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It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. -Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)

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Happiness

So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren't saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other's arm. It's early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn't enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

Stuart Kestenbaum

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Everything you've learned in school as `obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)

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Borrowed Time

I will not die tonight I will lie in bed with my wife beside me, curled on the right like an animal burrowing. I will fit myself against her and we will keep each other warm.

I will not die tonight. My son who is seven will not slide beneath the ice like the boy on the news. The divers will not have to look for him in the cold water. He will call, "Daddy, can I get up now?" in the morning.

I will not die tonight. I will balance the checkbook, wash up the dishes and sit in front of the TV drinking one beer.

For the moment I hold a winning ticket. It's my turn to buy cold cuts at the grocery store. I fill my basket carefully.

For like the rain that comes now to the roof and slides down the gutter I am headed to the earth. And like the others, all the lost and all the lovers, I will follow an old path not marked on any map.

by David Moreau

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One of life's most painful moments comes when we must admit that we didn't do our homework, that we are not prepared. Merlin Olsen (American Football Player, Sports Broadcaster, Actor)

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Yes William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That's why we wake and look out--no guarantees in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening.

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Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue. ~ Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit ~

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And Yet*

It's true, we carry the world inside us, Always present like light. And yet, this hilltop where the sun sits, Heavy and red, every evening; My house shuttered now, the gravel courtyard Sprouting weeds; myself, woefully transient, My suitcase packed, listening for My neighbor who will take me to the train, And the stillness mobbing past, Strangely clamorous and thick, It's true, I know. And yet, and yet!

Paul Zweig

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)