Category Archives: Essays

I’m coming to the realization that the process of writing may currently be more important than what I actually write down here. Most of my recent ruminations have been about my teaching career and whether or not it’s something I’ll continue. I’ve put lots of thought into it and I’ve even written about it, but because it’s not one of those this-is-an-amusing-thing-that-happened-to-me-today-type things, I haven’t posted here. But such a pattern has resulted in a disappointing two-posts-per-month batting average recently. Even Brian’s beating me.

So I’m going to try to start posting whatever tidbits I can, even if they appear a little mundane at first.

I’m in the midst of deciding whether I’m going to request a part-time teaching schedule for next year or a no-time schedule. No-time would allow me to say “I’m between jobs” at parties, which would be funny. But it would also make Treasurer Storm (aka, my wife) a little grumpy.

Part time would allow me to have a little more time to try to write and submit some manuscripts or to possibly start exploring some real grad school options more seriously. It would also keep me from burning out entirely, which is what I’m headed toward. I like being immersed in intellectual pursuits; it’s inspiring to me. What’s not inspiring are the infrequent parent complaints I get, the equally infrequent discipline problems I have, and the occasionally oppressive load of papers to grade. And I get pissed off at how absurd it is that as an English teacher, I have no time to write or read on my own.

Part time would also earn me some money and benefits, so there’s that.

Anyhow, the post below is a dialogue I had with myself spurred by reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. The book chronicles the clash between Western medecine and Hmong cultural views. It does a pretty good job of illuminating how both sides think they’re right. At points in the book, I found myself siding with the doctors, whose expertise was being completely ignored/brushed aside (something which happens to teachers all the time). But at other times, the doctors were so ethnocentric it was disgusting. And I’ve seen first-hand how much guesswork, incompetence, and error-making goes on in American hospitals. The dialogue was my way of mulling over the balance between ethnocentrism and cultural relativity.

During the summer of my freshman year of high school, I went to Sydney, Australia. It was an exchange program set up through my dad’s company, which had offices all over the world. I was mildly obsessed with Australia during my middle school years; apparently, my parents knew this. I have no idea what sort of behind-the-scenes discussions went on between them before they presented the idea to me, and to tell the truth, I’m not at all sure how I learned of the opportunity. But I do remember the long plane ride; I remember the family I stayed with; I remember Woolhara, the suburb where they lived; I remember getting lost and inadvertently walking through the red light district of Sydney; I remember getting sick on a quiche I bought in the subway station; I remember sleeping with a hot water bottle; I remember being overtired one night and listening to the Grateful Dead on my walkman and having an almost-spiritual experience.

I remember a lot. Since school was in session for my host brothers and both parents worked, I was alone a lot and I explored the city on my own. I don’t keep in touch with the host family anymore. Consequently, there’s no one with whom I can reminisce. From time to time in the years that followed, I have been struck suddenly by one of those memories that are so uniquely mine. Of course, a lot of my memories are uniquely mine; strictly speaking, they all are. But Sydney in 1989 is so detached and isolated from everything else I know. Years later, I did the whole backpacking through Europe thing that college grads do; I did that alone, too, and, like my Aussie experience, there’s no one with whom I keep in contact from those travels. But there are all sorts of people who have been to all the European places I’ve been to, so it’s not in such a detached place.

One specific memory that has kept resurfacing in the past 17 years has been a song. It’s the perfect illustration of how detached those Australia experiences were. The song is called “One More River,” and I remember that it was very popular at the time. I heard it often, saw the video on TV, and since I liked it, I even paid attention to the lyrics. In fact, I still remember some of them. But I haven’t actually heard the song since 1989.

Today, the lyrics once again popped in my head, and I decided to do a little internet search for the song. I had done one about five or six years ago, but I couldn’t find much at the time. But I well know that the growth of the internet has been pretty much exponential in the past decade, so I figured it was worth a try again. And guess what? I found it. I found the lyrics and I even found the artist’s website. I have no idea how popular he is, but he has 12 albums out, so he must be doing alright. “One More River” was on his second album, which came out in 1989. Employing my pirating skills, I even found a copy of it. It sounds a little different than I remember it, but not much.

Tonight, just prior to playing the copy I found, I told Eileen, “this is a momentous occasion.” She went back to reading her book after the song was half done, but I sang along with the whole thing. Here it is: One More River

I think my memory of forced naps must be my earliest memory. I can also remember standing up on December 5th, 1974 for the first time ever with the aid of a toddler’s workbench (complete with plastic hammer and thick plastic nails) as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer aired on TV for the first time. But I’m pretty sure that’s not an actual memory. It’s a story that impacted me through its repetition and one that was easy to picture since there’s a photo of the scene in an album somewhere.

Most of my students have discovered a similar phenomenon of doubting the veracity of their memories. Did I really see that squirrel in the cab of Uncle Alex’s pick-up truck? Was I actually there when my sister fell in the pool that one Thanksgiving? Did I witness Amy rip the trampoline? Or have these memories been imprinted in my mind simply because the story came to be expertly told at family gatherings?

One girl in class spoke of a memory that she’s sure is not genuine: it’s a story of how she “beat up” a two year-old boy when she was one. She can picture it all — the color of the walls, what she was wearing, the layout of furniture in the room — but she knows her memory is simply a matter of plentiful retelling. The thing is, somebody has a video of the incident. Multiple copies, in fact. So there exists a pretty accurate representation of the entire famous episode. She hasn’t seen it, though. I told her she should write down her memory of it in as much detail as possible and then watch the video.

Imagine, though, if we could watch the videos of our memories as they actually occurred. Where would it leave us? Would it destroy the illusions that have helped define us? Would we refuse the truth? Isn’t the illusion preferable?