortal, Great Modern European Short Stories, Redeployment. I have read many, started more. Where to find the time to get back to, settle down with, and lose myself in their pages? My time to do so has been compromised. I slip into my iPhone. I read the news, browse through editorials, check the weather, check the scores (Cubs won yesterday), check email, text. I multi-task, flicker from this to that and back again. The margin time, the free time, even the uninterrupted work time, is increasingly compromised.
On April 29th, 2015, the Baltimore Orioles played the Chicago White Sox. Ubaldo Jimenez was pitching for the Orioles, who would go on to win the game by a score of 8-2. The April day was perfect - blue sky, crisp air. It was an historic game, a strange game. There had been looting around Camden Yard, unrest in the city, and for the safety of the fans, the game was played in an empty stadium. It may be the only game played under such conditions. And it relates, of course, to Fall Family Weekend. Naturally.
