And so it starts. For the next month, I teach workshops and entertain attendees — and I love it. There are a few complications this year: we haven’t met in person like this since 2019; we are in a new venue, which means less public space and privacy (but yes to being permitted to drink in the rooms, for a change); three of the rooms on our corridor have nonworkshoppers in them, and one of those rooms reeks chronically of weed, despite the rules about (a) drugs and (b) smoking in the dorms. And other stuff.
But it’s all okay. I love these workshops., which I have been doing since 2005 (and joint workshops for ten years before that). At different times in my life, I have been exceptionally busy and overwhelmed by events or emotions, and my therapists (and sometimes friends) have said, why not give up the workshops, if you are so overwhelmed? And I would look at them, thinking, how little do you know me? This is the one thing I will never want to jettison. Becoming a professor at KU was really just me trying to reproduce the energy and delight of these workshops year-round for a living, before I realized the academic system (and the department) could not sustain this and wouldn’t support it anyway.
Anyway, today is move-in day, and I will be running around solving problems, making people comfortable, and wrapping my head around what is to come. Wish us all well!
Have a wonderful session. How wonderful to be returning to the live workshop energy. Wishing all the best for a delightful experience for all!