May 1: Empty and Forlorn, Packing Up, Leaving

...The Fair Grounds were soon deserted.  The shed and buildings were empty and forlorn.  The infield was littered with bottles and trash.  Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all.  No one was with her when she died.

Sorry I was away yesterday.  It was kind of a depressing time.  I packed up my belongings at the medical office in the morning.  Seventeen years' worth of stuff.  Books.  Notebooks.  Pictures.  Mugs.  Cartoons.  My goal was to erase all evidence of myself from the place.  By the time I was done, I had accomplished that goal.


When I left at the end of the day, I looked back at the desk.  It used to be my desk.  Now, it's just the desk.  It could be anybody's desk.  Impersonal.  Clean.  Uncluttered.  I actually got a little emotional walking out of the dark office.  It didn't pass until I got home.

Then, I graded exams and papers.  Thirty-five exams.  Ten or 11 essays.  It took me until well past 11 p.m.  I had every intention of posting after I was done, but I was absolutely exhausted.  At the moment, I'm sitting in my classroom, handing back those exams and papers.  It's quiet.  I'm watching the film Capote, which was not a good choice given my current frame of mind.

When I'm done here, I'm going back to my university office and packing my belongings there.  I'm being moved to a new building this summer, so I have to box up my books and binders.  I don't have much.  I've learned, in my long career as an adjunct instructor, not to put down roots in any office.  It's an impermanent kind of faculty existence.

So, I don't have anything wise or thought-provoking to share.  The Fair Grounds are empty.  The buildings and sheds are forlorn.

Saint Marty will turn out the lights when he leaves.

So long, and thanks for all the fish, as Douglas Adams said