Dear Davidson College,

I came to visit you recently.  I wanted to see what it felt like to walk the brick sidewalks, to smell the old hallways.  The days I remember best I spent in your musty library gazing out the window...just thinking...and studying.  I had late night conversations with friends while sharing pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream sitting on your benches; it shaped my views and solidified some core of who I am today.  My professors let me ask questions over coffee or in their office, they were never too busy.   When I went to visit last week, I bounded up the stairs of Chambers building to the old auditorium in which I listened to my humanities lectures.  They were my favorite classes.  There I learned the big picture of history and ideas.  All the little pieces started to come together as professors from each department spoke to us.  It was there that I learned what I value most from Davidson College: to love to learn for the sake of learning alone.  My education until that point had been learning to produce, to pass a test, to fill in the writing formula, to get into college.  I had not realized it, but it had always been about the outcome rather than the process.  But at Davidson, my learning went from black and white to color; I learned to love learning.  I read significant writings, worked through pivotal ideas and realized how they had shaped and changed culture, in my chemistry class just as well as in my art history class.  It was the beginning of a new way to live.  Each day a day to learn, from books, from people...And so off I went to medical school.  And then to practice medicine, while still learning, still looking up various diseases, reading articles on new forms of treatment.  And then I became a parent and read even more books; books on child development, books on parenting.
Now I return to visit this warm place in my mind and I am sad to realize there is no real place for me here.  This old house, these relatives have no recollection of me.  Oh, this has nothing to do with age and stage.  There are many my age still welcomed heartily by your college.  It has to do with production.  You see, I took my love of learning and left a professional career to teach five small children.  I wanted them to love the sound of a well-written poem, to observe carefully with their eyes and try hard to draw the lines they see, to learn the truth and order of math as a building block.  I wanted them to love to learn, just as I had learned from you.  To begin their lives knowing that the learning is the thing, not the product.  But without my professional accolades, without a significant income to donate, without a speaking career or published product...I am just a ghost haunting the halls that were once mine.  It seems odd that while learning is cherished in an uncommonly good measure there, just like the rest of academia, production must be valued as well.  I am raising up your children though, another generation to love learning just as you taught me to do. I do wish there was still room for me on the bench.
Sincerely,
Me