The Fight is Over...

Neal passed away June 30, 2014. And just when I had vowed to go into social isolation with him. Perhaps I was not meant to. Who knows. But I am immobilized anyway with sorrow, the depths of which I had never imagined. Yes. I don't know quite how to do this - be a grieving mother. But I presume I will perfect it in time. I presume, too, that the world will go on (it has, after all) and that any marks we might have made or hoped to make won't matter. (Isn't it vain to think otherwise?) There will always remain with me the question of whether his passing was self-induced in some way. I think maybe, in part at least. And who could blame him?  I will say that I am also happy for him. Yes. For there is no more struggle. He is finally free.

As for me, I have learned that sorrow is not on a continuous loop. Grief may be, and time even, but sorrow is linear, a downfall, straight into an abyss of unfeeling.

I think that Neal, if he could have, would have written this poem (he certainly lived it).

A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body

By Andrew Marvell BY

SOUL

O who shall, from this dungeon, raise

A soul enslav’d so many ways?

With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands

In feet, and manacled in hands;

Here blinded with an eye, and there

Deaf with the drumming of an ear;

A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;

Tortur’d, besides each other part,

In a vain head, and double heart.

BODY

O who shall me deliver whole

From bonds of this tyrannic soul?

Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so

That mine own precipice I go;

And warms and moves this needless frame,

(A fever could but do the same)

And, wanting where its spite to try,

Has made me live to let me die.

A body that could never rest,

Since this ill spirit it possest.

SOUL

What magic could me thus confine

Within another’s grief to pine?

Where whatsoever it complain,

I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;

And all my care itself employs;

That to preserve which me destroys;

Constrain’d not only to endure

Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure;

And ready oft the port to gain,

Am shipwreck’d into health again.

BODY

But physic yet could never reach

The maladies thou me dost teach;

Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,

And then the palsy shakes of fear;

The pestilence of love does heat,

Or hatred’s hidden ulcer eat;

Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex,

Or sorrow’s other madness vex;

Which knowledge forces me to know,

And memory will not forego.

What but a soul could have the wit

To build me up for sin so fit?

So architects do square and hew

Green trees that in the forest grew.

Why I Left Academia and Went Fishing

Given that I have been unable to find a full-time faculty position here in California, as I had hoped and as I have studied and prepared for, I have finally done what a small part of me knew I needed to just do. I have thrown in the towel and decided to go fishing instead. Yes, that's right. Fishing. Me, of all people. My last interview at a local university was fantastic, but it came down to me and another candidate...the other candidate got the job. I've applied for dozens, and frankly, I'm tired of it. I could be bitter, but I'm not. In all sincerity, I feel like I always end up where I am supposed to be. So, I'm teaching part-time still at an online university and making decent money doing so. I still get the joy of teaching, which I very much love. But all that research I had hoped to do...well, I'm just going to have to let that go. Instead of making some huge impact in the field, I'm going to make meaningful, small differences where opportunities present themselves for me to do so. Starting with my online students (a population I adore and who keep me connected), and above all else, my family.

My wife Angela works a fulfilling job and my daughter, Jenny, is having a great summer with the neighbor kids hanging out at the pool and playing baseball in the park. But in the last post I wrote here, I think I pretty clearly summed up my son's daily life. Truth is, he needs a companion. And truth is, that companion is just going to have to be his mom. Because I work from home now, I'm here...all the time. And so is he. I've decided, finally, that I will step away from the world, the world that has continually rejected him, and join him in his isolation. And we will make the most of it! The boy LOVES fishing, but he has no one to go with of course. Me? Well, yeah, not my favorite, but I'm going to LEARN to love it, lol. So no more academia applications and interviews! We are buying new poles and we are going to plant our selves on one of these gorgeous lakes that surround our house and...fish. Something tells me it's all going to be alright and maybe even just what I needed. :)