"The revision of writing is a bittersweet, pleasure coupled with pain."
-- Jan Matsuoka, in "Revising Revision..." p 295
On the way home last night, I thought to myself, "What the heck am I doing?"
I meant as a teacher, as wife, as a mother, as a student.
Today is my 10 wedding anniversary, a whole decade of marriage. I have 2 children that I almost always like. But, on that day, standing there with his father marrying us, my mother sitting a few feet away from me, and all our friends and family watching, I thought, "What the heck am I doing?"
I will also begin my 9th year teaching. It seems that now is too late to be wondering what I have gotten myself into with these degrees.
I started my student teaching the fall after I was married. I got used to my new last name in Mrs. Lewis's 10th grade English class. The first thing we did was a scavenger hunt. We'd sign in the boxes that we could answer correctly. The first 5 students who came to me wanted me to name all 8 parts of speech. No more came to me for that box because word had gotten around that I couldn't name them all. I was so ashamed. "What the heck am I doing?" I thought, not for the first time or the last time. I learned all 8 parts of speech that night, too late for the hunt.
Revision has always been key to me. I loved drafts. Sometimes I would write over 10 drafts of the essay I had due. It was incredibly time consuming. Even though there were so many, each was remarkable similar to the others. I wasn't really revising, just spot checking.
Dr. Carman helped me find the Crap Detector. He said to find the sentences, the phrases, I loved best and dump them. I couldn't believe it. Throw away the best lines, the best writing? As I sat at my computer that evening, deleting through my tears, I wondered, "What the heck am I doing?"
Turns out, a lot of the phrases I had fallen in love with were not as good as the replacements. Though, some were. I had to learn to discern what was worth keeping.
As I look back over these years, I want to see growth, change, success, and even failure. I want to be more a teacher, more a write, more a reflector, more a reviser than I was 10 years ago. I have committed to my topic, my husband, but I want to be a better wife, a better human being, a better mother to my children, a better teacher than I was on this day, 10 years ago.
I throw out the crap, keep the kernels, the nuggets, contributing to the whole essay.
So, "What the heck am I doing?" Learning. Writing. Loving. Revising. Who cares if I shed a few tears along the way?
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4 comments:
Funny thing. I remember on my wedding day looking down the street and considering running.
And I also could not name the eight parts of speech during my student teaching until I looked them up. Why do they always ask about parts of speech!
I really liked your line "almost always liked them."
I can really relate to your questions about what you know, what you are doing. I question myself often as a teacher and more often as a mother. Do you find it, I don't know, eerie or something, to be here re-learning and discussing a lot of what we learned from Dr. Walker when we were GAs? I went by her old office, knowing she is gone, wishing I could stop by and chat with her. She always assuaged my fears and comforted me when I questioned myself the most. I miss her.
Yes, Haley, I do. Kelly and I talked yesterday about how much of a mentor she was and still is to us. I think about her often.
Happy Anniversary!
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