The MLA.

For most English, Language, and Writing professors these three letters conjure up images of 8,000-10,000 people in glasses and tweed descending on a unsuspecting city, stress-filled interviews in cramped hotel rooms, and hours of conference presentations in a strange, secret language. Actually, I was surprised. Usually, I hate going to the MLA. This year, it was a holiday for me.

Only life as a single mother professor could make the MLA fun.

It's been years since I attended, but I went this year with daughter and soon-to-be ex-husband as childcare provider in tow. I tell you....things have changed, or maybe I have.

I saw children there. Many of them. They ran through hallways, banging on doors. The stood on the chairs in the lobby, waving out the windows. They climbed wrought iron railings along the stairways leading up the mezzazine. I even went to a cash bar in which parents were passing around an infant. I don't remember seeing so many children at the MLA before. But then again, maybe I didn't notice them because at that point, I was wearing the lenses of a non-parent that allowed me to not register children, except as a nuisance. "What IS that child doing?" I thought of the MLA as an adult play space: no kids allowed.

This year, however, I felt welcomed as I trotted through the lobby with my two-year old daughter. Other conference goers smiled and laughed at Sarah's exhuberant tap dancing on the marble floor with her new ruby red shoes. One handsome man even watched us as we clicked across the floor, a longing in his eyes. I was flattered by his face, his acceptence of me and Sarah as a team, his obvious interest. I didn't expect it. I expected to be invisible, like children and mothers once were to me. As a mother, I never thought anyone would notice me.

I also never imagined how wonderful it could be to have a wife. During those four days in San Diego, I had the team player I always wanted in my husband. He took Sarah to the zoo, the aquarium, walking on the beach, and out for ice cream. I went to paper sessions, met old friends for lunch, and actually went out for a drink one evening. I had not taken this kind of personal freedom since Sarah was born. I was giddy. Of course, it was only a moment in time. My soon-to-be ex-husband went back to his regular self the minute the conference was over. But those glorious few days. Wow. So that is what it is like to have a wife. No wonder men don't want to give up their traditional wives. I wouldn't either.

So, for a few days, I integrated my work and private lives. I heard a conference paper, then went upstairs to put my daughter down for nap, then went back to hear another paper. I moved through spaces filled with professors, my daughter's hand in mine. I met with helpful professional friends who gave me advice on the job market, sure, but also on being a mother in the academy, on getting by on my own, on surviving divorce. My two worlds came together, and I felt powerful and respected and important in each.

Now my job is to carry that feeling with me as I move into my daily life. The barriers between my two worlds is created mostly by me. I know some of it may be reinforced by what is in the academy, but only if I let it in, can it make me feel lesser. Only if I internalize the oppression, can it really wound me. Time has come to stop expecting or hoping for invisibility.

I think that at times I have tried to make myself smaller than I am in an effort to be pleasing. A southern girl at heart, I have masked my intelligence so no one would think I was "putting on airs." I have purposely played down myself so that others would not find me intimidating. I have remained silent when I should have spoken. I have remained still when I should have moved. And this thinking has traveled with me into motherhood, at least in part. Don't stand out. Don't make yourself visible. Subsume yourself in your motherhood. Be the role. Yet, I know I am more than the role. I have more to say, more do, more to be. So I am in conflict with myself. Wanting to be seen and not seen, to be and not be, to lose myself in the role and to find myself there.

This trip to San Diego brought it all out. And I felt, once again, how good it feels to be see, to do, to be. And there is no going back now.