Getting There

With less than a month of classwork ahead, I have been meditating next steps. I have considered, more speculatively than seriously, the quite romantic act of chucking it all—my current life—and disappearing, stowing away on a tramp steamer or going before the mast, a deck hand on some shadowy merchantman, bound for Gdansk. Slip into the country, have adventures, master the language, become Polish. A few onlookers and overhearers have recommended this very course of action, or something like it, the great leap of faith, the all-in, the deep immersion, polonization by total osmosis—also known as an invitation to drowning. That’s not how I do things. And I rather like my current life, which deserves better than chucking.

Instead, in the esoteric human resource texts at the university in which I have labored lo this quarter century, my supervisor has located a section, relatively recent, on the recess appointment. In times of budgetary uncertainty, when the two parties are in agreement, the university and the employee may agree to reduce the latter’s appointment to as little as 50% time, with the university maintaining his health benefits. The possibility of doing my work, academic advising, by means of email and Skype has become increasingly, technologically attractive. So that instead of a leap of faith, I could make my typical classical little hop. In my experience, one doesn’t have to go looking for adventure; if you’re curious, it finds you.