"The people we love are built into us. Every day I am suddenly aware of something someone taught me long ago—or just yesterday—of some certainty and self-awareness that grew out of conflict with someone I loved enough to try to encompass..." May Sarton, The House by the Sea #SundaySarton

I can't stop thinking about this quote from Arundhati Roy's recent memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me. “All personal achievement comes with a sense of foreboding. On the occasions when I am toasted or applauded, I always feel that someone else, someone quiet, is being beaten in the other room.”

This looks fabulous.

A poem and love letter to trees. How they sustain us, teach us, and point us to those holy thin places. open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

#SundaySarton "Because I am thinking so much about the past these days I have come to see that the past is always changing, is never static, never 'placed' forever like a book on a shelf. As we grow and change, we understand things and the people who have influenced us in new ways." (p. 95)

#SundaySarton “I spent the night at Carol & Jim Heilbrun’s, in their spacious old apartment on Central Park West … As we sat & talked, I felt perfect happiness & accord … glanced now & then at Duncan Grant‘s self-portrait on one wall & Vanessa Bell’s self-portrait over the mantle.“ (p152)

"Reply all" people are the worst.

Reflections on the allure of the sea and the journals of May Sarton open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb... #SundaySarton

I really enjoyed the film adaption of Remarkably Bright Creatures starring Sally Field. It's on Netflix.

“It is essential that true joys be experienced, that the sunrise not leave us unmoved, for civilization depends on the true joys, all those that have nothing to do with money or affluence—nature, the arts, human love.” May Sarton, The House by the Sea #SundaySarton

How to Be a Poet at the Beach - some words on creativity, longing, midlife, and the restoring power of water open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

So angry at how much time I am having to waste building a case that a student has submitted an AI generated paper. It was so much easier when they cut and pasted from the internet. ah, the good ole days.

After this semester, I think I'm going to have to drop the research paper requirement in my music history course. Even with scaffolding built in, I get AI or the old fashioned Britannica heist now from many students. So frustrating

If you were having students create a website for a project (but not publish it), what free service would you use? I have been using Weebly, but students are not loving it. #academicsky

Thank you to everyone who has spoken kind and supportive words to me during my mother's long illness. She passed on Thursday. I felt the need to write down an inventory of what was in her room when she died, the sparseness of what is necessary.

I’m in this terrifying and beautiful liminal space as my mother is transitioning to life eternal. It feels like keeping vigil, a mysterious place in the dark waiting for the light. The Burial Service from the Book of Common Prayer says it best: “In the midst of life we are in death.”

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

I accidentally hit delete on that annoying email. Oops. [That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.]

When you're listening to an audiobook thriller that is so good that when you pull into the work parking lot you don't know who you are or what you do

Watch a remake of Little House on the Prairie? My Gen X self says nope, nope, and triple nope.

I'm chairing a search for a full-time, tenure track position in theatre. The details are here. milligan.edu/job/assistan... #academic

I am looking for beauty and peace wherever it can be found, and for me, the poetry of Mary Oliver and the piano music of Amy Beach are great starting points. #poetry #music #Classicalmusic #Academic #musicstudies open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

“We become what we have loved.” May Sarton, A World of Light #SundaySarton

"Clutter is what silts up exactly like silt in a flowing stream when the current, the free flow of the mind, is held up by an obstruction...In the end what kills is not agony (for agony at least asks something of the soul) but everyday life." #SundaySarton

I'm dressed for the weather I want. In other words, I'm freezing.

Evidently I thought the answer to my problems and existential dread was purchasing several cute pencil cases. It's hard to argue against office supplies.

Frost victim #SundaySarton

If you have 3 minutes of reading time, my poem “Life Support” is in conversation with my micro short story “Reincarnation. And the question they seek to answer is—”What do what we choose to display and what we choose to discard say about us? open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

"It is harder than it used to be because everything has become speeded up and overcrowded. So everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow cycles of nature, is a help." May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude, #SundaySarton

"Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and some pure foolishness." May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude, #SundaySarton

Friends, I usually have 1 pickle spear with my lunch, but with the state of the world, it's a 2 pickle day.

I'm quite disgruntled about how the Scarpetta show is written. For better or worse, I have stayed with that book series all these years and have a real affinity for the character, which they have trashed.

I'm re-reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I needed the beauty and purity of it in these distressing times. Her essay about the gift of strawberries is still so profoundly meaningful that I have to keep pausing.

Grief is the kind of thing that can hit you at unexpected times and knock you flat. I was getting the tax documents together to file on behalf of my parents, and I got overwhelmed. Eldercare is so hard.

Post your favourite "Lord of the Rings" character. Wrong answers only.

Be the kind of person that your neighbor doesn't have to plant a row of evergreens to block your awfulness.

I'm at the point in the semester when I'm so tired that I had to consider this morning whether I had the bandwidth to fool with a scarf.

I'm really struggling to cope with my anger. Our country feels irreparably ruined.

A devotional for Lent. I hope the search for nourishing water feels apt to you in these times when we are not only dried up of hope but the world is burning down. #Lent open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

I'm having a wild Saturday night grading. #academicsky

This is a wonderful framework for doing what we need and want to do while being compassionate to our human selves. tiliaeditorial.com/sustainable-...

"The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives." Audre Lorde

I invite you to read my reflection about what it means to give yourself and others permission to be authentic. And if you've ever felt the need to scream in the car, my poem is about that, too. #poetry open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb...

Two violinists secretly pine for each other. Fiddled Rivalry

I'm excited that my chapter "Music as Hope" has released in @oxfordunipress.bsky.social The Oxford Compendium of Hope, a cross-disciplinary collection of hope scholarship from over 70 scholars across fourteen disciplines. And it's Open Access. #Academic global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Deer prints in the snow

I'm excited to have my poem "Visions" published in Corporeal. I hope it is an honest look at the aging of bodies and places, of beginnings and endings. open.substack.com/pub/kelliedb... #poetry #writersky

Tackling my inbox. Send good vibes and pet pictures. Airlift cookies.