Mountain Living Rant
Funkiller has been very transparent on his blog about the difficulties of relocating from so. cal. to the PNW. My heart goes out to him. This is one of those days, one of those times even, when I am sitting here at home alone and thinking "why the HELL did we move to this dinky town an hour from the nearest real city?"
Wife and I know we are going to move down, probably when our son finishes high school and (so the plan goes) trots off to college. He is a sophomore now, and I know those two years will go fast, but I must say, while the mountains are stunningly beautiful, every changingand magic, while we have a lovely older couple around the corner from us, parents of one of my best friends (whom I hardly see, though he too now lives 20 minutes away) it is often very hard to be here. In short: we have to drive, a lot; I'm far from my work and that makes it very hard to feel integrated and even to do the 'extra' kinds of things one is supposed to do (though I think English teachers should give themselves as much of a break on the exra things as we can, especially for those of us teaching all baccalaureate comps); long held plans to move to the college nearer my house collapsed a couple years ago as my blog friends know (for now at least, with the Pres. they have); we are far from culture, art, and wide restaurant selection; and mostly, I am alone more than I'd like as my son expands his social life and my wife is gone so much, especially this last two years as she has hammered through her final years of graduate school. The culture up here is very different also! And it's different a good way down the hill from here. There are some very good things, families who really care about their kids and their time with them (it has been a great place to raise my son) but there is much that has been challenging, and that has been as true at my parish, older and slowly shrinking as it is, as anyplace.
I actually think living up here, being alone so much, has changed me, some, and not all for the better. I should have begun by reading the desert fathers and mothers and tried to make the isolation some kind of spiritual discipline (guess I still could try this) but I notice at work now I shut my door in my office. Mostly, that's to work without interruption; I pour myself out in my classes, I work very hard in the classroom, and the last thing I want is some student who is not my student asking me where room so and so is, or where is so and so's office, etc., and my office is positioned above the English floor and gets lots of traffic along its hallway. And, as I said, my English friends are not near me; they are one floor down. But I do have friends near me! The thing is, working alone, 'with the door closed,' has become natural, an instinct.
I think this is part of the pull for me to (some year) go to seminary. Two (if I were very lucky, three, but probably two) years living in a spiritual community! What a deal! What focus on my self, my spiritual self. For with my wife in graduate school more than ever this last year (and she warned me....this will be the worst semester) I spend all my time giving. Well, being responsible for the housework, the bills, etc. I guess that's normal! But it feels like giving because I can't really insist on any kind of parity, and mostly because I do most of it alone, when I'm home by myself. She works hard around the house when she can and still cooks probably as much as I do, but mostly I feel like I'm in a support role.
Above all, I feel strange at work. I have gone from skyrocketing local campus star six years ago to something very different, I do not even know what. Well, thank God for tenure:) I am still a very good teacher, better each year I think, and I am sure I can work out the details with my dept. over time. And we won't be up here all that much longer.
That's about it. I needed to share some hurt.
On another note, I was at my dear older friends' house around the corner (and they are more my parents than my parents, as I've said before) yesterday for even more Thanksgiving stuffage and A, the husband, had found my blog. He approached it very kindly; he was looking up material for a 'reflection' on the burning bush, googled the phrase, found Sandalstraps, and apparently a comment of mine. He said, 'it was your first name, your age, and it sounded just like your language.' I have no problem with A reading here, but if he can find it...I have to do something; maybe purify my old posts here a bit (there are some I should pull down) or build another blog. Heck, I don't have time to worry about it right now, but it is on my mind.
On another high note, and I think I mentioned this, I met the woman who handles college ministry for my diocese at convention, really quite strange that I did meet her and that she heard what I do for a living, actually. Anyway, they have an outreach across the street from my freaking campus! I have told her I will help anyway I can, for oddly enough, my faith is growing; my belief in Christ, my experience of God's love, is on the upswell again. I have always struggled with doubt, for emotional as well as intellectual reasons I am quite certain, and it is wonderful when that demon steps back and I can feel the clear fresh water of the gospel pouring through me. There were times this week I did feel that.
Reading Johnson is good for me, but so is listening to one of those Teaching Company Great Course lectures on the Great Christians of History (and I apologize I do not remember the professor's name; he is in NY someplace). My church has a bunch of these in their library (thanks to one very kind person who keeps donating them) and they really, really help my drive. I thought I would hate this Great Christians thing, that I would feel guilty and inferior compared to the 'Greats,' but the opposite has been true. Much of it has been very inspiring, though so far I'm only up to Claire of Assissi. The professor, who admits he is Christian and Roman Catholic, has been fairly open minded and academic, but today he mentioned that Francis of Assissi 'received the stigmata.' Now that is something utterly foreign to me. It is something I'd like to know more about, but even more, I'd like to know more about Francis' life and values. What a compelling personality as the prof represents him; such a committment to charity and direct spiritual living, to poverty and eternal values, to Jesus' own life as we can distill it. All I knew about Francis before was all those little stone garden statues with the animals around him I see everywhere. Goofy, but true. I spent so many years as a Protestant, I sort of assumed we had St. Paul, the Apocalypse of John, and then, oh, Luther on Galatians and the Institutes.
Anyway, online classes await. Thanks for letting me spill my insides out here! How I have missed it. And thank you Mrs. Fish for reading. I really am back, here, for good.
Oh, and go Packers!
Those of you who pray, please say a short prayer for me: for my job, for my family, for my life in the middle of the bleeping woods, for guidance for any future career/ministry decisions. Life is surely a struggle, no matter who we are. I am okay, I am not crashing emotionally, but the dark and cold mountain weather is here now, and it can be bloody lonely. Lonely like a presence itself. I may need to work on getting myself some company again, as I have done before with martial arts, etc.
Love to all.
Wife and I know we are going to move down, probably when our son finishes high school and (so the plan goes) trots off to college. He is a sophomore now, and I know those two years will go fast, but I must say, while the mountains are stunningly beautiful, every changingand magic, while we have a lovely older couple around the corner from us, parents of one of my best friends (whom I hardly see, though he too now lives 20 minutes away) it is often very hard to be here. In short: we have to drive, a lot; I'm far from my work and that makes it very hard to feel integrated and even to do the 'extra' kinds of things one is supposed to do (though I think English teachers should give themselves as much of a break on the exra things as we can, especially for those of us teaching all baccalaureate comps); long held plans to move to the college nearer my house collapsed a couple years ago as my blog friends know (for now at least, with the Pres. they have); we are far from culture, art, and wide restaurant selection; and mostly, I am alone more than I'd like as my son expands his social life and my wife is gone so much, especially this last two years as she has hammered through her final years of graduate school. The culture up here is very different also! And it's different a good way down the hill from here. There are some very good things, families who really care about their kids and their time with them (it has been a great place to raise my son) but there is much that has been challenging, and that has been as true at my parish, older and slowly shrinking as it is, as anyplace.
I actually think living up here, being alone so much, has changed me, some, and not all for the better. I should have begun by reading the desert fathers and mothers and tried to make the isolation some kind of spiritual discipline (guess I still could try this) but I notice at work now I shut my door in my office. Mostly, that's to work without interruption; I pour myself out in my classes, I work very hard in the classroom, and the last thing I want is some student who is not my student asking me where room so and so is, or where is so and so's office, etc., and my office is positioned above the English floor and gets lots of traffic along its hallway. And, as I said, my English friends are not near me; they are one floor down. But I do have friends near me! The thing is, working alone, 'with the door closed,' has become natural, an instinct.
I think this is part of the pull for me to (some year) go to seminary. Two (if I were very lucky, three, but probably two) years living in a spiritual community! What a deal! What focus on my self, my spiritual self. For with my wife in graduate school more than ever this last year (and she warned me....this will be the worst semester) I spend all my time giving. Well, being responsible for the housework, the bills, etc. I guess that's normal! But it feels like giving because I can't really insist on any kind of parity, and mostly because I do most of it alone, when I'm home by myself. She works hard around the house when she can and still cooks probably as much as I do, but mostly I feel like I'm in a support role.
Above all, I feel strange at work. I have gone from skyrocketing local campus star six years ago to something very different, I do not even know what. Well, thank God for tenure:) I am still a very good teacher, better each year I think, and I am sure I can work out the details with my dept. over time. And we won't be up here all that much longer.
That's about it. I needed to share some hurt.
On another note, I was at my dear older friends' house around the corner (and they are more my parents than my parents, as I've said before) yesterday for even more Thanksgiving stuffage and A, the husband, had found my blog. He approached it very kindly; he was looking up material for a 'reflection' on the burning bush, googled the phrase, found Sandalstraps, and apparently a comment of mine. He said, 'it was your first name, your age, and it sounded just like your language.' I have no problem with A reading here, but if he can find it...I have to do something; maybe purify my old posts here a bit (there are some I should pull down) or build another blog. Heck, I don't have time to worry about it right now, but it is on my mind.
On another high note, and I think I mentioned this, I met the woman who handles college ministry for my diocese at convention, really quite strange that I did meet her and that she heard what I do for a living, actually. Anyway, they have an outreach across the street from my freaking campus! I have told her I will help anyway I can, for oddly enough, my faith is growing; my belief in Christ, my experience of God's love, is on the upswell again. I have always struggled with doubt, for emotional as well as intellectual reasons I am quite certain, and it is wonderful when that demon steps back and I can feel the clear fresh water of the gospel pouring through me. There were times this week I did feel that.
Reading Johnson is good for me, but so is listening to one of those Teaching Company Great Course lectures on the Great Christians of History (and I apologize I do not remember the professor's name; he is in NY someplace). My church has a bunch of these in their library (thanks to one very kind person who keeps donating them) and they really, really help my drive. I thought I would hate this Great Christians thing, that I would feel guilty and inferior compared to the 'Greats,' but the opposite has been true. Much of it has been very inspiring, though so far I'm only up to Claire of Assissi. The professor, who admits he is Christian and Roman Catholic, has been fairly open minded and academic, but today he mentioned that Francis of Assissi 'received the stigmata.' Now that is something utterly foreign to me. It is something I'd like to know more about, but even more, I'd like to know more about Francis' life and values. What a compelling personality as the prof represents him; such a committment to charity and direct spiritual living, to poverty and eternal values, to Jesus' own life as we can distill it. All I knew about Francis before was all those little stone garden statues with the animals around him I see everywhere. Goofy, but true. I spent so many years as a Protestant, I sort of assumed we had St. Paul, the Apocalypse of John, and then, oh, Luther on Galatians and the Institutes.
Anyway, online classes await. Thanks for letting me spill my insides out here! How I have missed it. And thank you Mrs. Fish for reading. I really am back, here, for good.
Oh, and go Packers!
Those of you who pray, please say a short prayer for me: for my job, for my family, for my life in the middle of the bleeping woods, for guidance for any future career/ministry decisions. Life is surely a struggle, no matter who we are. I am okay, I am not crashing emotionally, but the dark and cold mountain weather is here now, and it can be bloody lonely. Lonely like a presence itself. I may need to work on getting myself some company again, as I have done before with martial arts, etc.
Love to all.
Comments
If you really enjoy the Teaching Company courses, please see my forum where I post reviews of each lecture. Users are welcome to read, reply, or post new topics:
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/index.php
best wishes,
Doug van Orsow
forum moderator
In terms of access to urban centers, I may be slightly better off than you describe your situation. Portland, in all its beautiful weirdness is only 15 minutes away.
As I hope you know, you and your family are frequently part of my prayer discipline.
Be well.
FK