Overgrown

I took this photo two weekends ago, during a morning stroll before going to the Cambridge Zen Center to give Sunday morning consulting interviews. I give consulting interviews–a chance for Zen practitioners to ask one-on-one questions of a Senior Dharma Teacher–about once a month, and I always try to arrive in Cambridge early so I can take a quick walk before ending up at the Zen Center. It’s a chance to clear my head before sitting down to Clear My Head, and it’s a chance for me to take pictures in a place I lived before I had either a blog or a camera.

I’ve often noted the conundrum of adjunct teaching. During semesters when you’re under-employed, you have plenty of time but little money. During semesters when you’re teaching a full- or over-load at several different institutions, you have plenty of money but little time. Finding just the right balance of the two precious resources called “money” and “time” seems as impossible as determining both the position and velocity of sub-atomic particles, with some sort of uncertainty principle decreeing you’ll never simultaneously have enough of both.

This summer, I’m in the “plenty of money, not enough time” category. Although I’m never exactly rolling in cash, this summer the institutions where I teach had no problem enrolling my classes–apparently in this tight economy, lots of folks are heading back to school–so I’ve found myself teaching more summer classes than I’d planned on: a full-load of three classes during both summer terms rather than the two classes per term I’d planned on. The result is a summer spiral where it feels like I’m spending my so-called vacation continually moving between classes: one moment teaching in Keene, the next teaching online, the next prepping to teach in Keene again, etc.

A surprise influx of fecundity is nothing to complain about: I’ve had more than my share of hungry summers where under-enrolled classes have been canceled and I’ve watched with alarm as months of few or no paychecks have nibbled away my summer savings. Still, I sometimes wish I lived in a more temperate temporal clime where I had world enough and time to enjoy modest windfalls when they come. Instead, I’ll continue to clear my head when and where I can, knowing that while money can be saved, time cannot. In the face of a summer influx of activity, I know hungry months will come, and even in the face of a full summer load, it’s possible to find moments of Enough-ness when a short Sunday walk yields a brimming bushel of the ephemeral world. Given such lovely lushness, I’ll imbibe as I can.