i moved into residence at university this past week. back in england again. the air feels soft, as i remember it did. the old buildings http://www.rhul.ac.uk/For-Students/Campus/aerial2small.jpg smell...english, somehow. bookstores, too, have a specific smell--musky, yet somehow distinctively...english. the sunlight, too, seems oddly familiar and welcoming, even at dusk. those whispers of eternity haven't changed.
but i have. i don't necessarily feel older, or wiser, or slower or dumber. though i'm sure i am.
i feel like i am moving up, over, under and around spheres and spaces of time and experiences. like swimming underwater with shimmering sun circles cascading around deep into the depths like shadowy doorways dancing around me. so many paths towards possibilities, so many, so....
and then there are the moments when i feel i am drowning.
last monday all the 1st year students arrived to register. very young. those ones. i'm used to college freshman. i've been teaching them for the past 12 years. it was just that i had a position. of authority. now? i'm not one of the experts. i'm a sideline, like everyone else. hard on the ego. hard too, to let go and put faith in the world of academia--after all you see it hasn't done, as an adult. i started drowning then.
but i started to kick a little to propel myself upwards and looking through one of those shimmering doorways, saw some others waving at me to come on through. so in i went! (turned out to be a lot of fun!)
but i can't lose myself like i once did. reminiscence and heart strings tug.
i miss the US west coast...the DRAMATIC coastline along highway 1 and the 101. the GIANT redwood trees, FRIENDLY people offering unsolicited help. my family, my friends, the COMFORT of familiarity and competence.
i miss japan...the stimulation of having DIVERSE concurrent REALITIES in Togane, Tokyo and Hiroshima weaving FASCINATING personalities in and out of my life on an almost daily basis. i miss daikon salad and goma dressing; peddling around the rice fields on my bike, the darkness of side streets and the smell of yakiniku. i miss the GENTLE QUIETNESS that seemed numbing at times. but now, it feels like a part of me is missing.
(and, well, yes, ok, i miss the paycheck, too!)
***
i forgot myself for awhile last week, i felt JOY! it felt GOOD.
i saw a GREAT performance of pericles at the globe in london which used aerialists to show the movement and magnitude of stormy waves...it was AMAZING. this weekend the theatre MA students had a physical theatre workshop. somehow, i don't think the waves i tried to generate from my lower spine through my thorax, neck and to my fingertips were quite as amazing...but give me time!
OOPS! excuse me...classes start tomorrow. i must go and do about 10 pounds of reading and work on being a respectable intellectual! (ha!) wish me luck....
(btw, don't try to work out the logic of the title; there is none.)
