Change Is Hard

I am on my way out, not looking forward to the drive to Ann Arbor today in the wind and cold.  I have a 3 hour class that will only go two hours, and then 4 hours of work.  I am essentially done with the work for the class I will attend today.  There is a short paper on philanthropy due next Thursday, but I’m looking forward to writing that this weekend and don’t feel pressured.  I have a “presentation” tomorrow morning, but in actuality our group will just stand by our (magnificant) poster as the class wanders by.  The threat there is that the professor may ask a question about our featured database that we can’t answer, but I doubt it.  And I have a presentation next Wednesday but a group member has completed the slides and my part is small.

So basically I feel like this semester has ended, though I have a week and a couple days of classes left..and of course that final exam.   I will use this weekend to get organized for that exam so that maybe it won’t be as stressful as it could be.  Other than that, and finalizing the big paper due Tuesday that sits finished in my laptop, I will spend this weekend sleeping.  Sounds like a plan.

It’s busy busy busy at work tonight.  I guess library patrons took a holiday like everyone else and now they are back in full force.  I am working till 9 at the fiction desk.  The woman I took over from at 5 said it had been quiet.  Maybe they were all waiting for me!  I have had a steady stream of people looking for items since I sat down, sometimes two and three people waiting for me.  But it’s more fun that way, so I don’t mind as long as they are patient.  Mostly they are, which is why this is so different from managing a teller line at a bank, or running an underwriting department in a mortgage company.  And why it’s so much more fun.

Tonight I helped a woman find a book, and as I pulled it from the shelf I recognized that it was something I had read.  She asked if I remembered the story line and I said no, so she let me read the jacket.  I remembered what it was about but told her I wasn’t going to tell her, she had to read it for herself.  She left laughing, which caused the next man, waiting for me, to start out his question with a smile.  That’s the way to do it, keep those smiles connecting.

Smiles are just another benefit of becoming a librarian.

The big paper is done!  My archival class paper, all 21 pages, is finished.  It’s not perfect, but I’ll do a bit of editing during the week.  Since it’s not due till December 4th I’m feeling pretty good about how things are going.  Of course I haven’t actually read it on paper yet.  In our paperless society we do so much of our work while looking at a monitor.  But somehow the written word cadence is more precise and lyrical to me when I read it on paper, so I expect to spend another hour or two doing editing so that it flows eloquently.  When I can I like to turn in papers that flow easily, in the hopes that a professor reading something like that will get into the prose and give me a higher grade.  Don’t know if that works, but it can’t hurt.

Also complete are two one page each critiques of my group member’s  grant proposals.  Those papers were both easier and more difficult to write.  Easier because it was a simple assignment, and short; more difficult because they are papers that the other students will be reading and I wanted to be constructive as well as critical.   Those are due next Thursday and it’s good to get them out of the way.

So what is left this semester you ask?  One final exam, two questions, five pages each question to be written the week of December 10th.  One short one page paper on my feelings about philanthropy which I could probably write in my sleep but will likely labor over, two presentations, one this week and one next week.  That’s all.  Then a lovely break spent here at home.

Katie the puppy comes home from the kennel tomorrow.  I am enjoying this puppy free day, but missing her all the same.  Life will get back to normal tomorrow.  Today I revel in completed projects and the smell of fresh baked from scratch brownies as they come out of the oven.

My trip home was more difficult emotionally this year.  I don’t know why.  It was hard to be in my parent’s house and hard to be at my brother’s home as well.  Everywhere I looked were memories of parents no longer here.  Which could be a good thing I suppose, the memories, but for me this weekend it just made for a continually tight chest, frequent sheen of tears in my eyes, and a slight headache that constantly threatened to overwhelm me.  I both wanted to be there and wanted to never be there again.  Today I am glad to be home, and yet I wish I were still where their memories are so strong.  It was good to touch things they had touched, cook in Mom’s kitchen, read in Dad’s chair, walk on their beach, look at their view, talk to their neighbors.  But each activity reminded me of other holiday visits, conversations we had, conversations I wish we had had, time I wish we had still.

As we drove back to the Atlanta airport early this morning in the predawn light I watched a planet low in the sky shine down on us, racing us through the trees along the side of the freeway.  It was as if it were following us to the airport, along the road that Dad had traveled in the dark that morning, much like we were traveling it now.  As we approached the crash site the morning was just beginning to arrive, the sky deep appricot and purple and the planet was beginning to fade.  I wanted it there for some reason as we got closer to the site and the inevitable tightening of my chest increased.  Hang on, I thought, just stay with us until we get past the bad part.  And it did, the sky lightening to turquoise and gold as we passed the spot where Dad left us, my husband and I silent, the planet shown down for me, a bit dim, but still there.  I offered it my thanks as we made our way on to the airport.  Thanks for hanging there with me, getting me through the bad moment…as it faded from view and the sun came up I was grateful for what seemed to be its support.  Strange as it seems, it was kind of like Dad being there, which was comforting.

Tonight after class I headed to work by cutting through the university  libraries, avoiding the rain.  As I walked down the marble stairs at the graduate library my hand slid along the wooden railing.  It was smooth to the touch.  I thought about all the hundreds of hands that had slid down that railing before me.  It was a connection with the past, something we had talked about in the archival lecture I had just left.  It left a warm feeling.

I washed my hands when I got to work.  After all, hundreds of hands in flu season…well…lets just say the warm feelilng needed to be washed off.

So much of the focus of my life these past weeks have been on school and Dad, and not necessarily in that order.  Yet tonight, as I prepare Katie’s brown bag suitcase for her visit to the doggie hotel, and pack husband’s and my suitcases for our trip to Alabama I began to think more and more about Mom.  I spent some time tonight remembering the last time she was here, just prior to Christmas 2003.  She was helping me get ready for the big “King Christmas” when all of Bruce’s relatives come to dinner.  Who knew that was her last Christmas?  Or that she had only seven short months to live?

Thinking about that I sat still on the sofa.  “I miss you Mom” I whispered and tears slid down my face.  I guess it’s the combination of things, the holidays coming, the trip “home” to a place where no parents will be, sending out the invitations to this years “King Christmas.”  Too many memories, too many feelings all jumbled up inside.

Once again Katie came to the rescue.  She had been asleep at the other end of the sofa.  Hearing the soft whisper she came over, crawled into my lap and licked away the salt on my face.  Such a sensitive dog!  How she knows when I’m so sad I don’t know.  But she makes me smile.  When I’m not yelling at her to stop chewing something!

It’s going to be a long day today.  Group work this morning, and two shifts at the library this afternoon and evening.  On the up side however, I can feel this semester slipping away.  The grant has been turned in and I have only three more short 1 page papers to write for the class.  The last paper has been turned in to Government Documents, and I have only a presentation left to put together along with two team members.  My online searching class is finally finished other than a poster and presentation to do  with my group.  And archiving?  Well.  That still has a 15 page paper and a 10 page final exam.  But by the time I get to those I will have nothing left to worry about but archiving!

An interesting thing is happening as we are sending Dad’s friends our Truck Safety fundraising letter.  I’ve noticed a couple of times that people are having grief filled reactions when we talk to them about this issue.  It has surprised me, but on reflection it probably shouldn’t.

My siblings and I have dealt with Dad’s death pretty much every day for almost three years.  We’ve had lots of days to cry and feel sad, and it’s never far from our hearts and minds.  But the people we are contacting now, though they were terribly sad at time when Dad was killed, had pretty much gone back to their lives and haven’t processed the loss as much as we have.  Now when we bring it up, seemingly out of the blue, some people are reacting with tears that surprise them and us.  I think they are just beginning to realize their own loss. 

I find myself comforting them over the loss of my father.  That’s a strange place to be in.  But it’s Ok.

Today, they say, is the last warm day for the foreseeable future.  Since I don’t have to be in Ann Arbor till 2, I put the dog in her kennel and headed outside for some yardwork.  What a joy that is!  Mindless.  Aromatic.  Feeling muscles stretch.  Lovely.  I tossed out the hosta leaves and peony stems and frozen mushy tomato vines.  I rolled up the hoses and swept away the grime from the back walk.  There’s still things to do, but the worst of it is done.  And the worst wasn’t all that bad!

This evening during my walk from school to work I noticed an awful lot of the color pink.  Is this the new color of the season or something?  During my short three block walk I saw several pink sweaters, shirts, jackets, backpacks, bags and shoes.  I also saw a woman riding a pink bike with her pink hair streaming out behind her.  And finally a woman with a bright pink cast on her leg.

It was a pretty fall night filled with colorful leaves glowing in the setting sun.  The women in their pink atire glowed too.  Especially the pink bicycle rider who made me smile.