Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October, 2012

Electric Autumn

Often, on those electric Autumn evenings, I would wrap up my work and, finding myself unwilling to sleep, step out into the night. I liked to observe the town late at night, when most students were in their dorm rooms and most other folk asleep or reading a book in bed. Getting away from people was important. Away from people, things would acquire their own vitality. Sterling itself seemed to hold its breath, and I drifted about, aimless and content. Oddly-lit structures drew me. I liked to observe the various moods Cooper Hall took on at different angles by moonlight, liked to see it in motion, walking the length of the sidewalk across the street, the contrasting motion of foreground and background. Parks, too, drew me. As a child, the swings were dearest, and even today they lure me. I could swing for hours, ruminating, tracking the motion of the stars, taking in the gravity, the silence. These moments are therapeutic. More than that - enriching. How often I've sought

Around and Around

my staj at In-Service Training (most of us, anyway) They say that you only appreciate the value of a thing or a place or a person after it is taken away from you. Bull, I say. Often enough, you know just how much it's going to hurt even before the separation happens. Take a look at these people. Do you see them? Do you see me? Well I'm near the back, center-left. Now, stop looking at me and look at the group again. These are most of the people that came into Morocco with me back in March. I like many of them, but I love only a few. Undoubtedly, I would love more if I only had spent more time with them, gotten to know them better, but things work one way and not the other, who can say what would have happened if etc etc. I'm thinking about these people because I have been remarkably lucky this past month to have spent so much time with them. The above picture is from a week of In-Service Training (IST) conducted in Marrakech with my entire staj. After IST, I a