After three busy days, I finally have a free morning. There is a stack of items on my cedar chest waiting for mending. I retrieve my sewing kit and pull out the collection of threads. Threading the tiny needle is a challenge. I switch to a bigger one. As I make each stitch, I am struck by the quietness of this activity and how antiquated it seems. I was taught this by a generation that has passed. Most would simply throw away these ripped items. Perhaps, I should be doing that myself. Instead, I am enjoying the motion of the needle through the material, how it pushes through and then loops around, closing the gaps. Everything seems so different than the way it was when I grew up. When I told my students about riding my bike through a narrow path in the pine woods, or imagining things as I played outside in my backyard, creating my own inner world, they looked at me with wistful faces and said, “We want to have that, too.”