I didn’t anticipate this.

It’s week four of the second quarter and I’m sick for the first time in three years. Cold, fever, aches – the whole nine yards and I have too much on my plate to slow down. But I’ve come to a screeching halt. And, I just burst into tears watching one of those cat and dog videos on YouTube. Yeah. Suddenly, I’m not so sure it’s the flu that has its grips on me. I think I’m homesick.

So I did what everyone does when you can’t locate the wizard behind the curtain: Google it.

“Can homesickness make you ill?” I typed.

Answers: Yes.

Mind you, the people doing the asking seem to be teens, not confident middle-aged women in graduate school. But I here am, asking the Google Wizard for an obvious answer.

I take comfort that I am not alone. Graduate students seem to knowingly look one another in the eye, and ask ourselves what the hell we’re doing. Doubts surface when we’re vulnerable, and we’re vulnerable when we’re sick and tired. Can I actually do this? Who am I to think that I can or should? Where can I summon the energy to change the way I’m feeling? I want to briefly turn off my mind. Friends who have navigated grad school relate to my rant, saying they’ve “been there.”

Winter in Athens, Ohio means -4 degrees some nights. Classes are filled with sniffling, coughing and sneezing. I canceled class this week because I didn’t want to share germs with my students. But today I was one of those people as I ambled back to the hallowed halls of Seigfred.

Clearly, I’m quite the baby when I’m sick. Thank goodness for my friend Lisa who brought me ginger ale and saltines, my diet for the past four days. Of course I will pull through; I hate whining. The realization of being homesick will help me heal.

I thank my lucky stars I am able to do this grad school thing with the tremendous love and support of Michael, Tanya, Tracie, Lara, my sisters Mary Beth and Connie, the endless prayers of my mom and countless others who cheer me on. You know who you are. I miss you, Michael. I miss our home and the crazy cat antics. I miss simple.

I couldn’t do this without you. I have to believe it’s going to be worth it.

 

} To view the adorable video that made me cry: http://www.dogwork.com/kddk2b/

 

I’m baaccckkk….

An obvious admission: this is my first blog post since I started graduate school in September. I’m back in Athens for Round II, the second of three quarters in this put-the-pedal-to-the-metal master’s degree. I had five glorious weeks in Sacramento and visiting friends in the Bay Area, where I devoted nearly zero time for school preparation. Really, I had goals. Hearing the same from other grads, I am a textbook case.

When I walked into my grad abode, an odd feeling hit me squarely where I live: I am living a dual life. And it’s weird. REI now owns me, and my new winter wardrobe.  I have a new set of friends that I can only describe to my loved ones. When I restocked groceries, I was positive there were three cans of tuna on the shelf. No, actually, that is in my Sacramento kitchen, not my Athens kitchen. My brain can’t separate the two.

Homesickness arrived almost immediately.  My gut told me I needed to make this dumping ground of textbooks, legal pads and clothing feel more like home or I was going to sink into a pit of sadness. A quick trip to the dollar store helped. It’s miraculous how a 75-cent string of little white lights and a few colorful throw rugs can make a place feel better. I rearranged the furniture, too.

PW, my car that is quickly becoming legendary, started on the first try. She sat untouched in my friend’s driveway for six weeks. Pretty good for an 18-year old hunk of junk.

Classes – 17 hours – have started smoothly. Teaching feels far more intuitive and less daunting. There is still a load of work to stay on top of daily, but it’s feeling quite good as I head into the third week of a ten week quarter.

Now I just need to go get some tuna.

First, a visit with my mom

 

My mom completing one of two nightly crossword puzzles.

 

Before I tell you how wonderful, exhilarating and draining college is, I have to tell you about a quick trip to see my mom on the way to Ohio.

My mom is two months shy of 93 and she still lives independently. (With those genes in the family, it’s a good thing I’m preparing for my next chapter, eh?) She is extraordinarily active and everyone in her church community knows and loves Mary Morrow.

My mom has lived in the same location in Carmel, Indiana since 1977. I arrived at her memory-filled apartment with two suitcases. (I had shipped four boxes of clothing, minimal kitchen items and office supplies directly to Athens.) I felt like an anxious mess to get to Athens, but I needed to slow down for this visit.  And, I was looking forward to a rite of passage that most moms and children experience probably a little earlier in life – shopping for the college room.

Although my graduate apartment is furnished, I needed stuff I could easily ditch in nine months. A toaster, coffee pot, shower curtain, mattress pad (ewww! What will the used mattress be like?). Maybe even a few cheap dishes. I’m accustomed to moving, so it seemed easy to get things I didn’t mind parting with in the near future. (God, am I part of the disposable generation? Probably.) A trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond was the ticket.

I think my mom is a little bit shorter every time I see her. Not frail. Just tiny. She is so sweet at what must be under 5 feet, and she gets around fairly well. As we shared the cart pushing, I felt emotional – and fortunate: a 93-year-old mom and her 53-year-old daughter out shopping for college goods. It was a complete “wow” moment for me.  It would have made a nice photograph.

Upon examining the cost of dishes (yes, I find myself checking prices on everything these days), mom offered some from her cupboard. It was a fine idea.  I instantly knew which dishes: white Corelle plates with tiny dark green flowers around the edges. Totally unbreakable, forever, eternal kind of dishes. She’s had them for decades. They were part of her “collection” of things. How could I turn them down?

In fact, her modest apartment is chock-full of forever kinds of things. My mom is a collector – and a documentarian. Her world is filled with stuff her kids, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other people’s children have made for her.

And pictures. Pictures are everywhere. They are arranged neatly on the fridge and in picture frames sitting on any available table space. Then there’s the “den,” where a wall of photo albums occupies every inch of shelf space.  There are one, maybe two albums for each of her five daughters, 13 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.  There is even an album for all the pets.

Then there are mom’s daily rituals. She does crossword puzzles and she journals. Every morning, without fail, her neighborly lady friend leaves her two newspapers’ crosswords puzzles hanging in a plastic bag on my mom’s doorknob. Special delivery! She completes both of them every night. Then she sits bedside and writes about her day.

I’ve given a lot of thought to the proverb, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I don’t know if I will ever take up crossword puzzles, but this blog is already feeling like a journal. I know I won’t collect many things other than memories and lots of photographs, but what really killed me was what I discovered in the nicely packaged box of forever Corelle dishes.

Peeking out of the top was a hint of powder-blue checkered fabric. My memory flashed. It couldn’t be! I asked mom, “What’s this?” “Oh, something you might like when you have your friends over for dinner.” I opened the flap of the box. Folded and stacked neatly were a set of four butterfly-embroidered cloth placemats and napkins. I made them when I was ten! And now I’m taking them to college. I almost cried. I just might keep those. But I have to return the dishes.

NOTE: I will post weekly. My 16-hour class schedule and teaching won’t allow me more than that.

What’s ahead (not necessarily in this order):

My junker college car

Birthing this nine-month degree

Middle-aged and back to college

It’s been 22 years since I last saw the inside of a college classroom. Sounds like a confession. I’m 53 and a graduate student at Ohio University in lovely Athens. I live in graduate housing on campus. Yes, I have gotten the eyebrow-raised expression. Going back to college now?

I’ve always been a late bloomer. I was 26 when I found my destiny in a book about photojournalism as I sat on the floor of an Evansville, Indiana bookstore. It was a lightning bolt. A revelation. I went to college part time for five years and worked full time. Consequently – or perhaps, thankfully – I never experienced dorm life or lived on campus.

Here I am, 22 years later, at a school that was just ranked the No. 2 party school in the nation, by Princeton Review (no affiliation to Princeton University), up from lowly No. 9 in 2007. Yeah, the ranking is admittedly arbitrary and clearly officials abhor the title, but its reputation is on the books. And I am in the thick of it.

I never thought in a million years – okay, in my 53 years – that my life was interesting enough to write a blog, but my friends are telling me otherwise.  At least for the next nine months my life will be more interesting.

This first blog seems lengthy to me, yet I need to set the scene. Future blogs – I promise – will not be long. I won’t have time!

Since I left my Sacramento home at the end of August, there have been many moments – some hilarious – that have given me enough pause to think this experience may be interesting, informative, helpful or at least amusing to middle-agers thinking about returning to school.

I have promised myself that this experience will be full of joy, learning and intellectual stretching. It won’t be stress-filled, anxious and toxic like my undergraduate life, nor like newsrooms these days.

I give a tremendous nod to my friend Tracie, who is going through breast cancer treatment. She is showing me how to slow it down and enjoy the abundant gifts in life. I vow to her (insert unabashed plug to her blog here: traciecone.com; and, she’s my editor) and other extremely supportive loved ones that I can do this. Damn it. Are there fears? Of course. But I’ve always believed that fear is a powerful motivating force.

Who at 50-something hasn’t worried about why you can’t retain a phone number in your head longer than a minute? Early Alzheimer’s? Probably not, but you get my drift.  Will I able to keep up with the workload (16 hours this quarter and teaching a class twice weekly to college juniors) and retain new knowledge? I’m not as fast of a thinker as I used to be. How will I fit in? Should I care?  What about finances?  What about a job to use my new skills and healthcare when I’m done? (Insert deep cleansing breath.) As my career counselor says, “There is no need to panic. You know what you’re doing.” Right.

Happily and thankfully, the Knight Foundation (yes, the same one touted daily on NPR) awarded the School of Visual Communications funding for 2010/2011. The economy prevented funding for the fellowship last year. In December, I was advised to apply regardless. I got lucky; I grabbed it. In addition to a stipend, tuition is covered. Long ago, it would have been easy to live on this for nine months. But mid-life comes with a big fat mortgage and hefty car payments.

Financially, this will put us in debt, but it’s an investment in our future. Try on this perspective: we wouldn’t hesitate to purchase a car for the amount of financial aid the government wants to hand to me. Thank you, President Obama.

Why I am doing this now? Timing is never perfect; and it’s everything. I’ve been working since I was 16-years-old. I need a breather. If you’re a journalist or follow the media, you know what I’m talking about. Layoffs have been depressing, if not devastating, and those “left behind” suffer the consequences in different ways. So do our readers. I praise the heroics of my print colleagues everywhere, but I realized I can’t “do“ print any longer.

I am optimistic and I need growth. I am committed to visual journalism and I believe its future is bright. I believe everyone has a story to tell. I want to breathe life into stories with great audio, stills and video.

With the decision to write this blog came the decision to give up the age drama. I mean, it’s not exactly the cliffhanger in this story. The cliffhanger may be survival, success and what comes afterward.

Before I arrived in Athens, I thought hard about disclosing my age to colleagues. Looking at resumes, one can do the math. Sort of. I haven’t exactly followed the numerical path in life.

My age started bothering me last year. If it bothers me, maybe it will bother my fellow grad students. In a recent Facebook posting, one of my new colleagues suggested I be the “big sis” for the graduate group. OMG! They already know I’m older. I thank him for not saying I could be the “mom” of the group.

Another reminder that I don’t fit: the woman at the financial aid office asked me if I was inquiring for my son or daughter? “Um. It would be for me.”

So here I am. Perched on my second-story campus “porch” that doesn’t have a lumpy and stained old sofa on it. Parents saying their sad so-longs are thankfully gone. (Note to parents: get your packed-to-the-brim, big-ass SUV out of the way. Please.) Cars endlessly cruise by with the occasional student screaming obscenities at the top of their lungs. Forget the speed bumps. There’s a driving beat of music across the campus green at some Labor Day gathering for newbies. I hear raucous cheering – likely someone being egged on to drink more. Faster.

Ahhh… they’re going for that No. 1 ranking in party schools with passion.