Metaphors and the End of Semester Panic

Ronald Wallace's words toward the end of my own undergraduate river--"For Marc--Good luck at Iowa State--keep writing sestinas!" 

Writing isn't always about pretty things.  Sometimes it is about the monsters, the little things that go bump in our subconscious and send us flying from task to thoughtless task, like a spider who finds all points of contact vanishing mid-spin.

This morning I woke up while it was still darkish outside and cursed my internal clock for not understanding that, for the next three months, we no longer need to wake up before the sun.  After I had turned over a few times, I decided to approach my day with some vigor.  I did dishes.  Then I had some breakfast.  Then I unpacked a bag of books and read some poems from a Ronald Wallace book and remembered fondly the day he signed it for me.  Then I retreated to my bedroom for an hour or two of morning reading.  I made it through one full paragraph before I remembered I needed to order checks.  So I did that.  Then I paid a bill.   Then I was on my computer checking stats on my summer class.  Then I checked that all the items are still present in my Amazon shopping cart--I won't commit to buying them for a few more hours, even though they are essentials, not frivolity.  Then I checked my untouched-for-months blog.  Then I read some blogs.  Then I realized that I was panicking.

This happens every Spring semester.  I don't know how to do the ending of school.  I don't know how to do the ending of most things, but school is that one thing that pops up on repeat, once a year.  Sure, there are summer classes and before that there was summer studying and before that there was summer working, but the actual end of the regular academic year has always thrown me for a loop.

This year the loop seems, at least in the current moment, to be jolting pretty roughly.  All week I've been in a bit of a stupor--no more classes, must grade, must grade, must assess outcomes, must administer final exams, must say goodbye to students, students, students filing past my desk.  Must go to lunch, must watch students pile possessions into cars and backs of trucks.  Must watch the campus empty, must hear the hallway shift to silence as the students retreat off into life.  Must see graduation pop up around me, must put on regalia and a happy face, must process and smile and nod and clap and recess and shake hands and congratulate.  Must wake up the next day with not one clue how to not see students every day, how to say goodbye to the stories that we teachers collect of these lives that pass through our lesson plans and our hearts because, as much as we construct course policies and put on the face of the enforcer, as much as we tell ourselves to keep a distance, to use the course outcomes as a barrier between our souls and theirs, flayed out bare in a paper or in a speech class or in a creative writing workshop session, we can't.  And then they leave and we know, I know, how delicate humans are at 19, 20, 21.  And all I see is the whole promise of humanity shining behind each cap and gown.  And I'm afraid that life won't be kind because life can be that way sometimes.  And I'm afraid I haven't taught them enough, that they haven't learned enough from the institution I do my little part to represent.

And then I think of all the times in class when Student A sat off to the left, and I could see his chemotherapy port poking out under his shirt, forcing memories of mom and of feeding tubes and of the holding of hands and the forever stopping of breath.  And I think of the times I saw Student B acknowledge the scars of the past and heal himself through the spinning of new words, forcing memories of the pills and the car and the friend behind the back tires, trapping me between the curb and his flesh, forcing me to stick it out until I could figure it out.  And then I thought of Student C poking that peculiar oddity with a pencil, walking around it, taking notes, encapsulating, creating, triumphing as she locks one more mystery of life behind words, forcing memories of learning to isolate, analyze, understand the past and then tap tap tap out a new future in writing.

And here I am today, isolating, analyzing, understanding, and tap tap tapping out what I've learned.

And here is what I've learned:  I worry because I doubt.  And behind it all, I'm afraid that when I plunge headfirst each year into the river and pull myself out when it reaches the sea, they won't remember the ripples I made.

And here is what I've learned:  I don't ever want to feel totally calm as the students wash out into the surf.