Soap Bubbles

I left Baton Rouge a year ago today. Although it would be a couple of weeks before I was able to get back into my home in Fair Oaks, it was the end of my temporary stay in a city that became my home. In fact, it became my fifth home in the short list of geographic regions that I ever spent enough time in to call home. But home is more than just geography, it is more than just where a job is, it is more than just where a school is. It turns out the old cliché is right on the money - home is where the heart is. For that to happen, for me, it means not only that I have to live in a given place, I also have to establish long-term emotive connections with people who also live there. In have done that in exactly five places, four in California and one in Louisiana.

Now about one year back in my Sacramento area home again, I don’t feel “at home.” Yes, I am all moved back into the same house I moved out of two (or three+, depending on how one defines “moved”) years ago and it’s the same house I have owned for almost 11 years. Yes, I still know my way around. Yes, I am gainfully employed in a “new” job, but it’s at the institution I spent five years working on my BA and then my MA before starting my journey towards a Ph.D. And, yes, I have a lot of friends here from before. But… things changed while I was gone. The circles have intersected, merged, dissolved and been reincarnated as new circles. This morphing of groups and alliances and loyalties occurs everywhere and amongst all groups and subgroups of friends - but when one is in the midst of it, it is hardly perceptible in real time.

Try moving away and then come back. The familiarity I have with this place is almost deceiving. A lot has changed and after the initial “hey, we’re so glad to have you back,” reaction by a whole lot of people (not all are “friends” in the pre-Facebook sense), that novelty has, apparently, worn off. I am not part of the circle(s) I once was. The evidence, while subtle, is becoming more and more convincing. Where I once was always “in the know” on various different happenings, gatherings, excursions, and the like (some of which require an actual invite, others are open to everyone who shows up), I now find out about such things (often on Facebook) after they have happened. This is not to say that my event folder never gets the telltale red blip indicating an invite is awaiting a response, but I got those kinds of invites when I was in Baton Rouge, too, 2,200 miles away and without a chance of making it. Blanket invites to blanket events are not among the subtleties I am referring to. It unfolds more in the unofficial, in the impromptu, in the circles circling that I am now decidedly on the outside of.

A lot of shit went down while I was gone. That disaster marriage and my now ex-wife took a toll on who is who and what is what. The fallout for all those who were either directly or tangentially affected is over - life has moved on. However, speaking for myself, I am still trying to find my place. The terrain has changed; this is not the same home I left. It was predictable, but I didn’t see it coming. It feels Twilight Zone-esque sometimes. Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck are y’all? Who the fuck am I? It’s like waking up from a dream but it was the dream that was real. This, this real, has become more surreal.

The circles, apparently, are not circles at all. 

They are more like the soap bubbles blown by a kid with a bubble wand. 

They are fragile, short-lived and exceedingly fluid.

Now What?

My first year of full-time professing (which, I must assume, is the act a professor performs) is in the books. It is not my first rodeo, however. Indeed, I have been professing semi-professionally, without the title, for some time now. Now with the nebulous title, “adjunct professor,” I can lay claim to a vocation that is as enigmatic as it is intuitive. Enigmatic because so many, including many of us, cannot say what, exactly, it is we do. We are more than just teachers; we are more than just researchers; and when it comes to professing, speaking for myself at least, the ambiguity of language itself leaves me questioning what that actually means. While I do, for the most part, know what I am doing, I am often not as good at doing it as I wish. My dissertation advisor at LSU once told me that his job extends well beyond mentoring his advisees through grad school. He is part counselor, part friend, part colleague and part many other things, as necessary. That’s the intuitive part - we know we are more than teachers and we can feel that what that is is an important distinction, but I cannot articulate with any more precision what that “more” actually is.

I am also left with a monumental “now what?” One of the benefits of this job is the several blocks of “free” time we are given during the year. Some outside of academia see that as more “vacation” than they get (or more than we deserve), but the fact is that many professors never stop professing through the summer and other breaks. If we are not teaching summer classes, we are researching or preparing for upcoming classes. Although the life of an adjunct professor (or visiting professor, or part-time faculty, or lecturer, or temporary faculty - all of these terms are relatively synonymous) does not entail the rigors of attaining tenure or reaching other non-classroom goals, we are still charged with being ready. And being ready means preparation. For me, this summer, that means doing a significant amount of preparatory work to be ready for the fall semester - to fill the shortcomings revealed in my first year in order to be better next year. It’s not all “vacation,” but it is self-directed. There is no clock to punch, no one to answer to, no students and no superiors. That’s not just me, anyone who takes this job seriously does not look at summer as “summer vacation.”

But some of it is. That’s where the “now what?” comes in. In the past eight years, my summers have been loaded with an abundance of “free” time, but not all of it was and, depending on which summer we’re talking about, it might have been difficult to differentiate it from the preceding spring or the upcoming fall. This is the first summer since 2009 in which I am not a grad student. My graduate career officially comes to an end in August, but for all intents and purposes, I’m done. I threw in the towel on the Ph.D., but I am coming away with another MA just before I time out on it. What that means is more time this summer. It doesn’t mean I have all summer, but a much larger proportion of it belongs to me. Now what? Part of that what is this - writing. I am also going to be reading for my own entertainment, enlightenment, interest, etc., too. But I will be reading for “work,” as well. I’ll be reading a new edition of a textbook and creating curriculum for one class in the hopes I will get a section or two next fall (adjuncts rarely ever know what we will teach until just before we get to teach it). But even with that, I have a lot of time on my hands.

Years ago - at least 10 years, probably more - I discovered something in me that I kind of knew was there, but never paid too much attention. Very broadly defined, it can be called “art.” Or artistry, or an artistic nature, or artistic talent (aren’t all talents artistic?), but to be as clear as possible, let’s just call it “art.” I found art in me. I always wished I had art in me, but felt that when it came to such things, I was not so blessed. I could not sing, I could not play music, I could not draw, I could not paint, I could not sculpt, I could not write poetry. I still can’t, but I can write. I don’t know how or why this “gift” found me, but for a long time I wished a different one did. I am not exactly a “voracious” reader, but there have been long periods of my life that I could be described as such. I don’t know if there is a genetic component and I can’t (nor will I) say that some definition of “god” bestowed me with this ability. Despite all this, I finally acknowledged and embraced not only the fact that I have this artistic talent, but, more importantly, that I have art in me. Furthermore, I believe everyone does. Some are obviously more gifted than others (I am among the “others,” not the “some”), but we all have it.

There is a much larger work of art, larger than anything I have produced thus far, lurking somewhere inside of me. It is painfully obvious that it is not a dissertation, but there is something. There is a big piece of art struggling to get out. It is, perhaps, serendipitous that this urge coincides with the first summer in a long time that I have the time I do. I have a “now what?” and the “what” occurring at precisely the same time. So, I will be writing - and this is the start. It is not a bad start considering today is the first day into the now what/what collision. I have a lot to say, I have a lot of ways to say it and, now, I have a lot of time to get it said.

That’s what.