Into the Great Oh God Now What

I've just submitted final grades at the end of another semester, and after I hit submit on my Hamilton class (another post entirely because omg) I realised I'm seriously feeling a little adrift here. This semester was in many ways like every other semester--I didn't give them as much in-class writing time as I wish I could, multmodal "unpapers" alternately knocked the socks off me (I'm looking at you, "Burr Book." You go, Glen Chlo-Chlo) and bored me halfway to tears (how many PowerPoints can one woman take?)--but in many ways it was also way, way different.

This semester, I finished my dissertation and I'll be awarded my doctoral degree this weekend. I ran another cycle through the job market--rinse and repeat--and have had some interesting results, which I am not currently at liberty to share (more on that soon).

But this has been my life for eight years. It has been everything. When Robin died, when shit went to hell and back with M and my mental health....through all of it, school was my constant. More than that, my dissertation was what I had, even in the moments when I thought I had nothing else. To suddenly not have that—even because I’ve seen it through to completion and am about to move on to something bigger, whatever that turns out to be—it’s a little disorienting, it turns out.

I mean, it's not going anywhere. I've written what I hope is a hell of a project, and there are next steps to be taken for sure, but just for a minute, sitting here in my gorgeous blue ikat armchair, gazing at my kitties curled into weird shapes on the couch--seriously, dude, who sleeps like that?--I had a moment of panic, that vertigo that comes at the edges of things, when one is deciding to jump to see if they will fly.

And this time, maybe I will.

Advent

Learning to manage life with a chronic illness means I have to let go of the housekeeping guilt. I didn't vacuum, but I did the dishes and unloaded the dishwasher. I didn't get to Wegman's, but I got the presents wrapped and my bag packed to head to Alien Boy's and then my folxen. I didn't get to travel to see my aunt in New York, so I could have a chance of making it to midnight mass (not to mention my mother was making noises about the weather, even in my Subaru). It's a challenge to not feel disappointed at what I didn't do, what I could have done, what I think I should have done. I didn't even muster up the energy to revive the Sarah HB Mostly Annual Christmas Tree Extravaganza for what may well be my last year in Bethlehem.

But it will be Christmas just the same. The candles will be lit in my parents' windows, the hymns will be sung. The snow may or may not fall; it may be slush. We may burn the first waffle again this year--some traditions always hold. But the Christ child will come: whether you believe in the story or not, a reminder of what really matters.

And that I have, in abundance.

Who's the Turkey Now?

It was Thanksgiving in Three Feathers a few days ago, which meant not only the usual hilarity about a misplaced grand piano (apparently my mother, my two sisters, and I are the only people on the planet ever to have read Home Sweet Homicide, because this joke makes precisely zero sense to the rest of the populace), it also meant that my mother had bought several boxes of Advent candles. I am forty-five damn years old, and I have never once bought my own Advent candles. The two years I lived in Spokane, my mother actually mailed them to me from 2600 miles away. Because, you know...moms.

I pointed this out when my dad called the week before Thanksgiving to find out if I had recently acquired any orphans who would be joining us for dinner (don't laugh, it's happened. More often than not, actually. One year the orphan was trapped at work because an NPR party don't stop, so I brought Thanksgiving to him, but that's another story entirely). Before ringing off, he added, "Oh, and Mother has bought you Advent candles."

What? Of course she has. It would only be news if she hadn't. Between this and Home Sweet Homicide, sometimes I wonder how my dad puts up with us. Then I remember that for five years he and I had a standing date Thursday nights to take out the trash and hold hands on the walk back--our driveway is quite long, so it's enough of a walk to catch up on stuff--and that every time I visit them to this day, I still try to arrange it on a Thursday. When I realised somewhat belatedly that Thanksgiving was a Thursday yet again this year (how does that always happen? And how do I always manage to be surprised by it?) I actually said, "Ooo, it's trash night!"

So yeah. Maybe he's in with the right crowd.

That crowd, however, had a bit of a malfunction this year surrounding the Advent candles. When my mom found my set and tucked them into my briefcase, there were four of us in the room, not counting the turkey. Among the four of us there are five master's degrees, one juris doctor, and fully 9/10 of a Ph.D.

I mention this because it wasn't until two days later than anybody noticed that for the past eight years my Advent wreath gets stored at my parents' house. Which meant it was still in the attic when I left Thursday night, laden with candles and three different kinds of leftover pie.

Every year Solstice manages to forget how fire works.
Also, how the dining room table works, which is by not having cats on it.

You're Welcome

As I take a breather between pie crusts I am thinking about the way Thanksgiving is in my family. We take our Robert Frost and our Dorothy Day very seriously in these parts.

I think about my senior year in high school when Betsy's family left for Long Island before we got back from marching band, and as we sat down to eat the doorbell rang and there was Betsy holding out a bouquet of flowers she'd stopped at ShopRite for because she didn't want to show up empty handed. "Hi, I'm Betsy. Sara said it was okay to come over?"

And I'm reminded of the first Thanksgiving I ever hosted (my second Thanksgiving away from home; Daryl and I went to Brodsky's our first year) and suddenly calling Meg's mom and saying "Jane, how do you actually cook a turkey?" And five minutes before dinner, Kary and Georgia showed up with a Mrs Smith's pumpkin pie and some whipped cream and said, "We decided we wanted to have Thanksgiving after all, is it okay?"

And the one and only Thanksgiving I was married, when we had Thanksgiving on a Saturday because that's what you do when you're a chef, and all four of our parents and at least a couple of our siblings and some waitstaff from his restaurant and of course Robin showed up and it was a madhouse but it was our madhouse, and Robin just took over everything that my husband wasn't doing without asking if it was okay because he was Robin.

And I think of the night a few years ago when I loaded up my parents' cooler with leftovers to bring to the station for Alien Boy and the desk guard on duty and as I was leaving I heard my dad tell my mom, "I put in the rest of the apple pie to make sure there was enough, was that ok?" and my mom answering, "Good because I was worried that just the pumpkin wouldn't be enough." It was okay. It was more than okay.

It will always be okay. That's what it means, that phrase. It's not a formality when someone says thanks. It's what this house has always stood for, and will always stand for, no matter who occupies it.

You are welcome.

It Seemed Worth Mentioning

I've been pretty open recently about my struggles with depression and self-harm. This afternoon I had to fill out the NCHA survey--and remind me to tell you how funny it is to fill that form out as a 45-year-old. All of the sexual health questions are geared toward people half my age, and don't take into account that my partner is in his fifties. All of the alcohol-related questions are geared toward assessing binge drinking and hazing-type behaviours--and while I greatly appreciate this at a university that saw four students brought to the ER last semester for alcohol poisoning, I can't adequately convey in my answers the part where mostly when I drink, it's with my parents. At the dinner table. Or occasionally to celebrate someone's retirement. We are dealing with a whole different set of relationship issues, here, fellas.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is this. I thought some of you might like to know.

Meet Me in STL (a brief interlude)

Scene: Lambert St. Louis International Airport.

I’m finishing up some research on my layover when a man in his late fifties sits next to me at the charging station and starts a random chatty conversation. I have never understood why men in their late middle age want to talk to me. Like, can you not see I am nose-deep in Henry David Thoreau?

Anyway, he peppers me with friendly questions while we charge our iPhones on a power strip of dubious electrical safety. There's a steady patter: am I headed home, was I here on business, oh wow Nashville, so what was I doing, oh he’s an engineer so he wouldn't know about any of that but his daughter’s favourite class in high school is English, that’s really neat. I’m not really in the mood, but by this point it's impossible to follow what old Henry is saying (though really, what else is new) so what the hell. Besides which, having just recently finished boneless wings and a pretty decent craft beer, I'm feeling fairly amiable. (Also, this may have some bearing on my critical inability to follow Thoreau's train of thought. You'd think it'd actually help.)

Talk turns to his older son, in the Navy. He’s in IT, somehow; I can’t really follow because I don’t speak IT, but I ask where he’s stationed out of. The man pulls his baseball cap out of his carry-on and proudly shows me the embroidered USS Iwo Jima emblazoned on the front. I suppress a grin and tell him that by coincidence my cousin is also on the Iwo. We marvel a bit, the man and I, at how small the world sometimes is, and he wonders aloud if his son knows my cousin. By this point I am laughing. Hard. I tell him yeah, I’m pretty sure he does. The man is not convinced, because it’s a fairly decent sized ship, and what does my cousin do?

Well, er, he’s the captain.

So there’s a pretty good chance your kid has at least heard of him.

Unexpectedly Inconvenient Ways In Which My Body Would Like to Remind Me I Am Still In Recovery, Mid-November Edition

Some of this I genuinely did not see coming.

•  Grading 40 papers by hand instead of online. Who even knew I moved my shoulder that much when I wrote? It’s a puzzle.

•  Pulling up my pants. (And don’t even talk to me about tights.) Down, on the other hand, is no problem whatsoever. Make of that what you will. 

•  Talking on the phone. Sorry I missed your call, but I only have one arm that reliably goes up past 90 degrees, and I was already using it for something. 

• Feline affection. Solstice is a head-butter and a climber, and his favourite safe space is draped over my left shoulder. This dates back to kittenhood, when he was cute and wee and could nestle in the crook of my neck. Now that he’s approximately the size (not to mention shape) of a walrus, it’s somewhat less graceful under the best of circumstances.

Happier times

• Trying to get out of this fucking bra. 

• Flailing academic gestures, all sorts. If you’ve ever spoken to me in person, this needs no further commentary. 

• Backing into parking spaces. Backing out of parking spaces. Backwards in general remains somewhat of a mystery in my life. 

•  Can I carry this full cup of coffee all the way back to Drown without stopping to switch hands? Possibly yes, probably no. (Bonus points for catching that reference.) But I am definitely letting you open that door. 

• Hair. Anything relating to hair. Combing hair. Washing hair. Styling hair. The fact that hair manages to exist so far away from my current range of motion.

Seriously. How did that get over there?

• Pillowcases. Pillowcases are far harder than I imagined. I was prepared for fitted sheets. I was not prepared for pillowcases. And yet, I agreed to this lunacy, so here we are.