Detachment, coolness, space: long sunny days.
There's a lot of work – this is the week when we spend hours deciding and negotiating final marks, sitting in judgment over undergraduate and postgraduate – and there is plenty of administration waiting, not to mention research, demanding attention at every corner.
But I am somehow calmer than I have been in a long time: things are getting done, and the days are so long. I'm grateful for this airy, light apartment, for the ease of living here. The sheer pleasure of the endless days gives me the feeling that there is plenty of time, that everything will happen that needs to happen, and everything will come out in the wash.
That's the great advantage to summer in these latitudes: when it is summer, that is to say, given the annoying tendency for things to suddenly get rainy and gray. But now it is a true summer, as easy in temperature as California (though a bit humid). The Brits themselves were talking about this over lunch today – how everything seemed calmer and happier in this weather. Even all the marking, all the judging, happens (for me at least) with a certain calm detachment – I am proud of those who have done very well, mildly exasperated with those who have done a terrible job, but not with any anxiety, any close worry that disaster looms.
Even for me, I suppose....
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