we now return to your regularly scheduled navel-gazing

"Ahhhh...."

That is the sound of a satisfied exhale. All of my papers have been written, all of the residents of my dorm safely sent off to their summer pursuits. Even the majority of my end of the year paperwork is completed. (Feel free to join me in a sigh of vicarious exhausted satisfaction--I highly recommend it).

Yesterday, I attended a meeting for all faculty and staff. I was pleasantly surprised during a midmorning break to look around and realize that there were several people I knew and would actually like to talk to. This is still sort of a novel experience for me, as a person who is still sort of new to this community and excruciatingly uncomfortable in large group social situations. (Unless I have a role. This is part of what makes me such a relatively good facilitator or presenter, think...I am so relieved to have something I'm supposed to be doing that I really throw my whole heart into it. And facilitating, especially, is a role where my hyper-awareness of people's reactions can be an advantage.)

In any case, there has been a string of receptions, meetings, celebrations this past week with graduation and the end of the year. I've enjoyed going out and being with people, but it has also been challenging on account of the sort of low-level social anxiety described above. In reflecting on that, one thing I've been wondering about is whether my sort of general distaste for small talk is part of why I've been drawn to work with teenagers over the past six or seven years. Because I think that young women (or at least young American women), as a demographic group, probably hate small talk more than any other population on the planet. They have no use for it. It's like this weird thing adults do :) .

Many times--both in my old job and now--when a girl sits down next to me at lunch or sits down on the couch in my office, there's this almost palpable tension for the first few minutes while we do the obligatory small talk. They are just waiting--breathlessly, desperately waiting--for an opening so they can talk about what they _really_ want to talk about, say what they really came to say. And very often that's something deeply personal, or important, or emotionally charged (at least at the time). So small talk, in this context, becomes an annoying ritual you need to get out of the way before you can talk about real stuff.

I don't dismiss small talk that easily. I think it is a ritual, but one that has important function in building connections, trust, a feeling of belonging...all that good stuff. Of course you're not going to go up to someone you barely know and bear your soul to them during a coffee break. But at the same time, I struggle with the space in between greeting and deep exchange--it can be like a no man's land to me, emotionally and socially. I'm just trying to pick my way through it, dodging bullets, hoping to get to the point of comfort with someone where it feels fine to talk about anything, from weather to logistics to tragedy. Half the time I just give up and jump back in my trench. This--as you might imagine--can make me not so fun at parties :) .

Again with the metaphors. If I continue to think of social situations in terms of battlefields, they will continue to make me nervous, right? Right. So what are they more like that is pleasant? I'm going to work on that. Suggestions welcome.

Today, it is hazy and already warm in the valley. There's another department social event on the calendar, then I'm heading home to WV for the rest of the weekend. I'm especially looking forward to being outside, hanging out with our dog and getting my hands in the dirt of the garden. It's been an intense few weeks of hard work and mixed feelings, and I'm hoping the rocky soil of home will soothe my soul some.

The day came singing, calling us from our dreams
back to this house. Walls of river mud
plaster slathered over studs like the wooden ribs
of boats, buoying us up
in this ocean of land.
Here in our space within a space where we
trap the light, admire it, bathe in it
where it falls.