Friday Nite Writes

The Art of Losing

“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”

– From “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

In the last year, we have all practiced the art of losing: we have lost being with family and friends, lost a bit of our independence, lost time. We’ve become pretty good at it, actually. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the last year as I recently celebrated my second Pandemic Birthday. Soon, my wife and I will celebrate our second Pandemic Anniversary.

April is National Poetry Month, so I’ve been revisiting a lot of poetry – Elizabeth Bishop is a favorite, and I’ve always loved “One Art.” From the relative safety of our homes, it’s been hard to watch so much disaster all around us while we lived happily during the pandemic – I’m borrowing from Ilya Kaminsky here and his poem “We Lived Happily During the War.” (By the way, Ilya Kaminsky will be our featured poet at the 13^th annual Blackbird Poetry Festival later this month.) It is true though – my wife and I have been more or less content during the pandemic. We have each other, and work keeps us busy; I’ve practiced guitar a lot. We’ve read and re-read books. Netflix has kept us pretty entertained – we resisted Tiger King but watched every bit of Bridgerton, rewatched all of The Office. Our dogs love having us constantly with them, especially our senior chihuahua who takes up his perch every day on the couch in my wife’s office while she teleworks, unwitting guest star of all her virtual meetings. We miss our friends, but we have done Zoom happy hours (which got old fast), we’ve missed our families, we’ve missed baseball games and theater and going out to a nice dinner inside a restaurant. But none of this has been a disaster; I think that is because we knew that staying home, practicing social distancing (avoiding the politics of it all and following the science), and waiting for and then taking the vaccine as soon as it was ready was the only way to get back to normal again. And normal is worth waiting for.

I’ve also reflected a lot on what I cannot bear to lose and who cannot bear to lose me. I cannot bear to lose my wife, so it was kind of an emotional thing to get our vaccines together and know that we’ve done what we can do. I cannot bear to lose my family, so I pray every day for their safety. Same with my friends – I rejoice every time I see those updates that another one has gotten the vaccine – I high-five the air. I miss my students and my campus and can’t wait to walk across the quad again, write on a whiteboard, see a student in office hours. I feel hope’s feathers growing inside me a bit more every day.

There is another side of this too. I have no intent to be lost; I have a responsibility not to be lost. I know that my wife cannot bear to lose me – having lost her parents already, I cannot leave her alone in this life, so there was no question at all that I would get the vaccine immediately. No question that until it was available I would do anything and everything I could to make her feel safe. I don’t think my mom could bear to lose me either – having lost one child already, this would be a disaster. There isn’t much – there isn’t anything – that isn’t worth delaying to keep them from feeling that loss.

A year ago, I wrote a blog post on my birthday, and 1001 American lives had been lost to COVID on that day. Just over a year later, that number is an astonishing 553,000 and counting. That really is unbelievable except that we’ve been watching it unfold day by day. It’s hard to emotionally, mentally fight against all of this loss – but we have to. We all have people who can’t bear to lose us. Spring feels so much different this year than last. Renewal seems possible, but only if we act on our intent not to be lost. I can’t wait to see you all again someday soon.

Sign of the Times

“Breaking through the atmosphere
And things are pretty good from here
Remember everything will be alright”

from “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles

Dear Reader,

So to celebrate my birthday this year, I don’t get to go out, but I do get to choose whatever I want to watch on television. Thank goodness for Netflix and HBO and Prime Video. I choose not to watch the news where deaths due to the coronavirus (as of this writing) are approaching 1500 in the US. When I woke up yesterday, 1001 people had died from this pandemic in our country. In the time it took me to put on my socks – literally – 1005 people had died. We are nowhere near the end of this catastrophe. These are strange days.

If anything, the last 2 weeks of sitting in my house have made me feel incredibly grateful. I’m grateful for my job – as a college professor, the beat goes on, and I know I’ll still be working/teaching even as we struggle as a country to get our feet back under us. I feel grateful for my college and how they are working to try and help students and instructors meet the unprecedented demands this crisis presents. I am painfully aware of the work and childcare challenges that some of my family and friends face and the difficult choices they have to make. I’m grateful for good health, the safety of home, and for technology that allows me to stay connected to family and friends, to check in and have a sense of normalcy in this abnormal state. I’m blessed to have a wonderful wife and best friend who I’m glad to spend a lot of time with. And I am grateful for friends who send birthday wishes, gifts via Amazon, gift cards for wine delivery, and the beautiful yellow box of cookies left on the doorstep, with my friends who delivered them standing at an acceptable social distance on the sidewalk to wish me a happy birthday. A sign of the times.

All of this also has me thinking of what we owe to each other. This is also the title of a book about ethics by T. M. Scanlon. If you’re a fan of “The Good Place” on NBC, you might have heard the ethics professor, Chidi, refer to this book from time to time. Scanlon’s book is about fairness and responsibility within the social contract we have. The responsibility we owe each other in this time is kind of a paradox: we show our commitment to one another by staying away from one another. We show concern by practicing isolation. By engaging in social distancing, we show how we care for the least among us: the most vulnerable who have underlying health conditions, the elderly who may not be as strong, and the poorest who don’t have access to health care. But the danger isn’t just for these parts of society. It touches all of us, or it will in time.

In describing his idea of the social contract, John Rawls imagined what he called a “veil of ignorance.” It works like this: Think about creating a just and equitable society for everyone. What would make the society fair for you and everyone else? Although you could never eliminate all of your personal biases and prejudices, you should consciously try to eliminate or minimize as many of them as possible. To do this, Rawls suggests that you imagine yourself in what he calls “the original position” behind a veil of ignorance. Behind this veil, you don’t know anything about yourself, your abilities/disabilities, or what money and resources you have. You don’t know your own sex, race, or country of origin. Behind such a veil of ignorance, we start with the same set of attributes: we are all rational, free, and morally equal beings. We all have the same opportunity to rise or fall equally. Rawls and Immanuel Kant and the Bible have this ethos in common: that we should treat everyone as we would want to be treated. It’s not a radical idea, but it is not radically practiced in everyday life.

This is the unique position we find ourselves in. We have to remember now that every choice we make now has a real consequence, and every choice is an opportunity to show the better angels of our nature. The virus that courses among us is no respecter of persons. Movie stars, elite athletes, and politicians are as at-risk as the common man, as at-risk as you and me. How we deal with this moving forward will show our commitment to fairness and equity. This is another sign of the times: in a nation that likes to see ourselves in individual terms, our collective vulnerability is on full display, and like it or not, we depend on each other now to find our way through.

Later today, I expect I’ll make a wish and blow out some candles. Although it is a superstition to keep the wish secret, I’m going to risk it and share that my wish is for all of us to think of each other before or at least equally with ourselves. God Bless America.

Acknowledgements

Dear Reader,

As many of you know, I finally completed my doctoral program! It has taken just short of forever, but all of the boxes are finally checked. I did all of the coursework, written comprehensive exams, oral comprehensive exams, proposal approval, proposal defense, IRB approval, the research study, the data analysis, dissertation approval, dissertation defense, and today I uploaded my work to ProQuest. I even ordered a couple of official, printed copies. Now all that’s left is the pomp and circumstance.

As I neared the end of the dissertation writing process, one of the things I most looked forward to was being able to shout out to all of the people who helped me get to the finish line. I was excited to get to dedicate my dissertation to someone.

DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Stephanie. I will never stop trying to become the person she already thinks I am.

Then I got to the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, and to my dismay, the graduate school guidelines forbade me from including long, personal expressions of gratitude, although I do admit that those could get icky to read in a document like this. So, okay. I thanked my chair, committee, etc. and as many others as I could according to the usual guidelines. For the rest – I’ll do it here instead.

The first person I have to thank is my mom. It was her decision to go to college later in her life that encouraged me to go as well. Her father’s wish was always for his kids to do and be more and have more opportunities in their lives, and he was so proud of her for going to college. She showed me that if there is something I wanted to do, I should find a way to do it. I took that and ran with it. She encouraged me every step of the way, from my very first day as a community college student and beyond, and when I walked into the room to defend my dissertation, I knew that I had her and, because of her, many people in the greater Knoxville area praying for my success. Thanks, Mom.

My teachers have always inspired me. I am so grateful to all of the wonderful teachers I’ve had in my life – from Mrs. White in 3rd grade at North City Elementary School to Coach Chris in high school to Kendra and Dr. Peirce at the University of Baltimore. I’ll always feel indebted to Dr. Mallios at the University of Maryland for being the one professor there who really seemed to believe in me. I owe special thanks to my most impactful teacher and mentor, Tara. I remember Tara telling a story about when she knew she wanted to be a college professor: she said she had a young, female professor and looking at her, she thought to herself, “I could do that.” I had a similar experience when I went to my first class at Howard Community College, Tara’s literature class. She was teaching her first semester there, and when I finally realized that teaching was what I wanted to do, I knew I had my role model in her. Tara has advised me in every phase of my educational (and professional) life, and she’s kept me looking forward to what’s possible and what’s next. Everyone needs this kind of person in their lives. Thanks, Doc.

When I was really uncertain if I was gonna finish or not, my friend Llatetra picked me up. She was a constant source of guidance for the ins and outs of the program we both went through. She became my guide, helping me through the small details and helping me focus on the big picture as well. Llatetra never stopped encouraging me. She checked in on me and didn’t let me doubt that I would make it. Thanks, Dr. Esters.

Everyone needs a posse of ride or die friends and supporters. They are the ones you look up and see cheering you on. My friends Chris and Erin, thanks for all the laughter and encouragement over many, many bottles of wine. You guys always helped things feel lighter and more possible. Thanks, Besties!

How lucky am I to have this person in my life?

Finally, and most importantly, the person I needed most was my amazing wife, Stephanie. The person that is closest to you is the one who has to do the most emotional work to keep you from losing your marbles – and believe me, those moments are frequent for doctoral students. Stephanie helped keep me from cratering in this long, long process, and there were several times, especially in the final weeks, when my toes were touching rock bottom, but she never let me sink fully into the morass. She poured over my data, my document, my presentation, and, good lord, the font changes! She kept a cool head and sense of humor about it all that helped me feel calmer and steadier too. She gave me room and permission to succeed or fail and made it clear that she would be there whatever the outcome. The day I defended my dissertation, I opened my notebook and found a note from her that just swelled my heart. This is why I dedicated my dissertation to her. She sees more in me and for me than I can see in and for myself, and that makes me try to be better. Thank you, Stephanie. I love you and I like you. You’re amazing.

Thanks to Stephanie, Erin, and Chris for the impromptu post-defense celebration!

It’s weird to think, after so many years, that the chapter of my student life is concluded. It’s a good feeling, but surprisingly abrupt as well. I can say something now that I don’t say a lot: I am pretty damn proud of what I’ve accomplished. Education is important to me, so much so that I’ve literally dedicated my whole life not only to my own education, but also to the education of others. I have seen how it lifts my students; I know how it has lifted me. My whole time in college, I have worked full-time. I didn’t have that bucolic experience where I went off to live in a dorm in some place with ivy covered walls. I have had to dig and scratch and balance work with school for the last two decades of my life while earning 4 college degrees. Because I work in higher ed, doctoral degrees seem pretty common, but the last census showed that only about 2% of Americans have earned a doctorate. That is a narrow path to walk, and no one can finish it alone – seems like something worth acknowledging.

Incomplete History

Dear Reader,

I know this blog is a bit later than the first Friday, but I was asked to write a guest post for HoCoPoLitSo (Howard County Poetry and Literature Society) to mark LGBTQ History Month, and I wanted to let that post get published first there before I published a slightly different version of it here – so much has happened since I submitted the blog to them, and I kept thinking/writing. Now that it’s up there, here it is. You can also check it out on HoCoPoLitSo’s blog.

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October is LGBTQ History Month. When I think about LGBTQ history, I am of two minds and the poems included in the LGBTQ collection on Poets.org perfectly reflect that split. Some of the poems are so absolutely ordinary in their subjects, like the poem, “our happiness” by Eileen Miles, and on one hand, I think, that’s progress: the lives of LGBTQ people are written and expressed in the same way as other lives. That’s equality, right? Being a gay poet doesn’t mean that you have to write every poem about the experience of being gay. Not every aspect, every moment of my life is about that, but my experience is most definitely shaped by it and so is my view of history.

If we’re really talking about history, the conversation is incomplete unless we acknowledge that nothing is really the same. Some might say, hey, you won the right to get married, so what are you complaining about? That reminds me of the poem, “On Marriage” by Marilyn Hacker where the poet talks about the way in which LGBTQ people “must choose, and choose, and choose / momently, daily” to affirm their holding hands commitment to one another, “Call it anything we want” when society doesn’t quite know how to accept or handle this kind of “covenant.” We talk a lot about “White Privilege” in cultural discourse, but we don’t talk a lot about “Mainstream Heterosexual Cisgender Privilege.” It exists. MHCP allows folks to do very ordinary things like hold hands in public without having to do a quick check of their surroundings. MHCP allows you to use whatever bathroom you want without being harassed or shamed or threatened. It allows you to feel “normal” out in the world. Put it this way: there are times when showing affection to my wife in public – just a peck on the cheek – feels like a dangerous political act.

It hasn’t always been this way for me. In fact, I enjoyed MHCP for most of my life. I went to a conservative Christian high school, and though there were probably gay people around me (I’m pretty sure a few of my teachers were/are), since none of them were out, I feel as though I didn’t meet a gay person until I went to college. Riding through my high school years and my twenties as an MHCP was easy. Being white made it even easier. Realizing I was gay later in life when I care less what the world thinks has made the sting of discrimination sting a little less. Still, it was surprising to realize that the world had changed. Is it weird to say that I want to have it both ways? As Uncle Walt says, “Very well then I contradict myself, / I am large, I contain multitudes.” I want everyone in the world to see LGBTQ people as just normal, and I want everyone to know that our experience is different.

If we’re talking about history, we have to acknowledge that being an LGBTQ person is a unique and still unequal experience in this country. There are subtle and unsubtle ways that society is set up to exclude and marginalize us. And some of the poems I browsed on Poets.org do address that fact. I find myself drawn more powerfully to these poems because I do want to acknowledge the difference that exits. A great example of this is “A Woman Is Talking to Death” by Judy Grahn. The poem was written in 1940, and the lines that jump out to me are:

“this woman is a lesbian, be careful.

When I was arrested and being thrown out

of the military, the order went out: don’t anybody

speak to this woman, and for those three

long months, almost nobody did: the dayroom, when

I entered it, fell silent til I had gone; they

were afraid, they knew the wind would blow

them over the rail, the cops would come,

the water would run into their lungs.

Everything I touched

was spoiled. They were my lovers, those

women, but nobody had taught us how to swim.

I drowned, I took 3 or 4 others down

when I signed the confession of what we

had done together.

No one will ever speak to me again.”

LGBTQ history is a history of fraught silence. A friend of mine, Rob, hid the fact that he was gay the entire time he was in the Navy – it wasn’t just that he feared for his job, he also feared for his life, that other soldiers might threaten or harass him for being openly gay. He hid it until he completed his tour of duty, and then he came out to all of his friends. You might think that passing a law abolishing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would end this discrimination, but you would be wrong. This discrimination still exists in the military – though now the target has shifted from being gay or lesbian to being transgender. Grahn’s poem was written in 1940; it is 77 years later, and we are not there yet. And because we live in the age of vindictive executive orders, we are too afraid that the next step in the movement will be a step backward.

If we’re talking about history, we have to acknowledge that we’re still in the middle of the story right now. What started with Alan Turing, Barbara Gittings, Christine Jorgenson, Alan Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, the Stonewall riots, James Baldwin, and Harvey Milk has led us to the defeat of DOMA, the rejection of Proposition 8, the victory of Edith Windsor, the success of Tammy Baldwin. But this complicated history also continues with events like the shooting in the Pulse nightclub and pronouncements that threaten the rights of transgender soldiers and that reinterpret Civil Rights laws to exclude protections for

flyerpng-0ca3f60658695046 — Photo from Cleveland.com

LGBTQ employees. For all the poems that are out there, some things about the LGBTQ experience just defy expression. Not everything is just about the right to get married or or what sports we can play or what bathroom we’re allowed to use – those things are important, but there are even heavier questions on our minds than whether you see us as equal – like whether you see us as human. We’ve seen in the last week or so of our history that LGBTQ youth are not safe on college campuses around the country. At Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio, flyers have appeared encouraging LGBTQ students to commit suicide, taunting them with the statistics that mock the loneliness and desperation that LGBTQ people feel with the disgusting tag “Fascist Solutions.” There is no poem that expresses what I want to say to the monsters that distributed these flyers. There is no poem that says want I want to say to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Richard Spencer, the men who have given these monsters a voice in our society. This history is so raw, so painful, so new. Current events are going to write these poems, and I want to read those poems too, not just the ones that try to normalize our experience.

One of the happiest days in my life was November 6^th, 2012. That was the day that voters in my home state of Maryland affirmed the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry, and I knew that I would marry my wife. Then, on June 26^th, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that we should be seen as equal under the law. In a stunning closing paragraph, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” To read

Blog Photo — My wife and I at the Jan. 20 Women’s March – photo by Tara Hart

that, you’d think that we are living in a new era, but in reality, it isn’t quite true. We are living in a time that feels, in some ways, more dangerous than ever. In “Love Song for Love Songs,” Rafael Campo writes that it is “A golden age of love songs and we still / can’t get it right.” That’s what I think: If we’re going to talk about LGBTQ history and celebrate equality, we have to admit that, despite so much progress in the last few years, the last ten months have shown us that we still have so far to go. Sharpen your pencils.

To Meat or Not To Meat

Dear Reader,

I am a carnivore. I mean, I come from Tennessee with a grandmother who made pork chops, sausage, and bacon just about every day. And don’t get me started on barbecue. Ground beef was super-affordable, so I’m pretty sure it was in just about every dinner my mom made for us growing up. And it’s tasty. I consider a good meal one that has some kind of delicious protein in it seasoned just right, seared on the outside, and juicy on the inside. But even I recognize that one should not eat the way my grandparents did, so I have made conscious efforts, at times, to eat healthier. I even thought I was doing pretty good by eliminating most of the red meat from my life, sticking to chicken almost all the time and occasionally some turkey.

But every now and then, my wife will say, out of nowhere, “I think I want to be a vegetarian.” It terrifies carnivore me. She has good reasons for it. For one, she is an avid animal lover – she can’t think of any animal with any less compassion than she feels for our beloved dogs. And, to the detriment of animals, she thinks that Americans eat too much meat. Americans annually eat over 55 pounds of beef alone. In addition, the Pew Research Center reports that meat consumption is on the rise at a faster pace than any time in the last 40 years, and only about 3% of Americans follow a vegetarian diet. So, she’s right: we probably eat too much meat. That means that more animals are being raised just for slaughter, and that is tough to think about even if you adopt the posture that God put animals here for us to eat.

My wife also believes that consuming meat regularly may have consequences beyond cholesterol levels and fat in the bloodstream in the form of hormones – synthetic estrogens and synthetic testosterone for example. There is some evidence that this hidden hormone consumption contributes to weight gain and even some types of cancer, though it is unclear just how much you’d have to consume to empirically prove this link. It is true that ranchers and farmers use hormones to create fatter, meatier animals. It is a common, accepted practice to inject hormones into young livestock so that they gain weight. For the farmer, it’s a simple calculation: bigger animals produce more meat, and more meat is more money. Hormones also help dairy cows produce more milk. It’s hard to fault the farmer here if we are thinking of small family farmers – they have a tough go of it and I understand they need to do whatever they need to do to keep the farm going. But we’re also talking about huge meat companies who aren’t exactly struggling given the overall rise in meat consumption. They are really cashing in.

And this doesn’t even account for the environmental impact of our meat thirst. The meat machine in this country is a major energy and resource consumer.

It’s a lot to think about. It seems that there are real ethical, health, and environmental issues that go into the decision to meat or not to meat. So this week, we embarked on a little experiment: A Week Without Meat.

The Experience

First of all, it took some planning. Not a lot, but it did take some planning. I have been scarred by tofu and soy encounters gone wrong, and I was pretty nervous about whether or not things would taste good. Dinners at our home usually revolve around some kind of meat. Lunches usually involve lunchmeat of some kind. Breakfast occasionally involves bacon or sausage. So we did have to make a plan and shop a bit differently to execute it. I am the cook around here, so I searched for some recipes that involved

greens and grains and other options like beans and sweet potatoes. We swapped lunchmeat for a vegetarian burger. I ate out once during the week, but my kind friend accounted for this experiment and chose an organic market for our lunch date. We kept breakfast pretty simple, choosing cereal or oatmeal most days, but today I did allow myself a nice egg. My biggest fear was that we wouldn’t feel full or satisfied all five days.

The Verdict

I am happy to say that we really enjoyed the food this week. There was even something kind of easy about not fussing with cooking meat every night. This was the first week back to classes for me, normally a bit more stressful than usual, and simple vegetarian meals were not really that daunting to prepare. We haven’t had anything that we didn’t completely savor. Peanut butter and jelly is a great

sandwich. Grilled cheese feels like an event. Grains are friends. Salad is salad, but salad is so versatile that it never has to be boring. Beans and rice are shape-shifters – I really tasted tacos when I ate them. In all, it was kind of a revelation. I thought I might feel more energetic, but I have also had a head cold this week, so that is not really possible to say.

My overall takeaway is that we probably won’t be full-time vegetarians. But you never say never, right? If my wife ever gets to the point where she wants to “go veg” full-time and for real, I will take that plunge. For now, I do think that we will be much more vegetarian than we have been. Our wonderful friends have contributed all sorts of recipe ideas, so we have lots of things to try. I sort of like to think of our new approach to food as mindful eating – being thoughtful about how much meat we eat and making conscious choices to try more meat alternatives. There is the feeling that one or two people can’t change the world, and that is probably true. I once had a student say in class (while we were talking about climate change) that climate change has been going on for so long and will continue long after we’re gone, and that since we are here for such a short time, it doesn’t do any good for us to try to do anything about it. Imagine if we all thought that way about the world. True, if the May family eats less meat, it might not save many of the animals or save much energy. But given our love of animals and the environment, my wife and I feel good about making choices that we feel are ethical and finding a way to live our values. I am also happy to be able to say to anyone else that might be considering cutting back or cutting out meat from their diet that it is a total myth that there is nothing good to eat when you’re a vegetarian. Everything we ate this week was flavorful and satisfying – and hormone-free.

I’m still a carnivore. But I’m a conscious carnivore, evolving herbivore now. That might not change the world, but it still feels like progress.

Deep Listening

Dear Reader,

This post is about something you have quite possibly never heard of: podcasts. As in broadcasts for the iPod. My first experience with podcasts was way back in 2004. Podcasts were a fairly new iTunes genre, but I loved radio shows on NPR and audiobooks, so the podcast offered a familiar and simultaneously unique form – almost like a weekly magazine but free. My favorite: Pottercast, a podcast dedicated to rehashing everything in the Harry Potter lexicon and speculating on how the series might end. One of my favorite episodes featured an interview with Matthew Lewis – he played Neville Longbottom in the movie franchise.

And now you’ve seen my nerd card.

For some reason, despite the moderate success of standout programs like This American Life, podcasts didn’t really take off at first. They remained kind of a fringe form of media: low-budget, low-interest. Eventually, the Harry Potter book series came to a close, and I stopped listening to Pottercast and all other podcasts for a while. While the iPod itself is now virtually extinct, podcasts have hung in there, playing to a small audience week after week.

But then came a little podcast called Serial from the producers of This American Life. Season 1 of Serial hit the airwaves like a lightning bolt. If you have any curiosity about podcasts at all, download this podcast immediately and start listening. The well-produced series also presented a compelling mystery told by skilled storyteller and former crime reporter Sarah Koenig. Serial is the story of a closed case that feels pretty unresolved – the 1999 murder of a high school student from nearby Woodlawn, Maryland named Hae Min Lee. Lee’s ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted of the crime, but the facts and circumstances made his conviction, well, un-convincing. (An aside: Syed won an appeal for a new trial and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals is currently weighing the state’s appeal of that ruling for a new trial. Justice is not just blind but painfully slow and bureaucratic.) Whereas This American Life had always focused on telling several bite-sized stories on the same theme in a single episode, Serial took a new approach. Koenig unfolded the story a little bit more week by week; Serial not only held listeners in rapt attention but spawned other true-crime podcasts in its wake, including Undisclosed, Truth & Justice, and Accused. This year the producers of Serial kept the ball rolling with a new podcast, S-Town, that presented something like a southern-gothic murder-mystery. No spoilers here, but the story takes a dramatic, strange turn that left me thinking, “What am I listening to?!” – yet I couldn’t turn it off. The new format of S-Town and Netflix-style dropping of all episodes at once pushed the genre in a new direction again.

The Podcast Renaissance is going strong, and I am in awe of how many truly exceptional programs are being produced. Podcasts have transformed my commute, my workout, and my yardwork – I can’t wait to immerse myself in these episodes. When I can’t sleep, I reach for my headphones- usually a bad idea because I get engrossed in the story and don’t want to sleep, but it’s better than the 2am television waste land. Search the iTunes charts, and you’ll find some truly esoteric stuff. There’s also some pretty mainstream stuff. Pottercast still exists, in case you’re wondering – they have a new episode up once or twice a month.

Of all the truly wonderful podcasts on the charts, I would like to focus on two of them for you that I am obsessed with right now: Ear Hustle and Revisionist History.

Revisionist History features Malcolm Gladwell, celebrated cultural critic and author of books such as Blink and The Tipping Point. I love the premise of his podcast: that some things we take for granted as settled history deserve a closer look. He takes on a wide range of historical and social issues, from Winston Churchill to country music to the educational system. Gladwell always takes an angle that I am not expecting, and I truly do learn something every time I listen to it. My only criticism of the podcast is that Gladwell sometimes goes too quickly for an oversimplification of complicated problems – maybe this is part of the limitation of a 30-minute conversation, or maybe he just really believes in Occam’s Razor. A good example of this is in the Season One episode called “Food Fight” about wealthy private colleges Bowdoin and Vassar. He starts by comparing the dining options at the colleges and then progresses to a discussion of the efforts each college makes (or doesn’t make) to offer better access to low-income students. His general point is that because Vassar has cut back on dining options and student amenities, they are able to admit more low-income students. I asked a former student of mine who happened to attend Vassar during the time Gladwell recorded that episode, and she pushes back on his summation that basic options are the burden that more fortunate students must bear in order to increase opportunities for low-income students. She pointed out that the college still spends plenty of money on non-student related amenities, such as champagne-rich faculty parties, new houses for administrators, and purchasing some rare, expensive golden bird for their art collection. My student shared that Vassar made this acquisition at the same time they were preaching austerity to students, saying they’d have to cut back on providing access to basic health items such as sanitary products. So yeah, not just about food. But even though his food for students argument is a bit reductive, Gladwell does raise an interesting point about how colleges choose to use their money – and this applies to all colleges and universities, not just Vassar and Bowdoin. It makes me think harder about how my own college spends its resources.

In addition to Gladwell’s program, another real standout for me is the new podcast called Ear Hustle. If you read Piper Kerman’s book Orange is the New Black or have seen the sensationalized series on Netflix by the same name, you probably have some notions and also some questions about life for the incarcerated. Ear Hustle is set in San Quentin State Prison and produced by two prisoners, Earlonne Woods & Antwan Williams, and a local

artist, Nigel Poor. To “Ear Hustle” means to eavesdrop – thus the podcast is what it is like to listen in on what actually happens in prison. One of my favorite episodes is called “Cellies” – about the pitfalls and politics of choosing and enduring a cellmate. That’s right – sometimes you have a say in who your cellmate might be, and the decision is pretty complicated. The episode called “SHU” explores the effects of long-term solitary confinement in Pelican Bay where SHU inmates are held. SHU stands for Security Housing Unit, and it is absolutely the loneliest place on earth. Woods himself spent a year in SHU and can personally speak to the way it altered him. His stint was nothing compared to other men who contribute to this episode – some of them spent decades in the SHU before getting released. Fortunately, due to a 2013 inmate hunger strike, the prison changed its policy and no longer commits prisoners to the SHU indefinitely; the maximum time there is five years – which is still an awfully long time to spend with no human interaction and no chance to breathe fresh air or feel the sun.

Ear Hustle does not pull any punches and does not romanticize the plight of the inmate. The inmates are not portrayed as animals or as completely reformed saints, but as flawed men who feel the weight of what they’ve done and who face the consequences of their choices daily. The self-awareness of the inmates is disarming and somewhat unexpected. The goal of the project, I think, is simply to lift the veil so we can better understand these men – not to pity them, but to humanize them. Our criminal justice system needs desperate reform, and perhaps seeing prisoners as people – not numbers, not problems – is a good first step in that process. So the podcast is not just entertainment, but a subtle exercise in activism.

The great thing about a podcast is that it allows for deep, extended listening. I have always loved listening to things – it probably goes back to when I was a kid and used to listen to baseball games on the radio with my grandfather. Too often, it seems to me that we do what I like to call resistant listening – especially when it is something that challenges us or that goes against things we already think or believe. We don’t listen to understand – we listen in order to respond – because we live in a contentious, litigious society where everyone wants to have the last or loudest word about things. Podcasts are helping me become a better listener and by extension a better thinker about a variety of subjects – some things I never thought I’d be interested in. Because of podcasts, I really think about the criminal justice system, I really think about how my brain works, I really think about my biases and how to be more aware of them. Podcasts inspire research, questions, and conversations. From politics to pop culture, true crime to television, there really is something for everyone. And more than that, we can all stand to become better listeners.

In addition to the ones I have already mentioned throughout this post, here are a few podcasts that I highly recommend (all available through iTunes):

And I’m always looking for more. If you are already a podcast lover, tell me: what are you listening to?

Teaching in the Time of Trump

Dear Reader,

I have taken a sabbatical from the blog for a few months now – in all honesty, the pernicious political climate defeated any desire I had to put together my thoughts for a blog post. Every idea I started with turned angry, and I generally believe anger is an impotent emotion.

angry trump — Trump speaks to supporters – photo by Politico

I am hardly alone in feeling the negative vibe in the air – most people in our society (70 % according to recent polling) feel that the country as a whole is more negative since the last election. As the saying goes, the speed of the group is equal to the speed of the leader. You could restate this as the tone of the group is set by the tone of the leader. The leader’s tone is dangerous, angry, toxic. Horrible.

It has not been easy to resist the tone. It has especially been a challenge at work, in the classroom. How does one teach in the time of Trump? It’s not easy. First and foremost, we have to tolerate things we disagree with and realize that opinions about Trump run a full spectrum. Despite how I feel about Trump, I have to model tolerant disagreement. Second, we have to acknowledge that everything we talk about in the classroom connects to the world around us, and the students certainly feel impacted by what’s going on out there. Nothing feels quite normal to students these days. They have anxieties and insecurities that get expressed in class discussion and in their writing. My students worry about their Muslim neighbors, their immigrant classmates, their LGBTQ friends, themselves. As much as we’d like to, we can’t shut the door and pretend that the world doesn’t exist; we have to talk about it. The only good way I can think to let the world in is by not focusing on Trump so much as what we read can teach us about ourselves. After all, even though a person like Trump seems new and unique in time, in truth he is not new but rather a regression. We can learn lessons from stories, plays, novels, and poems that show us who we do – and don’t – want to be. These past few months, I have found some solace in knowing that the things we study teach us about why truth matters, why bullies can’t win, what happens when we demonize others, and what happens when we fight for the best version of ourselves.

One of the classes I teach is called Ethics in Literature, and one of the things we confront in this course is the idea of what is true. There is a dangerous way of thinking out there in the world that says, “If it feels true to me or if it confirms what I believe, then it must be true.” In current political discourse, this is what is known as “Alternative Facts.” In plain truth, alternative facts are lies. One of the lessons we learn in ethics is that thinking so doesn’t make it so. “Many people are saying” is not a rational argument, and when we talk about big questions of right and wrong, objectivity is essential. Here is an example: Person A thinks chocolate ice cream is the best. That thinking expresses an opinion about ice cream. Is chocolate ice cream the best? Not according Person B who loves vanilla ice cream. Can they both be right? Ice cream is a low-stakes argument. But what if we apply that same process to a moral question? Moral questions can’t be decided based on a mere difference of opinion or preference. It may be Person A’s opinion that pursuing stem-cell research is wrong because it makes him uncomfortable, but that is not enough to declare it morally wrong. Moral questions require justified thinking, not just opinion or preference. And saying something like “stem-cell research is wrong because I think it’s messing with the natural order” is not a rational, justified argument. It may be how Person A feels, but that does not make it true. There really is a difference between facts and feelings, and one of the most important things we can teach students is to believe in the independent objectivity of facts.

As we read Macbeth, we see what happens when we give way to our darkest impulses, when we seek to win at all costs even at the expense of other people. The witches set the tone for this early on by declaring that “fair is foul and foul is fair.” Macbeth is a bully who decides to trash and destroy everything in his path. He wants power, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do with it. The gluttonous desire for power is all consuming, as he ultimately realizes that he is “in blood / Stepp’d in so far that, should [he] wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er” – in other words, he is in over his head. The paranoid pursuit of power leads him to threaten and murder everyone he perceives as a threat in order to try and maintain his grasp on the throne. Ultimately, the bully defeats himself as everyone turns against Macbeth, refusing to accept his fatalistic vision. Shakespeare’s dark play shows us that ambition alone does not make a great leader, and while it may inspire fear, it will never inspire love, admiration, greatness, or loyalty.

When we read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we learn that how we treat others matters. When Victor’s creature wanders out into the world, he is not a monster. The creature seeks love, acceptance, and understanding. He looks for a place to belong. But it is his difference in appearance and manner that ultimately creates fear in others. Society can’t handle his difference, and they take out those fears on the creature. The creature learns that he is “solitary and abhorred” – alone and hated. This leads him to feelings of “hate and revenge” – the creature learns to treat others the way he has been treated. At one point, the creature tells Victor, “I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?” The lesson is simple: when faced with someone different from our norm, someone outside of our comfort zone, we can treat them with respect and create better humans, or we can create monsters. Sometimes, for all the talk of America being “a great melting pot,” we sure do seem to resist people who are different from our norm. Too often we regard each other with suspicion and derision – and the monsters we really create are ourselves.

But when we read The Hunger Games, we learn that we should not pit ourselves against each other. When we do that, we play the evil leader’s game. President Snow wants people from the various districts to distrust each other, not to talk to each other, and not to help each other. He wants them to see their survival as dependent on the demise of others. Peeta and Katniss refuse to conform to the image of “good tributes” in that while they understand they may have to sacrifice their lives, they refuse to sacrifice their character. Their resistance is shown in small and big ways. For example, on the eve of the games, Peeta says, “I want to die as myself” in the arena. He does not want to fundamentally alter who he is for the sake of the game. Snow is hoping that the tributes will all behave viciously toward one another once the games are underway, confirming the worst narrative Snow has tried to construct about the people from the districts. It is a small act of rebellion on Peeta’s part to fight for his character in the face of a truly horrible fate. In a much larger act of resistance, Katniss shows compassion to her ally, Rue. When Rue is mortally wounded, rather than run away to save herself, Katniss stays with Rue so she doesn’t have to die alone. Her rebellion is shown in the way she prepares a funeral scene for the fallen tribute and honors Rue’s district in an unprecedented show of solidarity. What Collins’ book tries to show is that cooperation is how we win, and we must fight to stay true to ourselves even when circumstances try to force us to act in ways that hurt others. We must always search for and nurture the better parts of our nature – and that is the only way we really win, the only way to make ourselves great.

When we studied John Rawls’ theories on social justice, my students did an exercise where they created an ideal society behind their own veil of ignorance. The veil of ignorance assumes that you don’t know who you will be or what place you will have in society, so in creating society, the goal is to try and set it up as fairly as possible for everyone. I challenged them to think affirmatively – create the society they want by deciding on what was good. The point of the exercise was to discover what things we truly value. Their list was encouraging: they want freedom, they want justice, they want equality, they want peace, they want respect, they want education, they want opportunity. What is made plain by the list they created is what they don’t want: prejudice, injustice, inequality, fear, disrespect, lack of education, and lack of opportunity.

The exercise could be easily dismissed by saying it’s too idealistic, but during this week where we have celebrated the anniversary of our nation, it’s fair to point out that the Declaration of Independence was pretty idealistic too. America was a dream. It took some work to get it going, and we are still wildly imperfect. Does that mean we should cease to try? Perhaps the most essential benefit of studying the humanities is that art, literature, and philosophy help us understand how much bigger the world is. Too often, we are locked within a selfish bubble, only concerned with what is immediate to us. This isolationist thinking is dangerous. As much as anything else, my goal as a teacher is to say simply this to my students: try. Try to imagine the world you want to live in. Try to figure out how you can go about creating it. Try compassion. Try to live with honesty and dignity. Try to treat others the right way, to earn respect by giving it. Try to be the person you think you should be, even when it’s hard. Try in small ways and in great ways. Change happens in depressingly slow ways sometimes, but then sometimes it makes massive leaps. But none of it happens if we don’t try and just pretend that everything is normal, everything is okay.

This is how I have learned to teach in the time of Trump.

Let Freedom Ring

Dear Reader,

I apologize for missing my First Friday deadline – the first week of classes has me playing catch up, but here we go! Better late than never.

So, I have watched with interest as the controversy around Colin Kaepernick has unfolded. For those who have not heard, the NFL quarterback has decided to sit during the playing of the national anthem, thereby exercising his right to peacefully protest. He is doing this to continue to call attention to the reality that people of color are subjected to injustice on a daily basis. Because of his protest, he has been called a traitor, his jersey has been burned, and people have called him a hypocrite because he happens to make money as a football player.

A couple of things come to mind here:

1. “The Star Spangled Banner” is the national anthem, and I come from a proud military family. When I hear the anthem, I stop. I face the flag. I legitimately contemplate the sacrifice of our military – tears come to my eyes. That’s just who I am. I feel respect and pride. It is my first amendment right to feel that way. Okay.

2. But, I live near Baltimore. I attend games at Camden Yards. Fans yell “O” when we get to the part of the verse that goes, “Oh, say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave….” – some fans yelled “O” during the Olympic medal ceremony when Michael Phelps was on the podium during the Rio Olympics last month. He laughed. Both shouting “O” and laughing during the anthem could be considered disrespectful, no? I missed the outrage on that, but I did see that Gabby Douglas got hammered for not putting her hand over her heart when she was on the podium. Hmm….

3. Did you know that Francis Scott Key’s song has multiple verses? We only sing the first one. In the third verse we find these troubling lines: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” Well.

I could go on, but I think the main point is emphasized by US Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, a gay woman, who has also decided to silently and peacefully protest by kneeling during the anthem. The point, and it is an important one, is this: as great as this country is, and as much as we embrace the belief that we are all created equal and deserve equal rights and equal protections, the reality is that this equality is not reality – it is an ideal. For minorities, including immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ citizens of this country, life is different. If you have never experienced inequality, I am happy for you. I know personally that my wife and I sometimes hesitate before holding hands or showing affection in public – even though Maryland is one of the more progressive states in America. There is always the nagging fear that someone will take exception to our existence and act aggressively about it. We had to wait a few years after we were sure we wanted to be married to legally be allowed to get married in our home state while somewhere in Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Connecticut, and many other states, sixteen-year old heterosexuals were allowed to exchange vows with full support of the American government.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of expression. That is exactly what the patriots of the Boston Tea Party demonstrated when they dumped the tea in the harbor to show their displeasure over taxes. It’s what empowered Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the marches against the unequal treatment of African-Americans in the mid-twentieth century. Freedom of expression allowed Vietnam War protestors to speak out in the 60’s. It’s the same freedom of expression that allows the Westboro Baptist Church to show up at military funerals and voice their opinions. It’s the freedom to say that you disagree. No matter your politics, it’s the freedom that we all have.

To quote Aaron Sorkin (via the film The American President), “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad. ‘Cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs for that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag [or an anthem for that matter], the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag [or sit during that anthem] in protest.’ Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”

In my ethics class this week, we used this issue as an icebreaker. What I am happy with is how thoughtfully my students considered this question. They have, at a young age, embraced a nuanced view of the world and the reality that we can reasonably disagree without casting each other in the roles of patriot or traitor. As someone who believes that the purpose of education is to produce compassionate, independent-minded, informed, and empathetic citizens, this gives me a lot of hope.

Free speech does not just mean that we only celebrate or protect those who agree with us. Free speech is bigger than you or me or our opinions. If you think Kaepernick and Rapinoe are wrong for exercising their right to peacefully demonstrate freedom of expression, you have totally missed the point. It does not disrespect the military. It does not disrespect America. When I stand for the anthem, I celebrate the very freedom that allows them to sit or kneel in protest. That is what freedom really means. You can disagree, but your disagreement does not make them wrong. Let Freedom Ring.

Critical Thinking

One of the most important skills we teach students in college is the ability to exercise critical thinking. To be good, honest, productive citizens of the world, critical thinking is absolutely essential – it helps us understand when and how and why to accept or reject an argument and how to form our own ideas and values. This skill is especially important as we are becoming adults in the world and figuring out not just how to make it in life, but what things we will live for and work for – how to put ourselves into a positive position in the world. Critical thinking is defined as “the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.”

When it comes to supporting a political candidate, many of us fail this critical thinking test. Some of us look for a candidate who supports a single issue that we care about or we find one who we think is the lesser of two evils. Historically, Americans have tended to vote optimistically – for candidates who represent hope and forward thinking like Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama, two of the most popular presidents of the last half-century. Voters in the American electorate say they like to see positive change and cling to those core American ideas like “freedom and justice for all,” or “the American Dream,” or “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” These are inclusive, aspirational ideals. Given that, Donald Trump is a candidate that mystifies many political observers because he is not inclusive or aspirational or optimistic; even his campaign slogan, “Make American Great Again” has dark undertones to it as people ask themselves the valid question: When was America “great”? What are we trying to go back to? (See this clip from The Daily Show for some hilarious satire on this question.) Candidate Trump seems comfortable alienating entire demographics of American voters. He relentlessly uses pejorative language to take shots at people who disagree with him or that he feels have been “mean” to him. He even denigrated the parents of a fallen American hero because they challenged him on his statements about Muslims. (The Khan family are proud American Muslims, immigrants whose son, an Army Captain, bravely died in service to this nation.) Part of his appeal, supporters say, is that he’s not a politician – he just says what he thinks when he thinks it – no filter. In a recent study from the Pew Research Center, support for an experienced candidate is stronger among Democrats and Independents than Republicans. He’s not experienced, he clearly lacks foreign policy knowledge, he does not understand the global economy, and he has dangerous warlord-like ideas about how to strike at ISIS (go after their families – their wives and children…wait – that was Macbeth, right?). This lack of experience, a perceived strength among Republicans, is not winning over the general electorate. And yet, despite some losses in the polls this week, there is a solid block of about 30% of the country who are determined to vote for Trump no matter what, even as prominent Republicans, longtime members of the party he represents in this election, are denouncing his candidacy and in some cases, even vowing to vote Democratic in November. Recently, elected officials such as Rep. Keith Ellison have asked the question that Mitt Romney and others have been asking for quite some time: what will it take for you to re-think your support of Donald Trump? Or is Trump right that he could shoot a man on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes? It ceases to be a Republican or Democrat question – it’s a moral question about what temperament and moral character we require in a president.

In an article titled “Why Facts Don’t Matter to Trump’s Supporters,” Washington Post reporter David Ignatius points out the unsettling dynamic that, even when confronted with the worst of Trump, those who want to vote for him will not be swayed. They are not thinking critically about the choice. They know that Trump makes things up – like his claim that he watched thousands of Muslims celebrating the fall of the Twin Towers or that he saw a video of cash being delivered to Iran or an attack ad against his rival that contains a blatant lie – and even when confronted with the evidence of these wild, false claims, Trump supporters are not moved. Ignatius says, “the reason is that people tend to accept arguments that confirm their views and discount facts that challenge what they believe” – something known in psychology as “confirmation bias.” We believe what we want to believe. For those who don’t actively attempt to think critically, the way we think about things stems from our past beliefs – and facts only make it worse, make us dig in our heels even in the face of logic and reason.

trump supporters — A Donald Trump supporter refuses to listen to protestors at a Trump rally (Brennan Linsley/AP)

So what do we do? Well, as the saying goes, the first step is to admit there is a problem. I truly believe that voters want to make a good, conscientious choice at the ballot box. Confirmation bias is an unconscious activity. We are not aware that we are making bad judgments – until we are. But there also has to be a willingness to fix the problem. Accepting alternative views is hard – even on a small scale, it is hard for us to do. Most of us don’t like to admit we are wrong, that our thinking is flawed, or that someone else might have a better idea. Our egos and emotions prevent us from thinking clearly. But if we can put that aside, then perhaps we could begin to address the problem.

And it is important to address the problem. The stakes are very high in this election. It is not unreasonable to say that by voting for a party and its candidate, you are endorsing the statements, ideas, and values of that candidate. You are declaring that you support them, expressing allegiance to them. And that says as much about you as it does the candidate or the party. The term of this commitment is potentially 4 years.

I am not going to say that you should vote for one candidate over the other. You are not wrong to note that I seriously question the virtue of voting for Donald Trump, but by default, that does not mean that I think you should vote for Hillary Clinton. I think you should critically think about it. There are actually 4 parties and 4 candidates to choose from this election year (Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Republican). A critical thinker must consider every bit of it: the candidate, the party, and the platform. And then you have to make that decision, a deeply personal and important decision. The etymology of the word vote reveals that it stems from the word vow – a vow is a wish, a promise, one of the most sacred things we do. A vote is one of the most sincere acts we perform in life – or at least it should be. What I will say is that it does matter when and how and why you accept the arguments of a candidate and that you come to that acceptance with eyes fully open, understanding what led to that decision and how you may rationally justify it. No candidate is perfect, of course, but it is imperative to think critically – to come to a decision out of an exercise of reason to arrive at a place of value. Choose wisely.

For Your Grandma

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra

Dear Reader,

Have you ever come to a fork in the road? Have you wondered if they would lead you to the same place? How do you know which one to take?

Alice Walker has this story called “Everyday Use.” It’s a fantastic story that I teach almost every semester. It’s a story about a mom and her two girls, told from the perspective of the mother. The two daughters are as different as they can be. One is called Maggie, and she is not terribly sophisticated, and maybe she has passed up some opportunities to get herself farther ahead in life. But she did that so she could stay with her mom. Maggie is a good person, genuine. The other is named Dee – actually she has changed her name to Wangero. The change is symbolic of her new, better life. She left home, went to college. She has become her own person.

So there’s an interesting thing that always happens when my students and I talk about this story. No one really likes Dee. They think she has appropriated her culture for selfish reasons, they think she is out of touch with what matters, they think she should appreciate her “old” life more than she seems to. They think Maggie is “nice” because she stayed with her mother. They think Maggie has missed out on a lot, but her choices somehow seem easier to live with. These are all true observations. Here’s the interesting part: they like Maggie, but they don’t want to be her. They’d rather be Dee.

This story means something to me because sometimes I feel like the outlier in my family. I moved out on my own after high school. I stayed behind in Maryland when my family moved on to Pennsylvania so I could start my own life, be independent. I wanted to be “more” – always have. I have remained in Maryland as my family has come full circle and returned to Tennessee. I put myself through college. I think differently. I do feel like I have chosen a different kind of life. Not a better life, but a different life.

There are things about my southern heritage that I really miss, and I acutely feel like I am not part of them at times. There is a line in Walker’s story where Dee wants these quilts that are family heirlooms – she wants to display them as art, which in its own way is a way to honor them, but not quite the right way maybe. After some argument about them, the mother says that Maggie can make more – she knows how to quilt. The implicit statement is that Maggie is part of the culture and Dee is not. I think about this a lot lately. The fork looms – what will make the difference? This is the difficult choice so often in life. Both options seem to have their advantages, but is there real difference in choosing one path over the other? Are we destined to be who we will be no matter what? Would Dee be a “better” person if she had stayed close, learned to quilt?

I have always wondered about this. It has been looming larger lately as I contemplate what the next phase of my life will be. I have accomplished many personal and professional goals, so naturally I am thinking about what is next. In this mindset, I recalled a poem I wrote in 1999 when I was a sophomore at the University of Baltimore. Just a month after I wrote it, my great-grandmother died, and I read it as part of her eulogy at her funeral. It was a way to honor her memory and what she meant to our family. Just this year, the Blackbird Poetry Festival ran with the theme of “Histories and HerStories,” and I decided to revise it to read it at the festival, this time thinking of all my grandmothers and how there is this legacy that maybe… the thought is hard to finish. It may be true that you can never go home again. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t know. Grandmothers seem to be the key to memory somehow, they are the stuff the tapestry is woven from. Maybe it’s that we all revolve around them – they are the center of the universe for big occasions, like Christmas morning. Or maybe it’s the food – the smell, the taste, the good feeling. At any rate, here is the poem, and of course it has to do with food.

“For Your Grandma”

On her pale, wrinkled hands, each line a dozen stories

Of days spent combing the hair of her grandchildren,

Pulling out splinters, washing out scratches, and wiping away tears.

Rough, scaly hands riddled with scars of picking, pickling, and canning,

Purple fingers, purple hands, stained from beating the beets,

The evidence of a life spent reaping the fruit needed for living, every day.

I watched her sometimes while she cooked.

Her fingers, long probing rods, kneaded the bread,

And her flour-covered hands tossed, slapped, and shaped sticky globs

That were thrown onto the biscuit pan

And shoved with purpose into the hot oven.

In a strange, wordless language, she smacked the helpless

Dough into perfect submission.

If you are from The South, you’d better be able to make biscuits.

They should be made of lard and flour, laced with butter, milk, and salt.

They must rise, golden and perfect.

They better not be made with Bisquick.

Otherwise, you might as well live in Maryland.

In my grandmother’s house, biscuits were a form of currency,

Good as money, the bread of life.

The oven timer was a siren call to the breakfast table,

A starting gun for the day, a blessing, a prayer.

I am a long way from that Tennessee kitchen, and

I hope she does not hear this: but I cannot remember

How to make biscuits the way she did.

I do remember her hands.

Wherever she is now,

I want her to see: my mother, my sister, me:

We have risen, we are golden, we are delicious.

And because you can’t talk about biscuits without really wanting one, here is a recipe for biscuits like my Grandma Odum used to make – they really are the best. The key is the lard:

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour

1 tspn salt

1/3 tspn baking soda

5 tbspns of lard

2 tspns of baking powder

1 cup of buttermilk

1/4 cup or so of melted salted butter

Mix dry ingredients and sift into mixing bowl, then cut in lard until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
Stir in buttermilk until it is incorporated with the flour mixture. The dough will be kind of wet and very sticky.
Flour your hands and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough in the flour just enough to make it workable – you don’t want it to stick to your hands too much, but don’t work in too much extra flour either or the biscuits will be heavy and taste of raw flour.
For each biscuit, pinch off a piece of dough about the size of a large egg or a small lemon and pat out in the un-greased pan with your hands. You don’t want it to be really flat, just pat it down a bit so it’s relatively biscuit-shaped and about 1 inch high.
Bake at 475 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Keep your eye on them while they’re in the oven so they don’t burn.
Brush tops of biscuits with melted butter. Enjoy the awesome.

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