A week ago, I turned up my radio to hear IPR over my old Saturn’s various chatterings and began my commute from Mason City. Freshly married and full of the optimism of starting my second year, I was unphased by the added length to my commute brought on by thick fog. Just moments after I left the city limits, a white wing raised up and cut through the grey. I turned to see a pair of trumpeter swans and their little cygnets making their way towards the water’s edge.

Over the past year I’ve come to appreciate the surprising nature of northern Iowa, which I  believe undersells itself. Sure, there’s a lot of soy and corn sweat, but there are also wild turkeys, the males displaying proudly while the females peck on unmoved. Does lick fawns in dewy grass, their legs still too weak to stand. Here and there a hawk atop a pole, an eagle or two flying overhead. Even the calves, tails wagging atop a mound of hay as they bait the others into play. I haven’t even touched the red of dogwoods, the knotted branches of burr oaks, the reeds and the many wildflowers. Don’t get me wrong—there are days, especially around October (new colleagues, you’ll find out soon enough), when the journey seems too long, when the piles of ten-page essays seem to topple over and out of every drawer, when we wonder why we thought all those years of grad school were such a bright idea. Sometimes, on these days, I forget the birds. But some things, like what I experienced last Wednesday, serve as reminders of how lucky I am to do what I love in a place like this.

As the miles brought me closer to Waldorf, the fog gave way to sunlight and I saw something I never knew existed. Over the highway and the fields and wetland preservation areas arched two nested rainbows—only they were white! The fogbows, I’d later learn they were called, stayed the whole drive. Smaller than their raindrop counterparts, the fog droplets of a rainbow diffuse the color until only the faintest blue and red lingers at the edges of the bands of white. After a little windshield wiper action and a suppression of the desire to read too much into the symbolism of this bleached-out flag over Iowa corn, I decided to let myself feel awe.

This is all to say, there will be days we feel befogged, when we’re tired from a late night of grading those last few dozen papers and wake only to brace ourselves for yet another discussion about AI use and academic dishonesty. But then our students will have such a deep discussion that they don’t even notice the time, or they’ll finally laugh at one of our jokes. They’ll come to our offices just to talk or ask to borrow a book we’d mentioned. We’ll see them on stage or on the field and realize just how lucky we are to work with such talented and passionate young people.

I have to admit that I’m tired of the phrases “these uncertain” and “these unprecedented times.” They seem like platitudes and don’t do justice to how we all feel. Some of our students have expressed the same. Like I always tell my creative writers, your role here in this time and this place is as crucial as ever, if not made more so by the tumult and the pace of change. You are witnessing, you are evolving, and you can shape this world with your work, your art, and your words.

I remember the words of Virginia Woolf; “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” What we do here, no matter our disciplines or specialties, is give students the tools to think freely, to imagine, and to create their own futures. That work, no matter how precarious it seems now, remains vital.

Maya Angelou said, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” May we have the courage to model hope, community, joy, and intellectual curiosity for our students—even on the hard days. May we have the courage to hold space for ourselves for and each other. May we look to the rainbows and to the swans.