all other things being equal

I have taught for my first week now as a tenure-track professor, and if I am to fulfill my reason for starting this blog, I should write about all the transitions this week entailed.

Between that last period and this sentence there was a very long pause because in a strangely comforting way, life has gone on much as it might have were I still teaching in North Carolina. Granted, I am not sharing an office with 3 other people, and I am teaching 50 students instead of 120, but these new privileges have not yet accumulated enough traction to change the rhythm of daily life.

The effect of change rears its ugly head more often during the experience of living in a new place (opening 4 cabinets doors because I still can’t remember where I put the peanut butter, the same peanut butter that it took me 10 minutes to find in the grocery store), than during the experience of working in a new place.

I am homesick when I drive down Valley Mills instead of Wendover, buy my peaches from the farmers tent on Bosque instead of from Rudd Farm, sit in the courtyard of Harrington instead of the driveway of Roundup, eat at Sams on the Square instead of Lindley Filling Station, run around the Bear Track instead of down the Greenway, see the weather report for 108 with no rain (ditto for the next 7 days) instead of 80’s and scattered showers.

Whereas, I feel a sense of home when I am teaching, or running my finger along the call numbers on a library bookshelf, or listening to the chatter of students walking to and from classes along the stairwell. These things have a comforting air of familiarity about them.

This is not to say that there are not frustrating moments of figuring out a new work place. It took me a week and half to finally ask where the file folders were kept so I could walk to my classes without dropping scattered sheets of class notes along the way. I am about to find out if I can work the semi-ancient technology system in the classrooms this Monday, and I have my doubts.

Beyond these logistical transitions, the biggest change that looms over me, still largely undefined, is the role I will play in my new department. Because that’s the biggest difference I can sense so far, that as a full time faculty member I should have a place, a role, some niche that I fill in the department. As a student, that role is defined for you by virtue of being a student and as a limited term lecturer nobody cares (to be quite frank).

I have the feeling I am in a sort of grace period, being left alone to get over the logistical transitions of living and working in a new place. I suspect the transition to follow, which might be described as a more metaphysical one, will soon follow. Then I will have to settle down to the task of thinking and acting like a tenure-track professor without having someone first wave a wand over me and (abracadabra) turning me into one.

Until then, I will be content with pretending that misplaced peanut butter and hot temperatures are the real challenge, because of course "all things being equal" can only be a hypothetical.

The Art of Conversation

Jennie Willing, in The Potential Woman, tells her readers: “A woman ought to talk, as a real lady always dresses, simply, neatly, and with refined taste; her tones should be quiet, even, sure and steady.” In case you couldn’t tell, this sage advice is a wee dated. It harkens from the 1880’s, in fact, and represents the kind of anxiety that churned around what constituted proper conversation in the nineteenth century.

I’m feeling a bit of that anxiety lately. For the last week and half I’ve made it a point to go into my office for several hours every day with my office door open. Sure enough, this has led to many introductions and conversations ranging from 5 minutes to 20 or more minutes. At the end of every one of these exchanges I spend at least the next 30 minutes analyzing what kind of impression I must have left, going through several Homer Simpson “Doh!” motions over things I should have (or should not have) said.

It’s exhausting.

Everyone I’ve met so far has been extraordinarily nice, so I can’t imagine what this “meet and greet” process would be like in a place where people were snooty or grouchy. I don’t for a minute think that my panic attacks after each conversation is unique to me, I imagine its something most new faculty go through. Here is a glimpse of what goes through my mind when I’m in the middle of one of these casual drop-in-to-say-hello-to-the-new-professor conversations:

Should I stand up and go to the door or invite him to sit down? Don’t forget to have a firm grip when you shake hands. Boy am I glad I don’t have to courtesy any more, imagine doing that in this skirt! I can’t believe Kassie talked to me into finally wearing skirts. Focus, Kristen, focus. What was his name? oh Gosh, I totally missed him telling me his name. maybe I can look it up on the webpage. Ask him a question. Any question. No, not that question. His area, ask him what area he’s in. Am I slouching? I’m doing that weird cross-over thing again with my leg. Why do I do that? Make eye contact, am I making enough eye contact? Maybe I’m staring to intently, look away casually now. Uhoh. I don’t know the name of the author he just mentioned. Should I admit that or just nod and let him go on? He’s leaving now. Is that too soon? Was I boring? Oh, he just has to teach. Shoot. I already forgot what area he teaches in. Just smile. Just smile.

I could go on, but I thought a 30 second clip was enough.

I’m not sure if Jennie Willing would condone my conversation (or dress for that matter) as refined, but I hope this experience, if nothing else, makes me a connoisseur in the art of conversation.

Carolina in my Cooler

I threw out the cantaloupe when we were in Arkansas.

If I had thought of it, I would have tossed it as we went over the mighty Mississippi river, to be poetic about it and all. But I didn’t, so the cantaloupe went down the sink in our hotel room in Little Rock. Maybe this doesn’t sound like such a big deal, it just being a few pieces of fruit and all. But it was my last link to the Carolinas, my last link to home.

Over the last several years in Greensboro I had really started changing the way I thought about food. I wouldn’t really consider myself a locavore, herbavore, omnivore, or any other “vores” that have lately become associated with ways of relating to one’s food. But I have become more thoughtful about the purchasing, consuming, and preparing of my food. Largely due to the books I’d read (see the list on my blog) and the composition courses I’d taught themed around food, but also due to the readily accessible farmers markets, Earth Fares, Fresh Markets, and other food-conscientious stores in Greensboro.

This small food revolution in my life made it very important to me to have some fresh fruit on the long road trip. And, like I said, it was the last remnants of home to take with me. A few days prior to leaving I visited Rudd Farm, the local farmer just the down the road from whom I bought most of my fruits and veggies. I cut up the cantaloupe and peaches and put them into the tupperware I had saved for this purpose. After two days in a semi-cool cooler, the cantaloupe had soured a bit and needed to be tossed.

I thought this would be a difficult task, but in the days leading up to our departure, and along the route, I kept reminding myself to stop looking behind and start looking ahead. This became easier once we left. For one thing, I literally had to look ahead, down the road, watching the signs declare “welcome to Tennessee” or “welcome to Alabama.” It wasn’t so hard, after-all, to throw out the cantaloupe, and I had a rather silly self-congratulatory feeling about my ability to look ahead.

Except that looking ahead no longer matters, because we’re here – now. When we crossed the Texas state line I had a sinking feeling that my earlier bravado about looking ahead no longer sufficed. I suppose this is something like what they call “living in the moment.” And I must say, it was a good moment walking the two short blocks from my house to the English department and turning the keys of my office door for the first time this morning. Here’s to more good moments, now and ahead.

Beginnings

I am terrible at titles. I agonize over them and generally spend more time coming up with a title than I do creating whatever piece the title is supposed to describe. So you can imagine what it was like to try and find an appropriate title for my blog.

Let me start first with what I almost called this blog: “Pierglass,” after one of George Eliot’s most famous metaphors (see above quotation). I am sure in some other post I will blog about the merits of George Eliot and why she is the most awesome writer ever, but for now I just want to point out what Eliot points out through this metaphor.

We tend to see life through our own perspective.

Radical stuff, huh? If you actually think about this for more than two seconds, however, you realize just how much this fact of our own egoism influences the way we go through life. It can be a jolting experience when we find someone with a similar perspective (if we thought we were alone in the world in feeling or thinking a certain way) and also just as jolting to discover that other people do not think like us and do not feel that things ought to be done the same way we do them (the “right” way of course).

Living a full life, has something to do, I think, with learning to hold someone else’s candle up to our mirrored reflection. I thought to name my blog this in an effort to keep the egoism, which has caused me to disdain blogging for so long, at bay and to indicate my desire to engage with many different ideas in these pages.

But that was a very long explanation of the title that I did not choose for my blog.

I came upon the title Lumia Compositions while reading one of those short articles in the “talk of the town” section of The New Yorker. It began describing the image that pops up at the beginning and end of the movie Tree of Life that has apparently been driving movie critics crazy. The image, entitled “Opus 161,” comes from light artist Thomas Wilifred’s “lumia compositions,” his creations that seek to sculpt light rather than use light to sculpt art.

Perhaps it was the fact that I have discovered this image, like many now will, through a movie set in Texas. I decided to start this blog in part to chart my transition from a medium sized town in North Carolina to a small town in Central Texas. I think why the title “lumia compositions” really caught my attention, however, was the way Gregory Zinman described the method behind Wilifred’s art. In his article Zinman says Wilifred’s artworks “are both feats of bric-a-brac engineering and ethereal works of art…to look inside a lumia instrument is to see an apparent scrap heap put to near-magical use.”

The combination of scrap and magic, bric-a-brac and ethereal captures, I believe, the very essence of life and being human. I am constantly amazed at the wonder that erupts from the most ordinary, mundane things (perhaps this is why I am obsessed with nineteenth-century realism). In a less momentous way, this combination also describes the process of writing and producing scholarly work: out of the bric-a-brac something ethereal, or at least hopefully something interesting, emerges. This, then, is the struggle every scholar and every person faces, how to turn the scrap heap into something magical. Or maybe we shouldn’t see it so much as a struggle but as the wondrous mystery of the creative process and of life.

This blog engages with that mystery by charting my academic experiences, transitioning from a recent graduate to assistant professor, and my life experiences, transitioning from the home and family I’ve been part of for eight years in Greensboro to see what awaits me in a new place.

You can read more about Thomas Wilifred and his art here:

http://wilfred-lumia.org/index.html

Tribute to Greensboro

To the city perfectly placed between Charlotte and Raleigh, the mountains and the sea.To the greenways, whose endless trails centered me one footfall at a time.

To the local greensboro breweries, Natty’s and Red Oak. You taught me how to drink beer.

To the downtown farmer’s market, where I witnessed what having a relationship with your food provider means. And to the I40 farmers market, where I got my Christmas tree every year.

To the man who alerts me to the beginning of football season. He sits front and center every Sunday morning, wearing his Redskins’ jersey from September to February. I hope for his sake that God is a not a cowboys fan!

To Rudd Farm, who helped me mark my personal first day of summer every year: fresh-picked strawberry milkshakes. Summer arrives in the all the glory of nature’s signature desserts.

Do you like waffles? Yes I like Waffles. And the Greensboro Grasshoppers. The all-American combination: beer, hotdog, and baseball. Whoop Whoop!

To Lindley Filling Station. My favorite place to meet up with people, half price Wildflower on Thursday nights, half price appetizers on Sunday nights, half price bottle of wine on Tuesday nights.

To seeing Christmas movies at the Carolina Theatre. I can’t think of a better way to bring out the holiday spirit than an old theatre decked out in holly and lights and a giant Christmas tree, clapping with a room full of fellow audience members at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Every girl needs a night out. To my girls--thank you for those nights. You are all irreplaceable.

To the Triad Stage and my friends who have gone with me over the years to various shows from the amazing The Glass Menagerie to the oops-I-fell-asleep-in-the-middle-of The Night of the Iguana. And to the strange girl in the upper deck seats who laughed at all the wrong places during A Christmas Carol.

To tea at the O’Henry. I drive a truck to make sure I’m not girlie, but damn do I love scones and little teacups and fancy dresses.

To pool time with the Pell kids. I highly recommend to everyone who has a neighborhood pool: find some kids you can borrow and take them to the pool. Lounging in a chair with a book is for the birds.

To the giant wind chimes I discovered one day while walking in the arboretum; when the wind plays here I feel caught in the breath of God.

To the kids I tutored and to my car riders. You have taught me more than I could ever teach you. How big and beautiful life gets when I am not at the center of it.

To Grace Community Church. You embody all the foibles of organized religion, yet your unconditional love and amazing grace emanates from the way you live out the good news.

To softball, with a view from the bleachers. And for chick-fil-a nights afterwards.

To small group making Greensboro feel like home.

To book talks with the girls. You gave me the gift of doubting and asking and embracing mystery.

To UNCG, the reason I was here in the first place. I will miss the tree behind Foust. I will miss McIver, where it all began and where it all ended. I will miss the grass pathways I wore out with all the other students who knew the sidewalks were in the wrong place. I will miss not getting to teach the new students I saw taking a tour last week. Mostly, I will miss the amazing faculty and staff who saw me from 22 to 30, from terrified, newly-minted graduate student to assistant professor.

To Tate St. Coffee, my first job in Greensboro, where I honed my skills of doing ten things at once. And to the customers whose names I still know and who still say hello to me when I see them in town.

To superbowl parties and cookouts and thanksgiving dinners and birthdays. To the laughter and the kids and the conversation and the food that defined these Greensboro family gatherings. You revolutionized my understanding of family and community. This tribute to Greensboro is really a tribute to you.