Resilience

               My students have been writing about the transitional experience of starting college. For many, a move to this 3000-student campus in Bangor, Maine is world-altering, untethering. Some have come twenty miles from home; others have moved from sprawling US cities far away, or across an ocean. The distance traveled is not necessarily proportional to the degree of upheaval. The array of financial and emotional obstacles, undermining setbacks, fears and weighted histories is daunting, but the vast majority will emerge stronger. They inspire me.
                  Circumstances might seem stacked against our survival, and yet…we persevere.
            Daily I walk by this tree, felled by storm, bent double to the ground, scoured out, a lost cause. But look -- countertwist, encapsulate the wound, reach for the light.
            Monarch butterflies bent towards extinction, but here they are, returned to my backyard. This one on a milkweed is poised to take on a 3000-mile fall migration. So delicate, so fragile, and yet…
 
My 60th year in 60,000 words
Day 12: 156 words, TOTAL = 2098;  57,902 remaining