A Contemplative Post with Apologies to Quilters

College of Arts & Sciences
Quinnipiac University
Photo: Lisa L. Hess

Yesterday was my last trip into (and through) the grading tunnel this semester. After working on grading odds and ends all day, I entered my students' final grades last night and stepped away from the computer. For better or for worse, the book has been closed on fall semester.

It's been a tricky one, with more ups and downs than the usual semester. A few family health issues here and there (nothing devastating, thank God) required my attention and made me realize just how little wiggle room I have in my schedule. While this didn't come as a surprise, the realization was altogether uncomfortable and made me question, once again, whether there's a better way to do things.

Let me first say that this is all of my own doing, and that I am, in most cases, more bothered by it than those around me. The things that get dropped when life gets hectic aren't earth-shattering (as my mom used to say) or life-threatening. The internet will go on if my Friday blogs appear on Saturday instead and social media will be no less social if I don't make an appearance on Twitter and/or Instagram for a day or two. My students' lives will not be dramatically disrupted if their papers come back to them one or two class periods later than the random, yet seemingly necessary, deadline I set and we will cover (almost) everything essential (and then some) even if I have to cancel a class here or there.

I know these things and yet, I stress. Meanwhile, I try not to look too closely at my house, which, although decorated for Christmas, has some very un-holiday-like stacks of paper and reading material which need to be sorted and cleared. This task, along with my writing projects, is at the top of the list for this week.

When I retired, I imagined having time to do all the things and, for the first year, I did. I pieced together a job quilt made of community education classes, freelance writing gigs and a pension that felt the hit of an early retirement. It was temporary, I knew, but it was (in retrospect) my transition year. A year to catch my breath and gain my footing as I figured out who I was now that I no longer went to the same job every day. In this year, there was also time for connection -- with family, friends and former colleagues and students -- in a schedule that was more flexible than any I'd known since college.

Pixabay

Now, six years into a new normal quilt that seems to add squares each year, I'm spreading the fabric out before me and looking for pieces that are threadbare. None emerge, but the stitching looks strained in places, leaving me to wonder if I've wrapped myself in it too tightly, or if some squares are insisting on a little more space than is their due, perhaps edging out some others in the process.

So it is, once again, a time for contemplation, a place I seem to land in every year about this time when exhaustion and overwhelm collide with an optimism inspired by a break from routine and an impending new year. It's time to decide whether to reinforce the stitching in my quilt or tear out some squares altogether, whether gently, so they can be reverently laid aside or with attention more to expediency than care. In retrospect, my year of no was a good start, making me more thoughtful about adding new pieces but perhaps not focusing enough on the design of the quilt itself.

JillWellington via Pixabay

It's a delicate process, one that requires a balance between self-care and selfishness, responsibility and repose. But every quilt, whether actual or metaphorical, deserves to be crafted with care.

If you're feeling as though you should be reading between the lines here, please don't. Jersey girl that I am, I'm pretty direct once I've made up my mind. Right now, I'm content to wrap myself in the quilt and consider its patterns. In time, new ones will emerge but, until then, relaxing in the warm embrace of my quilt seems like a pretty good place to land after the grading tunnel.