Office Hours

Kimberlee Mix

photo credit: Kimberlee Mix: Ireland, 2003

My virtual office door swung open, just seconds after inhaling a moment of sweet silence in my bedroom. I clicked the window open and used my screen as a mirror to center my vintage necklace.

I am holding office hours for my class, a chance to say good-bye and swap smiles one last time. At the end of the Zoom link sits a virtual space I have curated with everything that fills the screen. My real office door is closed and for these next two hours I will be present.  

I wait for you to wander down the virtual hallway and listen for your backpack falling heavy to the ground. It is full of stress and dreams deferred.  We are wrapping up a challenging semester, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Some of you were looking forward to commencement this weekend, but instead a virtual brunch and a live stream of cocktails will mark the occasion. I will be there, but it won’t be the same. 

You find my office after clicking the wrong link and wandering a different floor. Please take a seat, I saved a space for you right in front of me, on the edge of the bed.  

We put our phones away and focus on this strange place to which we have both digressed. We stumble through the initial sound checks and peer in closer at one another. I’ve locked down distractions on the desktop and your face fills my screen.  It’s just you and me here so far, but I’ll keep an eye on the waiting room.  

This session will not be recorded. As you know, there is no space left on my computer for the file and there is not a cloud in the sky today. I promise to capture only mental screenshots and notes on my yellow ruled pad. 

The last time we met like this, we were a sea of faces snapped to a grid, audio muted, and backgrounds real. Eye contact was impossible, but I could hear your replies in the chat. It would be hard to deliver my heartfelt message in a stadium like that. 

Today is different. The sun streams in my window and our two faces superimpose on the screen. The light plays tricks. My reflection overlaps with your image, our features merge. I smirk when I notice my necklace on you and I take up your graduation cap. 

I see you sitting there on your porch, in your living room, on your balcony, and I know how uncertain life feels right now. You think I have it together on my end, but I’m wobbling on a balance ball and hiding my slow-motion-bike-wreck bruise under the kitchen table. The postal carrier drops an essential package on the porch and my office shakes.

As you come and go, I hear about your plans to move this summer, to have crawfish on the beach, to relax by the pool. You laugh when I offer you a donut through the screen and tell me you had one yesterday. I look down at my bare feet. If I was wearing your shoes, what message would I be longing to hear?  

I know the clanging of the infodemic must be hurting your ears by now. Please put your ear buds in and listen to this instead. You smile when you hear Little Dragon, P-Square, Lil Uzi Vert, and Frank Sinatra remixed. I introduce you to Ravi Shankar for your melancholic road trips and Toad the Wet Sprocket so you don’t take these things for granted.    

I have a moment of silence when you leave the screen. You give me 40 minutes of idle time, and my virtual office door slams shut automatically. 

I swing the door open again and deliver my closing remarks to an empty room. It’s a story about dropping my last laundry quarters into a mechanical slot machine on my senior class trip and literally winning my first passport. I suddenly became a college graduate abroad in a pre-9/11 world, sleeping with one eye open on the Holyhead ferry. That lucky trip infected me with an unshakeable wanderlust and a deep desire to understand my place in the world. I can still feel my feet sinking into the shores of the Emerald Isle, twenty-two years later. 

I hold tight to the belief that serendipitous journeys grant perpetual lessons and uncertainty is ripe with opportunity.  When it is safe to travel again, I wish you the same lucky fate of incurable wanderlust and opportunity. 

I’m going to pass over the host controls to you now, but promise you’ll send postcards.

Dr. Kim Mix is an associate professor of biological sciences at Loyola University New Orleans. She graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1998 and went on to win $900 at Foxwood’s Casino on her senior class trip. @KimMix15