Halloween Haiku

To commemorate the night when the veil between the world of seeing and the world of being is at its thinnest, I give you a Halloween Haiku:

The cold comes creeping
on dead-leaf treads of deep things
entombed in lost dreams.

Happy spookifying.

A Certain Uncertainty

As week eight of the semester comes to a close, bringing us past the halfway point, I find myself counting down my time left at the university. Seven weeks, or fourteen days of showing up plus 91 hours of online tutoring, encompass the entirety of my remaining commitment to this institution.

Quantified like that, I am not at all certain I will be able to do it.

And even though I have some anxiety about launching myself into the uncertain realm of freelancing, every day that I tutor makes me more certain that I do not want to tutor anymore. The futility of it is overwhelming me.

Here is one example:

A student came to me last week for help on her Basic Writing essay. Basic Writing is a developmental class, meaning it is designed to help students who did not score high enough to be technically eligible for college level courses gain the writing (or math) skills they need to take English Composition 1 (or a first-year level math course). The majority of students in Basic Writing courses fall into two categories: older students who have been out of school for a substantial amount of time and are rusty in their writing skills but can quickly refresh them, and younger students who had piss-poor high school experiences wherein they must have been simply passed forward because teachers did not know what to do with them despite their lack of some of the most basic writing skills.

The student I will discuss fell into the latter group. She could not have been more than 18 or 19 years old, and she was black—though that, I believe, was not the biggest factor in her lack of writing skills. Her two-page essay contained only a handful of punctuation marks: a few periods and a couple of misplaced commas. Whole paragraphs were formed from lengthy run-on sentences, and some passages were entirely unintelligible.

If you’re thinking that this student’s work was some kind of anomaly, you are wrong. Every semester, I see several essays in this shape. In my first semester tutoring, I saw an essay that was one long paragraph with no punctuation at all, continuing on for a page and a half.

I had the student read her paper aloud, as is my usual procedure for these appointments. Reading aloud is an excellent self-editing tool that helps a writer “hear” what is on the page and find missing words, awkward phrasing, and other small mistakes. She read in a monotone with barely a pause where sentences would normally end or begin or between paragraphs. Unlike most of my students, she never once paused where words were missing or extra or awkward.

When she finished reading, I asked her about the first sentence of her paper—which was actually three sentences run together with no defining punctuation. “Is this one sentence or more than one?”

She began to answer, tentatively, and looked at me for a reaction. “Yes?” Pause. “No?”

Now I understood how she had managed to graduate high school. She was not stupid; she tried to give the answer that I was looking for; she tried to read my face and reaction for clues to the right answer, regardless of whether she knew the substance of the answer. Very smart.

We spent our half hour session sussing out what constitutes a complete sentence, narrowing down the correct ways to define a sentence with punctuation, and identifying the full sentences in her first paragraph. I also briefed her on the difference between there/their/they’re and to/too/two, which she had used incorrectly in her paper. This last lesson she seemed genuinely grateful for. The words ‘their’ and ‘too’ were completely foreign to her; she said she had never seen either of them written down before.

This is a first-year college student who is paying (or whose parents are paying, more likely) for tuition, and who is expecting to eventually graduate with a diploma and some lucrative employment prospects. I believe I helped her a little last week, but she still has some very steep learning curves to deal with if she expects to continue her collegiate journey.

I used to think that everyone is capable of college-level learning. A long time ago, before I returned to college after dropping out in my first semester after high school, before I fully realized the almost impossibility of earning a paycheck that I could actually live on without a college degree, before I knew much about the churning bureaucracy intrinsic to institutions of higher learning, I thought everyone could and should pursue a college degree.

Now that I have been associated with this university for 12 years, from undergraduate studies to my current faculty position, I no longer hold that belief. Now I truly think that some people need a different path, some other trajectory for their life. And I think it is immoral for the university to continue to admit students with subpar skill levels just to take their money.

So I count down my last few weeks here, teach what I can to those who will listen, and try not to let the endless wave of struggling students pull me into a riptide of hopelessness. Perhaps one or two of them will remember something I’ve told them about comma use or homonyms or not relying blindly on Spell Check, and theirs will be a success story. I am certain, though, that my success story requires a different path.

Me, Too. Sort Of.

At the risk of sounding out of touch with the current trend, I want to say that I have not been sexually assaulted. Per se. That is not to say that I have not experienced misogyny, disrespect or pain due to my gender. It’s just that I don’t really know how to qualify my experience. And maybe that’s a similar predicament for other women, as well. Let me share.

Many years ago, I was at a bar/restaurant in downtown Akron with some friends. It’s a place that still physically exists but is in its third or so manifestation since the time of my incident. It was a regular hangout for me and my friends; we gathered there in a group of 10 or 12 most Friday or Saturday nights to share pitchers of beer and talk increasingly loudly until one or more of us staggered out, leaving a tab that someone else had to pay in our stead. It was our rust-belt version of Cheers.

This particular night, I was at a table with my husband and our best friend. There might have been a fourth person, probably another male. So it was me and three guys. I felt safe and comfortable. The bar was a little crowded with most tables full of ringing conversation.

Soon, I noticed a fellow at the table next to ours looking at me but unnoticed by my companions. As I glanced from my husband to our friend, following the conversation, I was distracted by his penetrating stare. Eventually, I looked straight at him, thinking I might be mistaken, that maybe he was looking at someone behind me.

That’s when I noticed his dick. He was sitting sideways from his table with his left leg bent, left foot atop his right knee. He was wearing gray sweatpants. With an intense look on his face directed squarely at me, his right hand was stroking his exposed penis just under the edge of his table while his left thumb secured the elastic waist of his sweatpants away from his member.

I looked away quickly and felt a hot blush begin to creep up my neck. Had I really seen what I thought I just saw? Would someone really take out his dick and masturbate right in the middle of a crowded bar/restaurant? Had my modest t-shirt and jeans attire or carefree and fun attitude somehow provoked this activity? I didn’t know how to react.

After another glance to confirm what I thought I had seen—yep, that was definitely a penis in his hand—I leaned over to my husband and suggested that we move into the back room to play darts. He looked surprised, but conveyed my idea to our friends and we got up to move. A waiter with whom I was a bit acquainted came over just then to see if we needed anything. My husband told him we were going to move. As I walked by, I whispered into the waiter’s ear: “I think that sick fuck over there has his dick out.” I was really embarrassed and walked away quickly, not wanting the waiter to ask me to repeat myself.

Once the four of us were in the game room, I told my husband and friends what I had seen. They expressed outrage, and we all stepped out of the room to see the waiter aggressively giving Mr. Sweatpants the bum’s rush out the front door. That waiter later came to us and said he was so sorry, that I should have said something sooner, and that that man would never be allowed in again.

I should have said something sooner. I should have stood up and pointed at him and loudly averred that he had his dick out. I should have shamed him publicly, rather than feeling shame for witnessing his degenerate act. I should have been angry, not embarrassed. I should have known that I did nothing wrong, that he was wrong, that standing up for common decency was an appropriate reaction to inappropriate conduct in public.

And yet I felt ashamed, embarrassed, belittled, humiliated. It was a long time before I spoke with anyone about this incident. I even questioned what I saw for a long time afterward. Was it just his drawstring, as the waiter said the man claimed while being hustled out of the bar? Had I imagined the whole thing? Did I make a big fuss over nothing? Did I overreact?

My experience was nowhere near as harrowing as that of the victims of Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby or the thousands upon thousands of sexual predators who ruin the lives of their victims. And yet, it speaks to the same type of problem. Why do we women feel shame for the offenses of men? Why do victims of sexual harassment, assault, rape, misogyny, discrimination so often feel the crimes are our own fault?

I do not pretend that my experience is akin to rape or assault, but it has left a scar on my psyche after all these years. I like to think that, faced with any similar situation, I am brave enough now to react differently. I am certain that if I witnessed another person suffering some similar offence I would not hesitate to intervene. But the point is that no one should have to strategize how she will meet with offensive behavior, no one should have to give so much of her energy and thought to what is the proper way to react to inappropriate, aggressive behavior.

It is not my responsibility to avoid being assaulted. When we have shifted the paradigm to leave the burden of guilt and shame and humiliation and fear on the perpetrators of such offenses, rather than the victims, then will the world begin to make sense—for all of us.

Panoply of Pain

1. First, there was a sudden, sharp stomach cramp around noon on Tuesday. This quickly faded into

2. A sudden, sharp bowel cramp. This one lingered and throbbed until it became so distracting that I had to leave my job.

3. In the car, I got the “hot spits” that often come on just before puking. I managed to talk myself into keeping it down while I drove.

4. Fever took hold pretty quickly after I got to my mother’s condo. I had been cat-sitting for her and wanted to make sure everything was in order, as she was due back the next day. The pain of fever is so intimate and overwhelming as to be akin to a lover. That deep-bone ache and those spasmodic, convulsive chills put one out of one’s mind the way mind-blowing sex can—but in a completely opposite way.

5. The bowel cramps very quickly localized to a sharp, angry, insistent, poking pain in my lower right abdomen. Through that long afternoon and night, I sipped water constantly and sat on the toilet periodically, thinking if I could just take a good dump, the pain would go away. My febrile brain worked hard between fitful naps to figure out what I should do. Was it my IUD ripping a hole in my uterus? Was it my appendix? Was it gas?

            More than anything, I feared being that person who calls 911 over a gas bubble. I would never be able to stand the humiliation.

6.  I hobbled from the sofa to the toilet like the number 7 all night. The pain in my abdomen precluded standing upright. I had the presence of mind to continuously sip water, realizing one of the biggest complications from a fever can be dehydration. Around 4:00 am, I cooked a couple of eggs and choked them down. I still hoped all this was just the flu, but I think I was waiting for my mother to get home and tell me what I should do.

7. At 5:00 am, I decided I should take some Aleve. This eventually lessened the grip of fever, but that only deepened my indecision about what to do. There, I thought, I’m getting better. I did a load of laundry bent in half like a crone.

8. My mom got home around 2:00 Wednesday afternoon and immediately knew something was terribly wrong. She suggested calling 911. I balked. Finally, I looked up the symptoms for appendicitis on the internet. I had seven of ten. She called 911.

9. The particular pain of venipuncture recurred over the next several days with fluctuating levels of acuteness. Forest, the RN at the satellite emergency room, was smooth as silk when he inserted the port for an IV in my left hand. A second port was added at the inner curve of my left elbow at Akron General some time later. As my stay progressed, blood was drawn from the veins on the backs of both hands, my inner right elbow and one gnarly vein in my right forearm, not far from the tip of my tattoo. The worst of these sticks was one morning around 3:00 am when Tasha—an incredibly kind and compassionate RN who sat with me another time for about half an hour while I cried exhausted tears—tried to draw from the back of each hand in succession. Each time, a large blue bubble of blood pooled around the needle, but none came out. These pools burned and throbbed in their unnatural fullness. I have large, brown bruises there now.

10. Narcotics were surprisingly painful. I have not taken or been given many, as I have never broken a bone or had an extended stay in a hospital before. Low-dose morphine was first. A wave of hot tightness traveled across my clavicle shortly after Forest slipped it into my IV. After 45 minutes and no effect, he went with Dilaudid. That did the trick. The pain in my abdomen receded a bit, and for the first time in about 30 hours, I began to relax. When I got chills from the combination of narcotics and IV saline, Forest swaddled me in warm blankets, and even though my mother had left, I felt safe and like everything was going to be alright.

11. Wednesday night, around 9:30, I had been admitted to Akron General and was waiting to hear when my surgery was scheduled. The Dilaudid lingered; my fever was down and I felt fairly normal. My family had gone, and a friend had come to see me. We were chatting in my room when I heard someone snapping their fingers while approaching the door. A tall, lanky, young doctor with reddish brown hair in scrubs and a white lab coat came in, followed by a short, sheepish-looking, also young doc in scrubs and thick-framed glasses. The tall snappy one introduced himself as Nathan and proceeded to discuss the procedure I would undergo. Here’s what I remember him saying very clearly: “You don’t look like you’re dying, so we’re going to put your surgery off until 8 or 9:00 tomorrow morning.”

12. Before midnight, the sharp pain in my lower right abdomen had radiated to my pubis bone, then across my entire midsection. I writhed in pain while the nurse tried to get ahold of the doctor for a morphine order. Jagged metallic tines raked across my intestines. Barbed wire wrapped itself around my pubis, tightening, tightening. I writhed and pounded my fists against the plastic sides of the bed, begged for it to stop. The nurse suggested I watch some TV or a video on my phone to take my mind off the pain. Finally, the third syringe of morphine in my IV soothed, allowing me to drift into a feverish half sleep.

13. At 6 am, that same nurse came in to tell me the good news: they were coming to take me to the OR very soon. Weak, feverish and chilled, I listened as Bob joked about being a bad driver while he steered my bed down the hall, onto the elevator, into the pre-op room. He became quiet and somber, put his hand on my arm: “You’re gonna be alright kiddo. They’ll get you fixed up in a jiffy.”

14. As soon as the nurse anesthetist delivered a “valium-like” drug into my IV to calm my anxiety, I awoke in recovery to a cacophony of lights and beeps. A tiny black woman named Denise was calling my name and asking how I felt. “Water,” was all I could croak out. The fever was gone, but as my head cleared from the anesthesia, I felt a new pain: the raw, itchy chafe of three small incisions in my belly.

15. My flat belly that I had worked so hard on for months with planks and sit-ups and an entire set of daily core-strengthening exercises from my physical therapist, and for which I had eschewed bread on weekdays, and which had become flat and tight with little vertical ridges just below my rib cage. I had been so proud of that firm, sexy stomach. Now it protruded with bloat, like someone three months pregnant. When my mom and sister helped me take my first shower in days, I saw it in the mirror and wept.

16. The trauma of a ruptured appendix made my bowel completely shut down for four days. The surgeons said that walking was the best cure, so the same day of the surgery, I began hobbling up and down the hallway of the hospital, slow as a turtle, touching the wall at one end then the other at least twice. I was winded after each walk, which I did three times each day. Soon, this helped reawaken my bowel, giving rise to yet more horrors. Quick sharp pangs would double me over, stopping me in my tracks and taking my breath away. My entire world shrank to the size of my four-foot-by-three-foot bathroom. I rode the toilet like a motorcycle—not a big fat Harley but a foreign-made, high-pitched crotch-rocket: leaning forward, IV arm gripping the sink, right arm wrapped around the metal safety bar, legs tucked back around the porcelain, groaning and gritting my teeth and giving it everything I had.

17. Eventually, one of the nurses had to fix the tape around my IV port. It had been in for more than three days, and the tape was bloody and gnarly. She was a sweet, compassionate RN named Heidi who brought me warm blankets to lay across my belly that helped with the cramping. She started pulling one of the three separate pieces of tape very slowly. I said, “Just rip it off fast; I can take it.” I had become accustomed to a panoply of pain and felt this was kid stuff. “I can’t,” she said, stopping, real pain in her eyes. “It might pull the IV out, and we still need it.” Each piece came off extraordinarily slowly, and I felt every hair on my arm ripped out at its root.

18. Ten days after the surgery, I could no longer stand the itchy bandages stubbornly stuck to my now-shrinking belly. Soggy and hanging loose, they begged to be ripped off. I pulled each one away from my skin, carefully minding the small, scabbed red lines left behind by the surgeon. After removing the third one, just at the top of my pubis bone, I realized it hadn’t been the bandages causing all that itching. They had shaved part of my pubic hair, and it was now beginning to grow back in that wiry, scratchy slowness I hadn’t experienced since my early twenties. It felt like a final insult added to the myriad injuries of this whole thing. Shorn, scarred, skinny as a stick, I collapsed into my own bed for the first time in two weeks and resolved to begin rebuilding myself first thing in the morning, grateful for the opportunity.