I Had a ‘Real World’ Experience Just This Morning
It was clearly outside the ‘academic world,’ which is the definition of ‘real world,’ as I am not an academic and haven’t even really been near one since my school days. Disclaimer: I do edit work by university professors from time to time when they try to worm their way into professional journals, so I confess to a nodding-acquaintance with the academic world. But not this morning.
This morning my experience was clearly real world
It happened at our modest country cottage, some forty miles north of Prague, while I was walking Tenny, our Labrador. As we each meandered down the gravel road, lost in our own thoughts—hers motivated by a nose that knows all truths and mine by the pleasure of a sunny morning—my attention was attracted by a dove on the powerline.
It cocked its head in my direction and cooed rather intimately. I returned the compliment in human language, commenting on how lovely it was and how it had measurably improved my attitude toward the world in general but, specifically…