Place. It must be important, because the word has been rolling around in my head for days. Everytime I think about it, I think of something different. But I keep coming back to this: "I'm in a weird place right now." People say that all the time, but it gets strange if you let it sit in the back of your head for too long. Place. Is it a moment in time? A location? A general descriptor of your mental/emotional development? Are we ever NOT in a weird place?
In class we're dealing with intellectual work, travel, home, place, and "the field". Oh, and scientific work. Could you push all those things in a room together and come up with a functional party? If scientific work and I were at a party together, I imagine I'd be oh-so-casually hiding behind furniture in order to avoid an awkward social confrontation.
I've never been a science girl, except for a brief, shining moment with the theory of relativity in my high school physics class. Even that, I suspect, was due mostly to a truly incredible teacher. And that - that a teacher occasionally has the opportunity to make a believer out of even the most reluctant student - is what interests me most about my love affair with relativity. Isn't the idea that we may someday be "that teacher" to someone in our classes the reason we spend hours upon hours crammed in our little offices, just reading and pounding away at our computers? It's my reason, at any rate. Science - though we now only have a passing acquaintance - reminds me why intellectual work so wholly dominates my life right now. Sometimes the memory of my rock-star former teachers is the only thing that can keep me in my chair in Avery 386 and override my desire to scuttle to the airport and see something other than the postcards on my wall (oh, that I had Mary Poppins-like powers to step into pictures). I stay in my chair to be more like my old teachers. Well, and I'm also secretly hoping that one day I'll be sitting in there and the patron saint of academics will send me a sign (or an email or something) indicating what "my field" should be. That's bound to happen if I just sit still long enough...right?
But sitting still has always been a foreign concept to me; I've always, always been on the move. When I was a baby, my parents had to walk miles in little circles around the dining room table - just to get me to go to sleep. And even though we didn't move as frequently as other military families, the notion that I might be in the same place for six years straight in order to get my MA and PhD is mind-boggling, and not as comforting as I think maybe it should be. But that's strange, because I love roots. Sometimes I even think I want them, in the traditional sense - a home with walls I can paint, a garage full of junk, dusty suitcases in the attic, puppy dogs and all those lovely life-perks that come when you stay put for a moment and take a look around. My home has always been people - and so, portable. So I keep moving, wandering into towns and countries with the fervor of someone looking for far-flung puzzle pieces. Is this going to work out like Legends of the Hidden Temple? Do I just have to wander through the temple, pick up and assemble the pieces along the way, avoid the scary temple guards and then come out triumphant on the other side? And since a game show host won't be just around the corner, waiting to give me a walkman and a trip to SeaWorld...what will the prize look like, when I do finally figure out the best route?
2 comments:
My computer is dying (left the cord at the office). But I desperately want to respond, so I'm going to write it down and save it for tomorrow when I have power!
Your first paragraph about weird places is intriguing -- especially after hours of worship at my shrine of HSThompson. Afterall, Hunter always said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Isn't that what we're doing here, turning pro? But after traveling to other countries and continents-perhaps searching for puzzle pieces-how weird is Pullman? College towns do have their own strange customs, like crappy restaurants, roofies, and busch light. But is that Pullman culture or WSU culture -- are the two separable? I digress. At any rate, weirdness is relative in a way that Pullman seems not to be. Keeping in mind all this about work and place and the reason we've all come(traveled) to this desolate town, I am unsure of which part(s) of Pullman makes this a weird place. It must be that they don't pay us nearly enough.... or maybe the weirdness stems from how Pullman is only considered home for 2-6 years max.
Regardless, maybe if your office chair had wheels you could make it through the temple and avoid the guards to win SeaWorld. Keep reaching for those rainbows.
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