We Can't Take the Grandiose Gestures of Maude (What My Grandmother Called the Fusion of God & Mother Nature) By Granted

It was a Monday. I was running around to schools, working at the University to do a mailing and to set up programs, and also attending book-talks and meetings. I came for a while to do some writing, when the Office of Research & Grants called me and I stepped on my back porch to see a beautiful rainbow curving to the east of Stratford. In the backyard and the front, the colors made a perfect arch. I'm not sure if there was any rain to cause the skyline, but this is the second time in a week where skies were pink to the West and a rainbow arched to the eastern dark skies. Given the turbulence of parental health-care, the stress from the time of the year that is academia right now, and my own overly zealous ambitions, I saw this moment as a gift of the Gods. Let the miracles of light do as it will.

Today is my long day. I can't say I'm ready for it, but that is what I'm tackling this morning before I head off for a day of teaching. I'm not sure if I can say I'm overwhelmed by the volumes needing my attention, or simply reminded this is only the pattern of how life is to be lived. The winds were heavy in the afternoon and I was glad I walked Karal very early in the morning. I also made it to the Post Office to get some materials in the mail and to replenish my stamps (they are now .82 cents). Phew, times have changed. 

With the sun going down at 4:30, it gets hard to keep my academic brain moving late into night because I simply want to slow the brain so I'm able to get some sleep. I am thinking of the piles of laundry needing to be put away, the food operations to sustain a household (even with leftovers), and the fact it's the time of the year where much of the work transitions onto students and they are, well, stressed. I suppose all of this is normal rhythm in higher education.

Right now I'm grateful to my two sisters who are doing their best to keep their head above water as they try to work with hospitals for next steps with my father - his dementia has definitely taken a stronger hold on his mind...it's cruel, to be honest, and a lot to take in. 

I'm going into the 2nd day of the week with optimism, however, because that's all I can do. Every email that arrives can be 'delete,' 'I'll get to that,' or 'absolutely traumatizing." 

It is what it is. This too shall pass.