Training to DC

We have passed through the blighted New Jersey landscape on this Amtrak train from Trenton to DC. Now we have reached pastoral southern PA, big fields of late winter straw-coloured stubble or early spring green fuzz. Where the trees in Boston were not yet giving sign of spring to come, these leafless tress have the reddish halo that points towards a future greenness, and, for Michael, the horrors of allergy season. I love that delicate tracing of red, like the internal sun working to break out of brown stillness, but for Michael it is the harbinger of anguish. I am suddenly glad he’s not here.

I am struck by the landscape, familiar and also strange now, in the grey early-spring light. This train is packed, each seat full of business people being busy, the conductor growling down the aisle after each stop. I have retreated into i-pod to block out the constant hum of people on cell phones and in real conversations. Outside the window we pass through rubbish-heaped urban misery, past endless freight trains, behind neat houses and slums. On the tall leafless tress, I can easily pick out the hawks watchfully waiting for prey, their silhouettes dark and looming against the narrow tree tops. In New Zealand, I can never find the hawks, who perch in the leafy, non-deciduous trees, and skim treetops for prey rather than diving into open fields. I hadn’t realised how much I missed the hawks. And then we’ll leave the fields and pull into the back of urban row houses, windows boarded up, postage-stamp yards piled with old tires and piles of building scraps. I did not miss that.

I have had a delightful two days in my partner meeting, with loads of laughing, some serious business development, beautiful storytelling, and a reminder of why we do this work together in the first place. And, of course, I have taught at Harvard, the pinnacle of stress for the whole trip. Maybe I’ll say a little about both those pieces.

Harvard went decently well. It would have been a delight to find myself at the very top of my game, but, alas, it was not to be. I was competent and I think I helped folks, but I had too many slides with too many words on them and I wasn’t as crisp as I need to get before I’ll be really satisfied with this presentation. I will be better next year (I say this every year, by the way). Students were grateful, and many stood in line to talk with me about things when I had finished. So I wasn’t a disaster, but have noted the room for improvement (in the 3 or 4 years I have taught this course, I remember feeling ebullient only once, and that may have been the first year. I don’t quite know what to make of that).

The Kenning partner meeting, on the other hand, has reached its pinnacle. In this group we think together, share ideas and clients and hopes, process through difficult things in our lives—and mostly laugh a whole lot. Boy have I missed the laughing. Each of us thinks of it as a key part of our experience that we laugh together, and the laughing is easy. And these are really smart people with diverse perspectives and life expereicnes and a whole lot to learn from one another. They were all clear that the reason we had gathered in New Jersey for these two days was entirely because I was in town, and because of the love and openness (rather than resentment) with which they said this, it felt like a gift rather than a slog for all of them. I take great joy in this group, and we ate and drank and planned and talked and learnt and laughed. Which made it weird that I got a migraine—or maybe it’s just exactly why I might have gotten one after the anxiety of the trip and the teaching at Harvard and all. But my meditation seems to be more effective than any drug at helping me make the migraine go away, so it turned out to have little impact on my life, and only the dullest reminder remains.

And now we head to the DC portion of the trip. If Cambridge is clearly the home of a piece of my soul, and New Jersey is clearly not, I wonder what DC will be. I will teach in my old classroom, having only missed two months of courses in my 4 months away (because I taught in December before we left and we don’t teach in January). Here is where my mother and brother live. Here is where my most recent work colleagues and friends are, and where my job at GMU still sits waiting for me. Here is where my mother in law sits in a hospital, recovering from surgery on her hip. Here is where I bought my dream house and then sold it to move around the world. Will I feel longing to return here? Will I feel anxiety about moving back? How to I make sense of my students and colleagues and the class I’ll teach on Thursday and Saturday?

Who knows. Not I. All I know is that this time in the US has turned me upside down as much as my time in the south has before. Wonder what comes next.