in the hall of mirrors

Between

Between bad weather and good, winter and spring, overworked and relaxed, busy and casual....

Feeling a bit mixed on the whole. The weather has been sharply cold, then today it is sunny and relatively pleasant. The many stressful, big things to do are either done or in train, since Thursday – all weekend I've been both wanting to relax, and not quite able to do so, thinking of other things that need doing, the aftermaths of all these things (continued classes, revisions to two articles), and feeling sort of useless... or post-accomplishment... or something. All kind of tangled up.

Not a bad mood, but a tangled one; I keep waiting for it to sort itself out. I suppose if I lived in a city center I'd go to a movie perhaps, or wander from store to café, or go see a friend I hadn't seen for a while. Unfortunately I'm out here, and all those things seem a bit far away, or uncertain, or....

Typical of Sunday afternoons, I suppose. The new guy who moved in downstairs must be feeling it too – tall, skinny, rather sad and lost-looking, he's apparently a recently separated husband whose kids visit some weekends. They weren't around today, and he was playing guitar in the front room, below my living room – rather aimlessly, not terribly skillfully, as though the guitar had been put away some years ago and he had an impulse to drag out again. It's always amazing the intensity that musical instruments gain in people's imaginative lives, in their memories – though so few actually become skilled, the instrument itself always becomes a locus of hopes and dreams. You can hear it in his playing, as you probably can in mine.

I'll go out for a walk, to the corner store and around, just to perhaps clear my head a bit. To look at something, to move around, to... well I don't know. Really.

Snoo

It snew...

... uh...

snowed.

While I was working, finishing the cover letter, revising the papers for Thursday's undergraduate class, planning the Powerpoint for tomorrow's postgraduate presentation. I didn't notice it at all, not while it was happening, but when I went to bed the street behind my apartment looked strangely bright and – I looked out front, and yes indeed, it was not merely some strange trick of the light.

And yesterday – Monday – the grant was finished – just in time.

Sunday the paper was finished, and will be accepted. Happily, apparently. And – though it could be polished, though it is odd, it is also sort of – beautiful. I'm glad I wrote it.

"It's going well." I feel oddly – capable, positive, renewed. Heading somewhere: heading up.

And:

it snowed....

[Photograph: Markus Puustinen, Last Snowfall]

Changeable

Up in the night (you know why) and saw the sky – very strange: the clouds like a dark orange against a dark dark gray, moving very fast, chased by the winds off the north sea. Looks almost like a weird negative. 5 am – well the weather shifting with spring, the days getting (too slowly but still noticeably) longer – no wonder the outside seems in a turmoil these days; a week ago the weather was even more changeable – bursts of hail, the only snow we've had yet, sunny, rainy, you'd get an entire selection in a day.

I keep zigzagging too: days when I am astounded at how much I've done, days when I'm amazingly useless. I was so embarrassed/exasperated at being "too late" for an anthology deadline that I did a remarkable amount of work yesterday – then today – and aimed at tomorrow, like an arrow: one last chance to make this deadline. Ginseng, brain-type supplements – I'm all worked up on one level, lazy on another.

So many things to do.

Wish me luck....

In the quiet night

Morning: green tea, hot chocolate; a strong English breakfast at a nearby café (I didn't eat the blood pudding though, it just seemed... optional). By which time I was oddly shaky: so much caffeine and sugar and strong food, and my body was getting a bit overwhelmed... so some afternoon sleep.

And tonight: again, a few small tasks, answered e-mails and completed forms; no real work, and feeling as though after a mild illness. Big, slow music playing for hours on end, and a few candles burning. Very calm, expectant: as though preparing for something....

I know I should be anxious, pushing myself, about all the things there are to do, especially as the school semester starts up again. But I'm just not feeling that way: tonight it is as though I am living on a far island, and each day is the same as the next, and no one asks anything of me, there is no external world; and within those altered rules, today is simply a day for calm, for garnering reserves. A shame my 'real' tomorrow has meetings in it. But perhaps, at some level, today is neither a waste nor a mistake... I can't imagine how that could be; but I have the sense that, at some deeper level that doesn't take my projects, meetings, or work duties into account, it may be so.

[Another beautiful painting by Polish artist Jacek Yerka.]

Epifanie

The Feast of Epiphany, the last of the twelve days of Christmas. The day when it all ends.

Today the tree came down... the small handmade ornaments (some by family, some from China and Germany when I was there, some discovered in various places) went into plastic bags, the whole holiday into a fairly small but closely packed box. The tree is in good shape – it's alive and potted (!) – put it out back and drenched it; I think this year it will last, it looks pretty healthy.

Woke up very early again, did useful things again, didn't sleep all day again. Very interesting, very unusual for me – perhaps the change in medication from, what, two months ago, is having a large effect on my energy, and reducing my physical and mental depression. That would be very nice indeed – I've been taking Kaletra in its original formula for five years; maybe the new formulation, which is supposedly making everybody happier (most patients haven't been taking it as long as I have, which may be why it took me a while to notice a difference) is going to give me some of that confident, take-charge energy I used to have, in the 1980s, in the mid-1990s, when I wrote so much and did so many things.

That would be great. What to do with such energy... well – I guess I should promise not to waste it – for instance – on being angry or frustrated. (Yeah, yeah, I know: see yesterday's post.)

Was in fact a bit of a Dutch housewife today – much cleaned and dispatched and fixed, ruthlessly and energetically plowing through things. In fact, when I took the tree outside, I took my work gloves and – you'll think I'm really over the top – sneaked into three neighbor yards to clean up trash. Ah, the delights of being obsessive. Anyway, they weren't going to get around to it, not in midwinter at least; and everything looks a hell of a lot better from all my windows.

Here's something else you can make fun of me about: it was in the middle of the afternoon, while clothes washed and the computer ran diagnostics and the iPod played Clannad (as I said yesterday, when they were Irish, not after they turned inanely new-agey – and I say that as someone who likes some new age music; but their desperation to imitate their long-lost sister Enya led them down some very tacky musical paths). An especially good tune, something really lively and – I snapped up into a relevé, did a half turn. Ridiculous, you say: a fifty-year-old academic, dancing in his living room. Well, nobody was around to see; what was remarkable was that the energy just came through me, almost pushed me into it, without effort – as it used to, years ago.

So maybe things are changing; maybe there are surprising things to be realized.

Uh, well, so... when did you last dance around your living room?...

Morning; and teaching

Bright, windy, very clear: beautiful.

When I came here I was told that what I experienced (as this was the coldest place I'd ever lived – Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Adelaide – except perhaps Berlin of course, and this is probably even colder if less gray) as 'cold' was locally known as 'fresh'. I'm usually fairly sarcastic about the word, but today I must respect it – it really is the right description.

Windows open, not just one but three, in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom – the heating will have to work a bit, but it's worth it for the air. I can already breathe better – the air is not so dry, not as baked by heaters. I'll never be an outdoorsperson, not in the north certainly, but perhaps I can come to a milder truce with this northern weather, at least on a day like today.

And also metaphorically, it helps to clear the air in the apartment: I've muddled along from reflective and vague over the holidays, to increasingly irritable, suspicious, even angry over the past two days. Two sets of mildly bad news that made me feel ambushed, plus the impending return to students, administration, teaching – the world has felt oppressive and unwelcome.

S. said in an e-mail that she was having "teaching anxiety dreams" – including one where she had to teach a huge, unresponsive first-year class about Dufay. (She is both vastly experienced and exceptionally capable as a teacher – I wish I were half as good as she is – yet she has these dreams, when the semester is about to start....) I sympathize, although my recent dreams haven't involved teaching – but they have included batches of my postgraduates scattered through the landscape, in situations where I was doing something foolish and ridiculous in public, which I suppose is my current version of those dreams.

We rarely talk about such anxieties, but they make sense: facing all these young people, with their hormone-driven emotions and rebellious chaos, not to mention the automatic contempt of the young for those of us who are, unavoidably, older, tireder, less pretty than we once were. The problem of sitting in authority over them, and the reality that their adulation isn't much easier to deal with than their occasionally vindictive resistance: I can't help thinking that the pettiness of academics results from spending too much time trapped with the immature. Just the weight of all their overblown, desperate feelings can be a burden....

And something my colleagues rarely complain about, but which has always bothered me – the endlessly Sisyphean rotation of the school year: just as one gets to know and like students, when you're at a point where a few of them are actually interesting to talk to, they leave, and one faces new batches of insecure, fragile, sometimes resentful neophytes, and you have to waste so much time simply getting them to start listening to anything at all. And the rotation of topics: having to talk over the same things over and over, always beginning at the beginning, year after year – not getting to move on to the things that interest you now, or the interesting bits that you can reach only at the end of weeks of teaching... I find that exhausting at times, and don't know why more academics and teachers aren't maddened by it.

All exacerbated by the 'administered-society-modernist' pattern of teaching in limited segments: the two-hour seminar, where, just as things get interesting, the clock shows it's time to send everyone away – a repeated and predictable frustration. (I know, I sound like that joke about the the two old guys complaining in the cafeteria: the food is so awful here – yes, and such small portions!; but perhaps if we had all the time in the world, those masses of neophytes wouldn't be such hard work.)

But the air flows through the apartment; and I know that, as always, when things actually start happening, they won't seem so bad....

Midwinter

The tree is a haze of small lights; I'll keep it up until Epiphany, as usual. A cluster of candles, cinnamon and clove, melting to a puddle on a plate. The chicken casserole in the oven for such a long time – I added some chili peppers to the recipe, just enough to heat it up, along with lots of dried green herbs. Bath running, orange oils and salts; reading Dinesen, Jansson. Slept all day, but that's all right – tomorrow I'll use green tea to wake myself up and get some work done; but tonight is just the warm cave, full of rich smells and dim colored lights, against the chilly dark.

Far

I will admit: I'm not completely happy with the Christmas Alone thing.

It's not bad; I'm not depressed. And I will have a leisurely lunch-and-afternoon with V. and her family; and if only I'd gotten organized I could have gone to see my family this week (they're all gathering in Washington this year – actually more of them together than most years) – so it's really all my fault.

But this isn't really the ideal way to get through the holidays: someone should be around to share it – it's a shame that my dear friend Paddy went home to his family, or I'd make him stay here over Xmas Eve. Ultimately, I don't like that everyone is so far away – in space, or of course in time.

It reminds me of my cousin P., who shared my name, and was the 'gay uncle' in my mother's side of the family. He was funny and talkative, if a bit overwhelming – in fact, he projected a slight sense of social desperation, of loneliness; perhaps part of it was the fact that he lived with his mother until she died, of course. He had friends, with whom he shared his love of Greek music and food, and I don't know anything about his relationships with them; perhaps he just wanted more of a connection with us, his younger relatives – but it felt a bit like a bid for inclusion, a reconnection with family.

He died of heart failure in February of this year; I remember my mother commenting on his smoking and heavily salted foods a number of times. I guess I just want to know that there's still a chance that, when I'm older, I'll be sharing holidays, and in fact every day, with someone, with some people even....

Holiday

Holiday stuff....

Pandoro from an Italian student, M. (although I can't imagine why he shipped it all the way from Austin, Texas, where he's on a year abroad – after all they sell them around here). Already put the powdered sugar on it, going to have a couple of slices as a snack.

A very British fog outside – the kind that suggests stories by Dickens and Dunsany.

Some excellent books and DVDs sent via Amazon from my younger sister.

Some Like It Hot on television.

And a somewhat more unusual gift – a very soft, small, multi-colored scarf, with the following letter enclosed with it; I hope the writer won't mind me quoting it:

"This scarf is your 'hug'... from me. The yarn reminded me of you – multi-cultured (multi-colored), strong, warm. With every push, pull, and twist of the needle (crochet) I thought about your life's journey. I even wondered how many times you might have been afraid, as I 'frayed' the ends. I am no poet, but I do try to look deeply into the heart of those I love. And when I do, I realize that we are not as different as we appear to be. In fact, you and I are very much the same! (I am reading your blog – and seeing myself!). We live with the scars from the 'push, pull and twists' inflicted by those who loved? us! And to my horror I have inflicted a few damaging blows – like spontaneous combustion! The pain ripples through generations. Until.... So, wrap this around your neck as many times as needed – and remember – I love you!"

Shortest Day

The winter solstice was 12:22 a.m. GST – this morning.

It didn't feel like the shortest day. I'm sleeping too much the past several weeks, because I've been careless about my thyroid medicine (as well as missing not one but two antiretroviral doses when I went to Liverpool, which, in AIDS medicines is really going over into the 'unacceptable' zone). But I started the day by receiving an e-mail from a colleague in Africa, which could possibly lead to some really interesting work and fast-lane activities; then an early meeting to discuss my possible bid for promotion – I may not be allowed to apply this year, but if I'm not I understand the reasons; a general meeting that was fairly rational and pleasant; and a committee lunch that was, if not exciting, at least quite civilized.

Then the Two Davids came over, we sat around, they cooked dinner, I put up the Xmas tree. Very nice and homey.

So the threat of the shortest day – the dismal dark, the hopelessness, the vain waiting for the return of the sun – wasn't part of that day at all: I'm feeling fairly calm, in charge, lately, able to do what is necessary to get through work, and not too oppressed by the mechanisms and personalities of the university world. Indeed, I've had almost no ideas, no urgent communications to make through this blog: which is slightly embarrassing, as the blog demands a bit of care, of course.

I did want to do what I've done before: pull out old poems or stories and post them – but that raises a specific problem: many of my poems and stories are pretty damned depressing. Since many of them came from particularly dark times, they are themselves pretty grim – they just didn't feel appropriate at the moment.

What's that you say – why don't I write a new poem? Yeah, well, good point. It often feels as though the basic techniques, the balance of abilities, that it took me to generate even a fair poem in the early 1990s simply aren't in my head any more – too long since I thought about it, since I tried it. I think it's a bit like singing: if you spend a period of time (months, or years) pushing your voice into its lower range, or working hard at high notes, other parts of your voice weaken, suffer – if you're doing a lot of serious bass work your baritone high Gs tend to vanish. In the same way, I think, my exclusive focus on academic writing (even the overblown kind that I indulge myself in) has meant that my ability to crank out journalism, or poetry, or tell stories, has suffered....

Maybe I need to practice.