Disappointment

As a writer, I'm supposed to have a firm grasp of the language.  I use words to recreate reality, or I'm supposed to anyway.  I remember being young.  I saw the world in terms I understood.  I created reality from firm definitions, words I knew, but I didn't realize my own ignorance.  So, I'll begin in a way I tell my students not to, with a definition.

Disappointment is defined as the state or feeling of being disappointed.  It's a vague definition that uses the root word in its own definition.  It tells us nothing.  I thought I knew what the word meant.  


In my youth the word represented moments when expectations went unfulfilled.  The movie "Daredevil" disappointed me.  My GPA disappointed me.  The fact that I rarely got laid disappointed me.  These were major concerns to a young man, but they are minor concerns to an older man.


It's an issue of scale.  As a young man, life revolves around the self.  I didn't get laid.  The movie disappointed me.  As an older man, I've run into a new level of disappointment.  I've run into the disappointment of my parenting skills.  Classrooms haven't ignited with new learning.  My wife has been disappointed in preventable ways.  And, finally, my daughter's life has been harder than I could have ever wanted.


Today was a rough day.  It was the day where my daughter could have been "healed".  She has kidney reflux.  It's an issue dealing with the bladder, but effects her kidneys.  Today was the day when a procedure could have ended all that, if every thing went according to plan.  It didn't.


Tracy and I sat in the family waiting room of the day surgery ward while my daughter went into the surgery bay today.  We knew that there were two ways the day would go.  The first was that the doctor would insert a camera and a needle through her urethra.  This way described a procedure where they would inject a small amount of fluid into the tube draining from her kidney to her bladder.  This fluid would constrict the opening of the tube and prevent her urine from backing up to her kidney.  This would, in turn, prevent her urine from scarring her kidney and allow it to grow.  


The other version involved a level of deformity in her valves that wouldn't allow the procedure to move forward.  The doctor told us that this level of deformity was an unlikely thing, but that it would be known within minutes of Shea's entrance into the surgical bay.


Well, after Shea went into surgery, I went to the gift shop.  I bought a copy of Rolling Stone for myself and an issue of Real Simple for Tracy.  The whole walk, which was an excuse to escape the waiting room in the first place, took about 15 minutes.  When I returned to the waiting room, I passed Tracy's magazine to her.  She set it on her lap.  She thanked me for it.  She knew it was a distraction I needed.  I hadn't even gotten past the sections of the magazine that are basically quips on photographs when I looked up and saw the surgeon.


It.  Was.  Disappointment.  I had promised myself that I wouldn't hope.  I promised myself I wouldn't set mental expectations for the day, but what can you do?  I'm a father.  I'm a father to a wonderful three year old girl with persistent health issues.  I hoped.


When I saw the doctor standing at the end of the row, I heard Tracy gasp, or say something, or sob, I'm ashamed to say that I don't know which.  I saw the doctor and I saw him acknowledge us and then turn to the private consulting room.  He turned his back to my wife and I as we gathered up our backpack full of child-sized snow boots, our travel coffee mugs, and, yes, our copies of Rolling Stone and followed him into the private room.  The bad news room.  


I had already pinpointed the room when I walked into the waiting room.  It lurked on the corner of my vision like a specter, like THE specter everyone in that room was avoiding, and I had to enter it.  I knew what lie inside that room and so nothing in that room mattered.  My reaction, my wife's reaction, the doctor's tact and sensitivity, his personal anecdotes about children with the same issue, none of it mattered because I knew what it was before I ever set foot in that room.


As a parent, when you get this kind of news, it requires you to reconstruct your reality bit by bit.  I know I said I tried not to have expectations, but who's kidding who?  I had to rebuild my reality again in that moment.   It was a moment where I doubted my potential.


I hurt for Shea.  I want her to have an easy life.  I want two fully functional kidneys.  I want no more anesthesia.  I want no more catheters, scans, probes, low dose antibiotics, therapy days, etc.  I don't want this for me.  I want this for her.  I wish she wasn't so good with doctors because she hadn't seen them all her life.  I wish she was wary of nurses and that she didn't ask them to hold their stethoscopes up to her chest.  


But, none of that wishing does anything.  My daughter IS trusting of doctors and nurses.   She thinks blood pressure tests are "arm hugs."  She thinks stethoscopes are cool and she even knows how to deep breaths when the nurses press the cold metal the smooth pink flesh of her back.  She's used to going to hospital bookshelves and pulling out the shared books.  She thinks the portable console with the Nintendo inside is awesome.  Notice how none of these words are negative.  This is exactly what I mean.  This is normal for her.  She's used to it.  The fallout comes from my expectations, my hopes, dreams, aspirations.


So, I play Nintendo on hospital wheelie carts.  I read books with the printed label "Property of Legacy Emmanuel Hospital" inside.  She doesn't care.  I do.  And therein lies the problem.


This is my new disappointment.  I don't think my younger self would even have a word for this.  I don't think my younger self would have hung out this long to understand it.  I like being an older man.  I like being here.  My life is here.  My loves are here.  I will know disappointment on new levels as the days pass.  I will know new levels of complexity, of maturity, of emotion, of love.  There are moments where I want my youth back. Today, even after all of this, isn't one of those days.  I've lived with myself for 34 years and I'm sick of myself as a subject.  If I get Shea, I'll live with disappointment.

Using Timed Exercise to "Slow Down"

I'm toting around a stack of rough drafts right now, the last ones I'm commenting on for the entire semester, and I've been trying to find time to grade them without taking over my private time.  I'm on a crusade to preserve private time right now.  Well, in order to "slow down" and have time to myself, I've begun using a countdown timer to keep me on task and to limit the amount of time I'm spending on any one given student rough draft.

Fifteen minutes is the magic number.  I've been giving myself fifteen minutes and a bulleted list approach to feedback for each student draft.  To my surprise, I'm able to almost fill each student response sheet with pointed revision feedback.  I'm going to be able to turn around a whole class full of essays in the matter of just five hours.  I don't know why I've never considered giving myself a deadline.  It's brilliant.  The timer goes off, I write my last bit of endnotes and I move on to the next student's paper.

I've always tried to keep track of the amount of time I spend on each student draft but I've got the feeling that I haven't been altogether accurate with my timekeeping.

The point of all this.  Harness time to our advantage instead of being a slave to it.  By using time to keep me focused and on task, I'll be able to meet my deadline and not exhaust myself with 3 am grading sessions.  HOORAH!

Support Independent Literature

Hello WTF followers and Facebook friends,

I'd like to take a moment to recognize the efforts of some amazing people I know out there in this great big world.  The world of publishing can be a harrowing place full of pitfalls and compromises, but I am so very blessed to know a handful of individuals who are running their own projects in an effort to keep the literary world alive and kicking.

If you have a few moments, check out some of these links and buy some of the journals these wonderful editors and artists are bringing to the world.  Without them, the world would be a little less rich.  They are the backbone of new art, new literature, and they should be rewarded and compensated for their HARD work.

Trachodon: http://www.trachodon.org/ - A Dinosaur of a Little Magazine
Silk Road: http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/index.html - A Literary Crossroads
Work: http://workmagazine.wordpress.com/ - Dedicated to Celebrating the Daily Grind
Projector: www.projectormagazine.com - Focuses Light on to Film
Perigee: http://www.perigee-art.com/ - Publication for the Arts

All of the people who make up these organizations are passionate, hard-working, and dedicated to keeping the written word and our cultural history/legacy growing with each passing day.  Please consider rewarding them for their efforts with a small pittance, a few shekels, and reap the rewards of your generosity by discovering their unique vision of art and artistry.

Thanks for your time,

Kyle

Buried in Graphic Novels...And Loving It!!!

There's nothing better than having an excuse to spend money on the things you love.  Oh, and getting reimbursed for it with your professional development funds.  As I get further and further along the road to developing my Graphic Novel as Literature course, I'm getting deeper and deeper into the world of comics.  Who would have thought it possible?

First, let me start by saying I'm a traditional superhero comics guy.  Tights and flights type of fare, but the world is slowly opening to me and showing me all the types of stories that can be told in this medium.  On my desk right now are:

Pride of Baghdad
Persepolis
Blankets
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Understanding Comics
Promethea
Refresh, Refresh
and many others.

I'm swimming in this medium and loving every minute of it.  First off, "Understanding Comics" is a revelation.  I've been collecting comics for so long, but I've never quite understood the form of them in the same way I do now.  The scale of abstraction vs. realistic depiction, the gutter, etc.  There's a whole vocabulary out there that is making my experience of the medium that much deeper, richer, and exciting. 

I wonder though if it will be like what a former grad school advisor warned me about in diving into reading.  "Once you start reading like a writer, it takes a bit of the joy out of it."  Well, I still love to read good fiction so I'm hoping that understanding the mechanics of graphic novels will not diminish my love. 

Ah, who's kidding who, we're like star-crossed lovers comics and I.  I'll drink the poison before I let them go.

Gumbo

A couple of days ago, the light in my office was yellow with warmth.  I had a break in between student appointments and I was eating my lunch.  The trees outside my window now slide through a scale of perfectly bare to alit with the flame of Fall.  The season is advancing like the term, rapidly. 

I'm sitting at my desk, looking out the window when suddenly I am struck dumb by "gumbo."  I don't know why the word appeared in my head.  My lunch didn't consist of anything remotely close to gumbo.  I hadn't read anything that had gumbo in it.  It was simply the word rising out of my consciousness and calling attention to itself.  I opened up a word document and started writing.  I got down three pages of a story.  "Gumbo."  That's all it takes sometimes.  A word, an image, a brief awareness of something outside the self and all of a sudden my fingers are flying across the keyboard trying to learn who Latisha and Carl are.  I don't know why "Latisha", I don't know why "Carl", but they are the two people occupying the home in the Eola Hills where the gumbo is being cooked.  Words have power when we listen to them.  Here's the first two ROUGH paragraphs of the story that was born out of gumbo:

Latisha stood over the pot, stirring in the last of the diced jalapenos when Carl returned from fishing.  She knew he'd return early.  He'd seen her pulling the gumbo pot out of the pantry the night before.  If there was one thing Carl couldn't resist, it was 'Tisha's gumbo.  He'd left before first light as he always did.  She'd watched him dress in the dark from under the covers.  Fall had arrived early this year and the night's chill resonated throughout the bedroom.

Stupid space heater, 'Tisha thought.  She wanted central air, or baseboard heaters that she didn't have to worry about bursting into flames in the middle of the night.  Sure, she knew plenty of people around who burned the space heaters all night, but 'Tisha'd lost her grandmother that way and she wasn't about to take the risk in her own house.

The Return of "You and Me Day"

When I was teaching on a four day schedule, I used to have Fridays off.  Fridays were days spent with Shea-at home, at the mall, at the park, at a friend's house-it didn't matter.  It was Shea and I together.  We began calling them "You and Me Days".  As I tucked her in to bed on Thursday nights, I would ask her, "Do you know what tomorrow is?" 

She'd gasp, pull the blankets up to her chin, and say, "You and Me Day?!"

"Mmhmm.  It's 'You and Me Day.'"

When I started the five-day work week, Fridays vanished as "You and Me Day".  So, when I heard that Tracy was going wine-tasting with her girlfriends, I secretly thrilled to the idea of being home alone with Shea.  Now, it's November in Oregon, so the weather wasn't the great.  We couldn't go to the park or anywhere like that, but I was determined to give Shea a fun day.  When I asked her what she wanted to do, she said, "Just stay home."  Again, I was secretly thrilled. 

It's fun to take Shea out of the house, but it's even more fun to stay home and play.  We get out the pretty dress up dresses, the tiaras, the radio, wands, stuffed animals, etc.  There's no end of fun to be had in the house and Saturday was no different.

At one point Shea was dancing on the bed and she was making me laugh so hard I had to go get the video camera.  She's turning into a regular dance floor diva.  I don't know if you will be able to hear it in the video, but she turns back to me at one point and informs me, "This is Lady Gaga."  I'm not sure if I find that cute, funny, or terrifying.  Here's a quick clip of her moves.

We played dress-up, took her babies to an imaginary park, got the guitar and the ukulele out, played music together, and danced away the afternoon.  When I finally left her room to check the time, it was an hour and a half past her nap time.  Oops!  When I finally got her calmed down enough to take a nap, brushed her hair out of her face, and gave her a kiss, she looked up at me and said, "I love 'You and Me Day.'"  I couldn't agree more.

Raindrop Kara-Shea

Grey clouds slide across the sky like silent assassins preparing for a sneak attack.  I'm outside the house with my stalwart companions - Shea and Neera - ensuring the safety of our compound.  Neera, who is on ground patrol, keeps returning with the same suspect - a raggedy tennis ball.  As her commanding officer, I order her to leave the ball alone, but she suspects the thing of terrorist plots. 

Suddenly, from above, the onslaught begins.  Raindrops descend upon my balding skull as I take cover under the eaves, scanning the sky to see if we should wait out the attack or retreat inside.  My second-in-command, Shea, the purple assassin and hothead soldier, takes matters into her own hands.  In the rallying battle cry of a good soldier, she sings out, "Rain, rain, go away, come again another day," and unleashes a barrage of karate blows unlike anything ever recorded in human history.  Each flashing blow is accompanied by a forceful and brutish, "Hi-yah."

The attack is brutal.  The rain never knows what hits it, but Shea is determined and she keeps up her berserker rage until she is out of breath and can't sing the "Rain, Rain" song anymore.  When she is done, she swipes the back of her hand across her forehead and sighs, "Whew."  The rain may have won the battle, but I'll return with my troops on another day.  The war has yet to be decided.  The purple assassin is pleased with the carnage of the day.

The Imminent Window of Free Time

It's freaking November, people.  I can't believe it.  My daughter is talking to me about Santa, we're putting her preschool holiday "concert" on the calendar, and I've already bought a couple of gifts for my wife.  Winter is here.  Sunday is "Fall Back" and the nights will grow increasingly cold and stormy.

With this season comes a break.  A BREAK!  I can't even breathe I'm so excited.  The week of Thanksgiving will mark the steadily decreasing work load that will take me straight into December and through most of January.  I have some ideas.

I want to hang out with my wife in the evenings, rubbing her feet and having a glass of red wine.  I want to spend some December afternoons at home with my daughter for what we affectionately call "You and Me" days.  I want to see my friends.  I want to play cards and maybe have a couple beers.  I want to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in the theater.  I want to go skiing.  I want to read a novel for pleasure.  I want.  I want.  I want. 

I've been giving my energy to others since last Christmas break and I'm exhausted, spent, and ready to recharge.  I'm ready to be a "selfish prick" by loving the things I love for extended periods of time and ignoring everything else.  Tracy...I choose you.  Shea...I choose you.  Kyle...I choose you.  John (Character in my novel)...I choose you.  The rest of you might be shit out of luck if you come asking for favors.  BUT, if you call to chat, to have a cup of coffee, or to see a movie, I'll be overwhelmed with joy that you thought of  me.

I love Christmas, always have; it's my favorite time of year.  This year I plan to celebrate by appreciating all of the blessings in my life: my family, my health, my creativity, and my good fortune.  It's looking to be a magical holiday season.

Disbelief

For a change of pace, I decided to do more of a kinetic exercise in my WR 115 class yesterday.  It was an exercise in careful observation, use of concrete details in writing, how to control time in a narrative.  ANYWAY, it was basically an exercise where they have to take a walk and then I teach them a bunch of things that can arise out of taking a walk.  It is one of my most favorite lessons to teach and I was a little school-girl giddy about it.

We were halfway through class when one of my students in a lull says, "Can we go outside today?"

"Yes," I said.  The student stared at me in disbelief, wondering if he had magic powers like Harry Potter or, for the older set, Fonzi.  Had he somehow convinced me of  something.

I explained the exercise to them, that they were allowed to go outside for ten minutes but they couldn't take their phones, not to walk in pairs, not to chat, but to go take a quiet walk around campus.  The weather couldn't have cooperated more if I'd had control over it.  It'd warmed to seventy outside but it had rained the day before and fall was in the air, like a ripe apple harvest.

The room emptied in 10 seconds flat.  They were practically storming out of the classroom.  Except.  Except for two young girls.  One of the girls came up to me and asked a clarifying question about the assignment.  She's a quiet girl in class and so I answered the question before saying, "Are you going to go outside now?"  She made up some lame story about having broken toes.  No boot, no cast, no limp.  Yeah, right!

The second girl sat quietly in the corner of the room.  She's seemed like a nice enough girl in the class, but she also doesn't say much.  When I say, "Are you, um, going to go outside?"  She shakes her head "no" and looks back down at her folder.

"You know this is an exercise for the class and not a bathroom break, right?"

"Yes," she says.

"You know we're going to do a writing exercise after this that is based on the walk, right?"

"Yes."

"You know this isn't just a busy work task, but an actual lesson that pertains to the essay your writing.  I don't waste class time with just time fillers."

The girl looks up from her notebook, levels her gaze at me, and says, "You can make a note in your little book if you like."  She then returns to her notebook.

I mark her absent for the day.  She remains in the class for the remainder of the period, even interrupting a discussion later in the day by talking with her neighbor.  She's the reason I have an attendance and participation portion of the grade that is reserved for my best judgment.  If it happens again, there will be consequences.

Political Ads at Two am, or My Dog Ate My Homework

***I don't know what happened, but I thought I posted this a couple of days ago.  It didn't go through, but I figured why not.  I'm sorry, Professor, but my dog ate my homework.***

I'm quite possibly at my grouchiest at two am.  Well, that's not true.  I'm quite possibly my most indignant.  This election season I found myself watching a lot of television advertisements.  They made me feel old.  They made me feel like that old man who says, "In my day..."  You can finish the sentence however you like, but, in my day, it didn't seem like the political ads were this shameless.  There were so many ads that quoted out of context, that played upon the fears of the public, or outright lied. 

When your sleep deprived and waist deep in student papers, papers where you are trying to teach them about honest expression, ethical uses of quoted material, and the need to create trust between the reader and writer, these ads become a big deal.  At two am I'm considering letters to congressmen and candidates.  I'm outraged at undisclosed funding sources, of emotional arguments, of logical fallacies in professional argument.  I can smell the fertilizer you're hoping will bloom into an argument that sways me via pathos. 

I am a citizen, damn it, talk to me straight.  I have an education, common sense, a sense of fairness, a strong sense of family, community, and civic obligation, and an ability to judge character.  Your ads do not speak to any of these things.  Quit the pandering and let's have a fucking conversation already.

The Joy Narrative comes to the classroom.

I enter the classroom in a jumble of bags, papers, and coffee.  The students are all present all ready.  My mentor is standing at the front of the class addressing all of them, fielding questions.  When I set my things down and get my head about me, they actually seem to quiet. 

This is my class of college freshmen.  This has been my "problem" class, the one I've had to scold and lecture about attention and the ability to follow verbal directions.  So, imagine my surprise when I set out to read the poem of the day and they appear attentive.

The essay we are set to discuss for the day is Andrew Sullivan's "What Is a Homosexual?" and they all appear ready to launch into the discussion.  I've scheduled for half the class period to be taken up with discussion of the essay and then we will move on to the handout and sample essay I have concerning illustration.  Well, I almost don't get the chance.

The class comes alive with discussion within a matter of minutes.  There are people expressing views that range from the simple and biased to complex and rich.  It's a lovely conversation, one where I am simply operating as a mediator and not an orator.  I love these days.  We talk about gender versus sex, cross-dressing, segregation, and various pleas for acceptance from certain corners.  It is engaged, respectful, and honest and I find myself loving them in that moment.

I'm so proud of them and I remember why I'm a teacher.  I love it when I see people thinking about ideas and discussing them respectfully.  I don't care if I agree with them or not.  Without lively debate there is no new knowledge.  Or is that no new wisdom?  Not sure and today I don't care.  Can't wait to get back in the classroom.