Although I knew things would not go as planned--they never do--I did not anticipate how much time it would take to address an error, a transposition that should not have happened, in the visa paperwork completed by someone else. This resulted in a good extra ten hours of my figuring out and addressing the error since it had implications for her compensation. This was the bad news, pretty much the only major bad news.
Please keep in mind that I was doing this hosting pretty much pro bono, If this bad news situation was stressful for me--and it was--no doubt it was also for the guest. And unnecessarily so. And even separate from that, I realized how much I had done in the past; this hosting gig was a full-time job, albeit more some weeks than others.
I knew the visit would be labor-intensive along the way, and that it certainly was. I did have a lot of help, but I also found myself wishing that I had even more help--help with the not-going-out-to-do-fun-stuff but with the daily, more routine stuff, the less-glamorous trips to the supermarket, for instance.
And I knew this as I recognized that I had been spoiled by being retired for ten months, by doing whatever the hell I wanted to do.
Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for all the help I had. And I had a lot. In fact, in many ways, my faith in humanity has been revived every one of these last seven--now eight--springs. At certain points in the visit my faith and trust in other people is just buoyed.
Being the default during the visit, though, got old a couple times, especially when I was sick off and on for a couple weeks. Plus, despite disclaimers, visitors to any location sometimes have expectations. I mean, they left home for a reason. They may or may not be expected to be entertained 24/7 (or say they do not expect to be entertained), but their idea of appropriate activities may or may not include a trip to the post office or the allergist on the way to the Asian market. And sometimes it is just necessary to stop and put gas in the tank, be you at home or overseas.
There is a travel philosophy in here somewhere: life is made of small, real events, and if the tourist why-not-see-even-more-of New-York-City isn't balanced by these small typical events, then I am put in the position of organizing something that is more a trip for tourists than a modest but meaningful representative cultural experience. A cultural exchange is not just about seeing landmarks that you can already identify. There is a difference between a tourist and a traveler.
My name is not Sandy Tourism.
And since my retirement, I have taken up a different role in the work/institution universe. During the visit, another thing I realized resoundingly, almost with a THUD, had to do with the people at the school. Before the visiting professor arrived, I went on campus maybe once a week to pick up my el cheapo educational discount New York Times in the school library. Sometimes I would see a librarian or two--which I was always glad to do--but that was it, pretty much. What I didn't fully realize before the guest arrived was how much I enjoyed seeing, even in passing, many of the people I used to work with full-time. Granted, I don't know all the newbies, and sometimes, although I know someone's name, I have to ask,"Which one is he?"
But for nine weeks and change I spent a lot more time on campus.
I don't know everybody the way I used to, and that's okay. What I have more fully realized, though, more than I ever did when I was trying to detach and go on campus only once a week, is how much I enjoy having contact with the people I know and like. I cannot say I know any of them well, or even that I have friended them on Facebook (or they me). I have never seen most of them outside of work and it is unlikely I ever will.
But if the place I invested thirty-nine full-time years is on a trajectory to become a place in many ways unidentifiable to me within the next five to ten years, so be it. At least for a while, good people, work friends of a sort, will continue to be there: Paul K., Jason, Mark R., Sharon Z., Jean L., Jill H., Both Sergei's. And others. And there are some who are comparatively new: Mary N., Gloria K., Jim and Norma, Joann D., Carolyn D. Jake.
I cannot list them all.
It is always great to see them, even fleetingly. But even so, I would not go back to working full-time. (And every once in a while I am not sure I even want to work part-time although right now I don't want to think about not going in once in a while to get my newspapers.)
These days. as I approach the anniversary of my retirement, I realize that I have walked away. In some ways I am a visitor, too. And that is just fine.
