Showing Up

pepperminting via Pixabay

When I was a freshman in college, fall break wasn't a thing -- at least not at my school. The first break longer than a weekend came at Thanksgiving and one of my high school friends bet me that I wouldn't make it until then -- that I'd need to come home for a weekend sometime between late August and late November.

Never bet a Jersey girl that she can't do something. She'll either correct you (I could do that if I wanted to) or set out to prove you wrong. In the case of the Thanksgiving challenge, I won the bet.

Sometime before I graduated -- or maybe it was when I was in grad school -- Bucknell instituted fall breaks, a decision all of us appreciated. Ironically, many years after my own freshman year, my daughter ended up choosing a college that didn't have a fall break either. Her freshman year, she decided if I could make it until Thanksgiving, so could she. So, like me, she saw her parents at Parents' Weekend in October and kept herself busy every other weekend between late August and late November.

Now a senior, she still doesn't have a fall break, but I do. This time, I'm on the other side of the desk and I have hurdles to clear in the form of papers and midsemester warning grades. I also managed to end up with not one, but two writing deadlines mid-month and this sundry collection of tasks stands between me and fall break at the beach like a succession of unwelcome dominoes. I have only myself to blame, since every single domino was my idea in the first place.

Yesterday, I was feeling the crunch. Unlike the pleasant crunch of leaves beneath my feet (which we've yet to feel here in Central PA as we had temperatures in the high 80s as late as last week), this time crunch makes me grouchy and leads to me doing things like yelling at my computer screen because MS Word is somehow displaying all of my formatting and I don't know how to make it go away. (I eventually figured it out).

I thought I was alone in this (the dominoes, not the yelling at my computer) -- that everyone else was somehow more organized and on the ball than I. But then, this afternoon, I sat in a meeting with a small group of colleagues as we tried to plow through a task. A little more than halfway through the meeting (which wasn't that long to begin with), everyone ran out of steam. We pooled our resources, wrapped early and scattered to our various tasks, the clock ticking toward our deadlines.

Apparently something about misery really does love company, at least in this case. It's nice to know that on this beautiful, dare I say perfect fall afternoon, other instructors are huddled over laptops, papers and lab reports, wishing for a deadline that's just a little bit later than the one we've been given.

Engin Akyurt via Pixabay

This morning in my first year seminar, I had my students pause to take in the orientation slide on which I announce assignments -- the one that had nothing on it except the discussions we were having in class today and Friday. Together, we sighed at the beauty of the blank expanse of space that usually contained assignments and readings. We knew they'd be back after break but, for today, the slide contained nothing for them to do except show up.

And, for the next several days, that is my task. I simply need to show up, ready to read, grade, calculate and, if necessary, warn that the second half of the semester will require a little more effort than the first.

When I put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad. And it sounds a lot better knowing that, even though I can't see them from my vantage point, my colleagues are showing up, too.

An Unmistakable Sign of Winter

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled, "Fall: Don't Blink or You'll Miss It." It was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but by last week, hints of winter already hung in the air. At Starbucks, the palette was red and green as Christmas merchandise lined the shelves, little Christmas trees dotted tabletops, and "Marshmallow World" emanated from a wall-mounted speaker in a nearby corner. At least one radio station had already switched over to a a holiday playlist (with a second soon to follow) and snow was in the 24-hour forecast within a week of my original post. I could pretty much disregard all of those things (which is exactly what I was doing), except for one thing.

The fountain on campus has been turned off and drained.

I'm sure the forecast of snow had something (if not everything) to do with that, but that simple change screamed "Winter is coming!" more loudly than any of rest.

It also inspired a spark of regret. The fountain is my favorite spot on campus, and I didn't spend a single minute there this fall. I kept meaning to, but I was being productive, sticking to a schedule, moving on to the next thing....

...and the opportunity passed me by.

I don't know what it is about fountains, but they definitely draw me in. Fountains at the mall, the fountain on my own college campus more years ago than I care to admit -- there's just something peaceful about them. Maybe it comes from years of throwing pennies into the fountain at the Cherry Hill Mall as a kid and making a wish, or sitting beside the fountain at other malls as an adult when shopping became dropping, but taking a seat beside a fountain affords a respite. Time to relax, to focus on the water and the scenery.

To just be.

Perhaps that's another part of the twinge I felt walking by the empty, lifeless fountain. Even if the winter weather in the forecast comes and goes, bringing fall back in its wake, that time to "just be" is nowhere on the horizon.

Then again, is it ever, really?

Time to "just be" is time we have to carve out, time we have to make for ourselves. Whether it's sitting beside a fountain admiring the fall foliage or sitting on a sofa reading a good book, these times don't just happen unless we make them a priority. It's easy to point a finger at holidays, work responsibilities or just general busyness, blaming things outside ourselves, but those things don't reach out and steal our down time unless we let them.

werner22brigitte via Pixabay

As I type this, I can easily think of ten more things I should be doing, need to be doing, have to get done. And I can be productive, stick to a schedule, move on to the next thing...

...or I can carve out some time for me. I can't sit by the fountain again until spring, but I can take a step back, seeking rejuvenation instead of efficiency, if only for a few minutes.

Because once the fountain is turned off, the opportunity has passed. And there's nothing productive about a missed opportunity.