One of my favorite things about traveling home to New Hampshire in spring and summer: slipping into sleep by open windows at my parents’ house to the sounds of the surrounding forest: sudden, baritone calls of barred owls (“Who, who, who cooks for you?”), wild cackling of coyotes, and (accompanied below by my two-year old daughter: “Froggie, Dada?”), choruses of crickets, tree-, and peeper-frogs.
So proud of my nephew, Stew, for all of his accomplishments (physics major, 4.0, class marshal, CERN internship, etc.) as he graduates today from the University of New Hampshire. So grateful, too, for the opportunity to return to my alma mater precisely 20 years to the month after donning my own cap and gown here. Highly recommended, particularly for anyone at mid-life and/or mid-career: Returning to your place of study and attending its graduation ceremony decades after your own. It occurs to me today that there is no better place to reflect on the roads we’ve traveled since, and to contemplate (ideally, with the same enthusiasm I witnessed this morning) those we hope to travel in the future. Immense thanks to the graduate who crafted the above cap, relaying a message that feels as significant and timely for me at age 42 as it did when I was 22. And godspeed to my nephew as he heads out on his own roads. May every one lead you to the place you want to be.
