Res Gestae

Res Gestae is Latin for “things accomplished.” It is a term that is used to commemorate all the good deeds that Caesar Augustus accomplished while he lived and reigned in Rome. I used it here to talk about what I did while I was on leave in August. I had not expected Michigan to be so very beautiful; so very green. It was not a typical August since the weather was cool with a perfect mix of rain and sunshine. After nearly two years in the desert, I now noticed what a green place the American Midwest is. It is such a fruitful, fertile land. It was like being in a dream, really—a very good dream. As I wandered with my children among the dunes and woods of the Midwest, I couldn’t help but think of a few of my favorite lines from Wordsworth’s Tintern Abby. I have always believed that the ‘presence’ mentioned here is not only the living spirit of nature but also metaphorically his own sister who is with him exploring the landscape not far from Tintern Abby:

A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,*
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.