Living in my Saraness
So I’ve been back in graduate school for one month. It is far more things than I could possibly tell you about right now, dear reader. It has been immense.
But in finding my way around a new campus, a new office, a new teaching load, and a research community in which I intend to fully participate and engage, something wildly marvelous has happened.
“I could just tell that was a Sara word.” In collaborating on a document of potential analysis and research ideas (about binge tv watching habits), my lingustic moxie is as evident as a fingerprint. Colleagues with whom I have worked for only a couple of weeks know me through my language and value it.
“That sounds like a Sara question.” In a seperate research conversation, a line of inquiry cropped up (about movie sub-genres and emotional investment) and a faculty member immediately knew it was aligned with my interests and expertise and punted my direction.
“That doesn’t seem like a Sara color.” Over the weekend, I lent a fellow student some paint supplies. Being an actual grown up with an acutal house and acutal stuff is well outside the norm. Many of them are fresh-from-college kids who just moved here and live paycheck to paycheck and don’t own a screwdriver. (Thank god those days are behind me.) When she came over, we were routing around the spare room, looking for my roller handles and brushes. She was quite sure, after hallway waves and a handful of conversations, that the room we were in wasn’t one we’d redecorated since we moved in. Somehow, whatever Saraness I live and breathe at the office has a very clear (professional, understated, classy) color palatte and a garish peacock turqouise isn’t it (well, it is, but in small gemtone accents, not flat cheap paints). In some contexts I’d take umbridge at this supposition. But here, I feel heard and seen in a weird ineffable way.
I feel like I must have accidently got so used to being myself I forgot there were other ways of doing it. And I don’t regret a thing.
Que Sera Sara? 
I miss having some Saraness in my life. I’d share my harvest of apples and pears and bullaces (for my mother informs me they are most definitely NOT damsons, but bullaces) and fresh-laid free range eggs. And tales of life in the valley. And we would share stories, and glasses of wine and laughter. And perhaps some apple pie.
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And I miss having an abundance of Wolffiness! What I wouldn’t give for a weekend in the valley with wine and pie and sunsets and laughter. Does the Captain’s helicopter reach this far? I’ve never had a bullace and, obviously, this must be rectified nowhere but the valley.
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