Saturday Snippets: a Shattering Week, in So Many Ways

There was this moment yesterday morning, before I went to spin class and then to work, when I just felt this overwhelming exhaustion.  Let me record some reflections about this week so that I remember.

--Even though I don't own a Leonard Cohen album or CD, I was saddened to hear about his death.  I probably know more of his music than I realize.  I love the song "Suzanne," which came to me via Neil Diamond, I think.  But "Everybody Knows," which came to me via the movie Pump Up the Volume, has always spoken to my apocalyptic self.

--I expected that my apocalyptic self would make these post-election days more difficult.  But she's been oddly cheerful.  She has seen many dangerous leaders come and go.  She knows that dangerous leaders are sometimes transformative in good ways. 

--My rationalist self worries about those dangerous leaders who leave the earth scorched and scarred.  She's been keeping me awake at night.

--What's been exhausting me the most?  Post-election worries, yes, but also writing.  This has been the week of serious work on accreditation documents.  I've sat with department heads and the campus director, going over these documents line by line.  We changed many a chunk of text, and I've often been the main wordsmith of that revision.

--I'm surprised that I can summon the language of accreditation so easily.  But why does it surprise me?  Granted, it's not the language that I use most often.  When I sit down to write in the morning, I don't usually turn to accreditation documents.  But it's a garment that I can wear when I need to.

--I am happy that in these days of accreditation documents, I still find time to do writing of my own.  I have been inspired by all the poems in the wake of the election, and a bit to my surprise, I wrote one of my own.  Go here to read it.  This morning I worked on some short stories.

--Yesterday I had a cup of coffee, courtesy of my new work.  This may not seem like a big deal to most of you.  My new campus has a Keurig machine, complete with a variety of coffee pods for us.  At my last job, there was discussion of taking away all coffee, but instead, we got coffee for the machine, but no cups.  Our last president bought us a Keurig machine for an employee appreciation week, but we had to bring our own pods.

--It's the end of the second week of work in the new workplace, and I'm happy to say I still feel like I've come to a good place.