Proofs

A year ago at this time, I was emerging from the most horrific year of relationship drama of my life only to be greeted by my dissertation. As memory serves me all too well, I was between domestic situations and camped out for about a week on my best friend, Amesbooty's living room futon in the People's Republic of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. All I really remember of this time was the feeling of relief that Amesbooty was there and worried about me. It's rare that I lean so hard on a dear friend, but truth be told, I was worried about me.

Of course, I knew it would take a matter of time and sheer strength of will for this to pass. In spite of the fact that my life was incredibly frayed and messy at the time, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to face my life and this meant that I had to write. In facing my life, I had to face my dissertation...

So a year ago, I put myself together enough to leave Amesbooty's enclave in Capitol Hill for one last and final spin through Manhattan before heading north to New England for a summer of solitude and thought. On the way, I stopped for a healing session with a healer friend of mine in Long Island. If I hadn't done enough weeping already, it was done in spades as my healer friend made her magic. After that, I felt like I could handle a summer of writing and solitude.

And writing in solitude is what I did. As a metaphor for my life and my future, I ripped apart and put the pieces back together of my first chapter. I spent the next two months attempting to write, sleeping fitfully, attempting self-care. I was sad, very sad, but equally determined to find some way to triumph over the sadness. The fear of writing was paralyzing. But then again, the fear of not writing was motivating.

I wrote. I ran. I biked. My only friend was the chronically depressed, chain-smoking anthropologist living in the apartment beneath me in the hellhole of an house I was living in. We met almost weekly for her to tell me the stories of her men, her missed opportunities, and her depression. I watched her chainsmoke cigarrettes and made exciting drinks for us with the vodka she provided. She knew of my struggles, but it didn't seem to register for her. The interesting thing for me was that this meant that I could just listen and drink and not have to talk about or reflect on the deep sadness I was swimming through.

Fortunately, I think it is safe to say that I reached the other side of that sadness. I can't precisely say when or how I emerged from it like an upright sea creature covered in muck, but I did. All I know is that I put one foot in front of the other and walked out of it one day. No medication, no professional help. I just...did it.

By the end of the summer, I had a completed draft of something that my advisor tore to shreds within 24 hours, but I didn't care. I had written, and I knew that what I had was good. I continued to work on it for the next few months. But I knew that I was starting to tell a story worth telling, and it was good.

So, here I am a year later. On Saturday, my dear friend Amesbooty is set to come and visit me in Jerusalem. As always, we're going to have a marvelous time. And, of course, I am still writing. Writing and reading. Thinking and hoping. I could be anywhere right now, and I often have to remind myself that I am no longer in exile. In so many ways, I am home. The work is getting done, and at the end of the week I have the good fortune to put it all to rest for an evening of food, prayer and singing. The process has now become very peaceful for me. Some days are better than others, but the writing is flowing. I'm no longer scared of writing and scared of not writing at the same time.

And so, it's good. Every new page is proof to me. It's proof of survival and proof of being. It's proof that the path is always there. And proof that good things always seem to fall into place when we are living the lives we were put here to live.

Yes, my friends, all I can say is that I take the pain again for the realization of the beauty that comes after it passes. The rainbow is worth it despite all of the clouds. Perhaps this is really what it's like to live your dream?

Namaste

Disser-sorbtion

The dissertation giveth, and the dissertation taketh away...

Where to begin with this one?

Let's see...

First, I am writing "full time" again. And when I say writing, what I really mean to say is that I wake up in the morning, sit down with a cup of tea and something to nibble on, and make a few productive paragraphs until I realize that I am starving again--usually around 11 am. After an impromptu "lunch", which usually involves a bowl of yogurt with muesli mix, I stare and fidget for 5 more hours. I check my email a zillion times and watch as the East Coast begins to wake up on Facebook. I attempt to edit what I have written, and chew through a pack of sugar free gum in the process. Orally fixated, I have eaten far too many dried apricots, and have subsequentally noted to self: "No more apricots, Namaste. Just...stop...now." After several more cups of tea and many trips to the bathroom, where I brush my hair and examine the weird freckle that has recenly appeared above my upper lip, I finally give up on my productive day of writing.

My late afternoon activity involves going to the gym that I have recently joined at the downtown YMCA, where I unstealthly attempt to bypass the trainers persons of the gym as they wander around the cardio room. Apparently, I have a sign on my head that says, "Please come up and attempt to socialize with me when I am pounding out my day of frustrations and angst at the highest speed I can possibly go on the treadmill and cannot speak because I am out of breath." Or is this sign on my ass? I am starting to think that it is the latter. The trainer guys themselves are all possessed of intimidatingly developed bicep muscles, which is quite a unique sight for men in the Middle East.

In total, I am working on working. More importantly, I am working on having a longer attention span.

Please, G-d, just let this thing be done.

And here, I would just like to add that it is such a terrible feeling to look at everything that must be noted, fashioned, written and accomplished...and meanwhile, I sit frozen, fretting over the wording of my Facebook updates...

Writer's block, indeed.

Namaste

And Still It Moves

"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You changed my life," he said.

I blinked back tears and I felt my knees nearly buckle beneath the weight of the world...

My Honda and I barely made it out of the parking lot before I let out a sob that lasted for the first two hours of my drive away. Then, for the next 5 hours, I only cried intermittently as my mind flip-flopped between what had suddenly and so unexpectedly become "the past" and what is yet to appear in the shapeless future. I sobbed between knowing exactly what has brought me here, and trying to focus on the unknown ahead.

Of course, I thought about stopping and turning back, but I knew this would not be wise. It has all been revelatory, but it is clearly not the time for being foolish. I told myself that I do not yet have the room in my heart to have it break again. I also told myself that I have done all that I came to do. Yet even still, I (briefly) fantasized about spontaneous car trouble and I even laughed at myself for this. Despite the fact that life certainly feels like a soap opera at times, I still cannot bring myself to act like a drama queen.

So I kept going with the awareness that going back would be an admission of my own tenderness right now and the limitations of what I can both give and bear. Yet moving forward was also an acknowledgment of my own, undeniable vulnerability. It occurred to me that no matter where we are, it is important not to stagnate, sell-out, and settle for what seems like a good idea on paper. I considered the idea that it is all too easy to be comfortable for all of the glaringly wrong reasons.

And so I kept going in light of the truth because the truth is that I never had the intention to change anyone's life, I was just living mine. It just happened that I was navigating through a year of the biggest personal and professional challenges one could find. Funny how it was just a job for the meantime, just another line to add to the resume, and just some random place in the middle of nowhere. But, (once upon a time), the proximity of the job to the rabbi allowed the rabbi and I to make plans of a lifetime. Who knew?

In all, all of it was serendipity. Even with everything so fresh, I can clearly see that it was never about the job or the rabbi, but about the enormity of encountering the lives of many others beyond my own, even in a moment that became exceptionally solitary, dark and often perilous for me to bear.

In the end, perhaps this is what Emerson means to have "succeeded"?

Perhaps.

"Yoga just ain't the same without you...," my amazing boss wrote me tonight.

"You are so missed," one student wrote earlier in the day.

"You'll always be in my heart," he texted with conviction. And then, "It is not nearly as much fun waking up without you here."

Others have written and called to say that there is a palpable hole that I left behind. In my mind, I imagine the water of the Finger Lake filling it over in the spring and a tree taking root somewhere in the meantime. I suppose we can never understand the enormity of what we leave behind in the lives of others?

"Bring me back to the job," I replied via text to my amazing boss.

"I miss you, too. Please keep up the good work!" I enthusiastically wrote my student.

"Miss me. A lot. And if you still miss me badly enough then we should talk...," I told him with as tenderness as my heart could bear.

And still it moves...(said Galileo).

And still it moves...

(Though the hardest part is not knowing why or to where.)

Maybe I will get the call again and my heart will be more prepared this time. Or maybe I will just go back for a nice visit.

Namaste

On Moving

At the moment, I am having some difficulty in discerning where one part of the story ends and the other begins.

Perhaps this is because everything in my mind right now exists in a jumble, meticulously folded and itemized for utility--in a yet another well-worn suitcase, which I have packed and put on wheels to fly through the air--just like the rest of me.

I could say that I have felt some sense of finality and closure to the past 14 months of my life, but it would be careless to imply that life is always clean, clear-cut and perfectly linear. In review, however, my teaching contract has come to an end. In an abrupt and discernible way, this marks the end of a fortuitous, 14-month long moment in which I was given an identity to assume, and the legitimacy to back it up with exceptionally patient, creative and focused hard work. In all honesty, I can say that I am very proud of myself and the work that I have done. I might add that I was careful and aware of my role as a college professor and its importance--both to me and my colleagues, but, most importantly, to my students. I have been blessed with the gift of planting purpose, agency, new thoughts and ways of seeing ourselves in the minds of young people. In my own, extremely small way, I have helped where I was needed in making the world a bit better, by sharing the few gifts I came with and being of use to others.

In the past 14 months, I have been aware of the fact that life is certainly full of blind alleys, unexpected sucker punches and general weirdness. Yet there are still many moments of kindness, peace and utter transcendence. One thing I know from all of this is that there are no coincidences. Instead, what seems like "luck" or "fate" is the Universe's way of engaging us, tempting us to take a bite and see what happens next. Paulo Coelho might call these "signs" or "blessings". Accordingly, there is an importance in reading the signs as they present themselves. Yet one of my favorite quotes of Coelho's is: "Every blessing ignored becomes a curse."

I am yet to book my flight back to the Middle East. Despite ongoing events in Gaza, in my own, small way, I feel the need to take my time with this. A few signs have popped up in the past couple of weeks, indicating to me that I need to pay attention to the details of the moment, rather than try to rush to get ahead. In particular, a job interview awaits me at the end of January. The job, which is not academic, may significantly change the next few years of my life. (But, of course, this is what I have been envisioning for a while now...and it is a plan that I put into action a few months ago.) In the meantime, I am doing my best to stay grounded, focused and patient. After I finish packing and sorting my life out into what can fit into my Honda, I will return to my writing for the next few weeks. Only this time, I hope to have a better perspective than I had last summer on the job at hand. Despite the fatigue that I find myself swimming through from the past 14 months, I can also say with clarity that I don't feel nearly as abandoned and directionless as I did over the summer.

Finally, I cannot begin to anticipate where it is that I am really going from here. I have a blueprint in my mind, and a very clear idea of what needs to happen. But will it? Certainly, it is not a matter of will or talent per se, but an issue altogether contained in having the fortitude and resolve to make life happen, rather than wait around for it to happen to me.

Fourteen months later, I'm yet to find where I can be complacent. But, for now, if it all can fit in the Honda, then this will do....

Namaste

Janus Faced

"So wait...they have hired you to teach a 4th course because you are so amazing, and yet you have no job security for the spring semester?"

A colleague of mine looked at me from across the top of her beer glass in amazement.

It was a reminder to me why I actually don't prefer to socialize much anymore.

But, whatever, right? Happy birthday to me!

All I could do was blink and smile and hold back the sermon from the pulpit I might otherwise be tempted to deliver on how I am just a brain for hire and, thus, perhaps not much more than goo on a stick.

I have been doing a lot of that lately: blinking and smiling, while working myself into early nights and earlier mornings, while making it all appear seamless. Currently, I am the only person on my academic floor to not be plagued with the seasonal, weather-change flu that everyone keeps passing around in communicable fashion. No. In fact, I do not have time to physically fall apart as they leaves fall in heaps to the ground...

And so, the other day at a lunch, another colleague remarked (in an Indian-from-actual-India-accent):

"I must tell you, Namaste, you always impress me. You always seem to be so calm and content with yourself. Your confidence really inspires me."

With this, I smiled. I quickly made a self depracating joke that I am a Scorpio, and warned her to not be so fooled by my calm and collected exterior...

and yet...

I couldn't help but think about it all tonight. A couple of people whom I have met over the past 12 months decided to gather to help me celebrate my birthday. It was nice to see people and nice to sit and socialize.

And yet, as I sat there in my birthday girl chair, welcoming the cheer and warmth of all of the people I have grown to know and care for in the past year, I couldn't help but sense the simultaneity of my connection to each of them in combination with my growing isolation in light of the time and place that we are also inhabiting. For me, the wind is blowing. I'm loosening up the hatches rather than tying them down. Simply: I am ready to move on.

But still, I smiled, laughed and said a few witty things. I posed for pictures and gave a shoulder rub. And I listened with all of my heart when a woman told me to enjoy my "youth". Her advice to "breathe more" profoundly struck me before the vodka I was attempting to practically inhale in a mass quantity went fully to my feet. In fact, this small piece of advice sobered me to the core. I switched to water before excusing myself to the ladies room to take a stock of the woman looking back at me in the mirror.

Jesus H. on a pony-- what a year this has been...

A pretty young woman with smokey eyes and pale lips smiled back at me in the bathroom mirror. Her hair is now the length of something revolutionary with intent, but not by design: it is completely out of control and needs to be harnessed by the solitary gay boy in town who can't cut bangs to save his life, but always has something funny to say. Alas, the young woman in the mirror-- she's been faking too many smiles in recent months. She's been grinning-and-bearing far more than her soul would prefer. She has lost track of what she looks like in the outward sense of things and has gone on this rather inward, Rip-Van-Winkle journey within. Perhaps she woke up a little tonight. Perhaps 31 years old is a good time to wake up and remember to breathe.

She takes a deep breath while washing her hands...

And remembers that she was the only person in her group to be carded for ordering an alcoholic drink. Does this mean that time is frozen, or that not drinking, smoking and sun-exposing in her 20s really has paid off??

...and begins to ponder that it might be best to stop writing about herself in the third person and get some rest.

The job with no job security will greet her again in the morning...

And for now, this is where she/I/we need to be. (Simply because everything--life, love and even job contracts expire when it is time to move on.)

Namaste

Trash and Treasure

A 10 minute meeting yesterday left me shaken. I was called into the provost's office for an early meeting. My work and "natural talents" as a "very gifted teacher" were praised. I was then offered to teach an additional class for the rest of the semester for a significant pay raise. Plus benefits.

And for the record: I do not shake.

The meeting itself was fast and furious, and it went more or less like this:

Namaste, the colleague that you were hired to replace last year when you came here is very sick and going on another sudden medical leave. You successfully took over this colleague's Course X last year, and we are hoping that you might be willing to do it again. Given your great success last year and complete professionalism in these matters, we are confident in you as our first choice. Are you willing? ...(This is when I replied, "Um..ok...let me see something on paper", much like a deer in headlights.) You are? GREAT!! Ok!! Then we're going to generously compensate you. How does a full benefits package and a whole lot of money sound?...

In the moments that followed my mind was fully fixated on "Full health benefits". I kept hearing it over and over again. This is what shook me. Full health benefits...

I shook as I considered the dental work I desperately need done in addition the number of health-related appointments I have been putting off until I can get myself back to a country that opens fire on women and children in the name of self defense, but at least it is civilized enough to have socialized health care. Lately, I have been placating some chronic inflammation in the ball of my left foot with generic, over the counter, anti-inflammatory meds because I can't afford to see a specialist out-of-pocket on my meager adjunct ala carte salary with no benefits. I try to tell myself that it is ok to take an Advil before working out. This is despite the fact that I know that my on-going state of mild flare is due to the stress I am under to teach full time already with no benefits.

And full-time salaried pay? (Despite the fact that I am, like, actually, working full-time already? I laughed at the irony. But yes, this is a lot more cash than I have ever made in my life. Ever. Maybe even combined.)

Still shaking, I considered the squeaky brakes on my car that need repaired. My mind raced over to the $4000 credit card debt I have been painstakingly paying down each month on my adjunct salary with no benefits since I returned from living abroad last year.

I shook as I realized that just two days ago, I was on the phone begging for research money from an organization that is yet to come through on the promise of supportive funds for my jaunts through the Holy Land last year. I was even remotely considering the idea of accepting money from an organization whose tactics I don't necessarily think are in the best interest of peace.

And speaking of making further deals with the devil, over the weekend I found myself seriously contemplating a phone call to the rabbi to request the $300 he owes me. It is the $300 I knew I would never see again (because apparently a man of G-d is sometimes not coincidentally a man of his word). Instead, I reminded myself that in 60 years, I will not need that $300 as much as a do in this moment. I also reminded myself that karma is a total bitch, baby--especially for hypocrites. Over the weekend, I remotely wondered why there isn't a greeting card that reads: "No matter how many times you perform holy prayers in exchange for lots money, especially when you owe a significant personal debt to a woman you once claimed to love as your partner, those prayers are just noise, dude." Or maybe something like, "No matter how much you pray instead of work for a living won't absolve your karmic debt to the universe for being such a self-centered, hypocritical douche bag in your real life, bubba." (Just sayin'...)

But I digress. This was misspent energy, and I refused to dwell on it any longer. I will never see that money again, and I need to look at it as the best investment I ever made to demonstrate to me that the rabbi is not someone who deserves my energy.

So, I have tentatively accepted the job, while awaiting further negotiations on paper. It's all somewhat overwhelming. Yesterday, I sorted my office and spent the day focusng upon the fact that I am teaching an extra course for the rest of the semester. More than this, I am teaching someone else's course on top of my own 3 courses. In doing so, it feels like I am bringing home another baby: someone else's snotty, teething, fussy, needing baby. Of course, I realize that I am getting a significant pay raise at a moment when the rest of the country is struggling to get to the holidays. I realize this, and I count my blessings and note my good karma...and focus on this as an opportunity...

But what's a girl with good karma (and an empty belly) with an opportunity like this? I bargained, ya'll. I bargained for a student assistant, for a title for the full academic year, for the reconsideration of my pay, for more research and travel money, matching retirement and a few other necessary accommodations. Good news is that I got what I asked for.

Easy, breezy...

(And, if things are totally nuts to begin with, all of this madness starts today.)

If one person's trash is another person's treasure, I guess you could say that I sure know how to spiff up the place and make the most of the situation. Of course, this is not to overlook a tremendous amount of hustling and some very focused hard work.

Sparklingly yours,

Namaste

Not Yet October

"You have turned the heat on in your house already?," she said.

I let her laugh at me, despite the fact that I was as serious as a heart attack with my previous disclosure that it was 55 degrees Fahrenheit in my (temporary) home the other night, and that I am already sleeping with 4 blankets on the king-sized bed, whose size alone seems to sap all of my body heat.

What I did not reveal is that I am already walking around in Ugg-insulated slippers and a warm, fuzzy robe on top of a thermal fleece, an undershirt and a pair of thermal yoga pants. I have gathered wood for the pot-belly stove in my (temporary) living room, and I am already making hot tea on this stove in the chilly evenings.

(And, yes, I am still freezing cold on a good day.)

So, I mumbled something about the bed, how it is built to accommodate two sleeping elephants, its unrelenting stiffness and I how I am convinced of its agenda to remind me that I won't be getting too comfortable here, despite the idyllic view of the terraced backyard with the fall leaves at my window...

She laughed and reflected out loud. The basic gist was that I should find someone to keep me warm..."you know...in the meantime...".

Suddenly turning more serious, she recommended the 55-year-old poet in my office building who regularly joins me in the copier room to make chit-chat when possible. Last week, we had a brief yet thoroughly engaging conversation over the whir of double-sided copies about Primo Levi and the psychology of survival. I compared Levi's work to that of Jack Kerouac, a young guy on the adventure of his life. The poet found it compelling when I said that it seemed to me that Levi's survival of Auschwitz and his post-Auschwitz journey back home was based on the way he conceptualized the experience as one of adventure rather than a plague or punishment. Levi was young, adaptable and able to live in the moment. Perhaps he was very lucky, too, but he certainly had all of the psychological elements of a survivor...and so maybe we could all learn a thing or two from Levi...

While there is something (somewhat) lyrical about him (the poet)--his energy, his work, his life, and the way he continues to look at me when I pass by in the hallways...I reported to my friend that I must draw the line at any potential relationship with a man who graduated from high school the same year as my father.

To this, my friend rolled her eyes but conceded that I have an obvious point.

What about the Obviously-Arab-Writes-A-Lot-About-Muslim-Integration-in-Education-Guy in the education department? He's cute and closer to your age, she continued...

I was fairly agnostic with this one because I ran into Dr. Obviously-Arab (with his lovely Arab skin, nice smile and characteristically gorgeous dark eyes of the Middle East) at the library the other day and spent a healthy 10 minutes chatting with him in the cerebrally-engaging way that people with PhD's chat in public places. There was a small bit of friendly eye locking, but I could tell that any potential liason with this fellow would likely take more time and energy than I have to offer at the moment. He seems like a good person with the essential qualities I would ideally look for in a friend and a potential long-termish mate. At the same time, he had every opportunity to ask me for a lunch or a coffee, and he didn't go for it. Call me crazy, call me completely old-fashioned, but I have never been in the business of making the first move. I believe that this robs men of their sense of agency, confidence and ingenuity, which I find very important. Don't get me wrong, I flirted enough with him enough to indicate a basic interest without being aggressive, but he failed to take the lead. In turn, I smiled my best smile and wished him a good day.

With this, I explained to my friend that I am fully aware of the fact that I am not in a place (perhaps in my own head) right now where I feel any compulsion to perform the necessary work of in falling love, let alone making it.

My point of view is that it will happen when it happens. For what it is worth, I am very comfortable in my present state of limbo. The bed I am sleeping on may not be the best, but my minimalist creature comforts are met, I am healthy and productive...and life is not so bad...

My friend, on the other hand, very dramatically considered this entire situation "one of the biggest tragedies of the 21st century" that I, of all people, am not spending my evenings in the company of a male person, curled up in the glow of the aforementioned pot-belly stove, and sipping champagne over a frivolous game of tootsie...or some such thing...

I laughed, of course. But, silently, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. (For both of our sake's.)

So, I changed the subject. And, inwardly, I pondered the idea of getting an electrical heating blanket.

It's already feeling like a long way 'til December...

Namaste

Apparently, I Don't Suck

Well, the good news is that I don't actually suck at this teaching thing. As a female student of mine from last semester said in class today:

"Professor Namaste makes everything interesting, exciting and hard to forget."

Two former students dropped by my office just to say hello.

A third emailed me to ask if she can come to my office hours tomorrow.

A new student lingered after class to remark on the previous student's comment from above. She said that after an hour of our first class, she already knows that she wants to double major in XXX and XXX. She triumphantly concluded her monologue with:

"So...I pretty much want to be YOU when I grow up. I just think that you're awesome. Oh--and by the way...I REALLY LOVE YOUR SHOES."

Hmmmm...

Obviously, this comment pales in comparison to the first day of last semester, when one of my "freshwomen" lingered after class to tell me how thrilled she was to take a course on political feminism with a "professor who is obviously, like, really feminine but also still really hard-core...you know?".

Yes, yes...I do know...and I am also silently amused that this student had no idea, but I didn't hold it against her.

Now, if I could just somehow figure out how to use all of this charm and sex appeal to magically get my office printer to work...

Namaste

The Enemy of the Good

--Showing Off of Jumping Off?, 2006--

Thanks to Voltaire, I might sound well-read, but I cannot claim to be original:

"The best is the enemy of the good", he said in Dictionnaire Philosophique. Since I have been mentally spent the weekend preparing for tomorrow--the first day of a new semester--this quote has been in the backdrop of my mind.

After the whirlwind of this last academic year, I have been tapped to teach 3 additional classes for the fall semester, including a new seminar that I designed over the summer. For someone who is still finishing the dissertation, this is an especially large teaching load. Not only am I teaching full time, but I am swimming through a dissertation that cannot write itself. Between here and there, I am somehow supposed to write, prep my lectures, handle student concerns, present another conference paper, apply for several more post-doctoral positions, and, for the sake of appearances, seem to be on the job market for next year. Between you, me and cyber space, however, I have an a earnest sense of certainty that I will be hanging my hat in the academy as soon as I am done with my degree. Getting an academic job is one thing, but getting an academic job that will realistically satisfy my short list of needs (ie: money and location) is something else. Here, the "best" is the enemy of the good. Having a job is important, but this experience has taught me a great deal about my limits. Yes, of course, the job is wonderful. It is good. Even without health insurance, it is very good. It serves a tremendous purpose in my life, and I am convinced that it is exactly where I need to be right now. But nothing about this scenario makes the job itself--or even my life at the present moment--all that especially great...

As thankful as I am for the job and all that it entails for now, I am equally thankful that it is only for 3 1/2 more months. Professionally, I have unfinished business in the Middle East. Personally, I crave the duality and oddities of the place, both the tenderness and the danger. More than the psychological heaviness of its history that clings to me now no matter where I am in the world, I physically crave the sunlight and aridity of the Jordan Valley. It seems that I am at my "best" when I am on the road and enjoying the raw physicality of 'living the question' in an otherwise highly-questioned place. Yes, there is nothing more satisfying than being mildly dehydrated, low on blood sugar, generally pissed off, scratching at words in someone elses tongue and only looking forward to that next meal of hummus, fresh pita and extremely sweet mint tea. The place itself can be as defeating as it is filling. Like everything, it could kill or it could make me stronger. Obviously, I prefer the latter.

But back to the business at hand: Here's to one more semester, boys and girls. Here's to making the best of it, with the hope that the best I can do in this moment will be good enough.

Namaste

"You May Say I'm a Dreamer..."

"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."--Harvey Mackay

Tears of frustration were shed this week. Twice. For 10 minutes on Tuesday morning, I was rendered in a sobbing fetal position on my office floor, just for the hell of it.

The good news, however, is that tears as a result of feeling entirely overwhelmed were only shed once this week. On Wednesday. Kind of a like a passing New England summer rainstorm. Again, for the hell of it.

Tears of fear concerning my academic debt and unknown future? Nearly shed-- but let's face it--that one is so played. Perhaps I could shed a tear for my indifference to my unknown future at this moment, but I would rather be writing...

Number of total words written this week: 2,876. They say that this is "a lot". I see it as paltry. Negligible at best. I see it as a drop in the ocean, but try to remind myself that it is one drop is more than I had a week ago. I also try to remind myself that I have re-read countless number of articles in addition to writing this week. Yesterday, my pen and post-it tabs swallowed yet another scholarly book.

I sometimes have to force myself to leave the house. Otherwise, I am entirely too comfortable reading horizontally in my lounge attire of tank tops and boy-short underwear. I shower and shave occasionally. I sometimes remotely ponder what to do with my shadowy mane of hair. At the moment my long hair serves as my only reminder that my youth has not been forsaken. Once upon a time, my hair was my amulet of sexual power. Now, since its renewal, it just serves as a friendly reminder of the woman I was once in a state of becoming in contrast to the woman that I have since become.

The writing persists, and the thinking never stops. Even in dreams, I am thinking. But the good news is that I am sleeping better. This may sound like a complete contradiction in terms. This is because I have begun doing yoga again. The nice man at the yoga place is only charging me $9/class.

Maybe one day I will long for a return of these halcyon moments of solitude when all I did one summer was write a doctoral dissertation in my underwear.

Oh, and in the meantime, I am neglecting to mention that in my moments of procrastination, I have renewed my fiendish love of music. I woke up singing John Lennon this morning. I made a cup of tea, sat down, and here we are.

As I write about war and the continuing violation of life itself in Israel-Palestine, I find it necessary to take the time to indulge in the small comfort of hope...

...hope that I will finish this darn writing thing sooner or later.

...hope that I won't crash and burn in the face of another long semester of teaching ahead of me.

...hope that when the time comes to go abroad again, I won't still be the veritable shell of myself that I have been since last October...

...and hope that all of this time spent writing about the world will actually matter to the world...

Namaste

ps: I love the way that Yoko opens all of the windows in this video. It is so subtle (and seemingly bizarre), but there would be no light if she didn't do this. I am a big fan of people who know how to let in the light.

Operation Stay in One Place

I have the ability to make myself at home just about anywhere. For me, home is where I sleep. With a quality pair of earplugs, I can sleep just about anywhere. (Including 60 year old refugee camps.) I have done my fair share of squatting, too. I once survived for a week of college "Beach Week" activities by sleeping on the covered deck of an empty home, making use of outdoor showers, and enjoying various social invitations to fraternity party cocktail BBQ's. The absolute worst place I ever slept was in the hotel brothel I stayed at with Dr. B last year during our trip to Petra, Jordan. When backpacking through Europe once, Bro and I regularly enjoyed the luxury of overnight sleeping compartments on moving trains. We once swindled a hot shower out of an Italian youth hostel manager, but vanished into the night before paying for a bed. I have also thoroughly enjoyed myself at the London Ritz. Go figure.

A former love partner wrote me an email this morning. He had a stopover in Istanbul, and wanted to say hello before he carries on to do the work he's been sent to do in a small village in the Turkish interior, where he will no doubt save the world, breastfeed a few babies, have a few more marriage proposals, and do big and important things (like cure cancer and end world hunger) with the aid of his pocket knife and charming personality. Last week, he sent me pictures of a very impressive hike he took in the White Desert, about 600km SW of Cairo. The pictures were amazing, and, yes, I silently made a note to self: "Go there".

In his email, my former love partner requested to know what I am up to these days...

I laughed when I considered the many ways that I could respond...

The truth is that I woke up this morning and walked down to the street to the gas station that sells milk, eggs and cheese. I was wearing my glasses, my hair piled in a crazy knot on top of my head, the pair of faded jeans that I bought in Israel 2 years ago, a tight black shirt, flip-flops and no bra. I was sexually harassed by two man standing behind me in the cashier line, and I pretended not to hear the comments they made about my body, and most especially, my derriere. One of the nice men followed me out of the store, and called after me. He requested to know my name. However, I wasn't in the mood to play the game of smiling to acknowledge his advances and then embarrassing him in front of his friend, so I continued to pretend as though I was a deaf-mute. It caused me to wonder if men such as this ever stop to wonder why women like me scatter away from them as quickly as possible. It also caused me to wonder about the women who actually welcome and enjoy this sort of aggression from strange men in public places. Finally, it also caused me to wonder why there seems to be a statistically strong correlation between men who enjoy grunting and commenting openly about my body, most especially those who wear old t-shirts cut out to display the hair in their armpits?

But I didn't write this in the email.

I also didn't write about my short walk home with my groceries, in which I found myself remembering with fondness all of the walking I did a year ago when living in the Middle East. I didn't mention how it occurred to me that living in America is really so easy. It's so soft and silent. I can go to a grocery store here, and the person at the checkout counter always bags my groceries, giving me the option of "paper or plastic?" and tells me to have a nice day. I didn't mention how I still have a tendency to cross the street as if I never left the Middle East, and this completely freaks out American drivers who are not accustomed to having a human being so close to their car.

I also didn't mention that on a good day, I am bored. On a less than good day, I am really, really bored. And yet, I am passively observing my boredom while actively enjoying it.

When it is all said and done, this will go down in the books as "The Summer That I Stayed Put". There is no doubt that adventures in the White Desert of Egypt await me. For now, I'm trying to make time in my busy writing schedule to hike the waterfalls in the New York Fingerlake region. Again, go figure.

And, so I wrote back to my old friend with the enthusiasm and gusto that he has always loved about me, wishing him the best of fun and the safest of travels. He is the last person on earth that needs to be reminded that sometimes, we need to unpack the bags and stay in one place. Sometimes we need to assess what we carry with us and unload ourselves of the burdens we've taken on. Sometimes, though, doing this is not as carefree and breezy as it sounds. It is hard work, but necessary. There are some people in this world, who are born to be the conductors of experience. We are the mediums through which things must pass--people, places, events, emotions. We are not these people, these places, these events, or these emotions. And sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of this.

A year ago, if someone had told me that I would be writing my doctoral dissertation in the middle of an American version of "nowhere", I would have laughed with good humor. But am here, now, unpacked as much as possible, and making eggs on a Sunday morning. I am enjoying a cup of coffee from a French press and the air from the nearby lake. I am somewhere. Always somewhere, I suppose. (Strange and foreign though it may be.)

...And so I am digging in rather than spinning out. Of course, I didn't write that either.

(But I am.)

What a journey.

Namaste

Momentum

I didn't get the teaching gig for next year. It was only a one-year replacement job, but it went to some Chinese guy who already has a PhD. Good for him.

But a girl can still dream, right?

Right.

No, really. Right.

Call me crazy, but I knew that the teaching job was pure suicide, an instant death of my dissertation.

And the idea of limping through another sunless, g-dless winter in Upstate New York? Will someone please pass the crazy?

The good news is that they wanted to hire me, but the committee was wrought with discord over the fact that I do not yet have a Ph.D. in hand. That said, they are offering me a couple of courses to teach in the fall semester only. The wonderful thing about this arrangement is that the courses I will get to teach are more in line with my specialization. This is very exciting for me because I will not be strapped with all of the generic crap courses that young faculty normally have to teach in order to pay the dues. (Of course, if I had taught those courses, they would have been FABULOUS, but apparently there is some unwritten rule that political science introductory courses are supposed to be staunchly conservative, difficult and drab. I can just imagine my sweet students dancing through a highly nuanced semester of US Foreign Policy to the tune of a Chinese man, who is neither American by nationality nor a native English speaker by design. May Heaven help them all.)

Nevertheless, there is a method to the madness. I believe that one opportunity leads to the next. Because of this way of looking at things, I find it exceedingly difficult to be disappointed. The bright side of this scenario is that I now have absolutely no plans whatsoever to endure another New England winter! By the time the semester ends in early December, I will have money in my pocket, more teaching experience under my belt, and I will be long gone before the hateful cold and foul weather begins. Yay! More travels!

...and speaking of travels...

I will be steadily on the road for the next month. This weekend, I am hitting up Jazz Fest in the Big Easy. Next weekend, I am making time for a friend's graduation and a family reunion. The following week, I will be in Denver. The week after that, I will be back home in Virginia, hanging out at Bro's place and teaching the rabbi how to chase chickens, drink beer from the bottle and relax like a Southerner. Ultimately, I will end up back where I am now. Call it good karma, but I have been offered a most commodious living arrangement for the bulk of the summer. From June to August, I intend to drink a lot of tea, go for long runs and bike rides, buy fresh berries along the roadside and write...like my life depends on it.

Things work out. The glass is always half full, even if you decide to pour it all out and hang in the limbo of hope...hoping that what comes next might not be so bitter. I am packing up my few earthly belongings again and moving what I cannot carry with me to my new commodious room with a view across town. The wonderful thing about having momentum is that you can't be too burdened by the heavy stuff. Rather, you only take what is absolutely essential. Over the years, I have trained myself to look at life this way:

Cut out the fluff, cut out the nonsense. Take only what you need, and share openly what you know, what you have to give without expecting anything in return. Even if all you have in your back pocket is $20...and a pure heart...expect to be surprised.

Namaste

The Humpty Dumpty Hustle

I have been invited to interview for a full-time teaching position for next year. It is a one-year contract position, which will require me to teach a 5-course load over two semesters. If I think I am busy and a little bit crazy now, I have no doubt that if I get this job, I am really going to have to work hard to stay on top of things, especially since I will be teaching 5 courses that I have never taught before and coming up with new lectures for each course, each week. Funny thing about that is how hard I am already working as I write this.

Funny thing about this job? I want it just as much as I don't want it. I want it because getting it means that a group of my colleagues hand-selected silly little me to do the stuff that I am pretty darn good at doing. For me, it basically means that I get to be a more endowed member of the monolithic "club" that I have been chipping away at in small pieces for so many years. In the greater scheme of things, I want the job because it will lead me to the next job, which will be the big one that will more or less put my "career" in a more advanced realm of orbit. Ultimately, for better or for worse, getting this job will secure a great deal for me that is currently insecure about my professional future as I write this.

Getting this job will also mean that I will, for the first time in my life, earn a grown-up salary, which sounds nice from this side of the lawn...

...But, to be perfectly frank...if I don't get this job, not getting it will mean that I wasn't chosen to be in the club by my peers, and that will suck. I also know that I will really have to hustle to figure out what to do. If I don't get this or the postdoc fellowship I applied for, then I am really going to be in a pickle...

While getting this job is good for all of the right reasons, it also means that my professional life will continue to soar while my personal life was pronounced Dead On Arrival somewhere back in January. Unfortunately, this job will require me to stay where I am at the moment, in this remote, solitary, absolutely empty New England town in the middle of bloody nowhere. I am only now just emerging from the coldest, darkest winter of my life, and it pains me to think of an encore performance. Every day is yet another reminder that I am far from friends and family, that there isn't an airport, a shopping mall or even a proper alternative foods store for miles. And please don't get me started on the lack of coffee shops, book stores and yoga studios. As it is, the work that I do requires countless hours of being alone, which I love...but too much "alone" is so no bueno. For me, too much alone time can be painful. (I love myself just about as much as I nauseate myself.) I find that there are much more pleasurable ways to spend the day than gazing misguidedly at my own navel.

Unfortunately, I am alone. Completely alone. And there does not appear to be an end in sight at the moment. (And believe me, I am an opportunity maker--I have looked around. Even the pickings for potential friendships are tragic, let alone potential romantic interests.)

So, the interview process begins this week. And yes, I do want the job for all of the right reasons. And I do not want the job for all of the right reasons, too. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, my work is not going to have dinner waiting at home for me, go running with me, or greet me with a warm hug and a smile. It is not going to make me laugh out loud or hold my hand. It is not going to keep me warm in bed, join me for brunch on a Saturday, read the paper out loud to me to get me to predictably shout obscenities at the injustice in the world, or even make me a more loving and centered person because of it. My work is not going to notice when I need my shoulders rubbed, or that I just want to have a picnic on the floor, or that I really need to go somewhere quiet, romantic or totally insane for the weekend. My work is not going to be my life because I am determined not to let it be the only thing that walks through life with me.

On one hand, I want the job to prove that everything I have worked for and sacrificed so much to achieve thus far has not been in vain. On the other hand, I am worried that getting the job is yet another affirmation of even more personal sacrifice. Another year in a school of my dreams, yet in a place so remote that even the ones I love most in the world refuse to even consider a visit. And then what?

In the end, it is an interesting paradox, I guess. I feel like the winner who always seems to register another loss each time my number gets called to collect the accolades. Does solid career success matter if the rest of me somehow manages to cover up the fact that I'm really just a shell of myself at the moment? Maybe, for all my bravado of wanting to strike my own path and avoid the cooptation of what others consider more "normal" life choices, I am just implicitly trapped on my own hamster wheel design, where, in the end, all I will have for my years and years of hustle...is...an assortment of Craig's list-acquired furniture...and...exhaustion.

Wish me luck. I need it. Hell, wish me luck with everything. (I need that, too.)

Namaste

Tea

Well, if it is any consolation to anyone...I realized today that I have become the queen of making tea in my office. Yes, my office may not have the best heat, but it is nonetheless fully equipped to be a tea house. On any given day, I have a cornucopia of teas lifted from various and sundry meeting places around campus, which brew on the discarded coffee maker I confiscated from a refuse closet on the first floor next to the secretaries' office. I had to laugh today when I realized that I have run out my morning stand-by of Mint combined with Decaffeinated English Breakfast, which I usually acquire from the Quaker Meeting room, located on the third floor of the building across the quad. Unfortunately, the Quakers have not met in a couple of weeks and so there has been no tea to borrow, but my day was salvaged in the campus cafe this morning, when I discovered that one of my favorite students works there. With a wink, she encouraged me to help myself to a large fistful of Tazo teas. (Now, gentle readers, please allow me to express my gratitude for free Tazo, but allow me to add that if the tea had been Mighty Leaf, I would have started to dry hump the nearest thing to me. In public. Thank you.) What my student does not know is that, sans my serious potential for inappropriate public displays of affection at this moment in time, it may only be Monday, but she has been silently named as my new favorite person of the week. Also what my student does not know is that her young, shiny professor may seem super cool, uber awesome and totally chill on the outside, but she really...is...a...cleptomaniac, a mere Freudian "id", easily swayed by tea and the merest spatter of kindness flung her way.

So, I have been making tea and sharing it, of course. A few students stopped by to say hello today (and to fret about how to study for their midterm, which, yes, is going to be challenging if they have not kept up with the reading all semester and don't already know how to write in complete sentences), and I have practically forced my tea upon them in little disposable paper cups (provided by the Quakers). I am going to go with the wild assumption that they find me and my tea endearing, albeit quirky, but entirely non-threatening...and maybe even (modestly) charming. Now, if only I could find a way to grow real mint in my window...

Namaste

Mental Floss

I am applying for a fellowship for next year, and what is particularly attractive about this fellowship is that it comes with a medical and dental package. Like, whoa. The fellowship also happens to come with a very nice stipend, a housing allowance, a research allowance, and an allowance for moving my stuff across the country so that I might finally cohabitate with the small collection of physical things I supposedly have in my so-called "possession". Of course, it's more than appealing that this fellowship will bring little me to the great big "Big Apple" for two years.

...Yes, I already have images of little me spending copious amounts of cultural time wearing scarves, dark glasses and funny hats whilst sipping bubble tea in various and sundry coffee shops and lounges in the East Village...

...Yes, I have already envisioned the one-room 10x12, eighteenth floor walk-up with its hand-held shower/bathroom and efficiency kitchen that I shall love more than life itself simply because it is mine...and maybe it has just enough light for me to grow a flower or two in the window...

..And yes, I have inwardly juiced all over myself at the prospect of being in an academic and cultural community that would nourish and shape my teaching and research in unimaginably wonderful ways...in addition to the supreme coolness I would feel for simply being recognized as cool...

But more than this, I really just have my eye on the dental care. Yeah. I would really just love to get my teeth cleaned. Really.

Before I set foot on the road towards the PhD, knowing that I would no longer have dental coverage, I went to my childhood dentist. He pre-emptively put clear caps on all of my molars in order to prevent cavities for the next few years. Then, later, during a whirlwind tour through Eastern Europe, I randomly stopped one day and had my teeth cleaned by a very nice Polish dentist with very white nose hair, who was not yet set up on the Euro system. It was quite a dream to pay $25 USD for a full cleaning, even if the chair I was sitting in was older than the Cold War. Of course, that was 6 years ago. I am certain that the time I bought on those clear molar caps has run out. Yes, I think it is safe to say that I am overdue for an oral health assessment.

(Obviously, regular flossing and hyper-attentive brushing is not enough.)

So, in light of this, I am shouting my intentions to the Universe yet again: Please, please, please, please, please, please let me be selected for this fellowship. Please. I am qualified. I am good at this stuff that I do. I promise, you will like me. A lot. I am a total academic catch and rather nice to have around, at any rate. And who knows, if I like you in return, I may even invite you up to spend time a little time getting to know little me in my 180th floor walk-up with no view. I may even let you look at my...books. You'll love it. I promise. But, before we make any serious moves, I should warn you that I will need a few days notice...

I need to get my teeth cleaned.

Namaste

Earth Mother

This morning, while I was in the midst of delivering a stimulating sermon to my ever-intellectually-evolving undergraduates about the historical derivation of feminism, the red light on my silenced cell phone started flashing. The rabbi was calling. Hmm. Despite the fact that I was mid-sentence...in the middle about something involving post-rationalist critiques of the blatant misogyny and absence of women in those canonical elements of Enlightenment thought...I was tempted to answer the call. After all, the rabbi knows the specific times that I am in the classroom. Obviously, the call must have been an important one.

After the class, my students took a little longer than usual in gathering their shaken and stirred brains from the ceiling and floor, along with their heavy coats, back packs, and so on. I initiated the task of wiping down the chalkboard walls, the evidence that I had just spent the past 75 minutes as their Femme Pied Piper Professor, marching them in veritable song and dance through a journey of understanding the story of human potential. I stood to erase the vocabulary words and wild, dialectical sketches I drew on the board to demonstrate the big ideas that I was bandying about with the hope that two or three of them will actually get it, and, at the very least, the rest of them will be informed enough to say interesting and intelligent things in defense of feminism at their parent's next cocktail party. In doing this, I stopped for a second and realized, once again, that I have arrived...for now...at the destination point that I have been seeking for years. I am doing the good work I felt needed to be done in academia. By sheer virtue of the fact that I am even standing at that chalkboard, doing and saying the things that I get to do and say...my G-d...I am the change I wished to see...

Who knew?

The usual suspects lingered one after the other. Then, the last student disappeared. Suddenly, my audience was gone. For a second, I lamented the fact that my arm was tired, not just from writing, but from erasing. Again, I stopped to reconsider the hieroglyphics of my chalkboard scribbles. And again, it struck me that there hasn't been a single day of my journey that has been necessarily easy, but, gosh...it has been interesting, and worth it, even. All of the blood, sweat and tears. All of the sleepless nights, endless hours of reading, processing, writing, critiquing, and processing again and again until I got it, knew it, could make connections with it, and still make it all appear so...flawless, without strain, or struggle. Well, at least today, it felt worth it...

As I walked out of the classroom, my phone beeped again, reminding me that I had a missed call. In this solitude of self-congratulation, I made my way back to my office, sat down and rang the rabbi. He was excited to hear my voice.

"I had a sudden vision about you this morning," he said. "Like, a flash. It was so beautiful!"

"Ok...and what did this vision entail?", I replied in a playful tone.

"Well, you know what you would just be so amazing and wonderful at doing aside from what you do already that is so amazing and wonderful?"

"Yeah...what's that?"

"I had a vision of you starting your own school for genius kids, where you teach them how to be happy and productive geniuses. You would be so good at this. Like, teaching young people how to eat right and take care of their minds and bodies, so that they can be good, educated leaders in their communities and change the world."

"That's pretty interesting," I replied. (Interesting because I have never discussed my dreams of building a school with the rabbi. I have also specifically failed to mention to him that it is my intention to foster and adopt as many children as possible in the years to come. Let's just say that these aren't conversations that just come up between passing the salt and falling in love. One thing at a time, please.)

He went on.

"I don't know, Namaste. This vision of you was...just...well...a really sexy Mother Teresa..."

I laughed, of course. I couldn't help it.

The bottom line? Knowing that the work is good...being the change itself...gives me absolutely no reason to frown. And the rest? Well, the rest will come with time.

Namaste

And On the 7th Day, [S]he Rested

Shabbat Shalom, ya'll.

The significant male person in my life is presently down the road getting his Friday evening prayer on, while I sit here on his sofa, curled up with a flu-fever...and, of course, dancing with the characteristic amount of brain babble, which perenially resides in that otherwise empty space between my right and left ears, respectively.

Within the last week, it has occurred to me that there is always a pattern in life: No matter how high up there is to go, it seems as though this is only to extend the distance that one must negotiate when coming down. Being conscious of life's ups and downs has always been what has attracted me to meditation. It is also what I am finding as central to my constantly-expanding understanding of Judaism. Each week, for example, is ceremoniously opened and closed through a ritual of acknowledgment of life and time. For humans, it is reassuring to have this constancy. As an intellectual, it is similarly reassuring to note that things may pass, doors may open and close, seasons will change, but there is also a sense of constancy in what may otherwise feel inconstant. I guess some people may call this faith.

As a central component to my daily living, faith is the one thing that seems to get me through the day. However, unlike many people I have observed over the years, I do not confuse faith with my own sense of agency. For example, many people fail to take responsibility for their own personal welfare or actions by saying that the Big Guy Upstairs will "save" or "protect" them. To the contrary, my dialogue with faith has always been internally mustered than externally produced. For example, I have faith in the Universe that things do, indeed, happen for a reason, but it is the faith that I have in myself to learn, grow, and take full advantage of my moments of sailing as well as flailing that I find the will to keep going. The bottom line is that the Universe is always there, but it is not going to pay attention unless I am shouting my intentions with passion and, well...with intention.

In the past couple of months, I have been obsessively tending to the small garden I have planted, the one that will make my life take root in the next few years, both personally and professionally. The process of planting itself reads more like a chapter out of "7 Habits of Highly Successful People". Part of it is plain, old Machiavellian statecraft--keeping one's enemies under a close, affable watch, appearing professional yet harmless, while calling on all of my properly-honed resources not to fall from the sky on the very first time I have tested my wings as an academic. As if 6 years in graduate school has not already been a lengthy test of my ability to withstand and endure, I am now running with the bulls in the job market, while facing the gauntlet of timely dissertation writing. Time is ticking personally and professionally. It is no wonder that most days leave me exhausted, yet unable to sleep. It is interesting how my concept of faith changes when money is low and stress is so high...

The fact of the matter is that I am desperately seeking good soil for good roots. It's funny how I am only coming into consciousness and awareness of this desire. Of course, this inner-outer phenomena of my personal torsion is explicable from all sides. Simply, the work has been hard, isolating and demanding. I'm pleased with my successes, but ready for things to assume a pace of normalcy. Perhaps this is why I have spent the last year and a half allowing the pace of life to be determined by the short distance between one Friday night to the next. Perhaps it is due to the belief that there is a part of God, of the Universe, of all of this in every single one of us. I am now just beginning to understand why rest is so very essential on the 7th day. By all means, I need it...

Namaste

Pragmatism

The first official week of teaching my own courses for the first time ever has come to an official end. I am no longer gracefully carrying someone else's teaching load for them to the tune of less than $2.00/hr, while haphazardly attempting to dodge through the pitfalls of being a rockstar graduate student at the same time. I have an office, a nice one, with my name on the door. It's a nice office, with nice green plant, a great desk chair, and carpet. Just today, I happened to notice that my name has been added on the office locater sign thingy for my department. (And, yes, I even thought about taking a picture for my mother.) And, much to my amazement, the students awkwardly continue to call me "Professor", even when I awkwardly insist that they please call me by my first name.

For what it is worth...(and believe me, it is not worth a whole lot in the bank) I can say that for the first time in my life I am in a state of eternal bliss in my professional life. Beyond teaching, I am researching. This weekend, I will get down to the business of putting all of my research in order for a paper I am scheduled to give at a conference in March. This is good.

I admit that I spend more time in my office than I do at home. This is partially due to the fact that my "home" at the moment is a rented room in a very large and somewhat banal living environment. Case in point: my house mates happen to be a married pair of psychologists, whom I have not seen for days. We have a tendency to more or less creep around each other in a very awkward, yet-always-polite fashion. Tomorrow, for example, will be the fourth day in a row that I have not laid eyes on either one of them. Because they own the house, they routinely bring in my mail and make it a point to speak to me only when necessary. For example, I have been told to only use the "cold only" function on the washing machine until further notice, due to a rotted hose issue. Because I am barely living here and non-clairvoyant to boot, I like that they are good at communicating things to me like this. This is good. On the other hand, there are nights when I long to throw a good dinner party, or simply cook dinner for myself, but I am fundamentally thwarted from doing so by the continuous build-up of dirty dishes and filth that resides in their otherwise beautiful kitchen. In many ways, my life is as pedestrian as it was when I was living in the refugee camp just a few months ago. The only difference worth noting is that I have a small space in the refrigerator. Again, this is good.

So, I am working. I am spinning. If I am not sleeping or working, I am planning cheap meals and hitting the gym because it is free. Unlike the rest of my faculty member friends, I don't mind working out when the students are there. Really, I could care less. Last night, a student beside me turned on the TV, and I happened to catch American Idol while I was on the elliptical machine. For someone who hasn't owned a furniture, much less a television set in years, this was a highlight to my week. It seemed like a nice way to pass the time. As one can imagine, I have a lot of time here. A lot of time, indeed...

Of course, where the glass is half full, it is still half empty. Also for the first time in a long time, I am having trouble sleeping. Real trouble. It is starting to worry me. Part of me wonders if it is the living situation I am in. Part of me attributes it to the generalized stress I have been under for several months of turbulence and so many changes. Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that I am currently experiencing the coldest freaking winter of my life. And finally, none of it is helped by the glaring fact that I manage all of this quite well until the moment when the beautiful man I am "seeing" from so far away, says, "Come to the movies with me this weekend, what do you say?" It is in these moments that I suddenly look around and find myself in a dire state of limbo between time and space, in that interstitial vortex between staying balanced in the moment while longing to know how this moment will materialize into the frost-covered glass of my future.

I keep pressing my nose up against the snowball, and all I see is fuzz. And insomnia. I have this temptation to let limbo I am lumbering through to transform itself into a cold sweat of fear for having made the right decision and possibly the wrong decision all at the same time...

"I know that we're going to work out," he assures me on the phone every day these days. Knowing that things always work out as they do, I inwardly smile and applaud his optimism. I look around at the tiny room I have rented for the meantime, and note the hollowness that I feel at the end of the day when the students have left my office, when my eyes can't hold another ounce of reading, when going to the gym for the third time just to stay busy seems overly sadistic. I remind myself that my reality at the moment is the reality of optimism, of shouting my intentions to the Universe and focusing on my goals with all of my might. And so, in response, I shrug my shoulders and say a little prayer for some kind of salvation from the struggle. I put pragmatism back on the table and gently place optimism back where it belongs--in dreams...in sleep...in mid-air...

This is hard, I quietly admit from my haze of insomnia. All of it is hard. I must...be more gentle.

Ah, the F-Word...

My teaching schedule resumed yesterday with the start of the spring semester. For the past several weeks, I have spent several sleepless nights endlessly obsessing about my first week of lectures, the structure and "storyline" of my courses, etc. As the newest and youngest professor in the Women's Studies Department, my courses this term are taught from a woman-centric perspective. It's all really wonderful.

Over the years, I have deeply wrestled with and ultimately come to terms with both my identity as a woman as well as my "feminist" approach to the world. This is something that I am certain most if not all woman academics find themselves doing, especially if they are trained in a dominantly male discipline. In both cases, I have finally accepted that I am who I am. I am a feminist with a self-admitted "homecoming queen" personal approach in my public and professional affairs. As the antithesis of the stressed out, overly unkempt, and poorly socialized "stereotype" of the woman academic, I am demure, typically very nice, genuinely warm and approachable. I relate easily to both men and women, across the spectrum of generations and sexual preferences. Obviously it comes as no great secret that in my private life, I am a raging heterosexual. (I guess I'm just not that exciting or mysterious.) I believe that one can't go too far down the line of feminism without smacking head-on into a commitment to social justice and non-violence. In being who I am, I humbly acknowledge that I am standing on the shoulders of great women before me, my mother and grandmothers being among my leading roll models. However, it would be quite a serious misfortune for someone to take me as all pink frills, pom-poms, and home coming queen smiles. I am patient and very nice, but I can and will eat you for breakfast, if necessary...

Yesterday, one of my students stayed after class to share some of her thoughts with me. Always open and listening, I stood there while she told me that she was so relieved that she took my class. She said that she was worried when she enrolled in a Women's Studies class because she expected it to be full of "angry bitches" who, "like, had bad hair, like, mullets, or something". She went on to say that at first she really couldn't believe that I was actually the professor. She said:

"I mean, I looked at you and thought, No, this can't be the professor! I mean, it's not like it really matters, I guess...but you're sooooooo NICE and soooo PRETTY!...I mean, like, REALLY PRETTY...and you're such a GIRLY-GIRL...that I just didn't think that you could really be a FEMINIST..."

Because nothing really shocks me anymore, I stood there and smiled. Of course, I saw the humor (as well as the nice compliment) in what the student was saying, but I also saw the ignorance, which really bothers me the most. Obviously, this had nothing to do with my ego or my need for external validation on the basis of my outward appearance. I know that I defy the common stereotype of a feminist, and believe me, I am really ok with this. If anything, it causes me to do it even more...(Three coats of mascara...and please pass the lip gloss, if you will.)

But, of course, I didn't say any of this to my student, who is clearly very earnest and sincere in her remarks. Instead, I use it as a teaching opportunity to detangle her socially-constructed views of the f-word itself:

"Feminism is humanism. It is actively practicing the habit of treating all people with dignity and respect. If you believe, for example, that all people have the right to vote for their representatives, or live in safety in their homes and country, or have equal access to jobs and health care, for example, then you, my dear, are a feminist."

The wonderful thing is that she inspired me to open the next class with a lecture written just for her.

(And yes, I put my notes on pink paper. So there.)

Namaste

Silence

I suppose that this post could be all about how my extremely cool, supportive, engaging and professional dissertation advisor has found my progress over the past several months very "promising, engaging and exemplary of what all students should be doing at [my] level". I could gush on and on about how wonderful our 45-minute meeting went yesterday, justifying the expensive flight I took to fly clear across the country to have this meeting in person. Honestly, I could even go so far as to brag. I could brag that 2008 truly feels like "my year" (as far as my work is concerned), and that my dissertation chair (who has never been anything but completely rigorous with me) thinks so, too. I could wax on about how he very matter-of-factly said that I should anticipate having a completed first draft by early fall and bowling my way to graduation in the spring or summer of '09. I could say that this thrills me, and it does. I could say that it scares me somewhat, too, to which I might counter that I love a good challenge, especially when the challenge is coming from within.

Of course, it is nice to have my hard work and diligence recognized. It's nice to know that I am taken seriously. The affirmation is important. It is perhaps healthy to note that my previous dissertation advisor (before our relationship demise) would not have squeezed out a token word of support under torture. I suppose I could write about the emotional and psychological suffering she inflicted on me as a result and how hard I have had to work to overcome it, but I'll just leave it at that.

The fact is, I really don't have a lot to say right now. I am spending the week catching up with friends over steamy meals at my favorite restaurants. For the people who love me, I have been narrating the recent adventures of my life, while listening diligently to their similar tales of triumph and whoa. Meanwhile, I have been budgeting my time to perform the necessary administrative work to keep the machine of my graduate career running. While doing this, I have run into various and sundry colleages of mine on campus. It seems as though in every single one of these encounters this week, I am left with the relief of having jumped ship. I am no longer in the heated race for coveted teaching and research positions that barely pay for groceries. Likewise, I am no longer in the gossip mill, even though I can readily assure you that I am still the locus of a great deal of speculation and gossip on their behalf. (Some things never change.)

As I told a dear friend of mine over lunch yesterday after a most bizarre encounter with one of my more-bizarre colleagues: "Yeah...I really think I left my ego somewhere in 2005". Being back in the folds of my graduate department for just a week has been a healthy reminder of that. I have a very solid idea of where I have been, and now a much better understanding of where I am going.

So, I may be silent for a little while longer. That is, until I have something of greater quality to say.

Namaste