Monday, September 23, 2013

Leaving My City

One of these days,
I will learn that everything ends.
I will learn it before I begin,
tentative and shy,
hesitant and unsure of my place and role
in this new endeavor,
my next grand adventure.

I will learn my lesson before I begin
and save myself trepidation and heart ache
because I will know that this too will end.

Every life that is born,
every flower that that blooms,
every summer that blossoms and burgeons
green and lush around me,
every friendship I form,
every city that spreads herself out before me,
calling me to explore her details,
beckoning me to call her home,
will fade and fall from my grasp.
I cannot be constant.

My job will change,
as certainly as the seasons will.
I will take every tantalizing secret
I have teased out of my new home away with me,
only to forget her,
never to revisit,
never to know when she has changed her ways.

No matter the promises I make
or what I say,
no matter how much I declare and demand that this time,
this one time,
this will be a working relationship only,
I will love her.

Then, with the certainty of the oceans
that the tide will recede,
the day will come,
when I walk away,
when I do not turn back for one last glance,
but linger, lovingly in her alleys,
–even in the by ways that once caused me pain–
one last languid look of a lovers eyes
pass over the paving stones
and plaster facades
that took me so long to appreciate.

I step off the platform.
I wait for the train to depart.


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Administrative myths

Being an academic is strange. It is hard to explain to in-laws that we do have work to do over the summer. It is hard to explain to parents that being a post-doc is not the same as being a student. I will not have to live in a dorm. It is hard to explain to friends that I do not have a boss. It is hard to answer the question "When do you have to get that paper/experiment/data analysis done by?" because the answer is always "last month."

I have no boss. This is wonderful. I have no deadlines. This too is wonderful. I have an administrator who want me to declare which 20 days of vacation I took last year. This is confusing. I have a contract that says that I am being hired to work 39.5 hours a week. That is laughable.

I dream of that job. I dream of being able to work 40 hours a week and take 4 weeks off, and still be competitive enough to give my child a school that he can go to for years and years and years without having to move, to give myself a neighborhood I live in for years and years and years so that my partner and I have friends.

I know it is a fiction. I know that I can count the number of academics I know who can do what they want to do in a 40 hour week  on one hand. I know that this year, like last year, I will make up dates of my vacation to make HR happy.

There should be something illegal about this. At least my department chair at a previous university had the spine to admit it. He told me that he knows that I am a postdoc at University A, and that post docs here do not tend to take as many vacation days as all that, but that this is something passed down from the University's legal office. It is a safeguard against people being denied their vacation rights. He said the last in a way that implied that it might be the department administrators and security staff being denied their rights, rather than post docs working for demanding heads of labs. Whatever, at least there was a breath of honesty in his admission.

I was talking to a friend of mine who claimed that in his pre-academic industry life, he regularly worked 60-70 hour week as a banker. It was a high pressure, highly paid job. I wonder what his contract looked like. Did it have a list of hours that he is supposed to work listed on it? Did it have vacation days that he had to take, or lie about taking?

I am not complaining about the hours I work. I do so mostly because I love my work. I am complaining about the contract I sign, about the myth of a normal life I am supposedly allowed to have. I have strong opinions about not giving labor away for free to "THE MAN," and I voice it strongly to friends who agree to work overtime without extra pay for nice bosses or managers at the local bookstore, or coffee shop.

In my case, it is the university who is turning a  profit from my teaching and research. I would be much happier with a contract that states that my university cannot bar me from taking X days of vacation if I so chose.

Except, I know that it is not the answer. In my current emotionally exhausted state of mind, I am tempted to let this rant morph into one about taking steroids in sports. People argue that we should let professional athletes take steroids. I argue that if it were legal, then those that did not want to would feel pressured to, in order to compete. In the end, it would be a de facto requirement, even if one's contract read that it was not.

My contract states a 40 hour week with 20 vacation days. Competitive academics don't work those hours. If I want my next post doc, or my first TT position, or tenure, or a nice grant, or the named chair, or the pay raise, or the extra funding for graduate students, or, or, or... I will not work according to my contract either.

This is not just a problem with me. It is the same dilemma my banker friend faced, I am sure. It is the same problem my friends working extra hours for nice bosses at the local book store face. If they are nice to their boss, even though it goes against contract, they are more likely to be promoted.

Life goes on. I need to find 20 days.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Written after Epsilon visited at University F

You came into my life
a brief whirlwind at waist level,
stained my small sterile solitude with your palms,
echoed laughter and cries of jousting in the stairwell
won the hearts of my colleagues and comrades,
– fellow satelites, orbiting our families and communities,
waiting to settle–
and left.

I come home to a room, scattered with
train tacks,
pine cones,
twigs,
pieces of asphalt picked up from the play ground,
feathers,
dried flowers,
crayons,
cheese rinds,
bread crumbs,
sheets
-bundled and thrown under the bed we shared-,
a single sparkled sock.

The vestiges of your visit
call to me from the floor.
You destroyed my world
by breathing life into it.
I cannot go back.
Nor can I step forward to find you again.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Broken feedback loop

I was talking to a friend a while ago about how life in academia leads one to think that one is constantly below average. It doesn't matter what post docs one gets, or how many publications, or how one's talks are received at conferences. Too many successful academics, like competitive runners, get where they are by keeping an eye on the person just ahead.

Except, in a race, it is always clear who the people in front of you, and behind you, are. It is not always so clear who the person in front of me academically is.  I (and many people I know) solve this problem by keeping my eye on the people who are some distance ahead of me, who are clearly better than I am. I call them my competition, and keep going. By definition, since I do not look at the rest of the population (and because I do not like thinking of people as being worse than me) I see myself at the bottom of the pool, and live my life resigned to a state of mediocrity or less.

In graduate school and during my post doc years, I made certain that I had a life beyond my work so I could be reminded that I was not struggling at the bottom of the pack in spite my years of specialized training. It is not so much that I need an ego boost from my neighbors who lead more normal lives, but that I need a counterweight to the machinery of my self image and drive.

Since leaving the US, I have not had the luxury of having that counterweight in my life. it is starting to take a toll. I received a very nice e-mail yesterday from an ex-student of mine who thanked me for the influence I had in her academic life. I wish I could say it turned a bad day into pleasant day. Or even that it turned a bad day into a tolerable day, or that it brought a smile on my face. I am extremely embarrassed to admit that the first thought through my head was something along the lines of "why do people like this not reflect themselves in my teaching reviews?" This is not to say that my teaching reviews are bad. Generally speaking, I have been an above average teacher in all the institutes I have been at that have kept records. But I have never been recognized by my department for good teaching (unless you count the undergraduate teaching chair who wanted me to teach an extra course though my teaching had been bought out because, as he claimed, he was tight on bodies to put in front of the classroom, and did not want to loose a good teacher.)

My second thought was to write my student a thank you note.

I turn into a very twisted person without something else to balance my life. I need to do something about this.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Rejection

Do you know that general feeling of tension and malaise you get when you are in the middle of a job hunt? The reluctance to check your e-mail because there may not be any news of the job hunt, or worse, that there is a letter. The pit in the bottom of your stomach when an e-mails pops into your mailbox with a job title in the subject line. The unease with which you open it, bracing yourself for rejection. After all, you applied to dozens of positions, and realistically only expect to get a few offers. The inevitable feeling of worthlessness that washes over you, however briefly, when you see yet another rejection. The process of trying to talk yourself out of the conviction that the rejection is a judgement of you as a person, even though rationally you know it is nothing of the sort.

Yeah, that feeling. The one that comes from repeated rejection.

I've been looking for housing in Small City. I have been sending out dozens of e-mails to ads for rooms. Since I am still spending most of my time in His Town, I do not contact at housing agent in Small City. I am mostly working off with people who have listed places independently. And I get .... nothing. Or at least very little.

Most people do not respond to my e-mails at all. Those that do, respond with a polite but curt statement of non-interest. I have almost always gotten housing from newspaper ads (before Craig's List), word or mouth or Craig's List in my many houses in my undergrad, grad and post doc years. I have never been in a situation where my e-mails have gone almost completely unanswered. I have always managed to find several people interested in showing me their properties.

Perhaps I am transplanting my American reliance on Craig's List for all my housing and second hand needs into a culture that is not used to working outside housing agents. Perhaps I am giving off some sort of odd but subtle negative signal in the way I am approaching prospective landlords. Perhaps my situation is a bit out of the ordinary, and that makes people hesitant to answer. Whatever the reason, I start feeling the way about housing that I feel about rejection letters for jobs. I start wondering if there is something wrong with my mail server.

Then my partner points out my name. I have visions of potential housemates not wishing to live with a fresh off the boat academic from a third world country who speaks English with a heavy accent and has who knows what strange habits. They are not very nice visions. They focus an ugly side of my countrymen that a part of me likes to believe does not exist. They remind me of how poorly some of my fellow fresh off the boat graduate students were treated in my country. They remind me of how rudely a black friend of mine was treated at a diner I normally loved, the time I sent her in to pick up the order while I sat in the car.

We dipped into the bags for hot salty fries on the drive home, talking about how the worst part about experiences like these are the seeds of doubt they plant in one's head. Was the waitress just having a bad day? And the cook? On the same day? It could happen. It is not impossible.

Am I just doing something subtly culturally wrong? I am a gregarious American living in a staid European society. It is not impossible to believe.

The problem with cases of discrimination like this is that it is impossible to tell. But the seeds have been planted. The damage has been done.


Monday, September 9, 2013

Indecision

We went to Large City last weekend. It was nice. It reminded me of other large cities I've lived in in the US. We dreamed of having brunch at the out door cafes, and ordering food in from a myriad of restaurants with decent takeaway on most blocks. We walked down streets where a quarter of the people looked like me, and less than half the people looked like my partner. I did not hear as many different languages as I did in New York City, but not every place can be NYC. All the same, it made me homesick in a pleasant way.

Everyone tells me that it is too expensive to live in Large City. People have many suggestions for nice neighborhoods that are further out, where I could afford a house with a lawn. I have a hard time believing the economical hardship argument, given the traditional economic class of the neighborhood that I have my heart set on, but I find myself unable to respond truthfully. Instead, I offer excuses about not wanting to add time to either of our 90 minute commutes, or being willing to pay a premium for putting Epsilon in a neighborhood where our minority language is spoken. I do anything to avoid stating that I want to live someplace in the world where people look like me, and speak my language. I am ashamed of appearing to want to ghettoize myself in front of my friends. I have spent too much effort in my life trying to appear white. And I am ashamed of my shame.

Two days later, I visit University G. The Georgian architecture, and old Gothic arches call to me. As I leave for home, I stop by a lettings office to see price ranges of houses in Small City, near the university. I can get more house for my money there. And the location is nicer. Small City has its own set of undeniable charms. Not commuting 90 minutes into work several days a week has its own advantages. Small City is dominated by the university. There are churches, and cafes and book groups and everything I could want if I wanted to pretend I was back in the states, living in a college dominated city, with people whose lives looked enough like mine, that society says I belong there. I could fall in love with the trappings of that city. I could spend days exploring its tourist attractions, and drink the cultural offerings it lays before my feet. I could lose myself in the aura, the myth of the place, wandering the halls of the original ivory tower, entranced by the glitter in a way I have not been since I first came to college.

And I would learn nothing of life. Then I would uproot my family after my position ended.

At the end of the day, to continue the parallel between cities and lovers, I must admit that I have a crush on both Large City and Small City. One is good for me, but a harder relationship to stomach. She offers me a chance at building the life I have always dreamed of, even if it is not the life that some peers or my parents would want me to have. She offers me a chance of making friendships that will not be torn apart next time I change jobs. The other is full glamour. Delicious, enticing, scintillating, but temporary. She would make a good mistress. In my younger days, she would make for a delightful affair. I have a family and a child. At some point, I must admit that my time for flings is over.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Friday's Females: Fiction (part 2)

This is the second half of a short story I posted two weeks ago. As I said then, there is more factual basis to this story that I am comfortable with, but the details of the story are mostly fictional.
******
The boy who tended the herd failed to show up today for unknown reasons of his own. Therefore, it fell to her to bring the goats in from the rain. The stench of their shed was overpowering today. She would have to tell someone soon.
Her rendezvous with the teacher had lasted a little over two months. They had met in the city only that once. In part, this had been a relief for her. She did not have enough cash saved from her sewing days to pay for an indefinite number of hotel rooms. She had insisted on paying her part, she did not want to be beholden to his man afterwards. For the rest, she had been terrified. He seemed to have an endless network of college friends who would turn a blind eye, or colleagues away on vacation whose houses he could use. She did not like it; it was too public. She did not like trailing her desperation around for his circle of associates to see. In the end, after assurances of discretion, she relented. It was true-- she was desperate.  She had wondered, sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night what she was doing. Did his inexhaustible network mean that he had done this before? What had she tangled herself into? If he had done this before, he had kept his other women quiet as well. She had not been able to uncover any stories about his bad habits in the questioning she had done before embarking on this endeavour.
She ended their meetings a week ago, as soon as she was certain she had what she had come for. It was risky, she knew. She may lose her prize, at which point she would have to go through a similar ordeal again. She had contemplated staying in her current situation until her position was more certain, but the humiliation of it all was more than she wished to bear. Rightly or wrongly, she chose the riskier path that offered immediate solace. He had accepted her breaking off of their relationship easily. She gave the excuse of no longer being able to withstand the increasing questions of her family, that she was not a brave woman. It was not entirely false. Her sudden and sometimes frequent absences had not gone unnoticed by her mother-in-law, but the woman shied from trouble by nature. As long as she completed her chores, the old woman would not complain to her father-in-law. He had laughed at her when she expressed her regrets and derided her when she claimed cowardice, but he had let her go. It had stung, but it did not matter. If he disliked her, perhaps he would not see fit to pursue her afterwards. Perhaps he would allow her to make a clean break of this shameful period in her life, to go back to the quiet of her family. Perhaps she could preserve some dignity.
The rain had prevented her from going to the store today. Her husband came home muddy and soaked, in spite of his umbrella. His father and brother would be along shortly. They were visiting one of their neighbors. Their boy wanted a position at the shop. She drew and heated water for all three men to wash with as they came home. Dinner would be ready soon. He probably should not turn on the TV, the rain kept the solar panels from charging much today. He could tell her about the takings at the store instead.
She had been hopeful when she first came to her husband's home seven years ago. Unlike her sisters, she did not want to live far from the land. She had grown up on farm, and that was where she was comfortable. Her husband's house was remote enough that her siblings were not likely to visit her often. She resigned herself to doing all the traveling that her family would permit and let the matter stand. Her father-in-law had a successful local business selling dried goods and homeopathic medicines. The family had a modest amount of land. She could help them prosper. Her father-in-law had been the first to see the advantages of her work ethic. Her sister-in-law, the elder brother's wife, was better educated than she, having graduated from a well known boarding school, showed no interest in the business side of the family's affairs, choosing to stay by her mother-in-law's side. She had no such compunction. Her father-in-law took her under his wing, and she spent two evenings a week at the store. She quickly became his favorite. This caused some tensions with the other women in the household of course, but her mother had advised her on how to win them over. She redoubled her efforts around the house, which eventually earned her mother-in-law's acceptance. Her sister-in-law quieted a when she gave birth to a boy. The six year old, and his three year old brother sat in the center of their grandfather's vision, the pride and joy of the household.
The boys had not diminished her role in the family. She could never accuse the two charming bundles of trouble of that. Even if they had, she would have  gladly moved over to let them bask in their grandfather's love. But they had not. One could say that their births had indicated a shift from her playing a central role in the household to a more central role at the business. It was not where she had foreseen her life going when she had married, but one cannot argue with what is written in one's fate. There was not much she could complain about, her husband was happy with her new position in the household. There was even talk, a few years ago, when his father's health had given them all a scare, that the land would be given to the elder brother, and the business to the younger. Her husband had pointed out to her that this was, at least in part, due to her active presence in the shop.
The elder of her two brothers, a clerk for a lawyer, told her she should be proud that her father-in-law held her in such esteem. But she was not her brother. Her ambitions had never been to own a successful business. She was simply grateful that it had not come to that. Her father-in-law's heart recovered, her family returned to the happy comfort of before the illness. Her father-in-law had to be careful of his diet and activity in the future, but he had shown no further signs of illness.
She quizzed her niece and nephew on their school work and mended the boy's school uniform while their mother put the youngest to sleep. She would soon not be able to help her niece any more. She usually liked working with the children, but then, she'd found that she enjoyed her morning's tutoring the village kids in her ancestral home a pleasure beyond the money it earned the family. Some said she had a gift for reaching them in a way they understood. Today, however, her heart was not in their studies. She was tired; her mind on the conversation she would have to have with her husband. When her sister-in-law returned, she excused herself and went to bed. There was still mending and accounting to be done. She would tend to them in the morning.
She had not thought it worth bringing up until nearly two years ago. Attempt after attempt had failed. Then she started hearing the unavoidable whispers during the holidays. Her neighbors thought that it was her fault. The thought had crossed her mind as well. When her sister-in-law advised her on how to best capture it within her body, she went to her husband. She wanted to be tested. She remembered the horror on his face clearly, the way he had fumbled and searched for words, the stuttered protests, the unfinished sentences. She had thought then that he had reacted so strongly against the prospect of making her inadequacy so public. She had actually tried to console and reassure him. In the end, he said that he would discuss the matter with his father.
He kept his word, though the men took their time deliberating. Her father-in-law handed down the verdict a month later that no woman of his house would be examined by city doctors. They should simply try harder. If it was not to be, the shame should remain within the house.
She could not accept that. She had to know. She had heard that doctors could do things for people like her, that if she were lucky, with a little help, they  could make it as if nothing had ever been wrong. When she saw her sister during the Christian holidays, she asked her to make an appointment for her. Her sister knew how to find good doctors, she trusted her to make the arrangement. Of course she wanted an explanation. She contemplated lying, at least saying that she was acting with her father-in-laws blessings. But they did not lie to each other. She told her of the whispers and her husband's shame, she bound her to keep the matter quiet, even, no, especially from the rest of the family. Her sister understood. She was glad she had someone to confide in.
It was raining hard when her husband woke her by joining her in bed. Was everyone else asleep?
Yes, his father and brother had just turned in. Why had she gone to bed so early? His mother was worried about her.
She had something to tell him. She wanted him to know before the rest of the family found out.
He stared at her, as she had stared at him over a year ago. But at that point, she had no inkling of what was coming. Now, he knew, or should have known this day would come. He had forced her to bring it about. He spat a word at her. It was the same word she had once told him she did not wish to become. She let it soak into the bed sheet between them. That word could destroy her, it was best not to touch it now. Her husband left for the roof. It was raining, she called after him. He was well aware of that fact.
He had kept her from storming out of this room a year ago, a few minutes after he found her trying to leave the house. She had made arrangement to visit her sister again for a few days, coinciding with the doctor's appointment she had arranged. Her husband found her as she was putting her clothes in her bag. She had no idea how he found out. Perhaps the doctor had called the house. The doctor had been suspicious of an appointment made under such strange circumstances; a woman wanting to be checked, claiming to be married, but coming in alone to an appointment made by her sister. The entire matter smelled to him of something immoral, or at least illegal, nothing he would want his practise associated with. The implications had made her skin crawl. She left him with her husband's number, and their address. What else could she do?
However her husband had learned of the plans, he reminded her that his father had wished her not to see a doctor.
She begged and pleaded with him. She told him how this did not need to be shameful anymore, that there was a good chance a good doctor could fix the problem without anyone finding out. She asked him to come with her. She begged him to let her go and ask his father to forgive her disobedience. She pleaded with him, reminding him her desire for a child, begging that he allow his wife to fulfill this one natural dream.
That was when he told her. It was not her fault. It was he who was deficient.
She stared at him, her jaw dragging on the floor. He had known. The entire family had known. How long had he known and stayed silent, letting her think it was her fault. How long had the entire family conspired against her? She did not ask the questions, though her father had yelled them into the phone later that day when she called him, in tears, telling him what she had learned. He had married her to a family of toilet cleaners, he yelled. They had tricked him. They must have known before the wedding. Why else had the dowry been so affordable? This was grounds for divorce. He was going to call her brother and have him look into legal proceedings. She calmed him down and asked to speak to her mother. She did not want a divorce. She was twenty-six. She would never marry again. She wanted a family.
She would never have a child married to this man. She stopped staring at her husband and wiped the tears that had sprung to her eyes.
That was not true, he told her. There was another way.
She did not believe her husband's suggestion. His mouth spoke, but it spouted nonsense. He proposed the impossible.
He did not  understand why she had to take that attitude. Children were born under those circumstances every day. He would accept the child as his own. What was her problem? It was a simple solution.
Her problem? Her problem was that she was not a whore. She was his wife. She would not be pimped around the neighborhood by him.
He slapped her. The shock of the act hurt as much as the blow itself. Her cheek bled where she bit it in surprise. She reached for her half packed bag and headed for the door. He stopped her there, hands clasped, pleading forgiveness.
She would go to her sister's, as planned. She would not go to the doctor. She would return in a few days. She stepped past her husband to receive her father-in-law's blessings for her journey.
Her husband returned, soaked, but with a cooler head. She rose to give him a towel to dry off and a change of dry clothes. He suggested that she go to her sister's for a few days.
No. She could not step out of her house under the circumstances. Who knew what would happen if she allowed him to push her out of her home. She reminded him that she had done this for him. She reminded him of his professed desire for children.
He had changed his mind, he claimed. He climbed under the mosquito net and turned his back on her.
She did not blow out the kerosene lamp. This was not the end of the discussion. Was this what the months of cajoling and pressure had been for? So he could change his mind?
He had made a mistake. He did not want this as much as he thought he had. Mistakes happen. It was not too late to change his mind.
Never. She had not put herself through that torment on his whim. This was her child. She had earned it.
Her husband did not respond. The conversation was over. She blew out the flame, listened to the downpour and wondered how this had gone so poorly.
When she returned from her sister's that time a year ago, he raised the proposal again. She refused. She was not that type of woman.
He spent the next week telling her how much he wanted children as well. He told her that she could rescue him from his shame. She could make up for his lack. Only she could make their family whole. She refused. They could live quite comfortably on what they had. She would put more time in at the store. His father's health would not last forever.
Eventually he stopped pleading, but he did not drop the subject. He asked her to sit with him when he watched TV, pointing out how women attracted men in the films. One could learn a lot from watching movies. It was indecent and prurient, humiliating to hear him speak to her like that with the rest of the family around. She stopped watching TV in the evenings, finding reasons to stay in the kitchen late into the evening.
Then came a period of undone chores. The clothes that he usually washed, he left for her. The garden they tended together, was hers to see to alone. When their chickens fell ill, it was not due to his negligence in supplying them with feed, but her laziness and lack of resourcefulness. He made her unwelcome at the store, laughing with the customers about the difficulty in training women to keep a store orderly, teasing her lack of education, accusing her of misplacing objects she had not touched, that she was certain he had hidden. Every week he reminded her that their family would be happier if there were children running around. He would feel certain about his future.
Eventually, her brother-in-law accused her of theft. He did not want to go to their father, his health would not take this betrayal. But if she did not return the money to the store, he would have little choice.
She went to her husband. If she did as he asked, would he clear her name?
He did not know what she was talking about.
The money. Would he return the money.
Oh, that? Of course. He was not a thief.
Neither was she. Would he tell his brother that.
Yes, yes, of course. She had nothing to worry about. She must understand. The family needed children. It was wrong of her to prevent them from having them.
Would he promise again that he would accept the child, and take her back.
Yes, of course. Her questions were growing tiresome.
She did not tell the rest of the family for months after she told her husband, though she told her sister-- everything. Her sister told her that she was welcome to stay with her for as long as she wanted, whenever she wanted. She was grateful, but she could not leave her home, not if there was any possibility that she would not be allowed back.
In all honesty, she did not tell the rest of her family at all. Her mother-in-law questioned her about it four months later. She was starting to show. She made the announcement in front of everyone, in front of her husband, that she was carrying his child. She did not know how he would react. They had not talked about it during these past few months. It was not that he neglected her completely, he simply neglected this part of her. Not once had he asked about her health. She had no idea how he would react to this announcement.
He remained impassive. The other two men clamoured for a paternity test. Impossible they said. She was untrustworthy, her brother-in-law claimed, hinting at the alleged theft. They piled insults on her father's head, threatened to keep her closer to the house, promised to not let her work at the store.
When she thought she had born as much as she could, her husband quietly claimed paternity. The four pairs of eyes that looked from her to her husband had all held less scorn for a passing beggar.
Watch her tightly, her brother-in-law said as he left the room. His wife followed, with a look that would have seared a rice paddy.
Her mother-in-law would see to his medication, her father-in-law announced. He moved his feet from her, when she bent to touch them before departing. His mother-in-law did not say a word.
Her husband met her much later that night, tired and tense. It would be better if she spent the rest of her pregnancy with her sister.
Was he asking her to leave her house?
No. He would take her and the child back as soon as her health permitted. There was no question of that.
She could have the child in the hospital in town as easily as she could in the city.
Why was she so deliberately stubborn? It would be easier for him to smooth matters at home without her being a constant reminder of the possibility of dishonor. He would take her back. He gave his word. Was that not good enough?
She did not trust him. She knew the value of his word. But there was wisdom in his request. She called her sister.
A week later, she stepped off a train in the city. Her husband came with her to see her safely to her sister's house. He would promise to take her back in front of her brother-in-law today.
He was a good man, her husband. She wanted to trust him. In a different world, she would be so happy. She had everything; a comfortable home, a good family, land and a store she enjoyed working in, she even had a child growing inside her. She had everything. Her current situation terrified her.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Birds

A flock of starlings play over the highway
Congealing, thinning, torquing
A study of viscosity in a moving fluid.
A trail of birds bleeds black across the sky,
Pulled by the currents of their whimsies.

Monday, September 2, 2013

I blinked

And a week went by. I am not sure how it happened, but it did. This week will be better.

It was not that last week was a bad week necessarily. Last Sunday, I had contemplated writing a post about how this is my favourite time of year. The overflow parking lot for a local hotel faces the train tracks. The space between the parking lot and the rail fence is filled with blackberry bushes. I discovered that blackberries growing on bushes in soil that is covered with dead pine needles tend to have a piney flavor. Very complex, very sweet, but not my favourite. We found another bush, just a few yards away with intense tart berries. I have no idea to what soil characteristic I owe the delight of eating those berries. A couple gallons of berries, a dozen jars of jam, and two arms full of thorns and splinters I am still picking out a week later, and one interesting (and fortunately short lived) rash later, I am finally, temporarily, sated on blackberries. We will probably go back next month.

We are finally going to be home for the holidays. It has been three years since I have actually managed to be with friends and family during the holidays that matter. This year, tickets are bought, jars of jam have been made, presents are still being purchased, Epsilon is primed, things are looking good.

I think I have been invited for an interview for a job I applied for. After some confusion about whether or not I was still eligible for the post given travel schedules, and other aggravating factors, it turns out that, no, I just need to wait for the secretaries to officially give me dates and times for the interview. It is at moments like these that I long for the stronger religious protections of the US, where an employer would have to think twice before saying that I am ineligible for a position because I am traveling for religious holidays. The US does not guarantee protection, but the law provides enough support for minority religions that the school would think twice. It was not a problem in my case, everything has worked out as well as can be expected. I am not complaining. But this brings to mind a conversation I had with a playground acquaintance a few years ago who grew up near His Town. My partner had just accepted his current job, and I stood in the playground with our acquaintance  discussing the move. I expressed my disquiet regarding moving to a country without an equivalent of a first amendment. He claimed that the government in this country was reasonable, and that law abiding citizens would not have anything to fear. So many historical counter-examples sprang to mind, along with aphorisms about benevolent dictatorships. I decided to be polite, and not being able to come up with a concrete, real, "this effects normal every-day people today" example, I held my tongue. I wonder if I have just found my counter-example.