Moojinorbit

What recurring life experience makes you feel the most content, like everything is more than fine?

For me it’s knowing that there’s a lot of TIME stretched out ahead of me. Like the first morning of a two-week vacation. The first day of summer after I’ve turned in all my grades and finished all the last details. When I pick E. up from the airport knowing we have five whole nights together.

I suppose it’s that sense of space at the beginning of something rich. I loved the first day of college because I just knew I was going to love every minute of it, and I’d have four whole years of it. What an incredible experience of bounty, of Yellow Brick Road. And looking back, four years of pretty much having all my financial, intellectual, spiritual, physical needs taken care of was absolute bliss, regardless of the 18-21 year old drama I manifested as I figured out who I was. (Thanks, Mom and Dad.) I love the feeling of something good not being capped for awhile. Remember the first night we were down in Akumal, Mexico, for Wendy & Linda’s party, knowing we had nothing but sand, sea, sun, food, and adult beverages ahead of us for the next 8 days? Pure heaven.

So, school starts up again today, and this first week is First-Year Orientation, when the 18 year-olds are having their bliss (or freak out) at the beginning of four years, and faculty schedules are stretched as thin as saltwater taffy. It’s a crazy four days, topped by an 8-hour field trip we each put together at the end of it. I’ve teamed up with a colleague’s class and we decided to keep it simple: a nature walk in Boulder, followed by lunch for 30 and an afternoon strolling the Pearl St. mall. But I’ll be exhausted after that bus ride home, let me tell you. Then Jules drops in for two days. Then school starts bigtime on Monday, and I’m teaching that extra class so I can be free of teaching during Winter quarter and try to get two books out.

The point is, even though I do mostly love my job and appreciate how lucky I am, the first day of Fall quarter is shadowed by the opposite of my happy feeling: the sense that time is running, or has run, out. It’s the end of the three months I had with the smaller teaching load (only those 3 intensive weeks I had in July). The end of being somewhat distanced from the madness of running between classes, chasing constant deadlines, trying to stay a half-step ahead of email, reading papers, grading, going to meetings, and always feeling behind or like I’ve forgotten something. The end of all the play I squeezed into August (even while chasing a couple deadlines). Back to juggling all the balls. Time’s up.

Time’s up time is the night before E. has to get back on the plane, the last night of vacation, the night before graduation. Time’s up is Sunday. Time’s up makes me sad.

The bright side is that summer’s almost over and Autumn is by far my favorite season. There is resistance before things start, but by midday today I’ll be back in it. And plenty to look forward to: months of cooler nights, just around the corner. Months of trees turning color and light fading into cozy evenings with a blanket tucked around me. The beginning of the year for me, the start of new things. 

Sigh.