Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Every summer when I was a kid, my family went sailing for two weeks along the coast of Maine. I was a bad sailor&rsquo;s daughter. I resented the days spent miles offshore. I wanted to explore the archipelagos strung out across the bay like skipping stones, snorkel in the green and rust seaweed for lobsters hiding in the rock shelf. I loved the pine trees and osprey nests on the islands too small to house families, and the weathered general stores, ice cream stands, and lobster shacks on the larger islands north of Castle Bay.
My sister, Kate and I, picked purple sea heather and tucked it into our hair. My father called us princesses of New England. 
Kate and I have since grown up and moved to cities far from the craggy coast. Kate lives in Brooklyn and is studying for a Ph.D. in philosophy. She&rsquo;s also a poet. Over the past year, we have spent days sitting on her blue couch, trying to figure out what we&rsquo;ll do with our lives. It sounds melodramatic, but when your sister is a philosopher, these are the questions you ask. What is the purpose of life? What makes it meaningful? What is success? How will I pay my student loans?
As a smart woman in a male-dominated field decidedly lacking in poets, Kate says sometimes feels it is her duty to blaze trails. I have no idea what I will do. Be a lawyer? That sounds impressive. Publishing mogul? Maybe we should be professors, high-powered academics carving a place for women&rsquo;s voices. Late at night, when we are overwhelmed by the future and what success might be, there is another option. &ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;ll just quit grad school and move to Maine,&rdquo; Kate says.
&ldquo;Be the Lupine Lady?&rdquo; I say.
&ldquo;Yeah. And you move down the road.&rdquo;
I don&rsquo;t remember when I first found Barbara Cooney&rsquo;s Miss Rumphius. My mother says she found it in the public library. I always thought we picked it up on a sailing trip from one of those take-a-book-leave-a-book marina libraries. What I do know is that Alice Rumphius has shaped my philosophy on life more than I often admit.
For those of you who do not know Alice Rumphius, she grew up in a city by the sea with her grandfather, a painter and world traveler who told her stories of his adventures. One conversa