I finished grading only after cleaning the house, though. What is it about a stack of papers that spurs me to get out the dustrags and vacuum cleaner? It didn’t help that, even though school was not yet officially over, I’d already begun slipping into some of my standard summer activities. I opened the door to the sewing room and started cleaning a little in preparation for a summertime project (probably a quilt). I planted tomatoes and cucumbers about four weeks ago and have been involved in the basic upkeep of them. It’s rained a lot, so I haven’t had to do a lot of watering, but I’ve had quite a few weeds in the cucumbers. Here are some pictures of my ‘maters — I’ve got five already and I love checking on them every day and monitoring their subtle shifts in color.

I went to a couple of favorite blogs and went to Post #1. No one had anything special or inaugural; they just started talking.

I feel like there should be something a little more ceremonial going on, but only in a certain sense. I’ve had pretty fierce blog-envy for a couple of months now — see my blogroll for some favorites –and it’s only once I came up with the name for this one and discovered edublogs that I finally got going.

Current events are playing their role: Monday was the shooting at Virginia Tech, and I’ve been reflecting a lot this week on the safety of the university classroom, my own favorite nest. I’m in the third year of my doctoral studies, but I’ve had quite a bit of teaching experience. I love the weeks after Spring Break but before the beginning of exam stresses — exactly this time of year — when a special intimacy develops in the classroom. By this point, students know the drill: the syllabus, the assignments, and what jokes to tell to make the professor laugh; a teacher knows her students, has seen them grow, like little seeds sown at the windowsill, and knows exactly what to say to get them to stretch as much closer to the sun as they can, before the class is over and everyone goes home. By April (or November, in the Fall) only the students who are really interested are showing up; class discussion is spontaneous and rich. It is a fertile time; my favorite time of the semester. To imagine the community and fellowship of those classes inturrupted and destroyed by an intruder and assassin — I can’t. I don’t want to. Especially at this fruitful time of year.

♦

For the most part, this blog is a place for me to keep up with things that I’m constantly losing — the art of losing isn’t hard to master, Elizabeth Bishop wrote. I’m losing track of things I’ve come across, so I want to throw my own lasso over desirable sites on the web. I feel, sometimes, too, like I’m losing my own voice; this is also my own meek shoutout into the digital universe. Finally, I hope that it will be a nest, a place, like the classroom, for minds of plenty.