I’m supposed to be writing a paper on Pope’s satirical attacks on Lord John Hervey, but as far as a procrastination tool goes, a blog is a pretty effective one — especially a somewhat-abandoned blog. As long as I’m writing — something, anything — it will all balance out.
I recently got back an essay from a professor for whom I have only the greatest respect. He’s in his seventies (eighties?) and has the most amazing mind I’ve encountered in years. He’s the ideal college professor that I dreamed up back when I was in middle school and had no idea what college really meant, or stood for. He’s stooped and walks in a slightly stiff shuffle; he always sounds like he’s about to clear his throat with an attention-getting cough. He talks about Heidegger and Kant with a tone that’s somewhere between familiarity and admiration, peppered with light amusement at their foibles. His class is easily one of the most challenging I’ve ever taken. I’m not one for critical thinking or logic or rhetoric — my talent lies in analyzation, typically of the Deconstructionist variety (drawn a long enough line, and you can connect anything to anything else), not in reason.
I dread getting back assignments from him. One of my largest flaws is a ever-reliable tendency to second-guess and doubt myself; even if I loved a paper or a poem or even an email when I finished it, within five minutes I’m cringing over the shallow triteness of a sentence or an attempt at humor. I felt the familiar swooping feeling in my lower belly when he handed back my latest essay. It hadn’t fared well in peer review the previous week and I fully expected him to savage it. He didn’t. He praised my ability to distill complicated criticism into a concise, “beautifully written” form, and later said that I had a “wonderful sense of prose rhythm”. He said that I wrote better than he did. I was stunned. I felt that swirl of anxiety melt away into something warm and golden. If that feeling had a flavor, it would be chicken soup. A warm spoonful of praise from one of the few people from whom I would believe it.
I want to write for a living. I want to write fiction, I want to write literary criticism, I want to teach literature to middle school students and end my career as a shuffling, slightly stooped college professor. That moment, holding the essay in my hands, reading my professor’s praise, I realized that I would. I’ve always known that I can, but now I know that this is my path. I will pave it with letters, fill in the gaps with imagination, sweat, and tears.
The best dreams are the ones you return to for comfort on a bad day, and then realize that they’re already coming true.
