Back in the Saddle Again

Today marks the return of the New Yorker in Exile blog. We'll see if lasts more than a few weeks this time! However, I am committed this go-round to posting every day no matter what, even if it is simply to post a message explaining why I haven't added any new content that day. I am beginning the blog again because I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "exile" in the past few days. I just accepted a job at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is somewhere that I never thought I would live. It turns out that SLC is a pretty cool place. It has beautiful architecture, amazing scenery (everywhere one turns there are mountains in the near distance that look so perfect one thinks they must be paintings rather than the real thing), and the largest per-capita rate of LGBT persons in the United States, so I will feel right at home. SLC is also intriguing to me conceptually because of its role as a refuge from exile for Mormon settlers. Having lived in the Mennonite equivalent of SLC, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as an insider, I am fascinated to see what it will be like to live in an end-destination for exiles as an outsider. One reason why the job at Westminster is appealing to me is because it is so far removed from my current/previous life. I am needing a split from my life in DeKalb, a place of refuge to heal from the ravaging experience of graduate school and to have a new beginning. In a sense, I am feeling the need to go into exile. This desire for a completely new space causes part of me to feel like Jonah fleeing to Tarshish rather than dutifully going to Ninevah (i.e., feeling a bit guilty, like maybe I am simply running from the difficult rather than confronting it), but overall I feel the move will be an invigorating, revitalizing experience. SLC will be a liminal space in my life because I will only be there for two or three years (the stated term of my job), which is also an invigorating factor. It can act as a place of renewal while also presenting itself as a jumping-off point. The structured temporariness of the position is something I need. A spot on my continuing journey rather than an ending.