Day 220, October 22, 2020
Becoming Transparent
Today's soundtrack: R. L. Burnside, 1984
The Chevy Nova was a recovered stolen car. It was from the Toyota era of Novas, so really it was a rebadged Toyota Corolla that some kids had taken for a joy ride and managed to do fly off a jump, or driven down a set of stone stairs at a park, or had tried to drift before slamming into a curb. In any case, the end result was that the frame was permanently bent slightly askew, and driving down the street the car was always at a slight angle. Like its Spanish name, the car had the nasty habit of stalling at inopportune moments and it was always unclear when and if it would start again.
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| The Shutesbury house seems to predate digital photography, so this picture is actually from the Amherst house, several years later. |
At the time, I lived in Shutesbury in a house my friend Ed sublet to us when he was laid off and moved back to Maryland. Ed was a phenomenal drummer, whose dad was a big band jazz drummer. Ed sold industrial toiletries to all the local restaurants and he was always treated like a family friend whenever we went out to eat with him. The house was about half way down the steep side of Shutesbury Rd. a common path for logging trucks and all manner of rural residents headed for Rt. 202. I was in the middle of trying to finish, but not finishing, my thesis for my MFA in fiction writing.
For several weeks I had been struggling with a physical affliction of not being able to swallow. I would chew a mouthful of food and upon trying to swallow it would get stuck in my throat and return to my mouth as a compressed ball of whatever I was eating. It was only after repeated attempts that I was able to get anything to stay down. It was a strange affliction with no other apparent symptoms. Still, it was a concerning thing. I made an appointment with my doctor who referred me to a procedure where I would drink barium while technicians watched an of x-ray machine to see what was happening. It was randomly scheduled on my birthday.
So, the morning of my birthday, I pulled out of my driveway in the Chevy Nova on the way to my barium appointment. Half-way out of the driveway and caught perpendicular to Shutesbury Rd. the Nova stalled and sputtered to a stop. I tried to stay calm and took a few breaths before shifting back into park and trying to turn the key again. The car gave no response other than the audible click of voltage connecting somewhere under the hood.
When I was a boy, I used to pray. Not the kind of prayer you see in movies, or in Little House on the Prairie with pajamaed kids kneeling by the side of their bed with their hands clasped together. My prayers were a more an informal affair, always more like conversations, the sort of rambling monologues I have performed for therapists in later years. In fact, at some points in my life I fancied becoming a priest... something I'm particularly ill suited to as I later discovered, but what I'm writing about is that I once felt I had a relationship with a spiritual being who had a particular proclivity for listening attentively to all my attempts at self analysis. At the time, I disdained asking for anything directly in prayer (though in hindsight, I think I was asking to be relieved from my torment and unhappiness). But at some point in my young existence, like any good Catholic, I recognized myself as a sinner and such, that I probably should not be turning to God for sympathy, and I stopped praying. I don't remember it as a conscious decision, but a gentle abdication. And then, it was many years before I prayed again.
I suppose that is not entirely true, there were intermittent moments of prayer, but unlike the conversational prayer that I engaged in as a child, prayer had become more like a meditation, a silencing of the mind, and an attentiveness to what rose up to take its place. But that day, my birthday, sitting in a silent car with a slight sideways jaunt, crank windows, and a stereo with a cassette player, in the middle of Shutesbury Road I said a prayer. I talked about how I had newborn twins and I was looking forward to seeing them grow up. I talked about how I recognized I shouldn't have been smoking all those years. I shared how I was scared at what the doctors would find. Without directly asking, I was asking to be relieved of this affliction. I was asking not to get creamed by a logging truck on the side of a hill. It was an exorcising conversation, and when I was done I felt a calm settle over the dashboard. I turned the key in the ignition and the Nova started up like it was brand new off the lot. I drove to the doctor's appointment without a hitch. When I arrived for my appointment, I drank the barium down like it was chocolate milk, and there was nothing for the technicians to see. I went home and was able to eat unhindered once again.
I don't know what happened on that day on the side of the hill. I don't have much in the way of spiritual conversations these days, but I do think back on that time as something to wonder about, the idea of the power of believing in something, or willing one's self to believe in something, or to not will the thing at all, but to just act upon it without needing to think logically, or within the framework of organized religion, but to just open one's self to whatever is or isn't out there and what could then happen.
I'm not sure what drew that to the surface tonight... this idea that there is someone or something to turn to and share your deepest thoughts, your fears, your secrets, your truths. I suppose I aspire to be that kid again. Perhaps, one day, I will be able to be as transparent as I once was.
Take care and be well,
Leo
From Our Friends:
From Higher Ed Jobs:
by Daniel B. Griffith, J.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP
In mediation and dialogue processes, individuals often struggle to communicate and understand one another due to confusion about what each person meant when they used a particular term, such as "micro-managing" or "racist." Unfortunately, their struggle to find clarity on terms serves only to deepen their misunderstanding. If you genuinely want to understand one another, here are some suggestions that may help you come to terms during these difficult conversations.From Inside Higher Ed:
Is It Time for All Students to Take Ethnic Studies?
As ethnic studies requirements are put in place in California, capping years of struggle, educators discuss why it's important to talk about race in the classroom. »
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Resources Lists for the LGBTQ+ Community
Visit our Get Help center and connect with over 1,100 organizations working to provide resources and/or services on a variety of issues to the LGBTQ+ community.
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From the Poetry Center at Smith College:
A Reading by Carmen Giménez Smith
Tuesday, November 17 at 7:30 PMThe timely, searing poems of Carmen Giménez Smith insist on confronting America’s xenophobia and systemic racism. Describing Giménez Smith’s most recent collection, Be Recorder (Graywolf, 2019), the National Book Awards committee praised the ways in which her poetry “turns the increasingly pressing urge to cry out into a dream of rebellion—against compromise, against inertia, against self-delusion, and against the ways the media dream up our complacency in an America that depends on it.” Giménez Smith is the author of five additional collections of poetry, including Milk and Filth, which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and celebrated by Publishers Weekly for the way that its images “challenge classist, consumerist, and socially polite forms of feminism." Giménez Smith teaches English at Virginia Tech. She also co-directs CantoMundo, serves as publisher of Noemi Press, and is poetry editor (alongside Stephanie Burt) for The Nation.
Registration Link:
https://smith.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SJhQwvUvTQaHi1fDbhcQlQ
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Today's Online Teaching Tips:
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From eCampus News Resources:
WEBINAR- OCTOBER 27 2PM EST [FREE ACCESS]
For first-generation students, higher education offers a gateway to career advancement, valued social capital, and intergenerational mobility. Yet despite the best efforts of instructors, first-generation students face numerous challenges to successfully completing a degree, evidenced in higher drop-out rates compared to their peers. Understanding those challenges can help inform course design strategies that foster a greater sense of inclusion and belonging that can help all students find academic success.
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