Packet of Wildflower Seeds

Several months ago, one of my husband's coworkers asked him if we have a gun in the house. When my husband answered in the negative, the coworker responded with something along the lines of, "do you have a crazy liberal wife who won't let you? You need to get one anyway to protect your family." My husband replied that the decision was his and that he was satisfied with his choice. J's response was mostly true, but it omitted a lot of information. If I had been present for the conversation, I would have liked to add several things. First of all, the coworker's assessment of me as a "crazy liberal" is correct in neither aspect. I don't identify with a political party. I am also not crazy - though I do suffer from mental illness, and I suppose some individuals would lump all of those conditions together and collectively call them "insanity." It is precisely because of this fact, though, that J's decision not to own a gun IS a dec...

It's college application season. I have a student in one of my classes who is dead-set on attending Duke University. She recently proclaimed that she couldn't focus on anything right now other than gaining admission to her top college choice. Another group of students discussed an article they had read for a different class. Apparently the article claimed that college choice doesn't really matter. The students seemed dismissive of that notion. Many of my seniors are taking the SAT one more time this fall in an effort to make themselves more attractive to prospective colleges. I hear them joke with one another that they will cry if their scores do not improve, but I can sense the underlying anxiety in all of these interactions. I wish I could tell them to relax. I wish I could tell them that the article was (mostly) right. I wish I could tell them that this adolescent rite-of-passage should be an opportunity for reflection and self-discovery rather than stress and turm...