May and June are full of graduations and celebrations.
My cousin graduated from medical school and is headed to her dream residency. My sister-in-law marched, masked, across a stage in cap and gown to claim a high school diploma. And Alexandria Lin, alumna of The Little Middle School, graduated from the University of Georgia and will work in the aerospace industry developing software for satellites.
Read MoreThe kids are back in school, and I miss them.
Life goes on at The Little Middle School—surprisingly normally, given the masks. And I’m not there for any of it. I’m over a thousand miles away, alone and waiting for my second shot.
It’s fine — I wouldn’t even really have time to engage with the students. I will stay busy the entire day and not get to the end of the work. I will provide support to the teachers from afar, and that will have to be enough.
Read MoreEven though we were contemporaries from the same state, I never heard of Travis Roy until a couple of years ago when I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Ohio and got distracted by a documentary on one of the screens on the wall.
Travis Roy was a talented hockey player who was paralyzed in a tragic accident in the first few seconds of his debut on the men’s ice hockey team at Boston University in 1995. Roy went on to graduate from BU and create a foundation for spinal injury research and support for spinal injury survivors. He passed away just a few days ago at age 45.
Read MoreThere’s a tension that I experience on a frequent basis. It’s between the necessity of slowing down and allowing space for reflection and growth, and the reality that the clock is ticking.
I don’t do my best work dangling by my fingertips off of a precipice. I need to be peaceful, grounded, and safe.
And yet these are the same conditions that can lead to complacency — to doing nothing and letting the time simply pass by.
It is easy enough to fill a day with meals, laundry, and a walk in the fresh air — maybe a bit of bill-paying, family time, or creative work. And the next, and the next.
Read MoreRecently, I got to hug some family members for the first time since January.
A combination of traveling and the good ol’ pandemic kept me away — at least a few hours away, and sometimes a thousand miles away. But finally, outdoors on a beautiful day, none of us having gone anywhere recently, it was time to embrace.
I had been so anxious about missing them and missing so much of their lives. Kids change so fast. Would they even remember me? But within moments it was as though no time had passed. Just like old times, except in masks.
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