On a Cliff's Edge

Today three dozen undergraduates and I climbed through torrential rain, gale-force winds, and a steady slamming stream of tiny hail stones to a prehistoric fort perched on a cliff's edge at the very end of the civilized world. Just another typical day in the life of a typical European history professor. Sort of.

It's a good life, all in all. The pay is crummy but the perks are splendid. At least if you like fierce winds and dramatic rain and the icy cold that slices through your skin and settles deep within your bones. Which I do. Always have. It's weather with integrity, sharp-edged, clearcut, purposeful, direct. Not like the miasmic heat of the Deep South, the humidity that envelops you, the heat that first lures you in--"shush now," it whispers, "just slow down, have a rest, why don't you put your feet up and have a nice cold drink?"--and then warmly smiles as you slowly suffocate.

After I made my way down from the cliffs, I sat on the bus, my jeans completely soaked, icy cold against my skin. And just like a certain smell can suddenly catapult you into a memory so vivid, so present, that the lines of time and space collapse, so this physical sensation sent me spinning into Mrs. Wolterstorff's third grade classroom. Eight years old, just in from recess, the windows all fogged up, water beneath my desk puddling up as the snow embedded in my corduroys slowly thawed, the cold and clammy cotton firmly stuck to my thighs, my feet little blocks of ice within wet socks. This is not, actually, a happy memory. I was an extraordinarily grumpy child, and I sat there on my plastic seat, my hands so cold they burned, even my underpants soaked from the snow, and I glowered at Mrs. Wolterstorff. How in the world, thought my indignant eight-year-old self, can I be expected to concentrate on homophones and homonyms while my butt itches and prickles as it thaws?

I imagine many of my students, Deep Southerners born and bred, were asking themselves something along those lines today. But, the thing is, integrity is not comfortable. It cuts and chills and makes your butt prickle. Still, it's rather bracing when you're perched on a cliff's edge at the end of the civilized world.