Today’s newsletter begins:

It’s back to school season here in Austin. We dropped our youngest off at fourth grade this week and walked our firstborn to middle school. How is this possible? I’ve been keeping my mind off the inexorable passage of time by putting the finishing touches on a book proposal and carving stamps from Pink Pearl erasers. (I have always loved shopping for school supplies. If you need a little retail therapy, here’s a list of the gear I use in the studio.)

I named it after an old eastern saying that I can’t quite pin on anybody specific: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”