Re:turning

Re:turn 1:1
Dec. 30, 2009 (Aboard United flight 901)
I am midway in midair between Stockholm and San Francisco as I write, and the sun refuses to set. I am on unfinished business. That it remains light, despite the hour, is a solace. Why flounder and flail in the darkest days of the Swedish year, trudge through snow and slush, and sleep deeply while the sun is shining elsewhere? While it's shining on my roots, to boot?


Re:turn 1:2
January 2, 2010 (Magnolia 29, Berkeley CA)
As we grow older, we need more light, and given the recent displacement of my biological clock this past week of holidays, it suits me well to turn the clock back nine hours or more. I can let the hour hand run amuck, spin like a top or pirouette like a prima ballerina, and apparently still maintain balance. It felt great to cut a rug after midnight on New Year's Eve, hit the sack at 3 a.m. (PST) and wake at noon (PST) on the first. Since high noon here is 9 p.m. in Stockholm my day is suddenly upside down and I feel fine.


Re:turn 1:3
I have been planning this trip for months, preparing as much as I can (not the least getting acquainted with the new computer interfaces that I will be using in my work), and accepting and even welcoming what I cannot foresee.
For years I have had a recurring dream that I had returned to Berkeley to finish my education and get some new degree. I say some degree, because I graduated and received my B.A. degree from Berkeley in 1971. Though I enrolled as a member of the class of 1969, my graduation was deferred to leave room for a year of travel and optional courses. The date on my diploma is even later because my budget didn’t suffice to pay my tuition in full the last term; my 50 dollar debt was evidently waived after 5 years when a diploma was finally issued.
In my dream, however, every time I enroll, I find myself being distracted by the expense, neglecting the required reading, and forgetting the dates of all the exams and papers. Thus, while falling short of all my formal intentions, and obtaining no proof or any credentials I might need to claim some authority, I always enjoy the experience of the dream. I always marvel at all the familiar and unfamiliar sites, the people I meet, the music I hear, how much at home I feel in the unfamiliar, as well as the familiar. I suppose that is a wishful dream. I wake to a real sense that I have been somewhere.
I find it curious that as soon as I decided last summer to take this trip to the US, the recurrent dream has ceased to recur. I suppose it’s because I’m living it, pursuing business, continuing education, embracing the familiar and unfamiliar, knowing full well that it is not another diploma I seek - nor a return – but a turn.
It is now my turn to face the fact that I am no longer a spring chicken, the young woman who had just graduated from the excitement and stimulation of an education at Berkeley, from the confusion of turbulent times for my entire generation as well as for me personally, or from the hope that such education bestows on a young and promising student whose life is mostly ahead rather than behind.
My ‘boss’ has referred to this trip as my obligatory ‘competence development’, as though he had seen my recurring dream, and interpreted it to mean that not only the company I work for, but I too, stand to gain from this excursion. It is high time to turn off of my all too beaten Swedish track and move onto an American...