Why I Am Happy
by William Stafford

Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.

And I know where it is.

———We will be reading a poem on repeat for a few weeks per an article in The New York Times . I chose a familiar William Stanford poem as our first.

Things seem upside down lately.

Me

Drawing by Me

Edited upside down by Me

It is one of my all time favorite books. For some odd reason, I actually read the book today. I had always thought Ignatius J. Reilly had a coming of age existence and no he did not. I had always loved his character, and in reading it a second time I love the author’s portrayal of Ignatius. We root for him every step down the spiral of life.

Education it’s something we will never finish in our lives. We don’t simply walk away from high school, college, grad school or the seminar you attended last week.

My Spanish class ended yesterday at seven, however that does not mean class is over. We keep learning and in some cases accidentally unlearning. A life worth living is one we were open to learning, cherish learning and live in a society that funds learning

One thing in life I have learned is that you cannot make people want to learn. All that we can control it’s a surround yourself with lifelong learners. It makes life that much easier