the busy heart

Emily Dickinson, who may have been amused, but probably not. Eleanor Roosevelt, who I do not think would have been amused. Yesterday I was teaching Emily Dickinson's poetry. I was so excited to be teaching Emily Dickinson's poetry that I felt like dancing right up at the front of the class. I had inadvertently assigned five creepy poems about death (which is easy to do when you're assigning Dickinson), but it didn't even matter because she's so awesome and I love her and I want to be her when I grow up and I think she had one of the most bizarre and most brilliant minds that has ever graced this planet.  We were talking about this poem , which begins "I died for beauty, but was scarce / Adjusted in the tomb, / When one who died for truth was lain / In the adjoining room." But when I went to read to it to the class, I accidentally said, "I died for booty." And then I couldn't stop laughing. I leaned over the podium, gripping the...

I like Easter, I've decided. There's less hubbub surrounding it, so there's no use spending oodles of money and traveling across the country for it, and it's easier to make it a quiet day. And easier to think about its religious significance, if you're so inclined. Which I am. But when Sunday dawned, I confess that church was the last thing I was interested in. Sam was sleeping soundly, and though the day looked sunny and gorgeous, and Henrietta and I were in our colorful Easter Best, I was so full of dread as I drove to church that I frightened myself. I felt like weeping. Maybe it was because just the previous Sunday I had attended with a whole bunch of my family, but it seemed a particularly lonely thing to be doing. Let's be honest: sometimes I don't want to go to church. Especially lately, with 9am meetings, and a new ward (because of our move) that I don't feel super close to, and a squirmy baby who doesn't want to nap when there are all so...

On Monday I visited a college campus to meet with a professor. I observed a class he was teaching, and as I watched, I wondered if I missed it. The teaching, I mean. I did, some. I missed the students coming in and I missed standing in front of the room. I missed seeing the looks on their faces when I made them laugh or when they "got it." Still, I suspected I was glad to sit where I was sitting, watching it happen as a third party. I thought: Maybe I just love teaching and learning; everything about it is fascinating to me, so it's nice that I'm still involved in some capacity. Or maybe I really miss it, I thought. Then, near the end of the class, the professor asked a student a question about a poem. Her response: "I don't like poetry. I don't really care for poetry, to be honest." This was, of course, a complete non sequitur. She was telling him something about herself, rather than the poem, as he'd asked. And I thought: Yes, I'...

I'm sitting in an empty classroom. It was the last session of my evening class and my students' final exams are in a stack in front of me. Also in front of me is a Christmas card from a sweet student. Inside she said I was a good teacher, a helpful teacher. She thanked me. And maybe she does this for every teacher. Maybe she's just a nice kid. But it's making me weep. I have three days left of teaching and I'm weeping about it. I want to leave the school with all my heart. It's the right thing to do. It's a toxic, insane department. But I'll miss my students. I'll miss teaching. I'll miss.

This is harder today. For some reason, days off are so much more depressing than days when I have to work. I hate the working, but it gets me out of the house and I have to smile at my students and pretend like I'm happy teacher lady. I am my best self in front of them. Ah, there it is. Teaching. I love teaching. I love that I must be my best self in front of students, and I find it makes me more that way. I call up reserves of patience and energy and enthusiasm from heaven knows where. Probably from heaven, as a matter of fact. There have been plenty of days I didn't have any of my own.

Sorry for all the vagueness. Here's the deal: The job-jerks are almost certainly not reappointing me. There's some strong evidence that this due to religious descrimination, so we're looking into fighting along those lines. (Read: possible lawsuit.) I have no idea what will happen with that or if I'll even carry it through, but for the moment, it's totally unbearable for me to go to work. I try and try, and I love my students so that makes it easier, but I'm not sleeping well and I'm constantly nauseous and I'm afraid to go the faculty lunchroom, etc. It's ugly. So I've pretty much decided to leave the job in December when the semster ends. Sam and I are both applying for jobs. I'm applying for immediate positions in the area, and Sam's applying for tenure-track stuff all over the country. (I might apply for tenure-track stuff too, whenever I stop dry heaving at the thought of it.) We have no idea where we'll be or what we...

(sigh of relief) I have no big secret announcements. I'm just glad for a little space where I don't have to be quite as careful. I'm probably leaving my job at the semester. Very long story, vague pieces of which you've heard. Leaving at the semester will be the happy ending to said long story. Sam and I look forward to packing up my books and bringing them home, to safer pastures. I plan on rolling down the car windows and giggling maniacally. Now I just need to find another way to bring in money. Maybe I'll knit toilet paper hats like my grandma used to make and sell them on etsy. Sort of like this: (source here ) Hmmmm... Not a bad idea.

Thank you for all of your sweet, kind comments on that post. They made it seem okay. And then, pretty much right after I wrote it, things got worse at work. Really bad. And since it's all I think/pray/talk about, it's hard to think of what to blog about. I don't want to say much. This week, the fight was out of me. My fate seemed sealed, and I was ready to just quit before it could get any worse. Not fight, not defend myself, even though there was (is) this mountain of injustice. I just wanted to quit and move on. That's what I WANTED to do. That was the only thing it made SENSE to do. And then I had this dream. It was an answer to prayer (it probably makes me weird that I dream my answers, but I love them.) and I don't want to forget it: I'm in a kitchen, trying to make a salad, but the bag of lettuce explodes, and it's all over the counters and I'm frustrated. And then I notice there is an ENORMOUS spider on the counter, flipped on its back,...

This morning, while trying to grade papers, I asked Sam, "What am I supposed to do with a paper on cheerleading?" "Hmmm," he said. He was really thinking about it. "It's too bad we don't have a paper shredder because if we did you could shred it up and make two little pompoms and shake them." This made me giggle uncontrollably for several minutes. Lately everything he says makes me giggle. And it's a good thing someone is here making me happy, because my job is terrrrrible again. Not the students. I love the students. The teaching is fine. But, to be vague, there's a bad guy in the department who is out to get me. There are channels for me to fight back, which I'm doing. But the chair is his best buddy friend, so I'm probably out of luck. They'll make me miserable. And I am miserable. Sad, and disappointed, and angry. It's different this year because I know they're wrong and I'm healthy enough to deal with it, but ...

I love Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. Love it. If you're unfamiliar, the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning as a giant human-sized bug. I can't explain why this tugs on my heart so much, except to say that I think it's one of the most gorgeous, odd, true, terribly sad accounts of what happens when disease, mental illness, or addiction changes us beyond recognition. It's about what happens to families when someone is sick, how it breaks and remolds everyone involved. And I love it. My students, on the other hand, do not. They have in the past. I taught a class where they ate.it.up. and wrote about it in their papers and I could feel in what they wrote that it felt true to them, that Kafka struck something. But not this semester. "This story sucks," they said at the end of class today, after a week of talking about it. I wish that sentence didn't bother me so much. I wish it didn't make me feel like weeping, like a failure. ...

It's been awhile since I poked my head up and said hello. We moved and it was hard. The semester started and it was busy. We went whale watching (!), and that will be another post. It's late. I taught the third week of my night class tonight, during which this grown up accountant man said, "This class is like going to therapy!" I think that was a good thing, but I can't be sure. We were talking about childhood and identity and innocence and experience. And out of all the things I could pluck out of the hours of my life to tell you, it seems most important to say this: I am, finally, happy. Really happy. Pleased as a peach to be in my life, not really longing for anyone elses'. I can't explain this, really. I was depressed last year, and sick. And all of that seems so clear now: that I simply wasn't okay. Depression makes every moment into a brick; they weigh so much and take so long to stack up and once they're stacked you feel trapped an...

I'm teaching right now. Sort of. I'm sitting on the grass with my students and they have their laptops open, writing. The sun's setting, light coming through the trees and bouncing off a big map of the school, so that every time I look up it blinds me. The students are lovely here, bent over their keyboards, young brows furrowed. Can I say their young brows are furrowed? They are. It's not quite as romantic as it sounds. I mean, it's lovely out here, and the sun is well-deserved after an astonishingly gloomy summer. But I think I'm moving back into my depression, old friend. It's arrived fiercely in the last few days, leveled me. It feels shameful. I'm working on kicking it out the door, but who knows how long that could take. The students and I have had a semi-painful discussion about poetry, in which I had to explain why it's not true that "there's no wrong answer." If you can't support it with the text, folks, it do...

* Amara asked about the Nightmare Gallery in Salem . I must say, a love for frightful things is not something Sam and I have in common, so as we were going in to said gallery, while he was saying, "Ohboyohboyohboyohboy," I was saying, "Ohnoohnoohnoohno." But it wasn't bad. It was just a museum of horror movies. The weird part was that after nearly three years of hanging with the Sam, I had seen WAY more of those movies than I ever thought I would. I recognized characters, remembered lines. THAT was the terrifying part. * It's gorgeous outside, just gorgeous. I took a run, lapping up the vitamin D on my bare shoulders. A little puppy insisted on conversing with me. I stopped at the park at the top of that tall-tall hill, sat on the stone wall, looked at the city, and cried for my friend Scott, who died last summer in Provo canyon. Didn't know I was still mourning that. Anyway, aside from that, it was such a happy outing. *The other night I dreamed that Ma...

Only one student showed up for my class on Whitman today. Count him, ONE. The two of us found this very disturbing. We discussed the possibility of a grand plot against Whitman class. We discussed alien abduction. We discussed mass stomach bugs. And then we went home. Now I'm considering the possibility that no one likes me. Worms, anyone?

It's clear as of today that it's not me that's sucking at this job, it's the job that's sucking. I mean, it's a bad situation. Talked to an dear mentor from days past who knows what these jobs should be like and he said, wow, that's not good. So what does one do when they find out their "dream job" is not so dreamy? What now? Here are jobs I think I'd like, not that I trust myself to pick anymore: *studying elephant family dynamics in Africa *studying the connections between bird songs and whale songs *writing for radiolab, thisamericanlife, or speakingoffaith *writing documentaries about cool smart people who are dead *designing energy-efficient and lovely and low-cost housing for poor folks *chef *librarian for a big pretty library *forest ranger *photographer *bookmaker *studier of brains *person who makes up names for ice cream flavors *cat *yes, cat, like the animal. their job is to take naps and be cute. i want that job. (i swear the litt...

What is with these students giving me weird looks? I've got this one class that seems a total dud, at least so far. We've met three days, and I've managed to squeeze a total of five comments from the whole lot of them. Instead they look at me like I'm nuts, like I'm wearing a monkey on my head, dancing the jitterbug, and eating a raw potato. I wish I WERE wearing a monkey on my head, dancing the jitterbug, and eating a raw potato--with my eyes closed. That might be more interesting. Students are so boring when they're quiet. Boring and scary. It doesn't help that the first two days of class I didn't have a PEN or a PENCIL, so I had to borrow one to take roll. How did I end up with everything but a writing utensil? How? And then today I left the house late and got stuck in horrible traffic on top of it. So I was twenty minutes away when class started. Real smooth. I called and had someone run over there to tell them to wait for me, but by the ...

Started back at school yesterday. Before my first class, making copies: the English faculty member who reminds me of my kindergarten teacher and always corrects me came in, said hi. I was literally trembling, I was so nervous and scared about being back there, having to see these people who have become big scary meanies in my head. I was trembling so badly that I gave myself TWO papercuts. And they bled profusely for some reason. So there I was, trying to have a pleasant chat about Kindergarten Teacher's holiday break, bleeding my heart out. Good grief. But anyway, it's been okay so far. Incredible what even one semester of experience will do to make me more comfortable. I'm teaching the same classes, too. So I can directly apply what went terribly wrong, I hope. Not to mention, hurrah for thyroid medication. For those of you who don't know, the symptoms are as follows: weight gain (hello 30+ pounds in the last few months), lack of energy (yes yes), low immun...

Driving home from work. Another really rough day. And yes, yes I was weeping. I adjusted my rearview mirror, and thought, "Self, it seems like we adjust this mirror a lot." I figured it out: I do adjust that mirror a lot. When I drive home from work, I'm so physically/emotionally drained that I slump in my seat. I slump so deep that I have to adjust the mirror down to see out the back window. In the morning I adjust it back up. Rinse and repeat. That's bad, is it not? But the husband made chili for me (nice meal when it's EIGHT degrees outside.) and patted my hand and held me while I wept in our kitchen, my feet feeling icy on our cold tile floor.

Right now I'm sitting cross-legged on my bed, and the cat named Meatsock has all four paws balanced on my knee like a mountain goat. Good kitty. It doesn't matter really, but this has been a rude week. I got a cold AGAIN, which doubles the fun of any given venture. I tried to have an event at school, and the dude that was presenting was forty-five minutes late, then the sound wouldn't work, then most of the students left, then I realized I forgot to arrange to PAY the man, and someone in charge of me clucked their tongue at my incompetence. That evening, I was supposed to go to this Relief Society Wreath Making activity because I was sort of in charge, and I went and sang in the program, and when everyone else wept a little at the moving Christmas music, I sobbed. I couldn't stop crying. I snuck out before the wreath making or the real socializing. At this rate, I'm going to have so many friends. I also listened to a book on CD about budgeting (Dave Ramsey) wh...

I admit it. I hate to admit it, because I'm so blessed to have it, and someday I think I will like it. But it's my first year, and I find it terrifying. I mean, it's busy. Not only am I teaching three new classes to students I haven't figured out yet, I'm also supposed to oversee a student club, develop a reading series, sit on two committees, advise a bunch of students on registration, and find time to write/publish my own stuff. It's hard. And every time I have to go to work, it ruins my day. I come home in the worst mood, feeling terrible about myself and the world. While I'm on campus, I always feel like I'm bumbling about, like I have no clue what I'm doing, like I'm doing it wrong, like a fraud. Ten hours of that, and I'm bound to feel low, right? I'm whining, I know. But I just realized yesterday that it's true: I'm not enjoying this. I want my mommy. I want to sit at her Thanksgiving table with her moist moist tu...