Picking up where we left off

 

Goodbye to a year full of goodbyes

It's been a while since I've updated here but this seems like as good a time as any as we count down the days until 2022 is history.

Like for most everyone else, the past few years have not been ones for the books in a good way. 2019 was a year that sucked bitter lemons, 2020 was "the year Stephen King wrote," and 2021 was its evil twin. And 2022 has not done much better altogether. In January, we lost Chiquita to an illness that was never properly diagnosed; I had to bring my mom here from Puerto Rico after a bad fall and hospitalization in Puerto Rico, and then she had another fall and broke her hip, requiring surgery in June; my husband's mom died suddenly and unexpectedly in August; and Lizzy (pictured above) left us last week after declining quickly also with no proper diagnosis or treatment (can't say I've been impressed with the veterinary services we've had since moving to Massachusetts last year). But we were blessed by an amazing home veterinarian, a true angel, who helped Lizzy cross the bridge peacefully and helped us be at peace with the decision to let her go.

Now, we're packing up the small Cambridge apartment where we've lived since April 2021 and I'm changing jobs once more, leaving what I thought was my dream position, which brought me back to Harvard 35 years after I left in 1986. As of the first of the year, we're moving to western Massachusetts where I start work in January at a small liberal arts college near the Berkshires. 

While I'm beyond grateful for and excited about the change, there is always that anxiety about starting over, something I've been doing pretty much every other year since 2019. I am hoping we find a place to land and build community and grow older and that this is the last year of major changes. Still, it feels good to know that, even at this late stage in our lives, when we're no longer young and spry, we're unwilling to settle for less than what we feel we have earned. The early 60s provide a crystal-clear clarity that beams ahead, like a North Star.

Returning to these pages

Yesterday, I asked my husband for a pretty picture of a winter landscape and he shared this old picture of a path all lit up at my previous institution. The photo is bittersweet because I haven't walked that path in several years now, especially after leaving in 2019 having spent a long 13 years there. 

It's been sobering to find out that, even after all that time in one academic institution, almost none of the close relationships with peers I forged and invested in over such a long time there, survived my departure. Still, I am so grateful for students who still email and reach out and want to gather virtually to check-in or to seek my advice. Those are, ultimately, the relationships to maintain and to continue to grow with.

2020 has been, in one word: a horror show. And we've been among the privileged few with stable jobs and no illness and no stories of family being decimated by this modern plague so far. Still, it's been increasingly hard to even muster the energy to care about anything other than the terrible state of the world and the unrelenting suffering of people and the terrible political divide. It's been a year that has tested and pushed against every single one of my limitations. 

I don't have any hope for the first 20 days of January, and am bracing myself for these next three long weeks being more of the same or even more bitter flavor than 2020 left behind. But I will hope that day 21 and beyond will be different. And that's something I couldn't say in 2020.

May 2021 be a year where we find ourselves moving purposefully in the world to destroy what killed us, especially BIPOC and other more vulnerable people, in 2020, and I'm not just meaning the virus. May this be a year to make good on the promises of racial equity that still elude us, and that cost so many innocent lives, and the racism that has been a poison in this land since it seeped into the ground along the blood, sweat, and tears of our enslaved ancestors.

May 2021 be a year to double down on a commitment to working hard and intentionally for a world in which diversity, equity, and inclusion aren't just buzzwords but actual structures that dismantle the ones that currently keep us divided and keep one race--the so-called "white" one--on top and everyone else below. 

May we be granted fierceness, and strength, and health, and clarity. Being a superhero has never been enough for me. I'd want to reach the level of an archangel, with two kick-ass black wings sprouting from my back, and the brightest and biggest flaming sword there could be. 

Short of that, I'll accept my frailty and my many limitations but continue to devote my life to this unending fight. Now, more than ever, as I turn into my 60th year of life in 2021, that's what I want to accomplish: to make good on the wildest dreams of some of my ancestors.

Darwin has left us

My boy, The Darwinian Terror, left us today. He was 16 years old and spent most of that time with us. I got him from a rescue group, thinking he'd keep Magellan company, but she hated him from the very moment he came into our home and kept up the feud for the rest of her life (she died at home in February of this year at age 18).

Darwin was quite the character. When he arrived, the rescuer said his name was Piper because he had "piped" up while buried under a woodpile and found by his initial rescuer. But he never answered to Piper. I'd call and call and he pretended like that was not his name. That first Christmas, when he started trying to chew on the Christmas tree lights, and we decided that he was defying the theory of evolution, Darwin seemed like the most fitting name so we changed it. And that cat answered from the very first moment we called him Darwin. It was as if he had been waiting for a dignified name to acknowledge.

Although we called him The Darwinian Terror, he was a friendly, easy-going cat, who got along with everyone (unlike Magellan whose nickname was The Devil's Cat). He wasn't too happy when Hamlet, our other male, joined the household and went berzerk, marking all over the house, which was most unpleasant, but he stopped those shenanigans when we started letting him spend time outdoors in the yard, which he loved.

It's hard to believe that he is gone, after so many years. And so unexpectedly. By the time we noticed this afternoon that he was failing it was too late. I feel very guilty that I didn't pay more attention to him earlier today when I saw him lying down on top of some dirty clothes near the washing machine in the basement, and wonder whether had I noticed something was amiss we could have saved him. But there's no point to that.

He is gone. And he had a lengthy and happy life. And he will be sorely missed. Our home will not be the same without our Darwin.

Postcards from July

After a very long absence from these pages, and now that I'm on my post-tenure (thrice-postponed) sabbatical year, I'm going to make more of an effort to update here since this is as close to a journal as I can keep.

July 2017 started with a bang, not the least of which is that my younger brother moved in with us after getting a job at a high school in Columbus. I'm thrilled to have him here and looking forward to his youngest son joining us in August to start college at Capital U.

Big, big changes all around. My husband and I, meanwhile, celebrated 23 years by going to the Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls, a favorite, and we stayed one night at a cottage and it was magical. It's the best going away (at least for me) because it's so close to home.

 We visited the newly opened Whispering Cave trail, which was challenging for me, but beautiful, and then we had a wonderful dinner and a great breakfast and then walked around the premises before heading back home.

At home, Darwin is pretty much the same cat-in-a-box he's ever been, and Lizzy is her own sleepy self once she's tired herself out chasing squirrels in the backyard.

This past weekend we took Lizzy to the Three Creeks Metro Park for a walk and then stopped at a farmer's market to get fresh locally grown corn, which is a summer treat.

Meanwhile, today I started in my new sabbatical-year office, which is starting to look like my space, and where I look forward to working on my scholarship.

A glorious November day

Puerto Rico clouds

A day in Old San Juan