Keeping Our Cool on a Hot, Summer Day

How miraculous to have cool air flowing out of the vents again.  I feel lucky that the repair was relatively small and that we could get on the repair roster for a hot Sunday.  The repair person came out, took about 5 minutes to run some tests, replaced the capacitor, and we were back in business.  We paid a bit more because it was a Sunday, but I didn't care--we both have the kind of heavy duty schedule this week that would make it hard to find another day to get it done, which means hanging out waiting for the repair person.

I have other gratitudes too:

--Our house stayed relatively comfortable.  We didn't have AC again until after 2, and the temperature didn't go above 81 degrees.  Hurray for high ceilings and trees that give shade!

--I got a lot done because we were sitting at home waiting, first for the phone call from the repair person to schedule us, and then waiting on his arrival.  I got my grades for one online class turned in, and the next online class is ready to go.

--I managed my anxiety relatively well.  If one must have a problem, an AC problem that's easily fixed is one to have.

--We have a cottage in the back that no one is using right now.  We put the AC way down so that we'd have an escape if we needed it.  It's good to know that the AC still works.

It's not the week-end that I envisioned, exactly, but we were still able to end the day by walking to the marina and sitting on our favorite bench to stare at the boats and the water. 

Saturday and Sunday Sadnesses

Yesterday I was filled with a variety of vague sadnesses:  nothing too debilitating, but they stuck with me.  I started the day by needing to clean up my coffee beverage, not once, but twice.  The first time the mug slipped out of my hand, but it fell into a box of plastic bags that we collect until we take them to the recycling area at the grocery store--so it wasn't as messy as it could have been.  The second time, when I reheated it in the microwave, the coffee in the mug boiled over, and I gave the microwave an overdue cleaning.

To laugh or cry?  I confess I did a bit of both, and that mood continued through the day.  My old school had a round of lay-offs on Tuesday--I'm happy to be gone, but sad for those left behind.  And on Wednesday, some of us who once worked together gathered to watch the lake and the sunset as we had wine and nibbles.  It was nice, but it makes me sad that it takes so much coordinating to find time to be together.  Yesterday morning, we watched a PBS cooking show set on the banks of the Chesapeake, which made me miss my family and the times we sailed there.

This morning, as if to mock my sadnesses of yesterday, the AC seems not to be working .  The air that's coming out of the vents is not cool and the fan blade outside is not turning.  I decided to let my spouse sleep a bit before we see if it's something easy that we could fix or not.  And then, to call the AC repair folks today or let it wait so as not to pay the cost for an emergency visit on the week-end.  We could just move into the cottage for a bit.

I feel this sense of despair about getting one home repair done, just to face something else, one bit of organizing done which just leads to piles of other things to sort.  But let me remember the quiet graces of the past 24 hours:  the long nap of yesterday afternoon, the delicious garlic scallop pasta dish we made last night, and the delightful and spiritual conversation that Krista Tippett had with Martin Sheen on this morning's episode of On Being.

Training Week

It's been a long week of training sessions at the main campus, which has meant that I spent the week away from my office and home campus. 

It's only 18 miles to the main campus in Ft. Lauderdale, but it feels so very different from my usual commute.  For one thing, the commute of this past week was on I 95, which meant I got to experience rush hour traffic.  During my regular daily commute, I experience similar stop and go traffic, but it's on neighborhood streets so I expect to go slowly. 

I feel like I've been living out of my car, which was a familiar feeling during my adjunct years.  Plus, I had to try to remember what's in my office that I might wish I had with me, like a mug or an extra lipstick.  I realize how lucky I am to have an office.

I haven't been able to access my work e-mail remotely--that, too, is a good reminder of the problems that adjuncts face.  As an administrator, I use whatever e-mail address faculty prefer I use.

The week was helpful overall.  I'm the Director of Education, a dean-like position at one of 5 campuses.  The most helpful part of the week was meeting the directors of education at the other 4 campuses.  I most liked the exchanging of ideas.  I've come away with lots of good ideas.

We spent part of the week learning a computer system that will let us track the skills of particular cohorts of students.  It was good to strategize with department chairs across campuses to agree on what those skills should be.  And it was interesting for me to hear those conversations, since I don't know as much about the life of a medical assistant as I do about British Literature.

Still, it's both encouraging and disheartening to realize that I have another computer system at my disposal that can do so much more than I'll ever realize that I want it to do.  I can generate all sorts of statistics about who is successful and who needs help--but then I need to figure out the best way to deliver that help.  Years in administration have taught me that it's never as easy as I think it should be.

It was good to be away, good for all the inspiration that a change of scenery inspires.  It will be better to be back.

Fewer Fireflies?

On my trip to Mepkin Abbey, I heard a local (South Carolina local) show that had 2 biologists and a writer talking about changes that they've noticed with a variety of changes, from global warming to coastal erosion to the incessant development that encroaches on it all.  They talked about noticing fewer fireflies.  One of the biologists talked about his sorrow that his grandchildren aren't likely to run around chasing fireflies because there are so few of them.

I thought about what would be one of my last visits to my parents' house in Northern Virginia, before they moved to Williamsburg.  I looked out the back window into the dark night beyond and saw what looked like a sea of twinkling stars--but it was fireflies.  That summer, we wouldn't have had to work hard to capture a jar of them, but I was happy to sit on the deck and watch the show.

I think about my own childhood, back to the days before widespread air conditioning where we'd spend the evening hours on my grandparent's front porch.  We'd shell beans for the next day.  I'd ask my elders about life when they were my age, and they'd tell me.  As the world got dark, I'd collect fireflies in old Mason jars.  I get weepy just thinking about corn picked from my grandparent's garden and served almost immediately, with butter and salt.  I would pay good money if I could find tomatoes that taste like the ones they grew so effortlessly.

Here's a poem that I wrote years ago when we first moved here back in 1998; it's an example of how I transformed homesick yearning into art.  It appeared in the Palo Alto Review.

Setting Free the Fireflies


The apartment smells like my grandmother’s
house in the summer,
a childhood time before air conditioners
ruled the season.
Gentle breezes,
smelling of mowed lawns
and ripening tomatoes,
lapped their way around our beds.
The nights glowed
with that candle-like quality
which comes from distant street lights
beaming through window blinds
left open to the breeze.
Long after the yeasty smells
of my grandmother’s early morning baking
dissipated,
my parents crept into the bedroom
where I slept on sheets
made scratchy
from clothesline drying.
They took my jar
of carefully caught fireflies
and set my natural nightlight
free.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Once upon a time, as I was looking to reclaim spirituality that Christianity had obscured or obliterated, I tried to do more celebrating of solstices and equinoxes.  I do confess that the winter solstice has more appeal, that idea that we'll be getting more light with each passing day.

And here we are, at the apex of that light.  From here on until December, we will lose a bit of light each day.  Thirty seconds here, a minute there--most of us won't notice, until the day we drive in at the exact same time and think about how the light has changed.

Next week, my spouse starts a teaching schedule where he'll have class each night.  I have vague ideas of how to spend that time--I could go for a walk instead of having a glass of wine.  I could have salad for dinner--or no dinner at all.  Maybe I'll write more or read more.

Here's my concrete idea.  I've been feeling that I may be at the point where I'm done with my activists at 50 who are working at the for-profit arts school.  I still have a story or two to write, but I'd like to put together what I have to see if I have enough for a collection.  I'd like to read through the stories to make sure I'm not just repeating.

I've been thinking about writing a different kind of story, one that captures a voice, but doesn't have a traditional story arc.  I've been thinking about the school as being haunted, haunted by all the people who once were there but no longer are.  I've been thinking about a more short-form story.

Herein lies my problem:  I think I might be done, and then I have more ideas.

I have one of those windows about to open, and I want to seize this time to write more, whatever the writing might be. 

The Monastery Dog and Other Poetry Inspirations

This morning, I finally wrote a poem.  I looked back through my poetry notebook, and it's been almost a month.  It has been a humdinger of a month, between my online ENC1102 class with its intense pace of a piece of work due 4-6 days of the week, work which must be graded, and my trip to Mepkin Abbey.

Yet I also feel like I've been telling myself this story every month:  Last month was a humdinger, but the pace of my life should be calming down soon, and I'll get some writing done. 

Let me sit with this idea for a bit, before I come up with plan A, B, C and a back up plan for each.  This morning let me be happy that I wrote a poem.

I came back from Mepkin with a new poem in my head, a poem inspired by a time during our retreat when I watched the monastery dog sleeping in the sun, and I thought of a previous retreat where we talked about needing to find time to write.  I thought about the monastery dog who knows how to prioritize her time.  I liked the contrast.

Over the past week, I've thought of different contrasts.  I thought of a retreatent who brought her own organic food and didn't eat the food prepared by the monks.  I thought of us all at the Sunday Eucharist service, even though we all came from a variety of practices.

I'm still wrestling with the poem, but I'm happy to have work on paper to revise.

I thought I had written about the monastery dog before.  In a blog post, from 2015, I had written this:

"At first I felt sorry for the monastery dog.  She seemed so eager for attention.  I thought about all the children who would never be part of her world.

Yet as my week-end at the monastery proceeded, I decided that the monastery dog was lucky.  She had a never-ending supply of visitors who would likely pet her.  The monks would take care of her.  Not every community has taken a vow of hospitality, after all. She could have been abandoned to a much worse fate.

And she had vast fields at her disposal.  No cooped up back yards for her.  Her joy at racing across the grounds made me happy too."

I thought I had written that poem, but I looked through older poetry notebooks this morning, and now I'm thinking that I planned to write it, but it's one of many poems that I never actually wrote.

The eternal question:  how many of these poem ideas should I return to? 

That's a question for another day.  Today it's time to return to the main campus for my week of trainings.  Today it's the student tracking system--another computer system that will be able to do far more than I will ever dream of asking it to do.

Yet another metaphor waiting for a poem . . .

Mepkin Mind

It is 5:17 a.m. as I write.  A week ago, I'd be about to leave Mepkin Abbey.  The drive back to Florida was uneventful and felt speedier than it sometimes feels.  I was grateful.

This past week-end has been one of finally getting caught up--I did the last load of laundry on Saturday, and did some required IT security training yesterday which will mean I can keep teaching my online classes at the community college.  I got a haircut on Saturday, which wasn't overdue, but my shaggy hair was driving me nuts.  In between, we spent lovely time on the front porch watching the rain showers come and go.

This will be a week of heavy duty training at the Ft. Lauderdale campus, where I have no office, so I'm taking my own mug, my own snack, and trying to remember what else I might need when I don't have an office.

Let me create my own Mepkin retreat in my head, a Mepkin Mind, where I can return when I need the soothing of chanted psalms:

Let me remember my delight at seeing a hydrangea bush in full bloom:

Let me remember the river that has seen so much, even if it is never the same river twice:

Let me adopt the attitude of Abbey, the monastery dog, who is always happy to be near us:

If she's ever stressed, I never see it: