Most of contemporary life looks to reason and calculation, the quantifiable and meritorious. When weighty decisions loom, we divide our thinking into pros and cons, consider impact and probability. We are products, still, of the Age of Enlightenment. And with good reason (pun intended). Humanistic inquiry and critical thinking produce well-rounded, informed perspectives—in life, leadership, and I might say, sometimes in love…

Last spring, some weeks after surgery, my friend A-M and I visited the Baltimore Museum of Art to view an exhibition on Joan Mitchell. I was still using a walking cane and bored with making rounds through the kitchen, TV room, and library. Despite the blanket of wool and pain relievers beneath which I slept, I wrestled with various anxieties—personal, professional, political—a “three-P cocktail” guaranteed to induce Gloria Swanson-like swooning. My husband, ever a patient caretaker, more than deserved a break …

Fear and beauty make odd bedfellows.

So I wrote in March of 2020 as Covid-19 spread across the globe and everything turned upside down and inside out. I remember the incongruity of a lone magnolia bush on a cobalt blue day: though I admired the magenta petals and budding shoots, they felt dissonant in the face of so much death and unknowing.