the nature of change

relational

(is it time to stop using my aliases? professor or muse, it's true that we spark in the classroom, and its true her energy inspires me- but after this weekend, i think she should just be jackie again.)

can't sleep, so i thought i'd post. today, my friend(and ex-classmate)brad and i went out to jackie's new home "to work and to play" as thats all i was told in her communication ("typical jackie email" said her husband). . well, turns out the work was to clear areas for camp sites (the land is amazing, woods and fields reaching as fasr as i could see), and actually involved chain saws and stick breaking (DONT WORRY! I DID NOT TOUCH THE POWER TOOLS, though i did manage to smack myself in the face with a stick). only i felt really awkward, having never done this type of work before, feeling unsure of my body, and so kept apologizing for myself (which i dont really do), annoying this lady working on the same branch pile ("i'll smack you with a stick myself if you dont stop apologizing" said she "im sorry!" said i, not as a joke, but laughing). i remembered that i have alot more fun playing with twigs and crickets then going to the mall (lol, duh)...

but this lesson is not why i write a post. i want to look again at the nature of a changing relationship

brad and i did not connect with any of the other people out there. it felt like a closed system with members who all had history together (though jackie said they didnt know eachother) and we both felt out of place. part of it may have been that except for brad, one other guy in his mid thirties (who i actually knew from overnight camp a decade and a half ago), and my almost (but not quite) thirty year old self, every one was pretty much 50+, but more importantly, there was a quietness, a gravity involved that was hard for both of us to tolerate. i felt full of high energy, my laughter echoed so individually and loud through the fields and woods (i have a jolly laugh with the occasional snort)that i had a hard time not blushing when i felt it escape from me, which sucked, because i laugh ALOT, especially when i am playing outside.

on the ride home, brad commented on how even jackie was in this quieter nature too, not much like she was in class, and i had to agree. this fact, however, seemed to have very different meaning to the two of us. i think he fears that what made class special was not as real as he thought, as if she was not who she said she was last fall, now that he has experienced her as a person. i think our class was exactly as important to her as she said it was, just as real, and unique. but this is life now, not the classroom. in the moment, her move and her houseful of people, chores, whatever, were more important- in our two hours of class per week, we were most important.

as a professor, she has certain responsibilities from which brad and i as students got to reap. and i miss being her student, i do, we have a spark when we have purpose. i hope we can find a way to have purpose that is not my education because i also enjoy seeing her humanity. i like all our misunderstandings as two headstrong women with very different ways of being. i like the way that she puts all her energy into what is right in front of her and not straying to all the other directions tempting her. i like just being with her, breathing in everything around us (now i just need to figure out how to think and be at the same time, instead of doing all my thinking when i go to bed on those nights- but atleast the dreams are interesting)i like feeling challenged, which i do in relating with her, and while i still feel unsure on what is really occuring between us, i know that brad is not seeing what i see.