Frogs and Ravens

Timeline of Doom

Chris over at Crooked Timber added to the conversation about the negative interaction between academic and familial responsibilities in "More on Tenure and Toddlers." Given that I have no toddlers, and have given up any attempt to find employment that may lead to tenure, I wasn't expecting to find too much of direct relevance, albeit of interest.

However, his post included what I am thinking of as the Timeline of Doom -- because it fits so well with my own life and raises the same worrying implications I've been fretting over off and on:

Take first degree (BA, say in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford) graduating at age 21.
Take a one or two year postgraduate degree (now insisted upon by funding bodies as a condition of admission to PhD programmes, finishing at age 23.
The PhD has now become essential to those wanting an academic career, so enter a PhD programme for a minimum of three, but up to five years. Finish at age 26�8.
Spend three years in temporary teaching positions and, at the same time, try to get enough published so hiring committees will even look at you. (Age 29�31)
If you are very lucky, get hired to a permanent position (but perhaps with a three year probationary period).*

Now, I'm not one of those crazy ladies running around screaming "I hear it ticking!" in regards to her biological clock, but I'm pretty sure that I would like children of my own some day.

What frosts my gourd the most at this point is that I am feeling rushed (crushed?) by biology as a result of poor career planning and ill-luck. (Ask me about the "Oh, god, am I going into early menopause?" scare some time.) Other people can begin thinking about whether or not to have children far earlier than academics in grad school (at least if they are not married to a non-academic spouse) and get enough of a financial base to make it feasible when the clock begins to be audible. Perhaps, too, they have the "leisure" of thinking about the changes a child would introduce to their lives without worrying about having to make such a decision in haste.

Need I say that I, who doesn't make enough to even support myself, is feeling a tad resentful and envious of those not facing the two dilemma's horns of biology and finances?




*The American version for historians is even worse: Undergraduate degree, 4 years, out at age 22. PhD. in history, 7 years, out at age 29. Part-time and visiting positions, ending with no renewals and no new offers, 4 years, out at age 33. Living the joyous life of poverty, duration unknown. Then add in the timeline of an academic partner 4 years behind you...

Soft Air

It was good to see my parents over the holiday, even though I worry about my mom's posture and my dad's driving and I live alone so much of the time that I felt overwhelmed by their attention. It is soothing to be around people who care for you, and to be surrounded by beings that are safe to touch and be touched by. You might assume, solitary as my life tends to be, that this is because I don't like being around people. If you saw me flinching from the touch of a stranger, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that I don't like being touched. Both are wrong; I love being surrounded by doting kin and cuddles and hugs and tickles and all that sort of thing -- but I have to trust those surrounding me and touching me.

So it was good to be among people I trust and love; not that I do not have such people where I live here, but I don't live with them, hear them breathing in the next room, feel the warmth on a chair where they sat, and so on. It's all so distant and formal, even among good friends. I don't believe in taking people for granted, but it's nice to believe that one could if one wished.

It was interesting being back in the Pacific Northwest. It's easy to forget the pervasiveness of wet, the omnipresence of moisture, the ever-present squelch of damp and soggy and puddled. It creeps into your very marrow, chilling you along the spine and lower back, in a way that cold dry air somehow does not. To a child who grew up in the arid West, the essence of water remains foreign and mysterious. Yet it is soothing too; the smell of damp leaves, the sound of dripping water, the feel of moisture on your skin complement the soft greyness of the air to make you aware of your range of senses. In such an environment, the slow gathering of leaves by hand becomes a moving meditation, a journey through the world of the small and groundlevel, a scent symphony of wet earth and plants punctuated by the visual burst of green leaf against dark soil.

Returning to the southland with my senses heightened, I revel in the softness of the late fall afternoon, the golden air gentle as a flannel sheet on a cold dark morning. I pet the neighbor's cat, toast some bread and look forward to a long walk as dusk settles in and mourning doves croon an evening lullaby. Instant nostalgia, I sometimes call it, this feeling of time suspended in amber, drifting, glowing, warm.

Thanksgiving Holiday

I'm going away for the holidays -- will resume when I return.

Meanwhile, two haikus:

The neighbor's cat comes
Meows and purrs on my knee
Joy sans litterbox!



and

Life's rich scent is here
In the smell of a warm meal
Made for those we love




Happy Thanksgiving!

And She Didn't Get Her Head Chopped Off!

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?

this quiz was made by the lycanthropes at Spookbot

Updating

If you take a look off to the right, you'll see that my blog roster has been -- at long, long last -- brought more or less up to date. Like sweeping the porch, it's a never-done job, but it's better than it was.

If you see an error in my link for your blog, please let me know, and I will do my best to correct it in a timely fashion.

Home and the Nature of Reality

I posted these comments over at Cassandra Pages but felt they were important enough to have here too. I recommend going to see the original post and follow-up comments that inspired this.

(Finding my way here via Field Notes)
Dang, I should have been talking with you folks while wrestling with my research on these topics!

This question of whether there is any "there" there when we talk about amorphous things like "nature" is something that has been preoccupying me for several years. On the one hand, as a scholar I feel profoundly uncomfortable with the often careless and unrigorous ways writers in environmental ethics and environmental history use "nature" as an analytical category. For one thing, it is a changing category whose meanings shift across culture and across time -- so there is always the ever present danger of assuming that, say, Thoreau's nature is the same concept as the one bearing the label "nature" today. For another, it is terribly fuzzy -- where are the lines? What makes a tree "nature" in one context, but "unnatural" in another (as with GMOs, for example)? So the scholar in me wants something better, and in some ways is attracted to the notion of social constructionism -- the idea that when we speak of "nature" we really mean the concept, not the reality to which the concept is applied.

However, another side of me is made even more uncomfortable by the notion that the world is nothing but a mass of human constructions. A tree matters, I believe at a gut level, even if we disagree on what a tree "is" or (more contentiously) what it "means" or "is worth."

So how do we reconcile the two? How do we reject or reform "nature" without tossing out trees and mountains and bees and grasshoppers and slime molds too?

On a professional level I've come up with an alternate concept; it's one I develop in my book -- but I can't talk about too much yet (it's still in the review process by my future publisher). Instead, I will say a word about my personal approach to resolving this dilemma (at least, I see it as a dilemma). Dale's comment -- "The concept of "Nature" has been losing ground in my psyche, but the concept of "Tendrel," or "Interconnectedness", seems more than able to take up the slack." -- sent echoes along my psyche.

In an effort more conscious than not at this point (unlearning years of acculturation takes time!) I try to think of myself as one being among many, as one part of being and existing in a larger sense, and thus to maintain a sense of humility towards other creatures and the larger world we all inhabit. This also means paying attention to that world, and kindred beings -- and not floating along in a selfish bubble of oblivion.

I have a LONG way to go with all this -- I am far far from perfect -- but that's where I'm headed. So, back to the question of finding a "home" -- I think "home" is a human construct, not an essential quality of the wider world (or even of friendlier pockets of it) but I see less harm in thinking of shared ecosystems as home than in treating them as if we were spoiled guests who could leave when the party was over.

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Again, More Later

Too tired to post much (plus tonight is SnarkTV night, aka Survivor + CSI).

Just a quick meditation on how strange the movements of luck are. Since I quit, the number of possible job leads has jumped: first the temp job back at Adult College, then a couple of strong hints from them that they might be amenable to hiring me full time, then a good new contact on the writing front, and now a possible research stint.

While none really appeal, except the ephemeral possibility of writing work, it is nice to think that perhaps the tide has changed. Now it is up to me to ride it, hopefully in the direction I want to go.

More to Come

Although I am obliged to sit in a chair in an office most of the day, my mind is not. Hopefully this will translate into a longer blog entry (or even several) in future; I have several vaguely related themes and am trying to think about how to bring them together in a coherent fashion. Keep your eyes open!

Linking

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