David O'Hara

The point is not to get a photo-perfect sketch of the bee on my finger. The point is to see the bee better, to get to know the bee and its relationship to the world. To see the curvature of each leg, and to wonder how they help her to cling to flowers, to find food, to build a nest. To observe the venation of the wing, and to notice how an insect species’ wing veins are like our fingerprints: so similar and yet the small differences make all the difference in species identification. Why is that? (And why are my fingerprints so hard for me to draw?) How do slight differences in the veins affect flight, and wing strength? Sketching with a pencil gives the questions time to arrive, first a few, then a swarm. Why are some antennae long and some short? Why do different species of bees (4000 species in my country alone, 25000 worldwide) have different lengths of “cheek”? How do those small eyes on top of the head relate to the two big eyes? What is bee consciousness like? Why was this one so willing to let me bring my finger near her to give her a ride out of the kitchen and back into the great outdoors? Did she see me and recognize me as another animal? Or did she only see my finger, feel its warmth and its saltiness?

Some years ago I attended a conference on phenomenology. I spoke about invertebrates I had been observing. Afterwards someone came up to me and said everyone here is talking about phenomenology but you seem to be the only one doing it! I’m not sure that’s true, but I do think the pencils and pens change the way I think about phenomenology, and the way I practice it.

Grapes.

Now that my grades are in I’ve got time to tend to my garden. Each year I start seeds indoors and then wait for the semester to end before I can get garden beds ready and get plants in the ground. So thankful for all the perennials I’ve planted over the years: raspberries, blueberries, serviceberries, strawberries, haskaps, apples, peaches, asparagus — and grapes, growing on a new trellis I made from cattle panels.

Firefly

Columbine in my garden.

Lady beetle (part of my phenology observations for the year. This is the first lady beetle I’ve seen this year.)

Bee

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times says that UC faculty want to return to standardized tests because their students lack math skills.

I am sympathetic. Teaching students who lack skills is hard.

It is also the work of those of us who are called to teach, so that makes me a little less sympathetic.

And we should be concerned about more than their lack of math skills. Those are a symptom of something bigger.

If we are concerned about how well or poorly students are prepared for university studies, rather than making this about us, the faculty, we should be concerned about the students well before they arrive at the university.

I would like it if software everywhere would stop asking me if I’d like to use A.I. to read and write for me. This morning my phone offered to summarize a friend’s text (no thank you, I prefer my friend’s voice, and I have time for my friends!) and other software has offered to compose emails and replies for me.

This is like offering to exercise for me.

There are many things I am happy to have machines do on my behalf. Writing is not one of them.

New favorite breakfast place in Santa Fe: Clafoutis. A food historian friend urged me to try the green chile croque madame but I was pleasantly distracted from that goal by the coconut French toast.

Chairs in the Denver airport.

Water.

This beautiful tussock moth caterpillar was outside the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe today. The biodiversity around the building and in its gardens is fitting, given the name of the place. (“Santa Fe” is the short version of “the Royal City of the Holy Faith (Santa Fe) of St Francis of Assisi”.

In town for a funeral of a dear professor and mentor. Stopped by the St John’s College campus to walk the halls once again, remembering times with my advisor here, and still feeling his presence. He died suddenly this spring, unexpectedly, at a young age. I miss him but I’m glad to be gathering with others who share this grief.

The campus is quiet, and even the bookstore and library are closed. Those are two of my favorite places.

So I sat down with my sketchbook and watercolors on the placita and listened to the waterfall and the hummingbirds, and watched the white clouds drift across the sky and over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. And I let myself indulge in some painting, a practice of slow attention, of being present here and now.

Enjoying the stairwell art at my alma mater, St John’s College in Santa Fe.

The sky yesterday, with sun and rain and leafy trees.

Semester is done. Stopped in to grab some books from my office and to meet an alum, then spent fifteen minutes listening to birds in the prairie restoration garden on campus. Not a bad way to spend a few minutes today.

Just got a text from an alum who is about to be awarded her J.D. at Georgetown today. I’m so honored that she took the time to text me and to thank me for teaching her as an undergrad.

She was my T.A. for a semester when she was studying for the LSAT. No, I don’t have funds to hire teaching assistants. Instead, I created an independent study for her, and every week I took her out to breakfast before class so we could strategize how to teach well and how she could learn from the experience. It was a class on “sustainable entrepreneurship,” combining philosophy, ethics, law, and practical problem-solving. She was wonderful. And still is.

And yeah, I might be crying a little right now, with joy and pride at what she had done.

I built these Adirondack chairs six years ago so our campus pastors could meet with students outdoors during the beginnings of Covid. People asked me to paint or stain them so they’d last longer. I made them from cedar so they’d enjoy cedar’s natural resistance to decay, and I told people that I liked the idea of them someday rotting into the ground without leaving the residue of paint.

The chairs were hugely popular, and I have since made many more for our campus. I teach students how to make them, and I share the plans with others who want to build them.

The following year someone bought 25 more plastic Adirondack chairs. Within a year or so all had broken and were thrown into dumpsters because plastic chairs are so hard to repair.

I have occasionally replaced a board on one of the cedar chairs, and I keep making more. The wooden ones continue to be enjoyed by students, faculty, and staff needing a little time in the fresh air.

Each one costs about $60 to build. I donate my time and my tools because I like to do things that benefit the university and that don’t cost the university anything. Someday it would be nice to have funding from the university, sure, but the upside of not having a budget is that I never fear budget cuts!

And I have a lot of fun teaching students how to work with their hands.

I am not sure what this sign is asking for

How it’s going so far today. Books I’ve pulled from the office shelves for my classes today.