Winter at night in the country is silent. To the north is a harvested field where often geese land just around dusk, and in the river beyond that. Just on the east is the bay, and there’s nothing but trees to the west and south. When the sky is clear this time of year it is cold, and now Saturn is settling below the horizon just after midnight. The just-about-to-be-Super Full Moon is climbing over the Chesapeake, and if it weren’t so bright the Milky Way in the south would be more visible. This is the way it is; this is seven at night in the country in winter.

This is the Cold Moon. It is the first full moon in winter, so the Cold Moon. In two weeks is the Geminid meteor shower offering more than one hundred and twenty flybys an hour. If you lay on your back on a blanket in the grass in the country on December 14th or so, you can probably make a few wishes every minute.

Today I miss my family—my siblings and their families, many cousins and some cousins once removed are all having lunch in Manhattan. It is Christmastime in New York and they’re sharing stories and laughing, probably walking around mid-town, stopping in some stores, watching the skaters at Rockefeller Center. I wish I were there. “Next time” is too iffy anymore. Time keeps redefining “next time.” At the same time my soul is filled with peace because my son and I will get out his telescope and spend some time tonight out here on the bay in the country looking deep into the Milky Way. We will try and see some craters on the moon, blind ourselves by observing Vega in the west, and if we are out early enough we will see the rings of Saturn in the Southwest.

After a while I’ll start a fire in the fire pit on the patio near the back path, and we’ll heat up some cider. I am sure that while we will enjoy ourselves, we both would have liked to been in New York City today. Some years ago we went and met my cousin Roy and his wife Patty and had pizza and walked in the rain, lit candles at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and talked about the joy of spending time with family. I haven’t seen them since. It makes me sad.

Honestly, our lives should revolve around family; it really is that simple. Unfortunately, that is not the way it is way too often. We battle with deadlines and struggle against the proverbial sand seeping through the hourglass. I would like to slow the whole thing down. I’d love to be able to live like we lived half a century ago when cousins were a stone’s-throw away and every day someone was around, sharing dinner, and we would run into each other at the stores. Now we are scattered like stars and to meet with more than a handful of us means mapping out distances to common locales, coordinating schedules, and planning ahead for accommodations and flights. The simplicity of saying, “Hey, we’re going to get a fire going in the pit tonight, drink some wine and use the telescope; why don’t you come by,” has receded to so long ago I barely remember when. I wouldn’t change much about my life; but if I could make one small adjustment, I’d arrange it for all my cousins and extended family to live nearby, especially my siblings and their families. I suppose we appreciate each other more for the lack of constant contact and the possibilities of “next time.” But part of me wishes I was in NY right now.

Still, few events bring me more peace than sitting outside with my adult son, having cider and looking for constellations in the night sky. It is incomprehensible how much space exists between us and the stars, and how long it would take to get there. When the world is too much with us, we can always find a little peace out in the field in the perfect stillness of night and watch some meteor shoot by, dimmed only by the light of the moon

Vincent van Gogh once wondered in a letter to his brother, why can’t the stars be as accessible as the dots on a map of France. If we take a train to reach Paris, he supposed, then perhaps we take death to reach a star. I think of that sometimes when I’m looking toward Vega or Orion, or when I get lost in the Pleiades. It is silent out here stretching clear across the water, and the chill reaches deep inside, and you realize this is exactly how it was for Copernicus, for Galileo, for our grandfathers, and forever it will be exactly like this. And you realize life should always be like this but it is inexpressible, so you look around for someone to share it with, because talking about it falls short, is incomplete. It must be shared to be understood.

And you realize right then that family is the center, the absolute center of your universe. At some point we come to understand that life revolves around them.

 

We are so sorry. Truly, if we had any idea he would have turned out like this we never would have hired him. In fact, many suspected this very result, but honestly, not to this degree. Unfortunately, he met the qualifications: born here at least thirty-five years ago. Go figure. Yes, a majority of votes didn’t go his way; it’s hard to explain. And by his tone when he speaks, an international audience might perceive this all to be a practical joke, an exaggerated example of the “Loud American” so much of the rest of the world despises. Unfortunately, no. This is real. And we are so sorry.

This isn’t about policy, for the most part. It is about human behavior.

Let’s get a few things straight:

First, the president of the United States is not the “deal maker” here, we are. We hired him to carry out what we decide needs to be done. Sometimes that power is abused; sometimes we need to reevaluate our own choices; and sometimes it simply goes awry and we hire an immoral, indecent, and perverted asshole, but we’ll decide what needs to be done, not him, and if errors continue we’ll find someone else to take the job who will listen to what we say. When that isn’t done efficiently and with our confidence, we regret it. Well, not everyone, and that’s another problem. Some buy into the propaganda hook, line and sound-bite. Not because these sheep believe it so much as the methods employed to communicate such crap is so convincing. Huxley wrote in ’58: “The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything.”

Or anyone.

Second, the president often makes executive decisions we don’t like. Our support of US troops, for instance, should not be mistaken for a belief that most American’s think those same troops should be sent to North Korea, Somalia, or anywhere else. Most Americans understand true Islam is not what the president is mouthing off about, and most Americans know that the environment must be our primary concern. I’m sorry if the president and some people around him leave the impression that Americans stand behind destroying the world either by imminent destruction because of childish and irresponsible hyperbole or by some slow erosion through pollution and overuse of natural resources. We were doing really really well until a year ago. Forgive us. We are embarrassed by the president’s inability to recognize his mistakes and refusal to reverse bad decisions out of some false sense of pride.

But that is not what we need to apologize for, though we’re really sorry for that, too. No, what sits atop this mass of mess we’ve helped make is the greatest of ills for which perhaps no apology will suffice: we’re sorry we are not what we used to be. At one time Americans created a constitution that rewrote how government should be run. The world turned toward us with respect for our progress. We didn’t suddenly succeed at nearly everything we did—military, invention, science, medicine, and engineering—because of our population: we’re not that big. We didn’t surpass the expectations of critics from Czars to Monarchs because all Americans got along—we disagree with each other perhaps more than most citizens in most countries; that happens in an experiment like ours which is why dissent is written into the Constitution. In fact, the constitution encourages it, particularly free speech. With that model, we made good on our word for two centuries, and when we had problems of our own—the Civil War, Slavery, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, political scandals like Watergate, LGBT rights—we dealt with it, sometimes aggressively, sometimes diplomatically, and sometimes poorly, but we dealt with it and moved on. No longer. No, now, I’m sorry to say we attempt to bury our faults beneath distraction and fear. We simply are not what we used to be. And that isn’t fair to our future or the future of countries which turn to us as an example.

The truth is, the United States as we knew it is ill. Its heart is filled with fear and unsubstantiated speculation, and when executive decisions are coupled with personal attacks, degrading and racist statements, and absolute ineptitude, a change has to happen. This country does not have the moral strength it did in its youth, and any artificial means of sustaining life will eventually collapse to the reality of this false resuscitation in some pathetic tagline like “Make American Great Again.”  Honestly, most of us are too smart for this. Patriotism has always been the backbone of this country; but it had always been a patriotism built on pride—the pride that came from making the right decisions, following the right paths, no matter how hard; it was a patriotism built on the backs of dissidents and soldiers who knew how to fight for our freedoms without compromising them. It was not false; it avoided the trite sound-bite built by committees and marketed to the mob who drive about the country with flags flying from car antennas.

But many here have bought into this new, veneered patriotism. But it has a different grain, this national pride that permeates every aspect of American life. It’s a patriotism balanced on fear and propped up by stimulus-response. It has not the historic sense about it the world so respected and tried to emulate in decades past. It’s a national unity that survives not because we believe in ourselves but because we no longer have the attention span to unearth the truth; we don’t have the objectiveness to separate right from wrong, and we no longer understand that sacrifice means growth, not weakness.

It is Lord of the Flies; it is the reactionary leader creating a monster he is set on protecting us against, silencing the dissent of investigations like most dictatorships do, convincing us the one who leads with reason and diplomacy will place everyone in danger; it is Moby Dick, with Ahab determined to commit suicide against an unassuming nemesis solely for revenge and not to advance some greater good. It is the tragedy of the ages, the fall of an empire. It is our own fault, and we’re sorry. No one here is happy about this.

No one here is happy when the president declares he is a deal maker not a diplomat; when he pushes aside world leaders to get in the spotlight; when he ridicules mentally challenged people; when he badmouths journalists—the very soul of a democracy—when he treats women like objects and brags about it; when he lies about his accomplishments; when he makes fun of anyone who disagrees with him.

This man is an embarrassment no matter how far to the left or the right he might stand. This is about human behavior. We were supposed to be a better example than this. We were supposed to provide proof that humanity had it in its collective power to accept the ways of many people and, based upon a common constitution, work together. Our proclamations promised in writing the rights of liberty and happiness—amazingly, for the first time in recorded history. And it worked for awhile. Oh, the democratic principles of our founding fathers remain the cornerstone of any government that hopes to rule without revolution; that aspires to last longer than its military forces allow. We were really good at it, too. But who isn’t embarrassed by the fall of a good example? It is, perhaps, worse than watching some wretched foe attempt to lead you into the abyss; for after proving oneself worthy, after placing oneself in the position of respect and admiration, after followers line up blindly trusting this once-great prototype of human justice, to bend toward being an aggressor, to bring the balance of criticism against the once seemingly-faultless government, is nothing short of deplorable. We preached to the world that our way of life should be emulated and respected; and certainly for some time it was. But we’ve become the spoiled athlete with talent and power who bends rules to benefit himself. Watch closely then because we are truly falling. And it is undoubtedly because of a small group of demented leaders manipulated by the current president.

Talk about inappropriate behavior in the workplace.  

We are not on this slippery slope because of some foreign power who takes issue with our self-worth; no, we’ve made it here on our own. We spend more time studying the drinking habits of bad actresses than the decisions made in congress. We propose new governments to foreign lands while our own executive branch is under investigation; cabinet members disagree; both major political parties prefer there were only one party; what the president says is cause for war both domestic and international; race relations are once again in turmoil; the president wants to literally build a wall between us and our neighbors; we spend more on fast food and gourmet coffee than we do on education; we don’t handle natural disasters very well; violent crime is higher here than in most countries on the planet; our jails are saturated, and our waterways are polluted. And all the while we spend a great deal of energy telling other countries how they should act and what is wrong with their leaders and policies. Are we right? Perhaps, but we’ve lost credibility, and many of us would rather our leaders simply keep their mouths shut for awhile and let the world, as Mark Twain said, believe we are stupid than open our mouths and remove all doubt. Please, just for a short time while we straighten this out, could everyone look away?

We are so sorry. We may have earned the position of respect and reverence in the past, but it is not automatically renewable. We should not follow up these successes of domestic and foreign programs fifty years ago with a new foreign policy based upon “gut feelings.” The primary fault and eventual downfall of any great nation is hypocrisy.

We weren’t always this way. We didn’t even act this way through the two centuries of turmoil and growth, when what we did and how we did it, while arguable and questionable, rarely contradicted our own principles of democracy. When we recognized our own hypocrisy—slavery, for instance—the collective power of this country’s citizens demanded we set it right. Now we call for executive privilege as if we’re ordering a pizza. We refuse to testify like we’re turning down dessert. We’re scattering troops about the world like it’s a Risk board and the only place left to put a few cannons and horses is Kamchatka. We refuse to accept the ideas of other nations no matter how many are unified against us, and we withdraw from treaties set up to protect the globe solely to protect our wallets.

We’re sorry our leadership often acts and speaks less than presidential. Listen, lots of people here make fun of our president. They make fun of his tweets, his verbal sweeping generalizations, his inability to act like a mature adult. Yes, it’s embarrassing– the world has made that clear, but you don’t need to tell us.

Believe me.

Newspapers in counties that once turned to the United States for leadership and guidance mock our president on a regular basis, emphasizing his flaws, using his fallacies as some proof that America is not what it used to be.

And it’s not. And we’re sorry, but the rest of the world needs to understand how this works. When we collectively decide he needs to be fired, we will do so. For now, disagree as we might, our system is set up so that other branches of our government hopefully pull up the slack. This type freedom comes at a price, and we don’t always make the right decisions. But they’re our decisions, and while we deeply apologize for not maintaining our past strength and dignity, that respect was not earned by any one president or any single policy, but by the collective efforts of the American people and supported by the finest constitution in human history which guarantees rights that have made this country work. Rights such as the one that states anyone born here can become president. Anyone.

Even this asshole.

 

A Very Personal Thanksgiving Week Blog

 

Okay then:

I have never applied for a job. I always just fell backward into them. I wanted to use a bathroom at the beach and managed a hotel for four summers; I thought I was going to an exercise class to learn to be an instructor and managed a health club for Richard Simmons; and blankets, well, there were no applications in small Mexican villages back then. Even here at Tidewater Community College where I have been a professor for twenty-eight years I started because my car broke down in the parking lot and I happened to use the phone in the Humanities Division office the day the dean, Bill De Weese, needed someone to teach some courses. In fact, I have spent most of my life falling backwards into some sort of forward motion. I would change that about myself I am sure since it simply reflects my tendency to take the path of least resistance. I just got lucky that my path ran through some cool and amazing locales. 

In fact, I would change a lot about myself; the way I am with people for instance. I’m fine in front of twenty people or two hundred people—no problem, but one on one is one example of where I’m often uncomfortable, with the exception of a few very close companions. I often joke with a friend about how I don’t fit in; I’m not saying I “can’t” fit in; I’m saying I, me, inside, in my heart and soul, never feel like I fit in, like everyone else is existing in some sort of poetic unity and I can’t get my meter right so I stare in from outside. It always feels that way to me. Always. I don’t have much of a problem with that, actually. But it does demand some adjustments along the way.

For instance, here’s a pretty significant adjustment: I’m leaving TCC at the end of Spring semester. No, really.

The college made me an offer I can’t refuse, nor do I wish to. Nothing about my life, my personality, or my ambitions bends toward retiring some day at seventy-something as an English professor. I’ve gone too long now without being scared, without taking chances or reaching for something just beyond my grasp. I am about to move toward a world with a certain lack of security that I’ve had for so long; but there is another security which beckons—the security of pursuit, the comfort of knowing I’ve avoided complacency; the recognition of who I am deep inside, the person who wrestles with those tigers which come at night.

I don’t want to wake up someday at the end of someone else’s life. 

I suppose now that nearly everything in my life is changing, ending, adjusting or otherwise cracking in half, it just might be easier for me to make the changes I can and accept the ones I can’t. I don’t for a second pretend I have the wisdom to know the difference. But that’s okay; unlike Frost on his immortal and misunderstood road, I’m checking out the other path; see what’s there for me. In the literary world it is understood that there is only one path but with choices along the way. But as he indicates, once we move too far down the choice we make, we don’t ever go back.  

And I have no desire to go back. I can’t begin to offer thanks for how it has all gone so far. But we often fail to recognize there are constant forks in the proverbial road. And my current direction, for a multitude of reasons, simply isn’t working out anymore. People who know me well and have taken this trip with me tell me to look, really look at the amazing ride it has been. Yes, indeed, what an amazing ride. The travel, the people, and the endless opportunities. 

But listen: How do we measure what we’ve done? How do we do that? Honest to God, how is that possible? By comparison? If so to what? The least among us? The greatest among us? Each other? The past? Perhaps it is in how we feel in our soul. Maybe the measure of a man is in the distance between his dreams and the efforts he puts forth to reach them. The only ideal comparison is to ourselves and how we might have done things differently, but that comparison is by virtue of nature impossible since one can never tell what might have worked out, who would have worked out, what distances we might have traveled into our wildest hopes if not for…and on and on and on in impossible measure.

Yet here I am. All the balls I’ve been juggling have now fallen; or, better said, I stepped back and let them fall. That’s okay though: I still have some balls left. 

I still have it in me, as we all do no matter our age, condition, situation, or experience, to have the courage to pursue a goal instead of a path. The greatest lesson I learned on the Camino is that while the journey is the point—the lessons learned, the people met, the experiences which can never be outdone, are so obviously the point of course–without the goal of Santiago, without some cathedral in the distance, we’re just meandering aimlessly hoping to bump into something good.

It’s been a great three decades; apparently I’m good at meandering. But this path has no spires, no eventual absolution. Just because you’re good at something—really good at it—doesn’t mean you should be doing it. By that measure I should be managing a hotel or making omelets somewhere. There needs to be a fire inside, at the least some simmering always present.  And just because you found a fine plateau with security and comfort and respect, doesn’t mean you are supposed to stay. I hope people don’t decide what I should have done based upon what they would have done. We do that a lot.

It might be easy to assume this rumination is to reassure myself I’m doing the right thing. Yeah, of course, and it is something I need to do daily. We all do, otherwise we really do slip back into routine, ease, and the gentle flow of life with a current created by someone upstream. It is most certainly self-reassurance. But it’s like this: I’ve been in school for twenty-eight years, and I’ve been learning about myself, what works, what doesn’t. I’ve developed aspects of my life which burned when I was young and still simmer waiting for some attention. I’ve sat inside this cinder block office tracing maps and writing essays waiting for something different to knock on the door, leaving me feeling like I’m always just “a day away from where I ought to be.”

I want to live, and that’s simply not happening here. It would have been very easy to keep doing what it is I’ve been doing for so very long without effort or worry, but it came at a cost, and I’m no longer willing to pay that price. It really is that simple. I’m just not healthy anymore in so many ways. I’m not for a second pretending it wouldn’t have been easier to stay; that most definitely would have been the path of least resistance. But I no longer have it in me to fight for complacency, to struggle with mediocrity to insure the predictable.

When I was in college my friend Sally made me a plaque. It said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”—Emerson. It isn’t difficult to see what lies behind me has been phenomenal. I could go on about journeys and writings, the people and the moments, but they all only lead me here, to now. And what is next became incomprehensibly predictable, so much in fact I could map out my life for years—years—to come. Some take comfort in that; most people rely upon that security. I can’t, refuse to, will not, am absolutely against sitting in a chair one day not too many years from now looking back and saying, “Yes, that was a comfortable life, but it wasn’t mine.”

For better or for worse, with all the anticipated struggles before me which are very present in my soul, I want to never doubt that my life was absolutely mine.

“I’ll make myself some pictures and see what they might bring. I think I made it perfectly, I wouldn’t change a thing.”     –John Denver

 

Last week in my creative writing class we reviewed various questions to ask when returning to a draft. Where’s the best place to start? Is this detail to obvious? Is it too obtuse? One question in particular is a favorite of mine and I spent some time going over examples which moved to an interesting discussion: What value does this detail (image, sentence, etc.) bring to the work? We talked about fluff and filler and basic bullshit which often creeps into the craft, especially during the rough draft stage at the end of a writing session liquefied by too much Rioja.

And then the weekend came and the leaves along my road and along the river leading out to the bay were at their peak; that is, they were vibrant with red and orange, yellow and rust, and the deep blue sky behind them made for a scene no camera could accurately capture. My days immediately had value, enriched by the pure power of life in transition, which I could witness simply by walking.

This made me think of my father; I have so many reasons to think of him, particularly in the fall when things change. But the leaves remind me of how much he enjoyed the season. The fall is family coming for holidays, of course, which my father lived for, but also football on Sundays; and in all the houses we lived it was the colors of the leaves. Leaves ablaze burnt orange and fire-red, and blue skies contrasting black trunks and silver and brown branches. It is when we mark time with colors and the distance between a falling leaf and the ground.

When I was a child I found an oak near the creek at the end of the old trail along the Southern State Parkway, and I carved my name in the trunk. It might still be there, nearly half a century later; if some hurricane hasn’t taken it down, or some summer storm, or construction or a myriad other ways time steals our past. This weekend while out walking along the Rappahannock I wondered if I decided to drive to the very end of that Long Island road and park near our old house and walk through the woods to the trail, would I discover fourteen-year-old me standing there with a knife not understanding how fast the tree would carry my carving to incomprehensible heights? Would I stare across decades and measure the distance from my youth by the height and breadth of the trees I long ago climbed and swung from and hid behind? Nothing exceptional happened in those woods; nothing but the passing of time occurred where I carved my name in a tree while Dad waited at home for us to move on. But now, if when I returned to my car would I catch a glimpse of my long-ago father looking at the newly planted trees surrounding our new house anticipating their eventual majesty? Did we know we would move away so soon? Do we ever know how soon we move away?

So many seasons have passed, and once again leaves are ablaze, burnt orange and fire-red. It is as if new colors appear, and my son has spent his own decades taking pictures and marking time by the height of the apple trees in our yard, which anyway have lost their leaves for now.  Everywhere I look it is autumn and the branches more prominent, like bones pushing through aged skin. If my father were still here would he want to tell me again about the colors on the trees along the Brooklyn streets of his youth? I have never been able to take root like him, but I’ve come to understand the arch of ancestry and the unwavering value of the past.

And what value there is in every moment, in every season. What profound and inexplicable value exists in the persistent passing of time, the predictability of change, and the colors of life. Oh! Such colors of life!

In Derek Jeter’s last year with the Yankees, he made 12 million dollars.

That same year I didn’t. I teach college.

He hit 310 in his career with 260 homers and 1311 rbi’s. He played in 145 games his last season and stood at the plate 581 times. During some of those at bats, and certainly a few times on the field with his hands on his knees, he called out supportive statements from his shortstop position, like “Go get ‘em!” or “Come on!” He probably broke a sweat. It gets hot out there and he’s from Jersey. The stress must have bled onto his off-the-field schedule as well. He had team meetings, promotional events, media interviews, charity appearances, and, of course, training. I imagine it can be rough, throwing that ball a few hours every day, placing himself in harms way of a hammered lined drive—not to mention the dangers of collision with the third basemen or pitcher during those sudden infield flies. So I really can’t question his annual salary of 12 million dollars. Certainly the people attending in the Bronx were there because of him and would go home if he didn’t play one day (which is rare–he missed, in fact, only 17 games in 2014). When the fans arrived, they spent more money on beer, food, and shirts with Jeter on the back, which is another aspect of his job which must take its toll–all those pregame autographs he must sign, and all those people running around wearing Yankees jerseys with his name on the back–Impostors! Human plagiarists!

I don’t know Derek. We don’t hang with the same crowd. It might be my age–I was a sophomore in high school when he was born. It could be also I’m a Mets fan, so no wonder our paths have not crossed.

Also, I don’t make 12 million. In fact, here’s how it breaks down: Derek’s game time salary, that is, money divided into his in-season, game time appearances, totals $74.074 per game. That doesn’t include spring training, appearances, practices, and money he makes from other income such as commercials and endorsements. Compare that to my salary, including class time, prep work, meetings, grading, workshops, and conferences, across the course of a twenty-eight-year career, including cost of living increases–I mean the basic salary for myself as a college professor—I will make in total what Derek pulled down in twenty-five games, seven innings.

Surely I could field a ball. I might have called the coach, asked him to put me in. I used to throw fairly well from the mound. I could be like the pitcher made famous in Dennis Quaid’s The Rookie, Jim Morris, who at thirty-five returned to baseball as a relief pitcher. And, hell, I’d do it for half what Derek makes. One tenth. Wait. I’ll do it for what he would have made in the 17 games he didn’t play his last year, which is still twelve times my annual income.

Now, all this is fair, really. He generated income, increased revenue. No one is running over to the college bookstore to buy jerseys with “Kunzinger” on the back. If someone else were pitching the grammar rules instead of me, students would still show up. Nike doesn’t endorse faculty, though for relatively small money, I’d throw a “swoosh” at the bottom of my course outline and wear the Nike shirts to class everyday. I wear a baseball cap quite often–for the right price it could be theirs, or Budweiser’s, or Coke’s.

Think of the possibilities. A company could sponsor my clothes, sneakers, and hats. They could endorse my syllabus, my tests, and even my overheads. Yes, at the bottom of my overheads I could put a “Goodyear Blimp” emblem. I’d do it for relatively small money.

I already do.

It wasn’t always this way, to be sure. During the Babe’s days he signed a two year, $160,000 contract making him the highest paid player of all time while Cub slugger Hack Wilson led the National League in home runs and RBI’s and said he was “grateful” when he signed in 1931 for $35,000. That same year a college professor averaged about $3000 a year. Here’s the math: While my annual salary is about 30 times that of my counterpart back then, Derek’s take was 80 times the Babe’s.

Make no mistakes: I can teach. I’ve had excellent evaluations for my entire career, and my performance improves as I go, unlike an athlete’s. But I still bet I can pitch low enough to force out three opposing players faster than Jeter can develop students’ argumentative writing skills. But you have to love him. I mean, to watch him play is witnessing an artist stroking the canvas—sheer beauty. Truly.

Still, you should see me diagram a sentence. Breathless.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the past three decades at the college and I’ve noticed a few trends along the way. Many years ago I wrote a small work about being a professor, and it is interesting to note that things have not changed. That’s my fault though; I really forgot to make a note reminding myself to call each of my students and remind them to get up, to come to class, to bring their work, and to raise their hand.

I’ve failed them.

Please. Allow me to note some consistencies:

Older students are better than those just out of high school. The big dude with the pierced face and tattooed eyelids is probably a great writer. Many students would rather pull a lower grade than have a professor look at a rough draft. Students who take copious notes don’t always fair as well as students who just listen intently. If it happened before they were born, it really doesn’t have any affect on them and therefore they shouldn’t be required to learn about it.

Hamlet is boring; Oedipus is stupid; statistics is tedious; bio lab is too long; developmental classes are a waste of money; introduction to literature is a waste of time; history is not relevant; philosophy has no practical application; psychology is disturbing and the instructors are disturbed; text messages are read more than text books; face to face communication is obsolete; and the only source of information is the internet.

Here’s the great irony of education: while we should become smarter as time goes by because we’ve been given the answers through the centuries, watched the lessons played out on the battlefields and in seminar rooms, we’re actually ignoring more, learning less, and not really keeping tabs of our decline.

Maybe if I text my lectures they’ll pay attention. Phones go off in class, in the hallways, in their backpacks. They reach in to quickly shut it off because they “forgot it was on,” and spilling out onto the floor are the books they need, a few small notebooks, and various articles of clothing. They carry more in their bags then in their minds. 

The science and math books are ten-pounders, and the anthologies aren’t lightweights either. For lab they need their lab equipment, gloves, goggles, special notebooks, dead animals. Rough drafts, final copies, required journals, various books read besides the textbook, art supplies, tape decks, language discs, keys, wallets, games and personal items. Some have staplers, toothbrushes, condoms, aspirin, medicine bottles, and hand soap. Some carry crayons and cookies because their kids come to class sometimes when elementary school is out or cancelled, or when the kid is sick but the Prof told the parent if she missed one more day she’d fail the course. They carry medicine for those kids, bi-polar, attention-deficit, hyperactive. They carry the same for themselves, medicine for their own ADD, ADHD, OCD, diabetes and manic-depression. They carry a lot. They need to remember when papers are due, when tests are scheduled, including their math tests, their physics test, algebra, pregnancy, special needs tests, mammograms, CT scans, and various other tests they’ve got on their mind and written down in their notebooks at the bottom of their parcel.

They carry cell phones with various rings, various friends calling during class, right before class. They have small machines attached to their ear so they can remotely answer the phone without having to move their arms or lift their hands. They have the numbers of everyone they know automatically programmed in. They no longer have to walk to see anyone, walk to find a phone, remember any numbers, lift their arms, or turn their heads.

Once someone’s phone vibrated during class. The vibration on the desk was as loud as a ring, but she politely excused herself. Some professors insist the phones be off during class, and they won’t even allow them to be turned to vibrate. But this student came back in and said she was sorry and that she had to go, that was her babysitter calling and someone from her husband’s command post was at her house waiting for her to come home. A week later I discovered her husband had been blown up at a roadside bombing on the airport road from Baghdad. Another student’s brother was on television. He worked for Blackwater in Baghdad and she watched her brother’s charred body swing from a bridge in Iraq.

One student shot himself in the head because he thought the paper was due and he thought his medicine wasn’t. True story. A colleague of mine listened quietly one day to a near-suicidal student explain why her paper was late and how her daughter was going through depression and they were bringing her to the doctor to see what was wrong, and it weighed so heavily on her mind that she couldn’t really concentrate on the paper and would the professor mind the paper turned in a few days late, and she agreed. Students knew this about her—she would work with anyone. A few days later my colleague hung herself in her kitchen because her medicine was fucked up.

This is the American Community College. These are the trenches, in the city; some of these students come to get ahead, knock off some basic education classes before transferring and paying more at the university. But some come here instead of jail, or to bide their time, or to hang with old friends and maybe hook up with new ones. Some come to keep off the streets; it can get dangerous these days. But some of these students come from real war-torn areas. My student Deng walked across Somalia to Ethiopia twice looking for safety. Before he found it at ten-years-old in a Red Cross camp, he was given an automatic rifle and taught to kill. Now he tries to write about gun control and crime in seven hundred words, making sure the grammar is right. His mother was raped and hacked to death in front of his eyes. His father “disappeared.” He was a Lost Boy. Sometimes he didn’t concentrate. Yeah, okay, sometimes he didn’t pay attention. But when he came to my office we talked about politics and survival. We talked about Africa and faith. We talked about ideas, and he told me Chinua Achebe knows Africa. He told me how Sartre would not be popular in Somalia but Descartes would. He knew the differences, understood the gentle nuances that separate philosophy and politics. I didn’t ask about his scars. He didn’t ask about mine.

Some students came here with an education the likes of which we can’t possibly conceive. He told me he as soon as he found the camp he knew he needed to leave. I said I understood. He said it was too much, and he wanted to die so badly that’s when he knew he just had to get out. I didn’t answer. I had nothing left to say to him.

I have nothing left to say.

I wonder if any of my students from years ago wish they could go back to the start and do things differently. I know I do.

Sometimes I’d like to go back to 1986—amazingly only three years before I began teaching college. There was one moment then—I can still sense the stillness in the July air—I would like back. How different things would be. But we couldn’t know then what we know now. We were so young.

What I know now is this: all the lectures in all the classrooms from all the professors in the world will not prepare us to be anything of value if we don’t find any value in what we do and how we live our lives.

Of course we would all do things differently; even just a few small moments. I’d never have left Massachusetts. I’d have gone to Monterrey anyway. I would have passed on the Trout in Prague, the oysters in Asheville. When I left Tucson that last time I’d have headed west instead of back east.

We are always in pursuit of ourselves, aren’t we? Even if we don’t consciously consider such notions day to day. In class this morning I asked my students if there was anything they would have done differently in their short but tech-dominated past. They all laughed and had answers that ranged from staying off-line to trying harder in high school to treating a loved one better while she had the chance. They talked for a bit; they got quiet. They thought a while. And I added this: What are you doing now that five years from now you wish you had done differently?

They looked at me for a moment with just a little confusion and some wonder about their future, and they waited for me to talk.

But honestly, I have nothing left to say.

 

I figured out how to be happy. Here, now, at fifty-seven years old. It is good I thought of this so early in my life so now I can be happy all the time instead of just when it works out.

It is this: Don’t expect anything from anyone. Or, better said, stop paying attention.

I’ve heard this throughout life in various semantic forms. Do what’s good for you; happiness must come from within; create your own happiness; build your own rainbows, blah blah, yada yada, ewww. But the triteness is true. When we stop expecting things of other people, even when it is logical in some sort of familiar way to do so, we move gracefully without being disappointed by false expectations.

This is sort of what St Bernard meant when he said we must learn to make excuses for other people.

Or maybe I just like having no one left to blame but myself if something doesn’t work out.

I love every season. I like the icy winds on my face when I am near Lake Erie or when I lived in New England. Nature is so absolutely objective; she just lays it out there on the line and says, “Today, you’re going to freeze your ass off,” but means nothing by it. It is absolute honesty. It does not differentiate between those who love the cold and those who don’t. The same was true in the Sonora Desert; it wasn’t unusual to hike in 110-degree heat, but it was what it was. Once in a while it will whisper, “then go inside if I’m too hot for you.”

That’s what draws me to nature; it keeps me in the moment, I experience again what humans have experienced since the dawn of us. But these days surrounded by processed landscapes and prepackaged cities, people tend to pass judgement on everything from lip gloss to the definition of genocide; they categorize and change their minds; their moods can be unpredictable and hard to trust.

This isn’t the case in nature. Nature just might be the only place of absolute fairness. It doesn’t bully. It doesn’t ridicule or praise. It simply doesn’t care; which is all that is necessary for one to be oneself.

It’s why I walk. Cinder block hallways and poster-laden classrooms offer nothing. When I am in the woods or near water, the criticism is all internal and ironically it is only at that point it is mostly positive. I am proud of myself when out there, first for being out there, for shedding the residue of concrete expectations. And what I find when the sun is sliding along the water or the leaves linger just a few moments more before letting go for good, is that I expect more out of myself than I do when I am closed in. In the hallways and meeting rooms and online spaces saturating the air with invisible communication cables, I do what is necessary, sometimes what I think is more than necessary, but always I am tethered by others exceedingly low expectations. But when I’m out on my own meandering I tear down the low-bar mentality and realize what I am capable of.

And it occurred to me recently that since I do my best in those situations, I should spend more time in those situations.

I used to imagine myself looking back at myself from a few years ahead. I’d pretend I was doing an interview on television, or perhaps having a talk about some accomplishment, and that visualization became some sort of bizarre, slightly-psychotic point in time I could shoot for. All I had to do then was fill in the empty space between where I was at and that future moment. You know, it actually worked more than a few times.

Maybe when I’m inside and around others I just don’t have the time or space to push the reaches of my mind and see what’s in there to fill in that empty space. Or maybe I’m too easily distracted. Nature is like a familiar movie; I already know it well and can look up at my favorite scenes, or glance around at moments I never noticed before, but it is comfortable enough for me to multitask.

The view from my wilderness is almost always internal, clothed in the spectacular colors and soft breezes of nature. When I walk along a deserted road I take full responsibility for every thought and action and reaction. When I stroll down the oceanfront or along the river I can find the right words, discover the correct image. I remember what I think about when out there. It stays with me, whereas the conversations in corridors often go in one ear and…well, no, they don’t actually go in at all.

It isn’t only that nature doesn’t pass judgement on my decisions or actions that relaxes me and allows some sort of organic process to work at its best; it is that I can clear my head of those who do.

The truth is fifty-seven isn’t young, and I need to be myself again. We all do; and maybe we all have that place away from (or in the middle of, who knows) distractions where politics and business and the infestation of life can’t touch us. If that is where we truly live, why don’t we live more?

Peace.

Fall has arrived and the breezes this weekend cleared away most of what was left of summer. Last week at home I walked along the river like I always do and this time of year when the water laps at my feet, it is warmer than the air, inviting, deceiving, teasing me into thinking summer will push back on autumn and maybe even win out. I don’t mind the change so much; I’m not bothered by the passing of time as much as how I spend the passing of time.

Tonight I’m in West Virginia, and winter’s on its way. The leaves are just beyond peak here, and my drive to the coast tomorrow will bring me through every stage of autumn. Sometimes you can see all the changes happen in one day. Crazy.

The truth is, some things need to change. Even with resistence, sometimes it is the only way to make room for new growth.

For me even the seasonal change from summer to fall is often troublesome. Again, I don’t mind fall—my days in western New York and Massachusetts are most memorable for this time of year. And obviously I know it is going to happen. I watch the weather, I mark the calendar, I see the leaves letting go. But still it always takes me by surprise. I wake up one day and I need to wear more clothes, or I no longer feel the sun so strong on my shoulders, and I am saddened.

So when a change is even more unexpected, like anyone else I wonder how I am going to handle it. And the surest way—for me anyway—to gauge my reaction to life being different or accepting some sort of radical, unexpected shift in existence is to look back to when these things have happened before.

I’ve never lived a conventional life.

In kindergarten I liked a little red-haired girl, Kathleen. Just like Charlie Brown I was afraid to approach her. We were in the same class until third grade when at the end of the school year my family moved much further out on the Island. Instead of saying goodbye to her I made a card that said, “I love you” and threw it at her in the hallway. I think she got it. Now I wish I had just handed it to her politely and said I was sorry I was moving. I never saw her again. I probably didn’t handle that relationship well.

A line from a favorite song of mine says, “Can you picture a time when a man had to find his own way through an unbroken land?” Imagine that for a second. No satellite photos, no GPS, no maps and indicators, no sextant, nothing but perhaps some paths beaten by cattle or floods. Wild.

In some ways that’s all of us in our youth. Personally, I often ignored advice of my older siblings, examples set down on television or in school. I simply preferred to assess a situation and have at it on my own terms, even if it meant complete and utter disaster. Once I walked three blocks from home just to play with a friend’s plastic bowling pin set. I was eight. Another time I decided to hike into the San Jacinto Mountains outside Palm Springs without telling my parents, or anyone for that matter. I missed the small sign that said “Danger: Rattle Snake Area. Keep Out.” What a beautiful hike that was until I fell into a Saguaro cactus and spent an extra hour on a rock pulling thorns out of my leg. What a great day.

My point is simple. I should be dead. Or abducted. Or in juvi for harrassing an eight year old girl. Instead, I gained that small bit of confidence we used to earn out on our own, trying and failing, fantasizing and acting and pretending. You simply never know when those youthful lessons will return to come in handy, see us through an unexpected left-turn, help us through the changes.

I thought about those years, my early youth in Massapequa Park on Long Island, and how innocent it all was; how we flipped baseball cards and played stickball. We had block parties where the block would be closed to traffic and we all put picnic tables and grills out and walked up and down the street talking to everyone else and sharing food, and riding bikes, and the adults had drinks and the kids had fun. Television went off the air at night, just a fuzzy white noise until the early morning when a black and white flag waved across the screen and some dude said, “We now begin our broadcast day” after the National Anthem.

This was the age of my youth. It was innocent and tech-free and filled with hippies and protests and flag-burning and marches and sit-ins and rumbles. The laughable Mets became the champs and we walked on the moon. On the moon, for God’s sake. How can you possibly not understand why at the core of my generation is some semblance of hope, still simmering. We were not a generation of followers staring at our hands; not by any stretch of the imagination. So when the times were a ‘changing, we changed—or we were the ones causing the change to begin with. And as we grew older, those organic traits became part of our DNA.

Change. Part of who we are is absolutely dependent upon how we were when we were young. And when I was young I was restless, always ready for something new. I didn’t mind our move away from the Little Red-Haired girl. I didn’t mind the move to Virginia.

I welcome what’s next.

“To change is to be new. To be new is to be young again.”

 

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are going.”

–Lao Tzu

We now begin our broadcast day.

 

 

 

This is a special edition of A View from this Wilderness. About a month from now my book “Out of the Way: Walking with Francis in Spain” is being released, and this excerpt–which I reworked into a variant form here–is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy this and thanks for reading: 

Learning To Walk

When my son and I decided to climb the Pyrenees on our pilgrimage to Santiago, Spain —a five hundred mile trek from France to the Spanish coast—I passed on carrying walking sticks. Now, I’m not always a stubborn or proud man; when someone told me to buy my hiking shoes one size larger than normal, I did and I’m glad; walking hundreds of miles really does make the feet bigger. And when I was told to drink a lot of water I made sure to stop at every well on the way. Not buying a walking stick wasn’t a matter of wanting to look strong; I simply didn’t want something else to carry.

Curiously, we were the only two pilgrims without walking sticks in all of St Jean Pied du Port, France, where we began our trek. They only cost about five euros for a good solid piece of oak about five feet tall, varnished, “Camino de Santiago” burned into it and a metal casing at the tip to hit the ground, with a tough cord through the handle. Some people carried fold away steel ski poles and others wood ones. Some pilgrims bought two and walked like cross country skiers; most found one would suffice, leaving the other hand free to point at the Pyrenees or hold a water bottle. And as I told my son: “I’ve been walking upright without assistance for a long time, uphill included.”

It turns out the Pyrenees are profoundly uphill. Those first three unassisted days crossing the mountains made for some interesting balancing acts. With both arms free it was too easy to move too fast and tire out or lean too far and stretch out a muscle. Instead, we took a lot of breaks and watched where we were going so not to step on endless small rocks and countless eight inch black slugs, bountiful in Basque country. Another reason I went without was my concern that on the Camino I’m come to carry the cane like a crutch and expect it to help me more than I should, especially once we moved past the Pyrenees. We were a rarity on this journey: a father and son together in peace for five weeks, talking, laughing, and sharing intimate moments in chapels and cafes.

We didn’t need the sticks; we would lean on each other.

          In Pamplona we bought two walking sticks.

We gave in when we realized we tired more quickly than our fellow pilgrims, and it felt awkward to let our arms dangle all day. Michael found one about five feet tall stained dark and rugged looking. Mine was a bit taller and tan. Both had thick cords through the handle for our wrists. It took some getting used to but somewhere on the way to Logrono, Spain, we found the rhythm and our walking sticks became an extension of our anatomy. I learned just the right timing to pick it up and how far in front of me to place it back down. I figured out when to not let the tip hit the ground, when to carry it on my shoulders, and when to lean heavy on it to relieve pressure on the knees or toes. I learned I needed it more down hill than up, on dry riverbeds more than the pavement, and not at all in larger towns and cities.

          And after another week or two that cane worked its way into my character, as did everyone’s. We would leave them on our bunks in the late afternoon after we checked into a place to stay and then went out to eat or drink. It marked our space, and a quick glance indicated whose bunk was whose faster than looking at the backpacks. Two mahogany walking canes told us the two men from Frankfort, Germany, were also staying; the silver ski poles with a Belgium flag sticker belonged to Sylvie. And others knew ours leaning against a wall, in a corner, or as they lay on the ground against the wall at night. At some point my walking stick was simply part of the pilgrimage as much as my water bottles, my backpack and my journals. Eventually I knew if I had to make a choice I’d have given up the backpack before the stick.

          It became a part of my walking style and I decided I’d continue to use it when we returned to the States. Since he had been old enough to walk Michael and I have explored woods and walkways together. At home he always grabbed a hand crafted walking stick from the pile he made from fallen branches, and off we would go. I adapted quickly to mine in Spain and when I wasn’t holding it, my hand felt empty.

          A few weeks later near the city of Sarria, it occurred to me I’d be using that stick the rest of my life. When I am in my eighties no one will need to convince me I’d be safer with a cane; by then this piece of wood with “Camino de Santiago” burned into the side will simply be understood. For my family it will be part of who I had become, the one who walks, who at one time when he was so much younger crossed Spain with his son, and the only items they brought back were their walking sticks.

          That was agreed on in Pamplona. With about five hundred miles before us, we knew we couldn’t carry much. In fact, shortly after arriving and evaluating my belongings, I ditched some clothes and equipment to lighten the load. We had been accustomed to acquiring souvenirs to remind us where we had been. When I was young my father always brought back glass mugs with the name of the city or state printed on the side. When I traveled during Michael’s youth I likewise found evidence to give him and make him feel part of my journeys. But this was different; this was a pilgrimage walked by saints and queens. This wasn’t a vacation; it was a brand new way of life. So as we walked Michael took pictures and I wrote in my journal and we decided those would be our mementos. We both knew no token could possibly represent the experience of sharing these five weeks, twenty-four hours a day, together.

          But as it turned out, soon after buying the walking sticks and getting used to them we realized doing so allowed us, quite ironically, the double pleasure of having an easier time of it on the pilgrimage as well as a very practical souvenir of our time together that summer. We would bring them home. Enough said.

          It was difficult not to think of my father when we first bought them. At almost ninety at the time of our pilgrimage, he sometimes needed to struggle out of his chair, but once he was up he kept going without assistance from a “third leg” as Sophocles suggested in the Sphinx’s oracle. Now here were his son and grandson deciding to carry a few canes for five weeks. That kind of time together, talking, walking, mostly remaining quiet and pointing out the beauty around us is simply not often shared between a parent and child. In fact, on our entire Camino we only met a few other similar relationships, a father and son from Holland and a mother and daughter from Sweden. The innkeepers and café owners would comment on how lucky we were to travel together. We knew this, though, and as time went on we both wanted the trip to continue. Together we met people from around the world, drank in cafes as varied as Hemingway’s favorite pub and a garage some woman turned into a bar. We prayed together in churches built before the time of Charlemange and chapels where St Francis of Assisi sought refuge. We shared every moment of every day surrounded by the finest scenery in Europe, and five weeks later we walked together into the sacred city of Santiago de Compostella aided by our walking sticks, which literally guided us across the country.

          In Santiago one afternoon we toured a museum which had on display relics of those who walked the Camino. One cane in particular was featured—that of St. Francis of Assisi, who walked the same pilgrimage exactly eight hundred years earlier. Encased under two glass boxes was a short, peasant’s staff used by Francis when he journeyed from Assisi to Santiago and back. He was thirty-three and traveled well over a thousand miles with this walking stick of his still in tact and on display nearly a millenium later. I was in awe. The significance of our canes became clearer. They would do more than simply link us to the Camino long after we were home; they linked us to every pilgrim who ever followed The Way.

          At the end of the journey one night in Fisterra, the ancient “end of the world,” I stared at our sticks as we sipped a local red wine and watched the small fishing boats in the harbor. We had done it; we completed the Camino, together, and we sat together, father and son, and gazed at the Atlantic.

          It gave me complete peace of mind to know that someday, hopefully a long time from now, it will be Michael’s. I wondered if long after his grandfather and I are both gone, when he is an old man himself, will he sit in a chair and stare with aging eyes at our two walking sticks leaning against a wall, probably long worn away at the tips. Will he someday pick one up in his fragile, elderly hands and remember his youth, coming of age on the Camino, walking more than twenty-miles a day with his father? I wondered if he would tell stories to his grandchildren about the great pilgrimage, and recall the time we wandered into Pamplona together and picked out those very walking sticks. I hoped he would remember the details while his grandchildren ask if they can hold them as he tells them the same stories again about how much we laughed so long ago in Spain. Yes, these were the perfect items to bring home, if there could be one.

          They will collect dust, I thought, much like memories collect dust and cover up some of the details, making them hard to recall. But they will stand as proof. Perhaps there will be small indents near the handle where over time my fingers rubbed away at the varnish. There was a time though, he might say to someone, when my father held this stick, and I held that one, and together we climbed mountains.

Then perhaps some unthinkable time from now he will leave them to his son or grandson. Those descendents won’t have memories from these two simple wooden staffs, but they might have stories of a father and grandfather who more than half a century earlier followed in the footsteps of saints.

 

          At the end of our trip we boarded a train for Pamplona and spent a few days celebrating. We went to the airport to fly home—we would visit my father and tell him about our journey: three generations sitting together sharing stories and memories. Then we got to security. Then we handed the security guard our backpacks and belongings, including the canes.

           “You can’t bring the walking sticks with you,” casually said the guard.

          “Why?”

          “Because they are considered dangerous.”

          “Yes, I understand, that is why I’m shipping them in cargo.”

          “They can’t go through cargo.”

          “Why?” My chest hurt.

          “They are too large and considered dangerous and also they are not in boxes.”

          “No one sells boxes to hold them and they’re not so big. Skiers ship skis and poles longer than these walking sticks!”     

“Skiers have them in specially made carriers and besides you are not skiers and these are not poles.”

          “Yes, they are! In fact they are a sort of religious object very similar to the holy relic cane of St. Francis of Assisi!” My anxiety showed as my voice got louder.

          “But still they are not wrapped correctly to be shipped through our mechanical equipment without a box and they will damage something.”

          “Would you say the same thing to an old man with a cane? Would you tell him he couldn’t bring his cane on the plane because it isn’t wrapped correctly?” Time had passed and the security guard was losing patience and a line had formed behind us with people carrying backpacks and boxes but no walking sticks.

          “No, the old man with the cane would be allowed to bring the walking stick on board with him. You’re not an old man and this isn’t a cane!”

          My heart sank. Michael’s heart sank. The argument continued but I had lost. I asked Michael to carry the canes to a corner and lean them against the wall for someone else to take; perhaps some father and son pilgrims would find them. Michael said if we hand known this would happen we could have left them at a place for others; now they’ll probably just be thrown in the trash.

          We were quiet a long time. It was as if they cut off my arm. I said, “Well, we promised each other last month up in France that we weren’t going to have any souvenirs so this just holds us to our original commitment.” Michael sighed and agreed but we were feeding each other’s disappointment by going on about it. So he brought them over to the wall and left them and I am sure he felt as guilty as if he had abandoned two family pets. He got back in line but before we made it through security I looked at the sticks and got out of line.

          I went over and took the thick cords from the handles and gave Michael his. Once through security we tied our journals with the cords and I felt somehow as if it was supposed to be like this. We left it all in Spain. There might come a time when I will forget the particulars, and even later when Michael will not recall the details. But for now when I go for walks I don’t use a walking stick at all. I doubt I ever will. I’m a lot like my father that way. Instead, I walk alone along the river and remember when we sat in St Jean Pied du Port, France, restless and anxious and ready to begin.

I’ve been teaching college for twenty-eight years now and my classes usually fill pretty quickly. But in all of that time I’ve known some truly amazing professors. I work with a woman named Robin who has been teaching college since I was in third grade, and she is excellent at it; patient, experienced, knowledgeable in every aspect of her discipline. She’s the real thing. Like my brother-in-law, Greg, whose expertise in history has earned him respect around the world.

In my own fields, writing and English and arts and humanities, I’ve listened to lectures by colleagues and was amazed at their focus and thoroughness in presenting examples. These people are good, really good. They enjoy meetings and long discussions about accreditation and textbook selection. They can sit for hours and swap ideas about incorporating technology or revamping placement tests.

I can’t. I haven’t the patience. Sometimes in the middle of a lecture I want to stop and say, “Do you all realize that you can die at any moment; that a fighter jet might crash into this room right now, and you’re spending those last moments discussing the relevance of Kafka? What the hell is wrong with you?!” I can be a joy sometimes. It reminds me of a scene from Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” in which parents bring their young son to a psychiatrist because the child won’t do his homework. The doctor asks, “Why won’t you do your homework, kid?” and the kid responds, “The sun’s going to dry up in four billion years. What’s the point?” For awhile I thought this was a fatalist position, but I’ve reconsidered. I once asked a class what their topics were for the first paper due that week. No one answered. I said I was not grading them at all on topic choice, so they could tell me the topic was creamed corn and I would not have cared, I just wanted to know. No answer. I asked twice more and they stared at me. Then I said, “What the hell are you doing here?” They were quiet so I repeated it: “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

The dean of the department called me in and asked what happened in class because someone complained. I told her I asked them two questions and they couldn’t answer either one. She said I should have perhaps phrased them differently. I asked her what the hell is she doing there. I said, “Are you seriously going to sit here and suggest how I could have rephrased a question instead of telling the student to consider doing the work?” I walked out. I tend to walk out a lot.

For years—decades—I thought my colleagues at work shouldn’t be there if they’re going to insist on treating students like children. But I have been wrong. It’s me. Maybe I shouldn’t be there.

I can keep their attention; that I’m good at. I’ve been in front of crowds since I’m nineteen-years-old, and over the years I’ve stolen some excellent late night Comedy Channel material, and I can keep them laughing, and I can make the work relevant. But that’s not teaching; that’s entertainment. While I may argue that they need to be paying attention to begin with before I can start to hope they hear the lesson, I also well know that stimulating them like that doesn’t help with retention, both in their minds and on my enrollment sheet. No, a successful professor shows how the material is relevant, essential, and hopefully interesting.

So last week I went for a walk across campus. I passed the geese in the lake, the rows of crepe myrtles which run from my office to the parking lot and the grove of trees separating campus from the highway. I walked along a path near a farmer’s market and asked myself, very seriously, “What am I doing here?”

Why are we ever where we are? It is because we like it? Or is it because we simply lost momentum? There’s a great line in You’ve Got Mail. In a scene with Meg Ryan’s voice over for an email she is writing, she contemplates how she has a good life—simple but good. And then she says, “But sometimes I wonder: Do I do what I do because I like it or because I haven’t been brave.” Every once in a while I’ll watch a scene in a movie that makes me loose concentration in the film and start thinking about my life. That’s one of those moments. Every time.

For me the real answer is somewhat Kafkaesque: I’m here because my car broke down in the parking lot in 1989 when I was passing by the college headed from another city back to the oceanfront. I went in a building to use a phone and one thing lead to another and now I have twenty-eight years under my belt. I’ve been awarded many, many grants, taught full classes in subjects as various as African-American Literature, college composition, and creative writing. I even spent some time teaching a course about the art and culture of September 11^th, 2001. I’ve written articles about education for newspapers, magazines, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. I’ve been to conferences to present and to learn, and I’ve taught as a guest in colleges in Russia, Prague, Amsterdam, and Norway. What an amazing twenty-eight years. I’m grateful.

But as a kid growing up listening to Fogelberg, reading Peter Jenkin’s A Walk Across America, and hanging out with adventurous people who traveled the world, “I want to teach college comp at a local community college” doesn’t roll off my lips.

I know that the reasons I stayed make sense, are justifiable, even absolute because some degree of responsibility is expected of a young father trying to find “roots” and a place for my son to come from. It is the great American dream, created centuries ago, made personally possible for me by the efforts of my beautiful mother and father. I was “on the right track.” I had “grabbed a corporation job by the tail before I die,” as an old friend of mine once sang. This is the Great American Dream. Yes. But equally true is the reality we aren’t all built the same.

My grip isn’t nearly as tight as it used to be. It sank in staring at the Gulf of Mexico the other day that in twenty years I’ll be in the final countdown to eighty. The list of things I’ll never get to do or do again is extensive, but this week convinced me that the list of things I still plan to do is too long for such an amount of time. I cannot believe—I mean, I cannot believe I let anyone—ANYONE—distract me from what is truly essential.

I do not plan on quitting my excellent job—don’t worry Mom. But I will not be defined by it anymore.

I’m fifty-seven years old and have never lived a conventional life, and it doesn’t seem like it is going to smooth out anytime soon. I prefer sunsets to Wheel of Fortune and sunrises to Good Morning America. I have theories, of course, about why I could never settle for the 9-5 gig so many I know settled into very comfortably. Maybe we have different stresses. But if I think I won’t get to see some place I’ve dreamed of I can’t sit still. Ayers Rock, Patagonia, Arles, Singapore, Banff. I have to see these places. I have to. I can’t explain this. It is as if to not see these places, to not go meet people who live lives there, to not write about it, to not be part of it all even ever so briefly is punishment, prison, some sort of cruel joke, and the stress can be unbearable.

The brain is freaking amazing. At four-thirty in the morning I can wake with regrets that make my stomach feel ill. Regrets about things I’ve written, said, did and didn’t do, the fate of the world, the trajectory of my life, or the smallest decisions. Fast forward to mid-afternoon, add some caffeine, some Cat Stevens or just the right James Taylor song and the same material I so decided was going to be my downfall before dawn can be exactly what drives me. Same work, same brain, different times of day.

It’s our call.

How often do we worry about disappointing someone else, or an entire group of someone else’s? How long does it take the average person to understand that the only way to pass our eventual aged years is by pursuing our own reality instead of someone else’s illusions?

I can’t help think of Denis Finch Hatton’s words made famous in Out of Nowhere by Robert Redford: “I don’t want to wake up one day at the end of someone else’s life.”

Ironically, it might be just that awareness that makes me an excellent college professor; the ability to make students question their place, contemplate their path, and evaluate their own truths.

It’s just that sometimes I’d rather be the example than the preacher.