“What he needs is a good ceremony.” Leslie Marmon Silko

There is a half moon tonight that I have been watching move through the southwestern sky. I stopped before I opened my door and looked at her backlighting the palm tree in my neighbor’s yard. Strong and content, I open my door and wonder how I can describe a profound day of ceremonies that began in the most ordinary way but gradually became one of the most amazing days of my life. C. S. Lewis’s autobiography is called Surprised by Joy, and I have always loved that title because joy and the sacred are most profound when we are not expecting them. In fact Whitman’s open road is really a way to allow yourself to be surprised by what the road will bring. Today I was surprised by the sacred, and I am overjoyed.

It sounds odd to begin a sacred day with a trip to the department of motor vehicles, but that’s what I did. It was actually my second trip to the California DMV since I moved here. My first trip was done on a whim, never a good idea for the DMV. I wanted to get a new driver’s license and register Penelope as a California girl, but I didn’t make it past the threshold guardian at the front door. I was told that I would need a passport or a birth certificate, which I had not brought, so I left quietly and put it off until today. But today I was prepared. I completed and printed all my forms online before I arrived, and I enjoyed telling the threshold guardian what I wanted to do, then as she reached for the appropriate forms, telling her that I had already completed them. The only thing I hadn’t anticipated was the vehicle inspection, but that was no big deal. I swung Penelope into the appropriate lane, and a very nice man checked her out. I then went back in and got my number and waited to see how things would go. They went fine. The nice woman at window 9 kept talking to herself, and at one point I asked her if she was speaking to me. She said, “No honey, I’m talking to myself.” “You go right ahead,” I said. “That’s allowed at the DMV.” She smiled a Cheshire smile as she continued typing in my information. “You have to get a smog check you know,” she said, waiting for me to complain. “No problem,” I said, “but do I have to do it for a hybrid?” “Actually, you don’t for a hybrid.” “Good,” I said, and went to the driver’s license station. When I handed the man my paperwork, he said, “Can you say ‘Park your car’ for me?” I said, “I’m sorry?” “Can you say ‘Park your car’?” “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re asking me, I said, confused. “I just like to hear that Boston accent,” he said. I told him I couldn’t do a Boston accent because I am actually from Tennessee, but when he seemed disappointed, I tried to say “I paak my caah in Haavaad Yaad” so he would feel better. But it came out sounding like a hillbilly hippie trying to do a Boston accent. Still, it was a funny exchange. I got my tags then my driver’s license and left the DMV feeling very happy. There’s a clothing store across the street, so I went over and bought a bunch of new shirts, a coat, and a sports jacket to celebrate. Then I went to a burger joint and pigged out. The DMV is a ceremony for me because it is my official indication that I live somewhere. I don’t know how this came to be for me, but it has always been the case. Once I have my papers and register to vote, my ceremony is complete, and I have become a member of a new community. It felt good to be officially a Californian, and as Penelope and I drove back home, we felt like we belonged here as she sported her new tags, and I carried my new driver’s license in my wallet.

My only appointment today at Cool University was the English Department reception. Having been in English departments for many years now, I feel like these are my homies, so even though my center is interdisciplinary, I have already made friends in English, and I wanted to meet more. It was a cool day in So Cal, and I enjoyed feeling the air brush against my arms as I walked to the event in my short sleeves. The old-timers where all bundled up, and I laughed at their meteorological weakness while flaunting my heartiness born of Boston winters. This English department is like no other I have known. They actually seem to enjoy each other’s company, and it is department-wide. Everyone ended up talking and laughing with everyone else, and I ended up spending most of my time with my friend who came by on the day of my first ritual at my new center. Our backgrounds are completely different, and there is no reason we should be able to talk to each other very much, but somehow we are already good friends. We finish each other’s sentences and share obscure references to literary texts and popular culture. We talk about teaching a class together, life, and love, and other colleagues drift in and out of the conversation easily as they visit us at our table. Another professor makes a date with me for lunch, and I meet people whose names I have seen but not their faces. I stay the entire two hours because it is such a joy to be with people who love their work and appreciate each other, and I wonder how I got so lucky.

I plan on coming back home and taking a long walk, but on the way to Penelope I meet a student who tells me that I must come to the evening ceremony. When I ask why, he simply says I will have to experience it to believe it. He was right. We have a firepit on the Cool University campus. We also have a labyrinth, which I will post about soon. These are but two of the reasons we are Cool University. My students gathered around the firepit tonight for a sacred ceremony, and they were amazing. A drum circle began the ceremony, and people began to dance around the fire. As the drums died away, the students told creation stories of our center, reading from the books that have been published about us. Then they told the story of our mascot with great flair and drama, acting out its arrival in our center and explaining what all it means, embellishing and elaborating extemporaneously and frequently. All the stories were punctuated by frequent yelling of the mascot’s name, and there was a kind of call and response involved in the story-telling that was like a sermon in an African American church. The students in the audience asked the storyteller to explain things, offered their own versions, projected the story into the future. And it was done with laughter and tears, solemnity and joy, and quietude and dancing. I was incredibly moved and looked up at the moon and wondered if she had indeed followed me home. After the mascot story, the drums heated up again, and the dancing became more frenetic. Another staff member and I were sitting together watching it all when two students came over and got us up to enter the circle around the fire pit. We moved from observers to participants, and the drums took over our bodies as we danced in the night, shouting out our sacred name and being lost in the magic of the ceremony. At one point I even jumped over the fire, as other students had done, and the roar from the students went up like the smoke rising from the center of the magic circle. Finally, the drums died out, and we came back to ourselves, reorienting to the everyday world but still high from the encounter with the sacred. Never have I felt more at home at a place and with such people. Never have I felt like I belonged more than I do here. Never have I felt so called to be in the role that I occupy here. My life was shattered in Boston, and I didn’t know if the pieces would ever come together again. It’s taken nearly a year to put my life back together, but now I feel strong and content, now I feel whole, now I feel like I might be home. What I needed was a good ceremony, and today I got three.