Time to slow down

I don't know what it is about the spring semester of each year that seems to speed up the clock. The fall semester often feels like a long march into the dark, but spring always zips by without notice. And you'd think it would be the opposite, since spring semester ends with the start of summer break, and that's what everyone is waiting for.

This has been a particularly busy semester, though--partly because I had to get back up to speed after my sabbatical (which was harder than I'd anticipated), partly because I've had lots going on in addition to my classes. Last week I participated in a benefit reading at Our Lady of the Lake University, where my husband works; it was the third in a series of readings designed to raise money for the English department, which was hit hard last May when a fire destroyed the main building at OLLU. I was glad to give my time to such a good cause; my husband and all his colleagues lost pretty much everything that was in their offices when the fire broke out. It's been a hard process of rebuilding, but it's been full of good lessons about what's really important and what can disappear almost without notice.

Then, this week, I had to get my son ready for his Kids Jeopardy audition. He took an online test a couple months ago, and a few weeks after that we received an email inviting him to go through the in-person audition process in Dallas. So we've been studying flash cards and watching past episodes of Kids Jeopardy on YouTube (because many of the people who were on Jeopardy as kids want to immortalize that experience, apparently), and yesterday he headed off to Dallas with his dad. Mostly I'm hoping this turns out to be a confidence-building experience for my son, who is smart but shy and has a hard time expressing everything he knows. Just being selected for the audition was a big deal, and now he gets to spend a whole weekend in Dallas alone with his father, too. I want the experience to be a good memory for him, even if this is all the farther it goes. (I think it will: last night he sent me a text message that said "holy snot dallas ROCKS!!!")

Also last night, at the Board of Regents dinner, I introduced a colleague at my university who was receiving an award from the alumni association. Honoring him was particularly sweet this year because he had a very serious bicycling accident last summer: he ran into the side of van that pulled out in front of him while he was rolling along at 20 miles per hour. The accident left him with a spinal cord injury, nerve damage and temporary paralysis. But he still came back to teach in the fall, just a few weeks after the accident--first in a wheelchair and neck brace, later in a walker and neck brace. Now he's getting around with only a cane, and I'm just so glad he's still here with us. He was my first friend at the university. I worried that I wouldn't be able to get through my intro without dissolving into tears, but I said a little prayer that I'd be able to honor him the way he deserved to be honored, without calling attention to myself--and I think I managed to do that. Someone even told me that I stole the show. That was the plan, of course, to make it my friend's big night.

Next on the agenda: I'm a featured speaker at a WELCA conference next Saturday. But next weekend is also the start of Spring Break, so once I get through Saturday, I'm on the glide path to slowing down. I'm already having visions of sitting on my deck with a glass of wine when I get home Saturday night.

The second half of the semester, after the break, always goes even faster than the first half: senior seminar presentations, Easter weekend, final exams, and the usual sea of end-of-year paperwork. Last night, sitting next to my friend's wife at the awards dinner, we were talking about this very thing--the way time seems to move at a speed all its own, getting faster and slower without marking any difference on the clock. My friend's wife said "I've just given up on trying to understand any of this time passing stuff. I just do the best I can to go with it."

Which, as my friend would tell you, is much better than the alternative.