Fourteen days ago at 3am, my throat hurt so much I woke up. “COVID,” I thought, but didn’t test positive that morning. For several days I had many of the same symptoms as the flu: sore eyeball muscles (a sure sign of illness for me that I never hear others mention), achy joints, lack of desire to move, loss of appetite, painful throat at night. It didn’t feel exactly like the flu — except for a chill here and there, I didn’t feel hot or cold (and didn’t have a fever), and later I began to experience some GI issues, which doesn’t generally happen to me with the flu.

I next tested on Monday. I was not at all surprised to see the second red line. Still, the clarity and rapidity shocked me — for months I had been magnifying and illuminating little plastic windows, just to be sure. No need for that anymore!

Initially I had planned for five days of isolation (counting that Saturday as day zero), following current CDC guidelines. This seemed reasonable — after a couple of really lousy days, most of my symptoms began to gradually subside, although I did still feel weak, and certainly didn’t want to push myself and experience a relapse. Having heard from a colleague that earlier in the summer he couldn’t distinguish among strawberry jam, hot chili, and mustard, I was relieved my own senses of taste and smell seemed unaffected.

Never tempt fate. Around day four I realized that I couldn’t taste properly anymore. I tried some habanero sauce and there was some heat but I mainly caught sour notes from the vinegar. My palate didn’t recognize the full palette of flavors — I could infer “I am eating something spicy” but I had to think about it to reach that conclusion, based on memories and on what flavors I was able to detect, instead of simply enjoy the direct experience. It was like I was only able to detect certain tastes — it was like being able to see only primary colors.

As this symptom developed, it got more disturbing. I could not taste milk chocolate with almond, at all — the pleasure was only textural. I made French toast that tasted very slightly of browned eggs but not the maple syrup. I could detect only the hazelnuts in a Ferrero Rocher. At no point did I lose all taste sensation — I could tell lemon juice was citrusy, that gummy vitamins had some fruit flavor. And I had some hope that this was temporary, but nevertheless strived to adopt the Stoic attitude of the Serenity Prayer.

Over the past few days my sense of taste has begun to improve. Definitely still not entirely returned, but this morning I could taste a banana for the first time (Admittedly I couldn’t taste bananas for two weeks, simply because I didn’t have any available. I didn’t go out, in order not to infect others.) I can tell not only that gummy vitamins have a fruity flavor, or that the cherry ones are different from the grape ones, but now I can tell those flavors roughly match what I remember of real cherries and grapes. I opened the baggie where I keep chocolate and could smell chocolate, as well as mostly experience its taste.

I wish that I had recorded my own progression more closely, been more systematic and regular about trying the same foods every day, because I’ll bet everyone’s experiences with regard to loss of taste have been different. It would have been relatively easy to create a table of various foods (lemon juice, chocolate, salt, sugar, vinegar, etc.) and record how they changed with time. One challenge is that I noticed, when I first began to recover a taste for chocolate, that the first bite was more intense and later bites become muted — which happens with food all the time, but for me the muting would fall below the threshold of flavor detection. 

I also wonder if others experienced the sensation of having to clear one’s throat every so often, especially when speaking — of having a “wet” throat but feeling parched in the back of throat up towards the nose.

Everything we experience is subjective, unlike thinking, which (should be) objective. When I taste a food (normally), I can’t tell in language whether others experience it the same way. Likewise with every sensation of sight, touch, hearing, balance, smell, etc. However, one silver lining to COVID is that it allows us to share — if not the direct experience of taste — then the delta of the experience. By sharing loss and recovery, we can more clearly distinguish and share with others our individual experiences.

(It would be nice to recover fully. But perhaps I should not tempt fate.)

On Thursday I learned my former student John is taking a summer break with his family in Santa Fe, at an Airbnb with wind chimes, near Fort Marcy and the Cross of the Martyrs. Although it has been more than a dozen years since my last trip, I did live in Santa Fe for four years (1999-2003) as well as one summer (1992).

He mentioned the town has changed, especially with the growth down Cerrillos. I definitely noticed changes between 1992 and 1999 (most notably, a prairie dog town at the corner of Rodeo and Cerrillos had been bulldozed into a shopping complex, a dirt road had become paved, and more houses were built up Camino Cruz Blanca). I didn’t notice as many changes between 2003 and 2009. I can’t imagine Santa Fe changes as rapidly as New York, the place of my birth, or Las Vegas, where Google Maps can’t keep up with new construction.

During our conversation, my mind flashed to a mental map of the “City Different”. My personal vision of the large white metal Cross of the Martyrs is primarily from the vantage of the Wells Fargo parking lot on Paseo de Peralta; I don’t remember walking the brief pilgrimage uphill to actually visit. Some instructors and students swam in the community pool at Fort Marcy when I directed the Monte Sol Writing Workshop, but I myself have only driven past, on the way to Bishop’s Lodge, Shidoni, or Tesuque Village Market.

It’s a pleasure to be able to travel to a place in my mind’s eye. Of course my own vision of Santa Fe — focused on the college where I worked, the houses where I lived, the places where I shopped, trails that I hiked, the area around the Plaza, various museums and restaurants — involves a personal and privileged map. Santa Fe is a special place yet on some level it feels uncanny, unreal. In some light and angles, the town is as photogenic as a magazine photoshoot; standing in certain spots could sometimes feel like Instagram before Instagram. Another friend, who had lived there and who helped me move out from Chicago, called it Fanta Se.

…

On Saturday I watched the most recent episode of Better Call Saul, which is infused with Albuquerque. New Mexico is rightfully called the Land of Enchantment, and the cinematographers are marvelous at capturing its stark glory, as well as the variety of architecture — the rundown house of the man being evicted by a bank; the smooth corporate glass and steel of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill; the small apartment shared by Jimmy and Kim that looks over a parking courtyard; the narrow winding roads of the residential subdivisions; the mannered warm light of an upscale bar; the dodgy Crosswinds Motel (where I think I once stayed); the strip malls of the nail salon and then the  law offices of Saul Goodman; …

As for the episode “Fun and Games”, the entire final season is resolving rapidly to prepare the way for Breaking Bad, one of the few television series that maintained its integrity from premiere to finale. Earlier in the season, we saw the end of Nacho Varga’s storyline, while in the most recent successive episodes we have seen Howard Hamlin, Lalo Salamanca, and Kim Wexler dispatched.

I am confident in the writers of Better Call Saul that they will likewise provide a satisfying conclusion to this series. But I wonder what will happen over the next month, in the last four episodes. The major loose ends have been tied up — with a little pacing to make Kim’s departure less abrupt, “Fun and Games” could have served as the finale — so I’m not sure what else needs to be said.

It would be good to get closure on two other timelines. The first five seasons opened with black-and-white flash-forward vignettes of Jimmy McGill / Saul Goodman in his new identity as Gene Takovic, working at a Cinnabon in Nebraska. At the start of season five, Gene is seemingly menacingly recognized for his former identity as an attorney in New Mexico. He considers reinventing himself, but then tells the extractor he will handle the situation himself. Meanwhile and out of universe, I recently learned that Water White and Jesse Pinkman would appear in this last season. While this doesn’t seem strictly necessary, it will be a real treat to see how and why they would ever connect with Saul Goodman before Breaking Bad.

…

Yesterday, after swimming at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa and eating at the Hollar in Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid), the family arrived in Santa Fe. I wish I were with them, to visit together new places like those, but also to see familiar places. Besides hiking in the mountains, I’d like to walk around Shidoni, SITE Santa Fe, and the other galleries and museums around town. I’d finally make that pilgrimage to the Cross of the Martys, and maybe visit Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return. It’s the season for the Santa Fe Opera, as well as outdoor local Shakespeare.

As for food, on a quick search focused on distinctly New Mexican cuisine I was pleased to find many places persist: The Pantry, Tomasita’s, Maria’s New Mexican, Tia Sophia’s, Tortilla Flats. Horseman’s Haven, Bobcat Bite, … Maybe other favorite restaurants are still around too.

When we lived in Manhattan, I always thought we’d get to see more of the city. We certainly had time to explore well beyond the usual tourist places — Arthur Avenue and not just Little Italy, the Chinatown in Queens and not just Manhattan, the Fulton Fish Market when it was still downtown, R.E.M. when they played for the Today show, Broadway and off-Broadway rush tickets, etc. But I still missed out. We lived a block away from Central Park and could have walked there more. I still have never been ice skating in the park or at Rockefeller Center.

Likewise, when we lived in Santa Fe, I should have liked to see season events like Zozobra and the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, or to take trips to Abiquiu, Ojo Caliente, White Sands, Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, the national parks and sites near Four Corners. I would have liked to witness distinctive pueblo traditions.

…

One of my late colleagues from the Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking, Paul Connolly, who passed in 1998, advised us to relax when we wrote, to maintain an “illusion of infinite time”, to sequester oneself from the truth that life is short. This embraces writing as a safe and comfortable place. But I am not sure if this is the best advice. Has it really been 24 years since Paul died, since we sang Amazing Grace in a circle? I am bad about judging people’s ages. I suspect I’m less than a handful of years away from his age.

It’s as though I maintain a fantasy, that life will always remain the same. The river of time seems to be calm every day, but I look up and suddenly I’m downstream farther than I realized.

Thursday night I talked on the phone for nearly two hours with one of my former students, who is now a professor in Texas and is vacationing in New Mexico. It was good to talk, colleague to colleague, about our experiences and expectations of academic life, as well as life in general.

Yesterday I emailed another former student, who is wrapping up fellowships in Israel and Italy, preparing to become a visiting professor in New York this fall. Having served as a teaching assistant but not run his own course, he had asked my advice on teaching. Because this is a deep issue, it took me a while to respond. After all, there is no single way to teach, even considering only one educator and topic, and my own approach has changed over the years. Different schools and universities have distinct cultures; teaching chemistry is different from teaching philosophy or Ancient Greek; my implicit role over the years has migrated from older brother to older parent. Recognizing the vulnerability and trust it took to ask me, I replied:

This is such an open-ended question — someone could (and people have) written entire books on the issue of how to teach effectively. Instead, here are some quick, disordered, sometimes contradictory, observations.

1) Every class is different.
The age of the students, whether they are non-majors or potential majors or grad students or whatever, the size of the class (3 students is very different from 8, 14, 20, 60), how they will be evaluated, how well they know each other, how well they interact with each other, etc.

2) Understand why students are taking your course.
This allows you to modulate your own expectations and tailor what you will present.

3) Challenge students
Respect their intelligence and their humanity. Don’t waste their time and yours with insufficient or useless challenges.

4) Nerd out
You are the expert in the room. They came here to learn from an expert (note: does not necessarily apply to edge cases like St. John’s).

5) Be nervous
It’s okay to be a little nervous before each semester, even before each class. It’s a sign that you care, that you embrace the import of what you are doing.

6) Be humble
Don’t overestimate your importance. Students are taking multiple classes. They have very individual and personal concerns outside of your class.

7) Do no harm
Don’t turn them off to a subject.

8) Believe in the students
Teaching is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor. We must believe that the students will be “better” (at whatever you choose to evaluate) by the end of the semester, and that — in fits and starts — they can be better every day.

9) Keep in mind what they will remember
In the end, years later, most of them won’t remember the details of every conversation or fact that you present. They will remember how they felt when they were in your class. Teach them how to think, how to disagree and agree, how others (who are more expert) think and why.

10) Model yourself after teachers and professors you admire.

11) Be willing to experiment and find your own path.

12) Have fun
In the large scheme of things, you have to enjoy what you’re doing too. Maybe not everything (I hate grading — is there anyone who enjoys it?), but overall the journey has to be good for you too.

I don’t know if these platitudes are useful, but hopefully they’re a start.

Being rushed, this spill list is incomplete, although it captures the spirit of my main concerns when I teach. If you notice anything missing, that reveals places where I am less attentive. For example, adapting a class to student interests as they evolve means course assignments and deadlines can change during a semester. Students might prefer firmer deadlines and more definitive outcomes.

Nevertheless, as I detailed in my phone conversation earlier on Thursday, I am keenly aware of how far I fall short of the ideals even on this incomplete list.

The second season of Russian Doll is on Netflix, but first I’ll watch the first season again. I don’t have a strong recollection of the show, but I recognize the twist in rewatching a show about repeating the same evening. Like Groundhog Day, but not.

I originally binged the show on my second return from Hong Kong in 2019, during an in-flight endless twilight with windows down and lights dimmed, trying to stay awake or at least jumble my circadian rhythm to flip back the circle of the world from night to day, or day to night. On my first flight out I could look out the window and marvel at the vast white expanse of Siberia. On this second return back, along a shorter geodesic to Vancouver, I was in a middle seat and could only see the media I had downloaded: films and series set in Hong Kong; Russian Doll. But now I remember little of the show because I was half-dreaming while hurtling through the stratosphere.

Not that my memory is always that great anyhow, especially when it comes to programs that I watch on my own, sometimes while performing other tasks, and then barely discuss afterwards. This month I watched Stranger Things again, because the fourth season will be out next month. I noticed more on this second watch: the excellence of the acting, the attention to detail to the time period. I also realized that Suzie’s insistence on singing the “Neverending Story” duet with Dustin caused just enough of a delay for Hopper and Billy to meet tragic ends. I suppose that was obvious in retrospect.

I had a dream, last night or maybe it was the night before, where I went to write something on my hand, because I had a pen (of course I had a pen, even in my dreams) but I didn’t have any paper. I needed to remember something important.

There was already something written on my left hand, in a different color ink — black, I think, when the pen was blue. The writing was on the back as well as the palm, with just enough space to cramp in my thoughts. (That’s not right: cram in my thoughts.)

I wrote what I wanted to remember but today I look at my hand and there is only the blank canvas of my skin. It could not have been important after all, this thing I thought I needed to remember.

…

I occasionally have other dreams where I retain some awareness I am inhabiting a dream world distinct from the waking world. In one dream years ago I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming and in the dream I didn’t wake up, so I thought it was real. That’s my only memory of that dream: that I convinced myself I wasn’t dreaming.

In another dream, something so funny happened that by laughing I woke myself up. I have also woken up smiling, or crying, or calling out for a dog who sometimes I see alive in dreams.

On a break from college I woke up startled in the late afternoon and mistook the red sunlight streaming into my window as the blast from one of the nuclear bombs that were exploding across the Ohio Valley.

And I have dreams like this recent one. In such dreams I am thinking that I need to remember a poem or an idea, so that I can carry it out from the dream world, to examine it in the light of day.

… 

No one understands why we need to sleep and no one understands why we need to dream. Freud and Jung and various religions? Really, no one knows.

Today the ground is warming up. As it dries, the mud releases subtle particular scents. Having lived many places over the decades, I recognize different smells after rainfall. This is not the sharp chamisa and juniper of the high desert in Santa Fe, or the washed urban grit of Manhattan. This smells like home — or at least it smells familiar, close to the red clay of my childhood home down the Ohio, related to the rich loam of my beloved alma mater in the Finger Lakes.

It is 78 Fahrenheit at the moment, a good 20 degrees warmer than Las Vegas. What an unusual inversion. This is the first time I’ve seen it.

Throw open the doors, put up the storm windows. This afternoon, summer is here.

I enjoy flying. In 2019 I flew twice to Hong Kong, as well as Princeton (via Newark), New York, and Madrid. However, I grounded myself in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For over a year, I barely even drove anywhere. Except for a quick trip to Washington County for a propane heater, I did not venture beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh until June 2021, when we enjoyed a weekend with extended family in West Virginia.

After everyone in the family was fully vaccinated, I started to spread my wings. Last July we drove cross-country. In August I flew back from Las Vegas, and traveled there again in October and December. We did cancel our winter flights to Barcelona and from Lisbon because we thought it might be difficult returning to the US if we tested for the infectious omicron variant. Still, I have now flown every month in 2022: from Vegas in January; Chicago in February; Ole Miss (via Memphis) and Vegas again in March; Atlanta in April. I anticipate being in the air at least once more this summer.

While I do enjoy flying, I enjoy having flown even more. Despite TSA PreCheck, security theater can be annoying. Despite lounge access, connections in large airports can be stressful. Despite online maps, navigating unfamiliar public transportation systems can be taxing.

So it’s good to come to Pittsburgh International. Yes, it’s a familiar airport but this is not me being a homer — PIT is modest-sized, rarely crowded apart from TSA, the moving sidewalks and other facilities always operate smoothly, the corridors are spacious, and the lounge couldn’t be more convenient. Although I might wish it were closer to the East End (the 28X takes an hour) and that it had a greater number of cheaper flights, overall this facility is tied with Albuquerque as my favorite airport in the country.

So why does Pittsburgh need a new terminal? 

Yes, this construction supports jobs. But what are the actual benefits as a passenger? The “terminal modernization program” website lists:

• Increasing the main security checkpoint area
• Reducing the time it takes to get from curbside to airside by 50 percent
• Increasing area for concessions and retail
• Increasing covered parking by 3x the amount of current spots
• Reducing the time it takes to get from International Arrivals to curbside by 67 percent
• A dedicated Ground Transportation Center
• One Meeter/Greeter location for less confusion
• Only one level change from curb to gates

A billion dollars for this? The security checkpoint doesn’t need to become larger — it just needs to clear people faster. The time from curbside to airside is already rapid — from the moment I deplane, even from the farthest gate it’s less than ten minutes to the bus stop. We don’t need more concessions and retail; the stores there get little foot traffic. We should be creating better access to the airport by public transit, not building more covered parking. The level change from curb to gates is already virtually unnoticeable. And so forth.

I’m unconvinced that “smart” baggage handling designed by Carnegie Mellon researchers will improve anything. Instead, I fully expect the technoglitter will prove as useful as pixie dust, and will in fact lead to less robust systems. While I try to avoid checking in luggage, I can report the baggage claim process is pretty fast. After all, we are talking about a small airport with few flights. I’d rather wait five more minutes for my bag, if I know that the system is reliable.

The airport as it stands was built to be a hub for US Airways, which soon afterwards abandoned the city. In some ways, the airport mirrors the city itself. Both have the infrastructure and amenities to serve a much larger population, which is an advantage for those of us who remain.

The new facility will have fewer gates, in a frank admission this airport did not become a hub and will not become one within my lifetime. The groundside terminal will be moved to nest within the crux formed by four wings. I suppose this will eliminate about a quarter of the gates.

Those gates weren’t being used anyway; again, the airport was built to be a hub, so it has way too much capacity.

But really now, what are we gaining for a billion dollars? Quicker transit time from curbside to airside (but this was already quite short), the elimination of the people mover (which, granted, might be difficult to maintain), and a greener facility with its own microgrid. 

I get it: there is economic incentive to create something new, even when the old system works perfectly fine for passengers. A flashy Big Project feeds egos, establishes reputations, and creates “lasting legacies.” Look at this Big Thing I Made (never mind the actual builders on site).

Higher education is riddled with similar incentives, producing similar results. If it’s not a new building with someone’s name, it’s a glossy new general education curriculum that can shine only after eliminating a program the students actually prefer.

At least the rendering of the interior depicts a bigger space, with better sightlines for Calder’s Pittsburgh. One billion dollars and, at long last, the city provides a suitable setting for that work of art.