Getting the machine moving again

Mouse clicks, computer blips, quick checks with a colleague on items that need her input--these are the sounds of summer break moving swiftly toward its close, the sounds of deadlines looming and colleagues making decisions that dump work on my back, the sounds of the great education machine being prodded back into action.

Persistent piercing beeps from a bit of equipment in the moldy office building--why won't someone put that thing out of its misery? My office door sticks, swollen with moisture, and I've brought along a student worker (tall) to lift down books from the top shelf where the moisture is thickest. The books are slightly damp but don't appear to be moldy, and the tall person says the top of the shelf looks dusty, with some black smudges in the farthest corner. I'd like to take a look at my framed diploma and awards to see if they're moldy on the back, but they're hanging too high for my tall helper. The cleaning crew will have to take them down when they're working to de-moldify my office.

I fetched some undamaged books and took home my regalia plus the lovely teal-and-midnight shawl a retired colleague knitted for me years ago, a shawl that, unfortunately, I had left draped on a chair where mold patches grew. The shawl can be cleaned and the regalia shows no signs of damage, but I left it hanging outside in the sun all afternoon Saturday just in case. A hot, dry day with a light wind and plenty of sunshine can work wonders, or that's what I hope.

Mold makes no sound at all, creeping into dark, damp spaces and establishing invisible outposts before we're aware that we've been invaded. It would be much easier to manage if it came charging in accompanied by bagpipes, but apparently the universe thrives on the element of surprise.

The rest of campus remains mostly quiet, but here and there I encounter pockets of activity. The clock is ticking and the to-do list is calling, which would be fine if new items didn't keep getting added. (Surprise!)

I'm done preparing for New Faculty Orientation but suddenly I have to add a very recent hire to the list and replace a presenter who can't attend--and oops, I'd better go ahead and order lunch. You can't require people to meet for seven hours straight without feeding them.

Syllabi for my two fall courses are coming along, but classes start four weeks from today (!!!) and suddenly I have to add the senior capstone to my schedule, thanks to a long-delayed shift in staffing. I taught the capstone two years ago so I can recycle my previous syllabus, with updates to account for changing conditions. How do I teach a senior research class in the age of AI? I guess I'm about to find out.

And while my to-do list grows, some habitual tasks fall away. Normally in July I'd be working on my annual review, but what's the point of filling out a pile of forms to prove my worth as an employee when I'm retiring in December? And I've completed what I hope will be the last department assessment task of my career. I also set up an assessment plan for the grant I'm administering, but all the assessment activities will take place after I pass on leadership of the grant to another colleague. Yes: assessment is slinking out of my life the same way mold slinks in--unheralded, sans bagpipes.

In the quiet of the library I click and the computer blips and the colleague confers and we slowly, steadily, quietly get the gears of the great machine moving again. My final semester of teaching, already full of quiet surprises and promising more. I hope they are the happy kind and not more mold.  

Friday poetry challenge: The flood giveth and the flood taketh away

What's the oddest bit of flotsam our creek has ever delivered to our property? Floods have brought us chunks of brick, glass, dishes, clay, and coal, plus trees (whole and partial), zip ties, drainage tile, a child's car seat, broken toys, a car's gas tank and an LP gas tank, plastic 50-gallon barrels, mangled tires, and unidentifiable rusted bits of appliances and farm equipment. This is the first time, though, that a flood has delivered a saddle.

Someone must be missing it, right? I think you'd notice if your saddle got snatched away by a raging torrent. I thought about driving upstream to see which neighbors still keep horses, but the creek forks and stretches far into the next county so that's a lot of ground to cover. The neighbor who constructs floating docks came by and collected the plastic barrels and the LP gas tank, so now the saddle is propped up beside the road in hopes that someone will recognize it and take it home. 

The flood giveth and the flood taketh away. Our downstream neighbor pulled his mangled pickup truck and tractor out of the creek, but his garden shed is probably in bits at the bottom of the Muskingum. My husband spent untold hours scooping up gravel that had washed from our driveway into the neighbor's field, and two truckloads of gravel and lots of labor made the driveway usable again. To look around, you'd never know that we were living in the middle of a disaster area, unless you took a look at our garden. 

I keep telling myself that we've fulfilled our quota of disasters for the year, but the minute I say that, the sky will open and drop--what? We've suffered hail, flood, mold, cancer, marauding raccoons, and intransigent colleagues--what next? If we're suddenly called on to ride herd on another horde of marauding disasters, at least we've got a saddle ready.

Coal bits, clay chips, plastic, glass,
tires, barrels, zip ties;
the flood destroys but brings new toys,
disaster's sodden flip side.

Best I can do after the week we've had. Anyone else feeling creative about disaster?

 

Saddke up!

Big chunk of tree.

Nice catch!

Debris under the bridge, and above.

That's why they call it a FLASH flood

Remind me again why we live in the sticks, I ask, but of course I know the answer: birds and bees and butterflies, summer fireflies and spring ephemerals, creek walks with the grandkids, quiet nights, lovely days, space for a great big garden, all wonderful things until the rain falls and the creek swells and the garden is under water.

It was barely raining when I left campus yesterday but I had to pull over twice on the drive home because the rain was so heavy I couldn't see the road. It finally let up a bit and I followed a line of cars moving slowly up the highway past loose debris. A tree had fallen and pulled down a power line across half of the road, forcing us to drive perilously close to a drainage ditch swollen with fast-moving water. But I made it home! The creek was rising but didn't look dangerous.

There's a reason they call it a flash flood: it happened so quickly that no one had time to prepare. The first time I walked down toward the bridge, the driveway on this side was still walkable and the bridge and road were visible above the creek; by the time I'd walked back up the hill, the driveway was under water. Flood waters crossed the meadow but looked like they'd stay away from the edge of the garden, but the resident green thumb moved loose garden chairs and other floatables uphill just in case. 

From our side of the bridge I could just barely see my neighbor's blue pickup truck parked next to the garden shed he'd been building by hand for some months. Twenty minutes later, our bridge and garden and road were under water and the neighbor's truck and shed were just gone. The entire meadow had become a rushing mass of water louder than Niagara, and it sounded like the bridge was being hit repeatedly with battering rams.

The floodwaters came within a few feet of the chicken run, which distressed me immensely, but the chickens reveled in the bounty of bugs trying to flee the rising waters. Special delivery! 

Within an hour the water had receded, and this morning the creek is well within normal bounds. The bridge is covered with debris and we'll need a load of gravel before the driveway is passable again, and the garden is a big mud pit, with corn stalks bowing to the ground in a downstream direction.

The last big flood we suffered (click here) washed away our driveway and garden shed, so I'm glad we didn't lose more. Elsewhere in the county, a tornado struck down and buildings and trees suffered massive damage. We got off easily this time--nothing that a few tons of gravel can't fix. 

Except the garden. I went to look at it this morning and found mud where tomato plants ought to be. The garden might spring back, insists the resident green thumb. Good thing I married an optimist--otherwise I might find this situation a tad discouraging.

Just a little water in the meadow. Nothing to be concerned about.

The bridge sounds like it's being battered, but it's above water....for now.

You can just barely see the neighbor's truck behind the trees.

Wait, I was just walking down there and now it's under water....

Garden stuff on higher ground

That little row of plants is at the edge of the garden.

The electric fence around the garden is all that's visible

Lake Hogue

Wait, where did the bridge go?

Standing wave. You wouldn't believe how loud the water is.

Nope, still no bridge.

Looking toward the road, which is under water.

Where the neighbor's truck and shed used to be.

Chickens find higher ground

The garden....what's left of it.

Corn, bowing.

Flood debris with creek in the background.

The mud on the driveway is so slick I didn't dare walk on it.

Mold madness, part two

I have written previously (click here) about why The Thurber Carnival is so meaningful to me. First book I ever bought with my own money, a book I frequently re-read and use in comedy classes, etc. The book has survived multiple moves from Florida to Kentucky to all over Ohio and it has survived various campus offices for 25 years, but it did not survive the recent mold outbreak in my building. When I went to start packing up my office this morning, I found the book damp to the touch and covered in mold. I didn't check the other 500ish books in my office--who has time for that? Instead, I am staying away from my office and trying not to be consumed by anger. I mean, it's just a book. A whole lot of books. My books. Which may soon be consigned to the landfill.

 

Breathing, not quite easily

I was all set to teach my Nature Writing class right on time Saturday but nature got in the way--thunder and lightning and rain so heavy that I had to sit in my car in the parking lot waiting for a break in the deluge. I used an umbrella, but nevertheless I spent the next three hours walking around on wet feet. The class was great, though, and the rain stopped just in time for us to go outside for an observation activity, stepping out the door into what felt like a sauna turned to Broil. But the good news is the wildfire smoke had dissipated.

Friday morning I had walked out the door of my hotel room in Columbus and immediately abandoned my plans for a nice walk in a lovely garden. The sun was a dim hazy disc, like a fuzzy felt circle glued on gray; the heavy air tasted acrid and made my eyes gritty and my head dull. From the window of my son's room on the sixteenth floor of The James, I saw buildings a block away fading into invisibility. My son was released from the hospital under strict orders to stay indoors. What do we do when the very air feels hostile?

But I got him home and we stayed indoors and awaited the rain, which arrived on Saturday as expected, with winds whipping trees around and pushing my car across a road rippling with rain falling too fast to drain away. And then I stopped by my office on campus to pick up some things and found another indication of nature's resilience: blotches of mold growing on the carpet. I've been working in the library all summer because my office in the classroom building gets damp in the summer, but never before has that dampness transformed my carpet into a living ecosystem. 

Maybe it's appropriate to be reminded of the power of nature when I'm teaching people about nature writing. It's not all butterflies and rainbows, people! The group was lively and attentive, a dozen people, mostly women of a certain age, all eager to amp up their nature writing skills. I kept reminding them I'm not grading any of this, and by the end of the three hours they had stopped apologizing for their attempts. They sat around big tables covered with notepads, pens, drawing paper, markers, colored pencils, handbags, abandoned attempts at prose, and crumbled snack wrappers, but all I could see were the hands scribbling and drawing and writing accompanied by a low, gentle chatter that sounded like joy. 

Today the sun is shining and the smoke is gone and I'm still reveling in the pleasures of yesterday's class. Tomorrow I'll have to motivate someone on campus to remediate the mold infestation in my office, but today I think I'll sit here and enjoy the privilege of breathing freely. 

Oh, and I'd probably go back to the nature center and retrieve the umbrella I left behind. This time of year, we never know what nature might throw at us next.

Waiting for a break in the storm

The view from the 16th floor

Just a small section of my carpet ecosystem

Lost in a familiar place

I'm driving to campus on the same route I've driven at least three times a week for more than 25 years and suddenly I look around and can't figure out where I am. On state route 60, yes, alongside the Muskingum River, but have I passed that BP station yet? Nothing looks right.  

Moment of panic. How could I lose track of myself in a place I've known and loved so long?

I blame sleep (disturbed) and stress (sick son) and feeling overwhelmed (work work work). Now I'm looking at the laptop screen through tired eyes and trying to make progress on a project that keeps getting thwarted by other people's (in)actions (because I'm not the only person who's stressed out and distracted right now), but all I want to do is put my head down on the desk and sleep, except I can't because I have to check my phone to see if there's any news from my son.

He's in the hospital again, in Columbus. He had some funny numbers on a blood test yesterday so, long story short, my husband drove him to The James last night, which was a relief because my night vision makes driving in the dark stressful. Downright dangerous, even. But it means I'll be on taxi duty when our son gets released, which could be today or tomorrow or Friday or whenever. If it's Saturday, he's out of luck because I have to teach a class (and probably I should go ahead and print out the handouts today in case I can't get back to campus or in case there's another power outage or in case, I don't know, a meteor destroys all life on earth between now and the weekend).

So last night I had trouble sleeping while awaiting news from the hospital, and then I had trouble sleeping after my husband arrived home in the wee hours, and then suddenly it was morning and I had trouble staying awake while driving to campus but now here I am trying to get caught up on a ridiculous workload while awaiting a text telling me to drop everything and drive to Columbus. Frankly, I'm hoping that they'll keep him until tomorrow because I don't believe I'm mentally or physically alert enough to drive to Columbus and back today. 

And frankly, I'm tired of hearing myself complain about sickness and uncertainty and work. I am doing all the things I need to do because I love my son, which is my immense privilege as a parent. It's just hard to do the Mom things when the work things are also in disorder, and it's hard to make progress on the work things when I might have to drop everything to tend to my son.

This is temporary, I keep telling myself. Someday this will be over. True, but while I'm struggling through this ridiculous journey, maybe I can forgive myself if I occasionally lose my way.

A different type of classroom

Teaching in the middle of July--outdoors, in whatever weather, for an unknown number of students of various ages and abilities? Sure, sign me up. 

It sounded like a fabulous idea a few months ago when the director of the local Master Naturalist Program asked me to teach a three-hour elective on Nature Writing for people seeking to become certified Master Naturalists. I can teach nature writing with my eyes shut and both hands tied behind my back, I told myself, but it'll be better if I prepare. So here I sit in my office on a hot July day putting together activities and discussion questions for--well I don't know who these people are. Who signs up to take this kind of class? The classroom could be full of curious retirees, young professionals trying to broaden their skills, or bored teens whose parents are forcing them to attend something educational. How do I engage a wildly mixed group?

And when I say classroom, I mean outdoor space with gazebo and lawn chairs. Unless it's raining, in which case we go inside and I figure out how to adapt my exercises to the indoor environment. How do I get them to closely observe nature if we're sheltering from a thunderstorm? Oh, maybe we can observe the thunderstorm....

I'm planning to focus on observation skills, starting with a description of the Claude glass, that handy-dandy accessory so beloved of 18th- and 19th-century nature lovers. Nature observed directly can be unruly, poorly composed, overwhelming to our refined senses, so the trendy traveler carried a Claude glass, a small, darkened hand-held mirror. Viewers would stand with their backs to the sublime scenery and observe its reflection in the mirror, flattened and framed and filtered until it resembled a refined piece of art. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, but we'd prefer to keep them at a safe distance.

Today our cell phones take the place of Claude glasses, offering an instant image of the natural world, framed and filtered and flattened so we can carry it around easily in our pockets. But are we really seeing what's out there? How can we get an unmediated image of nature?

When we first moved to the woods, I thought it would take forever to identify all the types of birds that visited our feeders. I keep a bird book next to the big front window, and I still spend time trying to distinguish between, say, varieties of sparrows, or similar types of woodpeckers. The downy and hairy woodpecker look nearly identical, but the hairy is bigger and has a longer beak--longer both in absolute terms and in relation to its head size. To get to the point that I can tell the difference instantly requires time and attention to details and the willingness to make mistakes 

These days people can just snap a photo of a bird, post it on social media, and ask for an identification. It's a quick and easy way to learn the name of the bird, but knowing the name is not knowing the bird. To know the bird, you have to watch it, not just for a moment but over time, repeatedly, directly, persistently, seeing it in all its behaviors and shades.

This is the kind of observation I'm planning to promote at my nature writing class. I have these people, whoever they are, for three hours on a Saturday afternoon when maybe they'd rather be kayaking. How much can we really accomplish in that length of time? I guess I'm getting ready to find out. 

 

Dumb luck

Lucky guy, the aide said as he handed my son a chicken salad sandwich and a bag of chips. 

Lucky? A luckier person would have avoided lymphoma entirely, but I guess luck is relative. If you get out of bed just after 4 a.m., eat a quick breakfast and then vomit it all back up again before being driven two hours to the James cancer hospital, and if you survive the first two (of four) annoying procedures before 11 a.m., and if you then realize that you're feeling a bit peckish and ask the aide for a bite to eat before starting chemotherapy, and if the aide then delivers a chicken salad sandwich and your favorite brand of chips, that's some kind of luck! We have to take our victories where we find them.

In the four months since my son was diagnosed I have been lucky enough to avoid driving duty on four-procedure days, but yesterday I drew the short straw. Blood work, chest x-ray, two kinds of chemo, lumbar puncture--a scenic tour of hospital procedure rooms and a very long day. 

Twice my husband has been the designated driver on multi-procedure days that have stretched beyond twelve hours, but then he is also better equipped to entertain himself for long periods at the hospital. By the time he's ready to leave, he will know the personal history of everyone in the waiting room and will have stories to share about their interesting lives. 

I have a different method of surviving long hours of waiting: I mentally wrap myself up in a warm cocoon sequestered from the hospital milieu. Sure, I'm up for a conversation with my son and I'll ask for his help on whatever crossword puzzle questions fall within his areas of expertise (like what's on the flag of Mali or which U.S. state capital has the second-smallest population), but mostly I retreat and try to be anywhere but where I am. On good days I can read a book or article or draft a blog post on my phone even though I can't even see the letters on that tiny keyboard, or I'll play some mindless game that makes my eyes so blurry that I can't read road signs on the drive home.

It's hard to wrap myself in a warm cocoon, though, in those frigid hospital rooms. When we arrived before 8 a.m. yesterday the outdoor temperature was already close to 80 with humidity to match, but I carried a thick sweater because I knew where we were going. The aide who provided the lucky sandwich also gave my son one of those wonderful warm blankets, but no one ever offers me a warm blanket. 

Of course I'm not the patient, the person whose suffering is the center of everyone's attention, but that doesn't mean I'm not miserable. His illness shrouds my every thought, especially when he e gets coughing fits so severe that each cough feels like a dagger stabbing me in the heart, but I'm the healthy one in the room, the one who doesn't have to choke down a dozen pills a day or inject himself with medications that seem to make him sicker or shuffle through a growing pile of medical bills. Lucky me!

I try to hide my misery so I can be helpful to the sick guy; I count my blessings to counter the nagging malaise, but every blessing comes shrouded with a but. I found a great parking space--but it was in a hospital parking garage that fills me with dread. I remembered to put barf bags in my car--but I'm living a life that necessitates barf bags in my car. The treatment is allegedly eliminating every sign of lymphoma--but the side effects make me want to lash out at whoever is hurting my kid.

So I guess I'm lucky, ish, but I won't feel really lucky until we can banish the word lymphoma from our family's vocabulary. Meanwhile, I could really use a warm blanket.

She who dithers, withers

That's comedy gold, my colleague said, causing an instant shift in my perspective: instead of agonizing over an ethical dilemma posed by repeated encounters with an extremely annoying person, why not perform some literary alchemy and turn it into a funny story?

And so I did. Words and sentences flowed easily off my pen (er, keyboard), and afterward I sought feedback from trusted readers, including the colleague whose words had inspired me to stop griping and start writing. It healed something in me, she said, which is exactly what a writer wants to hear, but now I face an even bigger dilemma: what do I do with it?

Outlets for subtle comic essays of around 2000 words are limited, and the main character in mine would be instantly recognizable to those in the know so I would have to use a pseudonym. And so a piece of writing that made me feel energized more than anything else I've written all year sits languishing in a file folder as I dither. 

Dithering seems to be what I do these days. I've been dithering over small decisions, like whether to replace my hefty leather tote before the fraying straps fail and spill all my precious stuff all over the floor, which would no doubt happen at the least convenient time, like while I'm walking through the security scanner at the hospital with my son or while I'm waiting in the checkout lane at the grocery store with a long line of customers behind me, and if I do replace my everyday handbag, should I go for something more compact or stick with a bag that can hold a Norton anthology, a laptop computer, and three stacks of student papers? 

I looked at purses. I priced purses. I thought about buying a purse, but they're such a commitment! I understand that some people have a whole wardrobe of handbags to suit different occasions, but I've never been that person: I buy a bag and I stick with it until it falls to pieces, and while I'm trying to postpone the purse-apocalypse, I dither. 

But I also dither over big decisions, like whether to get a knee replacement this summer or wait until next year, whether to get surgery under my current health insurance plan or wait and see what Medicare can do for me, and then of course I got a cortisone shot as a stopgap and now my knee doesn't hurt at all and part of me hopes it will keep not hurting forever while the more rational part of me knows that the pain will return eventually and it will be even worse so why not fix it before it starts torturing me again? 

So I was leaning toward getting the new knee this summer until I realized that I can't drive my son to chemotherapy while recovering from knee surgery and we really don't need two semi-incapacitated people in my house, so maybe next year would be better. And now I've dithered about it so long that I can't possibly schedule surgery to recover in time for the fall semester. Dither long enough and the decisions make themselves. Options get limited. Possibilities dissolve into the ether.

Well I bought a new purse and I'm determined to get a new knee next spring, so now I need to stop dithering over where to send that funny story. I felt good about performing a feat of literary alchemy, but leaving it languishing in a file folder is an ideal way to turn comedy gold into lead. 

Friday poetry challenge: No exit from Escher's stairs

This morning I turned a page in the June 29 issue of The New Yorker and saw myself--my job, my office, my life, plus a handy reply for the colleague who keeps begging me to please please please change my mind about retiring in December. 

It was already a better-than-average issue, featuring Simon Rich's delightful retelling of "The Pied Piper," Amanda Petrusich's gripping exploration of the power of grief, and Julian Lucas's long profile of Colson Whitehead, which made me even more eager to take delivery of his new novel. There's even a short story by Ben Lerner that didn't instantly repulse me--a real accomplishment.

But then in the middle of the not-horrible Lerner story I ran into Chris Gural's cartoon titled "M.C. Escher's Lab Rats" (view it here). Made my day, my week, maybe my year.

I suspect that I'm not the only academic who feels like one of those rats scrambling through an impossible Escher staircase that lures us toward some longed-for apotheosis only to flip us on our heads at the base of yet another set of steps. There's no way out, no way up, no way around, just an endless climb that can't be distinguished from descent, while everyone acts as if the futility is perfectly normal.

Well I need to get out of this rat race. I'm only staying on until December because of health insurance, and then I'm outta here. People keep asking why I want to retire or begging me to stay, which is flattering except I just can't. I could blame the wonky knee that makes standing in front of a class painful and, sometimes, dangerous, or I could blame ever-shifting college policies, enrollment issues, and rampant AI infestation, or I could mention a desire to spend more time with my grandkids while they still like me, but really it comes down to this: I'm tired of living as one of Escher's lab rats, especially when the maze has no end so there's no opportunity to find the cheese.

I don't know what happens when you combine doggerel with ekphrasis, but maybe it's time we found out:

Step up, step down,
go this way round
and through that door
that's on the floor--
up to the attic.
No one is static
but always moves
up well-worn grooves
in stairs that climb
to nowhere. I'm
a rat that wants
to leave the haunts
of Escher's stairs.
But exit--where?

It's not pretty, but if's Friday so it's time to sling some rhymes. Who's next?

Bumper sticker befuddlement

I'm getting too old for this, I tell myself, though it's hard to define what this refers to. I'm definitely getting too old to decipher bumper stickers on passing cars, but if I'm so close that I can easily read the words but still can't fathom what they're trying to say, that's a different kind of problem. 

I understand what it means when a pickup truck the size of Nebraska has its backside plastered with the American flag with assault rifles replacing the stripes, and I know what it means when a vanity license plate spelling BEHEMOTH is attached to an SUV so bit it makes me wonder why no auto-makers have manufactured a car by that name. These signs communicate very clearly: I'm a big tough dude who may well be armed--stay out of my way. I am happy to oblige, and kudos for spelling behemoth correctly, but do you know how to pronounce it? 

But then I stand staring at a tiny colorful car sporting a pink bumper sticker that says I got a lobotomy at Claire's, which I kind of understand because the relentless pink glitteriness of Claire's boutiques could make anyone over the age of 12 feel lobotomized, but apparently there's a whole pop-culture thing about getting a lobotomy at Claire's, an online rabbit hole I don't intend to descend.

I'm definitely getting too old for some of the pop-culture references I encounter while out in public, but often I can't even tell if a bit of text is gesturing toward pop culture or simply being silly. We need more zombie baseball: pop culture reference or random words on a bumper sticker? If someone will explain to me what zombie baseball is, I can make an informed decision about whether we need more of it.

I need less confusion in my life and fewer opportunities for annoyance over inept advertising, an epidemic I can't seem to avoid. My ears hurt every time I hear a local radio ad telling me that electronic bikes has raised the bar, but at least the problem is easy to identify: somebody  (copywriter, editor, ad manager, business owner, whatever) can't grasp the concept of subject/verb agreement. I get that, though I worry about how all those people could hear they has without grimacing. 

What I don't get is how a whole host of people could have approved a radio ad for a local flooring company that keeps telling me We want you to be where your feet are. Grammatically correct, yes, but what does it mean? I generally am where my feet are because it was my feet that got me there, and if there's a way for me to be where my feet aren't--short of amputation--I'd like to hear about it. 

Or maybe they want me to lie on the ground hugging my feet? Assuming the fetal position is unlikely to put me in the proper frame of mind to buy flooring--or anything else. I'd like to let my feet take me to whoever wrote that ad and ask a simple question: What were you thinking?

But then maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe it's just noise intended to get attention or gesture toward some outside reference without making meaning at all. And that, I think, is what I'm getting too old for: maneuvering through a world where the gap between word and meaning sometimes seems unbridgeable.

Antidotes for summer panic

Of course it's ridiculous to suffer a midsummer panic attack when summer hasn't, technically, even started yet, but the academic calendar skews everything so that June is my only real month off all year, though it's not entirely off because I have to attend webinars (yuck) and preside at meetings to plan events funded by the grant I'm administering, a task that will double in size in July, when I will also have to plan orientation for incoming faculty (and yes, I'm glad we have a few new hires this fall, since last year I planned the entire all-day event for exactly one new faculty member) while also preparing syllabi for two or, possibly, three classes, one of which I'm completely rejiggering, and the word possibly back there is another reason I'm a little stressed out since, for reasons I can't disclose, I won't know for another couple of weeks whether I'll teach that third (very important) class and I refuse to start working on fall syllabi until I know exactly what I'm teaching, so July will be crammed full and then we'll plunge into the deep end--August, when everything starts up again.

No wonder I'm panicking! Here we are in the middle of June and what have I accomplished? I've written an essay that felt like excellent therapy but will probably never be published, and I've chaired a couple of meetings, and I've worked on publicity about the grant, and I've driven my son to Columbus for chemotherapy and to Belpre for blood tests and a transfusion, and yes, I'm troubled that he needed two blood transfusions in one week and feels really awful after the most recent round of chemo, so I walk around with a solid little lump of concern sitting on top of my brain every single minute of the day, which makes it hard to think about more important things--but is there really anything more important right now than my son's health?

I've been seeking distractions so I won't think so much about what I can't control, but then I played this online game so much that it hurt my wrist and shoulder so I had to delete it from my phone, and then I started reading too much, taking up Middlemarch again, not only because I felt I needed to do it justice after ragging on it last week but also to try to resolve a question that was puzzling me: did I miss an important element of Casaubon's character? The question arose when a friend referred to Casaubon as a conchologist and I thought wait a minute, I don't remember that, so I had to go and read the whole stinking novel (which is really delightful and funnier than I'd remembered but not, I insist, the greatest of all time) and there it is, in chapter 30, when Casaubon is recovering from his illness and Mr. Brooke advises him to eschew scholarship and take up a more relaxing pursuit, a passage well worth reading simply for the contrasting voices:

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Brooke. "Get Dorothea to play backgammon with you in the evenings. And shuttlecock, now--I don't know a finer game than shuttlecock for the daytime. I remember it all the fashion. To be sure, your eyes might not stand that, Casaubon. But you must unbend, you know. Why, you might take to some light study; conchology, now: I always think that must be a light study. Or get Dorothea to read you light things, Smollett--'Roderick Random,' 'Humphry Clinker'; they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly--there's a droll bit about a postilion's breeches. We have so little humor now. I have gone through all these things, but they might be rather new to you."

"As new as eating thistles," would have been an answer to represent Mr. Casaubon's feelings. But he only bowed resignedly, with due respect to his wife's uncle, and observed that doubtless the works he mentioned had "served as a resource to a certain order of minds."

You must unbend, I tell myself, echoing Mr. Brooke, but I certainly don't intend to take up the "light study" of conchology. Maybe I just need to read less.

And so I did. At the suggestion of another friend, I read Less, a novel by Andrew Sean Greer that neatly rebuts Mr. Brooke's claim that "We have so little humor now." You want humor? Read Less!  Middlemarch is funny (sometimes) but it takes a week to read, provided that you're not devoting any time to, for instance, having a job, but a quick reader can breeze through Less in a lazy June afternoon. I don't know how to describe the plot without evoking Homer and James Joyce and Jack Kerouac and, especially, Dante, which would make the book sound stuffy and scholarly, two things it most decidedly isn't, even though the main character, Arthur Less, finds himself in a dark wood on the eve of midlife and proceeds through various circles of travel hell. It's just a very funny account of a man running away from one problem and straight into a series of new ones while being stripped of everything that makes his life meaningful. Okay, that doesn't sound funny either, but trust me: it is a total hoot, with some marvelous moments of insight as well as a neat twist at the end. Just what I needed right now.

And so was this: "The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech," an online rant by Brian Phillips, who provides his list as a sort of addendum to the Pope's encyclical regarding technology. I suspect that every reader will find something familiar among Phillips's 40 problems, like the one concerning online tracking of packages:

Welcome to Schrodinger's UPS Vortex, the quantum rift within which your box is on a truck passing through Memphis, in a warehouse in Topeka, or on the outer rim of the galaxy, where it's being worshipped as a god by a species of semi-intelligent space protozoa. 

Or this one concerning the difficulty of finding helpful information in an emergency: 

I am in a hurricane. My house is in a swimming pool, and the swimming pool is in a tree. Emergency services are, for reasons I am not presently at leisure to explore, posting vital safety updates on X. When I try to read the relevant thread, the app tells me I can't do it unless I create an account, something I would gladly do if a Kia Sorrento were not flying at my face. I shall die peacefully here in my swimming-pool tree, knowing that at least i never had to talk to Grok.

Phillips ends his amusing rant with a mini-sermon aimed at tech billionaires, reminding them that "There are things in the world that are more important than money"--which, come to think of it, is an important principle underlying the plot of both Middlemarch and Less. All funny, and all effective at distracting from a midsummer panic attack in the middle of June.

But eek--where is the summer going?

Summertime and the living's sneezy

Sometimes I have to get away from my office, books, and screens and find a place outdoors to sit and breathe some fresh air, which is difficult right now when the air feels saturated with pollen. Yesterday on the drive home I had a sneezing fit so severe that I had to pull off the road until I could see again, but sometimes getting outdoors is worth a little discomfort, especially when campus is abloom with lovely things.

Except wait a minute, what happened to the pollinator gardens? For years now two plots just outside my building have barely contained a riot of sunflowers, dahlias, coneflowers, and more, attracting all kinds of birds, butterflies, and bees. 

They're gone, torn out in favor of neat little rows of marigolds. Someone in a position of authority decided that the pollinator plots looked too messy, that gardens are best when they're neat, tidy, and arranged in straight lines. This is clearly someone who hasn't spent much time in actual woods or meadows or other wild places. I've been cheered to see some sunflowers lined up in rows at the end of the plots, but otherwise, no pollinator gardens this year. How am I supposed to endure six more months of office work without the opportunity to commune with butterflies? 

So today I fled campus and found a quiet space along the Ohio River. Floodwaters have receded so it's a nice time to watch the boats go by. Years ago--can it be 40 years?--when we spent our grad-school summers working in campgrounds near Port Huron, Michigan, we could go to a park on the St. Clair River any day around noon and see a crowd gathered to eat lunch while watching the ships go by, big lakers that the locals knew by name, length, and cargo. Here we see coal barges and sometimes pleasure boats, but it's soothing to sit by the water even when there's nothing going past except our beloved local sternwheeler, the Valley Gem.

I've been working way too hard so far this summer, especially considering that it's only June. But goodness gracious--it's June already! I have to plan grant-related meetings, prep workshops, write syllabi for two or possibly three fall classes, and deal with  aging-related annoyances. Which would you prefer to do: get a cortisone shot in your right knee, get physical therapy for bursitis in your left hip, or navigate the paperwork required to sign up for Medicare? 

Time is flying way too quickly and I'm getting older by the minute, as my aching joints keep reminding me. But a bench next to the river is a catalyst for healing, a place where I can listen to the birds, watch the boats, and breathe deeply. 

But not too deeply--all that pollen makes me sneeze. 

 

 

Time to hang up the regalia

Clues that it's time to hang up my regalia for good: 

Early in my career here I taught a terrific student...who returned for this year's Commencement as our distinguished speaker. How did she accomplish so much so quickly?

My second year here I served on the search committee that hired a wonderful young colleague...who will retire as soon as he gets his grades turned in this week. How could someone I hired beat me to retirement?

I survived all the standing and processing and sitting in uncomfortable chairs at Commencement ...but afterward my legs were so sore I could hardly walk. When did I get so old?

We suddenly need to fill in some blanks in the teaching schedule because of a colleague's unexpected departure...but I don't want to step up and teach any of the unmanned classes, even for overload pay. What happened to my sense of duty?

After Commencement I should have carefully hung up my regalia so it'll be ready the next time I need it...but it felt like too much work, so I left it draped over a chair. When will I need academic regalia again?

 

Friday poetry challenge: reining in the nightmares

I show up at my office to find it changed, my books all gone and my art replaced by garish posters and one whole wall knocked down to expand the space and the carpet replaced by dull beige shag, and there's this woman there, young and pert with short dark hair and a bright smile, who says it's her office now. But I haven't retired yet, I insist, and I want to know where all my books and pictures have gone, not to mention the Jane Austen action figure and the Potato Head family and my stained-glass kaleidoscope, but she says she won the job in an online competition and if I have a problem with it I should take it up with HR, which I do, except when the HR director arrives she's a woman I've never seen before who can't understand why I'm upset. Yelling ensues. The argument ends when the HR director states that they had to hire this new person because she won the contest fair and square--and besides, she's so darned cute.

And that's when I wake up.

Is this my first retirement anxiety dream? Not very realistic. I mean, I'm sure some colleagues are already salivating over my lovely office, but even if the Powers That Be agreed to tear down a wall or put the carpet out of its misery, it wouldn't happen overnight--not without drastic revision to current purchasing policies. Once years ago a former colleague persuaded the PTBs that she couldn't move into a particular office unless (this is true) the doorway was moved to a different part of the wall because she didn't want to look at every dude who went in or out of the men's rest room across the hall, but I don't have the kind of clout required to move doors or walls or carpets. I doubt that anyone does.

We don't hire faculty via online contests (yet) or install them in prime offices because they're so darned cute, but any kind of faculty search would be preferable to no search at all. The PTBs have already selected replacements for my administrative roles, but my department was not permitted to replace the last couple of tenured professors who left us s0 they may be forced to replace me with an adjunct or two. Or a bot. Why not? They're hot! Suddenly I feel some doggerel coming on:

We've got
a bot.
Why not?
They're hot!
And cute
to boot.
Astute
offshoots
of bytes,
they might
delight
all night
and day
to stay--
no pay!
No play!
All work!
(A jerk.)

Now you try: rein in your nightmares by tying them up in rhyme.

The day you deserve

Among the bumper stickers on the battered little car in front of me was one that said Have the Day you Deserve, and I'm not sure what more a person can ask for. 

Today, apparently, I deserve to drive along a tranquil river reflecting abundant sunshine, and I deserve to enjoy the rhododendrons and azaleas that make Marietta the prettiest little town on the planet this time of year, and I deserve to walk past fragrant lilacs and see the peonies just beginning to bloom on campus, and I deserve to nab the parking closest to my office--so close, in fact, that I can look out my office window and wave to my adorable little car, not that it would notice.

I parked next to the President's residence, which still shows signs of damage from the nasty hail-and-wind storm that battered Marietta last month. All over town I see fly-by-night hail-repair services popping up, and I hear about scam artists offering great deals on repairing roofs and windows. I don't know what my colleagues did to deserved pockmarked cars, leaky roofs, or broken glass panes in the greenhouse dangling overhead like the sword of Damocles. The storm was very localized and selective, smashing holes in siding and windows all over one side of a house but sparing the others. On one street I saw three houses in a row with big blue tarps over holes in the roofs, but the next street over has none.

I missed the big storm because I was in Columbus helping my son wend his way through chemotherapy and all the indignities of cancer treatment. Not sure what any of us did to deserve cancer, but that's not how it works, is it? If the book of Job tells us anything, it insists that rewards and punishments are not equitably distributed--that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Or the hail, as the case may be.

What did we ever do to deserve cancer is just as ridiculous a question as What did we ever do to deserve peonies? Gratuitous suffering lives on the same block as gratuitous beauty. But I can't think about that this morning. Instead, I plan to accept the peonies as one small part of the day I deserve, even though I did absolutely nothing to earn it.

 

Random bullets of Wednesday, with sighs and howls

The accreditation team has left the building. Repeat: the accreditation team has left the building. And the entire campus heaves a sigh of relief.

My last time teaching "Howl" this morning and I wonder how today's students will react. So many words! So many opportunities to take offense! Taking offense would be evidence that they've actually read it, but I suspect that "Howl" is tame by today's standards of discourse. 

I wanted to howl myself yesterday, and yet here I sit in my office quietly not howling--but I'm howling on the inside. My son was in the local emergency room yesterday (not the main one in Marietta but the branch in Belpre, which I wish I'd known before I spent so much time circling the horrible parking garage at the Marietta hospital) getting tested and pumped full of electrolytes before they sent him off (in an ambulance this time, not a helicopter) to Columbus with possible pancreatitis, which is a common side effect of one of his chemotherapy drugs with a name that sounds like asparagus but isn't. I spent some time with him in the ER (in Belpre!) before he left. My husband left this morning to be with him at The James, and I'll drive up tomorrow or Friday if he's still there. When I'm with him I think about all I'm not getting done on campus, and when I'm on campus I think about the need to be with him in Columbus. Howling on the inside wherever I am.

Meanwhile, yesterday I shot the best photo I've taken in years, entirely by accident. I stepped out of my building in the afternoon, looked up, and noticed sun shining through dogwood blossoms while storm clouds passed over. Raised my phone. One shot. There it is. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time (and sometimes every place is the wrong place)--but you won't get the shot unless you look up. 

 

Friday poetry challenge: mxd mssges

I'm tearing through my to-do list, prioritizing and tackling and crossing off tasks until I hit an item that stumps me: a tiny yellow sticky note that says....something? It's my handwriting for sure and I definitely recall writing this note and attaching it to my laptop so I'd be sure to attend to the matter today, but now I can't read the words or remember why they're important.

The second word is Laugh, capitalized and underlined, but the first word(s?) is (are?) Inchworm, Inc hour, Inchon, I wear, I charm, or some other incomprehensible scribble. It must have been important or I wouldn't have written it down but if the meaning doesn't come back to me soon, it's going in the trash.

For a person addicted to using words to bring order to chaos, it's a little disconcerting to leave myself commands I can't decipher. I'm happy to comply with the second part of the message--Laugh--and in fact I'm still a little tickled by what a student said in class yesterday when I asked her, during a discussion of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," what she was laughing about and she said, "I can't help it--you have an infectious laugh." What was I laughing about while discussing "Cathedral"? I don't remember, any more than I remember what that sticky note is trying to tell me. If laughter remains after language fails, then I'm definitely equipped for an eventual slide into dementia.

Well maybe I'm just tired, bone-crushingly, soul-destroyingly tired, after the ordeal of the past month, if it's been a month already, not that I can tell since the concept of time seems to have abandoned me as well. I might be able to read that note on another day when I'm well rested and refreshed, but today I'm tired of squinting at the squiggles so I think I'll put it aside and see what sort of verse such nonsense can inspire.

I found a note
from I to Me;
the content I
can clearly see,
but if they're words,
I can't discern
what they might mean.
(We live and learn.)

I know I want
to talk to Me
but Me can't cope
with squiggles. Gee,
if I and Me
part way with words
there's naught to do
but laugh. (Absurd!)

Okay, that's the best I can do under such ridiculous circumstances. Anyone else want to produce some nonsense? 

Goodbye, Columbus (I hope)

I'm sitting alone at a four-top because there are no tables for one in the whole restaurant. Awkward. Last week my husband and I enjoyed a fabulous meal here, thanks to the generosity of friends who sent a gift card for a very nice restaurant near the hospital, but now the hubby has gone back home to prepare for this weekend's Easter services. (And how did Easter arrive already? I've missed the whole season!)

So anyway, I know there's a little bit of credit left on that gift card and it'll just go to waste if I don't use it tonight, which ought to be my final night in Columbus for (I hope) a very long time. I'm determined to use that gift card even if I have to eat alone.

How long have I been here? I have to look at a calendar: My son walked into the emergency room in Marietta on March 14 and got whisked away to The James by helicopter that night; I followed early the next morning by car. So tomorrow will be my 20th day hanging out at the hospital while my son gets poked, prodded, scanned, treated, and prepared to be released back into the wild--tomorrow.

Yes, they are letting him go home tomorrow. He's not cured--far from it. He'll have another round of chemotherapy tomorrow and then more tests, procedures, and treatments at least twice a week for months. The cancer center back home can conduct some of the tests, but he'll still make regular trips back to Columbus for treatments--a two-hour drive each way, with gas prices going crazy. But let me tell you this: it's cheaper than a helicopter.

I see how he struggles to stand up and walk across the room and I wonder whether he's well enough to go home (to our guest room because he can't live alone just yet), but the doctors are sure that he's not in danger. Three weeks ago when this all started, the tumor was squeezing his heart and blood vessels enough to constitute an emergency, and I hope I never again have to hear an ER doctor talk about the very real possibility of sudden organ failure. (They call it decompensation, which doesn't help.) 

I haven't seen my house for three weeks but my husband assures me that it's in good order. My only task for tomorrow, then, is to pack all my things, clean out the duplex, teach a class on Zoom, drop a book off at a friend's house, find some lunch, keep my son company through a chemo drip that will take more than an hour, pack up all the stuff he's gathered in his hospital room, and drive him and all our stuff home. Chemo hasn't caused serious side effects so far, but his taste buds are all out of whack and he's prone to an overwhelming tiredness, which is just the ticket for a two-hour drive. As long as I'm awake enough to drive, he can sleep as much as he wants.

But that's tomorrow. Tonight I enjoy a little private celebration at a very nice restaurant. I'll raise a glass to Columbus with gratitude to everyone who has made this stay bearable, but as good as the city has been to me, I sincerely hope I don't have to live in it again for a long time to come.

Just thurbing around

I found myself today in James Thurber's closet, but they wouldn't let me stay.

I'm not sure why I've never before toured the Thurber House Museum, the restored house where the humorist lived with his family while attending The Ohio State University, the house that plays a central role in the stories collected in My Life and Hard Times. I know I've visited before but the museum is open only for a few hours Saturday and Sunday afternoons, so until today I'd never set foot inside.

But this was my lucky day. My daughter arrived to keep my son company in the hospital so I felt comfortable taking a few hours off to commune with Thurber's spirit. 

Now I know I've mentioned before that the first book I ever bought with my own money was The Thurber Carnival, which I found on the Clearance table at the Little Professor Bookshop on Park Avenue in Winter Park, Florida. I paid all of four dollars--for a hardback! 

I must have been about 13, because that was the year I began earning my own money with my first job. Three days a week I would ride my bike a couple of miles to a house just off of Park Avenue to take an elderly woman for a two-hour walk around the neighborhood so that her less elderly daughter could get some time to herself. I thought the daughter was the most elegant woman I had ever met, but the mother was a piece of work: tiny and fragile-looking but tough as nails. Thanks to dementia, she had the mind of a toddler and the stubbornness to match. One time she tried to manually drag me into a church hall, insisting that they were saving a pie for her. And once the old lady soiled herself and I had to clean her up--by myself--at 13 years old.

The elegant daughter paid me five dollars every time I took the mom for a walk, and I earned every penny of it. Sometimes I would reward myself on my way home with a visit to the Little Professor, and on one of those days I splurged on Thurber.

I'd already read my school library's copy of The Thurber Carnival on a friend's recommendation, and I'd insisted on reading "The Owl in the Attic" out loud to all my buddies, some of whom found it funny. I have read pretty much everything Thurber ever wrote multiple times and I've taught "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" to students who couldn't find the comedy, but even though Thurber died the year I was born, he's never lost the ability to make me laugh.

Today I looked at the typewriter he may have used to write stories for the Columbus Dispatch; I admired signed original cartoons and hand-written letters, and I restrained myself from filching a James Thurber bobblehead. I bought a T-shirt featuring a Thurber dog reading a book, an image reproduced in statuary in the garden. And across the street I saw a unicorn in the garden, eating a rose. 

But the most surprising thing I saw was a drawing inside the closet in James Thurber's bedroom. Many visiting authors and artists have signed the walls inside the closet, including my favorite New Yorker cartoonist, Roz Chast, who drew what could be my next profile picture: a woman at the end of her rope who carries on despite everything. It was a shock to find myself falling to pieces in James Thurber's closet, but given the circumstances, it seemed appropriate.

A little time away from the hospital made me feel good; being surrounded by James Thurber's wit made me feel even better. But nothing made me happier than finding myself in his closet, surrounded by reminders that sometimes laughter truly is the best medicine.

A typewriter heavy enough to serve as a murder weapon, if necessary.

Would Roz Chast mind if I used this drawing as my profile picture?

A Thurber dog, reading.

The unicorn in the garden. (If you know, you know.)