in memoriam
One of my two high school English teachers, Beth Ryan, passed away today.
Aside from my parents, she was the person who did the most to help me create a future for myself. She taught me how to be a writer, and how to be a teacher. She wrote the letter that got me into Stanford. She was an island of sanity in an “alternative” school that, gradually but definitively, went insane. I was terribly lonely there for a variety of reasons; without her support, I might have simply given up on my schoolwork, as in fact I came dangerously close to doing.
Beth showed her students how to write like themselves. Her assignments were directed, but spacious; her classroom discussions were broad, but not digressive. She taught us how to distinguish what was vital and new from what was stale in our writing. Her comments were illuminating without being wounding. Without lapsing into corniness, Beth taught us how to talk about the way a book picks you up from where you are, and sets you down somewhere else when you’re done with it. She taught us about the depth of literary characters: at college, I analyzed Shakespeare using what I’d learned analyzing Barbara Kingsolver, which is really saying something.
She was a fierce, passionate, outspoken woman. When I took my first class with her, she had just returned from a whitewater rafting sabbatical, and I understood that she’d taken that sabbatical to avoid burning out. Beth lived the very difficult truth that to be good at what you do means making camp on the edge of burning out, and having the courage to come back, year after year, regardless.
It seems like there must be exceptions to the rule that every teacher — really, every knowledge worker of any kind — owes their vocation to “that teacher.” Yet in my experience, there are no exceptions. I have had other mentors, whom I cherish as well. But it was Beth who was there when the die was about to be cast one way or the other for me. At that moment, she lent me some of her strength.
She was, and is, an example to everyone in her community. I feel honored to have known her, and greatly saddened that she is gone.
Synchronicity is an art form itself, without an artist. Just yesterday I started drafting an email to my English teacher from high school — someone with whom I hadn’t corresponded for fifteen years, who also wrote a letter that got me into Stanford. Although I have very few good feelings about that college, I’d always regretted not directly appreciating what her gesture meant to me in getting me there. That’s pretty remarkable. I should go read The Celestine Prophecy and peer into the face of the divine coincidence-maker now.
Also, I’ve never read a dissertation before, but just your abstract was compelling enough to make me want to read your work. I bet your other readers have the same nagging urge.
Great piece, Joe. Really well said
Dear Matt,
I should work on The Celestine Prophecy. Lord knows it’d be a more popular product than analysis of Finnegans Wake.
Your comment comes, once again, at a moment when I was getting rather discouraged; it’s immensely welcome, thank you.
As for making the dissertation available: In the case of the individual chapters, I’m probably obliged to hold them back so I can submit them for publication. However, the introduction, which covers some of the most important topics I raise in those chapters, is something I can upload here. I’ll be glad to do so once it’s in its final form, two weeks or so.
Take care,
Joe
You’re a good man, Joe. Many people will rue the day that despair or disappointment steal away your insight and humor from the rest of us. For god’s sake just keep doing what you’re doing! My hope is that there are fluid communities out there that can tap into people like you and McNellis and whoever else. But, as in your RIP to Adrienne Rich, America does kill its poets.
And, ah yes, of course, that makes sense that you can’t broadcast what rightfully belongs in academia. I’m looking forward to reading the introduction though. I’ve really appreciated all of those texts and writers (although I’ve never read the Four Quartets), and am curious to see the threads you’ve stitched between them.
Oh and of course I edited the typo in your comment, although I definitely liked the idea of a fireside dissertation chat, in which I would read my thoughts on Aestheticism aloud in a low and melancholy quaver.
She changed my life, too Joseph. She let me run with my writing and express myself in ways I had no voice for in any other medium. She leaned on me and showed me how to be a strong woman without giving away any of her fierce femininity. Her laugh. Remember her laugh? I am so glad I got to write her to tell her how much she meant to me. How much of an impact she made on so many of us. Cheers, Joseph. Cheers and thank you for these words and all the rest. Look forward to seeing you in July.
Dear Joseph,
By chance or the felicity of the seeds of language dispersed to those us who were lucky to get those English teachers, the guardian angels of the tongue—-I had one too, a certain Miss Margaret Ford, legendary in Canada and Toronto, a maiden-woman all her life, who acted out Shakespeare, every part, in front of the class in her eternal sweater sets, and softly demanded we read and report on a novel a week, and made us adore poetry. (Beyond angel, mystery taskmaster)–yes, chance brings me back to your site.
On the Cowbird site where you have written such hilarious and moving stories, I have marvelled at your ease in fact in writing like yourself. (Although I don’t know you, but your, dare I stain your site by saying, authentic self comes through.)
Funny, I was in the middle of thinking these last couple days–it must have coincided with your teacher, Beth Ryan’s passing–how your prose in your short stories is deeply missed. Your writing adds a unique light. I was midst composing something to dedicate to you and your stories, a la “Donde esta Joseph?” and lo and behold, so sorry.
Condolences. A great teacher is an energy and a force implanted in us, and it is so right to mourn.
Your prose pal,
Susan Perly
Matt, Thanks for the comment! Looking forward to posting more soon.
Susan, I was smiling as I read your warm tribute to Ms. Ford; that was wonderful. Thanks for stopping by! Basically, between final preparations for filing my dissertation, and catching up on missed hours of sleep, I don’t quite have the energy for Cowbird at the moment. But that’s really just for a moment, because I’m filing my thesis on June 8th, and I have big plans for what I want to do with my Cowbird space after that. I’ll keep those a surprise for now.
I’ve also been remiss in not reading enough stories, written by you and the other writers I’m so lucky to have found there — so accept my apologies, and I’ll be back soon! It will be nice to come back to Cowbird as a doctor, even if I might as well be getting a doctorate in phrenology.
In a strange synchronicity which must bode well for the dissertation, I filed a modest shout-out to your stories on Cowbird, as you were posting one yourself.
The zone lives. It was simply mahvelous. Like The Salton Sea meets Laurel Canyon. I could hear the ferrets in the wings nibbling, well, Satan or Durrell or perhaps a young heart.
By chance, reading your reply on this site just before I posted my story, it gave me the idea for the title: Cafe Doctor.
So, Doc-in-waiting, good luck. The story forum awaits more Kugelmass.