I feel pulled in so many directions, that I decided I needed to make time for writing this morning. It’s cold, crazy cold for the 3rd day of spring. But there’s a little bit of sun, and if you sit in just the right spot on the couch you can pretend it’s spring.

So now I carved out this little slice of time, and what do I say? First of all, as soon as I say I’ve carved out time, stuff begins to happen and the quiet moment slips away. Maggie wakes up, the doorbell rings, Bubba wants to come inside, Jake wakes up and wants me to make him pancakes, Bubba whines at me to give him space on the sunny couch, and so my hour of bliss becomes a five-minute break from the household routine. I can see why people rise at ridiculously early hours to do their writing. There’s just no time, no peace during the regular span of a day.

What I wanted to write about was how bizarre everything has been since I began this divorce process last fall. For instance, I changed my name in HR about a week ago and overnight my name changed on many campus-wide systems. So I needed to update my students and colleagues. The primary response is, “How do you say that?” I put “Gesteland” into Google Translate, and I got “just the land.” A student said, “You’re free.” Another told me about his mother’s recent divorce. A colleague–someone I don’t usually interact with much–expressed his sympathy and told me he knows what I’m going through. Still another–who’s going through a contentious divorce of her own–expressed envy that I’m already back to my maiden name. But most say nothing. As much as I’ve built up the monumental nature of this transition, to most people divorce just happens. All the time.