Drops of Memories
When I woke up from a nap, two things greeted me. The first was a cool, damp breeze blowing into my bedroom, the rain saying hello. The second was an email from my college announcing the death of one of my professors, Dr. Paul E. Smith, a life to bid farewell. It seems appropriately poetic that a gentle rain falls as I write this in remembrance of his life.
Dr. Smith was one of the best writing professors I had. He revealed a voice all my own in a pattern of gerunds and metonymies and sentence openers and anaphoras and complex-compound syntax followed by simple declarative statements. He forced me to deconstruct and analyze my own writing in a way I never would have considered without his prompting. He forced me to question my process and evaluate its success. He taught me the value and the beauty of revision after revision after revision. He taught me the vital importance of honest and brutal peer critiques. He taught me to make choices instead of relying on instinct. He made me aware of my writing. He woke me up.
But Dr. Smith did more than teach me to write. He made me laugh. All the time. Dr. Smith did his dissertation on incest in 17th century drama and he found it a hilarious topic. Though lit majors drove me batty in college, I loved his Brit Lit 1 course. Whenever people swooned over sappy poems of courtly love in the late Middle Ages or tried to argue that Lanval demonstrates unadulterated love, I tried to keep the vein in my head from popping. His response to my near apoplexies? He poked at me trying to get me to burst. I sometimes really think the man wanted to see blood over literary criticism.
Speaking of blood... Before class one morning, I slammed my hand in a minivan's sliding door on my way to Fern Cliffe. Trust me this is going somewhere, but first I have to stop and explain the glory that is Fern Cliffe. There's an old, white, three-story Victorian home on my college's campus that houses the English, History, Art, and Humanities Departments. It was a part of the Underground Railroad, has no modern fire safety system to speak of, has an amazing front parlor where I defended my senior honor's research project, and I'm pretty sure if you round the right corner, you'll end up in Narnia. That's Fern Cliffe. Actually, it reminds me a little of the Weasley's Burrow.
After the initial pain of crushing my hand, I pushed it aside. I figured it was no big deal. (I have an unusually high pain tolerance.) While my roommate found out what she needed from a professor, I spoke with Dr. Smith whose class I had in fifteen minutes. While discussing John Donne and my position as a Humanities T.A., my vision tunneled, my ears rang, and I went from being freezing to overheated all within one breath to the next. My only panicked thought was ordering myself to not hurl on Dr. Smith. Then I swooned and blacked out. Dr. Smith caught me.
Though I hadn't acknowledged the pain, my body sure had. Dr. Smith walked me over to the clinic and ordered me to stay until I felt stable enough to make it to class on my own. I hadn't broken anything, but the trauma's shock to my body compensated for that. Dr. Smith never allowed me to feel embarrassed for passing out or nearly treating him to an early morning technicolor yawn. All he communicated was concern for my well being. I never told him, but thanks, Dr. Smith, for allowing me to retain some dignity in a decidedly undignified moment.
Dr. Smith was a singular teacher and a good man. Goodbye for now.
Dr. Smith was one of the best writing professors I had. He revealed a voice all my own in a pattern of gerunds and metonymies and sentence openers and anaphoras and complex-compound syntax followed by simple declarative statements. He forced me to deconstruct and analyze my own writing in a way I never would have considered without his prompting. He forced me to question my process and evaluate its success. He taught me the value and the beauty of revision after revision after revision. He taught me the vital importance of honest and brutal peer critiques. He taught me to make choices instead of relying on instinct. He made me aware of my writing. He woke me up.
But Dr. Smith did more than teach me to write. He made me laugh. All the time. Dr. Smith did his dissertation on incest in 17th century drama and he found it a hilarious topic. Though lit majors drove me batty in college, I loved his Brit Lit 1 course. Whenever people swooned over sappy poems of courtly love in the late Middle Ages or tried to argue that Lanval demonstrates unadulterated love, I tried to keep the vein in my head from popping. His response to my near apoplexies? He poked at me trying to get me to burst. I sometimes really think the man wanted to see blood over literary criticism.
Speaking of blood... Before class one morning, I slammed my hand in a minivan's sliding door on my way to Fern Cliffe. Trust me this is going somewhere, but first I have to stop and explain the glory that is Fern Cliffe. There's an old, white, three-story Victorian home on my college's campus that houses the English, History, Art, and Humanities Departments. It was a part of the Underground Railroad, has no modern fire safety system to speak of, has an amazing front parlor where I defended my senior honor's research project, and I'm pretty sure if you round the right corner, you'll end up in Narnia. That's Fern Cliffe. Actually, it reminds me a little of the Weasley's Burrow.After the initial pain of crushing my hand, I pushed it aside. I figured it was no big deal. (I have an unusually high pain tolerance.) While my roommate found out what she needed from a professor, I spoke with Dr. Smith whose class I had in fifteen minutes. While discussing John Donne and my position as a Humanities T.A., my vision tunneled, my ears rang, and I went from being freezing to overheated all within one breath to the next. My only panicked thought was ordering myself to not hurl on Dr. Smith. Then I swooned and blacked out. Dr. Smith caught me.
Though I hadn't acknowledged the pain, my body sure had. Dr. Smith walked me over to the clinic and ordered me to stay until I felt stable enough to make it to class on my own. I hadn't broken anything, but the trauma's shock to my body compensated for that. Dr. Smith never allowed me to feel embarrassed for passing out or nearly treating him to an early morning technicolor yawn. All he communicated was concern for my well being. I never told him, but thanks, Dr. Smith, for allowing me to retain some dignity in a decidedly undignified moment.
Dr. Smith was a singular teacher and a good man. Goodbye for now.
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