Devenish

Click to play (Peter Gabriel) Peter Gabriel was surely thinking of a different kind of love when he wrote this song, one of his most moving. Still, it expresses better than anything I can think up how much of a saving grace Justin is for me, and for all of the family. Being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done, not least because—whether for personal reasons, or reasons of gender, or of age or socialization—I am not able to see parenting as an achievement of any kind: no matter that it takes 85% of my energy and effort, I cannot measure or register any success, but only the many times I fall short. 'I get so lost, sometimes...' Looking into Justin's eyes does not validate my role, but it does give me the strength to go on, to ignore what Kahneman calls 'the remembering self' (so concerned with legacy and achievement), to 'reach out from the inside.' Thanks, Peter! Love I get so lost, sometimes days pass and this emptiness fills my heart...

The nymphs are departed, it seems . The previously regular readers of this blog. Gone. And so it must be to the 'loitering heirs of city directors' that I should explain the reasons for my failure to continue writing. It is not that family life in the interim has become dramatically more or less interesting or noteworthy than it ever was. There has been precious little drama, and what drama there has been has been less than precious. Until a few weeks ago, though, the lack of newsworthiness did not prevent me from devoting an hour or so to the remembrance of things just past (lost, before they could be forgotten). One of the reasons for not posting was a sense that there were other things—beyond the regular 6:30am-10:30pm schedule of domestic and teaching chores—to attend to first. I had invested time in two other projects: too much time in a job application that didn't pan out, and a judicious and ultimately rewarding amount preparing two talks for a conference in Hano...