A photo and some memories from each month of 2025.
January
January brought the first snow we’ve seen since we moved to South Carolina. The twins first ever and the first E remembers. The snow was a highlight. I don’t remember much of January other than feeling very dark of soul. The holidays do a number on the kids and there isn’t enough sunshine. It was the first time I considered I might get seasonal affective disorder. The rigors of raising two 1-year-olds and a 4-year-old was a lot, especially without much outdoors time.
February
The caprices of February weather allowed the occasional outing and even some bike rides—the greatest mood enhancer of all. By February the Spring semester is well in hand and things start to feel normal in a good way. The girls are not yet two and can still be challenging. Even the best days leave us utterly exhausted, collapsing onto the couch right after bedtime.
A round of deep faculty cuts is announced at the end of the month. They are delivered in a way that seems, from the outside, cruelly calculated to be hurtful and encourage gossip. My position remains for now but faculty morale is at its lowest point in the three years since this turmoil began.
March
Winter is short in our southern state. Spring approaches and as we return to daylight savings time we are greatly restored by daily time outside. Usually a bike ride before or after dinner to one of the nearby parks.
The girls turn two at the end of the month. The blurring speed of the past two years is overwhelming. Slowing that time and attending to the unrelenting passage of moments that is their lives becomes a focus. I turn off my iphone and switch to a tiny little phone that barely works for anything. David Whyte said in an interview that “the only way to change the past is the quality of attention we give to the present.” I’ve spent the last two years depressed and frustrated. This is the biggest change I’ve made so far.
I attend our Ash Wednesday service alone. My dear friend George (who we call St. George behind his back, he is that kind of person) is there and we sit together, then kneel side-by-side on the hardwood floor while the Litany of Penitence is read over us. George is beginning the final stage of his life and I’m finishing my beginning, somewhere between youth and middle age. Together we confess and two years of struggling starts to come undone.
April
April is brightness and light. The last cool days are behind us but the heat of summer is far off. Evenings stretch long and we ride far almost every day. On Good Friday I see the first hummingbird of the season.
On Easter the girls wear their dresses and get mosquito bites hunting eggs. Everything is new for them and it will be again next year. We pick the first weedy flowers from the yard to add to the cross on the church steps. Family dinner in my brother’s back yard for good eating.
May
May begins at the end of the school year and ends at the beginning of summer. On its first day I perform a concerto I’ve been preparing a full year. It goes well and I’m ready for new projects. The school year ends in yet more uncertainty. The brand new president has resigned before his first year is up and for the third year in a row we do not know who the president will be when we return in August.
We end the month with a road trip to my hometown to visit my parents. The kids go to Knoebel’s for the first time. (If you aren’t from central Pennsylvania I can’t adequately explain to you the hold this place has on my heart). Watching my kids ride the rides I grew up on is the happiest I’ve ever been as a father.
June
Our roadtrip pushes into June with a stop in Virginia to visit my sister. We spend a day in Washington D.C. seeing the Natural History Museum (which blows my oldest’s mind). The kids tolerate a walk through the national gallery while we catch up with an old friend and we all eat lunch together at Carmine’s. Slowly, a new phase of parenting is starting to unfurl.
July
I help lead a study abroad trip to Latvia and Estonia. As a lifelong Arvo Pärt devotee this is something of a personal pilgrimage. We spend five days each in Riga and Tallinn, feeling like the only American tourists there with perfect weather, endless sunlight, and a comfortable food budget. S and I walk along the shore of the Baltic sea until it feels like we’re the only people in the city and the cold north wind will blow forever.
Our last day in Estonia we sat on the ground in the rain with 100,000 people while a choir of 35,000 sang folk songs and other music important to the Estonian national identity. It defied my wildest ideas of what is possible in a culture.
August
The summer ended with our first real family beach trip with two of my brothers. This involved nine children eight and under, including two sets of toddler twins. Once they all get comfortable with the idea of sand it is raucus digging, splashing, and shell collecting the rest of the day. Between the other adults and cousins there is always someone around to help.
Faculty in-service arrives and the long summer is over. My fourth year (and fourth university president) of full-time teaching begins. I have a confidence in my returning courses I never have before, plus the excitement of launching a brand new course that I believe in.
September
September is a month of habits. The school year is settled but not worn out. The kids are used to new routines but still freshly amazed by every new day of day care or co-op. The weather is still a little too hot, but compared to the scorch of July and August we spend the still-long evenings outside riding bikes to the park after dinner and staying until bedtime. The energy stored up during summer break is fueling us with just enough structure to funnel it into an energetic and beautiful life. It is one of the best months of the year, except that a nagging infection takes several weeks for E to get over.
It’s the month I get back to woodworking regularly for the first time since hurricane Helene took my previous shop. Life feels balanced for the first time in a very long time.
October
We enjoy the mildness of October, spending time outside and everyone learning to ride some form of bike. Despite our large grassy backyard, the kids greatly prefer to be in the front. They enjoy watching the traffic and the bugs are’t as bad here.
I play a few concerts that I’ve been looking forward to and submit an enormous portfolio as an application to advance in faculty rank. This project has taken all my spare time for months and it is such a relief to be done with it.
Somewhat on a whim, I reboot my blog after several years and migrate to micro.blog. I’m having fun on the internet for the first time in years.
November
The end of daylights savings hits us hard, but the weather is still mild and we make the most of it. The girls are starting to feel “almost three” and E is on his way to five-and-a-half. There’s a lot of development in those six months.
Ever Since Halloween the kids are obsessed with holidays and count down the days to Thanksgiving. I’m off the whole week and we have a perfect family time together. All my performances for the semester are over along with the bulk of the school work.
December
Cold weather hits us early this year and comes with rain. We set up our tree and decorate the house. Every day begins with the countdown to Christmas, the opening of the Advent calendar, and E crashing out with anticipation by mid-morning. We light our advent candles each Sunday and the darkness isn’t so dark.
We stagger onward rejoicing.