The Title of the Blog - Part 11

Hah! Found column #1. Turns out I had just mislabeled it as a second column 10.

So, here's the deal...

In the fall of my senior year, I took an English course called something like "Essay Writing". Sort of stupid to take that late in a college career, but it wasn't about writing a non-fiction essay for class, it was about writing a two-page essay just for the sake of writing an essay.

We read a bunch of essays in various styles and had to try on each of the styles. Maybe those will make up the next series of Saturday reads.

In one of the essays, we were to use a natural phenomenon as an analogy for some human phenomenon. I remember using the impending spring storms that I loved watching so much (and that I enjoy much less now that I'm a homeowner myself) as an analogy for falling in love.

This column echoes that essay rather strongly, and I'll have to admit that it's a little more poetic than the other columns that I wrote. I think, however, that I still really like it.

In case you were curious, I got an A- in the essay class, and my professor commented to me that my first drafts were probably the best in the class. He wished, however, that I would've turned in a few second drafts.

The smell of fire was on the air. So was that of rain. As often happens during this time of the year, the weather couldn’t make up its mind. Each morning of the weekend that just passed saw Crawfordsville wake up to a blanket of new fallen snow. Somewhere in the neighborhood behind the Lambda Chi house, a home was still clinging to these reminders and remainders of winter. The scent of their fire – warm, slightly acrid, and home – came to me through a window that I had thrown open in rejoice.

Spring was come at last. The sky held in its blue expanse promises of warmth, of rain, and of a few clouds. All usual suspects for an impending spring in the Midwest. I had my window open for the same reason I’d walked to campus without a jacket, for the same reason I had driven with the window down, for the hope of a spring newly born. Ready for that glorious rebirth that comes with the first thunderstorm and the first softball game of the year.

We were caught in the middle. The warm front – passing through and driving away dark clouds of winter- still lingered above our heads. Telling us our past and showing us our future. I saw them both but could find my place with neither one alone.

From the window of room 233 at Crawfordsville High School, I watched the rain roll in and then out. That’s Prue Phillips’s room and mine as well. I teach there from about 8:30 in the morning until about 2:40 in the afternoon. I don’t take classes at Wabash anymore. Teaching is my job, and Mrs. Phillips’s classroom is my classroom. I am now a student of students.

I am in my apprenticeship and must act as such. I wear slacks and shirts to my classes instead of jeans and sweatshirts. Not that I don’t wear those in my off hours, though.

Therein lies the analogy. I am not a suit. I’m not ready, damnit, to play real world, to be an adult, to apply for jobs. I still spend my weekends on college campuses either around or engaged in drunken frat boy activities. I’m still in school. I play practical jokes and revel in locker room humor that Wabash seemingly breeds. Hell, I’m not even old enough yet to drink legally.

But I feel a warm front coming through. Instead of my weather outlook being steady - college degree, calling for a rain of juvenile humor and a 50% chance of asinine amounts of alcohol-induced fog – the front is dragging with it a change of season. Welcome to the real world, baby. Hope you brought your umbrella.

But then again, it’s nothing more terrifying that the same thing we go up against every time our friends visit, every time we head home to see Mom and Dad, or ditch town to visit the girlfriend. Whenever we do that, we slip out of our Wabash mode – hide the beer cans behind the couch, pull the clean shirt off its hanger, and maybe even shower. We leave behind the person who attends Wabash, who works all week and drinks all weekend. And we slip into something more suited for the occasion. We become the Old High School Buddy, The Triumphant Son, or the Loyal Boyfriend. Each of these is just another mask we slip on and off as the situation suits us. Just this time, I’m not going to be able to change back.

And I’ll be honest; sometimes it scares the hell out of me. But my fear of the storm front that the winds of time are pushing towards us is nothing different from the same combination of the electric fear and excitement that hangs heavily in the air when a real storm is brewing, when the clouds are heavy with rain, and when the wind that whips the pines suddenly dies.

Actually, its more like the first time you were up to bat in little league. Sure, Dad had thrown pitches to you before, and you’d even smacked a couple of those things over the backyard fence. But that wasn’t this, and now you’re alone. Everybody’s pulling for you – your sister, your best friend, even your parents. They all want to see you do well, but they can’t help you anymore. Don’t worry, though, its not home run derby. You don’t have to make it all the way around on your first swing. Just keep your head down and your eyes on the ball. You’ll do okay…won’t you?

Sure you will. Because no matter how badly the doubts mount up sometimes, you’ll be ready to scream them back into whatever hole they came from. You’re a man, a Wabash man no less. Just because you’re not ready to grow up doesn’t mean you can’t. It just means that your storm front hasn’t moved all the way through yet. But it will, and you’ll be fine – nah, you’ll be wonderful.

Oh, but don’t forget your umbrella just in case rain comes down instead of sunshine.