Winter Break

These last four months have disappeared with the kind of fluidity that is most often reserved for birthdays parties, vacations and the first years of a child’s life. They have dissolved into one another with an ease and readiness that, in retrospect, leave me stunned.

They have been 4 very good months, overall. As with any like adventure, there have been moments grace and moments of terror, but mostly there have been moments of calm. It has been the kind of calm that hits in the hurricane’s eye: ephemeral and a bit noisy around the edges, but a calm nonetheless.

I might be lying about that calm thing.

These past 4 months have been chaos. The chaos of living in a strange place, alone for the first time in years and having to figure out what to do when a tire goes flat, the oil needs changing or the storm window won’t close all the way; the chaos of a new job with new faces, vague expectations, hidden agendas and if you’ve never worked in academia know this: we could teach the Beltway a thing or two about playing politics; and the chaos of meeting and befriending new and exotic people (of course they’re exotic—they’re New Yorkers!). The learning curve has been steep; I’ve fallen on my tail-end more than once and stepped in more piles of stinking goo than I care to admit. I’ve offended a few people, hurt a couple of others, and am still trying to figure out what another one or two are up to. I’ve made bad decisions, followed faulty lines of inquiry and forgotten to breathe more than once.

But I’ve also met people I genuinely like, have a job that I love, and feel that sense of home, rightness and belonging in this place. Not bad for a first semester of chaos.

So, as I’m cleaning out my apartment refrigerator this evening, packing up my laundry and presents, cleaning out the bathtub and running the vacuum in preparation for long winter break, I’m going to pretend that when January 20 comes and I’m back in residence, I will remember the steps to this dance that I’m still learning. Better yet, I’ll bring a clean Mason jar to capture some of the vapor that is this time—but I’ll be careful not to poke holes in the lid even though time, like fireflies, sometimes needs some breathing room.