Endless summer

Today was clear, dry, and quite cool--I think the high was only 79. Although right now the breeze blowing into my apartment is smoke-tinged and distinctly autumnal, most of today felt much more like spring than fall.

As I hauled my rolling suitcase out to my car this afternoon, heading to teach my last two classes of the 10-week term, I thought about whether I would go ahead and accept spring, given the option. Whether I would head back to my parents' in California, run another half marathon, do another two weeks of training in Chicago, and then teach two more five-week sessions of reading classes--before repeating with another spring.

It has been rather a rough summer in many ways--"epically bad," I've been calling it, although I almost hate to tempt fate by posting that. But if I didn't have to repeat things like having my bike stolen and my "major slamdance with the concrete," as Joel put it, having summer on the repeat cycle wouldn't be too bad. That is, if I weren't condemned to repeat my mistakes ("The idea of eternal return in a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it..."), but could instead learn from them and not be forced to reenact the series of disasters.

I was still thinking about it as I walked into the building later, Dunn Bros Coffee Crema and blank program evaluations in one hand, rolling suitcase pulled by the other as I steadied myself to teach my last two classes of the summer. Would I risk another cycle of summer now--and maybe another few after that? Yes; I think I would.

It does seem easier, after all, to bear those ills we have/ than fly to others that we know not of.