This morning, oddly rich purply-blue sky, weather on NPR saying possible thunderstorms and I’m not surprised. I had to rush myself out the door this morning and break the nostalgia of what today is, or beings with it: taking possession of Autumn Walk. Like Mom the other day noted, a new chapter. And I listen to jazz and sip my coffee here in the adjunct office– and again I have to make self just write, write! Don’t get held in reflection.. write it down! So.. the meeting with Michael Browne yesterday, what started from a saving of tips with his friend to producing a barrel of Pinot (the last bottle of which I saw on the wall of that magnum room), to now having a serious wine operation and world of his own– will save for later MOCK SOMM article. Today, meeting with students, the 1-on-1’s again. 5 pages due, at least 5, on Tuesday, then draft on Thursday, then final submission well following.
Love this song, ‘Delilah” by Hutcherson. I have to stay in type and reading of my texts and with my handle on the adjunct world and role and reality. This morning in my mail slot in the mail room (surprised they even give me my own, but…), a copy of the “union” paper, a voice for adjuncts or an attempt anyway. Talking about privatization models and how adjuncts are part of that… I’m already exhausted. I’m in a mood this morning to only hone on what I want, and what I want is not to be a part of that at all.. still teach and lecture on Literature but in my own capacity and context, and with my own delights, those Paris Review interviews for example. Baldwin may have to be revisited in Fall, as I don’t feel I took away all that I wanted, I didn’t have time this semester, with the house and the work at Arista and everything else– or I just didn’t manage Time effectively, which has been known to happen. A symptom of being a writer, I’m sure. But I persist in my passion and my prose, the stories.. with another piece published by the wine website, my narrative on not drinking wine to think about its concept then returning to sips.. then I think that if no students show today I should complete a standalone piece of fiction, or even if they do show. Start writing after I talk to them.. thinking of the walk through that production facility and walking on that catwalk, touching that puncher on the rail system.. making wine, making wine that people love and want to drink and want at home with them. Versus living the rest of my life a struggling adjunct… You tell me! What’s the more enjoyable election? And the more practical, for that matter….. I will get my hands on some fruit this vintage and go forward with it, produce it, and I want it to be Pinot.. every word from Michael yesterday ordered me to do what I want and not be dragged around, just do what you want, Craft, create, be happy with your passion and make it your job and if it’s a true love you’ll never hate it (reacting to what one of my 1B students the other day offered, ‘never do for work what you love ‘cause you’ll wind up hating it’.). I see the logic and I don’t. But either way, the adjunct tussle is not any longer for me. I will teach, but there won’t be that dependency, and I’d love to teach just one class, a 1A or 1B or 5– staying critical in my approaches to literature and what I’ve always prided myself on: Onus, and making that writing your own and building your ideas for what you want to state.. one student in the 1B, ‘R’ I’ll call him, showing more vigor and intensity with this project than he has with any other effort this term, already having 7 pages typed! I was humbled and motivated my self.. I want to print! I want to submit! I want to be like a student again! And I say that all the time but this moment’s different.. again, taking possession of Autumn Walk, Jackie not stopping in his growth (his sentences and logics becoming more pragmatic and sharp, and ‘timed’ which keeps the writer ever-alert), and wanting another child.. growing for my family and with them. I’m getting a bit emotional, yes, and slow with sentimentality but I have composure and focus.. oh reader look at me now to this jazz and in this adjunct cell meant to imprison us but I only grow like inmates in hardened facilities.. knowing where I’m going and how I’ll escape..
So.. wine.. last night finished that Reserve Cab from Kunde Family Estate. And the palate withstood the oxygen invasion over the 24 hours since last touched.. nothing compromised or curved.. the coherence of the wine’s sensory scope was still quite anchored and, as I used earlier the word, ‘honed’. I attempted acquiring the constituents of the wine’s process and conceptual edifice, if you would, yesterday from my friend Zach (winemaker at Kunde), but didn’t hear back. And it doesn’t matter. The wine was resplendently luminous in its harness and I’m ever-riled more to make wine this vintage.. wine made by a writer and a writer with more growl and ferocity and spleening virulence than he’s ever had– NO controller or manager or hasty-witted moldwarp owner jabbing at this writer from their bile-posed not-so-ivory tower– EVER. I’m autonomous now and with certain written pugilist complex, which is beneficial, reader! Don’t be mistaken!
I take another glance at the article about the adjunct who was brought into a full-timer’s office only to be yelled at, and want to toss this fucking thing in the rubbish bucket by the door. And my contempt isn’t with the full-timer but with the adjunct, all of them! Why do you let them do this to you? Why do YOU do this to YOU?? No more.. okay, calm down, this is the coffee talking and as my brother Dwight will tell you, I become quite the page-bull when I drink coffee, especially a rattling mediumroast like this.
Wonder if thunderstorms will actually greet us today. I wonder then how that will affect the writing and how I’ll be mood-wise stepping into Autumn Walk.. how.. how.. what will this new Chapter bring and how will my narrative be shaped?
Can’t wait to meet with the students that do actually show. Last Thursday, and on little sleep from waking with little Kerouac, I was brought to elevation I’d never before felt. Especially with.. well with both sections.. but the 1B, the talk with ‘M’ and ‘J’ (whom I call “Mr. Kerouac”) left quite the note with me. That I actually TEACH. That they are engaged and that I am making a difference in their scholastic progressions. Too bad the politics soil it all. Or almost all of it.

Autumn. Walk. The Fall season, closing the novel only to begin a new one, like Mom said, and to ‘walk’, saunter as Emerson did, not to rush– I see great and grandiose significance in this new home, this new book (not so much a mere chapter, I’d offer to my empyrean and sagacious mother). All will become ordered, now, coherence, and beaming with promise. That’s what I was thinking this morning, standing in the kitchen and staring at the red curtain which acts as a door over the glasses and plates that remain, Ms. Alice demonstrating her wonder by having nearly everything packed and prepared for transport. 6:44 now, and I’m eager to see who shows, and who doesn’t and who wants to exchange ideas and what ideas I exchange with them. I’m putting it all on me, the Professor– no, WRITER– no, ARTIST– no, Thinker– no… Now I know.

(5/7/15)