Dear Mom --

Dear Mom --
Guess what I learned this week!? I don't have to keep gifts from people I don't like (especially if they were grudgingly given). It really doesn't save any time or energy to shovel 12 inches of snow as it falls. The dog does grow up eventually and now likes snow! If you have a little faith in the grand scheme of things, life turns around and goes the way you want it to (two new jobs since getting fired!). Students love it when you wear blue jeans to class: the whole stockings&slip thing is a false authority - always knew that - and they equate Jeans with Real, which often changes the whole relationship. I've been married long enough to know that you have to stick it out during the bad spots (exception: violence) and a married couple should never embark on anything that will cost more than $1000.00 without conferring with each other. It is really important to support your partner in their obsessions, hobbies, and passions (after the $1000 discussion) because they will then believe that you want them to be happy, and they will respond in kind when you want to spend a little time or money on something they think is stupid (EA is going to own a new boat by Opener!! and I'm going to paint the laundry room). Even if all of my children live in California, I'm going to stay here where I have six whole months to plan the garden. And I know now that I will miss you forever. More later -- gotta go teach a little bit of what I've learned -- Love, A.

Employment & Life Change UPDATE

First, I'm so mad! I have been sinking into obsessive replays of the "We've decided to terminate you" speech, and rehearsals of the "You shouldn't do that because...." I sound a little postal. They did it all wrong and for all the wrong reasons! I never had a chance to defend myself! etc etc etc.

The re-directed thoughts include a mature look at the truth: I wouldn't want to keep working there anyway. Who wants to work when you know there are visual-daggers being aimed at you on the other side of the wall? I am going to do something vengeful, just out of pride and an inflated sense of civic responsibility. It may be complicated, like reporting their shenanigans to the Department of Labor. It may be simple, like bad-mouthing them around town. Or, it may be a combination, like carrying a protest poster along the sidewalk by the front door. I'm sure it isn't good for me to sink and wallow. I'm glad I'm older now and don't need to do that so much. I know, now, in the wisdom of my old age, that obsession doesn't get me anything other than an upset stomach, a little more acne, and too many minutes of functional cognition wasted. Looking at myself objectively and judging my behavior over the last week, I'd say that I am finally old enough to get fired.

And, there are so many other things to do.... Two new teaching gigs confirmed! Meeting tomorrow with new Dean to get textbook, tour, secret password, new email address. I just signed up for two continuing education courses: on-line, will meet both of my re-licensure requirements. The water softener is being installed right this very minute! A new garden catalog arrived Saturday.... The holidays are coming, and that includes a tree, special baking, a child visiting from the other side of the country, gift-exchanges with the BFFs, and the Christmas movie marathon on the Family Channel. Ahhhh... life is full. Gotta go: pizza's done.

The Trapdoor opens and I see another door!

Because there is no longer a schedule conflict with what I will refer to henceforth as Parttime Job #2, the one that is over, gone, vamoose, stolen from me, another emotional coulee -- I am able to say "YES" to wage-earning opportunities that will fill both my pocketbook and my soul. One of the issues that precipitated the separation was my asking for an hour off two days a week to teach a class in the same city. After I got my boxes in the car, I raced back home and emailed off a "YES" to that one. It promises professional challenges, a few or more laughs, some real hard work connecting the material to the students.... ahhhhh. That's one door opened. And, today, I said "YES" to teaching a class at another school, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons -- that door would never have been opened by the former boss! It's a new class in my satchel, though still one of the Social Studies. I'll be able to have new rooms, new faces, new text, new factors to consider, and at the same time, use lots of my already-prepared assignments and class activities. Another .... ahhhhh.

I lectured tonight on "Middle Adulthood" which is the lifestage between Age 40 and Age 60. We watched a movie (remember David Hartman?) that made, very well, the point that this is the last stage where you can trust your mind and body to stick with you all the way to the end. And menopause and empty nests (for both men and women) bring a sense of liberation, the desire to find and follow old passions, and an imperative to discover something new. I am so totally in this stage. I am in the middle... of the road, of life, of the bridge. There is a sense of time running out, and, I am asking myself, Where Have I Been? and, Who Am I Today?

The youngest kid is admirably independent, self-sufficient, and busy. The Hubby has found his new hobby (fishing, lots of it). Now I have the time to figure out if I am the same person that I was 20 years ago, "pre-children," or not. What did I learn in those years when I was so busy being The Mrs. and The Mom, plus The Wage-Slave, that I wasn't sure some days why that lady in the mirror looked so tired? I can remember driving the road and having a CRS moment: not knowing where I was going or even who I was; my psyche was so malleable that Nicholas Cage or Jamie Curtis movies about body-switching and alternate planes didn't always stay in the "TV: Fiction" category of my mind.

I suspect there are lots of .... ahhhhh moments in my future. Now I have time to enjoy them! And some of them are going to be in those new classrooms this spring.... Gotta go and work on the reading list.... ahhhhh.

The first day is the hardest

I got fired an hour ago. It's probably not a good time to write a blog post; on the other hand, I've got the time now. A month ago, I lectured the Developmental Psych students on the stages of adulthood and the definition of "career consolidation." I have never had a real career -- only for short periods of time have I gone to the same place, same desk, to do the same task. There's been a lot of waitressing, temping in offices, and substitute teaching. The last few years have been the most balanced -- though it seems to the children that I've been gone a lot, I actually worked less than 40 hours a week, and the work(s) itself was balanced in the energy & thought requirements. There was usually a day or two, or a day plus an afternoon, at home in the garden, and weekends could be focussed on family, cookies, ironing, and reading. I told my DevPsych class that, in the middle of "middle adulthood," I had finally achieved what felt like career consolidation. Well..... it's a good thing there is no crystal ball in my kitchen.

I could go on a rant here, about the lack of communication about changing rules and standards, or the boss with a mental illness or two (to borrow a line from As Good As It Gets: we both give mental health a bad name!). But what does that do for me? There is no gain in that. I'll focus on the fact that I'm getting a month's severance pay, and that I have time during the holiday season, and that I can (and did already!!) accept that odd-hour adjunct gig teaching ITV Sociology. A letter is coming, said the committee that greeted me at the office door this morning. They provided boxes and didn't need to go through them: they trust me they said. Ahhhhh.... the tension, worry, daymares, perhaps actual angst is over. That's a good thing.

So, today, I'll do what I was going to do at the other job (babysitting a phone was a primary task) -- grade papers, complete grade reports, set up a Ch. 14 game for class, prepare for the scout meeting tomorrow. And I'll finish that silly mystery novel. And clean the bathroom and water the plants. And I get to work -- at a job I love to do! -- tonight. When I go to bed tonight, the day will seem like a good and productive one (cover the crystal ball!). The sun is shining. That's a good thing. Add "Walk The Dog" to the Do-List.

Maps and Journeys

I am reading a book called The Island of Lost Maps about cartographic crime. The author does a wonderful job of interweaving the metaphor "Maps" into a story about the histories of certain maps and about one certain map-thief. Maps are the portrait of, the reason for, and the story of journeys of both the soul and the body. Add in this quotation from a recent email from my brother, who is establishing a foundation "for good works" in our mother's name: "I have a variety of personal reactions when I read such stories as these. I think, "Oh, everything I want to do is already being done." I also think, "If a 14 year old girl can raise that much money, and a pastor plunks down everything he has, how can I set my sights any lower?" And then I worry, too, that I won't achieve what these ordinary folks have achieved with such apparent aplomb. I suppose the only thing to do is just keep at it."

I am busy these days living on several types of time. The healthcare debate promises either little change (the version that passed last night won't change lives for many people) or huge change (assassination and revolution): I fear for my country and weep for the fading of optimistic belief in the mirage called "American Dream." My inheritance from my mother will be used to buy my house from the bank -- that's telescoping about 15 years of my life into the minutes it takes to sign the check and seal the envelope. I have (finally!) set a teaching schedule for the spring, still a few months away, one that promises both periodic flurries of never-home busyness and new challenges relating to pedogogy. Spring will also bring the execution of those plans made in the days of waning summer and of frigid winter.... And, today, on a day when I have to look at a calendar to find out what the date is, and when the sunshine is saying through the window "Come quickly! I'll be gone soon," I am making a list of what must be done before bedtime.

I have been working on my lectures about the various stages of "adulthood" (as set out by our textbook). I think I'm in, or due for, a mid-life crisis. Perhaps I had one and didn't notice. I am aware that my clock is ticking. I am aware that I think about dying more often than I used to (eg., the mortgage will mature in 2024 and my first thought is that I might not be here to see it -- math is not one of my skills). Because of my experience with my mother's passing, I see the files of banking and insurances and children's college funds in a whole new light ("Oh, I should organize those!"). But, to my own confusion and fascination, I am at the same time eager to see what the next corner brings. If this is what age 50 feels like, what will it be like to be 65? Can I really eat & exercise enough to forestall disintegration? I ask my young-adult students, "What is old?" Am I a grown-up yet? One assignment in this class will be to write an obituary for yourself. What do I want on my headstone? In the end, at the end, what will I turn out to be? This is a journey that doesn't allow maps.

Autumn is just the end of the chapter

The anniversary of Mom's death was September 22nd, and her house was sold a week later. We have lived through the many firsts of new grief, and the house is -- gone, no more Christmas gatherings there, few reasons to ever return to that city -- that is the end of a chapter.

The last of the tomatoes were eaten or canned, and we had a meal of peas; the fishing started to get difficult, plus windy and cold; the wood ricks were brought up from the basement and EA cleaned the chimney. I put straw thickly on top of the new strawberries and asparagus (-gi?) and spent some time getting the new potting room organized (the table is not yet in, and that space is taken up with drying dahlia & canna tubers). Fall is coming (it's at least 50 degrees today with sunshine!) -- and that is an end of a chapter.

I spent (too) much time these last few months realizing that my LIFE book has only a few chapters left: each body system did an old-age hiccup and then settled into a new "normal." In impulsive rebellion, I picked out new plastic eyeglass frames: sort of like Elvis Costello's, and not so impulsively, I really am going to buy the zipper hightops: it's BOGO month. I read alot, so I naturally begin to see life and its myriad adventures (and those misadventures!) as being set between covers, with chapter breaks intermittently providing a false sense of resolution. Many chapters ended this fall and I feel grief in different degrees, yet -- like those #$&%* squirrels -- I feel at the very same a sense of excitement, about what takes up the space in my head, the hours on my calendar, or this blog spot. I'm waiting for confirmation of my spring teaching schedule; the garden catalogs have been arriving in the mail (another compost bin, I think, and I will try planting potatoes under the little-used clothesline); my gynecologist and I have made a pact to get out with our friends twice as often as we do now (that will equal two times: social networking does not come easily to workaholics with odd artistic and political perspectives). I discovered that I actually waiting to see how well I fare this winter, depression-wise, and if the new tricks I've been reading about will really work (Item 1: abundant plastic plants in my windowless office -done). A chapter has ended. OK, lots of chapters have ended. And every one is followed by a new page.

Suicide is a right

It's Thursday. That's the day after the two long days, and it's a long day itself. I feel a bit creaky. Last night, I introduced a film (PBS, Independent Lens: A Fishing Story) and suggested to my young students that they were the foundation of my future, that they - in this class - needed to learn to recognize ethnocentrism and the human tendency to make "groups," and to distinguish between pluralism, assimilation, and tolerance, because they - future policy-makers and citizens - had to figure out to reduce/avoid/resolve conflicts between the myriad groups that exist, locally/nationally/globally. I frequently refer to my elderly-ness, and I (increasingly) sound more querulous as I demand they step up to the plate and learn enough to take care of me in my tarnished years.

So it's Thursday, which is also a day with chunks of time to prepare for future lectures. I will be teaching 'AGING' in two classes this fall. Gotta find some interesting, shake-them-in-their-flipflops kind of videos and articles. I found this in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/europe/24britain.html?ref=todayspaper.

From the age of 16, I have pondered the What-If's and the paradoxes I encounter. What's worse: to be smart and ugly, or dumb and beautiful? (That took up a lot of thought time a few decades ago!). Now, I wonder what's worse: to lose motor coordination and other physical abilities (like my sight) or to lose my awareness of the moment and memories? One of the things that my mother and I discussed in the year before her death, was the right to die. She seemed to feel that taking her own life would cause undeserved stress and angst among her family and loved ones. So dying had to be a natural occurrence. But she did have admiration for the strength of character that led the elderly Eskimos to the iceberg. My thinking (at this distance in time from the dying) is that I have the right to hold as much control as I am able to hold over the dying, and the death. (Cynicism alert: That may be more control than I will have over the distribution of my stuff and the way I am celebrated in ceremony.) If my life isn't worth living -- and surely, I am the one who gets to decide that! -- then I have the right to end it. Right?