The season for changes

It's September, the season has changed from summer to fall (though the temperature feels anything but fall-like today). Classes start at the college tomorrow, and I am thinking about changes. (If you also now have David Bowie's Changes as an earworm, I apologize, or consider it the soundtrack to this blog post.) 

Like the caterpillars, so much changes for me at this point in the year. My schedule changes. Inflexible classes plant themselves in my calendar, meetings sprout like weeds around them. My tasks change, too. I need to find time for office hours and grading and class prep. I will have new students and new colleagues. I am teaching a new class this year and team teaching general chemistry for the first time ever (in this my 40th year of college teaching). My office was renovated over the summer, so that's a change, too. (My door opens on the other side and the light switch has moved. I keep swiping at the wall when I come in. Habits are hard to break.) So many little changes.

But I'm also thinking about longer-term changes. What would it be like to retire? A big change that will cascade into many small changes. What's the next big writing project I want to undertake? It feels so odd to be looking at space in my calendar that doesn't have "writing" in it, after all these months of working on the book on tea. There are more changes to come, I expect.

Photo of new office, just like the old office, but with fewer books. (Really.)