About
| There’s something magical about familial ground – a place where each tree, each bend in the road, conjures up a communal past, a spot from which to draw a sense of security and personal history.
I’m Nancy Coppola. This photo shows my cottage garden, my summer sanctuary in the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence River. Our cottage is very close to the small village where I lived as a child and grew up, so this place feels like familial ground. I created this social media site because I want to connect with current students and alumni of the graduate program in professional and technical communication that I lead at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Our master of science degree program is completely online, and has been for ten years; it too needs a communal place, a spot from which students and graduates might draw a sense of security through the community of others. |
At Least. I want to get up early one more morning, before sunrise. Before the birds, even. I want to throw cold water on my face and be at my work table when the sky lightens and smoke begins to rise from the chimneys of the other houses. I want to see the waves break on this rocky beach, not just hear them break as I did all night in my sleep. I want to see again the ships that pass through the Strait from every seafaring country in the world- old, dirty freighters just barely moving along, and the swift new cargo vessels painted every color under the sun that cut the water as they pass. I want to keep an eye out for them. And for the little boat that plies the water between the ships and the pilot station near the lighthouse. I want to see them take a man off the ship and put another up on board. I want to spend the day watching this happen and reach my own conclusions. I hate to seem greedy-I have so much to be thankful for already. But I want to get up early one more morning, at least. And go to my place with some coffee and wait. Just wait, to see what’s going to happen. Carver, R. (1986) |
