I'm...not even on the right highway.

The other day, I was driving home from dinner with some friends and a funny thing happened.
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Here's a little context. For those of you who don't live here, Cincinnati has two main North-South interstates, I-71 and I-75. They shape a V around the inner part of the city--the two meet downtown at the Ohio River, and they spread out from one another as you go north into the suburbs.

Now that I live in Clifton, which is a couple miles north of downtown, I'm only a few minutes' drive from either interstate. But my apartment is slightly closer to I-75, and when I drive home from the East Side I like to take this short connector called "The Norwood Lateral" to 75 so I can get off at Exit 3, Hopple Street. Left onto Martin Luther King; left onto Dixmyth; left onto Whitfield. Cross Terrace, Howell, and Ludlow, and then it's the fourth house on the left. Easy Peasy.

Anyways, so there I was, driving south on I-71. I'm getting ready to get off on the Norwood Lateral, like normal, and I was thinking about the work I needed to get done.

I gotta try to read a good chunk of "Beloved."

And I need to do some more work on that stupid Writing Autobiography that's due Tuesday.

Oh shoot, and I should read some submissions for the Cincinnati Review.

I also need to start the reading for Teaching College Writing but that's totally not happen.

Suddenly I thought, "Wait, did I get on the Norwood Lateral??" I looked around and saw the lights of a strip mall up on a hill to the left and though, yeah, okay, that's the Target. It must be such a habit I didn't even notice taking the exit! So I continued driving. Ten minutes later, I started wondering why I hadn't hit I-75 yet and then realized I had never gotten off I-71 South in the first place. Um...oops! What I find funniest about this isn't that I missed my exit. It's that I thought I missed my exit, looked around, and completely and utterly misread everything. I didn't notice how everything looked different than it was supposed to. I didn't see the signs, the exits. I just blithely kept on driving.

This story isn't really that impressive, I know. I recently read something on the internet about a woman from Belgium who left her house intending to drive 50 miles west to pick her friend up from a train station, and accidentally drove east for two days. She ended up in Croatia.

But it got me thinking, and not just about faulty GPS systems or the dangers of absent-minded driving. And I'm not trying to make some cliche parallel to "not knowing what direction I'm going in" because I'm...fill in the blank: twenty-something, single, in grad school, the girl with the Dead Dad.

Instead, I was thinking about how sometimes it's all just so much. I feel like for every thing I do successfully--writing a paper, finishing a novel, teaching a good class or even having a drink with new friends--I drop three more things. The image that comes to mind is that guy at the circus who balances the spinning plates while riding a unicycle. Except that in this circus, he's shedding plates. The stage is littered with ceramic shards. The audience stares blankly at him; the wheel jerks unexpectedly as it rolls over the broken plates. This is the image I have of myself this semester.

Hermione, you lucky girl.

I saw a friend at a party recently who, when I told her I was "doing great!," just gave me that look. The yeah, right look.

But when the S hits the fan, my response is to deny, deny, deny. I think, if I just had that one thing! A boyfriend to make me feel special. Four more hours each day. A time-turner like Hermione Granger's. But this is never true. There is no magic wand you can wave to shorten your to-do list. You can't hire someone to do your reading. But you also can't stay chained to your desk.

(I'd end up like that lady in Kansas who had a phobia of not being able to get to the bathroom in time, so she sat on the toilet for two years. When they tried to help her out of there, she was stuck to the seat. Do not Google this.)

Sometimes I lose track of where I began. It's a symptom. Sorry.


Two years ago, I was in a similar place. My senior year of college sort of spun out of control. At one point, I tried to balance six classes (two of which happened at the same time), finish my 70-page honors thesis, work as a TA for the English department, be in the orchestra, do activities for the English Honors Organization, go to a conference, and spend time with my friends. C'est impossible!

I ended up quitting orchestra and taking time off after graduation--a great decision. After everything I have learned in the past year, though, I don't want to just start cutting things out. I don't want to simply shut down and retreat to my bedroom, like before. You have to bear up under what's really important. You have to keep moving forward, despite everything. You have to figure out a strategy, like Bradley Cooper's character in Silver Linings Playbook. (The acting was great, but the composition, weird, no?)

I feel very young, writing this. I know my older readers are either A) annoyed with my complaints or B) smiling and thinking, adorable. Either way. Have mercy on my young, misdirected soul. To bring back the navigation metaphor at the end of the piece: I'm doing my best to just stay on the damn highway. Wish me luck.

Equal Rights

sunrise from McMicken Hall

According to my page view statistics, there's at least one person who checks regularly to see if I've posted anything new. And to that one person, sorry for not writing often. It's just that--

"“The future, even when it was only a question-shrouded glimmer, would not be eclipsed by the past; even when death moved towards the centre of the stage, life went on fighting for equal rights.”
--Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

I'm happy to say that most of the time, my present life occupies my mind, rather than the past. I still miss Dad like crazy. I'm still occasionally caught off guard by moments of piercing grief. In late November, I was walking home after one of the most encouraging teaching moments of my life. I'd given a teaching demonstration in front of my Practicum class, my professor had used the phrase "the mark of a good teacher" to describe something I'd done instinctively, and I was just soaring down Clifton Ave afterwards. Then, all of the sudden, I felt such an ache because I wanted to call Dad. I wanted to call him and gush about finding a way that I can actually help people, I can connect to them and influence their lives--that I've looked up from the books and I can make the world a little better place. I know he'd say, "Well, honey, I'm not surprised." And I'd be so gratified. It's like, it's not an actual success until Dad tells me he's proud.

That's a hard thing.

But this isn't going to be a sad post. Because I'm not in a sad place; I'm in such a good place now. School is challenging and exciting, teaching is challenging and sometimes rewarding. The people here are wonderful. I love my neighborhood. In fact, I've been thinking lately about how passing the one year mark has given me a lot of perspective.

The first thing I see more clearly now is just how lost I was a year ago. Maybe everyone saw it except me. I used to think I was good at hiding how I really felt about stuff. But I've come to understand that I have the most obvious face, ever. Every single thought or emotion I have is telegraphed on my face; I can't help it! To everyone I've ever met: sorry I looked so annoyed that one time. I probably didn't mean for you to know.

Over the Christmas holiday this year, I decided to go back to Walmart to make a little extra money. While I was there, I ran into my favorite, favorite old lady named Marion. She's at least 83 and we were totally Walmart Besties. We were talking about school and she said something that really struck me: "You look so much happier!" At first I thought...Um, I look happy to be wearing these awful khaki pants, while I'm answering the phone at Walmart one day after finishing a 20 page paper? I didn't exactly feel spectacular, but then I realized she had known me during a very dark, very difficult time in my life. When--even as I laughed at a stupid customer or gleefully gossiped about some cashier we didn't like--the sadness was always right there, below the surface.

I really was adrift in my grief. But: working at Walmart is not one of the signs of how lost I was. Oddly enough, it was what kept me going. In the early days, the work was just enough to keep my mind occupied, so I wouldn't dwell on my Dad all day. It filled my time and wore me out, so I could actually sleep at night. And there are actually some incredibly wonderful people stuck working at places at Walmart. At first I got sympathy, and then afterwards, they left it alone unless I mentioned it. And I'm surprisingly grateful. It's hard to bear those looks of pity for very long.

And Walmart was exactly the right thing because I could clock out and not think about work until I walked in the next day. I know now I could not have managed school. I'm one of those students who becomes my classes. I eat, sleep, and breathe the assignments, my responsibilities, my work. Writing papers, even when they're just scholarly and not creative, requires a huge emotional and energetic commitment from me. I could not have focused last year. I struggled to simply fill out my grad school applications. One day when I thought my GRE scores hadn't gotten to Ohio State (ugh) in time, I broke down sobbing hysterically, out of the blue, because it was all just SO hard. I wonder now if my personal statements were exceptionally terrible. All I remember about that process was each time, I would write some thing about how Dad just died three weeks before and then I'd cut it out. My biggest goal was to not mention my dead Dad, so I couldn't really focus on my personal branding as a potential scholar and teacher. I was simply trying to survive. I see this now.

Everyone says, it's never okay, but it gets easier. And I think I finally know that to be true. I am grateful for everything that has happened in the past year. I'm grateful for understanding managers, for loving friends. I'm grateful that misery loves company, rather than isolation. I'm grateful for my siblings. I'm grateful that life provides the kind of relationships where you can sit crying on the kitchen floor with someone, as sad as it may seem. I'm grateful for kind words from students.

I'm grateful that life keeps on fighting for equal rights, despite everything.

The Joys of Teaching

So I don't really think I've written much--if anything--about my Master's program or my job as a Graduate Assistant teaching Freshman Composition at UC. It's the beginning of November, and things are going pretty well. My workload this semester isn't too intense. I'm not claiming to be some kind of genius...grad school is definitely a challenge. But two of my classes are sort of "introductory" and though my third class, English Renaissance Drama, is really interesting and challenging, the reading load is fairly light.

Despite this, I'm still busy most of the time. And it's all Teaching's fault.

Ah, teaching. It wearies my soul and gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me tear my hair out. Some days I really love it. I feel comfortable, they're engaged and learning. Last week I did a lesson on Genre and Audience using examples from the Harry Potter universe and they loved it. I do like my students. They're all remarkably hardworking and committed to the class, and their work is decent. They call me Professor Brown and they seem to respect me. I really like getting to know them individually. I want to invest in them, as much as I can, the way my professors invested in me in college.

But some days they drive me crazy. It can be difficult to get college students motivated about English at 8 in the morning. Sometimes their blank stares are so frustrating. Come on guys!, I enthuse, if you talk it'll be easier for all of us. And then we'll be done and you can leave. Don't you want to leave? It's like that scene in the classic 90s movie "Mrs. Doubtfire." Robin Williams tells the lady at the hiring agency that he "does voices." He then launches into a bunch of really funny impressions, but she never cracks a smile. She asks, "Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?" And he calmly replies, "I used to. There was a time when I found myself funny. But today, you have proven me wrong."

My students.

Me.

Just kidding. It's never quite that bad. Most of the time when my students are quiet or turn in atrocious work, it just makes me laugh. They're so adorably clueless sometimes. There's one kid who's a great student. But whenever I ask the class if I need to explain an assignment further, he just gives the slowest, saddest, most world-weary shake of his head. hahaha...Please.

A friend in my Practicum class recently described our role when we grade papers as similar to an Emergency Room doctor's: we assess the injuries and try to patch up the most critical ones first. We look at their bloody papers and make instant judgement calls, we shout at the nurses to BRING MORE GAUZE!:

 White male, 18 years old. Okay: we gotta fix this organization or he'll bleed out on the table.  And we've got a gaping hole in the logic here caused by a single gun shot wound to the body paragraphs. Let's sew up the conclusion now or else it'll infect the rest of the essay from the bottom up. Get some transitions in here, stat! We can deal with the surface abrasions caused by faulty grammar when he's out of the woods.

But I've got this one student. If we extend the Emergency Room metaphor...he is DOA. He seems completely lost in college. Even in the first weeks, he didn't seem to grasp the concepts, or even the fact that his actions have consequences. He didn't turn things in, and what he did submit was absolutely unacceptable compared to his peers' work and the expectations for the Composition Program. When I talked to him personally, he always offered really off-the-wall excuses. But he seemed to be genuinely struggling, so I made a conscious effort to talk to him, to offer extensions, to give encouragement.

At UC, like many other colleges, undergraduate students have to pass English 1001 to graduate. If they earn below a C-, we give them an "NP," or "Not Proficient," and they have to take it again until they pass. And unfortunately, there's a point at which you  just can't recover from the poor work you've done. There's no way to get that C-. This student massively failed the first major paper, despite the suggestions I gave on the first draft. When I discussed it with the head of the Comp Program, she agreed with me--he can't recover. He should drop my course and register for the class below it, English 1000, in the spring. So then I was faced with a dilemma. How do I tell this student that he's failed already? It wasn't even October yet! Do you just say, YO, DROP MY CLASS? Maybe give him one of these?

NP for effort!

That week, I had planned to schedule individual meetings with my students. I knew it would be maybe my only opportunity to talk frankly with this student, to help him see the severity of the situation.

The conference day arrived, a Wednesday. As I walked to campus, I was still pondering how I should break the news gently to this student. This poor, fragile guy. And finally it came to me: an apt metaphor for what I'm doing is like when a doctor breaks bad news to a patient. I thought about my dad. He was fantastic with his patients--everyone always says he was an amazing listener. He really listened to their concerns, to how they were feeling. He never tried to rush people out of the office. He was kind and patient and understanding. He always explained everything and answered any questions. He invested in them.

So I'm walking up the hill and repeating to myself, good bedside manner, good bedside manner. Be kind, be kind, be gentle. When, a few minutes later, the student approached my table at Starbucks, I reminded myself to channel Dr. Brown. It...it went as well as I could have hoped. He was upset to hear he was failing so badly, but seemed to understand me. I apologized for having to give him such bad news. But I tried to balance the bad news with encouragement and advice: even if you drop now, you will be more prepared for next time. You just have to take advantage of the resources on campus. You have some nice ideas in your papers, but your writing just isn't quite there yet. (Okay, that one was sort of a lie.)

Maybe I did a better job being nice than convincing the student of the hopelessness of his grade, because he didn't drop. He stayed. He even raised his hand and answered a question last Thursday! He turned in a couple more assignments, but not the draft of the 8-page research paper. With anyone else, this would turn me into Red-Alert-Oh-Boy-You're-Screwed professor, but with this guy...it doesn't exactly matter. The last day to drop has passed, so he's officially getting an NP...no matter what.

I guess my job should be some combination of the kindly, helpful family practice doctor--who has the time and heart to explain things, to listen as they stumble towards a vaguely workable research topic--and an ER doctor, who's just trying to keep the patient alive, at all costs.

I don't know. Every time I'm harsh, I feel bad; every time I let something slide, I regret it. I'm still trying to work out the right mix of nice and tough. Ultimately, though, I'm just really hoping that this guy doesn't show up on my roster next semester! I'm not as good a person as my Dad was.

Last

October 16, 2011.

This is, I'm nearly certain, the last picture anyone took of my father. We ate our first dinner out on the new patio, and then we sat around the fire pit we got Dad for Father's Day. I told them to squeeze together so I could take a picture. 

Last picture, last conversation, last dinner, last laughter, last love.
How unprepared we always are.

How to Let Go

One of the most confusing aspects of grief is the sneaking conviction that you're doing it wrong.

You start thinking to yourself, "Surely, I should be okay by now, right?" Even though all the books and all your friends tell you there's no right way to grieve...You can't help but wonder whether it's okay to still be sad. A couple of weeks ago was the anniversary of my trip to Maine last year with my parents. Those days were some of my last, best memories with my Dad. I had been trying to get work done all day, but I was really struggling. So at one point I was laying on my bed bawling and I suddenly wondered what my Dad would say if he could see me. Moping around and crying, a year later, just because he died. I thought, would he be disappointed? Would he say, That's nice of you, honey, but enough is enough.

It's been nearly a year since he died. That's such a distinct and knowable amount of time. Eleven months doesn't sound that long, but a year...that has weight. It has meaning. As a student, your life is broken up into years. Each fall represents a chance to start over, to make new friends and new memories--a clear demarcation between then and now. But now the changing leaves, the brisk wind, the dreary, grey skies all remind me of last year, the days when the weather outside echoed my feelings inside.

I read somewhere that grief is a shapeshifter. It's true. You think you figure something out, then suddenly you're completely lost again. Wait, how do I live without my Dad? I find myself going through emotions I thought I'd dealt with. I find myself feeling resentment over something I thought I'd made peace with. I find myself worrying at night, when I'd been sleeping well for months and months.

I was reminded of an advice column I read after my Dad died. "Sugar" is the pen name of Cheryl Strayed, a writer who happened to lose her mother at 22. One letter she received was from a man who felt helpless in the face of his fiancee's grief over the loss of her own mother, ten years before.

She starts off her response with a story:

"Several months after my mother died I found a glass jar of stones tucked in the far reaches of her bedroom closet. I was moving her things out of the house I’d thought of as home, clearing way for the woman with whom my stepfather had suddenly fallen in love. It was a devastating process—more brutal in its ruthless clarity than anything I’ve ever experienced or hope to again—but when I had that jar of rocks in my hands I felt a kind of elation I cannot describe in any other way except to say that in the cold clunk of its weight I felt ever so fleetingly as if I were holding my mother.

That jar of stones wasn't just any jar of stones. They were rocks my brother and sister and I had given to our mom. Stones we’d found as kids on beaches and trails and the grassy patches on the edges of parking lots and pressed into her hands, our mother’s palms the receptacle for every last thing we thought worth saving.

I sat down on the bedroom floor and dumped them out, running my fingers over them as if they were the most sacred things on the earth. Most were smooth and black and smaller than a potato chip. Worry stones my mother had called them, the sort so pleasing against the palm she claimed they had the power to soothe the mind if you rubbed them right.

What do you do with the rocks you once gave to your dead mother? Where is their rightful place? To whom do they belong? To what are you obligated? Memory? Practicality? Reason? Faith? Do you put them back in the jar and take them with you across the wild and unkempt sorrow of your twenties or do you simply carry them outside and dump them in the yard?" 

---Cheryl Strayed, "The Black Arc of It" 

A year ago, I would have said, Of course--throw out the stupid rocks. They aren't your mother. But now, as I'm facing the long years without my father, I'm not so sure.

I worry about forgetting. I think about how we all eventually get relegated to stories, to a small box filled with inconsequential items--a pair of glasses, a watch, a book, a smooth stone. And I guess that is the natural order of things, that people fade from life and then fade from our memories. But I'm having a hard time accepting that truth right now. I just want him to stay. I just want him to always be present in my heart. I want to remember my Dad, the things he taught me, his smile. I want to honor his memory. I don't want the anniversaries to pass like any other day. I want to sit with the grief and know it as part of who I am. I want to give thanks for it.

How do you begin to let go?

Sugar ends her letter by encouraging the man to simply bear witness to his fiancee's grief: It'll never be okay, but that's okay. There isn't an expiration date on the sadness of losing a parent at a young age. I have to remind myself that I'm still very close to it all--I won't be able to see whether I've been "doing it right" for a very long time. I have to hold on to the hope, the faith, that someday it will be different:

"Next week it will be twenty years since my mother died. So long I squint every time the thought comes to me. So long that I've finally convinced myself there isn't a code to crack. The search is over. The stones I once gave my mother have scattered, replaced by the stones my children give to me. I keep the best ones in my pockets. Sometimes there is one so perfect I carry it around for weeks, my hand finding it and finding it, soothing itself along the black arc of it."

Am I holding on to my own worry stones? Have I wrapped my grief around my shoulders like a security blanket? Am I clutching my sadness to my breast, so that he doesn't fade away? But if I'm no longer actively grieving...am I actively forgetting my Dad? I just really don't know.

Maybe in another year I'll have a better perspective--or in ten, or twenty. For now, I just don't know.

Perhaps I'm so worried about this because we're approaching Year One. Or perhaps it's because so much is changing in my life right now. And while it's good and exciting and refreshing, I find myself grasping desperately onto things I know. To people I love. To my family and to my memories. To the smooth stones (and hopes and dreams and questions) I once entrusted to my Dad's strong hands, the safest place for them.

(Postsecret).

One more miracle

"But, please, there's just one more thing, one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be...dead. Would you do that just for me? Just stop it. Stop this."

--John Watson, Sherlock