There's the kind that falls even when the sun is shining like the liquid version of sifted powdered sugar: light and sweet.
Then there's "wet rain" (previously discussed, I think) in which you can't really hide from it no matter how big your umbrella is. It just kind of saturates the air; the tiniest water buds falling in such slow motion as to seem as though they're not moving at all.
Then there's the kind that actually smells of rain and comes down straight and hard like at home. I've only experienced it once here.
And then, of course, there's what's been coming down nonstop I hear for the past two months to today. Sideways, holding onto the sides of the wind, coming in just as hard and from what seems like every direction but up.
Tireless stuff. From inside, it's hard to tell if you're hearing the wind or the rain, the sounds have become so congruous. Either sound is nice, though.
Inside is me, snuggled into a pile of pillows, with my journal and laptop, an oscillating heater and an oscillating reading list: Oswald Chambers (I'm behind), The Elements of Philosophy (an old textbook I'm reading for fun), Dubliners (James Joyce. Again, for fun), Connecting (A reread by Larry Crabb).
Cozy, cozy.
2.5 hours until my first class of the semester starts.
Many would question the sanity of such thick reading before I get smacked with my semester heap's.
It makes sense to me, though (which I guess is all that matters).
You see, I really do love to read. That isn't a surprise to anyone, but what may be is that in the 42 days I was home, I only read one book. One. It was one I'd already read and YA at that.
I started 9.
Never seemed able to make it past the first page of any. My mind wouldn't do what I wanted. Didn't do any content developing either.
My mind, which I've always felt able to bend to my academic will, sat down and fell into an unwakeable sleep.
A bit before I left, I started writing copious letters to send out to my students of last semester, people I attended the OneThing conference with, and a few other JBUers I appreciated.
I planned those letters a month before I actually wrote them. It took me that long to make myself do it.
Those two ideas are connected. I started to judge myself and get frustrated, knowing the degree to which I am capable of accomplishing such feats as note writing and book reading.
The thing was, though, I was also coping with an extended period of depression. My mind literally wasn't functioning as I had become accustomed to.
I had to change my outlook on myself, start lowering my expectations and raise my commitment, as Pastor Tom Harrison would say.
Grace, with myself.
One day, I may read three pages. But that was more than the day before!!! So I celebrate. Or I wrote five notes in a row! So great! Well done! That was more than the zero of yesterday!
As I explained this process to someone, they asked me the very valid question: "How do you avoid becoming complacent or underachieving?"
My answer was "Thankfulness." I see where I want to be. I'm not "content," necessarily, with where I am, but I recognize that I am, in fact, here. Therefore, I have to celebrate every step that I take toward becoming who I want to be.
If I don't achieve as highly today as I did yesterday, very well. I am thankful for what I did happen to accomplish today (comparison is the thief of joy. Let yesterday's victories be yesterday) and hope for at least as wonderful, if not more so, tomorrow, with the knowledge that if I "fail" tomorrow, I am not a failure and it is not a signal for perpetual failure in the days to come.
My current reading is varied so as to allow me to trick myself. I can only get through 10 pages of Dubliners? Awesome. I can do that and maybe half a chapter of Crabb and one wee article of philosophy.
By the end, I've accomplished much more than I would have out of just one subject and my mind has gained a little more grid in its goo.
I needed to practice before put back in the big leagues of grad school, and what better weather to practice in than the glowey green raininess of Ireland?
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