My Worst Semester Ever

It had to happen sometime. The perfect storm of early morning class, high levels of student apathy, family issues, health issues, writing anxiety, party-hearty ethos of modern university culture, and just plain dull curriculum have all added up to almost 30% of my students flunking. Never, and I repeat, never, have I had such a high rate of failure in a writing class. The students are failing because they have not turned in their work. A big, fat zero has filled many of the slots on the online grading spreadsheet. Now, you might find yourself asking Why did this happen? And I would be glad to speculate but have to confess that I have no easy answers. I am very willing to acknowledge that I likely am part of the big equation that will explain the dearth of performance and elan in this class. It might be bad luck. It might be the stress of money that high tuition creates. It might be the toxic political climate that undervalues reasoned communication. It could also be a symptom of digital brain wiring meeting the need to sustain a focus. It might be a combination of variables that I have to identify or consider. And, like I said, the curriculum, as corporate textbook, is dull as door knobs. I add some spice to that, of course, but that text is enough to make my eyes roll back in my head, and I LIKE this stuff. Also the emphasis on teaching rhetoric seems to bog down discussions. I don't think that an over-emphasis on teaching about writing -- purpose, audience, subject, situation -- necessarily improves writing. Writing and getting feedback about things writers care about improves writing. We don't work on writing as much as we talk about what motivates and shapes expression in general and writing in particular. Abstraction has squeezed out practice. But none of this explains why so many of my young, healthy, smart, impressionable men and women, who, in their first college semester, are going to crash and burn.

Burly Man Meets Cyber Monday

He was a man's man: built like a fire plug, thick in bicep and calf, chiseled jaw, razor sharp gaze. But he carried himself lightly, like a welter-weight boxer. The morning was crisp on this last Monday before December, Cyber Monday, and it was time to think about shopping, -- online -- powered by caffeine. He had worked hard serving the public and had money to burn. His belt was heavy with the tools of his trade: Tazer, pistol, flashlight, radio, hand cuffs, I-Phone 8. His face was young and smooth and easy with a smile; he was the new man, a man who oozed security, calm, digital prowess: he was a consumer. The barista stood on tip-toe, poised, waiting to take his order, her face turned up to the shining brilliance of him standing there in the morning sun. She had to shield her eyes or move into the shadow he cast. What was it going to be? A bullet-proof?  A triple shot black-eye? A dark-roast Americano? Surely something powerful to carry him through this long day of spending. The cafe got very quiet in the pause before he spoke. He let the moment gain weight, the gravity crushing every sound other than the soft music pumping through the speakers, an indie song of longing, for something new, in a box, with an Amazon swoosh. He drew in a breath as the rest of the cafe breathed with him in a collective gasp. He extended his phone to zap the register and make his purchase, the first of many, the one that would fuel the day. The words came slow and deep: "Pumpkin-spice skinny latte, please."

Dems Da Facts, Or, Thinking About the Book

If it's going to work, it's got to cast a spell. You know that. But you forget. You think that pounding them with unpleasant reality will somehow pull them in, make them want to go on, work some kind of alchemy through logic. Well, maybe the left-brainers or masochists will fall for that. But you know that most humans want you to tell them a story, the kind of story that suspends the here and now in a way that makes the here and now even more lovely, more heart-breaking, more heightened. A deeper blue. That's a hard road to go though. It asks of you a kind of love and listening and craft, a kind of work that changes the storyteller as much as those who listen. You must offer up the best of yourself and give it away to find the living between that is waiting there in the space separating you from the beloved Thou. It is what you most love and what you most fear you cannot do.

Blessed

My ear has gotten better just as my hearing begins to go bad. Words that ring true come through more clearly, and sentimentality clangs off key. I can tell resonance in the first few syllables, voice in a phrase, vision in a sentence. Now, this might seem like a good thing, but such quality of speech and text is in very short supply these days, so I cringe at most of what counts for communication. It's not about "grammar," which is what people usually think when I try to explain my affliction. I have worked so hard to get here, just as the quality of language falls over the cliff of what people strive for. Blessed or cursed, I am not so sure.

The Day Everything Went Right

I rose early, in the dark, hung out with Simone the cat, and then went to my little cafe. The barista gave me a free shot of espresso and told me good jokes. I sat down to check my phone and to brood over my life when I saw a text that offered me a deal on a new/used guitar for Sean, whose guitar had been stolen while he was in the Peace Corps. I replied and met the guy and got the gitty-box sweet deal -- all before sunrise. I then returned to the cafe and wrote a good poem about love and loss. I decided not to go to work. That sore spot in my life needed a break on this day before Thanksgiving. So I had time for a bike ride with some wonderful friends who plied me with kindness and more coffee. We rode fifty sun-soaked, breezy, heart-felt miles. When I got home I took Sean to get a new driver's license. The lines were short and quick and painless, though he did flunk his motorcycle test. No matter. We went to the guitar shop and picked up new strings, capo, and oil for the finger board. I got a shot of espresso to keep the parade moving. We then went to get provisions for Thanksgiving cooking. The gas pumps at Costco were crowded, with lines extending back three cars deep, but an employee motioned me over to an empty pull-through just as he removed a pylon and pointed to an open pump. We breezed through before finding the best parking spot in the place. Then we filled our cart with squash and pies and beer with the help of son Kyle who was working the busy shift. Hot dogs, brisket barbecue, and Coke followed as we watched Kyle work the front end. He has filled out into a statuesque physique not unlike that of a Greek god. We drove home, put on new guitar strings, drank some cold, dark beer, and made a tasty dinner. I floated off to sleep just after Megan slipped into bed and had her way with me. Tough to be such a boy toy. As I sit here with a hot coffee and purring cat the morning after, I give thanks. I give thanks for sons who are growing into men, for women with dirty minds, for creatures that keep us company, for the music being made as life slides by. 

Neighbors (Brainstorm For a Fictional Character)

He is a pot-bellied parasite who preys on gullible patrons and benefactors. He plays to their emotions, and presents himself as their friend and savior. He does nice things once in a while to look good, talks the talk of recovery, of AA meetings, but carries a sharp knife hidden in his sock, ready to stick them in the back if they complain or see him for what he really is. They do him favors: buy him vehicles, pay his debts, cut him slack, make connections for him to exploit. His mask is the sweet victim, an "artiste," the one on a path to purity and truth. He is a sham, a false prophet, and he lives next door.

Homecoming

He was lean, work-hardened, weathered, tired from the long journey, and wearing a shirt woven by a woman in the tribe he was working with along the cordillera in Panama. His toenails were rough and broken and his feet wide, like those of the men of the tribe, the ones who wore only sandals if they wore shoes of any kind (when not wearing the rubber snake boots for cutting monte). A bright blue Peace Corps cap gave him the look of someone part of something, the logo conveying a friendly authority. The new cat carrier held one of his treasures from two years of service: a likeable, gregarious, stray cat with a heart shape on his flank. The cat, Wilson, named after the famous volleyball in Castaway, seemed glad to meet the reception crew gathered at the base of the stairs at the airport. Sean and Wilson had caught us off guard, having arrived twenty minutes early. We improvised our rowdy performance of homecoming. I ran the applause clackers; Kemper displayed his hairy cleavage; Emily rocked her Mormon mission sign; Kyle offered up the hundred-ounce Big Gulp and Twinkie; Megan put on her cat mask, while the rest of us did our little performance. It flopped, but that didn't matter. Explanations of the silly signs could come later. It was time to embrace, to celebrate, to gaze into the eyes of a freshly minted man, an open, human, work-in-progress; It was time to witness the alchemical change radiating from this person I used to know as a child, to honor his undertaking the journey of compassion and action -- all while catching a wild, rogue wave of joy.

Wooing the Patient Editor

Let's say it is a she, that "it" being a part of you that you sent away long ago. Let's say she wears brainy glasses, has long hair, is good with numbers. The big thing though, is that she is patient, takes things a step at a time. Why she left doesn't matter any more, but you have been paying the price ever since. You need her now. So, it's time to set out some hot buttered bread, a fillet of grilled salmon, and a nice glass of wine -- all presented with some thought and care, especially the wine glass. It has to be spotless. Then wait for her to detect the call you sent out. Watch the woods for a sign of her. Don't look her in the eye if she steps toward you. She will climb up out of shadow, pen tucked behind her ear. She will then examine and test you. You have to show you are ready and worthy. No longer afraid. One word, sentence, section, chapter at a time. Get out the fine-toothed comb. You have work to do. Hope and pray she comes.

Curriculum

Your lesson is a hard one. It involves stepping back from what you have learned to crave: recognition, title, achievement, getting the golden ring. You will likely burn with humiliation until you learn. You will have to treat the poisons of envy, comparison, and hunger for power or be hounded by them. It is written. Yours is not the chance to outgrow the problem of too much. Rather, yours is the work of detachment, of doing what you know you have to do, even if the outcome gives you nothing but obscurity and want. Further, you learn not to blame or to take credit. You have to extract the hooks of deserve. But, yes, act you must. You may want to simper on the sidelines and lament your fate. You may even say you want out in a big way. That is the demon you must next meet. Here he comes now. 

In a Word

This just in: Money makes things happen. Fame earns you more fame. It's more about recognition than merit. Hard work won't necessarily get you anything. We want to believe it will all work out. But it doesn't. Most doors never open. Time runs out. Games end. Obscurity is your reward for taking the dangerous path, the one on which you bet everything, only to have the marble drop in the slot that says you missed your turn. Oh well, there's next time. Or not. Feel the burn. Pick yourself up. Wring beauty from the train wreck, wine from water. 

Zoom In

The answer lies in pouring the gold of your attention onto what is right there in front of you. It is not waiting at the end of your work day (though the prospect of that and the rising moon is very nice to contemplate), nor does it hunker down in the pleasure or pain of a memory screened for the benefit of your distraction. No, I am sorry and delighted to say that your peace warms you in the scarf you have wrapped around your neck on this chilled, November morning, tickling lightly the tender spot under your chin. It might even be scratchy once in a while, waiting, as it does, for you to join the buffet your senses serve up for the benefit of you, tirelessly serving, patiently waiting for you to take your place at the table.

To Whom Are You Speaking?

As you scribble away down there in the furnace room of your solitude, to whom do you sing? Is it the lovers that got away, that left you weeping and broken on the sidewalk of your twenty-something fear? Well, yes. And no. Of course they sparked the kindling of your desires and you followed that flame to its logical and less than logical conclusions. You drove your little motor cycle into the winds and mountains with visions of those fleshy secrets, hounded by your hormones. So yes, it is they. But, in reality, they are no longer listening, so who is it that does? It is they you have not yet met, the ones who wait in the future you are composing as you lean into your love. So, you don't know them, but if they find your words, sometime out there in the days to come, they will know you for what you held to be true, the words you spoke with the deepest blue, the words born of a running river present in all things, but also the actions you took to deliver that love to a world hungry and tormented. It was the ones you served, the ones you knew only because you turned beauty into an outstretched hand. 

A Match to a Sleeping Heart

It is the sun mainly. But roasting Hatch green chiles too. Cool morning air rushing over bare arms and legs might have something to do with it also. And then there are the stars, up there in the inky depths, sending little daggers of crystal beauty as you lie sleeping curled and tangled in the legs and dark mysteries of the beloved. The thrill of silky skin has a fire all its own. Yet, space is the kicker, the thing that really slays you. The space that you get to fill in with all the yearning that burns down there in the deep recesses of you. That is what lit the flame under the heart of you. You don't really know what to do with that, but you are goaded by that desire to do something. In the old days, you would snuff it out like you extinguish a candle. The desire was so strong it hurt and you could never have what you wanted. You still can't have it because desire burns now for its own sake, not for the consummation or possession. You have learned not to quench the urges puling you in and out. Now it is the mandate to pull out from the guts of your fire the gift you want to leave for those who are left behind when you are gone, for the answer to a call that beckons you right here right now. It will never be perfect this gift you offer, but you have to reach into your black bag of sorrow and pull out the secrets anyway. Then you hold them in the light, as they drip with the messy juices of birth. You squint at the light of them, shed tears of joy for having surrendered, as you bathe in the brilliance, the blinding intensity of that blue burning light.

Joy Like Free Running Waters Or Why Mountain Biking Should Be a Controlled Substance

The reasons not to ran in front of my awareness like credits after a movie: too old, too tired, not fit, too busy, it's risky, other things are more important. But I kept rolling out toward the trail-head. My mind spun with the the tasks waiting for me in the coming week: teacher's meeting tomorrow, curriculum to write, papers to grade, bills to pay, people to call, car appointment for body work, leave letter to submit. The litany rolled along, soundtrack now stale. The house has emptied. I'm alone watching the credits scroll down the screen of my attention as I turn off the highway and head for the parking lot where I will leave the car and pedal off into a sunlit, rock-strewn, twisty desert. After the first mile or so, the nattering brain dies down and I slip into a zone of watching, sweating, and divining for the smoothest line through the gauntlet of boulders set in my path. Fluid motion glides over, through, and down. Joy of water falling down through rocks breaks into a smile. It leans into the next turn and we fly, taken now by the gravitational tug of an unwinding surprise.

Mind Warp

The Supreme Leader, or whatever the official title is, of China, and President Trump represent the two warring factions of the Cold War; and yet they met each other like old buddies on the recent Trump trip to Asia. Communist and capitalist, in the expensive suits of Western  power brokers chit chatted over bottom lines and ways to fleece their workers.The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, out capitalisted Trump in about every way. He argued for more open markets, global movement of people and goods. Trump said he understood but complained about unfair trade conditions. Wah! The capitalist outdone by the socialist/industrialist just won't sit right in my old-fashioned little brain. I guess this is the beginning of the tilt of power toward the East, the decline and rise of empires, the taste of one's own medicine gone just a bit sour.

Teaching As Bronc Busting

You walk into class with only a vague idea of what you are going to do. Specifically, you are beginning a new unit that you have never taught before, one for which you have no curriculum, one you believe in but have trouble wrapping around yourself. The course is a genre study of prison writing, you are asking students to imagine a future in which men and women will stay out of prison. You are asking that they apply the work of the course to what they believe themselves, to what they might be able to do, to some specific action that might result in real, if modest, change, all in the form of a community project proposal.The class has looked at the past through reflective narratives on how they understand prison and the criminal industrial complex. Then they look at the present, what they are reading and incorporating from books, articles, and discussion. But now they look ahead and will take on the task of creating a different future, a different possibility. It is what the books ask, what the world asks, what the society needs. Yes, it is time to call on the imagination and the intellect to create something different than what we have. This must grow out of passion, belief, conviction and must take form in plans of action. Writing can do this if contained in a community of shared vision and support. You are betting your butt on it. Onward, into the great unknown, you say. Pick up your pen. Plot out the hunches that are banging on the hatch down there in the ethers of what might be. You grip the strap on the saddle just before the gate swings open and you take your shot at winning the big one. 

November Undoing

It begins there, subtle as a stone, quiet as a sleeping fawn. Another year slides toward completion; another day creeps over the ridge to the east, coming to you with all the trust and affection of a lover. Soon she will surround you with light, beloved, and she will ask you what you want. Do not be afraid. But pull from you your secrets, the jewels you have kept hidden for so long. You know there is no longer any reason to keep them under cover. You think you might lose something if you bring them into the light, but the truth is that you gain what you have longed for all these years staying safe. As you plunge into the coming day, your edges dissolve. You are held. The new day will ask much as you lean forward into your undoing, into baby steps. Soon, you will find your balance and you will take flight, trailing streamers joy born of surrender.

That Someday Is Now

Might be lack of sleep, or too much caffeine, or a misfire of neurons. Whatever it is has pulled the plug on normal and sent you spinning into awe. All you are doing is walking down the hall, the one where your department office is when -- Poof! -- your senses are on fire. The beige everything is somehow fresh and pulsing with energy. Whoa! You want out of this, of course. It's a bit much to see things as they are when you have to go meet your freshman English class in ten minutes. Tough luck, chump. It you're going to live your life, you have to do it now. Yes, you will fulfill your commitments, or you will change them, but you know that the time has come. Start sorting through the flotsam you have acquired for not knowing any better. It's time to move on. The fence holding you back has dissolved, leaving only emptiness where it once stood. You have been invisible for so long that no one will know you are gone. 

Taste of Salt

His orange t-shirt was pulled up to his eyes, and those dark eyes were wet with tears. The tattooed dots above his eyebrows betrayed his identity. The men in the workshop were quiet. If anyone so much as breathed a comment about his shirt or the tears, the man could spring into a fierce and physical rain of blows. No worries there. The work had spun its spell and left nothing but respect. He had read a long piece about the bitterness of being forgotten, invisible, silent, and, in his words, a ghost. The piece detailed mail call and his ongoing hope that there would be a letter, from someone. Anyone. An old friend, a close relative, a distant relative, a stranger. But they never come. That isolation haunts him. He paces the cell one, two in the morning. Wants to hurt someone, hurt himself. Give up. Take the pill. The bitter one. The one that will turn him to stone, to a pillar of salt. Stinking, bitter salt. But he doesn't. Instead, he lances the abscess with a pen and lets it bleed. He fills pages. The pressure inside him drops, for a while, at least. He finds another inmate to listen to his reading, to hold the thoughts in his hand, his mind, and to taste them for quality with his tongue, like the fine drugs they both have known and sold and fought for. It's good, the friend says. It's good. The friend is one who knows, who has an ear attuned to the music of words. The dragons, hovering outside and in, pause, take a rare break. They wait for their chance to harvest another heart to add to their collection. 

What Hallmark Cards Will Never Tell You About Love

A Hallmark card will never tell you that love is a hot copper pipe on which you bet your day off, a parking lot into which you wander with a torn bag of groceries looking for a car you can't find. A Hallmark wish will never tell you that love is seeing your face in the morning mirror, haggard and worn, because you have been awake since two parsing the voices left unanswered at your desk; they won't tell you that love is forgetting to buy shoelaces because a sick child was crying in the aisle of the hardware store. No, they surely will never tell you that love is the dashed hope that tonight might be the one you dreamed when the day was young, that it is the surprise of a frost moon sitting on the hip of a mountain while you worry about the cost of a fan belt, radiator hose, and valve cover gasket. Hell will freeze over before a Hallmark card, crafted to wring tears of romance from your wallet, will ever say that love is hearing your defeat repeated in the words of children in the back seat and then feeling shame because you know you have passed on your poison. They might mention that love is the horizon over which a mystery travels, sure of itself as a heart that finds the will to beat one more time. And they might point to flesh thrilling to tender touch. But they will never tell you about the annihilation, the tumbling, polishing, final surrender that is the price you pay for love.

Controlling the Conversation

The meetings go on and on, and The Program is a sprawling beast of hundreds of teachers, thousands of students, and a wide range of courses. It needs overseeing. It also needs direction and dialogue in terms of teaching. Thing is, we don't talk much about teaching. We talk about forms. We talk about policies. We talk bureaucracy. We talk assessment, sort of. The controlling ideas, goals, SLOs, and required reading for teachers have been set and are not up for discussion. They have formed the narrow chutes that contain conversation. And the teaching of them is not a subject of discussion, is not on the table, under the table, or even in the same room. In our controlled little environment, all is copacetic, crew-cut, and non-negotiable. Any questions?

Fast, Good, Cheap: Pick Two

Money was tight, and it had to be good, so I knew right away it wasn't going to be fast. The job that is. It stood there: two stories of hulking rough-sawn studs with sixteen-inch centers, two-by-ten rafters, two-by-twelve floor joists between the two stories.

It wasn't going anywhere. That was for sure. It was built to withstand the hundred-mile-an-hour winds that blow here when weather comes. Two stories on an open plain between the mesas meant that the house would take hits. Lots of hits. I just hoped the windows would withstand the gusts. Yes, the work would have to be slow if it was going to be good, and it had to be good: hurricane strips on every roof beam, tight seals, good insulation, and all the finish work. Good also meant beautiful. That was a tough one, for me, the quality piece. My history was more about "git 'er done" than "do it right." I'd have to re-work an old story of mine that ran contrary to mindful labor. Housework sent me back to the days my father was in Viet Nam and I served as the first-line of house repair. I did not relish the prospect of years of working that one out. The weight of it settled onto my shoulders and back. We were in for the long haul on this project, about six years of summers and then some. If I knew how much work it was going to be I would have run, run for the hills and never looked back. But, being a bit on the dim side, I thought what the hey? Give it a go.

Starving the Golden Goose

Many of the doodads, gizmos, and digitalia we take for granted these days originated in humble labs and drawing boards at state universities. Basic science research has no immediate, short-term, cash-cow outcome but produces yummy products like Velcro and Gore Tex and little innovations like the internet. Of course, our wise leaders have decided to cut basic research funding to places like universities, relying instead on the offspring of wealthy families to pay higher and higher tuition for education in land grant universities, whose missions state something like "as close to free as possible for as many as possible." Something has gone terribly wrong here as prisons and security apparati grow larger by the day while education, creativity, and research wither on the vine. The Donald and his cronies hate science, real study, and anything that smacks of something greater than two brain cells rubbing together. He, and his policies, are more about impulse, reflex, reaction, knee-jerk tax cuts for billionaires, de-regulation of polluting corporations, and ADD Tweets. All the twit's tweets in the world, however, won't result in the next big thing. That takes steady work, patience, mindful attention, and a smidgen of imagination. All of these are in short supply in Trumpo myopia.

Stacked Up

They are circling, waiting to land, but are getting low on fuel, all those tasks that need attention. I have to call about the cognitive testing, the neurological appointment, the cat appointment, the prison film project, and then there are the papers, the stacks and stacks of papers. My office looks like it is occupied by a hoarder. Maybe it is. The problem is I can't keep my mind on what has to be done. It is unruly and bounces around like some kid with too much candy who is about to melt down after his Halloween sugar rush. Now, this is what is. It causes stress because I still have responsibilities. People expect me to do more than I am able to do. That's a problem. One that has to be addressed. Now. Thing is, I can't remember what it is I am supposed to do about it. Where is that list? What was I doing?The absent minded jokes aren't so funny anymore.