Now THAT'S More Like It

Just knowing that you were out there, semi-waiting for this, made me pay attention much more closely today than I otherwise would have.  Thanks for being there.  It is way less fun to have an adventure by yourself. I’ll tell you that much.

So today.  Today was a regular day for me.  Yay!  I met with someone too early this morning. I got my kids up and dressed and off to school. I worked.  I cleaned up around the house. I had a meeting at the kids’ school.  They came home and I was present for them. We looked over homework and snuggled a bit. We talked about their days. Without an ounce of recurrent anxiety.  Thank God for perspective that lasts.

Then I borrowed $2 cash for parking money from my 11-year-old son and I went to class.  Just drove there, like a regular person.  Didn’t even look in the mirror on my way out the door.  I saw someone I know standing outside my classroom and I was able to hug them and chat for a few minutes without puking or bursting into tears. 

If that was the end of the experience, it would have been sufficient for me.

But it wasn’t the end of the experience.  Today was full-on-workshop-chairs-in-a-circle-people-talking-too-much-or-not-enough-certainly-thinking-too-much-with-some-shining-nuggets-of-gold experience.  No sick professor.  None of God's hilarious jokes.  The pretty real deal.

There are the usual suspects in my workshop – the guy with the long fuzzy ponytail who probably writes science fiction and the little hipster, all the way down to his D&G glasses, who feels so much like a non-Jewish Schmidt I want to bring a douche bag jar to class with me next Tuesday.  And there’s the little girl who sat next to me with a random zebra printed duct tape cuff around her arm.  She licked the lid of her smoothy for about five minutes in the beginning of class and had a very hard time sitting still.  For those of you who know me and what I’m used to in a group setting, you’ll understand that this was distracting to me, to say the very least.

I sat very still and prayed and tried to keep my friend’s sage wisdom in mind. “Just don’t talk too much.  Nontraditional students always talk too much.”  I tried to be quiet inside and I only talked when Professor Canty asked me what I thought.  Which was quite often, I’ll have you know.

The day he called in sick, he’d passed out this story called I am the Bear by Wendy Brenner.  I adored it. It was exactly my kind of strange and beautiful, full of longing and the fundamental separateness.  It reminded me of when I was 12 and my mom took me to see The Princess Bride.  The movie ended and the credits rolled and I fell apart in her arms, my scrawny adolescent body wracked with sobs because Jason Glass would never love me.

The infants had a lot to say.  They talked about how it didn’t make any sense, how they couldn’t identify with it, how the language was trite and the phrases overused.  I thought they missed the point.  When I was asked what I thought, I told them the Jason Glass thing.  Then I listened to them talk some more and I tried to stay very present.

I wanted to be in my body because every once in a while, amidst the pretentious, intellectually arrogant bullshit, Kevin Canty would say something about writing. 

I read something recently about spiritual learning actually being remembering what we already know.  I felt like he was talking to my guts and all the other important parts that allow me to do what I do.  It was Anne Lamott and Stephen King sitting right in front of me talking with humor and passion about this thing we all love.  Stellar.  A couple times I tried to scribble some of it down.

What he said over and over was that if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.  If I’m not writing, I’m not a writer.  I can think about it all I want, but the life is in the doing.  I’m supposed to be writing like I eat and breathe and love. It’s meant to be one of the things that serves to sustain me.  And it’s not that I didn’t know this.  It’s that I haven’t practiced this in a very very very very very long time.  Too long.  It’s been one million years since I’ve gotten up every morning at 5:00 to meet my writing mind.  One million.  What I have needed is a kick in the ass.  And I’m not 100% sure, but I think that’s what I’ve gotten myself into here.

I’ve been trapping myself a lot lately.  Like this blog.  I’m roped into it in a way that my ego will most likely not let me out of.  (See there, I write “most likely” because I want to give myself a backdoor.)  It’s true though. There are a lot of people I want to share this experience with.  This is a convenient way to accomplish that.  I’ve been in the practice of documenting what happens to me in this arena. I like being back in that practice.  But I’ve really forced myself to be accountable to something bigger than my crazy brain.  Cause that thing lies.  It lets me talk myself out of things with ease.

So here I am, cornered.  I’ve got you on one side, with your texts and Facebook messages and phone calls, all wanting to know what’s happening to me on this journey. And I’ve got him on the other.  This unreal resource who tells me to come to him, that he wants to teach me, that that’s his purpose.  I have to produce another 31 pages for him this semester.  HAVE TO.  And 31 pages wasn’t much to me back in the good ol’ days when I was honoring that which has been gifted to me and cranking out five pages a day.  Now I’m rusty and lazy and scared. 

But I’ve got some beginnings. And Kevin Canty tells me I can bring him three one-page beginnings and we can see what we see.  He also tells me I better be getting my ass up at 5:00 to write.  So I think that’s what I’ll do.

He asked for volunteers to bring in short stories next week to workshop.  I raised my hand, like the Good Student I am.  YIKES!

Plans and Designs

My first class started at 3:40 today.  Since the potential for complete failure was through the roof, I had worked myself up into quite a frenzy by ten after 2:00.  I could no longer function.  I tried to work.  I tried to watch The Glee Project.  I tried to talk to the people who love and support me.  All to no avail.  All I could do was try to anticipate what was going to happen.  What it was going to be like? Who was going to be there? Would I be able to find parking?  Would I be able to find my classroom?  If I did find my classroom, would I be asked to introduce myself? If I was asked to introduce myself, how should I go about doing that?  Should I leave out the whole kids and stretch marks thing in an effort to fit in?  Should I focus on the writing?  Should I make some jokes about my nontraditional nature?  All of this, but like magnified by 3,000.  Plus crying and shaking.

I left my house at 3:00 and called Dan as I drove down the street.  We can still do that here in Missoula.  He was walking into a meeting.
“Hey, you’re going to be great,” he started right in. “It’s going to be so much fun,” blah blah blah.  He went on for a while before he realized I was crying.
“Holy shit, are you crying?”
Sniffle, slurp, “I am so scared!”
“Oh.  Well,” he said, changing tactics, his voice taking on that quality it has when he’s trying to keep Hannah from going into total meltdown, “you’re the prettiest girl in the class.  And you’re the smartest too."  He ALWAYS knows what to say.  I started laughing through the tears.  “Yep, so you’re the prettiest and the smartest.  So there’s that.  Okay?”  He had done his duty and we got off the phone.

Bestie B called right at that moment.  Again with the crying.  We talked about God and anticipation and expectation and the difference between arrogance and confidence and why I was feeling the way I was feeling.  Still shaking.  Still a bit teary, but my body was taking me to the damn school anyway.
        “If I hadn’t outed myself on that damn blog, I would NOT be going right now,” I told her.
To which she said: “None of this has been your will.  That’s why it feels so wrong.”

I pulled into the parking lot and got off the phone with her.  I went to the little parking station and plugged it with quarters until it gave me a ticket for two hours.  I put the permit in the window of my car and started walking to class, just the way I had practiced it on Saturday.

(Side note: My mom happened to be in town last weekend for my birthday. My friend took me to campus to do a trial run and go to the bookstore and, because she was in town, my mom came with us.  As we were walking around, I started noticing all the little freshman walking around with their parents.  “Look, Mama,” I said getting a little teary, “it’s freshman orientation!  I totally stole this from you and God gave it back!” How cool is that?)
 
Yet another phone call carried me to the Native American Studies building, where my class is taking place.
        "I’m going in,” I said at 3:30 and hung up my phone.

I knew enough to know that Room 202 was probably on the second floor.  I did not look at anyone around me.  Keep your head down, Kid, I said to myself. Just make it to the bathroom.  The bathroom on the second floor of the Native American Studies building is much cooler than the second floor in general, a fact for which I was grateful.  The first stall I opened was a shower.  Great, I thought, this is what it’s going to be like.  You’re probably going to walk into the wrong room.  It’s probably not even the right day. What are you doing here!?!?!?  That’s when I got down on my knees in the actual bathroom stall to take a moment.
        “Okay, God,” I said, “if this is what you want me to do, then you’re going to have to get me into that room.  Deal?”

At which point I got up off the bathroom floor, washed my hands and walked out of the bathroom and into Room 202.

There were a handful of kids there already.  KIDS.   CHILDREN.  I pulled up a seat in the second row against the wall and watched as more tiny infants walked in.  The rate at which this room was filling up with newborns was unreal.  One of them actually said, “Wouldn’t it be so funny if our teacher was, like, sitting here, like, the whole time?”  I swear he was looking in my direction.
I had to text my husband.
They’re all babies, it said
But you’re the smartest and the prettiest, he texted back.  I smiled at my life and waited for my professor to make an appearance among the embryos.

The Man walked in at 3:40.  All grey hair and glasses and New York Times reviews.  I’ll admit it, I held my breath for a moment.  Here we go, I thought.  There was the setting down of coffee and the shuffling of papers, some talk about chair arrangement.  And then we got down to business.  The handing out of the syllabus.  I almost drooled.  Nothing this girl likes better than a list of tasks.  Yes!  My mind was still running furiously.  Were we going to move the tables and chairs into a circle? Were we going to do introductions? Would he ask me to read my short story out loud?

        Instead, he said, “I’ve got that summer cold thing.  I’m sorry I’m not more present. It’ll be different on Thursday.”  And then he got up and started making his way out of the room.
“Right on!” the fertilized eggs thought in unison.
I was totally shocked.  I wanted to stand up on my desk.  “I cried over this!  All the shaking and the freaking out!  I changed my outfit three times!  I agonized!  Do you think I look this put together all the time? Well, I don't!  I PAID FOR PARKING!”

I didn't do that.  I followed him out of the classroom and when I was out of his earshot, I called Dan and told him the whole story.
“It’s like God was watching you spin maddeningly out of control all this time, totally laughing. ‘I’ve already planned to give Kevin Canty a head cold, Gaaby. Chill the fuck out!’” Dan said, doing his best imitation of God.

Best. Anti-Anxiety Pill. Ever.

Even if you had called me up and told me that you were terrified before you jumped off this cliff and that once you got there, it turned out to be no big deal and that you'd worried over nothing, I still would have had to worry.  It's just my way.  I have to learn through my own experience. Thankfully, I do learn.  I'm really hoping I can keep this in perspective all the way to Thursday.  I want you to know that I felt every single on of you with me, that I was fully aware how loved and supported and encouraged I was the whole time. I am just going to keep counting on that.  That and God's amazing sense of humor.

Resurrection Squared

I slithered out of high school with a 1.7 GPA. The morning of my graduation, I had to wait by the phone to see if I was going to be able to walk across the stage with my friends. There was no graduation party for me. The only celebration was the exhausted sigh of a mother who had fought and scraped and conferenced herself into a frenzy for the preceding eight years to get me through the public school system.


My two best friends went to the University of Michigan, both with some sort of scholarship. Almost everyone around me was going to college. I was the exception in my high school. I am undereducated. In the crowds I like to run with, I’m still the exception today.


My battle cry in high school was that my grades were no reflection on my intelligence. I tested very well. I knew I was smart. My grand plan seemed to be to ace my English classes and fail everything else. The biggest problem was that I had trouble showing up to anything else. Bestie A and our other best friend would sometimes try to bribe me.

“If you go to all your classes today,” they would say, their voices sugary sweet with promise, “we’ll take you to lunch tomorrow.”

I was the only child of a single mom. I didn’t ask for money to eat out. We lived on the edgiest edge of a school district that had a lot of money. From where I sat, my friends were very wealthy. They were going to Cancun and Fort Lauderdale for spring break. I was doing… other things. Going out to lunch was a luxury.

“Yes,” I would say earnestly, “I will go to all my classes today.”

But then Matt so-and-so would ask me to go smoke a joint with him in the parking lot and I’d have to go do that instead. Those good intentions would try really hard to move me toward that stupid math class I was in, but then I’d see all those zitty horrible freshman sitting there, humiliating me with their very presence, and I wouldn’t have a choice but to walk on by. I didn’t belong there at all.

When it came right down to it, there were only a couple things I liked about school. And they were mostly boys. It was a disaster.

Perhaps you’ll be happy to hear that I did walk across that stage. My mother brought her tribal drums and beat them when my name was called. My vice principal, Mr. Collins, asked me if I knew who those people were as he shook my hand. His eyes were twinkling with pleasure, seeing me in the cap and gown that had nothing to do with what I deserved. That was the true pisser. Everyone loved me. I was precocious and charming and everyone was pulling for me. Pulled me right through high school, frankly. By so much less than the skin of my teeth.

My mom and I left Detroit for Montana shortly after my 18th birthday, plans of going to community college to get my shit together and then transfer to UofM left in the dust of our Subaru Legacy. I was going to take a year off. You know how that goes. We got to Billings and more boys got involved and that was the end of that.

When I was 20, I did a brief stint at Montana State University-Billings. For the past 15 years, I have been telling people I four-pointed college, that I left after my second semester in yet another attempt to get it together. The real story is that I got a 4.0 my first semester. My second and final semester in college, I was shocked to learn recently, went out in a blaze of F-ing glory. I flunked everything.

The truth is, I am a quitter. I’ve quit almost everything that’s ever meant anything to me. I quit college. I quit people. I quit jobs. I quit paying my bills. I quit dreams. I quit goals. I quit exercising. I quit trying. I quit eating healthy. I quit writing. I quit blogs. I. Am. A. Quitter.

I’m smack dab in the middle of this crazy experience right now that is making me look all of this right in its fat ugly face.

I am going to college.

It’s just one class. Don’t get excited.

It turns out God moved us 3.95 miles from one of the best creative writing programs in the country. And after all this heartbreak, a new path might be emerging. I seriously want to puke just writing that, but I have to be honest. It started to seem a shame, a waste of some pretty divine orchestration.

So I just took the next indicated action, which seemed to be going to talk to someone, an advisor. I have one of those now. We talked about my options. I fed her the replacement phrase for the whole grades/intelligence bullpucky: “I can’t see myself taking a pre-algebra class so I can get a piece of paper. I’m 37 years old.” She sent me to the head of the creative writing department, to whom I shoveled out the same line.

She didn't seem to pay that much mind.

What she said was that I should submit some work. I happened to be sitting in her office four short weeks before the deadline to do so. I was to write a short story, something I’d never done before, and submit it to some professors who were teaching some upper division creative writing workshops. I was to include a letter detailing some of the other experience I’ve had in my writing life that was supposed to compensate for all those years of not going to college.

So I took the next indicated action. I wrote the story, though I hadn’t written anything new in nearly a year. I wrote the story, though I was steeped in great and pathetic sadness. The song came to me, as it always does, by magic, and I wrote the story.

I took my ass down to that scary and complicated building and found my way to the mailboxes of those professors and I put the freakin’ envelope in the freakin’ box. And then I walked out of that place real fast. And then I went on with my life. I’ve gotten very used to not waiting.

Turns out I got in. I found out unexpectedly, by the hand of a lovely woman who didn’t know I didn’t know. She congratulated me on Facebook while I was in Billings, surrounded by the very, very closest people in the world to me. The Universe loves me like that.

So. Here I am, The Quitter, on the eve of this new adventure. Scared out of my mind that it won’t work, that it’ll be another dead end, that it won’t lead anywhere else, that I'm fundamentally not cut out for this, that I’ll just be the old woman in a room with kids who’re on that track – you know, the one I’m not on.

Except I am on it I guess. And I’m of a mind right now not to wonder too hard where it’s going to go. If I think too hard about that, I might be tempted to quit.