It has been far too long and too many things have occured since the last time I posted. Silence can sometimes mean quiet, calm, unhurried, perhaps inert. Not so, however, for us; we have been more than busy during the whole stretch. Classes and running around with two growing kids and starting a business...we have barely had time to take a relaxing breath; our weekly visits to the beach had to stop as every possible second got swept up in a mad frenzy to survive the first semester and plan for the holidays and get through the final weeks of classes and deal with the new things going on almost all of the time. We did survive, however, and we are better people for it. We have missed you. Let's try to get caught up. ** On the "big decision" front, we have decided to invest in a small home-shop/studio for Marcela. She spent weeks on the web and on the phone getting prices, comparing shipping rates and quality. Her first press, an antique, arrived broken and had to be sent back for a refund. This is her second book press, 180 pounds worth of cast iron and grease. She also found a used board cutter in Canada for a very good price and a new nipping press, hand made out of maple. A beautiful piece. She has work already, although not enough to make her comfortable, yet. At night, now, like when we were in Buenos Aires six years ago, she sits up in her smock late at night and slowly caresses the dirt off of fading lithographs. She stands and looks for long stretches; how should this repair proceed? What do the tears and smudges tell me? There is a rhythm there that suits her. The work will come. She was contacted by Eckerd's Art Director to act as a consultant on a book arts independent study that one of his students will be doing this Winter Term. We will look for a house with ample space to build a real workshop. Our minds are made up about this. Our hearts are set. We are certain. ** It is every parent's prerogative to feel boastful about their children and so we do with ours. Our gifted daughter Maxim continues to astound us. She has taken to the camera and snuck almost a hundred shots in the past few weeks, mostly a series of beautiful portraits of her brother, who loves to be photographed. She has learned the fundmentals of reading and is quite skilled and will be joining the first graders during reading time after the holidays. She misunderstood when Miss Wester told her what was going to happen and so she came home believing that she was being promoted to the first grade half-way through kindergarten. She was disappointed to learn the truth. In late November, just before Thankgiving, she played a little girl in the party scene of the Nutcracker. Long rehearsals for a couple of weeks leading up to the show, but a very professional production from the participants point of view; we knew what they wanted her to do and when and how to help get her ready; a sharp contrast with the experience we had in Massachusetts. She really liked getting all dressed up and she especially enjoyed seeing all of her friends in the audience during the second afternoon matinee. ** Noah Manuel is more of a character every day. He came from school today telling Marcela, "I asked Mrs. Daughtry if she knew Templeton {the rat in Charlotte's Web which we are now reading at bedtime}. And she said she didn't." There was pause. "I told her that's ok." He asked me a few weeks ago, "Daddy, where do... what are the... how do dreams go?" He asked Marcela a few week earlier where his thoughts went when he wasn't thinking them. He's an interesting boy. Very gregarious at times, engaging in long conversations with perfect strangers. He does seem to believe everyone is somewhat interested in the things that have happened to him that day, this week, since moving to Florida. He is still very much enamoured of superheroes, especially Spiderman and Batman. And he was for some time convinced that Troy Cott, one of the other Daddys among the parent set at Eckerd, actually HAD a Batman cape with which he could actually fly. This was one the tidbits he shared with people, perfect strangers, for quite some time. "My friend Troy is Batman, and he has a cape and he can fly!" He doesn't seem to be boasting, so much as offering them a chance to be part of such exciting company. When he was in Maynard he used to recite, "I love my Mommy, and I love my Daddy, and I love my sister, and I love myself!" and then give himself a big hug. I would not call him arrogant, however, but rather full of self esteem. ** For myself, it has been quite an adventure this semester. I survived. I think I even taught a few young adults a few things they didn't know they wanted to learn. I have a stack of final papers and exams to grade and I will be able to put my first semester on the tenure track behind me. I sidestepped a few unmarked mines and I think I managed to salvage a class on its way to the bottom of the north Atlantic. Time will tell, as evaluations get passed out in January. I shift my own energies from the frenzied hurry of one class to the next to the more gradual pace of house and family and book about mining. I am, without too much extra emotionalism, proud of myself. This was what I wanted. And now I have it. Life is wonderful sometimes; persistence and steadiness towards a goal, it turns out, is the best gamble.