A Good Thing

We are home for the weekend unexpectedly and just in time. Snow is predicted and lots of it.

Pippa has taken up residence in my lap and will not be moved.

Lillie has found the perfect spot near the fire and Peter is under the covers in our bed.

The cats have declared this an OFFICIAL snow day.

The snow plow just took out mailbox. OK, I call uncle. Call the Covered Bridge Market and order lunch. Cheesesteaks for everyone!

We just finished up another two-week stint of dog sitting for my friend Beth. It's a good gig. Poco is sweet and very well behaved. He likes to snuggle and despite a penchant for chasing kitties every once in a while, he's an all around good doggie. Beth is also my PT and we barter massage for dog sitting. It is a good thing.

On this snow day I'm looking forward to finishing Margaret Roach's book "and I shall have some peace there". In case you don't recognize her name, Margaret was once the gardening editor of Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Being the Martha fan that I am, I know her work, her garden and her beautiful photography.

The book chronicles Margaret's decision to leave her high-powered, successful publishing career in NYC in order to seek the quiet solitude of her country home and garden in upstate NY. She and I are the same age and it's a story I relate to. OK, so I don't have a second home, but I do live in the country and it is definitely idyllic and a place I retreat to daily. I don't know if I'd describe my career as "high-powered" but it certainly came with its share of drama and stress over the years and after I found myself severely burned out, I often indulged in a lot if escape fantasies. I pondered everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. In nicer weather I was convinced we should we sell everything and move to Tuscany or Provence. In the winter I wondered if we should lay claim that little piece of Moree family land in the Bahamas that has squatters living on it. I just know we could make a go of it.

Margaret climbed the ladder fiercely and voraciously, and at the expense of her personal life. I know what that's like. From the standpoint of the academic ladder I reached a good measure success...tenure, full professorship, comfortable salary, big office with a window and a view. As the patron saint of late bloomers, I count myself incredibly lucky to have found true and lasting love at the ripe old age of 47. I married a few months before I turned 50. Now it's almost impossible to wonder what my life would be like had I continued along my old solitary ladder-climbing path.

In the last few years I've done a lot of digging around trying to find out more about job burnout among college professors. Very few folks write about it publicly. Maybe it's just not the sort of thing you admit while you're on the job. I certainly didn't. I read numerous articles about burnout ranking highest among those teachers who care the most. That makes sense to me. What surprised me was the high level of burnout and job dissatisfaction reported among professors just after they received tenure and were promoted. Hmmmm...I find this so very interesting and so familiar.

I've been so inspired by Margaret's story and think I'd like to write more about my own "dropping out". I have things I need to say about academia and higher ed, teacher burnout and what it's like to quit a job in mid-life. In the meantime though, I think I'll sit right here a little longer with a snoring cat on my lap, watching the snow. I've got a lot to ponder still.