The Long Way Around

Sooner or later, we all go home. That's the message pop culture often throws our way. The Salvatore brothers return to Mystic Falls. Ed heads back to Stuckeyville. Raylan Givens is exiled to Harlan Country. Odysseus finally lands in Ithaca. Lebron eventually goes back to Cleveland.

And then there's me. After finishing my undergrad degrees at the University of Oklahoma in 2001, I left the state to attend graduate school, first in England and then in Wisconsin. I left for many reasons, but it mostly boiled down to the fact that I wanted something different. I didn't know exactly what that difference was or should be; I just knew it was something different than what I had. 

And so, I left.

But I also returned, time and again, for equally complicated and simple reasons: my family was there, many friends were there, and, in many ways, I was still there. I loved the land and the wind, I bristled at the politics, and, regardless of where I was, I still thought of myself as Oklahoman.

Still, 13 years went by. I finished my Master's in Women's Studies and English literature in England. I traveled and waitressed and worked at Star Trek conventions. I was on the academic job market for three years. I kept waitressing. I finished the PhD in Literary Studies at Wisconsin.

And, after three years of applying for jobs across the academic spectrum (visiting and tenure, research and teaching, state universities and liberal arts colleges), I've now accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at Tulsa Community College, where I'll be teaching composition. I grew up outside of Tulsa, in a place called Broken Arrow. I went to high school here, I went to church here, my parents and siblings still live here. In fact, I'll be living, first, at my parents' house (in my same middle-school room) and then, presumably, on my own. I'll shift from teaching one course per semester at a 4-year research institution, writing a dissertation in contemporary American literature, working as a public radio producer, and waitressing at a chain American Chinese restaurant to teaching five courses a semester at a community college, attending soccer and baseball games, and doing research as my schedule allows. It's going to be different.

And so, I decided to start this blog, to track my experience of returning to Oklahoma and to consider how humanities research plays out in the community college composition classroom.
 
In his essay explaining his decision to return to Cleveland, Lebron James gives an account of a reckoning, a departure whose purpose was to teach him the value of home:

"Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up...I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now."

Odysseus puts it more dramatically: "I long - I pine, all my days - to travel home and see the dawn of my return."

Dorothy puts it more simply: "There's no place like home."

All of these folks make a compelling case for returning home. They leave, swept up in a whirlwind of circumstances, returning only when fate allows, after they achieve greater self-knowledge. For all of them, experiencing the global is a necessary but transient step in appreciating the value of the local. 

But as for myself, I have always been less certain about narratives that tell us that its better to go home, that our reasons for leaving are understandable but short-lived, that, upon exploring the world, we should want to bring those experiences back to the place we left. I don't know if the goal of leaving is always to return. 


My skepticism about stories of return, however, is at also at least partially rooted in the fact that I am drawn instead to narratives that tell us it's good to break free, that setting out on your own is a desirable choice, that, as the Dixie Chicks explain, taking the long way around is, in fact, the way to go.

In other words, I've always thought that education was my way out, an opportunity I embraced, but now education has brought me back. And so, this blog is also an attempt to wrestle with the stories we tell ourselves, of who we are and what we want, of what makes for a valuable life.


Well, that's the goal. I'll probably also talk a lot about TV. We'll see how things shake out.