Member-only story
The Age of Unfairness
Our daughter Q led us across the road from her dorm, then down an opening in the trees where the concrete underfoot had long been split by oak roots, which curved gently down into a wooded path that followed the Mill River. It was late November and most of the leaves had fallen, but the tall trees still looked dignified as trees do. We walked for a few miles, talking about next semester’s classes, when and where she might study abroad, what she has enjoyed eating lately and with whom, how she likes to check out a Mary Oliver book from the campus library and read poems on the log we just passed.
This is exactly why we were visiting Q — to get out of the noise and compression of New York, to walk in the quiet woods, to be on either side of our daughter and talk a little about everything but mostly about nothing. She goes to Smith, an all-women’s college in Massachusetts that has generated uncountably many firsts for women and one that attracts students concerned about the inescapable problem of being a person in the world, particularly a marginalized one. She chose Smith because of its special intersection of place and purpose, and though she is only starting her second year, she has found a home for herself that didn’t seem possible in New York, a city rich in place but also in people and the noise they make.
