Post-Conference Reminiscent Vignettes While Waiting in the Airport Terminal on the Way Back Home

Sweet saxophone-playing cool sugar daddy
He strode up to the podium.  No, he strolled up to the podium.  Gravelly voice, the color of sweet tea with lemon, graying fine hair, yet standing tall with old man swag.  A rigorous academic, a musician at heart, and not giving a darn cause he's been around this long and knows he still looks good.  He killed the ladies back in the day.  Swept 'em up.  You know he did.  When he played Coltrane, I had to admit this fact: Had he been my music professor, I would been unashamedly present during office hours, asking all sorts of questions.

Blind chemist
A young woman with three accompaniments: an assistant, a cane, and a hijab.  On the way out of a plenary session I accidentally bumped into her. Oh, God, I'm so sorry, excuse me.  How you gonna bump into a blind person?  It would have been understandable if it were the other way around, sheesh.  She was forgiving and we struck up a conversation.  She told me her story, with one constant refrain: People didn't think she could do it.  Yet here she was, a Muslim blind woman with a PhD in chemistry.  "Are there any other blind chemists?" she asked.  "I know others like me have finished their degrees, but have they stayed in academia?" The question struck deep, partly because I recognized it on some level.  That Lorraine Hansberry quotation: "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely."  I teared up, not out of pity, but out of admiration.  She is a person, a strong, persistent, brilliant, unique person who exists and is making her voice heard.

"Your mom was my professor's ESL teacher?"
Totally on that black-girl-nerd-academic-feeling-each-other's-work kick with a Haitian-American professor.  Talking about my project and the Caribbean and having helped my professor edit her new book that just came out about Dominican identity.  "She's the first Dominican professor at Harvard," I said, proudly.  "Wait, are you talking about ____?" she asked.  YES!  "What??!  How do you know her?"  "Girl, my mom was her ESL teacher back in the day."  Mind so blown.  Wait till I tell my prof I met her old ESL teacher's daughter who is now a professor.  What a small, ridiculous world.

Excuse me, may I slide into this Spanglish?
During lunch alongside two Latino guys going at it in furious Spanglish.  I politely inserted myself into the convo in Spanish and without skipping a beat, the three of us were going at it, talking about our work, throwing out sources and if we hadn't heard of the source, furiously writing it down for later review.  We interwove English and Spanish.  Switching over when it felt easier, or when it felt right.  They seemed interested in and impressed by my project, and I felt honored to be welcomed into that moment, this space where I could join in, participate in a predominantly Latino mode of expression even though I'm not Latina.

Bits and pieces
A Mexican-American roommate specializing in Italian language and Italian medieval history and culture.  A senior professor whose work I cited in my dissertation, and I teared up when I realized, yes, he was that guy who wrote that book on slavery in Peru and that he was a Ford Fellow, too. Reconnecting with someone I originally met when I was a study abroad program assistant in Cuba.  This refreshing time and space.  Being a part of something special, valuable and rare.  I don't take it for granted.

So Far, So Good

Often times, I come home and my brain is just worn out.  All I want to do is munch microwave popcorn while being mesmerized by clip after clip of cooking videos on Facebook.  There's something about those recipe videos that are comforting,  You can witness the accelerated process of the transformation of a few ingredients into something delicious.  They're just satisfying to watch.

Sometimes it feels like this person who is not me but is me is doing stuff that the real me wouldn't do.  The real me just wants to be a bum, eat Nutella, drink loads of La Croix and watch Chopped.  But this other me is a professor, doing all this professorial stuff, having an office and preparing for conferences and soliciting funds to bring Afro-Latina writers to her institution.  The other me has a monogrammed tote bag in which I ferry books and folders to and from Accelerated Elementary Spanish and Advanced Spanish Conversation and makes plans to Skype in Afro-Peruvian activists to chat with her students.  If I just consider the other me, I think, well, maybe I'm doing all right.  But then the real me reminds me of who I actually am: A lazy, time-wasting girl who wishes that all she had to do was nothing.

Uncertainty is the word of the day.  Unsure of where I'll be after this year.  Having to apply for a new job after having barely started this one.  The jury is still out on whether a bun has been successfully placed in the oven.  I have a husband in the thick of comps, prospectus writing and conference preparation.  A mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law visit on the horizon, and I can already hear my anxiety-laced heart beating with the desire for everything to be planned, perfect and enjoyable.

I want to let the waves just wash over me.  They're inevitable.  Ceaseless.  Life is going to happen and it's messy, unstructured and uncertain, so just let the life waves come.  You can't stop them, so why expend precious energy trying to order and contain something as powerful and constant as the tide? There is a tide in the affairs of men...

We loved our last pastor.  Red-haired, red-faced, Southern as a ripened Georgia peach, and compassionate in surprising ways.  One bright Sunday morning, he preached a message called "So Far, So Good."  Just the idea that the future is unknowable and ungraspable, and that you may not presently be where you would like to eventually be, but what we can take comfort in is the fact that so far, God has been faithful.  So far, so good.

Right now, I love the house we're in.  Spacious.  Quiet.  Meals outside on the patio.  Natural light pouring in through the blinds.  Right now, I enjoy the classes I teach.  Eager, motivated students.  A space where I can be the teacher I've always been.  Right now, I cherish the connection I have with my husband.  A sweet, handsome, earnest man.  I know that what he does is for us.  I know that when we get pregnant, he will be present, supportive.  Right now, I appreciate the church we've decided to make our home.  A tiny bit of a drive, but worth it for its vibrancy and diversity.  So far, so good.