On becoming a doe

-

-

What is it you feel on a walk in the woods when you know that suddenly you must stop, because the energy within you and surrounding you has become one? The white pines you love, from the tops of their sky-touching branches to the needled floor coppery and aching to be slept on, are full of deer-ness, though there is not one in sight. And, as though magically transposed into a doe yourself, at last you commence your walk, changed. Yet, as a deer, though you might have assumed before now that you would be fearful as one, you are not afraid; rather, you are attentive, listening, stepping foremost with your nose, black and moist, your ears and hide the color of the pine needles, together ruffling in the breeze.

And from where did it come, this deer-ness, and what does it matter, when next day on the next walk you remember that you are now a doe and instantly you hear a rustle by the pond, not thirty feet away. There, six does eat leaves of the poplar saplings and stop for you. O the moments when this transpires, the eternal moments when everything is one. They recognize you now. They have met you here for breakfast. They felt you within and without, walking in the air, eager to join them by the frozen pond table. They know that you are no longer separate. Yet it is their nature to bound off at last and leave you, alone, aware that you were the one who had this to learn.

-

-

Poem: Doorstep of a dream (title change)

-

-

I danced but one waltz and fell into my chair by Mr. Tolstoy, where I listened to music and conversation much of the night. You were all so charming and bright, but I had awakened too early the night before and could not keep my eyelid shades up. In a few moments of drowse, a dream-poem found and sailed me back to the farm, where remnants of the sea floated and mingled in the strange dance of the mind. The room spun slowly down to stillness.

Doorstep of a dream

In a dream, a house is my self,
each room an aspect,

their windows a glaze of eyes,
as these poem lines

are my skin, the letters ears—
small shells

that hear the weeping
overflow of the apple tree,

which exhales tales of the sea
in waves, of its lost city,

fragged stones on a mythic beach,
which is anyway

and after all lozenged
here in the house of me.

On the doorstep of a dream,
or in the sand of this poem

leaves fallen on the ground
are my next hands

recasting what would otherwise
be blown, buried or

forgotten, into this day's
room, with a window, open.

Poetry should be heard.

-

-

what is inside

-

-

When what is inside comes out

the order of the world

finds form

that looks like you

I've added a photo of a morel mushroom to the ones of lilacs, after some of the comments.

-

-

I was the cornstalk!

-
-

My name is Ruth, and this is my testimonial.

After exposing my fears to you yesterday, you gathered around me like midwives around a woman in labor. My presentation this morning was short, more like 15 minutes than the allotted 5. (They told me to take all the time I needed.) It was not an important presentation in the grand scheme. It was an update, just informational, not meant to be inspirational or profound. But it weighed on me, and so I told you about it. Here are the things I have to say to you:

I was the cornstalk. What I mean is, I visualized the stillness of the broom corn in yesterday's photo as I went in and hung up my coat and laid out my handouts. I didn't take coffee or fruit until after I was done. (I got to present first, isn't that great! I got it over with and then could relax.) Being the cornstalk, I was still and didn't rush. This is the most important lesson I learned from the broom corn: DON'T RUSH. 

What strikes me now, and did as I left the meeting, walked to my car with my box of handouts, buckled my seatbelt and drove across campus to my office, is that this here blog world is real and precious. I went from an anxious, jittery woman yesterday (and many days previously) to a Zen cat, like my Bishop in the photo here. See how she observes and takes in the world. She squirms around in leaves. She stalks her prey and takes her sweet time. She lies under the broom corn and lets me take her picture. You all helped me get there, you commenters and well wishers. I took up the fibers of your offerings and wrapped myself in them, like a mantle.

I was relaxed. I made them laugh. I covered everything (without notes!). And here's the other thing I thought of about the people in the audience I was to address, while getting ready this morning at home: Like them, love them, believe in them. I did, and I think they felt it. I know I did.

Thank you. I feel incredibly moved at how I was transformed, with your help. I will not forget this the next time I am afraid or anxious.
-
-

Who advises whom?

-

Honors students can be such a pain. They’re bright, they’re gifted, and they’re all over the place. Never ever expect an advising session to last less than 30 minutes. More like 45. Or an hour. (Honors students constitute around 10% of my advisee case load.)

There’s the questioning of myself: If I answer what this student just asked, will I prove I am less intelligent than she is? And how about she asks twelve questions that go into a diaspora of topics, each of which by itself would take a minimum of an hour to discuss? Annoying.

Somewhere in my nine years of academic advising at the university I’ve learned to flow with these grand minds. Answer only the questions they ask, one at a time. Slow them down. Tell them, Let's talk about that topic another time, stay with this for now. They look at me with sudden gratitude when I say that, as if only I can control their tortuous panoply of interests. This is a weighty responsibility for an adviser: How to rein in, but not deaden enthusiasm?

There is Catherine, for instance. She’s about the size of a small thirteen-year-old girl, with a young face to match and shoulder-length wavy blonde hair. She enters my office wearing her gargantuan backpack like a tiny turtle who inadvertently grabbed her father’s shell and left for the day. She painstakingly unloads it to the floor and sits. But don’t let her size and girlish countenance fool you. She is probably the brightest light I’ve ever advised.

I had a choice the first time we met. Resist, or flow with her. No matter what I advised, she responded with another, more ambitious idea. I had experience on my side, but she had vision on hers. So what if it took 20 credit semesters to accomplish it? She had so many things planned out. The intensive and demanding English teaching program was her main focus. But she wanted to add a minor in theater, study abroad in Malaysia, an extra teaching minor in Spanish, and a slew of other “electives” that would not contribute to her requirements whatsoever. I kept telling her, That will add another year to your time here, you know. “I know,” she’d reply. And we’d stare each other down.

Because I chose not to resist, I became altogether charmed by this young woman. Having 1,000 advisees, it’s not easy for me to connect names with faces in that sea. I hate this, because relating to people on a personal level is important to me. A few students stand out, and I remember their names, either because they have so many problems that I can’t wait for them to walk the stage at Commencement, or because we connect so strongly that they are unforgettable along with their names. (And truthfully, those who have the most problems often fill a big place in my heart.)

Catherine is one quirky girl whose name I remembered from the second or third appointment. She doesn’t smile a lot, but from her words, you know she is smiling inside. Confidence oozes out her nostrils. Quickness and wit are her allies. She could stand on a stage and soliloquize Shakespeare or write a major paper on Joyce's Ulysses and convince you she interpreted both impeccably. She has no tolerance for silly and boring and will tell you so, in no uncertain terms. Over the years she gave me a litany of the professors who were intolerable for their blandness. She had that rare combination in a young person of high intellectual intelligence and common sense. Sort of Zorba meets Boss. (Or rather, Boss meets Zorba, Boss being the bookish, mind-driven one, and Zorba being the common-sense-gut-instinct-heart-driven one. Have you read Zorba the Greek by Kazantzakis? You should, I'm reading it now, it's brilliant. Thanks, George.)

So this week Catherine came in for her final check as a senior. Were all her ducks lined up all right before her student teaching placement next year? I panicked when I couldn’t find her file in my drawer. We had met a dozen times at least, and no file! Did the secretary accidentally purge it with the old files? All our checklists, my notes, her added minors, later dropped, our entire history, gone, poof! I stood at the drawer and frantically searched out of alpha order. How could this be? I ranted out loud, “I’m miserable, I can’t find your file!” while she sat on the other side of my desk and chippered in her droll yet sympathetic commentary. Finally I gave up and sat down, pulled out a new, blank checklist, and started all over again. What had taken three and a half years to produce with its scratches in three different colors of ink and highlighters was reduced to a clean form with entries made in one sitting. It felt wrong, because I was reducing the academic diary of her undergraduate years to mere facts.

And so, as if that reduction required it, since neither of us could bear to leave it there, we reminisced, we laughed, we remembered all those times I had advised her to not do something because it would be too much, and she had done it anyway and proved me wrong. And there were the times she did change her mind and drop a plan. She wondered aloud, "How did I possibly think I could do all that?" Hahaha, we laughed some more. She told me about her five weeks in Malaysia in the summer, how miserably bad the professor was and how unorganized the trip, but how extraordinary the people were, which made it worthwhile and changed her views on teaching forever. We didn’t want to stop, but it was time to go.

She stood up in all her five foot two inches, picked up her fifty-pound bookish carapace and struggled to get her arms through the straps and settle it into place on her wee back. She stood in front of me, just on the other side of my computer. It was all I could do not to take her up in my arms, backpack and all, and carry her into the next stage of her life. But the thing is, she doesn’t need me to carry her. She's gotten the best kind of education: trial and error, trial and success.

Reluctantly, I told her I’d see her at Commencement in May. With a look of youthful, sentimental intelligence, she left.

Honors students can give you such a pang.
-
-