Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Falling from (blogging) grace

My devoted readers will have noticed the long absences between posts of late. I only wish the cause were the overwhelming zucchini harvest, or a lottery-winnings financed vacation to Italy. Alas, it is that both Dan and I returned to the world of education, he in his new role as a middle-school technology teacher, I to my role supporting civic engagement efforts at a small college.

The adjustment is brutal. It isn't that we don't work like dogs during the summer --if you've been reading closely you can surely discern that; rather that during the summer, our routines subtly adjust to the conditions --up with the sun, slow down at noontime, work in the barn on hot days, etc.

With the start of school, that natural rhythm is completely disrupted. The academic year begins the same way a circus performer is shot from a cannon --BOOM! The pace is occasionally frenzied, frantic much of the time, busy all the time. You drag yourself home at the end of the day, look at the dog, then look away from the eager face and pretend not to feel guilty that he's not going for a walk again. Picking the tomatoes and beans is all you can muster in one evening, cooking them waits for the following night.

Gradually, you adjust to the pace as the semester settles into its more typical rhythm. You can cook a more complicated dinner. A Friday arrives and you feel like you can stay up past 9 pm and watch a DVD. And suddenly, you have something to say again on your blog, and the energy to type it in.

2 comments:

Jenn said...

"look at the dog, then look away from the eager face and pretend not to feel guilty that he's not going for a walk again."

Oh, yeah. I've been busy the last few weeks and the dogs have been Sooooo Saaad. We went for a mile today and they were tail-waggin happy!

Ali said...

Poor Fishy. He's a Golden, so he really just wants to be with his peeps -- even though he has the huge yard to roam, he spends his time mournfully awaiting the walk--and wiggling with joy when it happens.