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© Catherine Haslag
© Catherine HaslagMy Office
My Office
I have three offices – one on campus, one at my house, and one at a nearby coffee shop.
My coffee shop office is a round table with three chairs in the corner near east-facing windows. Before the pandemic, you could find me in my coffee shop office nearly every Monday through Friday for a few hours. I would get hot or iced tea (depending on the weather) and maybe a scone, pull out my laptop and headphones and get to work.
My coffee shop office.
I would see people I know and spend some time chatting with them as they came in for their respective coffee group or grabbed a refreshment during a break from work. It was a joke among the people who worked there, those who frequented the coffee house, and my friends that I should put a plaque marking that table as my office. I have received photos from friends on two different occasions showing me that they were using my office in my absence.
Then the pandemic came, and my office wasn’t safe for a while. I missed my sunny workspace and the people I saw there regularly. I went through withdraw during the lockdown and struggled to find spaces in my own home that could be my new “office.” I reorganized and repainted my home office to take advantage of the sunlight and view of the street. I sometimes worked at my dining room table or even the kitchen counter. These spaces allowed me to work, but they weren’t the same.
While the pandemic isn’t over, I do spend a little time in my office nearly every week. I sometimes have meetings there, or I might spend a few hours on Friday afternoon when the coffee house is generally slow. Of course, I still enjoy a hot or iced tea and maybe a baked sweet treat, but it’s not the same.
The space hasn’t changed, but I have. It doesn’t quite meet my needs like it used to. I’m not fond of the commotion of the coffee shop as much as I once did. Living along during a pandemic has shown me how much I need quiet and space from other people.
Now, I much prefer the desk in my home office. I can spread out my notebooks, computer, and papers while revising a lab for my classes, going down a research rabbit hole, or writing a new blog. But, I still enjoy a cup of tea, play music, light a candle. So, this is the workspace I need now.
Sometimes things change, and sometimes we change. I miss what was then and is no more. But, I am grateful that it existed and was there for me when I needed it. I hope it provides the space others need to do their work.
© Catherine Haslag
© Catherine Haslag
© Catherine Haslag
© Catherine HaslagJumper Cables
During my senior year of high school, I got my first car – a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta Royale in toad green. We called it The Toad. It was a hand-me-down from my Uncle Jerry. It was a boat, but it got me where I needed to go. This car offered several amenities to 18-year-old Catherine:
- bench seats in the front and back,
- a heater that could bake a turkey on defrost,
- a trunk that could carry numerous bodies (if necessary), and
- one of those old radios with the big silver buttons you had to jam in to make the station change.
Much to the horror of my stepfather, I could lay head-to-toe in the back seat, and neither my head nor feet would touch the doors. I was forbidden to take it on dates.
These jumper cables got me a parking spot and to class on time.
My Uncle Dick gave me some equipment for Christmas that year that every car owner needs: jumper cables. These weren’t any run-of-the-mill set of jumper cables; they were 20-foot, heavy-duty jumper cables. At the time, they seemed like overkill. Wouldn’t 6 or 9-footers work just as well? Over time, I came to appreciate the wisdom of this gift.
I never lived more than a few blocks off campus when I was in college, but sometimes I still needed to take my care to campus. If you arrived after 9 am, it was hard to find a spot. It was common to see people driving through the lots, stalking a student who was headed back to their car. If you followed them and patiently waited, you would be rewarded with a parking space.
I often used this tactic to find a parking spot. One day, I saw a woman headed back to her car. I rolled down my window and asked where she was parked. She motioned towards her car. I followed her and waited patiently for her to pull out of her space. I waited and waited. Finally, she got out of her car and walked over to my window. She had left her lights on, and her battery was dead. I couldn’t pull in close to her car because the spaces all around her were occupied. All she had was a set of short jumper cables. However, I had my trusty 20-foot jumper cables. I pulled up behind her, took out my cables, and we had her car started in no time. When she left, I took her parking space. My 20-foot jumper cables got me a parking space, and I made it to class on time.
Those jumper cables have had a home in every car I’ve owned. Over the years, they jumped the vehicles of friends, strangers, and my own during a polar vortex in January 2019. There were piles of snow everywhere, the coldest wind I have ever felt beating on me, and I was parked nose-first into the space, but the cables still did their job. I never worry about reaching the battery because the cables are always long enough.
There are times when we need to be thrifty and times when it’s worth it to invest in a better quality item. So my advice is to always spend the extra money on a pair of heavy-duty, 20ft (or longer) jumper cables. You will not be disappointed.
© Catherine HaslagUn
I live life by the semester as a college teacher: fall, spring, and summer.
It’s generally an excellent rhythm for me. I have time and space to work on new ideas for my classes in the summer. This is important because it’s hard to work on new ideas for courses while teaching. Then, in the fall and spring, I put those ideas to use and focus on working with my students.
This fall was the first time I wasn’t giddy about going back to school. It wasn’t the usual fresh start I previously relished. Usually, I enjoy the buzz and energy of the new school year, but not this year. This August felt more like a trudge into the repetitive and mundane. I wasn’t starting as my usual, fresh from summer self.
This semester has been one of the hardest of my career. I see the exhaustion in my students and feel that same exhaustion in myself. So many mornings, I have said “Good morning” at the start of class and received silence in return. The students I see are shell-shocked and burned, even at 9am. This doesn’t bode well if they have later classes. It’s hard to keep students motivated when they are already running at less than half a tank. It’s even more complicated when your tank is low as well.
I know my students and I aren’t the only ones who feel the weight of it all. We are about to enter year 3 of a pandemic with no unified approach and no definite end in sight. Our country is divided as it has been for more than 150 years. Misinformation runs through the internet and cable wires like wildfire, adding to the mess. We went on as best we could with life as usual, but this is a time of the unusual, the uncertain, the unsettled, the uncomfortable, the unrest…this is a time of the un.
There is no semester rhythm in the time of the un.
Next week, I will give finals, figure grades, and make a game plan for the short break between the fall and spring semesters. This is a time to rest and prepare for the spring semester – when I will do my best to deal with the un of life…and hope my students will too.
Oscar
His name was Oscar.
He lived at Westphalia Hills for some period of time that covered at least the end of November 2019 to the very beginning of December 2019. I don’t know exactly how long he was there, just that his stay overlapped with my uncle’s time there in hospice.
Photo obtained from Shutterstock.
I encountered Oscar every time I entered the complex. Oscar wanted someone to help him back into bed and he wasn’t shy asking for help to reach this goal.
His ONLY goal.
And he pursued it with single-minded dedication.
This was my only interaction with Oscar. He would politely ask me to help him back to his room. Then he wanted help getting into bed.
This wasn’t a dirty request. He wasn’t being inappropriate. He just wanted to be in his bed…and stay there.
The first time I went to find a nursing assistant to help him, I found out this was Oscar’s game. He roamed the building all day looking for someone to take him to his room and help him into bed. But the staff didn’t want him in bed. They wanted him out and active, even if his only activity was finding a way to get back into his bed.
You always knew where Oscar was. You either heard him asking for help (Oscar wasn’t a quiet guy) or someone yelling at him to get out of their room. Oscar often rolled into the rooms of other residents. I still remember the day he ended up in the room of a pair of ladies. You would think a fox had just gotten into the hen house based on the commotion that erupted.
I tell this story not to make fun of Oscar but rather to share the comic relief he provided to me and my family at this time. As we were watching my uncle take his final steps from this world, we had Oscar’s antics as a distraction. We shared stories about what he was up to each day and what trouble he caused. He provided levity during a very heavy time. Oscar will never know how he broke the tension of a very difficult time for us.
I don’t know who Oscar was before or after those three weeks, but I am grateful for the encounters we had.
I think of him often, smile, and hope he achieved his goal.
© Catherine HaslagOne Year
One year ago this month, I posted my first blog. I created this space to help me develop my voice and become a better writer. Over the course of the past year, I have learned a lot about myself, how I want to live my life, what I want to say with my voice, and how I want to say it. I will let you debate on the improvement of my writing skills.
Biking the Root River Trail, Summer 2021
The blogs I have shared here have come to me while riding my bike, driving to Missouri to visit my family, and tearfully at 3 am when I couldn’t sleep. I have writing ideas jotted in my various journals, in my notes app on my phone, and on my computer. Some of these ideas will become blogs posted here. Others will never get beyond those few jotted notes.
I have also drafted a few pieces that will not be shared on this blog or anywhere else. They are still too raw and do not communicate a message that I think is worth sharing with the general public. While I have a first amendment right to freedom of speech, that doesn’t mean that all of my speech needs to be shared. I strongly believe in freedom of speech, but I also feel we have the responsibility to self-censure when that speech won’t contribute to creating a productive discourse or a more perfect union.
I have learned so much over the past year while writing for this blog. I learned that I am not good at writing book reviews. While I love to read books, writing reviews is not my jam. It puts too much pressure on me and takes away some of the pleasure I get from reading.
I learned that a good piece doesn’t have to be long. One of my favorite poems is only 4 words long.
I have learned that some ideas/thoughts are not things I want to spend my time writing about, so I let them go back into the invisible universe of ideas. Someone else can use their time to explore it.
I learned that stillness, reflection, and time are key to developing a good blog post. I don’t have to shoot for the moon. The simplest of ideas tend to lend themselves to better writing. (I assume that if you are reading this that you think my blogs are at least marginally good. If you disagree that my blogs are any good, then I wonder why you are reading this and not something else.)
I learned blogging provides space for me to examine, process, and rethink my life, values, ideas, the world around me. I learned that facts are guideposts for me to locate truth, which is incredibly valuable to me. I learned that I have a hard time relating to people who don’t value facts as I do.
This space has also allowed me to take a trip down memory lane. The nostalgia has been a welcome respite during the pandemic. It has also helped me to appreciate some things in my life I had never given deep thought to previously.
I have also learned that I want to keep doing this work. Even if no one else ever reads this, I find value in writing it…and that’s all that really matters to me.
As I state on the front page of this blog, “…this blog is for my growth and learning…” I still don’t know where this work is leading me, but I am enjoying the journey.
I look forward to seeing where it takes me over the next year.
A Very Special Thanks…
Thanks to all of you who have read and continue to read my blogs and sent me feedback over the past year. I really appreciate your time and insights.
I want to give a big thanks to Sue Grove, who has proofed some of my blogs and helped me learn how to write using active voice. I am by no means perfect in this, but I am improving with every sentence I write.
Thank you also to my wonderful partner, Jason, who manages all the website details so I can just think, write, and post. Thank you for being a cheerleader for my vision. I love you.
© Catherine HaslagMayberry Halloween
I grew up in a little town in a valley along the Osage River. Looking back on it, it was a bit of an idyllic place for a kid to grow up. Everyone knew everyone and looked out for each other. Don’t get me wrong, there were downsides too. Gossip and nosiness were present in no shortage. There is a line from Doc Hollywood where Vialula says regarding the gossip in Grady, “Can’t poop in this town without everybody knowin’ what color it is.” This was true of my home town as well.
Halloween 1994: the last year I went trick or treating. I am dressed in jammies on the right. I will not identify the other two pictured in the photo to protect their anonymity and perhaps shield them from embarrassment.
Growing up, one of my favorite times of year was Halloween. There were many kids in my hometown and they all dressed up and walked around town trick-or-treating. A few of the parents dressed up too. It was like a social night full of ghouls, superheroes, princesses, and candy. One parent (or the oldest child) would take the kids out. The other parent would stay home and hand out candy.
The costume was of utmost importance. I usually thought about it for months in advance of the big night. It was a way for me to try on a new identity for a while. Dress in a way I didn’t normally dress. Over the years I was a witch, a skeleton, a clown, a princess, and when I was 8, Helen Keller. I was REALLY into Helen Keller that year. That is a story for a later blog.
I quickly figured out which houses gave out good candy and which didn’t. The worst house on my list was two doors down from my home. They had a VERY tall, poorly-lit set of stairs to climb to their deck, where the front door was located. Once you climbed to their front door, all they ever offered was that horrible taffy wrapped in orange and black paper. I HATED going to that house for candy. I thought it was a waste of time since I didn’t like the candy, but mom made me go every year because grandma liked the taffy. So I went, like a good little granddaughter, every year so I could give those 3-5 pieces of candy to grandma.
The two BEST houses on the route were Edgar and Marlene Kliethermes and Alvina and Leslie Jaegers. We always went to their homes last. The Kliethermes’ handed out homemade popcorn balls. This wasn’t my favorite, but my mom loved them and the Kliethermes were so nice. We always sat and visited with them for a while. Plus, their three youngest sons liked to hide and scare trick-or-treaters. It was fun to see what they did each year. One year, they didn’t hear us coming up their long driveway and we startled them. Always a bonus when you are a little kid.
The Jaegers house was the last house we stopped on our quest. They didn’t just give you candy at the door and send you on your way. No, kids and parents were invited inside. They had cold punch if it was hot and hot chocolate if it was cold. Alvina also worked at Scholastic Books and would give out books AND candy. I figured out that if I was the last trick or treater, she would give me all the candy and books she had left. That’s pure childhood, Halloween gold!
After the candy collection was complete, it was time to sort my loot. I would dump the contents of my pumpkin on the floor in the living room, the candy would scatter across the rug and onto the hardwood floors. My favorites (Twix, Reeces, Butterfinger…) went in one pile, the middle-of-the-road (Snickers, Hershey, Starburst…) went in a second pile, and “trash candy” (Smarties, Sweet Tarts, and other flavorless forms of sugar) went in a third pile. The favorites never made it 24 hours and I usually went to bed with a case of sugar belly.
Those Halloween nights have long since ended in my hometown. Most of the people I spoke of above have shuffled off their mortal coils. Rather than house-to-house trick or treating, now a trunk-or-treat type activity is held downtown. No more huffing and puffing to walk to the top of the church hill. No more popcorn balls. No more Halloween gold. Just my memories of this magical night through the eyes as a child.
Blog from the past…
I wrote about one of the books I was given by Alvina in a previous blog. It was titled “What the Wind Told.” Click the link to go straight to this blog.