Saturday, May 17, 2008
After poker, sex and forgetting, I face a room full of faces and suddenly remember.
Sep 10, 1999 | Ninety-nine percent of what happens on the first day of a class is dependent on the mind-set I have going in. The ratio of preparation to action is ridiculous. All summer serves to make me ready, a fact that non-teachers never understand.
Like brewing a really good sauce, the process cannot be rushed. The only way to walk in calm is to go through the cycle:
The first month: Recovery from last year, involving chiropractic, massage, drinking, poker, sex and forgetting.
The next six weeks: Simmering time, when only subliminal things happen beneath travel, reading, more drinking and more sex.
The last two weeks: Slow onset of worry, thinking and planning, the demise of sex, notebooks filling up with scribbles.
Last year of a long career and I'm finally ready. I get up about 8 a.m. for a 1:30 class and immediately swallow a Pepcid for indigestion. I debate what to wear; choose Levi's and black T-shirt, a statement. I can do whatever the hell I want. I check out my water filter paraphernalia from backpacking and bag it up. About 11, I take off from my ranch and drive the 25 miles down out of the mountains, across the Stanislaus River and up the other side to Columbia College, following a logging truck up the grade from Parrots Ferry Bridge while rehearsing my opening scenario. I'm feeling the usual mixture of nervousness and exhilaration.
After parking in the faculty lot, I grab the huge pile of summer mail and head for my office, bumping into a staff person I've been turned on by for years. I get by her, wondering how I look, and dump the junk on my desk. Little over an hour to go. I go over the scenario again, check out the course outlines and begin deep breathing exercises. Shit. I remember a hand-out that needs to be run off, so I run down to the duplicating room, where I encounter a faculty guy with whom I share a mutual dislike. I smirk at him, and get the damned copies out of the machine.
More breathing exercises, pacing, fumbling with the water filter gear. 1 o'clock. I start packing. 1:15. I grab the bags and start walking across campus toward Sequoia 11. I try to manufacture some emotion: This is my last year. Nothing comes.
Two classes, back-to back: intro. to philosophy and old world culture. Philosophy is jammed into a tiny room, people are wall-to-wall and on the floor. "I'm famous," I think, and then remember that enrollment is up at the college. I walk in through the mob, unpack the attendance form and waiting list, set up my water filter gear, take a deep breath and look up at the throng. A smile from Barry, who loaned me his wonderful "Vince Guaraldi in Grace Cathedral" tape, and warm greetings from Vicki, who drenched me with her domestic grief last semester, and several others create a sense of reunion. I tell the waiting list people to hang on until Wednesday to see who drops. I feel hyped, charismatic, fascinating. Shit, man. There is no way this can go wrong. I don't say anything, just start pumping water from my cooking pot into my water bottle, using my old MSR three-stage water filter. I've done it several times before, I know what to do. The trick is to make sure they never realize that this is more for me than it is for them. I'm the one fighting nausea after all. "Imagine this pot is a gorgeous Sierra lake, like Buck or Huckleberry. No problem if the filters are clean, right? Water gets through. Now comes the lesson. What happens if the filters are clogged? Nothing gets through, right?"
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