When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
I got the call on a rainy day shortly after returning from my semester abroad. I didn't recognize the number, and we were in the middle of a used Kia lot, car shopping for my brother. The "859" area code told me it wasn't a telemarketer, so I ducked into my dad's car to take the call.
"Hi, Hannah." At first I didn't recognize the slightly gravelly voice, but he continued without a reply from me. "Greg Bandy, here. I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you."
Read MoreWe need to remove the prejudice against young people being world-shapers. Lafayette was a teenager—yes, a teenager—when he joined the American Revolution and was made a major-general. We often think of teenagers as intellectually blocked beings being puppeteered by hormones and video games. What kind of contributionsdo you think we are missing—to government, to science, to literature, to art, to society as a whole—because we've told a generation of young people that their thoughts and opinions have no merit, that they'll think differently, correctly, when they're older?
Read MoreHere's the truth: I never knew shedding until we got Luna and Argos. They shed year round. They shed when it's hot outside and when there's snow on the ground. Sometimes they shed enough that you can pull out fist-sized clumps of fur with your bare hands. If you don't vacuum for a week, there aren't just hair balls in the corners—you've got a new carpet made of hair. They can't rub against you without a thick layer of white hair left along your pants. When you do laundry, you find hair balls interwoven in the fabric of your shirts and filling the dryer vent. You have to keep a lint roller in the car because you know you'll be covered again by the time you make it from the bathroom to the front door.
Read MoreI've dreamed about studying abroad ever since I can remember. When my brother and I played house as little kids, I was always a missionary in China or a college student in Germany. Then, in high school, I became enraptured with British television (Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock—the works), and I set my sights on England, hoping to one day spend a glorious semester across the pond and become a bona fide anglophile.
Read More
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