Stuck in the Middle

I’ve been wrapped in a warm blanket on my sofa watching season 2 of Downton Abby. Not only am I crushed that it is over (what will I do without the drama?) I am sort of alarmed by how cold it is. I was warned it would get chilly but I just scoffed and said a little too arrogantly “I’m Canadian. Don’t talk to me about cold.” But they were right. I think it comes down to a few factors. First, the temperature dropped like 10 degrees in 2 days. Every morning when we get into the car we look at the digital reading of the temperature and I recall when I arrived back in August it was 42 degrees Celsius most mornings. Now it is 12. Last week it was 27. So there is the shock.

Then there is the fact that our house is all stone and has no insulation. So the desert winds just come straight through the walls and through my clothes.

Then there are the clothes. In Canada I would have a warm scarf, a gentle jacket, maybe even boots. And certainly if my house was 18 degrees I would have on some heating, or at the very least slippers and a sweater. I have neither. I am spoilt from 4 years of living in the heat.

But on the up side there is the sensation of seasons. And I wore black opaque tights for the first time in 4 years the other day.

But with a change in seasons comes a change in heart. And I am a thinker.

So I have been musing on time and being stuck in the middle.

I am coiled tight and tense against time. For some reason I am yet to explain, I am overly concerned with time these days. I cannot relax into a minute and feel anxious about wasting precious time. I have never had this sensation before and I cannot fathom why I am holding onto to time as if were priceless and threatened.

I am sitting on a sharp point between the past and the future, balancing on a tipping point like a wobbling weeble, uneasy with the sensation I might fall. To my right I see a long stretch of desert and two girls walking away with a cloud of hope and anticipation rising around them

To my left I see photographs, black and white faces of pale chubby cheeks, eyes of those no longer with us, a family of four smiling beside a mountain of snow. I see books I have disappeared into, pages worn with eager eyes and a tower of films I have loved and never wanted to end. I see a laughing circle of friends fresh out of high school, our lives on a plate ready for the taking. I see a young couple by the Nile, holding hands.

Is this what middle age feels like? Feeling like I am in the middle?

I teach seniors of the brink of possibility and hope. They feel the uncertainly of next year, where will they go? Will they miss home too much? What will they be? Who will they become? I write university recommendation letters and I feel the excitement and nerves of trying to get in. And I often write to former students, staying in touch with their lives; sometimes I even skype with students I haven’t seen for four years. I read the status updates on facebook as they negotiate the freedom of university with the tender pull of home. I feel their anticipation as they tip towards a different point.

Is this what is feels like to be in the middle and surrounded by those just starting?

So I have taken to baking. It has worked in the past and seems to be working now. I find nothing quite fills a void like melted butter, warm chocolate, spiraling egg yolks and lines of sugar.