Good morning from a dining room table in the Sierra Nevada foothills,

I actually wrote a long post the day after Christmas and my computer decided to choke and I lost it. Today is a Sunday, and 11 years ago today on a very cold snowy Sunday morning in Laurim, MI, I received a phone call that my father had passed away. It was a quick moving cancer that took his life. He had only bene diagonosed with it the day after Thanksgiving that year. It was a very cold day and the morning of his funeral a few days later, the wind chill was somewhere between -20 and -30. It was brutal. Today in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Northern California it is sunshining and gorgeous. The sun coming up this morning was spectacular. I am at the wonderful abode of Marco Capelli and Belinda Mehtarian. Marco is the winemaker at Miraflores, where I worked a couple summers ago.

It is hard to believe it is another year come and gone and most tend to think about what has happened. I think I would prefer to think about what might be. Tomorrow I will be in San Francisco at the MLA convention and having some conversations. I have never really been to downtown SF and I will be close to China Town and the wharf. I am not sure what I will do, but I do think I will  be walking the "Streets of San Francisco". Along with that I am thinking about the next semester. Last night I was up reading about 3:00 a.m. and I think I am going to make some significant changes to my 102 class next semester. I should probably be content, but that would be too simple, and heaven forbid I do things the easy way.

It is both exciting and a little frightening to consider the possibilities of the coming year. It is entirely possible there will be no changes in my employment, it is possible I might be in a totally different location in a totally different university and maybe beginning a somewhat different process. Coming back to Placerville, it is easy to think about what has happened. I was speaking with Marco this morning about what gives a sense of place again . . . it is one of those reoccuring themes of my life. What gives me a sense of place here in Placerville is the people and the memories of some wonderful evening get togethers as well as a very nice going away party. It has been Marco’s continuing graciousness and hospitality and Belinda’s sense of grace and care that make coming to Somerset so wonderful . . . and makes me feel like I have come "back".

A few weeks ago I was speaking with one of my colleagues from graduate school. We were talking about the past 10 years and she said, "Michael, you have been in the same place for 6 years. That is a long time for you, I am sure you are about ready to move." I was a little taken back, but then I realized she was correct. It is the longest I have been in one place since I graduated from high school 35 years ago. That is amazing to me.

Today, Belinda’s mother, Penny and her husband, Ron, have driven down from Oregon. It has been a non-stop conversation since we sat together at the table. It has been fun; it is so interesting to see how people get from point A to point B and how they end up where they do  . . .  where will that next place be, or will it be?

I will try to write one more time before the year ends . . . thanks for reading as always.

Michael