Day 3

Before my present teaching gig, which has lasted twenty-six years, I was a journeyman teacher, following that all too common practice of shopping for sabbatical replacement spots and adjunct openings. If you count my second go at graduate school, during which I continued adjunct teaching, I have been at this for thirty seven years. That is a big number.
I must be fairly easily impressed. As with a lot of things in life, if you stay at it, stay healthy, and do the work you are meant to do, you get the big numbers. Cal Ripken, the baseball major league iron man, played in 2,632 straight games simply by showing up for work every day. He needed talent, of course, over a long stretch of years; but lots of players with talent don't make it to the bigs or don't play long. My mother, who turned 90 this summer, has for years expressed surprise at how old she is. Marriages that last for many years do so because the couple determines to stay at it; in good marriages, both parties work at it. I have been married for 40 years this June just past. And it is probably fair to say we have both worked to make the marriage good, although it has not seemed like work.
It is only when I look hard at these numbers that they seem to impressive to me. Here, too, as with many things, you do the task at hand, the day's work, the study or talk that comes next. Maybe you have set the goal before you as motivation and objective, but you don't think about it every day. I never once thought, "OK, I'm part way to 40. Only XX more years to go." All of these things can be thought of, at least metaphorically, in terms of journey or as travel. To say as much is both obvious and necessary, for reasons I hope to explore little by little.
In a little more than a week, my wife of 40 years and I expect to set out on journey, a awfully big adventure (to echo Peter Pan). We will be traveling for the better part of a year, to England first and then to Korea, teaching because that is what I do, living in places different to us, and soaking in whatever we encounter like sponges. Like paper towels. Like a shammy.
And, in this space, I will be writing about it, both to note what we find and, I hope, to sort out why it all matters.