The writer -- forced into a seemingly endless series of student conferences and reading a seemingly endless pile of student poems and stories and essays -- sacrificing herself. Maybe there’s no getting around the exhaustion part of it all. At least, maybe, we can be tired but respected.

We can try to keep realizing westward, but unfortunately, some things are simply finite. Would that the ownership of property — of land, of moving water — were as simple as what “Why Rent?” ads or political rhetoric about home ownership imply.