Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.

In many ways, constancy is an illusion.

The caretaking has to be done. "Somebody's got to be the mommy." Individually, we underestimate this need, and as a society we make inadequate provision for it. Women take up the slack, making the need invisible as we step in to fill it.

The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.

Learning to savor the vertigo of doing without answers or making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasures of recognizing and playing with patterns, finding coherence within complexity, sharing within multiplicity.

I had repeatedly accepted inappropriate burdens, stepping in to do what needed to be done. In retrospect, I think I carried them well, but the cost was that I was chronically overloaded, weary, and short of time for politicking, smoothing ruffled feathers, and simply resting.

Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.