My wife, son, and I try to go out to the mountains of western Maryland for a few days every fall. We stay in a cabin – well, sort of a cabin; we don’t exactly rough it, to be honest – and enjoy the changing leaves and the peace. I am a bit of a fall-colors nut, and every year I am apprehensive that when we get there the leaves will not have started to change; every year, however, it’s gorgeous when we get there. My wife and son have fortunately learned to roll with (and laugh at) my nuttiness. The lodge delivers muffins to the cabins, and every morning while we are there, I take a muffin and some coffee onto the porch of the cabin, enjoy the beautiful sounds and sights of nature, and think. Fall semester is always rushed and intense, and this is a chance to decompress and escape. Every year, though, the same odd thing happens. While I sit on the porch and escape and enjoy and think, I invariably wind up contemplating how the semester is going, the texts I have assigned, scholarly projects, etc. Those porch moments are among the most productive and satisfying I have every year, something I neither plan nor anticipate. (Yes, it is fair to ask how in the world I can be surprised by something that seems to happen at the same place at the same time every year...) And I am struck by how rare it is that we have the chance to think. Just to think. I sometimes walk into school, for example, and usually I read while walking. (Needless to say, I am lucky not to have walked, with book in hand and attention in book, out in front of a car.) I need to bring some of the mountains back to Baltimore with me, though, and use those walking opportunities (and many others) to think. Yep, just think. Particularly since there are few things I consider more important for my students than getting them to pause and think. (What’s good for the goose...) Pausing in a college course? More on this in the next couple of days.