Backstory: The Before Times

The great pandemic, the great resignation, and grated orange cheese

I recently updated my location on Facebook and found myself trying to explain how I got from where I was to where I am. Before COVID hit, I was headed into my eleventh year as a full-time writing professor and living in my dream neighborhood in Austin, Texas. I’d taken on a huge project, chairing the undergraduate research symposium, and won a teaching innovation fellowship. I’d known that the symposium was going to take a massive amount of time and energy over a two-year period, but it’s the sort of thing that’s a big gold star in the academic world, so I put my head down and powered through.

I managed my time like a military operation. I even broke my own rule of never paying extra for pre-chopped vegetables or shredded cheese. I’d spent decades scowling over my bell grater with a hunk of what my husband calls “orange cheese,” (cheddar) grumbling about how I’d be damned if I’d pay twice as much for some machine to grate. the. damn. cheese. My husband is a triathlete and I have an autoimmune condition, so I cook just about everything we eat; suddenly lowering my standards seemed like a worthy compromise. I would chop and grate again after I finished my “service to the university” and got my gold star. I was well into my second year of the grind, with weeks until the symposium, when COVID hit.

Faculty had spring break plus a few extra days to take our courses online. I was surprised to discover that the format worked well for writing in general and professional writing in particular—and that I liked it. My committee and I even managed to pull off the symposium.

News of universities across the country cutting faculty positions was impossible to ignore, though, and I knew that the way my contract was written made me vulnerable. When a mandatory faculty meeting was called on Zoom, a friend with a similar rank and I were texting frantically. “I think I’m going to lose my job,” she wrote, “do you think you’re going to lose yours?”

“Fifty-fifty chance,” I responded.

We both lost our jobs, along with about a quarter of the rest of the full-time faculty and staff.

Colleges and universities across the country had done the same. The market was saturated with newly unemployed career academics, so I decided to teach as an adjunct until the economy had a chance to settle. My husband has health insurance, so the kids and I were covered. Our neighborhood was on a hilly greenbelt, so I was able to get out and walk the dogs and see neighbors at a safe distance. I did not miss the daily commute. I was grateful. A lot of people had it a lot worse.

And then, in February of 2021, the Texas snow-pocalypse hit. We spent a week without power, iced in, and huddled in front of our fireplace before the pipes burst. Again, I was grateful. Our saturated ceilings sagged, but didn’t fall onto us, which happened to others. We moved into a rental house while the demolition and repair were underway and put the house on the market in April. We bought a place on a large lot in Georgetown, just north of Austin, where our back porch looks out onto pastures with cows and horses. We’ll have a pool soon.

I’ve been editing and writing more and teaching less. I don’t know if I’ll continue to teach. Economists are calling this “the great resignation,” the choice not to return to former careers. The thing about academia is that from the time you’re in grad school it’s a quest: full-time teaching position, publications, presentations, fellowships, chairing and sponsoring big projects. I was there, right in the middle of it, compromising on my cheese standards to keep leveling up, checking the achievements off the list, slaying the next monster.

I don't know what’s next, which is both scary and exciting. But, here’s the through-line, I am (still) feeling pretty equanimous. Not saying I haven’t felt some bitterness or loss, but less than I’d have imagined. The challenge now is the reinvention. With teaching, I had a map of what my professional life would look like. I loved, as Nora Ephron once wrote of marriage, “the everydayness of it.” I loved the rhythm of the semesters, the incoming freshmen and the graduating seniors.

I’m calling this newsletter The Next Thing to chronicle my adventures in reinvention, what I’m doing, the people I’m talking to, stuff I like, and content as yet uncategorized. I hope you’ll join me. I may never grate my own cheese again.