I’m not sure I’ve ever had a more satisfying day of teaching than I had today – and much of it had to do with the weather. It was the brightest of spring days, with a sky of luminous blue and a soft breeze blowing, and so I held all of my classes outside in the garden beside my classroom. The students and I sat in a circle in the sunshine as we went through our English duties, and I think we all felt fortunate to be right where we were. An emerging garden on an exquisite spring day is not a bad place to be when learning about the fine points of writing and reading. I recall looking across the circle at one of my students as the sunlight was flowing across her face, and thinking that this was a little paradise I was in. Not only was it a beautiful scene to contemplate, but she and her classmates seemed to be better students than ever in that open-air classroom. Their attentiveness was sharp and steady, and their comments were as bright as the day was. Toward the end of each class, we took an “English class stroll” around the campus, just meandering and talking about one thing or another. We had been studying a poem in which the poet spoke of “strolling” as a away of getting in touch with important qualities of life, and so I guess that’s what we were doing. In the midst of their harried days as students, it was good for the kids to simply amble along for a few minutes, just taking pleasure in the fine weather and each other’s company. I walked in the midst of them, feeling ever so grateful for this life that’s been given to me.