I began my sabbatical year at 8:00 a.m. on September 9th, as I drove out of Brockport and pushed west toward a three-week stint as a writer-in-residence at Great Basin National Park. Fifty hours and 2,200 miles later, I arrived at the park—worn down by my insistent motion, but happy to be in the West. My pedal-to-the-floor drive was in some ways exhilarating (crossing the hundredth meridian, the rhythmic flow of miles and music, the knowledge that I can still do this), but it also felt like a metaphor for my professional life. In place of a relentless cross-country drive, substitute the mix of teaching, administration, service, and research (or mostly administration of student research) that dominates my academic days (and nights) at Brockport, and it makes for a pretty accurate representation of the pace at which I live—particularly since becoming chair of my department four years ago. Since taking up my writer-in-residence position, though, I have attempted to slow down. I have tried to turn off my smart phone, disconnect from the Internet, ignore most emails. I have tried to be still—not necessarily in a physical sense, but psychically. I do not want to recreate some Great Basin version of my professional life, here. But I confess that it has not been easy to let go of business and busyness. I suspect that over the years I have programmed myself (and let others program me) to operate in constant, semi-hyperactive state. Subconsciously, I have sought to become the Perfect Master of Multitasking, while in the end perfecting only my ability to do things in an unfocused and incomplete way. Perhaps I should found a school of Anti-Zen practice. As much as I admonish my students to pay close attention to the world, I sense that in too many ways and far too often, I do not cultivate awareness. Instead, operant conditioning has wedded me, more than I care to admit, to electronica. The constant avalanche of “must do” items that pour into my inbox has made it increasingly difficult for me to concentrate on any one thing. I dance to the ping of my iPhone and all that it represents. I wonder if this frenzied jig is simply a matter of learned behavior, or if my body has been transformed by the pace of my professional life and the cumulative impact of electronic media: new neural synapses formed, adrenal glands enlarged, mixtures of neurotransmitters altered. Chris Norment, the perfect Pavlovian man, his theme song cribbed from the Talking Heads: “Tense and nervous and I can’t relax.” But in the Great Basin, I am trying to slow down. My writer in residence responsibilities are nebulous and I mostly do as I please. My work here is to wander the trails, write in my journal, tag along with bat-banding and cave-crawling biologists, talk to folks in the local community, think, and write. A few days ago I climbed Wheler Peak on a gloriously cool and clear alpine day. I spent an hour on the summit, just watching the land, letting the 360-degree sweep of space seep into me, accompanied only by a flock of ravens and two Slovenian radiologists who had blown by me on the snowiest and steepest part of the climb, the young punks. Later on, in Baker, we drank a few beers together and talked of the mountains we love. All of these activities are part of my current performance program, and I take them seriously. My most important work at Great Basin National Park, though, is to monitor the sunsets as they spread over the Snake Valley and the mountains of Nevada and Utah. I have a favorite hill where I go for this critical task—a trailless place, dotted with scraggly junipers and pinyon pines. The only tools I need are my journal (sometimes ignored), a light jacket, and a small sit-pad. On a windless evening the soothing, white noise rush of Baker Creek drifts up to my perch, but otherwise it’s mostly a silent place. The aspens and narrow-leaf cottonwoods along the creek are turning to gold and there’s an autumnal presence in the air, a changing of the seasons. The evening light laves the Basin and Range vastness, cultivating the space, hopefully teaching me something about stillness.
Yet even on the hill it can be difficult to remain quiet. There is in me a deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic, and the more recent (and I suspect more insistent) behavioral patterns that demand allegiance to schedule, activity, and “communication.” Sometimes I shift uneasily in my seat, glance at my watch, wonder if I shouldn’t be doing something more “constructive.” The wheel, seductive as ever, still beckons. The hamster has his habits. I am learning, though. The land, and all it represents, pulls me back into this place, and into a kind of grace. It’s as Wendell Berry describes in A Timbered Choir: I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water. My tasks lie in their places where I left them, asleep like cattle. And so as night falls over the Great Basin I sit among the junipers and pinyons, immersed in the lovely view and deep stillness. My stirring becomes quiet and my tasks settle into their places. It’s a state of being that I plan to cultivate as I move on from Great Basin National Park—first to the Inyo Mountains and my time with the salamanders, and later, to my post-sabbatical life and work in Brockport. I am hoping that the lessons of this place will prove stronger than the pull of the wheel. For beyond all else, there is the view of Snake Valley, its presence in my life.
3 Comments
Lisa Hendricks
9/30/2017 09:37:07 am
I do like this very much - Let this new growth point settle into your being.
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Chris
9/30/2017 12:10:17 pm
I will, unless I get too busy.
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CAS
9/30/2017 04:50:17 pm
Gol dern, get a grip, young'n and live like the Big'n designed us to! You Can do it! Giddy-up!
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AuthorI am a professor emeritus of Environmental Science and Ecology at SUNY Brockport. What began in 2017 as a sabbatical blog continues in a haphazard way, as the spirt moves me and time allows. The focus, though, remains the same - the natural world, in all of its complexity and beauty, and our relation to it. Archives
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