Foot feats

Red feet, wet feet, tired feet, sore feet--I'm clearly having way too much fun on my holiday weekend. The red stripes on my feet were a result of wearing sandals to a baseball game without applying sunscreen, and goodness do they hurt. Mowing on the steep slopes always causes foot pain, so by the end of the day, my feet demanded a rest. And then this morning I hiked at Luke Chute Conservation Area while the burgeoning greenery was still dew-bedecked, soaking my shoes and socks, but I had neglected to bring another pair so I had to drive another 40 miles up the highway dripping wet. Now I intend to spend the rest of the holiday weekend reading a book with my feet up, still striped red but finally dry.

 

 

 

 

There aren't enough support groups on the planet for this

Judging by comments from my colleagues assembled for our first Writing Wednesday session, we need to establish some support groups to help us all get through the summer. Writing Wednesday works like a writing support group, but what some of us really need is an I-don't-know-what-to-write support group so we can encourage each other to keep going when we're out of ideas and our brains are crowded with other concerns, like campus budget problems, continuing Covid cases, and random mass shootings that make us cry every time we turn on the radio. 

But that's not all! We need more:

A Growing Out Our Bangs support group so we can share strategies on staying sane when yard work sends long strands of sweaty hair into our eyes. Headbands or barrettes? Discuss!

A Dealing with the Loss of Colleagues support group to help us walk that fine line between publicly celebrating the successes of colleagues who have found better jobs elsewhere while privately grieving their loss and wishing we could go away with them. Maybe we can craft spiffy little carrying-cases to hold those unwieldy wads of envy.

A Making Small-Talk with Wretched People support group where we can practice the skills required for random public encounters with the higher-ups who are determined to make our lives miserable. What do we say when we bump up against an intransigent administrator at the Farmers Market when it takes every ounce of self-control to hold back a sharp kick in the shins? What martial art system will help us hold back our kicks?

A Coping with Anxious Offspring support group where we can hold each others' hands when children respond to the horrors of modern life by falling into silence, depression, or eating disorders. Where do we find hope when children lose their joy? Too painful to discuss, so keep the Kleenex handy.

A Support for the Supporters support group where those of us who are trying to support so many others can lay down all responsibility for others' issues and just sit in a pool of our own feelings until someone notices and reaches out a hand. Let's have a pity party! (Be sure to bring along your tiny violin.)

Not-so-swift slog through etc.

I saw a bald eagle flying overhead early on my road trip back to Ohio, and as soon as I got home I saw an oriole. The rest of the time I saw a lot of Swifts--not birds but trucks with the word Swift on the back. So many trucks! So many construction zones! So much traffic! I wasn't exactly flying down the interstate--more like crawling.

But it is good to be back home. I spent a few days helping my brother and sister-in-law clean out Dad's things and make arrangements for the funeral (in July, in Florida), which exhausted both mind and body. He had only enough stuff to fill a generous room in his assisted living facility, but it was still a lot to go through: Dozens of DVD's, mostly British mysteries or war movies. Hundreds of greeting cards. Socks, shoes, shirts, pajamas, so many belts. Piles of photographs, many of unidentified people. Crumpled documents covered with enigmatic notes. 

One of those documents contains seven pages of single-spaced notes for a memoir. He wrote a few pages and left the rest in outline form, leaving behind lists of topics that raise more questions than they answer. Next to "Basic Training" he wrote "sick, cry, gas," which makes me wonder what kind of gas he's talking about. Were they eating a lot of beans or what? Next to one relative's name he wrote "temperance society, Calif., usher, leave for AF, suicide try, sickness, State Theater, spanking," while next to another he wrote "money lending, cod liver oil, strict but fair, favored me even though many spats, Charlie McC, school, caddying, last letter, etc." I detect a story there but with all the main characters among the dead, we'll never know.

"Etc." comes up over and over again in these notes:

money, jealous, car crash, etc.
religion, etc.
New Orleans (girls, etc.)
stockroom, not Jewish, etc.

And in fact, under the heading "Grandchildren and Retirement," the first item listed is a large ETC. Whatever that means.

Among this mass of incomplete notes, I find two statements most evocative. First, "How my life was changed by the G/D episode," a reference to an incident that occurred when he was working for General Dynamics in Rochester, New York. I was three or four years old but I can distinctly recall a huge change in our family dynamics, and after that we started moving around every couple of years as Dad struggled to hold down a job. What caused the disruption? Mom and Dad never told us and quickly changed the subject when we tried to gently probe. Now we'll never know.

Earlier in the outline, amidst a list of fragmentary references to his education, he wrote one complete sentence: "I never swam in the deep end." This is literally true since Dad was not a swimmer, but it's also metaphorically true: Dad was a specialist in safety and reliability and was always interested in playing it safe. Maybe he would have been less risk-averse if he'd learned to swim.

Now I don't know what to do with all this stuff. We divvied up the things that were worth saving and I came home with a two-foot-long cobalt-blue shoe-horn (because why not) and a lovely pair of occasional chairs that remind me of Mom, but I also have possession of this fragmentary outline for a memoir that will never be written. What am I supposed to do with all that etc.?

I thought about that during my not-flying-but-crawling drive home, hemmed in by slow-moving Swift trucks, an event that will barely merit an etc. in the story of my life. My father may have failed to leave behind a memoir, but he left a mark on many people, including the assisted-living staff members and residents who appreciated his intelligence and encouragement. He left a mark on all of us, helping to produce children who can work hard together to deal with his effects and arrange a funeral without discord. He made us all aware of risks, but he also made sure we all knew how to swim so we're not afraid to go into the deep end. And he encouraged us to develop analytical skills so that we'd know where to start when life tossed us a lot of etc. 

Whatever that means.

End of the road, beginning of a new journey

My father died while I was driving 70 mph on I-40 in traffic conditions that left no room for feelings, so I comforted myself with the thought that at least I was trying to reach him in time. In a grueling and occasionally joyful journey full of misunderstandings and missed connections, we never stopped trying to reach each other.

That attempt has been complicated by distance, Dad's health problems, and technical difficulties. Our recent phone calls have mostly consisted of me yelling inane pleasantries down the phone line and him responding, "What was that? I can't hear you." Nevertheless communication did occasionally occur; for instance a few weeks ago I realized that things had gotten serious when Dad admitted that he'd been watching college softball coverage because he could no longer find the golf channel. You might as well take away his oxygen!

Low oxygen levels caused other problems in bridging the gap, making it difficult for Dad to come up with common words, including, sometimes, oxygen. We were talking on the phone a few weeks ago when Dad tried to tell me something about "that thing I take," and I offered several possible words for thing: Medication? Physical therapy? Vitamins? "No," he said in some distress, "The thing I breathe." Oxygen. So necessary, in so many ways.

But congestive heart failure creates supply-chain issues re: oxygen, especially when lung cancer is busy tearing up all the roads and bridges. We all saw the decline coming, and I'd planned to drive down to North Carolina today for what would surely be our final visit. Then last week pneumonia sent Dad to the hospital, erecting further barriers to communication. 

On Sunday afternoon, my brother put his cell phone on speaker so Dad and I could talk. I know he heard me when I told him about our granddaughter's upcoming birthday party, because he responded, very clearly, "I'll be sure to be there." Those were the last coherent words I heard from him, and what a nice thought! Even as lack of oxygen was taking him farther and farther from us, he kept promising further connection.

I spoke to him again yesterday but heard no clear reply, but by then I'd already packed up and hit the road a day early. The doctors said multiple organ failure and palliative care and just a matter of time, but I heard an urgent call to get there before it was too late. Perfect weather, minimal traffic, very little road construction--ideal conditions for a road trip, which I made in record time. Nevertheless I was over an hour from Raleigh when my brother called to say it was too late. 

What could I do? I kept on driving. I'll be sure to be there, he'd told me, always hopeful that we could find a way to meet and hug and communicate, even when the words wouldn't come. And now there's nothing left to say.

Francis Zelesky, 1933-2022

You are now entering the Timeless Zone

Only Wednesday? How can this be?!

The end of classes means the end of time, or the end of my constant awareness of time. I spent an hour in the cool of the morning wrasslin' with the weed-whacker and came inside feeling like I'd done a day's work, but here I have the whole rest of a Wednesday to fill up however I like. Think of the possibilities! I could buy paint for the living room, clean the hall closets, read a good book--or, more likely, catch up on email and read a bunch of files to prepare for tomorrow's assessment meeting.

The weed-whacking was a pain, literally--I had to work around flood debris and lingering muddy spots and ended up with a massive blister that burst as I was carrying the weed-whacker back up the hill. Another sign of the end of time: a yard-work-related injury. It'll heal. So will the lawn, eventually. A little flood damage is not the end of the world.

Yesterday I applauded another kind of ending: celebrating some retirements. One long-time colleague spoke of her delight in seeking new adventures, and she's just the type to keep adventuring until there are no more adventures left. This, I think, is the reason I have trouble seeing beyond retirement: I can't envision what new adventures might be out there beyond the classroom. I realize that this is a failure of imagination, so I'd better get the imagination cranked up before it gets too decrepit to do the work.

But first, I'll start by imagining my summer break. Surely I'll do something more significant than weed-whacking and wildflower walks and forgetting that it's Wednesday, but at the moment, that's about all I can manage.

Here are some pictures from yesterday's walk.

 

Eight or ten turkey vultures were hovering overhead along the creek.

Brand-new oak leaves emerging.

Buckeye blossoms!

Our creek looks so harmless when it's not in flood stage.

Blue-eyed Mary.

Green valerian, maybe?

Stonecrop.

Perfoliate bellwort.

My first rhododendron blossom!

   

Doused with a dose of perspective

There's nothing like a little minor disaster to distract attention from major disasters, and it's helpful to occasionally be doused with a dose of perspective. Which is why I'm not complaining (much) about the flash flood that washed away part of my driveway Friday night. Sure, I've been mightily inconvenienced, but nobody died, right? I had to use some creativity to get around obstacles that washed across my path, but I thrive on creativity, so it's all good. Or it's all mud. Or something like that.

Friday felt like a disaster long before the flood hit. I spent the morning hours first having all kinds of uncomfortable eye tests at the cataract surgeon's office, then balked at the cost estimate and wondered whether my eyesight was really valuable enough to merit wiping out my entire health savings account, then spent some time squinting blurrily at final exam and papers, and then attended a campus meeting that left me feeling reamed out and hopeless, and then I finally got to go home--but I didn't take my laptop with me because I was sure I'd be back on campus Saturday morning to finish the final set of student papers before attending Commencement.

And sure, rain was in the forecast, but we've had plenty of rain this spring without problems, so when the sky started falling in earnest, I was totally unprepared. Frankly, I'm not sure how anyone could have prepared for that kind of deluge--when the normally placid creek suddenly starts thundering like Niagara Falls, it doesn't do any good to stand on the bridge declaring "Thus far and no further!" A chunk of wet sky fell into our area and transformed our tiny creek into a solid wall of water that overtopped its banks, inundated our lower meadow, tossed entire trees against our bridge, and wiped out part of the ramp that connects the bridge to the lowest part of the driveway.

What to do? No way to drive across all that water and no possibility of a gravel delivery over the weekend, so we mostly stayed put. No Commencement for me! (Good thing I wasn't slated to serve as Marshal this year.) But I needed to finish grading that last pile of papers, so I used my husband's laptop to sign into our course management system so I could access the papers and issue a grade. I didn't have access to my usual grading rubrics and I couldn't insert comments into the papers, but who reads comments on a final paper anyway? I decided to just wing it, and if the students want to quibble over the grade, I can deal with that later. 

But now the grading is done and the driveway is fixed and I'm getting caught up on all the things I couldn't do over the weekend without access to my laptop, which turns out to be quite a lot. But again, nobody died, and the inability to get to campus reminded me how very much I love my job and want to be able to see well enough to keep doing it, so I'll soon be scheduling that cataract surgery regardless of the cost. See? Perspective: sometimes it comes in little doses, and sometimes it falls like Niagara from the sky, but either way it can wash away the pervading gloom and make me feel a little less hopeless.

You really wouldn't want to drive on that mess.

Free delivery of firewood.

 

Debris shows that the bridge was under water overnight.

That's gravel from our driveway washed into the neighbor's field.

That tree usually stretches far above the water level.

 

Fueling final exams

My American Lit classroom was bubbling with energy at noon when students gathered to take their final exam. Where was all that energy last week when we were discussing poetry? No matter: a few of these students are graduating on Saturday and they're delighted to finally be done; the rest are just full of beans. Cocoa beans, to be exact. Yes, I brought chocolate to the final exam. Final exams are long and grueling--I don't want anyone to faint dead away. I want their brain cells to be alert and well lubricated, and chocolate can help. I suspect that some of these students will find other ways to lubricate their brains later on.

My Learning in Retirement class was also bubbling yesterday but for different reasons. No final exams in the Comedy in Theory and Practice class; just a final wrap-up of concepts and an opportunity for my retirees to put what they've learned into practice: each class member could take the microphone for up to five minutes to share a joke or funny story or whatever. If someone could find a way to transform Dad Jokes into fuel, that class could keep the world turning on its axis for a few millennia. 

I was strong-armed into teaching that class but I came to look forward to it every Tuesday afternoon. I mean, who doesn't appreciate a weekly excuse to laugh with a bunch of interesting people? We read some great stuff and watched some silly videos but mostly it was all about the laughter. Now I'm looking at the vast expanse of summer break stretching before me and wondering where I'll find my Tuesday afternoon laughs. Shall I go out back and tell jokes to the birds?

That's the drawback of summer break: no good reason to spend time regularly yammering with a room full of people. Of course I'll have Writing Wednesdays, and Faculty Council will continue to meet occasionally over the summer to hash out details of the College's survival plan--oops, Strategic Plan, sorry!--but laughter is rarely at the top of the agenda for those meetings. Still, it's better than spending the entire summer talking to the birds.

They've been pretty bubbly lately, the birds. For a week I've been hearing wood thrushes in the woods below the woodpile, and this morning there were orioles at the end of my road. Mornings are raucous with birdsong, suggesting that the local avian population is getting plenty of the bird equivalent of chocolates. 

Have my students had enough? I've run out of things to teach them this semester so it's time for them to show me what they've learned, and then it's time for me to read it all and assign a grade. So many things to grade! I need some fuel. Good thing they didn't eat up all the chocolates.

 

Wishing upon a shooting star

I thought I saw shooting stars, those delicate white or purple blossoms that appear to be ready for blast-off, and I was so surprised I even said the words shooting stars out loud although no one was around to hear. 

Soon, though, I was assailed by doubt. I'd never seen shooting stars in that stretch of woods before and couldn't be sure they would bloom so early there; I couldn't get close enough to examine them carefully and the photos I took showed an ambiguous mass of blurred blossoms. So I lost confidence in my shooting stars, didn't tell anyone that I'd seen such a thing and couldn't be certain that I had.

And then I saw a newspaper photo showing shooting stars blooming in the same area of the state where I'd been hiking, and I knew that I was both right and wrong--right in believing I was seeing shooting stars, wrong to doubt my perceptions. 

I try to approach the natural world with humility, knowing that what I don't know far exceeds what I do, and yet when I encountered another hiker in those same woods who was all excited about what he thought was "some weird kind of pitcher-plant back there," I looked at the photo on his phone and confidently identified it as Jack-in-the-pulpit. I even pointed out a few more places where he could be sure to find more. Most of the time I know what I know and I'm willing to learn about what I don't know, but I'm reluctant to take a risk on an identification if I'm not entirely certain--because what if I'm wrong?

Well, what if I am? Will the world end if I misidentify a wildflower? Will the botanists of the world line up to heap contempt on my head? I've known some botanists and I don't see them carrying around buckets of contempt to throw at rank amateurs.

The word amateur, let's recall, derives from the French for lover, and love is a risky pursuit. I love wildflowers enough to venture into unknown territory and try out paths that might prove to be dead ends, and sometimes I have to stop in my tracks and confront an unexpected wonder. Shooting stars, I say out loud, and next time I'll believe it.