I had a dream last week. In it I was 21 years old again, just graduated from college and facing the life ahead of me. I woke up and was grateful to be where I am.
In this dream, I saw the big events of my life so far, framed and lined up ahead of me.
Some memories are sharp and painful and persistent, but I feel responsible for them because I am left with them.
These memories work together and construct me, but they create an identity I’m unsure of. It is a risky construction. What if I put all of my pieces together to leave my most sensitive flesh hanging, vulnerable from the holes left behind? What if who I love the most becomes another missing piece? (Maybe this fear is why I barely mention anything of my husband or my son in casual conversation or these stories.)
The hardest things to say are often the most important. What if the words I use diminish them?
I hastily grabbed the closest thing that could serve its purpose – to hold my place in chapter 3 of Mind As Action. The buzzer was flashing red, vibrating violently for so early in the morning. Although it looked just like what you would hold while waiting for a table at Olive Garden, this buzzer seemed to urge, “Hurry. Now. She’s waiting.”
I shoved the peach, coupon-like slip of paper branded “Surgery Center. POST-OP” in between the pages where Wertsch had been imagining Bakhtin conversing with Vygotsky. The last words I remember reading were Bakhtin’s: “All words have a taste…” but many other utterances were busy tracking through the mud of my mind as I scurried, book in hand, to the reception desk. There sat a hamster of a lady next to a hammered-metal sign, staunch script reading, “Our family is taking care of your family.” I flashed the peach pass and she waved me to Family Room C.
Black letters stood out against my new bookmark: “Two visitors per patient, please.” Its words seemed to echo my own pleas. The last time I walked this hall, my definition of family was different. Home was a well-defined place I knew and recognized, and I had a dad, mom, and sister. I wish dad were here, please. I wish Emily were here, please. I wish it weren’t just me left to face this place alone, please.
Last time in this consultation room, I sat in the middle – between dad and Emily - a safety zone protecting me from the medical jargon of the surgeon. “Stage III invasive lobular carcinoma… metastasized regionally… intensive radiation treatment, at least one round of chemo, follow up of Tamoxifen…” I had stayed quiet, watching my sister’s face form to fear, and we let my father lead. But last time was over a decade ago.
I settled into the faux leather love seat in the family room, taking a defensively rigid posture I recognized as my father’s. Dr. Stanza walked in with his head in the charts. I stood, shook hands with a firmness and looked him dead in the eye. He explained the situation after I stammered, “So…?” the word leaving a dry bitterness on my tongue. I knew its taste from a different place and a different time.
Considering how advanced the cancer is, Emily probably has less than eight months left… My head spins… His heart’s not strong enough to make it through the night; you should say goodbye now. I could hear Wetsch’s echo: “This has become a familiar speech genre.”
Dr. Stanza’s chipper voice barreled through my traveling thoughts: Everything’s going to be fine. The tumor was benign. It was caught much earlier this time. For a moment, I found it difficult to digest his words, so I just echoed them: Everything’s going to be fine. My posture relaxed and my gaze moved beyond him.
I’ve lived in the same town my entire life. This is a fact I don’t volunteer often. I think it is embarrassing, so I don’t like to say it out loud, much less spell it out on a virtual piece of paper. But I was born in Greenville.
My mom was born here, and her mother was born not far away in the tiny town of Grimesland. When I was little, every time we crossed that bridge on Highway 33 on the way to Little Washington, Granny would lean over to me and whisper with a girlish smile, “When I was young, I burnt down those woods right over there.”
Two sisters – the older one ten years and the younger seven – are in bed, tucked in under the covers. Their separate rooms lay side by side in the far corner of a long, ranch-style house in a large, comfortable neighborhood perfect for bike rides and blanket by tall trees.
Their bedroom lights are off, but a small sliver of light shines in from the hall through each cracked door. Their parents are on the other side of the house - behind closed doors, out of earshot – as each brings her contraband, walkie-talkie out from under their soft sheets.
KB (the younger sister): [crackle] Whatcha’ doin’?
EB: Jus’ thinkin’.
KB: About what?
EB: Today… tomorrow…
KB: What about them? [crackle]
EB: They are both always there… but they are both always different…
KB: … [crackle]
EB: When I think about that too much… I start to feel kinda scared...
KB: [crackle] …
EB: Like, I saw this thing on the Discovery Channel about Rogue Planets. When universes form, sometimes planets can’t find their center, can’t get into the groove of gravity, so they just spin out into and beyond their solar system…
KB: …
EB: And then they are just wandering, floating through space. Alone.
KB: … [crackle]
EB: So then the tv show said there are as many solar systems as there are stars. And there are, like, a billion stars, and that is just in our universe. And there are as many universes as there are starts… or more! And in those other universes, there are just as many Rogue Planets. But when I think about universes and infinity and forever, I start to feel afraid. [crackle]
KB: ... Yeah.
EB: I’m gonna stop thinking now.
KB: Okay.
EB: I think it’s time to go to sleep.
KB: Okay.
EB: See you in the morning.
KB: Okay. Night.
EB: Good night.
[click]
[click]
When I was young, I could be a brat and brat is not a shade that looks good on anyone. One time I packed as many books as possible into my dad’s suitcase and tied myself to it with my jump rope after a babysitter said I wasn’t allowed to watch Dukes of Hazard.
This story is still a source of shame and pride for me. I watch the Dukes every night. If you want me to go to bed before they come on, you can try and carry me upstairs yourself. I won, sitting on the suitcase in front of the TV, my first little act of protest for what I saw as a just cause.
(Nadi’s story of Kerri Meeting Conor Oberst)
The most important thing you have to remember about this story is Kerri was not Kerri that night. I mean, she was herself, but she wasn’t herself. Because from the moment I saw Kerri – and we are happy and excited to see each other. And usually we would be telling each other stories and laughing… But Kerri was just wide-eyed. Her eyes barely blinked and she was just looking around the room as if she was expecting… something. So she wasn’t particularly vocal, she wasn’t talking very much and we are sitting across from each other at the bar, and she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t looking at me. She was just somewhere else.
At one point Kerri gets a strange look on her face – like fear and sickness and bad taste – and she manages to articulate, “What if he is a jerk?... What if he is an asshole?” And then she just goes back to being mute.
Amy calls Kerri, and three seconds into the conversation, Kerri says, “I’m not going to remember any of this. I’m gonna give the phone to Nadi,” straight like that. So I’m like, “Ok” and take the phone. Amy tells us where to go and who to ask for and when to go so we can meet him. We are set.
So we are watching the first band and whatever. They’re kicking it. They’re awesome, and there is a man who is standing, blocking the entrance to backstage. He’s kinds like a gatekeeper or whatever. And I kinda talk to him a little bit and Kerri talks to him a little bit.
In my mind, I understand my role in all of this is to make sure that this thing happens. I’m taking it upon myself to be relatively inquisitive and ask for the people Amy told us to ask for and see what we can get done. What I didn’t know was that the reason Kerri isn’t talking to me is because she has a whole other agenda in mind.
This woman… I am asking her open-ended questions, and she is giving me yes and no answers. We are not communicating on any level. So Kerri just walks away and starts talking to some guy standing behind us. I thought she must know him. She must have met him some place before. I didn’t know that he was Denver, one of the guys from the band, who was just trying to watch the opening act for a little bit.
She’s talking to him, so I assume she is setting stuff up. She’s comes back, and she is like, “That’s Denver from the band.” And I am like, “Yes? … What?...” Poor communication.
The opening act finished, and I am like, “Ah man, Bright Eyes is about to show up.” And Kerri looks at me and says, “Are you ready?” And I am like, “Yeah. I’m looking forward to the show.” When I turn back to talk to her again, Kerri has taken off and has walked herself backstage. All the way backstage. The gatekeeper security guy had walked away. The opening act is walking, carrying heavy equipment off stage, and Kerri is there with them. She walks so far backstage that she walks out the back door, and I am still standing up in front of the stage. Poor communication.
She has just taken off, and I am standing there holding my jacket when the security guy returns to his post in from of the backstage. He looks at me like weren’t there two of you before? And there was nothing I could do about it. When she had asked me if I was ready, that is not what I had expected. Being at this concert with her was like seeing an animal in their natural habitat or something. She was just acting and moving rather than thinking and talking. And she moves fast.
I wasn’t alone for more than a minute and Kerri comes back and was pointing at me to the gatekeeper – who was just as confused as I was, by the way. Both of us had been looking around to try and figure out where that blond girl had went while she was back there with her new friends in the band. She had found Gabe or whatever guy she was suppose to find, and Kerri had made it happen.
We walk backstage, and I am expecting a large room with a lot of people and maybe we will get to talk to some of the people in the band… But we walk in to this small room, and it is just Conor. And he is like, “Kerri!” and stands up and gives us hugs and stuff. They were all the nicest guys on the planet. They were so nice it was kinda ridiculous. Conor introduces us to the rest of the band. We see our friend Denver from earlier. They had a poster and all of them signed it for us... they were crazy nice.
At this point, Kerri turns into nerdy-band-Kerri. We are back there, and they are asking us questions and being nice. And Conor asks where we are from. I say Greensboro and Kerri says Greenville, and Conor is like, “I’ve been to Greensboro, but I’ve never been to Greenville.” And nerdy-band-Kerri says, “Tim Kasher played a show there after the last hurricane.” Conor is like, “Ok,” and I am like who is Tim Kasher? Nerdy-band-Kerri kinda acts like she hates Conor at first. I think she was just confused. And nervous. And nerdy.
It was interesting because I thought this was going to be a golden moment for just Kerri, but it ended up being a pretty great moment for me too. I had kinda been mad a Conor Oberst ever since Kerri and I went to a Bright Eyes show for his Digital Ash tour and I had to put my headphones on. He completely made it up to me. I got hugs. Kerri got hugs and pictures and a poster. And we got this story from it. It was all good.
In this dream, I saw the big events of my life so far, framed and lined up ahead of me.
Some memories are sharp and painful and persistent, but I feel responsible for them because I am left with them.
These memories work together and construct me, but they create an identity I’m unsure of. It is a risky construction. What if I put all of my pieces together to leave my most sensitive flesh hanging, vulnerable from the holes left behind? What if who I love the most becomes another missing piece? (Maybe this fear is why I barely mention anything of my husband or my son in casual conversation or these stories.)
The hardest things to say are often the most important. What if the words I use diminish them?
I hastily grabbed the closest thing that could serve its purpose – to hold my place in chapter 3 of Mind As Action. The buzzer was flashing red, vibrating violently for so early in the morning. Although it looked just like what you would hold while waiting for a table at Olive Garden, this buzzer seemed to urge, “Hurry. Now. She’s waiting.”
I shoved the peach, coupon-like slip of paper branded “Surgery Center. POST-OP” in between the pages where Wertsch had been imagining Bakhtin conversing with Vygotsky. The last words I remember reading were Bakhtin’s: “All words have a taste…” but many other utterances were busy tracking through the mud of my mind as I scurried, book in hand, to the reception desk. There sat a hamster of a lady next to a hammered-metal sign, staunch script reading, “Our family is taking care of your family.” I flashed the peach pass and she waved me to Family Room C.
Black letters stood out against my new bookmark: “Two visitors per patient, please.” Its words seemed to echo my own pleas. The last time I walked this hall, my definition of family was different. Home was a well-defined place I knew and recognized, and I had a dad, mom, and sister. I wish dad were here, please. I wish Emily were here, please. I wish it weren’t just me left to face this place alone, please.
Last time in this consultation room, I sat in the middle – between dad and Emily - a safety zone protecting me from the medical jargon of the surgeon. “Stage III invasive lobular carcinoma… metastasized regionally… intensive radiation treatment, at least one round of chemo, follow up of Tamoxifen…” I had stayed quiet, watching my sister’s face form to fear, and we let my father lead. But last time was over a decade ago.
I settled into the faux leather love seat in the family room, taking a defensively rigid posture I recognized as my father’s. Dr. Stanza walked in with his head in the charts. I stood, shook hands with a firmness and looked him dead in the eye. He explained the situation after I stammered, “So…?” the word leaving a dry bitterness on my tongue. I knew its taste from a different place and a different time.
Considering how advanced the cancer is, Emily probably has less than eight months left… My head spins… His heart’s not strong enough to make it through the night; you should say goodbye now. I could hear Wetsch’s echo: “This has become a familiar speech genre.”
Dr. Stanza’s chipper voice barreled through my traveling thoughts: Everything’s going to be fine. The tumor was benign. It was caught much earlier this time. For a moment, I found it difficult to digest his words, so I just echoed them: Everything’s going to be fine. My posture relaxed and my gaze moved beyond him.
I’ve lived in the same town my entire life. This is a fact I don’t volunteer often. I think it is embarrassing, so I don’t like to say it out loud, much less spell it out on a virtual piece of paper. But I was born in Greenville.
My mom was born here, and her mother was born not far away in the tiny town of Grimesland. When I was little, every time we crossed that bridge on Highway 33 on the way to Little Washington, Granny would lean over to me and whisper with a girlish smile, “When I was young, I burnt down those woods right over there.”
Two sisters – the older one ten years and the younger seven – are in bed, tucked in under the covers. Their separate rooms lay side by side in the far corner of a long, ranch-style house in a large, comfortable neighborhood perfect for bike rides and blanket by tall trees.
Their bedroom lights are off, but a small sliver of light shines in from the hall through each cracked door. Their parents are on the other side of the house - behind closed doors, out of earshot – as each brings her contraband, walkie-talkie out from under their soft sheets.
KB (the younger sister): [crackle] Whatcha’ doin’?
EB: Jus’ thinkin’.
KB: About what?
EB: Today… tomorrow…
KB: What about them? [crackle]
EB: They are both always there… but they are both always different…
KB: … [crackle]
EB: When I think about that too much… I start to feel kinda scared...
KB: [crackle] …
EB: Like, I saw this thing on the Discovery Channel about Rogue Planets. When universes form, sometimes planets can’t find their center, can’t get into the groove of gravity, so they just spin out into and beyond their solar system…
KB: …
EB: And then they are just wandering, floating through space. Alone.
KB: … [crackle]
EB: So then the tv show said there are as many solar systems as there are stars. And there are, like, a billion stars, and that is just in our universe. And there are as many universes as there are starts… or more! And in those other universes, there are just as many Rogue Planets. But when I think about universes and infinity and forever, I start to feel afraid. [crackle]
KB: ... Yeah.
EB: I’m gonna stop thinking now.
KB: Okay.
EB: I think it’s time to go to sleep.
KB: Okay.
EB: See you in the morning.
KB: Okay. Night.
EB: Good night.
[click]
[click]
When I was young, I could be a brat and brat is not a shade that looks good on anyone. One time I packed as many books as possible into my dad’s suitcase and tied myself to it with my jump rope after a babysitter said I wasn’t allowed to watch Dukes of Hazard.
This story is still a source of shame and pride for me. I watch the Dukes every night. If you want me to go to bed before they come on, you can try and carry me upstairs yourself. I won, sitting on the suitcase in front of the TV, my first little act of protest for what I saw as a just cause.
(Nadi’s story of Kerri Meeting Conor Oberst)
The most important thing you have to remember about this story is Kerri was not Kerri that night. I mean, she was herself, but she wasn’t herself. Because from the moment I saw Kerri – and we are happy and excited to see each other. And usually we would be telling each other stories and laughing… But Kerri was just wide-eyed. Her eyes barely blinked and she was just looking around the room as if she was expecting… something. So she wasn’t particularly vocal, she wasn’t talking very much and we are sitting across from each other at the bar, and she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t looking at me. She was just somewhere else.
At one point Kerri gets a strange look on her face – like fear and sickness and bad taste – and she manages to articulate, “What if he is a jerk?... What if he is an asshole?” And then she just goes back to being mute.
Amy calls Kerri, and three seconds into the conversation, Kerri says, “I’m not going to remember any of this. I’m gonna give the phone to Nadi,” straight like that. So I’m like, “Ok” and take the phone. Amy tells us where to go and who to ask for and when to go so we can meet him. We are set.
So we are watching the first band and whatever. They’re kicking it. They’re awesome, and there is a man who is standing, blocking the entrance to backstage. He’s kinds like a gatekeeper or whatever. And I kinda talk to him a little bit and Kerri talks to him a little bit.
In my mind, I understand my role in all of this is to make sure that this thing happens. I’m taking it upon myself to be relatively inquisitive and ask for the people Amy told us to ask for and see what we can get done. What I didn’t know was that the reason Kerri isn’t talking to me is because she has a whole other agenda in mind.
This woman… I am asking her open-ended questions, and she is giving me yes and no answers. We are not communicating on any level. So Kerri just walks away and starts talking to some guy standing behind us. I thought she must know him. She must have met him some place before. I didn’t know that he was Denver, one of the guys from the band, who was just trying to watch the opening act for a little bit.
She’s talking to him, so I assume she is setting stuff up. She’s comes back, and she is like, “That’s Denver from the band.” And I am like, “Yes? … What?...” Poor communication.
The opening act finished, and I am like, “Ah man, Bright Eyes is about to show up.” And Kerri looks at me and says, “Are you ready?” And I am like, “Yeah. I’m looking forward to the show.” When I turn back to talk to her again, Kerri has taken off and has walked herself backstage. All the way backstage. The gatekeeper security guy had walked away. The opening act is walking, carrying heavy equipment off stage, and Kerri is there with them. She walks so far backstage that she walks out the back door, and I am still standing up in front of the stage. Poor communication.
She has just taken off, and I am standing there holding my jacket when the security guy returns to his post in from of the backstage. He looks at me like weren’t there two of you before? And there was nothing I could do about it. When she had asked me if I was ready, that is not what I had expected. Being at this concert with her was like seeing an animal in their natural habitat or something. She was just acting and moving rather than thinking and talking. And she moves fast.
I wasn’t alone for more than a minute and Kerri comes back and was pointing at me to the gatekeeper – who was just as confused as I was, by the way. Both of us had been looking around to try and figure out where that blond girl had went while she was back there with her new friends in the band. She had found Gabe or whatever guy she was suppose to find, and Kerri had made it happen.
We walk backstage, and I am expecting a large room with a lot of people and maybe we will get to talk to some of the people in the band… But we walk in to this small room, and it is just Conor. And he is like, “Kerri!” and stands up and gives us hugs and stuff. They were all the nicest guys on the planet. They were so nice it was kinda ridiculous. Conor introduces us to the rest of the band. We see our friend Denver from earlier. They had a poster and all of them signed it for us... they were crazy nice.
At this point, Kerri turns into nerdy-band-Kerri. We are back there, and they are asking us questions and being nice. And Conor asks where we are from. I say Greensboro and Kerri says Greenville, and Conor is like, “I’ve been to Greensboro, but I’ve never been to Greenville.” And nerdy-band-Kerri says, “Tim Kasher played a show there after the last hurricane.” Conor is like, “Ok,” and I am like who is Tim Kasher? Nerdy-band-Kerri kinda acts like she hates Conor at first. I think she was just confused. And nervous. And nerdy.
It was interesting because I thought this was going to be a golden moment for just Kerri, but it ended up being a pretty great moment for me too. I had kinda been mad a Conor Oberst ever since Kerri and I went to a Bright Eyes show for his Digital Ash tour and I had to put my headphones on. He completely made it up to me. I got hugs. Kerri got hugs and pictures and a poster. And we got this story from it. It was all good.
I am much more comfortable speaking from or for others. It would be much easier for me to talk about how the theory of mutuality opened doors for me as a learner, teacher, and peer. Or how Judith Halberstam motivates me to take more risks and embrace failure when it comes. How discourse analysis was something I had been doing for as long as I remember but Gee and others provided a name for it while expanding my possibilities of how it could be used. I could comfortably discuss theory, research, methods, and methodology and practice along with the academic identity I am working to create.
Instead, I’m deconstructing some of my self in order to (re)construct and (re)consider the person I am today.
Writing habitat: hole in the wall, public place, a space away but with
Essential writing tools: headphones, music, flat(tish) surface, electricity socket, glasses, daybook, multiple colors of pens, laptop, pencil, sketching space, relevant literature
Product: public hermit
Kerri
Instead, I’m deconstructing some of my self in order to (re)construct and (re)consider the person I am today.
Writing habitat: hole in the wall, public place, a space away but with
Essential writing tools: headphones, music, flat(tish) surface, electricity socket, glasses, daybook, multiple colors of pens, laptop, pencil, sketching space, relevant literature
Product: public hermit
Kerri