on being a "visiting scholar"

before we moved out to south county i used to take the metro to the downtown san juan capistrano station and read at the diedrich's coffee across from the mission. i checked off more than a few books from my reading lists there and my first "wedensdays" were there when, while pregnant, b. and i chatted about dissertations and diaper bags. like the swallows, i find myself returning often--even if that "return" means taking the few mile stretch down the ortega, crossing the five and cruising down camino capistrano. everytime we take that jaunt it seems there is always something to (re)discover...

and lately just being home has been making me giddy--or at least the claiming of the spaces that make this spot in california home. like the little fruit stand where owen chats with sarah about how broccoli grows, the "tractor art" outside of the garden center where we can buy purple basil, and the corner table at pacific whey where we bring our own play-do and coffee (because the scones are good but the coffee's crap) and where our best friends save us a seat. where the back of the jeep is always sandy and there are books under the pillows. and it's also right here at my desk--the one in the corner of the "home office" (although that name doesn't do the room justice where owen has flipped over the ottoman to make his "desk" and where virginia woolf shares shelf space with the thomas & friendsyearbook). there's no placard on the door and no students waiting in the hall but there is a big old dog under my feet and lizzy the tinfoil lizard on my chair. i know this is a poetically selective inventory of home but after a couple years of a kind of manic nomad-like sense of home i'm in love with my coffee-stained books and bruised heirloom tomatoes even if (especially if) there's not much room in the budget for gas money or drive thrus.

and finally, i'm writing again--and see the end of the hump. the funny thing is this--i've been stuck on chapter three for the last year and most of my writing energy has gone here into the blog and in creative endeavors like love letters and picture books (a necessary antidote to grading and transcontinental commutes)--that since i've been home i've found my passions have centered around the pleasures of cooking, food, and just the simple but necessary pleasures of nourishment. so what does this have to do with my dissertation? everything--just as it is less about theoretical deafness and more about how sign language is a necessary language of modernism it is also about food--and the way it too is another language. . . i'm not spoiling the plot here--hopefully it'll be shelved somewhere in a dark corner of rivera this spring. . .