After the Deluge

Last two months seemed more like being swamped. The semester began in October, and I expected all kinds of things to surprise me - new arrival to the English Department at the University of Gdansk. First of all, I wanted to learn about the internet platform so I wouldn't spend my life making photocopies for students who didn't have textbooks. Then I wanted to learn how to communicate with them and make things work. Nevertheless, I agreed to come to the post-Soviet conference at the University of Kansas because this was the first time an American University would invite me as a keynote speaker. I also thought it would be neat if Lilly-Mare and I could fly from the States at the same time and meet at Gdansk Airport. I did everything humanly possible to have all house repairs done before the said event. Our wonderful new furnace was installed and happily burning pellets away in the basement, but the upstairs windows still needed new shades, and the entrance door came only a week after we did. I had a fantasy of having a shower curtain creating an oval enclosure over our antique bathtub since I saw a similar kind of arrangement in Santa Rosa B&B (where we spent our first vacation in 2008). But it took Pan Karol, my adorably supportive plumber at the time, two weeks to understand what I meant. All I recall now from the past two months are glimpses of a normal life that we were about to have and which kept eluding us. Last Thursday, when the stove was adjusted at last after the wood disaster, Lilly-Marie said that something felt different. I noticed it, too, and we quickly diagnosed the change: the normal life had started. And if we were then instantly swamped by my students' essays, it was just part of this new normalcy, nothing more.