Things That Follow Us

I awoke the other morning to discover that I was still my father's son.

And this morning I awoke to discover that my department does not exist.

Not the department to whom it required saying Fuck You—mentally, to be sure, but in front of my readers/witnesses—in order to move forward with this project. Not the department that exists only in my—in my what, imagination? No, it isn't that. A moment's thought and I am sure it isn't that. Not imagination. And not quite in memory, either, because that's my next thought. But it’s something, I can feel that it is something, and it follows me.

But whatever it is, it is not within the building—a gigantic Lego block—that contains my office; nor is it the people within it, most of whom I do not see, almost literally do not see, except at faculty meetings. Although I suppose that if I wished, I could see them at the hopeful little tea times and annual picnics; or at the special presentations to be made—say the flyers that festoon the walls—on such and such an afternoon by such and such a distinguished and/or up-and-coming scholar.

Where I can’t see them is their offices, because they are either not present or too busy; nor in any of the coffee shops to be found all over campus, because of schedules that seem perpetually bereft of an available hour. Nor can I see them in the venue I would most like to: in their classrooms in front of their students, because most of these strangers whom I’ve known for years are astonishingly good teachers as well as first-rate historians.

Of course, come to think of it, if I did want to see them in their classrooms in front of their students, what could they do to stop me? Well, I guess they could in fact stop me: it’s their classroom and their choice. But I doubt they would.

There are things that follow us, some of them with names, and some without. But they don’t own us. Not yet.