When Jackie Kim Chappel left Hawaii for college in the east, she was leaving more than the island lifestyle behind. For her own mental wellbeing, she severed ties from her mother and started exploring all the different ways she could be in the world. An eventual return to Hawaii brought her back in touch with her mother but under circumstances she didn't anticipate. Find out how recognizing who someone can and can't be for you can help bring clarity to who you are and what your purpose is.
When Jackie Kim Chappel left Hawaii for college in the east, she was leaving more than the island lifestyle behind. For her own mental wellbeing, she severed ties from her tiger mother and started exploring all the different ways she could be in the world. She was happy reading and writing and researching and started a career in marketing. The New York life wasn’t hitting all the marks and her eventual husband moved back to Hawaii, so she found a job in media planning and research back home. Once there, she eventually decided to reach out to her mother again but found that what she’d chalked up to their personal differences actually went much deeper. Her mother’s mental health diagnoses changed not only her perspective but the way that she would navigtate her own life.
In this episode, find out from Jackie how recognizing who someone can and can't be for you can help bring clarity to who you are and what your purpose is … on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Jacquelyn Kim Chappel is a writer, teacher, and researcher who lives in Honolulu. She earned her Master’s in Literary studies and PhD in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and now teaches Composition and Developmental English at Kapiolani Community College. Jackie also serves as a supervisor for teacher candidates at Leeward Community College and is active in many other support and advocacy organizations. And, of course, she is still in formation.
For another story about how revelations about our parents can affect our own adulthoods, listen to our episode with Jonathon Stewart.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Jacquelyn Chappel: So she was a tiger mom, and this was before the term existed, so I couldn't, I didn't yet know, I wasn't able to make sense of it. She was always very tough on me, you know, and I wasn't able to make sense of it in my mind. We just didn't get along. That was it. And so during college, I actually wasn't in contact with her. Okay. I just couldn't deal with it.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: When Jackie Kim Chappel left Hawaii for college in the east, she was leaving more than the island lifestyle behind. For her own mental wellbeing, she severed ties from her mother and started exploring all the different ways she could be in the world. An eventual return to Hawaii brought her back in touch with her mother but under circumstances she didn't anticipate. Find out how recognizing who someone can and can't be for you can help bring clarity to who you are and what your purpose is on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today I'm here with Jackie Chappel and we are going to talk about relationships and finding understanding in them when they sometimes don't seem like they're understandable. So, Jackie, thank you so much for being here.
JC: Thank you for having me, for inviting me, yeah.
LJR: All right, so I start this the same way with all of my guests, and I ask two questions and they are these: When we were in college, who were you and when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think he would become?
JC: Yeah. So interesting. The first question is, who were you in college? I feel like that's so complicated because I was a different person like every year. [LJR: Yeah.] Yeah. No, I think, you know, I was super idealistic super intellectually curious, super energetic person. I think I wanted to, you know, I think I didn't understand like, that there were only so many things you could do in a day. But you know, like realistically, there's only like five things max you can do in a day. And I didn't really understand that yet. Yeah, I don't know. And then who did I, who did I think I would become? So yeah. When I left, you know, I didn't really, I was still very much exploring. I feel like my time at Dartmouth was about exploration and I was not done exploring. And so I definitely felt like I still had a lot of learning to do. I still needed to learn about the workplace and what the opportunities were out there. I didn't really know, oh, this is what I'm gonna do. You know I thought I would go into some kind of marketing or publishing type of industry and just, and I still needed to figure out what those industries were all about.
LJR: Okay, so let's go back a little bit though, because who you were at Dartmouth was probably early on at least informed by who you had been before college.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
LJR: So where were you coming from? All of the kind of first glimpses of, of who you might be when you're not who you already are.
JC: Yeah. So okay. So I need to tell you about my parents.
LJR: It all starts there, doesn't it?
JC: So what ended up happening, For me, and obviously the story's not done yet. Right. We're all still in formation. But like I always got along with my dad. Okay. He was the emotionally supportive, financially supportive, pretty fairly dependable guy. He was a California surfer dude.
LJR: Okay. That's interesting. You usually don't think of those two things at the same time. California surfer dude and dependable financially set. Oh, interesting.
JC: Yeah. I mean, I knew him later in life. I didn't know the surfer dude as well, but it was still definitely there. But anyway, he was like, I got along with him. Okay? And then my mom was the one, so she was a tiger mom, right. So she had, okay. And this was before the term existed, so I couldn't, I didn't yet know, I wasn't able to make sense of it. So she was always like as a teen…starting from like 11, she was always very tough on me. And I was bigger than her and spoke better English than her. So I was a, I was a hellion of a child. It was not an easy child, and she was not an easy mom, and so we just butted heads and so I did not get along with her. Got along with the dad, did not get along with the mom. But in the end, So, okay. I'll tell you, and I'll tell you in the middle, but in the end, I ended up kind of doing what my mom wanted to do and not my dad. And I actually ended up rejecting what my mom, my dad would've wanted me to do. So explain that one to me. Okay.
LJR: Okay. Yeah. Unfortunately, I am the psychologist, but not that kind.
JC: So anyway, so that was the background. Yeah. And so I didn't, there were years I didn't live with my mom, you know, and I wasn't able to make sense of it. In my mind, we just didn't get along. That was it. And so during college, I actually wasn't in contact with her. Okay. I just couldn't deal with it. I, I couldn't deal with her. I was happy to not have her around. Okay. Because, and then she did write me, I still have the letters she wrote me, and she was trying to be supportive. But I just, I guess just from the past, I just, it was, I couldn't deal with it. She made me feel, you know, as a teenager, you know, like she made me feel bad about myself, and so I hated her. You know?
LJR: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Yeah. You know, and she, she hadn't had an education herself and so she was oftentimes wrong. I did. I, you know, and I was able to kind of call it pretty early, like, mom, you don't know what you're talking about. And I was probably right. So it was, it was, it was a tough situation for both of us. So anyway wasn't in contact with her. And it wasn't until like, you know, a few years after college, I was about 25, that I finally, I finally felt like I was in a place…I had been working a few years. I had met my husband, okay. And I was in Hawaii, and I finally felt like, you know, it's, it's healthy people are in contact with their parents and I should make contact with my mom. And so I think my dad, you know, was able to put me in contact with her and I eventually got in contact with her and so she was doing very badly. So it was then that I found out that she was not just an annoying person and a difficult person, but like actual had severe mental illness.
So I met with the social worker and it was in that moment that he kind of said, you know, oh, your mom has schizophrenia and she has OCD. Yeah. So it was very serious and I think there was another diagnosis in there as well. And then he told me what that was. You know, it means that she has these delusions, these ideas that aren't true. She just makes them up. But she, but she really believes them. And, you know, she's hearing things and she occasionally sees things. And so I was like, right. And so it was like a big aha moment
LJR: Because you could see that pattern as, as long ago, I guess she had started declining, like in high school. When I was in high school.
LJR: But you weren't, you weren't around.
JC: Yeah, I was, I was there and then I couldn't deal with her. And so I lived elsewhere for a while. But for me, the diagnoses are helpful. I know they're stigmatizing for many people, and obviously it is stigmatizing. But like, it was like, oh, oh, that makes sense. So, and she had decompensated, so she was pretty scary at that point. She had just isolated so much.
So, but listen, the, you know, the funny thing is my dad had to tried to communicate this to me, like so in letters to me at Dartmouth, and I've reread them, you know, saying your mother is going bonkers, she's totally lost it, you know? And so he did try to communicate this to me, and I imagine there was a follow up phone conversation where he tried to say something, but I just was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
LJR: Right, right. Particularly then, I mean, I think some of our parlance has changed more recently, but so much of the Oh, she's crazy. Oh, and, and you just put a different altitude on that, like, oh yeah, I know. I've been dealing with that crazy all, all the time. But that's just because we have this relationship or she wants this out of me and I don't want this not, you know, fundamental mental illness…[JC: Yeah.] you know, issues. We just didn't talk about it that way. And so I can imagine how you, you got that letter, you read it with a different lens and you're like, oh, right. I know. Tell me something I don’t know.
JC: Yeah, so, but I mean, I guess it was denial. I mean, I don't know what it is. I eventually, I don't know what it is. It was some type, some type some, anyway, some kind of coping mechanism. I told when I told my sister she had the, so that was an annoying response as well. Cause she was like oh yeah, I've known since middle school. And it was like, well, so she, cuz she had, she was closer. She was closer with my mom. And so it was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I guess you noticed more things. You were closer, but. And I was like, well, why didn't you, why wouldn't you have said anything like what in the world? And she was like, oh, I, you know, I thought it was pretty obvious. So, you know, there's just comedy of errors like miscommunications and like, it's so hard to tell when mental illness begins.
LJR: Right. And I don't know if you know this Jackie, about, do you know how might you had reacted differently toward her if you'd really been taken by the hand early on and said, no, no, no, no. We don't mean this in a theoretical sort of way. This is actually…Here are the diagnoses. And you had heard that earlier. Would that have changed you when you were, let's say, 16, 18, 20? Or did you have to be a little bit older, removed to kind of be able to say, oh, and start showing that empathy?
JC: My goodness. Yeah. I don't know if I 16, I have no idea. I have no idea how I would've responded. They would've been much less stable years I think, 16. Right? I mean, how do you deal with that? You, you start, I don't know, and then I think it, if that had been said to me at Dartmouth, I probably would've started taking classes in that, right? And that would've changed the trajectory of like, my interests and career. And then, yeah. And then a little bit later, 20, oh my gosh, I wouldn't, because 20, you're trying to put, you're trying to find a place to live and trying to, you know, I mean. I was not at already for news like that. I would've definitely just in one, I wouldn't have been able to hear it.
LJR: Yeah. Okay, so let's quickly get to that point. So you're 2021, we're leaving college, you're thinking marketing and because what were you studying? What did you do?
JC: Yeah, so I studied, I ended up studying history and I think I ended up with a minor in Asian studies. I don't know how I didn't end up with a minor in art history. I took so many art history classes. I, the, the skills I had were reading and writing and research, and I was looking for a job in like advertising marketing in New York. And I finally, I was a media planner for a few years there, and then I eventually, things were not great in New York, to be honest, and I finally figured out a way out of there.
I was in San Francisco briefly. You know, and then kind of made my way back to Hawaii. Around this time. I eventually did move back. Brian was in Hawaii, and I didn't wanna do a long distance relationship. I wanted to try this out in real life and see if things would work. And then I had amazingly found a job in media research, okay? So I had done media planning at the ad agencies I was at before I noticed the media research position. I was like, oh, they're doing a little more analysis. That looks, that looks like it's, it's a little bit more fun than the media planning. And, and then I got, I found and got a job in media research in Hawaii. They had, you know, they had a good client roster looked like that's what I was gonna do. But it was…You know, I mean, I was in Honolulu, it was super small, it was like a three person outfit. You know, I was skipping my lunches and, you know, there weren't the glamorous parties of New York and I was staying late, and it was just like, what? Like, this is dumb. Like what am I doing? You know, to write reports on like, you know, views of like McDonald's versus Subway versus, you know, other fast food places. And so it was just kind of like, oh wait, this isn’t me. You know. And then, and then I got a call from a school that I had sent my resume to, like months before. A fancy private school. And so I interviewed with them and they gave me the position. And so the next week I was like standing in front of a group of 15-year-olds, like I know. So it wasn't, so yeah, I jumped ship. I did seek advice from my dad. I did seek advice from my dad. You know, we like walked around campus together. I really, yeah, I was, I was like, I was not under 25 at that point. But I was still seeking advice. He did not say anything. He wanted me to make my own decisions, and of course I jumped ship. [LJR: Okay.] It was probably not the best way to get into education, but it was how I did it. Honestly, if I had started taking like education coursework before I started teaching, I don't know if I would've gotten into it because a lot of the stuff that you read, a lot of the theories are so much more meaningful after you've taught a few years.
Leslie, my dad, like 10 years later or something, my dad would say, you know, I never understood why you left that, you know, media research position to go do teaching. And it was like, what? Like you never, you never said, you know, you never said that you wanted me to do. Of course, I think I understood that cuz he was the business guy. He was the business guy. He wanted me to be financially independent. Like that was his whole goal for me. He would not have wanted me to get into something as unprestigious as teaching.
LJR: I hear that. But what he wanted you to do more than anything was to do what you wanted to do or that you needed to pursue.
JC: That's what, yeah,
LJR: Because he could have said, he could have said, no, this is not for you because you sought that advice. And if he really just wanted you to be financially secure, blah, blah. He would've said, oh, just stay in here. But what he did was knew you enough that you needed to make that decision?
JC: Yeah, I think he, I think he really like held his breath, like, didn't say, you know, cause I was not his first kid. He'd been through this before.
LJR: So was it around that time that you were making this career change when you sought out your mother again?
JC: So the mom, yeah. So the mom came first. At about 25. I saw her again and she was, she was in bad shape. And then, right. And then the social worker had said, you know, listen, there's medication for this. We can just, if you can help her, if you can help us get her on medication, she could gain some insight into her, you know, into her condition and we can solve this problem. And so it was like, yes, we're gonna get in there. I'm…Jackie's gonna swoop in, save the day, get her medicated. How hard could that be? And I can have the mother I always wanted. But getting her medica, Leslie, it's, I'm still dealing. Yeah, I'm still dealing. She's very stubborn. No insight. Okay, so guess how long it took her to get her on medication?
LJR: Oh, I'm not sure that there's gonna be one answer here. I'm gonna go with the first time it took you three years.
JC: It took, so it took seven years. I've gone back to do the math. It was just like never ending and I was just fighting with her all the time and, you know, and like just helping her, which just meant taking her grocery shopping. It just seemed like it was never ending. I got, I, I got guardianship, I got power of attorney, you know, so that if she ever was in a hospital situation, we could force…we could, that was what I was told. You could, you could make those medical decisions for her. Eventually, when she did get into a hospital, I said, I have the power of attorney. We can get her medicated. And they said, oh, your mom doesn't wanna take it. Like, what are you talking about? They just, she wasn't taking it and it's not, I don't know. So eventually one day, you know, I don't know, I guess we had the actual medication there and she like took it. Just on a whim.
LJR: And that did turn the switch to insight for a little bit.
JC: No, she's never had any insight. No, no,
LJR No, no. Okay. So then it's a, it's just been a constant struggle.
JC: So now Leslie, my mom is my tiger mom is a sweet old lady. She still has occasional like paranoia that come out occasionally, but she's mostly a sweet old lady who's suffering from dementia. So the dementia's kind of …
LJR: Mmm. A different issue.
JC: Yeah. And so, but even with the dementia, she, she still has halluc. She, she still has hallucinations. For her other paranoia or her other you know, voices or things that it scares her. She has like a visceral reaction. She's like shocked. But for this one, she's like totally chillax. Like, oh yeah, there's a guy like right there. And I'm the one who's freaking out. Like, what? Like he, she's looking at someone and I'm like, are you looking at, you know, and I, I, you know, I have to believe. So it's a different hallucination she's having there. Anyway, so it, yeah, the saga continues. She's frail now, but she, it's really kind of the best, I guess I've just learned to just stop expecting anything from her. And I'm, and I also understand that like my presence in her life helps her, you know?
LJR: Mm-hmm. I was gonna ask, because I think that's the part where you've mentioned at least one sibling and it seems... it might seem strange to people that you were the one that decided, I'll take the guardianship. I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna go in and, and save this. When you couldn't, you didn't have the time of day for this woman before. Is it kind of that an over counter balancing…
JC: Good? No, good observation. Okay. So at that point, everyone else had, Had cut her out of their life. All of her brothers and sisters were done with her. My dad couldn't deal with her anymore. He had cut her out, and my sister, I think, had cut her out. I think because she was closer, she could deal with this the least. [LJR: Mm.] And so she still, she still can't handle it. She still can't deal with it. I was a little bit more distant from her, and so I have, I think, the emotional distance to kind of come in and say, I don't know. She still angered me. I mean, she still triggered, you know. But I didn't depend on her for something.
LJR: Yeah. And it was almost as though you'd already recognized that she could not be the mom that you wanted her to be early on.
JC: Yes.
LJR: And and now you have a reason for it. Right. And so it's almost like, oh, okay, it's not gonna change and she will instantly become the thing I wanted. Now I just go, oh, she could never have been that. And it wasn't because of me. It was because of these underlying medical things.
JC: You're like, this is like a therapy session now. Okay. No, I'm not. That's not my thing. Okay. So in this upheaval and having this person come back into your life or you getting back into her life, it's also coinciding with having just moved home, changing jobs ultimately. There's a lot going on in your late twenties. Do you have a period of settle? Of like, not, not to settle for something, but settling down of this is, this is the status quo, and I feel like, okay, now I'm finally getting into the groove of who I'm supposed to be.
JC: I mean, my goodness, I guess the status quo in some ways has been like the period after that. You know, like taking care of her, that whole saga, and then getting her hospitalized and getting like, that's been a part of my stabilizing. So Brian, you know, Brian, my husband has been a big part of that.
LJR: Yeah. I mean, one of the first things you said, I don't even know if you remember saying it was, we're always...
JC: We're still in formation.
LJR: We're still in formation.
JC: I hope so. We're not, I mean, we're, you know, we're not elderly yet.
LJR: Well, good. Okay. So let, let's talk about your, your teaching, your writing. I know that you are, do advocacy things. Talk about the whole Jackie now.
JC: Oh, J. Okay. Jackie, now yeah. So during the pandemic, I re I, I, I also kind of reconnected with Dartmouth through DAPA, the Dartmouth, Asian Pacific. American Alumni Association.
LJR: Which is coming full circle to what I also know about you in college that you just skipped right over. You were a big advocate for. Asian American studies.
JC: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. And, and specifically I think Korean studies specifically. Yeah. So now I think the, the issue now for, for students there is Asian American studies, right? Because they have it for all of the other ethnicities, but just not Asian American studies for some reason. But when we were there, there was, I think there was a ground swell of like, there were kind of a lot of Koreans when, when we were there. And honestly like that was kind of, I think one of the things that happened to me there. Like there's this, there's obviously, there's a lot of Asians in Hawaii for sure, but it's more Japanese and Chinese and the Koreans were kind of a minority. It's like, it was like 1% I think in the nineties. And so actually going to Dartmouth and seeing Korean, you know, meeting East Coast Koreans and who are, who are like the best dressed people on campus, like these very posh Koreans and it was like, and just a lot of different Koreans that was kind of a little bit of awakening. I also had the chance to like study Korean and Korean history in Korea. The history department let me do that. And so I met other kinds of Koreans there, Uzbek Koreans, Brazilian Koreans, the sexiest Koreans around. Like all these. And so that was kind of a awakening. I was this biracial Korean being from Hawaii, there's a lot of interracial stuff in Hawaii. And so, yeah, so that was definitely a big part of it. I'm disappointed. You know, I think part of the challenge for Dartmouth is its size. Because it is a mid-size institution in New Hampshire, like it's just difficult to sustain a Korean language program, right? It's cuz you need to be able to have the full program and if you don't have students getting to those upper levels and then graduating, it's just a difficult program to sustain. I actually kind of supported the president's idea to make Dartmouth a little bigger. I don't know how much bigger he wanted to make it, but I, I thought there were some ideas. It definitely would've changed the personality in terms of like relationships, you know, between different classmates, but there were some reasons for it.
LJR: Yeah. So now you've reconnected to that, that side of you and your alumni hood.
JC: Yeah. No, it was so great. It was so great to reconnect, I mean, right. Just reconnecting with people, like all over, in different places, which we, we all did during the pandemic, you know? So now, so I teach at a community college in Central Oahu, and I work with students with amazing stories of different ages. And so the, the personalities I get to work with on a daily basis are pretty incredible. I have some special needs students, adult special needs students in my classrooms. You know, it's a very, it's a very different world from Dartmouth. But it is you know, super eye-opening and it's, it's great to be able to like connect with those communities. And I do feel like it has purpose. You know, like, I guess more than, yeah…so listen, some of the, you know, some of the work that I do, like, you know, as a media researcher, I was just designing surveys, collecting data, writing report, you know, so what I do now for some of my studies are not that different, right? I'm designing surveys. But the, but I guess the, the nature of the questions I'm asking and the purpose behind it is a little different. And I guess for me, just the story that I had, I just needed something a little more. I don't know.
LJR: That sense of purpose. You certainly have found it within the work world. I would contend that you've found it with kind of ease, not easing in at all, to a caregiving role, being plunked into a caregiving role where you had a lot of purpose in driving what was gonna be ultimately the best for your mom. If you went back to that, let's call her 19, 19-year-old Jackie on campus, not affiliated with mom, not really knowing what the next steps were gonna be. And you told her this whole story, what would she say?
JC: Whoa. Wait, what you, I told my 19-year-old self of everything that was gonna happen?
LJR: Would she think you've gotten out on the other side with purpose?
JC: I don't know, night. So sophomore year I was like, I had a dark cloud hanging over my head. I was…sophomore year was a bummer for me. Was the weather like, did we have a bad storm that year or something?
LJR: I think we had a bad year. Yeah. I was crying all the time Sophomore winter. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I have a picture of me in a blue bathrobe just like wrecked. Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Okay. Yeah. I, so yeah, sophomore year was like, freshman year was, I had a great time. And then sophomore year I was just like, the, the fun had kind of worn off. Yeah. Well, I don't, I don't know. I don't, I was, I don't know if I would've listened to anything. I was so cocky and so yeah, I don't know.
LJR: So it took, Jackie, coming back home. And having this, forging this new relationship or being in a different role with your mother, really like you came in as a different person and had to assume this role of almost parenting really to find who you were going to be in this, in your adulthood, right? So, Have those aspects of like setting up your life in Hawaii are almost around this caregiving role changed the way that you really thought about the work that you do or about the other choices that you make in any demonstrable way? Can you…
JC: Y ou mean about my, my career and work?
LJR: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. No, I mean, I think it forced me to like the…I wasn't gonna be able to do advertising while I had a schizophrenic mom. Like I just needed to do something a a little bit more meaningful. And so the conversations that I do have in the classroom with my students are more meaningful. You know, whether it's, whether it's about the text that we're reading, which are gonna be selected cuz they have some kind of meaning or, or the student stories themselves. And then, you know, Right. The, all of that is, is just more meaningful to me.
LJR: And do you think you're gonna write this story at some point?
JC: Leslie, if you, so here's the other thing. So I've tried to, so I've actually tried to write this. So this was like a project I was working on during the pandemic. And Leslie, I'm not a storyteller. Like, so I've taken so many creative writing classes at different, many different places. And they, you know, they don't teach you craft. They don't teach you…Nowhere that I've taken it have they just taught you taught about like character? I don't know. I guess they do character building, but like, I don't know how to tell the story. Isn't that crazy? Like, great this, it has to, the stakes have to go up. If so, if you know someone.
LJR: I think, right. Okay. So I think we're gonna get you a great either a great storytelling teacher or a great ghost writer. Because what I actually think is you are still in this story, and it's hard to tell when you're in it. Because the stakes are already so high and the characters are so complex. And how do you make them feel realistic when if you wrote them to the letter of how they were, no one would believe it. And so maybe that's it…Just you need time. And as you said, we are, we're still in progress, so maybe this story is still in progress and we're,
JC: We're not springing chickens either. We're not chickens either, like
LJR: Well, I think that you've lived a billion lives it feels like, in the short time that we've been here. So just thank you so much for sharing this bit of it with us. We will definitely be eager to hear the next few chapters whenever they come out. So thank you.
JC: Yeah. Nice to meet you, Leslie.
LJR: That was Jacquelyn Kim Chappel, a writer, teacher, and researcher who lives in Honolulu. She earned her Master’s in Literary studies and PhD in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and now teaches Composition and Developmental English at Kapiolani Community College. Jackie also serves as a supervisor for teacher candidates at Leeward Community College and is active in many other support and advocacy organizations. And, of course, she is still in formation.
Aren't we all? This show certainly is. We've been delighted with the number of listeners who have been with us as we've been finding our way. Please continue to track our growth by finding all our episodes at RoadsTakenShow.com and following or subscribing wherever you find your podcasts. We look forward to bringing you more great stories with my guests and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on Roads Taken.