rekindling the flame

I have been wildly estranged from my department all semester.

I am technically teaching anthro courses and enrolled in an independent study.  And I am utterly focused on determining how to talk about my proposed research so that it sounds anthropological.

But, I find myself feeling on the outside: sometimes abandoned (by my tribe), other times escaped (from the asylum) and still others locked out (of the palace).

I approached the conference, then, alternately with ambivalence, excitement and fear.

I was most pleased to be "getting away" from Albuquerque which I associate with unending piles of books and articles to be read and papers to be drafted.

I never mustered the energy to plan for sessions or craft a strategy for meeting people.

And when I realized that a bulk of the people I'd been resisting seeing on campus would be here, fear gripped me...

As luck would have it, many of the sessions have relit the fire of my passion for my research and, perhaps, through this rekindling of affection, sparked the synapses and will engender creativity.

I keep thinking I should stop going to sessions and just lock myself up somewhere and write while I feel full of ideas and confident in their soundness.

Instead, I am off to more sessions, hoping the fires won't be dampened by the physical exhaustion or the occasional lackluster presentation or the intermittent discomfort caused by pretentiousness.