Today is the much-dreaded 1000-camper-strong same-day changeover, and I'm bracing myself for the imminent panic with mugs of coffee and by listening to some "Amelie."
It's not just changeover that is so thick in the air today, either. It's change. My departure from a job that I've essentially grown into over the past five years looms a mere three weeks down the road, and although I'm ready (eager, even) to move forward, I am coming to grips with the unexpected reality that this transition will feel like leaving home and family all over again. Covenant College, astonishingly enough, is home: I know the housekeeping secrets, the whereabouts and contents of each closet, the layout of every bathroom and its unique needs as to toilet paper style and trash bag size, the procedures necessary to keep every area tidy and inviting: ceiling to floor, wall to wall. The very perfume of the place--the clean accords of Triad and Glance, Activate and RTU, Fresh & Brite and Hospital Disinfectant--is applied and refreshed by me and those who labor with me. In a sense, I have a much deeper bond to this institution than the highest ranking administrator can claim. I remember reading this poem by Richard Wilbur and feeling a kinship with its rich blue-collar pair. It encapsulates the best of what this job has meant for me.
"Summer Morning"
Her young employers, having got in late
From seeing friends in town
And scraped the right front fender on the gate,
Will not, the cook expects, be coming down.
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself,
The coffee-pot is bright,
The jelly where it should be on the shelf.
She breaks an egg into the morning light,
Then, with the bread-knife lifted, stands and hears
The sweet efficient sounds
Of thrush and catbird, and the snip of shears
Where, in the terraced backward of the grounds,
A gardener works before the heat of day.
He straightens for a view
Of the big house ascending stony-gray
Out of his beds mosaic with the dew.
His young employers having got in late,
He and the cook alone
Receive the morning on their old estate,
Possessing what the owners can but own.
--
Now: time to finish this mug of coffee and go enjoy working in my home for another fruitful day.
It's not just changeover that is so thick in the air today, either. It's change. My departure from a job that I've essentially grown into over the past five years looms a mere three weeks down the road, and although I'm ready (eager, even) to move forward, I am coming to grips with the unexpected reality that this transition will feel like leaving home and family all over again. Covenant College, astonishingly enough, is home: I know the housekeeping secrets, the whereabouts and contents of each closet, the layout of every bathroom and its unique needs as to toilet paper style and trash bag size, the procedures necessary to keep every area tidy and inviting: ceiling to floor, wall to wall. The very perfume of the place--the clean accords of Triad and Glance, Activate and RTU, Fresh & Brite and Hospital Disinfectant--is applied and refreshed by me and those who labor with me. In a sense, I have a much deeper bond to this institution than the highest ranking administrator can claim. I remember reading this poem by Richard Wilbur and feeling a kinship with its rich blue-collar pair. It encapsulates the best of what this job has meant for me.
"Summer Morning"
Her young employers, having got in late
From seeing friends in town
And scraped the right front fender on the gate,
Will not, the cook expects, be coming down.
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself,
The coffee-pot is bright,
The jelly where it should be on the shelf.
She breaks an egg into the morning light,
Then, with the bread-knife lifted, stands and hears
The sweet efficient sounds
Of thrush and catbird, and the snip of shears
Where, in the terraced backward of the grounds,
A gardener works before the heat of day.
He straightens for a view
Of the big house ascending stony-gray
Out of his beds mosaic with the dew.
His young employers having got in late,
He and the cook alone
Receive the morning on their old estate,
Possessing what the owners can but own.
--
Now: time to finish this mug of coffee and go enjoy working in my home for another fruitful day.
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