OK, now I’m at college…here is what I’ve learned as we pass the midterm point of the first semester. I suspect that many of my former students facing their first term at college are learning some of the same lessons!

Time Management – there are just not enough hours in the day to complete all the work. I appreciate walking the campus. There is a lot of walking, and as I have mentioned before – often uphill. But, now that the Autumn is here and the weather is cool – it is lovely walking. The Autumn foliage in Virginia doesn’t blaze – it glows. I even appreciate walking in the rain. Have I mentioned how important it is to have comfy shoes, a lightweight raincoat and an umbrella everywhere? The workload can be overwhelming. But, isn’t it nice not to have bells? I appreciate Saturday and Sunday showers (the bathing kind and the weather kind) because I don’t have to rush – and rainy weekends slow me down and I read a lot.

I do worry that I am getting very anal. I need to know at all times – where my phone is, where my University ID card is (so very important because I can buy coffee, lunch, or items at the bookstore – and it gets me into buildings and lets me make copies anywhere), where my train ticket and Metro SmartTrip card are so I can get home.

It is always good to be reminded that learning about time management is one of the life-long lessons. I met yesterday with a young English graduate student to discuss her students and upcoming library instruction sessions. We met at lunch time and she brought her eight-month old daughter and her grandmother. She was not harried – she was upbeat and positive and looking forward to helping her students do a good job on their 8-page paper. She obviously was juggling her time, classes, job and family – and enjoying the journey. That darling baby’s smiles kept me grinning foolishly all afternoon.

I’ve learned that I can do the weekend Washington Post Samurai Soduko (5-sided) on Saturday or Sunday morning – but if I wait until the afternoon or evening, I erase a lot! I’ve learned there really are some tasks that need time and uninterrupted thought to do well. I’ve learned that keeping touch with friends and family afar takes time but is always so worth the effort.

Information Management – There is so much new “stuff” to learn in a new job. Where is the stuff? How do I find it? How do I answer all the emails? How do I communicate the information? How do I teach faculty and students how to find the stuff? Do I cloud compute? Do I carry around a USB with my life on it (actually I have 4 – sad, I know!) How do I know where my files are when working from home, and traveling between 4 different buildings at work? Am I learning anything in the depth it should be learned? It’s my job after all.

Stress Management – Well, I’m not doing so well on this one. I can tell by my many nights of uninterrupted sleep. I awake at three or four in the morning and …think. The caffeine I mainline daily probably contributes to this cycle, don’t you think? I know that I’m not eating well during the week. I don’t like eating dinner so late at night. I crave fruits and vegetables on the weekends.

Music and poetry calm the savage beast in this Librarian. Reading always is a stress reliever – and life saving grace – for me. Saturday afternoon Mass and prayer is a respite and a time for reflection sorely needed in my life.

Management – who knew I would be spending so much time worrying about being a good manager? I am learning that my most important time is spent in listening to the people I work with. I probably need to spend more time listening to the beloved people I live with!

Over and over, I am reminded what I’m learning is … it’s all about the journey. It’s about being able to ask for help. It is about being kind. It’s about being curious. It’s about learning all the time.

I’ve been wondering lately where I will be buried. It’s bothering me. Ghoulish? Yes.

But, it is autumn and the hallowing days of October. I have just spent a weekend exploring battlefields and cemeteries; so, you can see where my thoughts have led me.

I feel displaced. We moved this year…quickly… far away from family and friends – for employment. We’ve been lucky in these disastrous economic times. We sold and bought a home. We, all three of us – husband, son and I – are gainfully employed.

But, fear and loneliness aren’t too far away these days. And, so I wonder, if anything were to happen, where would I be buried?

In Michigan… where I was born and spent the first 22 years of my life? Near the sand dunes of the western shore of Michigan, or Tiger Stadium (the real one!) in Detroit, or Jackson, Michigan where the grandparents homestead saw so many happy times. Or, maybe, at the lake near Remus, MI where the family cottage stands. How about Lockport, NY where both of my children were born? My in-laws are there in Cold Springs Cemetery and I visit them when I can. Or, maybe Rochester, NY where we lived as the boys grew up and would visit Mt. Hope Cemetery for history lessons. Maybe I should be buried in Resurrection Cemetery in Toledo, OH just blocks from where my sons got their first jobs and became college graduates and good men; and where so many dear, dear friends still live.

Here in VA? This land seems strange to me. What did famous and not-so-famous men of Virginia feel during the Civil War days that led them to fight for their state and secede from their country? I don’t understand that…yet. When we talk with people here in our new home state we ask where they are from. Few are from here. Many, like us, are here because of work.

This past weekend I visited Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor – Civil War scenes of so many lives gone – and I walked the graveyards adjacent to the battlefields. Many men had no choice and many were buried in unmarked graves. Marked gravestones tell the story of men from NY, OH, PA, NH, NJ, DE, ME, and VT buried far away from home and loved ones. The graves that spoke to me were the gravestones that marked not with a state…but marked US. Is that what they fought for? Or did they know it didn’t matter where they were buried…it mattered how they lived.

So, maybe, like my Dad, I will not be buried, but cremated. There won’t be a grave or gravestone. Instead you will hear me laughing over Frenchman’s Bay in Acadia ME. Or maybe you will hear me singing – if you are lucky enough to visit Dingle Bay in Ireland. You might hear the whisper of my teaching in the halls of School #43 in Rochester, NY; or in the Library of Central Catholic High School of Toledo, OH; or in the Engineering Building at Catholic University of America. You surely will hear me cheering some October in the future when the Tigers win the World Series again. You might be able to hear my prayer – for my country, for my beloved men – at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

I’ve been worried lately about …well, everything. I realize that I’ve been missing the geese. All my life I’ve heard and seen Canadian geese in their flocks, calling as they migrate and then return home. I thought maybe I was living too far east or south now to have them near. But, no, I heard and saw them flying in their V- formation as I looked toward the Atlantic Ocean this past weekend while visiting Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA. And, today, as I write this, they are overheard calling and flying south. They know it is autumn. I bet they don’t worry where they will fall and be buried. Like the Canadian geese – monogamous and faithful – home is where my mate is…”in the family of things.”

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
© Mary Oliver.