a photoessay and the third person to explore the things that we do

Tomorrow is Tuesday, October 30. Anna teaches Comp 101 at 10:00. Anna won't see her students until next Tuesday because she's going back to Iowa and cancelled classes on Thursday. Anna loves (most of) her students and feels guilty for not making them popcorn balls for Halloween like she had planned on doing. Life got in the way...again. It's 2am and Anna knows that if she shows up to class tomorrow without Halloween candy, she'll regret it. The students deserve it. Anna is stressed.

A lightbulb--as clear as a block-lettered, glowing beacon in the night--appears in Anna's mind:

She seems to remember that it's open 24-hours-a-day. She cannot remember the last time she was there, but desperate times...

Anna gets into her car with Loyal Meg riding shotgun (and Loyal Meg's camera) with vigor and purpose. "Those kids deserve a nice treat! They worked so hard on the Explanatory Syntheses!" (She fails to mention the two workshop papers sitting on her dining room table that need to be critiqued by tomorrow a.m.)

The open road. Almost as open as Anna is to suggestion at this point...

All that black. All that night. All those hours during the day holding conferences for the students she is on the road for now. All those words on all those pages. All that black ink melding into an encompassing mush, seeping through the skin like osmosis...into the finger, up the hand, the forearm, the shoulder. Into the fast-moving stream of the jugular. Hours later into the brain.

Anna's tired.

She arrives at the mega-store. The parking lot as tired as she is.

The candy selection, too. Trick-or-treat was last weekend. She thought at least she'd get surplus bags of candy at a discount. Not really.

She chooses caramel apple suckers and Hershey's mini candy bars. One each for each student. Extra for the office. Dark chocolate for Loyal Meg. Despite the vacant look on her face, Anna's thrilled. She likes the student who's obsessed with the Beatles the most. And the football player in front is a card. The ones who did the extra credit will appreciate the gesture.

Anna is still tired though. Usually 2am isn't a big deal. After a long weekend and consistently little sleep though, Anna can't hold out much longer.

She falls asleep at the wheel on Madison Avenue. The car careens into a Minnesota half-lake. The impact is enough to send a sucker stem out of the package and into her jugular where it quickly dislodges and the floodgates open.

Don't let it be in vain, Loyal Meg. Tell my story to the world! Deliver my candy to my students tomorrow. Give it to them before you tell them the tragic news. Make sure you wish them a Happy Halloween.

is it time yet? no? how about now?

Nine more days until I'm on the road, east of Mankato for a little bit, then south for a lotta bit and on down into my state.

Iowa

eye oh wha

I love Iowa and what it contains. Places, people; especially the people; my people. I have my departure day programmed into my phone. As if I'll forget. As if there's not a to-the-second running clock somewhere in the folds of my brain that, if I concentrated hard enough, I could access and know how many hours and minutes I am away from Iowa. I didn't get to see Iowa's September or October and I know that when I'm back for good, it will be like those months never existed.

I need this break. Three books came in the mail about two weeks ago--Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracey Kidder--and all I want to do is read them. When I walk past my bookshelf I see myself in a hotel room in Iowa City, on top of a stiff and thin comforter, starting Into the Wild at 7 or 8 and reading until I'm finished. It's been too long since this has happened.

I have to get out of here, just for a few days. I want Iowa to be now.

So, is it time yet?

words and people

abstemious
1) Abstaining from wine.
2) Sparing in diet; refraining from a free use of food and strong drinks; temperate; abstinent; sparing in the indulgence of the appetite or passions.
3) Sparingly used; used with temperance or moderation; as, an abstemious diet.
4) Marked by, or spent in, abstinence; as, an abstemious life.
5) Promotive of abstemiousness.

This popped up on my Word of the Day and, just like a particular song can instantly take you to a moment in your past (or, just like a package of Bottle Caps candy in the TA Office yesterday transported me to the low-lit atmosphere of Skate Country, throbbing pop music and the faint smell of early teenage pheromones mixed with foot sweat), I attach words to people. Abstemious is Emily to me. Only for the primary definition: abstaining from wine.

As in:
Emily, I dare you to be abstemious.
Or, Sis, the lavender sheen to your teeth and the way your eyes lock a couple seconds too long on mine when I talk to you are dead give-aways that you haven't been abstemious.

somewhere between the HereNorThere

There is a shit-storm in Dubuque, and I'm 400+ miles away in a residual haze.

I spent the last two years busting my ass so that I could keep my head above the water this year knowing that even with a light course load I'd be too busy to take even one weekend off without major catching up. And now that I'm needed most I'm least accessible. I can't take care of the house for my mother while she's taking care of one of her best friends in the hospital. I can't drive to Cedar Rapids to visit my grandmother in the hospital and give my mother and aunts a break from watching their own mother die slowly. I can't console Emily when her student's brawl to the point where they need stitches and point finger-guns at the back of Emily's head and whisper a malicious "pow" to their classmates. I can't hug her and say Fuck those kids, fuck the system while she cries, words that we both know I don't mean but words that lose their weight over the phone. I can't run errands for dad who is working harder than ever. I can't integrate him into my life as much as I know he so desperately wants to be.

People need me here--to write, critique, revise, evaluate; to teach, engage, challenge, entertain, and sometimes give students a day off when I'm not ready and I know they're not ready; I'm a buddy, a conferencer, a peer, a colleague, a student--but it's not in the same way that I'm needed there; home. Nobody needs me here like they need me there. They ask things of me here. They expect things. If I don't perform there is a consequence.

Here I follow rubrics. I meet cirricula and deadlines. At home, the need for me often goes unexpressed, unacknowledged even by the asker. That's how I prefer it. I lurk around looking for ways to help, I help, then I hope that someone notices. I remember when I was a little girl and still attending Mass and feeling (really feeling) that God what present in every prayer, every sneeze, every "playing doctor" with the neighbor; I used to tell Him that the only thing I wanted was for people to say that I was a nice girl and really mean it. Rather than a saintly, altruistic desire, it was the M.O. I decided to adopt. Instead of my aunts gossiping amongst themselves, "Anna, she's the trouble-maker," I wanted them to say, "Anna, she's always doing something nice for someone." Now, I realize that I failed miserably at putting this persona forth in many selfish and/or trouble-making moments, but it's how I came to define myself. If I do enough for people to notice that I'm filling needs without seeming to ask for or expecting praise, I hoped that #1) people would notice my deed and think of me as a "nice girl," and #2) I would fill a need for someone....in that order.

I'm reading the Qu'ran now. I suspect it's because I'm looking for an answer. Guidance at the least. Actually, just a distraction will do. I realize that there is little I can do for the situations back home. There's only so many times I can say, "wow, that sucks," or "it will get better," over the phone before the phrases lose all of the little meaning they may have held. I'm here, at school, wading through my frusrations and annoyances as best I can while I should be there, piling sandbags agaisnt the flooding waters of the shit-storm (an Ani homage)...prefereably where no one can see me. They're all standing bone-dry on the other side. This is where I'm needed. It's the type of thing that defines a person.