If you read “Clan of the Cave Bear” you know about the custom of cursing someone with death, and in that culture the curse made them dead. Naturally they weren’t really dead, but because everyone believed them to actually be dead, the people ignored them completely as they wandered around. After some time, the “dead” just walked away, because they thought they were dead, too.
Leaving a place of work/play/involvement after 25 years can be something like that. You leave and then return and you are a kind of ghost. You wander around not really in and not really out. Then one day you just wander away and don’t return. The big difference in this example is that no one is dead. Just gone.
Image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3570/3382035628_6cff9d112d_o.jpg
Leaving a place of work/play/involvement after 25 years can be something like that. You leave and then return and you are a kind of ghost. You wander around not really in and not really out. Then one day you just wander away and don’t return. The big difference in this example is that no one is dead. Just gone.
Image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3570/3382035628_6cff9d112d_o.jpg
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2 comments:
Ignore? Who would ever ignore you?
I'm one of the countless students (and friends) who would go out of my way just to say "hola" if I spotted you around campus. Short of naming my first born after you- I will always be grateful for all help I got from you inside and, especially,outside the classroom.
Unlike the exiled professors of the "clan of the cave bear"- you have social media at your fingertips. Luckily, to those that matter, you will never leave the community of TU students, alumni, faculty and emeritus professors that make a difference.
s. being a ghost is not being ignored. my last three years, post "retirement" were filled with people, new and old friends. The source of the ghostliness comes partly from within, partly from strangers and partly from the disassociation process. It really is just the old "you can never go back" idea. One idealizes the past and then the present doesn't fit somehow. A very weird feeling of remote viewing. I would love to have your first born be named Ricardo, or Woody or even Guapo Pelon. But a girl? Personally I think Sally is a great name for a girl. Thanks for reading my thoughts. W.
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