I realized yesterday that I’ve been envisioning a life that most likely isn’t going to come to be if I remain here. What prompted it was this – Pete got home late, as usual on Wednesdays, and handed me a certified letter, one that had the envelope flap fastened with seals. It was from the college. Pete had figured out it was from Mat-Su College, where he has been teaching for the past fifteen years. I thought it might be good news since I’d recently put in for a tenure-track job teaching composition and rhetoric. Instead, it was bad news. I was told that I would not be allowed to audit the course I’m taking. I had gotten my application in late – this was the supposed reason. I had subsequently submitted a letter stating the reasons why I should be allowed to audit this course, the main one being I’d already taken this course for credit.
Now here is where the moving part comes in. I have been waiting 15 years to get hired on at this place, and my applications have not been considered. And I have watched as my husband has risen through the ranks and gotten all sorts of accolades. I have a Ph.D. And so, perhaps I might be hired elsewhere, maybe not as a college professor, but as something else. I am trying hard to imagine what that something else might be, and right now I’m drawing a blank.
I am also very discouraged in terms of my horse/human body awareness discoveries. No one is interested here in even so much as talking with me about what I have figured out. Tonight was actually very exciting – I today took Tyra and then Hrimmi for walks. Tyra lacks Hrimmi’s newfound high degree of focus – but Hrimmi is proof that this is a maturity issue. With all the horses, Tinni and Raudi included, I am finding that I make the same sort of connections in the saddle that I make on the ground. Just stepping back and walking at the point in their back where the saddle goes makes all the difference in the world. And today I took Raudi on a trail ride – the snow was in places up to her chest. She plowed through it with a sense of purpose.
Anyhow, more and more I am thinking that I’d like to live in the Pacific Northwest, close to a college town. And so if the opportunity presents itself, I will act upon it. At least right now, as I mull this all over, working with the horses is keeping me sane.
Next: 61. 3/2/18: The Horse Life: The Fifth Wheel |