tornado
[I've been offline due to internet connectivity problems, and this week I've been in an intensive orientation for the PhD program I'm beginning at Ohio U.]
I'm overwhelmed and over-stimulated. I have homework, and school hasn't even started. I teach class for the first time on Tuesday, and I don't have a syllabus. My sleeping schedule is now moot. A new group of students asks me to join them at lunch; I feel grateful and dread it. I speak up in class, comment in the car on the way back from school. I second guess myself, wondering if I've overstepped new and weak boundaries, turning conversations over an over in my head.
On a break, someone mentions tornadoes that have cut up his home town. I murmur that I dreamt of a tornado last night. (I am watching the dark sky from inside the house, waiting for the siren, but I suddenly heard the train sound. I'm carried up into the air, and the scene freezes as I hang from nothing. Why didn't I go into the basement anyway, why did I need to wait for the alert? I tell them none of this.)
"What's a tornado supposed to mean?" another muses. "I think I knew..."
"It means I grew up in the Midwest," I say.
He remembers: "You're not supposed to make any big decisions, major life changes."
"Too late," I reply. I don't think they hear me.