Flying times

I wonder if, as we grow older, time does pass more swiftly. Or does it simply seem to do so, so that we don't have time to slow down and notice how much faster we are growing so much older.

Whatever the case may be, this year has vanished with a rapidity that takes my breath, like when you miss a step but catch yourself before you fall. Where, o where, did 2007 go?

December is almost half-way through and winter has set upon Ohio early, as it's wont to do in this part of the world. This literal middle-of-nowhere where the weather is the most changeable and the most temperamental of seasons.

"In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it," Toni Morrison, a native Ohioan, writes in Beloved.

I couldn't have said it better, of course. I like that about Ohio, though, it's theatricality. Still, good Caribbean-blooded woman that I am, I may have learned to appreciate winter's beauties but I will never, ever learn to appreciate the cold.

And cold it will be for a long time to come. Winter here lasts through March and early April so no matter how far I look into the future, cold is all I see for miles.

At least there are no robins around this year to cause me the same anxiety I had last year trying to make sure Mr. Robin survived the cruelest of winters in my memory. This time, the robins all flew away, as they should. That's a relief.

When I look into the past, I have to say that 2007, which only has 21 days to go in its life span, has been a wonderfully memorable one. Indeed, more memorable than most. Above all, I've had my health to face the challenges and joys that have come my way and as I leaf, mentally, through the year's pages, it's been a very good read as well.

Last Friday I taught my last class of the semester and it was a bittersweet day. Sweet, because I will appreciate and take advantage of the break from having to prepare classes and grade and build my world around my students. But this freedom also has a sharp, bitter flavor because I loved teaching that class and I loved being with those students and I had so much fun that I want to say it was the best class I've taught, ever.

But I can't trust myself on that score. Every time I teach a class I feel like it's the best one ever, so perhaps this one was just the latest in that long time of having passion for what I do and fun doing it. However, I don't think that's altogether true either. I think this class was especially special. Or at least I want to think it was.

In the next week or so, I'll take a break from going up to my college on the hill and will stay here, at home, with hubby, cats and dogs, until 2008 ushers itself in without an invitation. The expectation of a new year always has made me a little anxious because I don't know what it will bring and, as you know, I hate surprises.

But that's what a new year is, after all, a bag full of surprises. I can only hope and pray that, for all of us, the surprises are mostly on the fun side.