On Endings, Leavings, and Transitions

Welcome to Week Eight of Once More, With Feeling.

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the overlong delay between newsletters and the break in format, but consider this offering an announcement and a way-station.

As you may have seen on the various social networks, I have accepted a new position as Senior Associate Director for Teaching and Learning in the Center for Faculty Excellence at Simmons University, where I’ll also be teaching in the Psychology department as an Associate Professor of Practice. I’m so excited to begin work this November with Executive Director Jennifer Herman, Projects and Events Coordinator Kristi Mukk, the rest of the team in the CFE, and with Simmons faculty and students.

New beginnings are thrilling, but they also spell endings. The last few weeks have also been filled with goodbyes, some of them tearful, and the end of a truly beautiful twelve years living a life of the mind with Assumption University faculty, staff, and students.

I have also been cleaning out my lab and office and the sorting through papers and boxes has been more emotional than I expected. Here are some pens my honors student Erin Fitzgerald marked with lab stickies to stop them from wandering away (it didn’t work), and a post-it from Ryan Glode telling me he opened a ticket with IT to fix some problem or other. There are some data collection notes from Tyshawn Thompson’s undergraduate research symposium project on mindfulness, and a randomization list from Mack Peck’s thesis on motivation for reading fiction. I need to find homes for the 30-40 iPads from what Jim Lang and I affectionately (and sometimes not-so-affectionately) called “the iPad study.” Even cords and cables hold affective weight—a monitor splitter cable calls up memories of an emergency Best Buy run with Phil Opitz (who helped set up my entire physio lab in exchange for some tapas and my undying gratitude). Multiple layered eras and collaborations, all come to a close.

This work—plus two book projects due soon, and TUnE-Bio launching—means no time at the present for newsletters.

Watch your inboxes in late November for a hopefully triumphant return.

In the meantime, I leave you with one of my favorite poems about life transitions. It was written by my paternal grandmother Margery Smith Cavanagh, inspired by my mother cutting her waist-length hair when my brothers and I were small.

Hope the autumn is treating you all kindly.

with affection,

Sarah

The Chalkline
for Rosemary

You have
cut off dreaming
when you cut
burnished and gleaming
sunstruck and golden
thrown over your shoulder
tumbled up waterfall flowing

you have cut off dreaming
cut off believing
ended your childhood
and like petals and pollen
ending a season
the air is hazy

you stumble
out of a story
into a woman
suddenly vivid
you gather your bundles
you lift up your burdens

your head shorn like a boy
you walk like a dancer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you like what you read, feel free to like the post, share, or tell your friends. I can also be found at @SaRoseCav on Twitter and @SarahRoseHIVE on Instagram. You could also always give one of my books a whirl!