fiddlehead

Despite the insomnia I experienced last night, today felt fairly productive. I woke a bit late and got ready just in time for my first meeting of the semester. I feel both proud of myself and a bit guilty for refusing to volunteer myself for the committee assignment we met about. Good because I don’t particularly want to do it and know I need to guard my time for things that actually matter to me. Guilty because someone else must now do it, and volunteering—along with holding the position—may have signaled my value to the institution. Or my weakness and stupidity. Who knows?

I dusted off the Slingshot I bought in NYC nearly a year ago and jotted down plans and a schedule for the next two weeks. The degree to which this simple task helped me was surprising.

I feel cautiously optimistic about this semester. Tomorrow is bulk trash day. We hauled some baggage from the past to the curb for the sanitation workers to bring to the landfill. It felt good to part with them. My lack of connection to the objects feels uncharacteristic. I got rid of a bed I had had for roughly 15 years. But moving forward seems nice. As does reviving some old habits—including the design of my classes. Everything is old school. The class will take class in rooms, not online.

Anyway, I am tired and will now try to sleep.

Well, it’s very late, and I am still up. I’ve had trouble maintaining a normal schedule these past few months. I suspect that will change with classes resuming this week.

I hope to resume this habit. I’ve written that line many times. It felt odd constructing this new journal tonight, with its resemblance to LJ. I vaguely remember assembling the original roughly 22 years ago. Some things have changed, and others have remained the same. I am typing this entry on a phone rather than a computer. Listening to music through Bluetooth headphones rather than speakers. Professing at a college rather than attending one. Paying a mortgage rather than rent. Living with my girlfriend rather than friends. Worried about who I am, rather than excited by what I might become. Yet, the same impetus that lured me there has lured me to this website: the same combination of wonder and dread, connection to the universe and estrangement from it. Of hope and desolation, yearning and resignation.

The weight of that nostalgia initially drew me to LJ, which I have visited every so often since moving on from that part of my life. Its remnants had always been there, the continuity both comforting and discomfiting. Tonight they were not. The webmasters had purged my account, likely for inactivity. Strangely, the discovery elicited minimal feeling. Whatever was physically lost had spiritually evanescenced long ago. And I’m not sure I need those thoughts or feelings anymore. Although the sense of movement would be nice. And I wish some of the people, places, routines from that time remained.. My father. The bite of cold air. The anticipation that in these quiet moments—walking to class, sitting in my chair at night, driving down dark country roads—I might uncover a meaning or purpose or answer to to a question I did not know how to ask.

It’s getting very late. I should go to bed. I have a meeting tomorrow, and much prep work remains. And I don’t want to loiter in the barren nights any more. They say nothing good happens after 2 am. Seem rather true.

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