Anne Mei turns 19 today. She and her friend Margaret are off to Manhattan. They’ll stay at Margaret’s house tonight so I won’t see her until tomorrow. That is after she has to meet other friends in downtown Princeton. This is good preparation for me for when she heads off to Syracuse University at the end of August.
Last night I told Anne Mei my story of what it means to be 19. When I was that age, I was walking across the campus of Providence College and two young boys stopped me. One asked, “Hey, mister, what time is it?” Before I could answer, the other said, “That’s no ‘mister.’ That’s a kid.”
My ESL student Ariyadewa Thero, a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, called to cancel today’s lesson. So I should be working on my book, but I figured this was a more productive distraction than some of the others available when one writes on a computer. As previously posted, this year I’m working on writing the story of our years with Laura and the years since she died. While doing previous blog posts helped me break through the logjam of perpetual research on philosophical questions, I’m finding that writing a coherent narrative and reflections on that story takes a lot more work than just stringing blog posts together. As with the old blog, I’m enjoying the task and am learning from it.
I plan to do short posts like this about what’s going on and what I think about it. If you’re not already signed up to get posts by email, please use the spot on the left-hand menu to enter your email address. That way you can be sure to follow the story as it unfolds. I will continue to link these posts to Facebook and Twitter, but those of you who use these sites know how easy it is to miss an entry. I look forward to hearing your comments on our adventures.