Dreaming 9/25/11

Dreaming is an act of truth. There are reasons for dreaming. One I the processing of the unconscious, unresolved meridians of the immediate past. Another, I believe, is instructional. By looking back at dreams and trying to interpret them, this very act is a journey. It is the same as transiting between two languages, trying to find the locus of meaning of the second language (the dream) but anchored in myriad ways to the fist language (consciousness). Bu there are time in which that anchor can shift, drag a bit, letting your boat find a new place where the tides prefer you to be (perspective).

It is this intermediate shifting that I have always been interested, the transitory state. As I begin working at [omitted] in a couple of days, I will be embarking upon a long-held goal of teaching writing in a community college. This was one of the first transitional experiences some 30 years ago that truly felt was a step in the right direction. A first, distinctly true step. I would like to move toward what it means for me to be teaching this entry level course. 

Gene Whitney was in my opinion a fantastic teacher. He was s skinny guy in his mid-to late fifties when took my first class with him in 1987 at Portland Community College. He had a bit of a goatee and ears that winged away from the side of his head as if he had canine control over them. The most prominent feature of his face was his large, crooked nose.  He remarked once that he would never have lived very long in medieval times because he looked like the devil incarnate.  He spoke in a smoky baritone that commanded your attention in sharp bursts, and he regularly surprised a student with profane language or a shocking turn of phrase.  His rep at the college was of a fearsome, opinionated professor whose occasional tirades against conventional thinking got him into trouble with students and college alike. However, the enduring aspect of his character for me is the duel force of ferocious energy with which he delivered his philosophy of writing and the great compassion he exhibited toward any student trying their best to achieve the goals set for him. Gene smoked like a demon and drank. He lived on his 28 foot sailboat at McCuddy’s Marina on the Columbia (also impressing me) after separating from his wife. I assume his smoking and alcoholic ways finally got the best of him. 

But I remember his classes, I do. They were somewhat electrifying at best and at worst terrifying. When he found that half of the class was not turning in their papers on time, he let us have it. He would vent his frustration by shouting and threatening us, which for some did not sit right. He lost students when that happened, but he also gained respect among those who did do the work and were making progress. I took Writing 122 and Writing 123 with Gene. During those terms, I felt as if I was moving toward an understanding with myself that writing was calling me. Writing was like a distant land, a dreamy place. A dream. 

So now I peek out of the cabin of my boat and I see that the anchor has shifted over the night. I’m seeing the trees and rocks on shore in a different way and in a different light. Of course, as a mariner, that my anchor has dragged concerns me. But there is nothing about it that I cannot deal with.  I am, in fact, always vulnerable to these circumstances and there is a certain dependency upon them that I cannot explain even to myself.  The anchor has shifted , but I know—just as the dreamer knows—that the new life of the next day present a set of entirely new challenges and excursions.