stepping back

So things around here have been surprisingly hectic. The cast got cut off, which is good, but now there's a walking boot and a new gait that makes me look a little like a peg-legged pirate. I had hopes of getting back into at least a walking routine, but it's not to be yet. I miss running, I really do. This brain of mine keeps throwing itself against its cage, and a good, long, exhausting run is really what could settle it right about now.

The classes are underway, which is good, but that means there are many, many (class) blog posts to review and read and response papers to grade. I am not teaching any section of freshman writing this semester, which is a change, but it also means that I have an additional section of an upperclassman writing course. And always in the back of my mind is that this is the second year of my three-year stint here, and which means that I am once again sifting through job postings. I forgot how fun it is, this searching for a job. No wonder our time in Madison was so relaxing.

September can be a kind month, but it's so strange in its own September way. It starts off too hot to be anything but August, and then it moves into those days where the sun is out but the air surprisingly cool, and the mornings too, and now there are little yellow locust leaves dotting our backyard. I have been packing cardigans for the morning and leaving them behind when I clomp across campus to teach the afternoon classes. There is one weather in the morning, and another during the day, and then a third at night. And at that point I feel as if I have been jumping around all day, and I am very, very tired.

I have to remind myself that these first weeks back are sometimes the hardest. The class is underway, but we're all still figuring out the dynamics, the structure, the pacing. We're getting used to each other. We're finding our way. I have to show them what I want, and they're still too quiet. But pretty soon we'll have found our footing, and I get to step back for a little while. The best weeks are the ones around the corner, I keep thinking.

But in the meantime, there is the longest poem in the world and these really cute, really clean wallpapers. There is fresh GG on Monday nights. There are poems out in the mail. There is a Highland Days of sorts in Wisconsin in a month. There is waking up in the middle of the night chilly, and being awake just long enough to wrap the heavy blanket around the body, and a few more hours of sleep. There is an orange mum blooming on the back patio. And the first leaves on the tree out front turning yellow. If you stand under it and look up, the green is laced with gold.