A few years ago, I spent two hours looking on-line for the best swim goggles. I did not make a purchase. The memory of spending 120 minutes on this to-do list item has been a frequent reminder of how not to leap in life. The good thing is that whenever I do anything close to what I did then, I try to remind myself of my afternoon with swim goggle spread sheets. While I don't believe you can actually waste time, I think I came close.
A student in my class wants to work somewhere in Africa helping children with HIV/AIDS after she graduates. She wants to go next summer because who knows if there will ever be another chance. From my vantage point, this view of life no longer makes sense. You can do anything at any point, right? Or can you? Being intentional about that first leap out of college matters and it doesn't. What I do know matters is pursuing the dream. If you help her, let me know.
A friend told me you only remember five minutes from your entire college career, ten minutes if you are lucky. He remembered a history of jazz class he took with a trumpet playing professor here at UNC-Chapel Hill. If you only remember five minutes, that means you leapt over at least seven hundred days of parties, studies, uncomfortable moments and romantic encounters. We did not finish our conversation so I have no idea if there was more in his five or ten minutes.
I was standing at the bottom of a steep hill waiting for a bus. After a few minutes, I got restless and began to leap up the hill. My backpack was stuffed. I was hunched over. Cars whizzed past my effort. Five minutes later, the bus passed me. Five minutes later, another bus passed me. Twenty minutes later, I reached my destination. Am I better off for the effort?
I leapt out of the big city for an overnight visit with my friend Claudia who is building Stone House, a retreat center in Mebane, NC. Everything about this experience wakes me up. I am alone in a cabin. There is no door to lock. There is apparently no need to lock the door. Instead of trains and cars, all I can hear is the wind and the rain on the roof. I arrived crinkled up in stress. The solitude is beginning to seep in and wash away all that was pent up.
It’s stormy outside and I am writing on my laptop. As the sky brightens with lightening, I cannot remember whether I am in jeopardy of getting struck or not. Each time I hear thunder, I lift my fingers from the keyboard. I will leap now and keep going, knowing that if I survive, this entry will be a mere reflection of paranoia and if I don’t, I died doing what I love.
It's those first moments of quiet, after everyone has left the room, that are the hardest for me as an instructor. Any leap I have taken, in thought or deed, comes flying back my way for analysis. Was I boring? Did I make sense? Are they learning? Was I a fool? Am I teaching in a manner that would make my department proud, or at least, own me? The quiet never envelopes me in a blanket of kudos.
It's a rainy Sunday here in North Carolina. We need the rain. I know we need the rain and I am so unaccustomed to rain that it felt like a big leap to put on a raincoat, get an umbrella and walk outside. It's funny how a simple event like rain can become such a foreign experience. When I returned to campus after Spring Break, I spent far too long trying to figure out where books were in the stacks. When I go out to socialize after a long period at home, I feel awkward. I don't know if I lose the things I don't use. I do know how critical it is to get out there in the rain whatever your rain may be.
Imagine your grandmother wearing a head scarf and sitting next to a dog. Put her in the flat bed of a pick up truck. Get in the cab and start driving on a highway at 55 mph.
My kids and I saw this very scene yesterday as we were driving on Highway 15-501 South. I wanted to write down the license plate number and turn in the man who was driving the truck. Frances kept saying "Mom, there was an extra seat next to the driver." Even if I had taken the leap and called the police, what did I expect them to do? Is chivalry dead or worse? Maybe the older woman insisted upon some fresh air.
It was 10:54 am as I stood in line for coffee. The woman behind me said to her friend "I wrote six pages in two hours. Don't you think that is sooooo slow?" Single or double-spaced I wonder. Helvetica or American Typewriter. I do the math on my fingers. I must write six pages in six hours (on a good day). I get my coffee. I walk to class and think, bragging is the anti-leap. Bragging followed by false self-deprecation is even worse.
