Neither lamb nor lion

March arrived today, like neither lamb nor lion. Maybe like a damp, shivering lamb, poking its little head in under gray skies spitting a few raindrops alternating with snowflakes. So today is the day I begin my new life for March.

I have four more months left of my sweet sojourn in Indiana before I pack up my car and drive back across the country to Colorado.  I have a lot of work projects to do during those months, of course, but right now I think my most urgent need is to make sure that I'm enjoying every remaining day as much as possible. In the past week I secured the following Greencastle treats for myself:

1. Lunch several days at the Blue Door Cafe, which has finally reopened after being closed for almost two months, a victim of competition from the newly opened Starbucks on the Courthouse Square and the general lull in activity over the holidays and Winter Term when so many students are off campus. I was so heartbroken to have its doors locked against me that I couldn't even bear to write about it, but now it's back, and I am trying to go there every single day to show my support.

2. Breakfast almost every day at the Hub in the student center on campus: EXTREMELY delicious oatmeal with brown sugar and canned peaches. I assemble my bowl in layers: a layer of oatmeal, a layer of brown sugar, a layer of peaches, repeat. 

3. A mid-day talk by Chicago playwright/director Sean Graney, who is adapting all 32 surviving Greek tragedies into one huge twelve-hour mega-tragedy, or rather, mini-tragedy - well, mini in that it's so much reduced from the original, but mega in that twelve hours is a long play by any standard! I love being in the company of people who dream up offbeat creative projects.

4. A performance of 21st century music by composer-in-residence Libby Larsen, which included her moving oratorio drawn from the words of Eleanor Roosevelt.

5. A wine-and-cheese faculty gathering to talk about what gives us joy in our work, and why - just my kind of thing!

6. One-on-one appointments with delightfully motivated students to talk about their soon-to-be-due papers for my course on the philosopher John Rawls.

7. Tea in my office at the Prindle, looking out at the winter-bare courtyard on a gray afternoon.

So my goal in March: more Blue Door, more oatmeal, more offbeat creative projects, more conversations with students, more tea, and more joy.