Wrapping It Up

The semester is over. My final grades are filed. A week from tomorrow I leave for California to visit the family and some friends. Though I’ve temporarily left a number of boxes of things like books and cooking utensils in Buffalo, the bulk of my belongings are now here in Chautauqua. I let myself sleep in until half-past nine this morning, the longest night’s sleep since I can remember when, and I needed it. Today feels like the first day of Christmas vacation, which for me, it is, although there is certainly work to be done and a few catering events with a friend in the Jamestown area before I leave. It doesn’t just feel like the end of the semester; it feels like the end of 2008.
Since my vacation in New York City at the end of June, I really have been moving and changing and moving again and changing again more or less non-stop. It makes me happy that said vacation was so relaxing and indulgent. Since July I’ve done the following:
1. Started working on the Spencer workshops in Chautauqua
2. Stopped working for the workshops in Chautauqua.
3. Stopped working at the restaurant in Clarence where I was hired way back in the summer.
4. Stopped working for my brother.
5. Started teaching at Niagara University.
6. Started spending 3-4 days a week down in Jamestown.
7. Split off from the Elmwood writing group.
8. Bought a car.
9. Became friends and housemates with someone I didn’t really know before.
10. Celebrated a significant personal landmark (sorry, it’s really that private).
11. And turned forty-five this past Sunday.
When I look at the list, I think, Was all that so much? Those are actually all fairly large and important changes, and I’ve logged nearly 5500 miles on that car since September 12, when I secured it. One resolution for the new year is to drive less. Way less. If I never see the Thruway again it won’t be soon enough.

Only about six weeks ago, at the end of October, a friend proposed that I consider starting a writing workshop on the grass-roots level in Chautauqua County. That was when things seemed possible that, due to the severity of the economic landscape, no longer seem possible not only for the short-term, but the middle-term. Though I had hoped to extricate myself or at the very least loosen my ties to the Spencer gradually, I ended up doing so more abruptly when I realized the situation there was becoming hopeless. I spent a couple of week exploring the idea of doing something in Chautauqua County, even going so far as to take a couple of meetings with various parties. At the same time, however, organizations and institutions in the Buffalo metro area showed continued interest in my professional services, and finally, the chair of the English department at Niagara responded that I could teach two classes there in the spring if I was interested. It took some thinking and talking to come to a decision, but I finally decided that Buffalo was continuing to provide me with opportunities (not to mention income) and that the challenges in Chautauqua would be hard and even unpredictable given the financial climate. When my friend raised the prospect of his moving to Buffalo rather than my doing something down here, I said that it had never occurred to me to ask whether such a thing interested him. So we will be looking for a house or apartment big enough to share come March, when his lease here ends. I’m pleased because this gets me back on the track I was on at the beginning of the summer, and though the path since then to now has been rocky and circuitous, it has been packed with experiences both personal and professional that I hope have left me wiser. They’ve certainly left me older!