Peonies in the Kitchen During Finals Week

Three weeks ago, as I was entering finals week at Parkland College, where I teach English and Humanities, I turned to flowers to ground me. Marilyn, my spouse, had planted a new peony bush in front of our two older ones. The new bush had two deep crimson blooms, and they were already opening when the old plants’ pink buds were still tightly closed. I cut those two flowers and placed them in a vase on the kitchen counter, where I saw them every time I looked up from grading papers. 

That week, in addition to the usual grading marathon, I was also saying goodbye to students to whom I had grown attached. My classes had become genuine communities; students chatted with each other instead of staring at their devices before, during, and after class, and we often laughed together. I had grown to love them and often been inspired by them, these students who came from so many different places: a night-shift at the hospital, thirteen years in the army, successful treatment for depression, a mental-health break from the U of I, a job lifting boxes for UPS. The semester was ending, and they were moving on: one transferring to Columbia College in Chicago, another to the University of Missouri, most returning in the fall for more classes—but not to our class. Our communities were temporary by definition. 

I was exhausted, ready for summer, and I was also sad to be saying goodbye. 

That week, I found myself checking in with the peonies each day, burying my nose in the petals, inhaling their fragrance, and taking photos. As the week went on, the peonies opened fully, then started to lose their petals. Eventually, the fallen petals dried up in a small pile around the base of the vase. But I wasn’t ready to let the flowers go. Finally, a couple of days after I had submitted grades and the semester was officially over, when Marilyn asked me yet again whether I was done with those peonies, I said yes. I photographed the dried petals; even at that stage, the peonies were beautiful, and then I said goodbye. 

 

Two of my South Asian Cultures (HUM 109) students working on a rangoli together in class. Rain kept us indoors, but a sense of discovery and play filled the room. These two students had not worked together before. Their creative collaboration was typical of that class.

[I read this reflection during the annual Flower Communion service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign on Sunday, June 2, 2019.]

Finishing up a Semester at 35,000 Feet

It's 9:09 AM on Friday, December 18 as I write this, on a plane 35,000 feet above Yerevan, Armenia. My body might think it's 11:09 PM on Thursday night, but I've been served lunch once since we took off at noon in Chicago, and another lunch will be served soon. The night/day was short. 

I spent most of the past ten hours grading final projects and exams by students in my Introduction to Poetry and freshman composition classes. Students reflected on what they had learned over the course of the semester; I was moved to read their thoughts about the role of poetry, glad to know that revising their writing made them feel confident. 

A poetry student, responding to one of Mary Oliver's poems about poetry in a question on the final exam, wrote that analyzing poetry teaches that "your way of thinking is not the only way someone might approach the text. You are open to new ways of thinking." Another student, who told me she wants to be an engineer, wrote, "I believe that there is poetry in everything, even if it is not visible on the surface."

One composition student wrote, "I learned how to get my voice to come through my writings and not just be another sentence on the page." He also observed, "I even began to enjoy myself while writing a few of these papers. This is something I wouldn't have guessed before." I wanted to cheer. 

---

It is now 3:35 PM on December 31, 2015, in Bombay (Mumbai), India.

I am ending the year in the city of my birth and childhood, among family members in whose faces I can see myself--the color of their skin, the shapes of their smiles, their inability to speak through helpless laughter mirroring mine.  Though this city has been transformed--down the street, a three-story mall houses a multiplex theatre in what used to be a sleepy edge of the city--I am taken back to the seventies as I hear the incessant beeping and honking of traffic and also the cawing and cooing of crows and pigeons. 

Last night, thirty-seven years after I left India for the first time, I reconnected by phone with a favorite teacher: Mrs. Mehta, who taught me history and geography in the fifth and sixth standards (grades). Her voice was familiar even after all these decades. "I learned the most when I was teaching," she said. I told her I have the same experience; I am always learning from my students. And, I thought to myself a little later, I learned about teaching from my many enthusiastic, gifted teachers--and that is why, while flying halfway across the world, the cabin lights dim as other passengers slept or watched movies, I was able to find pleasure in discovering what my students had learned. Every now and then, I would turn to Marilyn and say, quoting from an exam or a paper, "This is why I teach."

Eulogy For a Best Friend

Crocuses in our front garden in late March

Seven months ago, I wrote on this blog, “I have faith spring will come again—and I hope it brings only what we are able to bear.”  I had no idea then that just as the first crocus opened, glowing a translucent purple in the sunlight, the phone would ring, and I would learn yet again how much loss we are able to bear.

On March 23, 2015, my beloved friend of twenty-four years, Amy Winans, died.  I have written and said those words so many times now—Amy died—but each time, I feel a small shock. 

This is the (only-slightly-edited) eulogy I delivered on March 28 at the memorial service for her at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, much of it written during sleepless hours that week:

Amy and I became friends in the beginning of 1991 at Penn State.  Our mutual friend Andrea introduced us so we could help each other study for our PhD candidacy exam.  Amy helped me with American lit, and I helped her with British.  At our first meeting, one evening in the Kern Graduate Commons, where the food service was closed for the night, I noticed Amy picked at the Chinese take-out she had brought with her.  “She is clearly more interested in the conversation,” I thought; I was hungry, and the Chinese food looked good to me.  I had a similar thought more than two decades later, as we sat across another table, this time in St. Louis, where Amy was a presenter at 4Cs, the major, annual, college composition conference.  As I ate my share of the vegetarian platter we had ordered at the Ethiopian restaurant, I had to remind her to eat. 

Most of our friendship was long distance, especially after I moved to Champaign, Illinois, in 1997 to join the English faculty at Parkland College.  But we stayed in touch always, and we found ways to share our experiences in real time.  When the TV show ER was in its heyday, we would get on the phone during the long commercial break halfway through the episode and compare notes.  When she was on the job market the fall after I moved to the Midwest, we consulted by phone about what she should wear to job interviews at the huge, annual MLA convention. 

Mostly, though, we wrote.  Emails with Amy’s signature cheers, “Go team!” (this woman who did not watch sports) and “You can do it!” got me through my dissertation and many other challenges.  She was also the most devoted cheerleader of my creative endeavors, sending me beautiful paper to use in my art and mailing me books about art and writing.  Less than a week before she died, she forwarded me an announcement about a workshop I might want to check out. 

One of Amy's multi-part letters.  She often wrote over
a few days, sometimes on flights, at the airport,
at her daughter's swim lesson.  The sight of her
handwriting brought me comfort.

I always scanned my inbox for Amy’s emails first, and her handwriting in our mailbox was one of my greatest joys and comforts—and constants.  We exchanged hundreds of letters.  She joked that some future graduate student could write about our letters for her dissertation.  Here are some of Amy's letters to me, mailed in South Africa, Raleigh, Seattle, Puerto Rico, and, of course, Harrisburg.  One was mailed to me when I was in India.

To Amy, I wrote like I wrote to no one else: journal-like letters.  The night after I heard she had died, I couldn’t sleep.  So I did what I often did when I couldn’t sleep:  I wrote to Amy.  Here is that letter.  I wrote it on purple stationery.  Amy said I was the greatest supporter of her passion for purple.  I take pride in that position.  I am reading from a copy; I left the original with her this morning.

Champaign, IL. Wed. March 25, 2015.  5 AM

Amy dear,

I cannot sleep, so what else to do but write another middle-of-the-night letter to you?  This is the first morning I will wake up—if I sleep—knowing you will not write me another letter.  I cannot say “you will not be here” because you will always be here, with me.  After twenty-four years of friendship, you are a part of me.  Nothing I say, especially in my heartbroken state, seems enough.  You believed in my best self, Amy, and you helped me to believe in it, too.  You were my constant: your handwriting appearing in my mailbox nearly every week—until the depression struck you—your love in the hardest and happiest of times; your keen, editorial eye on my writing; your itineraries in my inbox, always making sure I could reach you.  How will I reach you now, my friend?  To whom will I write in the middle of a crazy day to be reassured I will survive this profession we love and which wears us down?  For whom will I buy purple?  Whom will I write at 4 AM and trust to understand?  Who else can read my 4 AM handwriting?

There is a large Amy-shaped hole in the world now, and I will have to learn how to live in that world, a world I couldn’t imagine before but have to inhabit now. 

Somehow, all of us, but especially Tony and Aurelia, will have to learn to live without your presence and to remind ourselves of the love with which you showered us.

I miss you my friend.  I always will.

Love, Umeeta

Now I would like to read you a poem that makes me think of Amy and her passing: “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” by Kay Ryan.  [Here is a link: Kay Ryan's "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard" ]

Amy left deep tracks in so many lives, on so many of our hearts.  Things shouldn’t be so hard.

Amy's crocuses were blooming the week she died.

I’ll end with Amy’s words, words from one of the wisest people I have ever known.  The first quote is from an email she wrote on the evening of Thursday, September 2, 2010. I was struggling with a new course and recovering from two car accidents in which I had been rear-ended while at red lights and left with pain in my right shoulder.  Her words put things in perspective:  Remember how Oliver has that poem that begins “you don’t have to be good”? Maybe as you think about your Lit class…  “you don’t have to be perfect” and remember it all. and get to it all…You get to be human—honest!  

I’ll close with a quote from an email Amy wrote in the early morning of January 29, 2014; I had been asked to write a chapter for a book, a chapter I was not sure I wanted to write, and Amy was helping me to decide how to respond.  She wrote: Feel free to give a call if you want to talk about the decision regarding writing.  My main suggestions at the moment:

1—what would be the most self-compassionate thing you could do?

2—set aside the shoulds (just read this in a letter from my very dear friend…) and follow #1.

Marilyn bought me these pansies to pot in Amy's memory.  On the Monday after the memorial service, we potted them  in what we have always called "the Amy pot," a teal, ceramic pot Amy brought for us in 2004 and in which, every year, I plant annuals that make me think of Amy.  Those pansies are still going, even in June, so I have bought two pots in periwinkle blue, a color Amy loved, and have planted summer flowers in those.  We will now have three Amy pots.  But how strange it is to plant flowers in memory of Amy instead of reading about her gardens in letters from her.

Flowers from Amy's memorial.  At the church, we surrounded them with photos of her and with academic journals in which her articles had been published.  Marilyn and I brought the flowers home with us and set them on our dining table.  In the top right corner of this photo is the candle Marilyn and I bought in Taos last summer.  We lit it every evening for Amy for weeks, until it burned down.  Each night, as I blew it out, I said good night to my dear friend.  I hope she is at peace now.  

I flew back to Pennsylvania in April for a weekend memorial service at Susquehanna University, where Amy was a beloved member of the English faculty.  While Amy's other best friend, Judy, drove, I took photos, imagining Amy making this drive hundreds of times.  I had never been to her campus before because it was an hour from her house--and I thought I could visit it another time--so on this visit, I took it all in: her department, her office, the view from her window as she sat in her chair.  

As I sat in Amy and Tony's living room on the second Sunday in April, I came across a pack of cards that belonged to Amy.  Each card had a different flower on it.  That the flower for friendship was purple, Amy's favorite color, seemed just right. 

I painted this "yarn bowl" for Amy at the end of February (I didn't include a photo of this bowl in my February post because it was a surprise for Amy, and she read my blog).  She knitted, too.  She received the bowl the week before she died, and she mentioned it in her last emails to me.  The bowl combines her favorite color, purple, and mine, blue.  It has our initials on the bottom.

Being Still

🎓

Last month, as summer ended and fall began, monarch butterflies visited the purple butterfly bush in our back garden. One day, when I stayed home sick with the sore throat and chills that seemed to be sweeping across our campus, I ventured out into the backyard in pajamas, wishing for the sun to heal me. 

I noticed three monarchs at the butterfly bush. They would move around, weaving through the branches, and then settle on a bloom for a while. I walked up as close as I could without startling them.  As I watched their busyness, I stopped for a while. I stood completely still.

Stillness is what I have yearned for all through October, the month that seems busiest in the academic year and when the long weekend around Thanksgiving feels far away.  I have raced from one deadline to the next, still enjoying watching my students learn, very much enjoying the communities coming together in the classroom.  And stopping and being still when I can. 

On a recent afternoon in Meadowbrook Park, I  walked around a curve and was offered another invitation to be still. 

Iris on a Monday in May

Yesterday afternoon, my shoulders were tight and achy from calculating final grades for the spring semester--and from the decisions, transitions, and good byes involved in the end of an academic year.

I needed a break. So I went out on the deck for a few minutes to eat my lunch. As I sat in the sun and felt its warmth, my body relaxed.  

Nearby, the iris swayed in the breeze, bringing to mind Wordsworth and his dancing daffodils. 

I took a photo and returned to my work, feeling grateful for that moment.

The Comforts of Snow

Last weekend, as I finished up grading final papers and exams, the snow began to fall. That last stage of the semester is a kind of turning inward anyway; the snow made me feel even more like I was tucked into a quiet place where I could focus just on the task in front of me, instead of juggling the many that usually confront me.

During breaks from grading, Marilyn and I watched one of our favorite movies, White Christmas.

These photos were taken on Saturday morning from inside our house.

Early the next week, after I had submitted final grades and the sun had come out again, I went for a walk in the neighborhood.

Baking on a Saturday

After a sleepless Friday night worrying about how I would juggle writing a conference paper with prepping and grading for my composition and poetry classes, I knew what I had to do on Saturday. 

I pulled out the old, steel mixing bowl and my favorite wooden spoon. I measured flour and whisked egg whites and rinsed raspberries. Soon my fingers smelled of lemon zest, and the kitchen of vanilla and warmth. 

Later, my shoulders relaxed in the September sunshine as Marilyn and I bit into muffins and listened to the ruckus of the birds in the trees. 

When I came in to wash the bowls and measuring cups, I knew I'd sleep well that night. 

Poem in Your Pocket

A pocket-size copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's collection.

April 18 was Poem in Your Pocket Day,  when the Academy of American Poets encouraged readers to share poems.  I loved the idea of handing out poems to people  I might meet, so I clicked on some of the "pockets" on the website and found the poem I wanted under the one labeled "Walk": Walt Whitman's "Miracles."

That morning, I distributed copies to the students in my poetry course.  One of them volunteered to read the poem to the class.  It was a rainy, April morning, and I said to the students, "Whitman would probably think our rainy morning was a miracle, too."  

Here is Whitman's poem for you to enjoy:

Miracles

    by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of    the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night    with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer    forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so    quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with    the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same. To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—    the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there? - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20162#sthash.B7QPs2JV.dpuf

Miracles

  by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
   the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
   with any one I love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
   forenoon, 
Or animals feeding in the fields, 
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
   quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; 
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
   the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—
   the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20162#sthash.B7QPs2JV.dpuf

Miracles

  by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
   the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
   with any one I love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
   forenoon, 
Or animals feeding in the fields, 
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
   quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; 
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
   the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—
   the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20162#sthash.B7QPs2JV.dpuf

Miracles

  by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
   the water, 
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
   with any one I love, 
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, 
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, 
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
   forenoon, 
Or animals feeding in the fields, 
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, 
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
   quiet and bright, 
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; 
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, 
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
   the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—
   the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20162#sthash.B7QPs2JV.dpuf

Immersion

Settling down with coffee, biscotti, and books.

I've been studying hard these past few days, buried in books as I prepare to teach Introduction to Poetry for the first time and to teach from a new textbook in my Humanities course on South Asia. I park myself at Cafe Kopi for hours at a time, and it feels like pure luxury to read and think and plan and then read some more.

Occasionally, I look up and notice that different people are now seated at the table next to mine. At the end of the day, I pile up my books, put them in my backpack, and walk a few blocks to my car.

The cold air on my face and the rhythm of my feet hitting the sidewalk take me back to my years as a student. I would focus for hours at a time on writing a paper and then clear my head on the walk home, feeling the satisfaction of having worked hard.

A few days from now, I'll return to faculty meetings and then to the busy pace of teaching five days a week. This immersion will become a pleasant memory. For now, though, I am enjoying diving into my books.

I have always loved being surrounded by books, pens, notepads--all the tools of my trade.  This photo was taken when I was several hours into my work.

My Other Office

Yesterday, Sunday, I went to Café Kopi in the evening to grade some more papers and took this photo while waiting in line to order.

Recently, I have been grading papers at my favorite coffee shop, Café Kopi in downtown Champaign—even in the mornings when I would usually work at home before going to campus to teach.  I have abandoned my usual grading post, the kitchen counter, because it is on the same floor as our guest bath, which is in the process of being remodeled.  On most mornings, I say hello to Eli and Barrie as they begin work here, and I head to Kopi to begin work there. 

Some days, I miss my time alone at home.  I miss looking out the kitchen window as I refill my coffee cup.  I miss taking a break to empty the dishwasher or to hang up laundry.  And I especially miss my morning walks, one of my favorite times to think through my lesson plans. 

But I am also delighting in being at Kopi each morning, a regular in a way I haven’t been before.  I know now that if I get there by 8:30, I am likely to get a spot on the north wall of the bigger room, one of the coveted, square, glass-topped tables with the bigger, brighter lamps.  On a sunny morning, the sunlight streams in and hits the table, lighting up my work and giving me energy.  On the mornings when I have more time, I leave my car by Westside Park and enjoy the walk to Kopi, pretending I live downtown and can walk to work. 

So while I am displaced from my routine, this new one has its joys, too.