In Spite of Fear

"Travel far enough, you meet yourself." - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas 

There was a time in my life when I was not the person I am now. A time when I stayed in my little apartment for weeks on end, afraid to go out in case of Catastrophe. Once I finally sought treatment, my therapist asked me, "what are you scared will happen?" I had no clear answer. Something terrible. Something from which there would be no recovery. The word for this behavior is agoraphobia, and I had it. It had me. All part of the joys of living on the OCD spectrum.

It didn't hit me how bad it had gotten, as is often the case, until after it was getting better. One day, after months of therapy, I woke up and decided to drive to the public library. And so I did. I checked out some books, although I don't now remember which ones, on the logic that this way, I'd have to repeat this arduous journey. When I got home, I called my mother. To brag. About going to the library.

"...and I didn't get lost, or anything!" I was so proud. Even more sobering, my mom was proud too. Hearing her voice on the phone that afternoon -- "Good for you, honey! We love you so much!" -- I wondered how I'd gotten to this point, how a strong-willed and plucky girl had so quickly become a frightened young woman for whom a ten-minute drive, there and back again, was cause for celebration.

I still wonder. And that's the hell of mental illness; I have no answer. I don't know why some brains, mine among them, seem to misfire sometimes, to take in the input from the world around us and spit out an unhelpful response. I only know that it happens, and that it happened (and sometimes still happens) to me.

A few years ago, I drove to Colorado, alone, to visit friends. When I got back, my mother said she couldn't believe I'd done it, that she remembered the young woman who was too fearful to leave her apartment, who turned in on herself and shut out the uncertainty her brain wouldn't allow her to process. "You're so much better," she said, and I could hear the pride again in her voice. I'm better, I thought, tasting the thought in my brain, letting it roll around like a good whisky. It was the first time I could concretely say I'd beaten my illness in a meaningful way.

In the last three weeks, I've done things that I could never have contemplated fifteen years ago. For many people, I'm sure this trip looks like no big deal. So you traveled, I can hear them saying, people do that. And they're right, these hypothetical people in my head. People do do that. Sane people. Healthy people. Fearless people.

Certainly I'm not always sane and healthy. And fearless? Ha! I'm demonstrably not, in point of fact, fearless. Fear is in no short supply around here, thanks to a mental illness that's deviled me for nearly half my life. And maybe "fearless" isn't the point. Maybe we're all afraid, most of the time, and maybe what's important isn't that we feel no fear, but that we acknowledge the fear and refuse to let it decide for us.

When I was asked to go on this trip, I said yes without hesitation, knowing that saying no because of fear would represent a return to that long-ago apartment that I was once too afraid to leave. When I went to the airport three weeks ago, I went knowing that I was afraid. Sitting here today, trying to put it into perspective in the scant hour before I leave for the airport, I'm afraid. My crazy OCD brain is yammering away with what if and you can't and danger danger danger.

The thing about mental illness is, you don't Get Better so much as you become more adept at managing it, more aware of the times when it seeks to sabotage your life in a million different ways. The OCD is still there, and probably it always will be. I've just gotten better at telling it to sit down and shut up. (Note: I want to make it clear that I didn't do it alone. I had and still rely on support, treatment, and love; if you have a mental illness, and you don't have those things, please reach out. To anyone. To me, if you choose.)

So sure, I'm better, but I'm not fearless. Still I have done this, and I will do this, because I am not my diagnosis, and I am never going back to that apartment. Remembering that has allowed me to have one of the best travel experience of my life, to see a place I never imagined I'd see, to meet people who have taught me, and touched me with their openness and joy in life. A life lived free of fear sounds great, but maybe a life lived in spite of it is just as good.

A Two-Side Country

"Paraguay is a two-side country," my student said, to open his group's presentation on popular texts as cultural artifacts. Earlier in the week, we watched A Christmas Story, and I had lectured on the various ways that film functioned as an artifact of Midwestern US culture, the culture in which I was raised. For their group presentation, they were to discuss a popular text that illustrated their culture(s) in the same way.

My ears perked up. I wrote down "two-side country" in my notebook.

"There is a side that we want to show, and a side we do not," continued the group's spokesman, a young man who sits near the back and likes to surf on his tablet while I lecture. "Today we want to show you the both sides."

They began by showing me this: 


"This is Mercado 4," said the next young man in the group, whose turn it was to speak. 

"Mercado 4 here in town?" I interrupted him, even though I generally allow presentations free reign to go where students want to take them, because I knew this place, had stood there myself.

"Sí...I mean, yes."

"I've been there." My students' eyes got big, just for a second, but he recovered. 

"Not alone," he said, not a question.

"No, just me," I said, and he gave me the kind of look I imagine skydivers get a lot, that look that says "you're clearly insane, but I'll give you credit for chutzpah." 

"Did you get mugged?" I shook my head. "That was lucky," he said. 

I nodded, chastened, and the presentation went on. The group used 7 Cajas to illustrate some pretty hard truths about this country : corruption, crime, and the crippling poverty that leads people to do terrible things. I nodded as they spoke, and thought about the woman with a hunched back bigger than her head who I bought some cough drops from for less than fifty cents American, the dirty, naked, lost-looking children who sometimes wander the Plaza where I like to read during siesta time, the man who followed my parents and I for half a block pleading incoherently for alms, the only words I understood for sure being "please," and "rich American." 

Next, my students showed me this:


"We want to show you what is good here, so you will see both," said the final speaker of the group. The least fluent in English, he read from a prepared script. "We are working to be a cultural place, to improve the standing of women, and to make the poverty less for every person. We value art, and music, and beauty. The harp is our instrument, and we love to hear it because it is beautiful and it makes us proud of our home."

I thought about the openness of the people here, the beauty of the architecture, and the way even a simple meal here seems to nourish your body and soul. I thought about the harpist who played in my hotel restaurant one night at dinner, how he seemed to be performing a magic trick and making music all at once, and how pleased he was when my parents bought a CD from him. I could see why, in spite of so many terrible realities, a person could be proud to be from here.

"So you see," said the first speaker, "we are a two-side country." 

Espera

My students were the first ones to tell me espera, although not in so many words. The first day of class, I was ready to get started at 2 pm on the dot. If I'm honest, I was ready by 1:30, and fidgeted impatiently in the classroom for half an hour. That's how I am. It's how I'm wired. From early memory, I hear the words "If you're early, you're on time; if you're on time, you're late; if you're late, you're left." So much of the etiquette of my upbringing has been about being punctual. About how it's respectful to be on time, and disrespectful to be late. That first day in the classroom, I had to question it.

"Let's get started," I said, at 2:03, in my not-fucking-around teacher voice, the one designed to cut through whispers and giggles and make sleepy students wince. "But Miss," they replied, like people making a clear and obvious argument, "Not everyone is here."

Back home, I probably would have shot back, "Well that's unfortunate for them; we've got things to do." I didn't, though, because even on the first day, I was seeing that things work differently here. This isn't disrespect, this is Asunción telling me espera.

So I did. I do. We start class when we start class, and that's OK.

The entire cycle of life here tells me espera. The evening meal doesn't happen here until well after my stomach has begun demanding it. But Asunción says espera, and I do. At first it was about being polite; I didn't want to ask the restaurant to readjust its schedule, to ask the whole damn country to readjust its schedule for one insignificant and spoiled white lady whose stomach is on Missouri time. Instead, I sat in my room, checking the clock and struggling to ignore my rumbling belly.

Five or so days in, my stomach gave up, got with the program, and stopped whining, and I realized that the time I had between work and dinner was a blessing, a chance to unwind and watch the city do the same from my balcony.

So I wait. Yo espero. And as it turns out, I don't starve.

It's now, and I'm here.

Tonight, I strolled down the street to a restaurant that everyone I know who's been here recommends. I took my time. I looked at the lace and wood carvings being sold by the vendors in the plaza. I got to the restaurant, and a smiling woman brought me an empanada and a giant salad, and I ate it slowly, enjoying every bite, watching futbol with the old man sitting next to me. I was in no hurry. I had no place to be, no timetable to keep. It was bliss. And the empanada was delicious.

On the way back to my hotel, I stopped and looked at the Monumento a los Heroes. I'd walked past it a dozen times, but I'd never seen it after dark, all lit up. I stood on the corner and watched while the lights faded from red to purple to blue and back again.

A little old couple strolled past holding hands, and kids played on the stairs, and I felt like I was part of it. And Asunción stopped telling me espera, and instead it told me ¿Qué ves? Ahora.

Mi Mejor Amigo in Paraguay

There are so many wonderful things to write about that it's hard to pick just one. But I think today I should talk about mi mejor amigo in Paraguay, Emilio the waiter. Emilio works in the restaurant in my hotel, where I have eaten the majority of my meals this week, and to me, he seems to typify the people I've met here: kind, friendly, and willing to work a little to communicate with la mujer norteamericana loca (that's me).

Settling In and Setting Out

Today is my first official day in Paraguay. Yesterday, I decided, really doesn't count, because I was too exhausted to communicate in anything longer than a facebook post (so apologies if you also are my facebook friend, because some of this is gonna be review). It's early days yet, but so far I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

For Mom

I'm in the Tulsa airport, waiting (im)patiently to begin the part of my trip that involves flying metal boxes, and I'm thinking about my mother.

I love it when people say we look alike. Go on, say it.

When I was little, somewhere in the vicinity of nine, my parents decided that it was time I visited my French family. At least, I assume that's what they decided. I was nine, as stated, so I wasn't privy to all of the discussions that led to things happening in my life. In any event, it was decided that I would be taken to Chateau-Thierry, where my grandmother's people live, and, happily, that is what happened.

Unfortunately, my dad wasn't able to come for reasons that I assume were related to his job, so my mother and I packed our bags and headed to the Kansas City airport, flew to New York, then to Paris, then boarded a train and rode to my Tante Alice's house, where we were greeted with what is still the most delicious soup I've ever tasted. It was the best trip I had ever had, and to this day is top 5.

I tell you that to tell you this: My mother is one hell of a woman.

I am nervous about this trip, as I am nervous about all trips. I'm worried my bags will get lost. I'm worried I'll miss a connection and have to live in the Rio de Janeiro airport like Tom Hanks in that movie, living on ketchup-and-cracker sandwiches and cups of water cadged from kind-hearted airport employees, fending off scurvy with lemon juice in little packets. I'm worried there will be A Problem (I am aware that my brain has manufactured this Problem, as it is prone to do; I've made so many lists I've got lists of my lists, and I'm sure all my proverbial ducks are in their proverbial row.). But I worry. Like Yeats (or Chinua Achebe, if you're more of a novels person) says, things fall apart. And I never feel so vulnerable to that idea as when I'm leaving my comfort zone. I'm worried about all this stuff, and here's the thing:

I don't have an inquisitive nine-year-old to corral. I'm just responsible for myself, no one else, and certainly not someone who is almost completely dependent on me for their every need.

Dang, mama. My hat is off to you. All the hats I've ever owned. Hell, all the hats I've ever seen. All off, to you. Because of you, I can do this.

Where I've Been, but Mostly Where I'm Going

So yeah. I've been remiss. One post in one year? Ridiculous. That's my bad. There are lots of excuses I could make, but they all come down to the fact that I have a hard time prioritizing myself and my writing and I need to work on that.

Oh...THAT'S where that is...

Which is why it's lucky that I have a new adventure to go on, and I feel inspired to write about it. And I'd really like it if you came with, at least in the metaphorical sense of, you know, reading what I write.

See, in just under two weeks, I'm going to Asunción, Paraguay, where I will spend the better part of a month teaching a course on Literature & Film.

Crime Scenes and Carl's Junior

Next time, on Hoarders...

I hate moving. I'm a nester by nature, and the whole process of boxing things up and carrying them away to be unboxed elsewhere gives me the icks. This little whinge-fest is by way of excuse: it's not that I didn't want to blog, it's that my computer was in seven pieces in four different boxes. But I'm getting settled, and it's time to get back to our buddy Aristotle.

To recap: you've got ethos, where an argument (buy a Buick) succeeds or fails based on the character of the speaker (Tiger Woods), and you've got pathos, where emotion is used to persuade the audience to do such varied things as adopt puppies and commit genocide. Now let's meet the new kid, logos.

Pathos, Puppies, Panzer Tanks

Here's the scene: It's late at night, and you can't sleep. You sit on the couch all bleary-eyed and cranky, pick up the remote, and start channel surfing. You settle on something light, something that doesn't tax your intellectual or emotional capabilities too much (after all, you are tired), maybe an old John Hughes movie or a little Adult Swim. Suddenly, right when you are at your least able to deal with it, it happens.

Aristotle, Ethos, and Tiger Woods

Ethos in Action

Here's the thing. If you're still here after reading my last blog post on Aristotle, there has to be a reason for that. Maybe (I hope)  you found value in what I had to say. Maybe you felt an emotional attachment to the material (even if it was just giggling at pictures of Doctor Who). Or maybe you felt like you got a sense of me as a person, and you decided you wanted to hear more. From that person. The "me" of the blogosphere.

Ta-da! You've just defined ethos.

Ethos is one of Aristotle's basic rhetorical categories, and any argument that hinges on the character of the speaker is using it. Aristotle puts it like this: "We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is..." In other words, we believe good men because they are good, not because they are experts. And this gets really interesting in modern culture. Consider, for example, the curious case of Tiger Woods.

Refusing to Choose

Beware! I bring you terrifying news! Are you ready? Are you? OK. Here goes. When teachers aren't being teachers, they do other things. 


I know. I'm sorry. Shocking. 


It's easy to be sarcastic on this subject. At least, it is for me. For Judy Buranich, though, this is not funny at all. Because Judy Buranich is, like me, a teacher and a writer. She's a significantly more successful writer than I am, at that. And that might have been the problem. Because Ms Buranich is a writer of romance novels. And that apparently makes her fair game for the morality police.

Ms Buranich

Revising = Winning

I've begun some substantial revisions on my largest writing project to date, something that I suppose I have to call a novel. I think it's pretty good. I think that it might become something that is pretty good. In any event, I'm loving the process of revising it. In a bit of odd synchronicity, I am also teaching revision to my Research Writing students. They do not share my love.

The Illustrious Mr. Sheen

For many of my students, revising is something they do under duress, complete with the obligatory under-the-breath "it was fine how it was" and the dreaded "this is stupid." But revise they shall. And I found a truly nifty way to show them how. I'm of the opinion that in order to revise for conciseness (my students' current writing task is revising a 4-page research paper into a 500 word essay), you have to really know what you were saying in the first place. So today, I unveiled my master plan. OK, well, that's a lie. There was no plan. My students were bored, I was desperate, and I went with it. It worked, so I'll call it a "master plan" instead of a "foolish catastrophe." Anyway, I chose a famous piece of American oratory, presented in text form. That's right, a transcription of the Charlie Sheen interview (from the Huffington Post).

On Finding a Balance

Tomorrow morning, I'll meet my new crop of students. This is always a little nerve-wracking. I try to pretend that I don't need them to like me. I try to pretend that I'm the hardassed teacher I always thought I'd be. Like the one who dragged me kicking and screaming through a minor in graphics, who once walked away from me when I got upset, saying she'd come back and help me when I was "less emotional." Even before I started teaching, I knew that I'd be tough but fair. That I'd enforce strict rules and never accept excuses. That a late paper would be considered late no matter what, and absences would not be tolerated. I turned out to be full of crap.

Why I Love/Hate Teaching

I love teaching. I love spending an hour of my day in a room full of undergrads, talking about sea cucumbers, the difference between satyrs and Seder, what double rainbows might mean, and occasionally English Composition, which is ostensibly the subject I teach. I love having students come into my office and ask me for advice on everything from their writing skills to their ability to talk to the ladies. I love watching their writing improve, comparing their rough drafts to their final copies and seeing my influence lurking there. Mostly, I love walking into a room full of strangers and watching them become "my class."

Which is also why I hate teaching. I hate teaching because at the end of the day (or semester, for precision), I have to evaluate these kids who I have grown fond of, and attach a number to their name that equals either success or failure. I have to not think about Student A as the sweet kid who chose me as the person they wanted to come out to for the first time ever, and start thinking of Student A as the student who didn't submit half of Portfolio Four and therefore cannot get an A. I have to stop thinking about Student B as a personable guy who is facing serious financial issues and doing his best to get fit homework in between two jobs and a family, and start thinking about Student B as the student who, in spite of numerous verbal agreements and extensions, never did get caught up and therefore cannot pass.

Throughout the semester, I am amused by that one kid who shows up every day and never turns in anything. I share stories (with names redacted for privacy) about the student who wrote 120 words for an assignment calling for 1000 and was astonished at the resulting grade, or who emailed me last week to ask if it was too late to hand in a paper that was due in September and by the way what is that paper supposed to be about? But today, as I tally grades, it's a lot harder to laugh. Every semester, the Sunday before grades are due makes me even more stressed than my own finals, because it always comes as a big damn shock that some of "my class" is going to fail. The fact that I know I can't make students write papers, that I gave them every chance to get their work in, that in all honest fact they are the masters of their grade, that doesn't make any difference today. All semester, I got to teach people. And I loved it. Today I have to fail people. And I hate it.