Visitations

Fall has come quietly to Virginia, touching first one leaf, then the next. The red has held off until the last minute, erupting rarely amid the flat browns and yellows, the dull orange. Fall in Virginia is a yawn, a breath of chilled air.

My parents breezed through yesterday on their way home from visiting my sister in North Carolina. While here, we dismantled my broken dryer (now still in pieces, awaiting the repair-person), added coolant to the radiator, finally got the Pennsylvania license plate off my car where it had been rusted on.

We cooked dinner, watched The Royal Tenenbaums, told stories. My mother thinks that the fasting of Ramadan is cruel because she can't see how someone can go twelve hours without water, but seems supportive of my decision.

It's cold enough now to need heat, but my propane isn't attached to my heater yet. "Use the stove," said the landlord. And so I am.

Some days my own panic alarms me. I nearly convinced myself yesterday that my dearest associate was dead when he failed to write to me by his usual scheduled time. I always risk the danger of falling into fiction: creating stories to fill in what is unknown at any moment. Fiction is easy these days, although reality is not so difficult, either. Most days I'm content. (I tend to exaggerate.)

Unfortunately, I enjoy teaching probably 55% of the time. I hate to yell. I hate discipline. I hate that many of my students have already given up on themselves, and there seems to be nothing I can do. I hate that my kindness is like an arrow shot through a cloud, for all the effect it has.

Sometimes loneliness comes in, sits down, pours itself a glass of water and goes to sit in the other room.

I find most of the inhabitants here bore me. I'm starting to consider going back to graduate school, picking up a PhD, pursuing the professorship I didn't think I wanted. Two months into school and my brain is already itching for a challenge, someone to talk to about subjects beyond "Why is this a verb?" and "What is plot?"

I wish I had my best friend here to talk this out with me, to determine what decisions are best for us both. But until then, it's just me, loneliness, and my dog. And the blanket of Virginia fall gathering around my knees. And one cup of orange and jasmine tea, thick with honey.