Back Bay View: Summer wanes

Monday, September 2, 2019

Summer wanes

Although the sun is shining hotter than it has all month and the fall equinox is nearly a month away, summer vacation is over. It's Labor Day, and the big kids have all been back at school more than a week, and my classes begin in a few days. I have been cramming to revise my syllabus and reading packets, a project I meant to conquer weeks earlier, in addition to signing all the papers and updating all the calendars with the new school year activities. The buzz of excitement that surrounds this time of new beginnings, reconnecting with friends, and reigniting excitement for learning and study is stimulating beyond the classroom.

A part of me is bemoaning what I bemoan every year around this time: Where did the time go? Why didn't I use it better? The slipperiness of time has been much on my mind lately. Some friends visiting from out of town came by for dinner last week and had a photo from the last time they were here three years ago. How different the kids look, although it feels like their visit wasn't that long ago. But how reassuring that our friendship continues despite rare meetings and brief connections.

I have been thinking a lot about friendships as I see photos on Facebook of friends from college and other duty stations whose children are now going to college with my kids - after years apart, they are reconnecting. Their friendships may be tenuous, but it warms my heart to see how paths cross and recross.

In addition to revisiting friendships from the past, I am also trying to manage friendships in the present time and place. The start of the school year is the perfect time to reach out and make new friends, but I'm playing it reserved this time. Not volunteering for the welcoming committee. Not going to PTO meetings. Trying to minimize sign-ups and socials. The youngest is starting kindergarten at home through a charter school - so we get funds from the state of California to take some enrichment classes. I signed up for the email list from the Catholic home school group, but I haven't gone to any events yet. I'm hesitant to start developing new friendships when I already don't have time to cultivate the ones I have. And with my husband's new job, we'll be expected to host a few events. In fact, I should be at a work social right now, but I begged off with the excuse that I have to get ready for company - our oldest son's fiancee and a couple friends arriving for the long weekend. This busy social life is a little unique to this time and place where everyone lives close by and the church/school/military groups overlap.

What I really want to do is hunker down with some books and notepads and organize my thoughts more systematically for this class. I'm revisiting the plan again - learning on the go. I ordered a new text, American Earth from Library of America edited by Bill McKibben, but I really like some of the essays from the first book, the Norton Anthology of Nature Writing edited by John Elder and Robert Finch, better. What I really need is to design my own course reader. I want something a little more literary than American Earth but more political than the Norton Anthology.

American Earth is heavier on the environmental action and human impact essays than the Norton, but has fewer essays with strong literary value. I'm glad to assign a few of these essays. They really are convicting, and I hope they will engage students. I'm also gathering some online resources to supplement. The problem is that there is just so much good stuff out there. I wish I could find enough copies of the Lapham's Quarterly Nature issue - I just picked one up at the library book sale at the San Diego Festival of Books (sorry new writers, I just bought used books this time).

Right now my system of organization is the same as last year - to start at the beginning - talk about creation stories for the first class, along with a couple essays, one that condemns Christian teaching for ideas of 'dominion' and one that supports the contemporary Christian idea of "creation care." Then I have a packet of readings with selections from classic sources - Aristotle's Physics on causes, a quote from Augustine on the book of creation, a selection from the Georgics, a few lines from different Shakespearean plays about the woods, a chapter from Marco Polo's travels and one from Robinson Crusoe, along with some haiku - really all over the place to introduce different tropes: wilderness, pastoral, natural history, travelogue, survival narrative, etc. Then, where I think I can condense is the next three classes - one for Romantic poets, one for eighteenth/nineteenth century natural historians (Darwin, Audubon, Meriwether Lewis, Gilbert White), and one for Transcendentalists, followed by a class on Walden, which students have to write their midterm paper about. It's all good stuff, but there's SO MUCH good stuff. Then for the second half of class we move into issues based class themes: western wilderness narratives (John Muir, Mary Austin, Wallace Stegner, Norman Maclean), then Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey and Loren Eisely, the early environmentalists. We have a class on sustainable agriculture with Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, then two classes on human impact and environmental responsibility - the students sign up for issues and pick essays from my list to present to the class in groups. Then we have a short class on Apocalypse or Paradise with Cli-fi selections. Nothing really fits the paradise trope, but I try to tie it back to the first class and our understanding of what it means to believe that people are made in the image of God and to hope for a life beyond the physical world, but at the same time to make difficult life decisions to do what we can to love and protect the physical world.

And related to all of the ecology/environmental essays I'm reading, I am yet again feeling existential angst - both about teaching and wishing I had time to go back to school and write up my own essays, and about our living arrangements - I still am bemoaning living on a busy street with a pool. (Have I mentioned a million times yet that I don't like having a pool? It is decidedly not a green principle to own/rent a personal pool! But our pool is green with algae for the second time this summer. My husband is tired of hearing me talk about moving, but I can't find a place in the same neighborhood that fits our family and is still in our budget. I can find smaller places and plenty of expensive places. I've looked at two houses recently, but while they would fit our downsized family of six with creative organization and detachment from a lot of stuff we have, they would be a squash and a squeeze for the two or three months when we have the college kids home. And I don't want them to feel like they can't come home.) Just at the point I think I am reconciled to staying in this house until we transfer in two years, I read something or witness rude drivers or have an issue with the pool, or all three, that leaves me agitated and wanting to move, ideally far away to the mountains or the plains, but in the short term just to a smaller house on a quieter street.

Meanwhile, on the back to school piece... as soon as I started home schooling the youngest for kindergarten, I questioned if I can stay with it. She wants me to sit by her the whole time she does a project or workbook. She needs a friend for afternoon play before the kids come home from school, but we don't know other home schoolers yet, other than a boy whose mom is going to watch her one day while I'm teaching. And I would much rather be reading my books or working on course readings/notes/etc than doing math. I need a dose of motivation.

This has been a complaining post. I need to remember that my suffering is so minimal, especially compared to others. Right now three women dear to me are very sick: my aunt has lung cancer, my book club friend has breast cancer, and my long time Navy friend has leukemia. These were all three healthy, vibrant friends whose serious illnesses make no sense.

And there have been some nice stuff going on lately: a trip back to the east coast and midwest, a trip to the art museum and nature center, (and science museum - no photos, but I ran into an acquaintance from church who now has a cool job doing science experiements for kids visiting - so many international visitors!) And we have been reading lots of good picture books and looking for animals native to our town- LK was the first person to turn in her checklist of local animals.