When I was in graduate school, Husserl's call “back to the things themselves” was compelling, drawing me into his phenomenological texts and rigorous, if elusive, method. The method promised clarity, a way of cutting through the thick, binding undergrowth that covers the ground of daily life to reveal a clear path. In 1972 when I went back to school, my children were three, seven, and eight years old, and clear paths were well hidden by the debris of sneakers, playdough, and cinnamon toast and interrupted by endless detours to nursery schools, grocery stores, and pediatricians. In those years, when there was a high probability that at any given moment one of the children was either incubating or recuperating from an ear infection, I found Husserl's stance of the disinterested observer, bracketing the natural attitude, a posture to be practiced and mastered.—Grumet (1988, p. 5)
Over the months, as...