stream

I feel like I am caught up in a stream that is going to carry me along in its current until the end of this semester, about six weeks from now. I'm not sure if I feel at peace with this, or if I just feel resigned. I realize that I have to be careful in these next six weeks not to get entirely caught up in the idea that I have to focus on getting my work done, meaning that I'd let other things that are important to me fall away, or fade into the background.

I have a hard time accepting that my friends' lives move on, and move on well, even when I'm not around. This is a selfish thing to feel, I think, but it's true.

Here is what I am afraid of these next six weeks--or here's another way to put it: I'm afraid that I will feel numb, just focused on "getting through" until mid-December, and then I will look back and realize that I was so intent on making it till then that I didn't let anything Meaningful happen. Of course, this situation is pretty easy to avoid. I just have to be sure to make room for the Meaningful things. And there are some things I'm excited about coming up: conferences, concerts, a few days in Tampa, getting everything done, and regrouping in Chicago next semester. I've been continuing to have some realizations (I think this might be a better term than revelations) in the past few days, but I feel like I have to put them on hold until the end of the semester. Right now, I really do think that I need to worry about getting caught up with past and current obligations before I start to re-organize certain aspects of my life. So I've realized that there are things I need to give some serious thought to--most importantly, where I see myself in 2 years, when my dissertation is done, where I see myself working, where I see myself being--but I can't get too caught up in those thoughts right now, because they're just going to distract me from these things I need to get done. And unless I get these things done, I can't really move on to the next stage.

But this is the big question for me right now: what do I ultimately want to do when I'm done here? What do I want my life to be like? I think once I answer this question (at least tentatively), I'll know how to direct the next year and a half (from January 07 to May 08). I know I want my life to involve teaching, but I know there are other ways to do this besides going into academia--I might, for instance, be happier working with a group that aims to set up interreligious dialogues in local communities or with international groups. Or a group that works on peacebuilding across religious differences. And there are groups like this. There's the U.S. Institute of Peace, there's the United Religions Initative, there are various dialogue centers (at places like Simon Fraser University in Vancouver), there's UNESCO. Probably the ideal for me would be to hold a position where I could both teach undergraduate introductory courses in religion, philosophy, and education, AND "consult" with the sorts of groups I just listed. Hell, I could even try to form a group like the ones I just listed, based on my own ideas--I don't think I have things quite worked out well enought to do this just yet, but I think as I write my dissertation my thinking will become much clearer. The point here is that, once I have a sense of where I want to be in 2 years, I can then set up the next year and a half in such a way that I have a reasonable chance of getting there. Nothing's guaranteed, of course, and my ideal situation might be an unrealizable dream (especially in 2 years' time), but if that's what will fulfill me, that's what I need to aim for.

As I said, though, I can't think about this too seriously right now, because I'd be getting ahead of myself. I need to clean my slate here before I re-organize my activities.

I've always found it amazing how much of a difference in your life a single person can make. How reconnecting with an old friend or meeting a new friend can change the fabric of your life. I think you know you've met someone important to you when you realize that it's difficult to imagine what your life was like before you knew that person. You can remember it, but it's hard to put yourself back in that position again. These are life-changing people. And there are life-changing events, too. I still think the most significant one for me was my father's death almost five years ago--I can't even believe it's been that long. I simply cannot put myself in the position I was in before he passed. Certain people, certain events do this to me...my life is going along, as if in a stream, and then I'm launched out of the water by a person, by an event, only to land in a different stream, and be carried along again. I can look back, at first with the naked eye, then with binoculars, then with a telescope, eventually in memory alone, and see what that former stream was like, but I know that I can never get back into that stream again.

All the time we make decisions that change our lives, though sometimes these changes seem subtle or mundane. But sometimes we make decisions or have encounters or have things happen to us that can change our lives dramatically, irrevocably. When I chose to come here to C-U, that was one of those decisions. When I chose to go to Chicago next semester, that was another. When I made the decision to travel to AR last weekend, that was another. I see my life as a series of episodes, broken up by major events or major people--I think one episode ended about a month ago, when I started this blog and went through a sort of breakdown, and I think another one started this past weekend. I think this episode will end at the beginning of January, and another will start, which in turn will end at the beginning of the summer. But of course I never know when one episode will end and the next will start, except in cases where I'm moving or I know ahead of time something drastic is going to happen. This episodic view I have of my life keeps my life meaningful--I thrive on the change, the new experiences, the new way of life, the new relationships--but it also tends to disconnect me from the past. When one episode ends I start to feel removed from it. This doesn't mean that I forget everyone or everything from a previous episode, but it does mean that I feel those people and things shift for me. They take on a different status.

But this is the way things are. When you have a dear friend in one place, who you see nearly every day and who is a regular part of your daily life, and then you move away from that person, of course the friendship changes. They may remain just as dear, but in a different way, because you won't see them every day, you probably won't talk to them every day, and they go from being a regular part of your daily life to perhaps a regular part of your weekly life, your bi-weekly life, your monthly life. They become a voice on the phone, or words in an email, that are only embodied every so often, when you can see them again. I feel pangs of bittersweet when I think back on people who used to be such a part of my daily life and who I now talk to once a week, once a month. Something here was lost. And, yes, in that loss something else is gained--it opens up space for others to be part of your daily life and it allows for a different perspective to emerge in your friendship--but I feel bittersweet in the realization that things will never be the same. That there was a span of months (maybe years!) where I was just so incredibly close to somebody, where s/he knew all the intimate details of my everyday life and I of his/hers, and now that is gone.

Today I met with a prospective student and we were talking about the ease of the transition to the Midwest from other parts of the country and whether I'd ever consider going back to Florida. I told him that I think I might be getting to the point where I'm ready to stop bouncing around from place to place every few years. I'm ready, I said, to set in roots somewhere, to get to be part of a community of places, of people. And yet, I told him, I still do feel that urge to bounce from time to time. I still do feel a thrill in the idea of moving around--going to Chicago next semester, maybe finally going to Boston next year if it could work financially--I still do feel a thrill from the unknown, from endless possibilities of new sights, sounds, ideas, friends, lovers. And yet, despite that urge, I do think it would be nice to grow incredibly close to someone, to a collection of people, and then not go away. To not have things shift. To let the connection flourish. To get close to someone and stay close to them in the same way--maybe even to get closer!

I feel so lucky to have had so many wonderful people in my life, from so many different places, and I have this largely because I have bounced around, from Tampa to Pittsburgh to Tampa to C-U to Chicago to ?. And yet, with so many of those people, I wish they were just around more. I wish I saw them, talked to them, more often. But I'm busy, they're busy, and we don't. If I choose to settle somewhere, then maybe I won't be introducing as many new people into my life every couple of years (though of course, maybe I will, as people bounce into the place I've settled), but maybe the sustained and advancing depth of the relationships I do form will make up for it. Perhaps, rather than often being on the lookout for "new" friends, I need to divert more time to deepening (or diving back into) the friendships I've already got with the incredible people I already know. I wonder if I have the time. I wonder if they have the time.

I teach in 8 hours and see Dylan tomorrow night. I saw he did Tangled Up In Blue at an earlier show on this tour--keep your fingers crossed for me, not only that he plays it again, but also that I'm actually able to recognize it when he does.

"So now I'm going on back again,
I got to get to them somehow.
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are truckdrivers' wives.
Don't know how that all got started,
Don't know what they're doin' with their lives.
But me I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue..."