journal — 1/17/17
Ici Maintenant
Semester started, and I’m off, off running with the students into another 18 weeks of prize — knowledge and learning and self-actualizing. By the end of this semester I’ll be off, traveling, sharing ideas and writing everywhere. Nothing will stop me, not even my occasional self-doubt and self-attached weights and anchors. Told the 1B section that the dominant idea this term is FREEDOM. They responded immediately, and the conversations we initiated this morning are only encouraging for me. And yes, for a second I have to focus on me. This semester is about me Freeing myself from others’ schedules… others’ time-clocks and timetables and orders — AGAIN, I love my place at the winery, and I love what I do for my clients. What I’m delineating here is my autonomous consistency with work, with my creative, my creative efforts and actuality. As soon as I walked into Room 1614 here in Emeritus I knew, I knew, and I now know more wildly and robustly than ever that I will be free by semester’s end. No more adjunct nonsense. I’ll be instructing in vineyards, on my blog, and maybe later a website… I’m growing as a writer, teacher, student. This semester more than ever I feel like a student. Right when I set my bag down on that dingy digital table in 1614, opening it and brandishing the Composition Book. And when the students entered, sonder atop of sonder. Its more than their complexity and vividness I recognized and pondered, but the fact that we’re all in that room together. We all have goals. Have visions for ourselves for semester’s close, and beyond that.
Day 1, and I feel like a creative beast, that tireless writer I always brag I am. No work at winery today. Here at the head of the T-shape of the conference room tables seeing my first trip, the first lecture or talk I give at an out-of-state school. How the students or guests will respond. What will they ask me? Will my attempt at humility annoy them? Are they looking for an expert? Are they expecting an expert who’s not afraid to say he’s an expert? That identifies himself as an “expert”, or some bloody guru? Well, then they’d be in the wrong place I guess. Not giving this article a formal title or tag, as it is only the first day. But, this first day feels like… like….. Like I’m back in school again. I’m a student, close to graduation. I’m more than running, I’m flying. Already in flight. Off the ground. One of those days where I’m simply, rather obnoxiously, inspired. And I’m not making some predictable promise, here. I will produce. I am producing. And what I’m producing will put me out into the world to gather more story and further form my own. In many respects I’m already free, as I know who I am and where I’m going. Imagine how much more liberated I’ll feel once ‘There’.
