(No, I’m not expecting a child, but life favors the
prepared. And the hypothetical “Dotty” of mine will have so many punny clothes).
Or rather, how my professor basically helped me become
alive.
I went to college with a fear in my
heart that was sitting neighbors to my dream to be a novelist. Most people just
say writer, but novels were what tugged me out of bed to be born. I didn’t
know what else to say, to be honest I was a bit too embarrassed.
“What are you going to do with a
writing degree?” was all my father asked, and I would just say nothing,
avoiding his gaze. To him, writing was reports. To me, it was a passion, a life
line, and I wanted to create worlds. Not stiff jawed research reports.
To be honest, again, I was scared
out of my mind. And doubted myself. Deciding my life plan as a tender teenager
was like dashing any hope of ease once I blew out the candles to my
twentieth birthday. A decade of hard work and milestones, every decisions
reverberating throughout the rest of my life; the rocks I dropped into this
pond would ripple to my death. I feared desperation as I became
desperate.
After a job
shadowing my Sophomore year with my adviser, I decided I wanted to be a professor.
The way he taught the class and his description of how to get to that job field
put a path to follow on the unmarked territories of my life map. Sitting in the
capstone class he was teaching swelled my heart, and I was talking about it for
months after to my rather uninterested friends. I finally had a plan, and it
looked beautiful. I was exhilarated, and a bit apprehensive. Was I just trying
to justify to myself that I truly liked writing as much as I said I did?
I suppose the major gear in the grinds
was growing up, all of my “literary geek” and “writer” friends were rather
uppity (not saying all, just a select few I seemed to bump into), saying that I
wasn’t a true writer or true geek like they were. Although, every time I wanted
to talk character development or try a new book, they were too busy
with either their indie concerts or playing Final Fantasy XIII, obviously there
was no time to pencil in their “passion” in their schedules. It made me feel
alone.
It was when fate decided that, my
junior year, I would sign up for a Dr. McGavran’s Jane Austen Film and
Literature class. She smiled at me in the English building and told me I should
take it, nodding as she hooked her famous female writers umbrella onto her
elbow. I agreed. And I am grateful every single day for that.
For that
class, we had to read all but Northanger
Abbey of Jane Austen’s work. I stared at the book presentation sign up
sheet the first day, where the class would pick one of the six slots for the
six novels. People were crammed and jotted in and crossed out for Pride and Prejudice, and I felt my
shoulders drop. On a whim, I scribbled my name under Mansfield Park as it said “Cinderella-like,” and I felt akin to it.
The first
book/movie combo we engrossed was Sense
and Sensibility. I, surprising myself, actually fell in love with it,
watching the 1995’s version with dreamy eyes (both Dr. McGarvan and me loved
the older versions; everyone else in class was for the 2000s push. Except Pride
and Prejudice we did a 180, newer better and class loving the 90s one). I
suppose it’s the lack of connection I held with my peers that I developed more
thoroughly with my professor. It wasn’t long until I was coming over to her
office just to chat, eying her full wall length book shelf crammed with aged multicolor.
Although,
the breaking point started when we began reading Emma, and she recently discovered I was just reading eBooks as I was cut
off from my parents at 18. I ventured back to her book horde and she handed me a
book, gold with age and a frail turquoise cover.
“I had this book before I was
married, you can see my maiden name in it. I have been married for 47 years,”
she said, her eyes popping as she tapped the cover gently. My mouth eased open
and I felt a Disney moment of “So this is love.”
The major milestone, the first
igniting my passion, was a proof of it to myself in front of my peers. I grew
up with bad self esteem, and I once doubted myself a great deal. I was researching
for my Mansfield Park paper and stumbled
across an essay saying that Fanny Price had something called a “Virgin’s
Disease.” After class, the students actually arguing and getting into almost cat
fights about their disdain for the poor girl, I almost ran up to my professor
and told her my discovery in accelerated words. Her eyebrows jumped as she
gasped, her excitement matching mine as I told her about it and said I would
forward the discovery as other students were requesting her attention.
I walked out of that class,
realizing exactly what went down. I was literally jumping up and down about
something about literature that most of my peers and literature geeks rolled
their eyes about. It made me realize that I cared about literature on an extreme
depth that I had only one group of people that finally made me feel at home
with – professors. As the words of Vinny from Atlantis: The Last Empire “it was like a sign from God – I found
myself that boom.”
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