Patsy Cline’s “Strange” plays in my head, almost immediately she emerges in my strangest of moods. Several things come to mind as I finished class tonight: I thought about “voice” -- that is, hearing my own voice (my identity) when I write papers. Am I even conscious of listening to my voice when I compose? I suppose I don’t pay too much attention or care to it, but today I felt that this time I am going to personalize these papers more; in short, I want to noticed.
Thus far I am doing well; in fact, strangely I am sharing my comments/thoughts in my seminar—an improvement for me, no doubt, and it seemed so clear, then, how important it was -- is -- for me to voice out my thoughts, to let them know who I am.
And then tonight as I was reading some short stories of Raymond Carver, the past came flooding back. For the past week, I was cranky, whiny, and unenthusiastic about my classes. Why? Because last semester I wound up enjoying my theory classes so much that my fiction classes this semester seemed, at first, rather lacking. Now reading Carver – and falling in love with these short stories once again – I am reminded of the places, the people, the books I once loved. The person I was who loved all of these things seemed so distant and yet I haven’t left at all. No – in fact, I haven’t changed at all, but all of these fragments, I suppose, were stored, locked up safely.
And so I thought about my last semester of college: behind the English Department was a bridge to the Music and Drama buildings. It was at this metallic silver café where I spent my afternoons, with my feet resting on another seat, absorbing the sun and breezy OC weather. This was a place I remember falling in love with folks David Leavitt. But I am, once again, nostalgic. (Where does one go now? Today in huge cafeteria, the kind of sad place like the supermarket).
And so I think this semester could be that period the will remind me of why I am here in the first place, doing what I know – all for the love of reading and the life of the mind.
I do love the Carver. Maybe I will always reflect on that spring semester, almost 3 and ½ years ago, when everything seemed golden. I don’t think my memory of that place will ever tarnish, or be long forgotten; but I do hope to make new memories like it, like tonight as I discover Carver all over again.
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