It is wonderfully quiet in my apartment tonight, and I didn't know it when I bought it, but the cheap little globe lamp that sits next to my bed on the nightstand gives off a lovely muted glow. It's a warm, Berkeley, fall evening - sort of like a cool, Illinois, summer night - but really the only similarity might be the temperature. It might be 65 degrees or so, but somewhere in my bones, I can tell the difference between the cool breeze that follows a midwest summer thunderstorm, and the cool breeze that blows inland off the Bay.
Out the window, there is the constant low hum of late night traffic, punctuated by the whisking and whistling of the BART train as it passes through the underground station across the street, and the clock in the corner soldiers on, marking each passing moment with its unending series of regular, muffled clicks.
Sometimes I am struck by the sense that I don't know where I'm going, but I sure am going there, and I think it's somewhere good. Time passes all too quickly these days, but I do try to stop and look around and appreciate the glorious buzz of life that has me wrapped up in it. I don't know where the weeks and months go, and someday soon I'll be leaving Berkeley, setting off for some as yet unknown new land, where I'll be starting all over again. It could be scary, but it's not, really. It's just somewhere else to explore, something new to learn about, new people to meet and love and be annoyed by and keep with me in my heart.
It's a good place to be. I feel safe, and I feel calm, and I feel ready. I feel like I can do this, whatever it is. I can write a dissertation. I can teach a class. I can find a research job. I can move wherever my life takes me. I might mess it up sometimes, and I might feel like I'm faking it more times than not, but the funny thing about faking it is that if you keep it up long enough, you're not faking it anymore. Whatever it is becomes real. So I'm trying to make sure I'm faking the right things, you know? I'll act like I have a plan and I know what I'm doing, and eventually, I'll feel like I have a plan and I know what I'm doing, and then someday, I'll look back and realize that I did have a plan and know what I was doing all along. I think. I think that's how it works out.
My eyelids are droopy with sleep, and my body is tired from exercise, and stress, and a cold that keeps lingering. So I will try to quiet my mind now, to give it some rest while the clock clicks and the train whistles by, and I will wake up tomorrow and do it all again.
