Delight Springs

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Gather the light

They've closed school today, after yesterday's reopening, due to the threat of a wintry mix that's raining pellets this morning. I'm glad we got Opening Day in, it always lifts my spirit to encounter so many eager new learners (and a few older ones) on Day One. 

It was a cold and bracing start. My spread-out schedule had me shuttling back and forth across campus all day long: over 18,000 steps, says my phone Pacer. As a peripatetic I'm of course not complaining. 

On one of my transits I was pleased to be hailed by one of my old students, whose fraternity was giving away hot (well, warm) chocolate. The general mood on campus, if I detected it aright, was upbeat and hopeful. 

We're exactly one year out from our next Inauguration Day. Will it be upbeat and hopeful? 

In 1969 at his Inauguration, a hopeful Richard Nixon read these florid words: “We have endured a long night of the American spirit. But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark. Let us gather the light.” He went on to gather more than light, and less than a full second term, as his paranoid administration compiled Enemies Lists and burgled the DNC at Watergate. 

But anyway, what a great proposal. It's why I wore my canary-yellow necktie yesterday, to gather the light and reflect it as best I could. That's also what college is for.
5:50/6:57, 28/38

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