Now what?

I started taking night classes in 1992, after my divorce and through the next 12 years of single parenting. When I think back on all those years of night school, I mostly remember walking through the parking lot at the community college after a long day of work and my kids off to Wednesday night dinner with their dad (sometimes, when he wasn’t too drunk or “working late”) or a babysitter (more often). I remember that the wind always seemed to bite into my bones and I’d wonder what I was doing, trying to get a degree by one class a semester, when I’d be so old by the time I was done. I felt old already.

My co-workers all assumed I had a degree like they did, and I was so ashamed of my high school status that I always deflected questions about it if I could. I was working in a corporation with good pay and great benefits, which is what every single mother needs, and my night classes fed my insatiable need to know and think about things. I was originally going to major in Business Administration because you know, that’s the smart career for someone like me already in corporate communications, but my heart fluttered when I saw the course load for Literature and Creative Writing. I tried to convince myself to be practical, because while the world really doesn’t need another novel, people always need to know about new company policies and they’ll always need training on new software systems.

But someone would then pop up and encourage me to follow my dream.

Two years ago was a low point in freelance communications, and instead of sending out more business proposals, I sent out applications to universities. The University of Illinois at Chicago accepted me and offered me a full scholarship if I went to school fulltime. And on Sunday, I graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in English. My whole family came to celebrate with me and shouted from the far reaches of the UIC Pavilion when I crossed the stage.

I should be happy. My family wanted me to be happy. We all wanted it to be one of the most triumphant days of my life. And there are times when I think my God, after all these years of hiding, I can finally say I’m a college graduate. I can be proud of my effort, sure. But there are so many other feelings seizing me that I’m unable to rejoice. I miss school, debate, discussion, analysis. I miss taking the train out of dull suburbia and into the heart of Chicago every day. I hope that someone will buy my stories and people will love them and be touched by them and they will somehow change the world. I want so much to be able to make a living at writing, but when I told this to my writing professor he said, “Don’t quit your day job.” To paraphrase this in my old friend Ron’s words, “People in hell want ice water.” Unfortunately, I don’t have a day job.

It’s hard to tell people about these feelings. Nobody wants anyone to be unhappy, so when I tell them my worries and this sadness, they try to get me to focus on something positive: “Surely you’ll get a job with your degree and all that experience;” “This is only temporary;” “You can always go back to school.” They get upset when I reiterate what I’m feeling now: “What’s the matter, you want to be unhappy?” “Why do you focus on depressing things?” People don’t want me to hurt, they don’t want me to be sad.

But I am sad, and a little lost, and I wish for something to look forward to. I don’t know what to do with myself and I don’t know where I’m going. I want to believe that wonderful things are going to happen next. I just hope the good things in life don’t take too long in coming to me.

Miraculous.

Every time I submit a story to my writers’ workshop I have this silly hope in the back of my mind that the professors and students will read it, exclaim joyously, “This is the undiscovered talent we’ve been wishing for!”, and carry me around the room on their shoulders.

Today that happened, kind of.

This was in my non-fiction writing class, and the critiques and workshops there can be painful because when you’re writing about yourself, the criticism can hurt. A lot. And today I was workshopping a painful and honest piece that also shared some sensitive things that very few people know about me. Ahead of time I asked a volunteer to read because I didn’t think I could get through it. At the last minute I decided to read it myself.

When I wiped my eyes and looked around the room, the class just stared. A couple of students were crying. They were stunned, it seemed. And then they GUSHED. They thanked me for letting them read it. My professor, a famous writer, said, “My God, this story is a Godzilla! Hope you’re ready to be famous girl, because this is brilliant. You can publish this. Would you like my help in placing it?”

I cradled this joy in my chest all the way home on the train, and then I re-read the comments they wrote on my manuscript. Here’s one:

“This piece is the turning point for you: this is where you take back your power.”

Yes.

On days like today, a little light shines into my bleakness, and the light is not overcome by darkness.

I do not like it, Sam I Am

Fall semester starts on the 22nd. I have two weeks of non-school which have mostly been spent pulling weeds and painting things, with a bit of blogging and cooking on the side. This is the universe as it should be.

I had to check my university email address. Foolish, I know. But I’m still praying I’ll be paid for the research job I’m doing my senior year, and I want to make sure my plans are made as soon as possible. Instead,  I found that I have at least two over-achieving professors. Their syllabi are up to date and posted online, and both of them expect some pre-work. Pre-work, what the…?

Modern Brit Lit professor expects us to read “Paradise Lost” and Pope’s “Essay on Man” before the first day of classes. I  have been married twice. I could write an essay on Man. Do I really have to read this? Yes I do, and during my only summer stay-cation.

OK, maybe I do like it, Sam I Am. I love this midlife  scholarly world so much that I bet I won’t even mind reading these while floating in a hammock and being devoured by mosquitoes. My creative non-fiction teacher asked for volunteers to bring in early manuscripts. Guess who volunteered?

I have learned that overachieving students and professors together can actually cause nuclear fission, so maybe you want to stay out of the Greater Chicagoland Area this fall.

Was this really necessary?

I’ve mentioned before that literary folks can sometimes be a little pretentious, and maybe it’s true that we’ve read books we’re “supposed” to read and then say we loved it when we didn’t. Because if everyone else thinks a Great Novel is amazing, then you’re the Short Bus Kid if you didn’t like it.

I’m calling bullshit on this. I am never going to like the novels of Virginia Woolfe and probably will never fully understand James Joyce. Furthermore, I don’t want to. I know everyone is all obsessed with Jane Austin, but the hours I’ve spent on her novels (as required reading) are hours I’m really going to wish I had when I’m on a morphine drip on my deathbed saying goodbye to great-grandchildren I might never get to have.

So, while I’m keeping track of my reading over on Goodreads, I occasionally let out an honest but brief review, such as the one I just wrote for “On the Road”, by Jack Kerouac. Let me be clear that this represents ONLY MY OPINION, okay?

” Self-indulgent, selfish druggies on a road trip…yawn. I could have stayed home and saw that. No big insights or meanings here.”

I know there are people who think this is a deep meaningful exploration of something or other, and one of them found me. Not only found me, but was so deeply wounded that he had to leave the following comment.

“Matt: wow someone clearly missed the enitre point. And kerouac wasn’t a druggie, he was an alcoholic…I think perhaps this book was a little beyond your intelligence quotient.”

Pause. Reload. Second comment.

“Matt: here’s someone who “gets it,” as you clearly didnt….”This book is brilliant. It’s extremely readable, bordering on poetic. It counterposes loneliness and melancholia with colourful characters, incidents and picaresque adventures. With On The Road’s directness and conversational tone, Kerouac practially invented a writing style.”

I don’t know Matt, and I don’t know why, out of the 89,000 people who reviewed this book, he chose my review to blast with a turd-bomb of hate. I think if I’d read the book when I was sixteen, not thirty-five, I might have thought it was brilliant and poetic, but I’ve grown up. As a grown-up, I understand that civilized people disagree with each other while refraining from insulting the other person’s intelligent quotient.

However, I’m glad that in this person Matt’s case, Kerouac found his audience, and I’m also glad to know that there are people in the world who have a higher intelligence quotient than me.

A gift in my P.O. Box

I should really check my P.O. Box more often. Because then I would find lovely gifts like copies of my just-released book, The Complete Guide to Growing Windowsill Plants: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply.

This book was especially fun because Joe and I were also hired to photograph most of the plants – and the publisher decided to do a glossy spread of color images in the middle of the book!

I was also going to show you a photo of the bonsai I’ve been working on since finishing this book, but I haven’t figured out where my new phone sync puts photos downloaded from the phone.

And I have a Kentucky Derby Party to dress for.  Giddy-up!