One Lightbulb

I actually just sent this as an email to a friend...and then the more I thought about it, the more I was inspired by it...so here it is in expanded form...

I'm technically on vacation. That is, we have this entire Thanksgiving week off here at ol' Mizzou. There are several things about my life currently that are almost unfathomably different than they've been in a very long time.

1. This is the first time in eleven years that I haven't had to travel multiple hours, either by plane, train or car, to get to my destination for the holidays.

2. This is the first time that I've willingly worked over a vacation. And I'm not talking about picking up a shift at the Royale while home for Christmas, I'm talking, I've been "on vacation" since last Thursday and I've spent roughly thirty hours working on one big-ass research proposal for class.

Here it is, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving at about seven in the evening, on a deserted college campus. The hall is so empty I can hear the janitor's trashcan echoing from the floor below. I don't like flourescent lights, so I never turn the lights in my office on, preferring instead the light from my little desk lamp. Which means that my keyboard and screen and the pile of journal articles in front of me are brightly lit in a sea of darkness beside me, while I look out over the empty parking lot below. I like it this way.

I've been agonizing over this research proposal for what feels like decades. It's probably been a week or so. I probably should have been agonizing a little bit longer. It's brought me to tears twice, to fits of anger more than I can count and last night had me questioning my place in the world. I declared that research and everything about it was demoralizing, dehumanizing, and I wasn't sure how I could possibly consider myself to be in a place in academia in which this were a defining factor in my education and career.

And then, today, somehow as the remaining faculty and staff trickled out of the building, I hit my stride. The concept of the theoretical framework started to crystallize. I began typing madly about the theory behind human capital and gemeinschaft and geselschaft...and I won't bore you with the rest, but suddenly the links between this research and agricultural economics and familial structure and dynamics started to come together. And I am getting it...it's a shitload harder than I expected, but I am getting it.

I keep going back to this in my head over and over. These are the moments when you know you're onto something. These are the moments, especially after being furiously frustrated to tears, where you really believe all the irritation and annoyance and, frankly, abject poverty is all worth it. I think that this is what people must feel like when they decide they love someone....that even despite or because of all the heartache, despite the things that could or should ultimately be dealbreakers, they stick around because something undefinable makes it worth it.

I can't leave my blog on that saccharine note. Let me tell you about my bike ride yesterday...

It's dusk, I've worked all day, I'm ready to toss this masters program in the nearest dumpster and I'm f-ing hungry, and as anyone who knows me a little bit will tell you, this means that I'm extremely crabby. And I'm riding my bike home down a major thoroughfare in Columbia. It is, mind you, a BIKE ROUTE or so the sign TOLD ME. I'm whizzing along, my eyes watering and nose running with the cold, and I'm packing a messenger bag full of books. Yeah. Makes those hills extra-super fun.

So, anyway, I'm riding along, the impending fajitas and wine like a carrot in front of a donkey. I'm about eight inches from the curb when this jackass in a Mustang rolls up behind me and has the audacity to HONK. MORE THAN ONCE. And follow me slowly for a block.

I, naturally, am completely enraged and sit up on the bike (no hands), hand skyward, flip him the bird for a good block. Yeah. I said to myself at the time, I said "My bike-riding self is saving the earth for the likes of your lazy, fat, gas guzzling, pollution belching self, asshat. I'll take that THANK YOU when you slow way down for that yellow light. Go ahead, slow down, I'll put a size ten dent in your door while I'm at it."

Tis the season.

I'm really making an effort to be more kind and generous. After all, I continued to save the earth for him even though he was rude.