Tag: Family

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The Circularity of Time

Cairn on Hallin Fell, July 23, 2006
Cairn on Hallin Fell, July 21, 2022

Do you remember where you were July 15, 2006?

I do.

I was on an idyllic hill in the Worth Valley (Haworth, West Yorkshire, England), looking across to the home where my mother-in-law grew up, and the home where her parents lived at the time—once a crumbling pig barn (an “ostlerhouse”) that my wife’s grandfather built into a beautiful home, stone by stone.  I found myself on the hill with a singular purpose, one which I carried out on one knee. 

I proposed to Anna that morning, on that hill, where she came as a child and picked berries and ran around.  Sixteen years (and two days) later, I found myself on the lawn of that ostlerhouse, with the field over my youngest sister-in-law’s shoulder, as her future husband proposed to her. I looked up to the garret that Anna’s grandfather was building before he died and saw the champagne bottle we used to toast the engagement set in mortar at the cornice. I pointed it out to my future brother-in-law, and he understood perfectly the meaningfulness of this place and the circularity of time.

On July 23, 2006, I found myself at the base of Hallin Fell, the highest point on Lake Ullswater in the Lake District (Cumbria, England).  I was younger then, not even aware that I should have been daunted by the steep hike to the top. 

Having reached the top, standing next to the cairn and looking at the panoramic views of Ullswater towards Pooley Bridge, I was breathless—both from the scramble to the top (an elevation change of nigh 1,000 feet) and by the sheer beauty of the landscape.  I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.  Truly breathtaking.

At that moment, I swore two things to myself. First, I would never forget that view. Second, I would never climb Hallin Fell again.

Two days shy of sixteen years later (July 21, 2022), I woke up at 5:30, put on my hiking boots, grabbed my camera and tripod, and set out to break my second promise.  I left the hotel, walked about a mile to a churchyard, and stared up the path through the bracken ferns at my Everest. 

A part of me could not believe that I was going to climb that damn fell again, and a part of me knew it was inevitable.  I was here, the cairn was at the top, and not even weak and wobbly knees (and a shoddy left ankle from an unfortunate fly fishing accident a decade earlier) would keep me from revisiting that view.

There were cows in the field at the base of the hill the last time I made the trek up.  The paddock was empty that morning, sixteen years hence.  I hiked alone, which provided me with the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts (and, admittedly, to catch my breath ever 100 yards or so). 

So much had changed since the last time that rocky ground was beneath my feet.  Marriage, law school, my first job, a son, graduate school, a daughter, my current career as a tax attorney—and countless other minor and major events, lives, and circumstances that had shaped who I was at that moment—those very events and circumstances that had made me break my solemn oath to never climb that damn fell again.

As I knew I would be, I was rewarded by my disavowal of that promise when I reached the top.  Breathless once more, I looked around, and it all came back to me. 

I was standing in awe at the base of the cairn with Anna and her parents sixteen years ago. 

I saw the rock I sat on with Anna to catch my breath and take it all in.  I sat on it again.

In the distance, I saw the seventeenth century church (built on the foundation of a twelfth century church) with the ancient yew tree, the gnarled branches of which we had walked betwixt and between, casually laughing about how nothing in America had any real history.  Not like this. 

I looked in the opposite direction, and I saw the faint outline of the Roman road running across the top of the fells.  Mirabile dictu, indeed.

I took in the panorama once more, and remarked to myself that my self-betrayal had, indeed, been worth it.

As I was standing with a hand on the cairn, looking across the length of Ullswater, I had the fleeting thought that I would be 53 in sixteen years.  I am old enough now to understand that even if I had, at that moment, sworn never to never climb Hallin Fell again, it would have been insincere and pointless. While my legs will carry me, when I am in the Lake District, I will climb to the cairn every time.  Next time, I might even let Anna and the kids come, too.

I took pictures when I first climbed to the cairn with an old point-and-shoot camera.  They remain some of my favorite photographs, and they are what inspired me to become a photographer.  With my wonderful Fujifilm X-T30 and multiple lenses, I took hundreds of photos in the hour or so that I watched the sun alight different parts of the valleys and the lake below.    

I looked at the photo of the cairn on my phone, and I found the exact spot where I had taken it.  I framed the picture, and I pressed the shutter button with great nostalgia—an unspeakable ache for home. I felt this ache, because I knew I would once more have to leave the cairn, the Lake District, and England. 

Yet, as I looked around me, I felt that nothing had changed in sixteen years.  The top of Hallin Fell was as it ever was and ever would be.  The knowledge that it would be there for me the next time I sought it out gave me unspeakable comfort.

When I returned to reality (America), the first photographs I edited were from that hike up Hallin Fell.  I pulled up the sixteen-year-old photo of the cairn, the first photograph in this post, and I found the photo I had taken just days earlier.  I cropped it, touched it up, and made it monochrome like the prior one.  I exported it and compared the two side-to-side. 

Sixteen years passed between the two photos, and yet the circularity of time and the top of the fell remained constant.  I looked more closely at the cairn, though, and I realized that in my absence a few more layers of stones had been carefully added to the top of the cairn.  I realized at that moment that nothing—even that fell top that I previously thought was immutable—is untouched by time. 

I hope that it does not take me sixteen years to learn if more stones have been added in my time away from the cairn.  I hope that Kemper and Nora will not protest the hike when I tell them that we’re going to see something remarkable.  I hope that as they climb it, they swear to themselves that they will never do it again. And I hope that once they reach the top, they understand that this is an oath that they are bound to break.

Over and over again.

Yours truly on top of Hallin Fell with Lake Ullswater in the distance. July 21, 2022
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Publishing and a Slice of Serenity

June 10, 2020.  That’s when I last posted a photo and an update.

My daughter was two then.  She’ll be five in August.

It is incredible to see how quickly life changes in what seems to be a matter of moments.  Instead of plaintive posts accompanying my photography exploits, I have been busy writing sarcastic legal articles on taxes.  Shortly after my last post, I created a blog—Briefly Taxing—and I have thrown myself into that full bore.  It’s a labor of love that brings together my two post-graduate degrees—an LL.M. in Tax and a Ph.D. in Sarcasm. 

In August of 2021, the blog caught the notice of an editor from Bloomberg who asked me if I would be willing to write an article for them.  Not only was it an honor to be asked to write for them, I was, perhaps, even more thrilled that the editor had asked me to write because she liked my style and humor—and not despite my frolics and detours into esoteric and generally unrelated subjects.*  So far, I have written five articles for Bloomberg, and I have a few more in the pipeline.

I churned out the articles, some of which I loved writing—like the one about the Michael Jackson estate tax case—and others I wrote begrudgingly because I was asked to.  At the end of the day, though, I was writing, and people were actually enjoying my snarky take on tax.

If you’ve ever read a legal article, you’ll know that they are as entertaining as waiting for paint to chip off a wall whilst you wait for the elderly lady two customers in front of you at the DMV to explain to Felicia, the crusty old municipal employee who is counting the seconds left in the minutes until 5:00 PM, why her license should be renewed despite her advancing blindness.  My articles, most of them at least, are not dry or plodding.  As Emily Dickinson might have said if she were a tax attorney, I tell all the tax—but I tell it slant.

Despite my success and my productivity in the land of the tax nerds, I miss the introspection of this blog.  We went to Maine (the land of my forefathers – well, at least my father) with my wife’s family last July.  I forgot how beautiful the coast Down East is.  This photo was taken in Acadia National Park on top of Cadillac Mountain.  There is something I find extremely innocent about it—something that brings me a sense of peace.  In the chaos of my law practice, the slice of time captured in this instant is precisely the type of serenity I need.

It’s good to be back.

*As evidenced by the following footnote in a later Bloomberg article:

FN71. That is, of course, unless “Uncle Sam” is an actual beneficiary of the estate in question and not the anthropomorphized personification of the Federal government, which has come to resemble a wizened older gentleman in a white top hat, engirded with a blue ribbon, itself emblazoned with large white stars, pointing towards “you” in a 1917 recruitment poster for the U.S. Army created by created by James Montgomery Flagg, which image was repurposed and made all the more famous in World War II. Interestingly (for me at least), the first reference to Uncle Sam in literature was in the 1816 allegorical book The Adventures of Uncle Sam, in Search After His Lost Honor by Frederick Augustus Fidfaddy, Esq. The tome—Fidfaddy’s sole work—was a satire on the policies of the United States leading up to the War of 1812. Fidfaddy appears to be a nom-de-plume, as Mr. Fidfaddy, himself, concedes when he answers the rhetorical question, “who is Tid Fid Faddy?” The good author pivots and replies, “Aye, but honest friend, what is there, in these degenerate days that does always pass by its real, deserved name?” The Adventures of Uncle Sam, 6 (repub. 1971, Liberty House).

And to answer your question, I will be adopting this moniker going forward…

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Social Distancing from an Expert

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It is that brief interval of time at 4:37 AM, between laconically tossing a peanut butter pretzel in my mouth and the first satisfying, ultimately ephemeral crunch, the mysteries of the world unfold themselves to me.  Sadly (for purposes of my own enlightenment), this reflectory period lasts but an instant before I nosh the pretzel into the verisimilitude of mastication and metaphor.

I wrote yesterday about my partner, my wife, an extrovert in exile during this period of revelatory self-distancing.  It is with great patience, a master’s degree in early childhood development and developmental risks, two years of teaching early childhood special ed, five years of teaching elementary ed, and two years of being at home raising the munchkin, that Anna finally reached the point of taking a razor blade to her bumper and the sticker that said “My child is an positive citizen.”  I cannot say that I blame her.

Children, on the whole, are enigmas.  Take for example, my firstborn.  Although I graduated from college, law school, and a post-doctorate program with pomp and circumstance, this little imp is smarter, by measure, then I ever was.  If and when he discovers nuclear fission, I pray that he uses it for good and not to get back at the three-year-old girl who dared to challenge his story that he discovered gold in North Carolina.

Our mayor has issued a conditional lockdown order, that those who could work from home must work from home.  Eager to initiate my obedient, pajama-clad workdays, I was soon informed by the Man that, much to my disappointment, I was not “dispensable” to the team.  Given my history with law firm politics, the fact that I am indispensable  should give me the ultimate reassurance.  Nevertheless, I found myself seeking out the hypochondriacal assistant who works at the other end of the office, in order that I might expectorate (with some gusto and propinquity to her) the post-nasal drip that has developed from all of this damn oak pollen.  Sadly, she had heeded the order, and was working from home.  My throat is tickly, and my spirit is spurred to action—which action, I might add, inevitably culminates (in my mind) victoriously, whilst I am in my pajamas.

Never one to be considered in apparatchik, I find myself in an uncomfortable situation.  On the one hand, I want to continue at work until the City shuts the power off (a threat that the Jacksonville Mayor actually voiced).  Yet, on the other hand, which hand I have carefully and diligently weighed, I want a good, long, peaceful nap.  I am not sure whether I am better served to try to sleep under the hollow in my desk at work, or in the loft at home.  Something, well, two things (children) really, tell me that the hollow was good enough for Mr. Toad and is good enough for me.

I hope everyone here in America and across the pond is doing well and are happy and healthy, albeit malcontent and ever so slightly disgruntled.  (For my Yorkshire readers, I am not quite sure of the kind antonym for “well chuffed,” but I imagine that is where you are right now.)

Good luck, Godspeed, and if you need lessons on social distancing, I am offering a master class tomorrow evening with a concentration on using biting sarcasm to establish a safe personal distance between you and your antagonist.  Attendance, as you may imagine, is severely limited.

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The Extrovert in Exile

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I saw a funny Facebook post the other day about how self-quarantining and social distancing was, for introverts, the culmination of their life’s work.  I saw one today that said, “Check on your extrovert friends; we are not OK.”

For a self-described hermit, who has been practicing social distancing since at least the age of twelve, I have a lot of extroverted friends.  It’s not my fault.  I am like a magnet for social people.  I have tried valiantly to wear my scorn and antipathy on my sleeve, but they all brush it of as bluster and introverted bravado and then want to talk about how funny it is that I pretend that I am a hermit.  An hour later, when they are done talking at me, I have already crawled into my mental hole, and they tell me what a good listener I am…a vicious cycle, indeed.

I even happened to marry one – a kind, beautiful, chatty-Cathy of an extrovert.  Before amiable-Anna stayed home with the munchkin, she had been a professional extrovert, paid to talk to little people and to teach them how to become social butterflies, themselves.  She was an elementary school teacher.  If you sit down and think about it for a minute (any longer and the already impish introvert in you will get really steamed), elementary school is a not-so-subtle indoctrination into extroversion and general gregariousness.  The few of us who resist, and resist with some steadfast conviction, make it out relatively unscathed…only to be substantially scathed by middle school…

So, it comes to pass that my dearest, chatty-Cathy wife was thrust back into the teaching fray in the midst of the pandemic.  She is home, stir-crazy, with the munchkin and the minion, the dog, two cats (one of which is delightfully antisocial and crotchety and a bit of a spirit animal of mine, though I won’t readily admit it), and 17 goldfish.  Interestingly, the term “stir-crazy” likely originated as a slang term for “Start-crazy,” referring to the notorious 19th century British prison of Start Newgate in London where prisoners were isolated as a form of punishment.

So here she finds herself, committed to house arrest for the greater good, in the hacienda de hoosegow, an extrovert in exile, which is, perhaps, the most apt term.  Like Napoleon in Elba, she is so close—yet so far from her social network of moms and coffee dates and general social frivolity.

I cannot understand her angst and longing for social interaction.  Apparently talking to me is not enough for her, even though talking to her is often more than enough for me…  I don’t pretend to understand how the extroverted mind works, but even though I am loath find comfort in a flock (the very root of “gregarious”), I understand that chatty-Cathy, amiable-Anna needs socialization.  Therefore, I arranged a playdate on Saturday with my assistant and paralegal, the only two people I can stand and who, likely, did not have the plague.  This playdate for Anna was a tacit understanding that I understood, and, I dare say, even condoned her socially-accepted, normative, “friendly” tendencies.

She enjoyed herself thoroughly.

It is Tuesday, and I am still recovering and recharging.

So, hug your extrovert in exile.  Let them know that this too shall pass.  And then, gird your loins, because they are going to want to talk about it…

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What Fishing Has to Do With Selfishness

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There is a line from the musical Wicked that goes, “Something has changed within me.  Something is not the same.”  I love the musical now, but the first time we saw it up in Richmond, Anna had to drag me to it.

Selfishness is a funny thing, and it is something that I’ve been dealing with in the latter half of my life.

When reflecting on the demise of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West), Glinda (the good witch) wonders, “Are we born wicked, or do we have wickedness thrust upon us?”  I can safely say I wasn’t born selfish, no more than anyone else is born selfish from a purely evolutionary, survival of the fittest standpoint.  I had a generally selfless mien as a child.  I was affable and kind, funny and sweet, too smart for my own good, and generally a good kid.  Then I wasn’t.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment the shift happened, but I can recall episodes where my selflessness was chipped away.  Over indulgences, bad relationships, weight gain, stress, disappointment, guilt, shame, self-loathing—they all chipped away at this rock of selflessness that I had prided myself on possessing until it was nothing more than a pebble.

My mother-in-law wondered where her daughter’s happy-go-lucky spouse went.  My mother, who is never one to beat around the bush, told me on the phone that I had become, in a word, selfish.  I did not receive these observations well at the time, though I now see that they were completely accurate.  My distorted notions of self-preservation and keeping everyone else on the outside of the chaos within drove the selfishness like an engine.  When I began to let myself heal, however, I recognized in some small part the change that had taken place so insidiously.

Even when I emerged from my darker days, before Nora was born, I did not shed every negative habit.  I slept a lot.  I did not want to be “social.”  I hid behind my self-diagnosis of introversion with fierce conviction.  I joked about my general misanthropy.  Once again, I was using humor to defray attention from the insecurities, but this time, I was also using it to distract from my selfishness.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, it left.  No warning.  No lead up.  No working at it in earnest.  I cannot say precisely when it happened, but I can point to the exact moment that I recognized that something was awry (in a good way).  We were in North Carolina, perhaps the second day of our trip, and Kemper wanted to go fishing.  Hit wanted to go fishing the moment we stepped foot on the property, but once again, I was tired, and I promise to take him later.

I was always promising to take him fishing later.  The trouble was that later seldom came.  Finally, I had had enough of his incessant entreaties, and I knuckled under, and we went fishing.  It was cold.  It was raining.  I was grumpy.  And he was having the time of his life.  Something clicked, though I didn’t recognize it at the time, and I just went with the flow.  We fished for about two hours in the rain, because that’s what my dad would’ve done.

This post goes hand-in-hand with my gratitude post of a couple of weeks ago, because gratitude and selflessness go hand in hand.  I took for granted the time with my kids, my wife, my family, and even with Zoe.  When I found Deacon online and read his back story — about how he had been taken for granted, left out on a chain, and neglected — I thought back to Sadie, our rescued Golden retriever I had as a kid, when I wasn’t selfish, and when I didn’t take anyone or anything for granted.  She had been abused and neglected, and she was the sweetest most grateful dog I have ever known.

I know we gave Zoe a good life, and I am comforted by the fact that she was loved, despite my selfishness and ingratitude.  But I wonder what our connection would’ve been like had I had this epiphany earlier.

Anna looked at me on Monday, three days after we headed taken Deacon home, and acknowledged the change.  She didn’t say that I had been less selfish lately, or that I had been a better husband because of it.  She said that she noticed that I had taken Kemper fishing the first time he asked.  I didn’t say it do it later.  I got up from the ground, where I was petting Deacon, and I took him fishing.  Because he enjoyed it, I enjoyed it.  That, I think, is the opposite of selfishness.

 

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On Gratitude

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When I write these posts, I often just start typing and what comes, comes.  I thought about this post a fair bit driving into work this morning at 2:45 AM.  I reflected on the days that I spent in North Carolina with my family, and how I would have far preferred to be there to just about anywhere else.  I also thought about how lucky we are to be able to spend that time in the mountains with family that loves us and whom we can tolerate—even enjoy—being with for a week.

Being grateful is one thing, and a good thing, but gratitude is something different.  Gratitude is active.  You can be grateful, but you show gratitude.  I don’t think I ever reflected on the difference, but as I sat down to write this post, I was struck by the distinction.  I was grateful to have been in North Carolina, but did I show gratitude for being there?  I thanked my parents, and David, who graciously allowed us to stay on his property, and, perhaps, this was enough.  Still, I am nagged by the thought that I could have done more.

It is a new year, and in this new year I will make a concerted effort to actively show gratitude for what I have been given.  I have worked incredibly hard for the life I have, but in many ways, I have been blessed with things that I could never have received without a great deal of grace.  I am slowly recognizing this, and I am grateful for all of the blessings in my life.  Gratitude, like faith, without action is nothing.

So, thank you, one and all, for all that I have been given, and all that I am able to give.  As I start this new year, the first of a new decade, I will continue to reflect on these thoughts of gratitude.  Perhaps they will nag at me even in the times where I want to be anything but grateful.  Life is a journey, not a destination, and like this forest path, I will try my heartfelt best to walk it with gratitude.

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Wright

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This picture makes me feel like a phony.

Compositionally, the photograph is nearly perfect.  The sight lines of the rocks and the mountain in the back converge on Kemper.  There is strong texture and contrast between the foreground and background.  Kemp forms the apex of a natural triangle, and the rule of thirds has been followed with strict adherence.  He’s looking away from the camera, natural and insouciant.  Hell, the wildflowers are even in bloom.

Yes.  This is technically ideal, and, had I planned it, I could not have executed it much better.  But that is just the thing.  I didn’t plan it.  I snapped the picture of Kemper on a rock in Garrapata State Park because he had come with me on a cold and windy morning, and he found a rock that he wanted to climb, and far be it for me to stop him from doing what brought me such joy when I was his age.

Perhaps there was something in my subconscious that told me to stand exactly where I stood to take this picture, rather than a couple feet to the left or right.  Perhaps it wasn’t happenstance.  I still remember one of my elementary school art teachers looking at a lump of unformed clay with me and saying that we had to take what the clay gave us.  What she meant, I think, was that an artist is not always the creator (if ever), but instead is—to use an archaic, but fitting term—the wright, who makes the best of what is given to them.

Ultimately, I didn’t have to take the photograph.  I didn’t have to make the decisions I did in post-processing, to bring out the contrast between the foreground and the misty background, or to crop it as I did.  But there we are.

This photo is not going to win any prizes or be displayed in a gallery, but it will make the rotation on the slideshow in my office.  When I look up and glance at it for the moment it remains, I will appreciate the happenstance of art a bit more, understanding that as a photographer I am not so much a creator as a wright…and that is OK.

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On Surviving…

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We survived the first day.

No call.  No tears.  No arson.

All in all, a good start to the first grade.

Now you may think that I am being a bit melodramatic—after all, Kemp is a good kid—but I am also being realistic after the ups and downs of last year.

No child is perfect, and this is a lesson that we learned the hard way when Kemper came back from Christmas break last year.  He has matured exponentially over the summer, and I knew that he would be in a different place, with a different teacher, who has more experience and, perhaps, more patience with little boys who just want to make you laugh.

The kid has a heart of gold, as I did at his age.  He only wants to please, and I lose sight of this in the moments where he is being obstinate or so literal that it makes you want to pull the three hairs you have left on your head out (personally speaking).  I lost some of that innocence and pureness of spirit in college and law school, but I feel like I am slowly gaining it back—which just goes to show that it does not have to be lost.

I know that I need to foster this uncharacteristic empathy and softness inside of him, and make him understand that despite the sometimes-toxic masculinity that the world presents as the paradigm, it is ok to be sensitive and caring, and it is ok to embrace the empathy that is innate within him.  I hope that he is able to hold onto these characteristics for as long as he can, at least through his formative years, because it is a lot easier to go back to a learned behavior than to start from scratch.

So now we wait for the call.  Maybe it will not come this year.  Maybe he’s bled all of the angst from his system, but I don’t think so.  I see the anxiety in his great big brown eyes, and the concern for things much larger than himself, and in those concerns, I revisit my own childhood and force myself to think of how I can make it easier for him, how I can facilitate finding himself in the morass that is growing up.

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On a New Year…

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To say that it was a quiet weekend would be something of an understatement.  Anna and the kids went down to Disney with a friend, and I was left to fend for myself in utter silence.  In my defense, I had made plans to go fishing with a buddy, but his boat was in the shop, and he ended up going out of town.  My solitude, therefore, was not completely of my own choosing—but I embraced it nonetheless.

Kemper starts school tomorrow—first grade—and to have seen him grow up just this summer has been amazing.  Last year was a learning experience for all involved, and I am not naïve enough to think that the first few weeks of the new schoolyear will be without its ups and downs.  Once he settles in, though, I am hopeful that this year will be even better than the last.

Nora begins a three day-a-week program soon, as well, and she blossomed in her “class” last year.  She is social, but I am terribly curious to see what her new independent, sassy streak will mean to her previously demure behavior.  As they say, history seldom remembers well-behaved women, so her cheekiness will likely serve her well.  It is something that her brother and I can foster with great aplomb.  I knew that she wouldn’t stay the sweet little cherub forever, and I am so enjoying her personality as it comes out more and more each day.

Life is good, and I look forward to seeing how much better it gets this year.

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On Thoughts of Fall in August

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As a consequence of the poison oak debacle that I have chronicled in my earlier posts, I went to the doctor, who prescribed some fairly powerful steroids to hasten my recovery.  One of the side effects, it turns out, is a heightened sensitivity to heat, which in the throes of summer in Florida is about as easy to avoid as sand in a desert.

Long story short, I got very dizzy, and I needed a bit in the artificial permafrost of my office to cool down and recover.  Once regained my bearings, this photograph flashed across the television on my wall that I use to display my photographs.  I took it last fall in North Carolina, and it immediately gave me a feeling of deep longing, and almost regret that I wasn’t there right now–even though summers in the Piedmont of North Carolina are about as miserable as in Florida.

I reflected on this nostalgia, literally an aching for one’s home, and it came to me that during my ten years outside of Florida, first in North Carolina and then in Virginia, I never felt the longing to be back in Florida like I do now longing to be back in Winston-Salem or even Richmond.  I missed my family dearly in Florida, and enjoyed every time that I came back to visit, but there is just something about Carolina and Virginia that make me long to be back there.

Perhaps it is that I loved Wake Forest so much.  I met Anna there, grew up there, and learned more about the world and myself than I had ever done in the eighteen years prior.  But a part of me thinks that it was the fall that draws me back, even today–the crisp mornings that we walked from campus through the grounds of the Reynolda House and through the village, the chilly strolls around campus with a steaming cup of coffee or chai, and the leaves that scudded across the bricks of the upper quad when the October wind picked up and you gathered your jacket that much closer around you.

Sure, Florida has fall, but its not the same.  Even the oak trees that were skeletons by November in Richmond balk at the coming winter in Florida.  There is no thought of jumping in the car and driving the half-hour to Pilot Mountain to see the leaves changing before your very eyes.  Fall, as we knew it in North Carolina, does not exist this far south.  But I am happy here.  I have an incredible job, and an incredible family that is only minutes away, and my roots are growing into the sandy soil slowly but surely.

Still, I feel that pang of remorse that comes over me when I remember the falls I spent at Wake Forest, and I know someday I will return in some capacity.  Until that time, as James Taylor said, “I’m going to Carolina in my mind.”

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