I'm back in Providence, the year is over, in the mysterious limbo between the end of my time in Kyoto and the beginning of a year as a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.
I have about three weeks to get everything in order like renting out this apartment again, seeing everyone, getting visas and teaching materials in order and moving.
The time in between leaving Japan and arriving here around midnight last night was taken up with the ATHE theatre conference in Orlando. Seeing all my colleagues from near and far there was great and also made me feel like I'd never been gone-- like Kyoto was a little bubble totally unrelated to the trajectory of my life in grad school and conferences. More than once I almost said "Last year..." and then described an event from my last year in Providence-- not last year in Japan. Midorikai (just as I suspected) has popped out of my linear timeline.
And yet getting back to Providence has been even more surreal than Orlando, Florida. It's my apartment, only half emptied, and Brian is here, and some people are here and some aren't anymore. The streets are familiar, but certain key things are different. It's like dreaming-- everything seems familiar, but something is off about it all.
I looked forward to this little interval between big adventures as returning to something loved and familiar, but today it didn't feel like that at all-- it felt surreal. I hadn't anticipated that.
Stay tuned for back dated posts from Japan, new adventures, and photos from Florida.
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