After Reading Roth: English Departments, Bitterness, and the American Dream

Bitterness is an odd thing to describe.  I used to think it wasn't anything bad, given that bittersweet chocolate was my favorite.

After months of reading nonfiction, I've finally picked up a novel, Philip Roth's The Human Stain.  It's hardly what could be termed an academic novel, as it's really so much more an exploration of race and identity (among other things).  And while I am obviously fascinated by the intricate relationships, prejudices, and issues of conformity Roth questions, I've found myself reacting most strongly to the fleeting academic moments.  Today on the bus coming home, I read about Coleman Silk's memories of his first encounters with Delphine Roux, the French professor who has been sending him anonymous letters about his affair with Faunia Farley.  For the sake of this post, quoting at length is necessary.  Delphine has just been offered a temporary adjunct position at second-rate college, a far cry from the Ivy League post she was hoping for:

"Her fellow foreign graduate students tell her that she's too good for Athena College, it would be too declasse, but her fellow American graduate students, who would kill for a job teaching in the Stop & Shop boiler room, think that her uppityness is characteristically Delphine . . .To get the second job, the fancy job, she first needs this Athena job, but for nearly an hour Dean Silk listens to her all but talk her way out of the Athena job.  Narrative structure and temporality. The internal contradictions of the work of art.  Rousseau hides himself and then his rhetoric gives him away.  (A little like her, thinks the dean, in that autobiographical essay.)  The critic's voice is as legitimate as the voice of Herodotus.  Narratology.  The diegetic.  The difference between diegesis and mimesis.  The bracketed experience.  The proleptic quality of the text . . . He thinks: Why does someone so beautiful want to hide from the human dimension of her experience behind these words?"

This passage struck painfully close to home this afternoon, with its mockery of Delphine's pretensions and aspirations, as well as by what it suggests about academic departments.

In the fall of 2011, Gordon and I were both busy applying for graduate school.  My third year in Poland ended up being my happiest, but prior to that year, I'd gotten tired of teaching English as a Second Language at schools that were more businesses than academic environments.  I decided I needed a graduate degree in order to get a decent job living in the United States.  I applied mostly to Art History programs, given that that's what my B.A. was in, but applied to a few English programs.  As I studied for the GRE in Literature, I realized I was loving it.  I was working full-time and studying in every free moment, but I loved reviewing literary terms and reading books I might never have picked up (they were too daunting), like Moby-Dick and The Sound and the Fury.  I knew my parents didn't have too high an opinion of present-day English departments, but I secretly began hoping I'd get into one of the English programs.

As luck would have it, I did--I got into my first choice, Boston University.  When I'd done my research, BU had stuck out.  It was a fairly small program, and as I browsed the previous course titles, one thing was apparent: this was a program that still read books.  Most of the schools I'd looked at had strayed so far from traditional literature that they'd my skin squirm.  The majority of programs suggested my parents' fears weren't unfounded; English programs were no longer about literature, but about everything else that could be used to deflect condemnation from opponents of English programs. My first boyfriend had once laughed when I'd toyed with the idea of doing my B.A. in English, explaining that English wasn't "useful" and in no way benefited the world.  I was too young to know that there were a lot of objections that could be leveled against this sort of criticism.  But in 2011, I knew better.  I wanted to study what I loved.

And so, in 2012, I began my Master's in English at Boston University.  It's not an exaggeration for me to say it was one of my happiest years.  I was, like all my classmates, often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of reading.  Unlike many of the other students, I hadn't studied English as an undergraduate, and there were major gaps in my knowledge.  Gordon spent countless hours helping me untangle Marx and Bakhtin, and I stopped reading for pleasure.  Luckily, I loved almost everything I read for class (with the painful exception being Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian).  It was exhilarating to feel my brain working so hard.  I talked incessantly to anyone and everyone about what I was reading or thinking about or what paper topics I was considering.  I was determined to apply for a PhD the following fall.  In the spring, I decided to sign up for four graduate seminars, instead of doing the typical three plus one undergraduate class.  The amount of reading I had to do was unbelievable, but again, this was a happy kind of busy.  One of the professors with whom I took a class on Byron and the Shelleys had a reputation for being strict and tough, and I made it my mission to impress him.  In the middle of my resolve to wow him, I became fascinated by his class.  I found Percy Shelley a perfect writer on whom to concentrate my linguistic and literary interests.  I decided I would apply to PhD programs in Romanticism, and elicited from this professor the promise of a glowing recommendation.

A year later, I've decided not to apply.

This has been one of the hardest, bitterest decisions I've ever made.

In the last year, I've seen countless articles with Dickensian-like narratives of English adjuncts who have died in utter poverty, without a cent to pay for their funeral.  Many of them suffered health problems they couldn't afford to pay for on an adjunct's salary.  It was probably sheer happenstance that so many of my Facebook friends began posting these articles, but deep down I felt as though they were pointed messages for me: DO NOT ENTER.  There were articles about how there are only ever a handful of tenure-track jobs available in any given year, and articles about how for that majority that can't find an academic job, an English doctorate is wholly useless for any other job.

Painfully enough, these posts have all echoed what many professors at BU themselves said.  At the orientation the day before classes began, a professor grinned when he told us if he were us, he'd get the hell out of the program.  He repeated the sentiment a few other times throughout the year, as did some of the professors who guest-lectured in our theory class.  I was always appalled by these blatant proclamations.  I couldn't believe that they dared look us in the face, knowing we'd taken out massive loans, and inform us that English departments were dying.  Our loans, which many of us would be paying off for decades, were helping keep them in a job, but we were wasting our time.  That was the message.

To be fair, none of the professors in any of my classes made these comments--it was always professors I encountered in different settings who made these jabs.  Two of my professors, my beloved Shelley professor Rzepka, and my 1950s America professor Mizruchi, were nothing  short of inspirational and motivational.  Professor Rzepka was of the opinion that I would be successful as a Romanticist and that I should by all means pursue that path.  Professor Mizruchi had a generally more optimistic outlook on English departments.  She refused to believe that book lovers would disappear entirely.  When I wrote to both professors this past fall to say I'd be postponing my studies as I'd recently been promoted to a salaried position at work and wanted to pay off my loans for awhile, they both understood and commended me for being realistic and reassured me that they'd write me letters the following year.

And here I am a year later, not applying.  I hate to feel like I am giving up on English departments.  I felt so at home at BU from the moment I first snuck in to see the building over the summer with Gordon.  It looked like an English department out of a book.  I loved everything about the building, my classes, my books, my teachers, my classmates.  For the year I was at BU, I felt like I could be the first PhD in my family and get to be a professor of literature.  This dream of mine seemed completely within reach.  I imagined doing interesting research and inspiring students the way some of my professors had me.

But there are painful realities to confront.  I've always had a tendency to dream, a fondness for fancy instead of prose, and I suppose it was inevitable that my confrontation with a harsh reality would hurt this much.  English studies do seem to be fading.  I hate to give up on them even more than I hate to forsake my own dreams and plans.  But in my first two years abroad, I struggled for money all the time.  I had the luxury of knowing my parents would always help me (whether by loaning me money, giving me money, or letting me live with them), but I'm too old to continue leaning on them so much.  Part of me feels like I've been failed by America.  You're supposed to be able to follow your dreams and all that jazz in America, but it's increasingly difficult to find a job, no matter how many degrees you have.  I no longer feel like I can pull myself up by my bootstraps or be anyone I want to be.  I will be paying off my loans for decades.  American politicians always say education is of the utmost importance, but my dreams are being sacrificed as a result of my expensive education.  I hate the thought of spending 5+ years studying what I love, only to discover I can't find a job.  If studying what I loved most resulted in my having to struggle all over again, my love would quickly become poisoned and tainted.  Even more terrible than having to struggle for a job would be to lose my love of books.

I feel full of bitterness, brimming over with it some days.  I snap at my husband or parents when they tell me everything will be okay, and feel shamefully jealous of friends who are working at their dream jobs.

And then I remind myself that I do really like my current job--I even love it sometimes.  I'm lucky to be doing Plan B now.  Some people end up stuck with Plan K or L.  B isn't so bad.  I was talking to a college friend a few days ago.  She is now a stay-at-home mom (which is not what she'd planned to do), financially okay but not more than okay.  We agreed that your happiness doesn't need to come from your job.  Your life can be happy if you make it happy.  And so, while I consider alternative routes to take my life on, I make myself happy.  I sit in my little urban balcony garden with my husband.  I play with my kittens.  I joke with my students.  I try out new recipes and I practice my Polish on my mom.  I take up ballet again and sing folk songs with my dad.  And I read and love my books.

A happy day

On Memoirs and Unhappy Childhoods

Sometimes I go on what I call "book phases," periods of time where I read everything that falls into a specific category.  My categories can be very vague ("dark and creepy," i.e., Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Deb Caletti's He's Gone, and Graham Greene's Brighton Rock) or extremely specific (any Agatha Christie I haven't read except for the one where Hercule Poirot dies).

Lately, I've been on a non-fiction kick.  It started back in February, when my dad and I went to the Southern Voices event in Hoover, Alabama.  Ann Patchett was the headlining author, and since I'd just started keeping this blog (and it was my birthday), my dad bought me her book of essays, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.  Prior to this, I'd read some non-fiction - The Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont, In the Heart of the Sea, and a few such others - but specifically non-fiction that really qualified as narrative non-fiction.  An avid novel reader, I was reluctant to stray too far away from the concept of a clear narrative. I loved reading my mother's eloquent essays, but the thought of sitting down to read a collection of essays was somewhat bizarre to me.  It felt eerily similar to doing school reading, except this time I was the person forcing myself to do so, and I wasn't going to get an A for it.

I began reading Patchett's book on our flight coming back to Boston.  I was quickly sucked into the work.  Each essay was different from the one preceding it, although her love of books was, obviously, pervasive throughout the whole collection.  I loved reading about experiences that I couldn't relate to, like the story of her first and unsuccessful marriage, and even more about the ones that resonated deeply, such as her attachment to real, brick-and-mortar, independent bookstores.  The whole time I was reading her essays, I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, I should definitely be a writer, too," or "I should take out a loan and start my own bookstore somewhere."  (Needless to say, I have accomplished neither task, but at least for the duration of her book I felt like I could, someday).

After Patchett, I took on Paris to the Moon.  Since childhood I've been a Francophile--or maybe a Paris-ophile is a more apt term--and again, I found the book riveting.  Perhaps because I'd also lived abroad for several years, I loved reading about Gopnik's attempts to assimilate.  In Poland, unlike in Paris, you don't purchase Christmas lights that are on a wire hoop (a struggle Gopnik experienced every Parisian Christmas).  But you do get your Christmas tree right before Christmas, which is difficult for an American to come to terms with.  (I'll never forget the look of pity and revulsion a shop owner gave me when I asked on December 1st where all the trees were).  It's trite and cliched to say it, but often reading reminds readers that their experiences, no matter how personal or deeply felt, are never real lonely.  There is inevitably someone else in the world who has felt similarly or dealt with the same problem, and books can be a comforting reminder.

Wishing to remain in France in my reading travels, I picked up A Moveable Feast next.  I should preface this paragraph by mentioning that I am actively not a Hemingway fan.  I found The Old Man and the Sea (required reading in high school) tolerable, but could barely stand to finish Farewell to Arms.  Spending a year doing my Master's in an English department made me aware of his reputation as sexist and misogynistic.  (I won't comment on whether or not I think this is a useful train of thought when one is reading.  Suffice it to say, I did not like Hemingway's style and planned to avoid him forever).  Somewhat to my surprise, I found the Hemingway in A Moveable Feast rather likable, and more importantly, I found his musings on life abroad quite touching and beautiful.  He is so earnest (pardon the pun), and while it may be entirely a pose, it's convincing nevertheless.  The last line, where Hemingway writes, "But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy," made me weep, because it reminded me both of my parents and of my own courtship with my now-husband.  My parents didn't have a lot of money for a good long while when they were first together, and often my dad ends stories of their early courtship by saying, "We were poor, but we had love."  As a child, I always pitied my parents when I heard this, even though I recognized its beauty.  But my husband and I were also financially insecure for the whole time we were dating.  Gordon would sometimes go play his guitar on the street and earn the equivalent of about $20 in an hour.  He'd bring back most of the money, but on his way home, would always stop off at my favorite cukiernia (similar to a bakery, but with only sweet baked goods) and bring home two paczki filled with rose preserves.  It was difficult and horrible to be worrying about money always, but we're past those times now, and we joke that we'll never get divorced, because we've already gone through tough times together and got married in spite of it all.

The point of that lengthy digression is that I loved A Moveable Feast.  However calculated the earnestness and naivete are, they are utterly persuasive and charming and it's hard not to understand the magnetism that so many of his acquaintances observed in Hemingway.

The book I just finished also struck a chord, but in a different way.  I read the memoir Townie, by Andre Dubus III.  I had just met Mr. Dubus--for only a moment--at the Newburyport Literary Festival.  It's a rather odd feeling to read a memoir by someone you've met, however briefly.  Memoirs are so personal, so intimate, that it feels awkward to read them, unless you know the author is safely long gone.

I couldn't put Townie down.  I was reading it in hardcover, but I lugged it along with me everywhere.  Nothing about Dubus's experiences is remotely similar to mine, other than that both of us have fathers who are writers.  My parents may not have had a lot of money during my early childhood, but the depths of poverty Dubus lived through were far worse than anything I experienced.  My parents, especially my mother, worked a lot, but were still home for much of the time, and always on hand to drive us to ballet or piano or school.  Until I went to college, I never skipped a class, and was scandalized when a high school friend once decided to skip Physics.  I never did drugs and had my first tiny taste of alcohol toward the end of my first year of college.  I didn't box or feel enraged or damaged.  But the way Dubus has evoked his life is so novelistic that you can almost forget you're reading a true story.  That's not to say the details aren't vividly rendered, because they are.  But he has such a powerful narrative voice that the story in the memoir is inescapable.  In the end, I read the book so voraciously not because I was eager to know about this author's life, but rather because I simply couldn't not read the story to see how it turned out.

And Dubus writes about his early writing attempts so starkly, and with such brutal honesty, that it's all the more wonderful to know he's become a hugely successful author.  While Hemingway was earnest and naive, his confidence in his own writing never wavers, at least not on paper.  A Moveable Feast is in no way a book about how a writer became a writer.  Although many critics have pointed out that episodes in A Moveable Feast are drawn out in novels Hemingway wrote, the truth is that the book is really about life in Paris.  Hemingway's life, to be sure, but certainly not about his life as a writer.  Townie, on the other hand, although it is less self-conscious, is on every page the story of Dubus's becoming a writer.

After I finished reading, I couldn't help but wonder why so many of the best writers have come from tough backgrounds.  Certainly many great writers grow up in the lap of luxury, or at least in a happy and secure lap.  But I don't think it's a stretch to say a majority of them have had a lot of heartache to deal with.  It seems too easy to say that unhappy children write to create a new and happier world.  If that were true, nobody would ever write a sad book or a memoir.  (And as we all know, these days if you're young and can rattle off a memoir about drug addiction, you're destined for the bestseller list).  I also don't think it has anything to do with escapism, although I've heard that answer offered.  Sometimes I've wondered if I could ever be a fiction writer.  My life has been so happy that I feel my only recourse is to write essays about real experiences.  I don't think I've had all that many experiences out of which to create a fictional universe.  But it's hard not to think that something else must compel people to write.  After all, many unhappy people don't grow up to become writers.

I suppose I'll wonder forever about this elusive, mysterious, writerly quality that drives people to write.  Maybe, probably - it has nothing to do with being an unhappy child.  There is almost certainly something else that all writers have in common.  It might just have to do with needing to write, needing to tell stories.  And perhaps it's a good thing that it's impossible to identify.  Whatever it is, I will never cease being grateful that writers write.

On Coffee and Cafe Culture

These days, I see children as young as six or seven sipping on sweet Dunkin' Donuts coffee beverages.   I'm always shocked.  Why would children need coffee?  They can't be tired.  I always had energy (too much, my parents might say) as a child.  You almost never see a child with a cup of regular coffee, either--it's usually a frappuccino or an iced vanilla latte.  Why are such young children getting coffee on their way to school?  I suspect it's because coffee-on-the-go has become an integral part of our culture.

When we lived in Fresno, my mother would take my sister and me with her when she did her Saturday morning shopping at the lovely La Boulangerie in Fig Garden Village.  La Boulangerie is a French-style bakery in the middle of a small shopping center.  We always bought bread there because they had dozens of different types of loaves of bread and my mom could find whatever kind of bread she needed.  It was baked every day, and so you never got a stale or pre-sliced and pre-wrapped loaf.  It was always bustling and loud inside, where you would pull a ticket and wait until your number was called.  Bread was almost the only thing I would eat until I was about ten, so I loved being surrounded by the smell of freshly-baked breads, pastries, and rolls coming out of the oven, as well as by the cheerful noise of people chattering while they waited for their bread.

Sourdough loaves (my favorite) at La Boulangerie

Even more exciting than waiting for the bread, though, was getting to pick out a special treat, or even better, getting to eat our breakfast or lunch there.  If we were in a hurry, I would ask for a French roll and then swipe a few packets of salted butter to take home with me.  Sometimes I'd ask for a coconut macaroon or two.  On occasion, my mom would decide that she had enough time for us to sit at a table and actually eat at the cafe.  If the weather was nice, we would sit outside. I always ordered Earl Gray, a cup of soup, and of course, a roll.  This is what it's like in Paris, I would tell myself, as I munched happily away.  (I was by this point--thanks to the Madeleine books and the movie My Father's Glory--a self-proclaimed Francophile, although Paris-ophile might be more accurate).  Once in awhile, my mother would take work to grade, in which case my sister and I would bring whatever books we were reading at the time and sit peacefully reading as she graded.

I don't remember when the first Starbucks opened in Fresno, nor do I remember where the first one was located.  But I remember the first time I went to one.  It was the one in Fig Garden Village, a few buildings away from La Boulangerie.  A friend and I, feeling very grown up, agreed to meet at Starbucks to sit and talk.  It seemed the height of cosmopolitanism to arrive separately, order our own too-sweet frappuccinos, and chat while we gulped them down.

For years, Starbucks would be a meeting place, no matter which part of Fresno we were in and no matter what our eventual destination was.  There were about a dozen Starbucks in town: a big one in River Park, a small one across the street from Fresno State, and one near the freeway entrance, among others.  It was the most logical place to suggest.  They were everywhere, everyone knew where each one was, and everybody loved coffee.  Or at least, everybody loved the sugary, frilled drinks that claimed to have a few splashes of coffee in them.

When I went to college at UC Irvine, I was surprised--and then delighted--to discover that the coffee shop attached to the university bookstore was not, in fact, a Starbucks.  It was instead an independent coffee shop (whose name, unfortunately, escapes me.  Needless to say, the story of the UCI cafe is not a story with a happy ending) that was not technically affiliated with the wonderful university bookstore, but happily served people who visited the bookstore to buy non-textbook books.  I spent many a happy morning there, reading a book or studying over a cappuccino or sandwich.  During finals week, the cafe was open all night, meaning that even if I was not staying up all night to study, I inevitably went at 2 a.m. purely for the thrill of being in my favorite place at an odd hour.

The fall I studied abroad in Florence, Italy, I made sure to find a local cafe to frequent.  There was a lovely one toward the end of my street, Via de Benci.  For awhile, I tried to be as Italian as possible by ordering my espresso or cappuccino at the bar and guzzling it down right there.  But as I had no urgent place to go from there, I eventually paid the extra euro to have my coffee brought to me.  Unless it was raining, I always sat outside, no matter how cold it was.  I loved studying for my art history course and being able to look up and see the top of Palazzo Vecchio.

I was horrified upon my return to UCI to discover that the little cafe had been replaced by a Starbucks.  It was a nice Starbucks, to be sure, with indoor and outdoor seating, but gone were the special iced teas and specialty sandwiches I'd so loved.  Instead of the old, mismatched patio furniture, there were typical Starbucks leather armchairs and ottomans.  (For me, the cafe change also signaled the start of the bookstore's downward spiral.  When I was trying to decide where to go to college, the bookstore was the primary selling point.  It was a real bookstore, not just a university bookstore, with an excellent reading series.  It has since stopped the reading series, and I suspect it is just a step away from becoming a Barnes and Noble.  Here is a link to an article about some of these changes: UCI bookstore ends author reading series).

Until I officially moved to Krakow, I never articulated (or really thought about) the importance of cafes to me.  They were more comfortable in to study than the library, and you could talk at them, so they made for good meeting places.  That was it.

When I moved to Poland, however, the plethora of cafes quickly deepened my appreciation of this kind of space.

At one of the many cafes lining Rynek Glowny in the summer

Krakow, like most Polish cities, is teeming with cafes.  Regardless of what neighborhood you are visiting, you will find numerous cafes.  It is almost impossible to choose your favorite; it makes more sense instead to pick your favorite on this street or in that square.  The first few weeks that I lived in Krakow, I felt lonely all the time, and thus never went to cafes, self-consciously fearing that my being there alone would broadcast to everybody the depths of my loneliness.  Eventually, I learned not to let this fear stop me.  One of my co-workers introduced me to Bunkier, which remained my favorite place in Krakow.  Bunkier was a cafe (attached to an art gallery) that was right in the Planty, the 2.5 mile park that surrounds the city center like a moat (which is what it was, centuries ago).  In the summer, there was an outdoor terrace with wicker chairs and small wooden or glass tables.  In the winter, there was still an outdoor terrace, but with plastic fabric covering the sides and heaters hanging above the tables.  Like most Polish cafes, it served both coffee and beer.  You could go to Bunkier, order a cappuccino, and stay there for hours without anyone bothering you or shooing you away.  I loved sitting outside and watching people walk through Planty or carry on conversations inside the cafe.  Bunkier's close proximity to some of the Jagiellonian University buildings made it a popular spot with students.  You could often see students poring over heavy textbooks.  It is also a favorite spot among Krakow's literary figures, and I would make a game out of trying to guess which customers might be poets or translators or writers, discussing Wislawa Szymborska's death or Adam Zagajewski's newest collection or the Milosz Festival.

My dad with a book and beer at Bunkier

Although Bunkier was my favorite cafe, there were dozens of other charming little places I went while I lived in Krakow.  Prowincja, for example, was a shabby, dimly-lit cafe on Bracka street.  It was always crowded and cozy, possibly due to its famous hot chocolate.  It was also owned by the Polish singer Grzegorz Turnau, and people would whisper excitedly when he came through the doors.  Jama Michalika, on Florianska street, is one of the oldest cafes in Poland (it opened in 1895).  It became a popular place with Krakow's artists and bohemians and housed a cabaret known as Zielony Balonik (the little green balloon).  It is full of plush green furniture, dark wood, and mirrors.  I would sometimes take my journal to Jama Michalika and imagine I was a writer myself.  In the summer, cafes would open up their outdoor sections, and the main Square (the Rynek Glowny) would be full of tourists, enjoying a cold beer and the sights of Europe's largest Medieval square.

Prowincja

Many of the cafes in Krakow have been there for years.  When my mother's friend, my Ciocia Magda, visited with her husband and daughter, she wanted to go to Noworolski, a cafe she had gone to when she was a student in Poland.  Noworolski, like Jama Michalika, had been popular with artists, and had had a rather dramatic history of its own.  (It had been a Nazi hotspot during the Occupation, and was later taken over by  Communists.  After the fall of Communism, it was given back to its rightful owners).  Although Noworolski's cakes were no longer as delicious as they had been (nor were the prices as reasonable), the Baroque atmosphere and the trip down memory lane made the visit enjoyable nevertheless.

Wujek Mike, Lucienne, Ciocia Magda, and Gordon at Noworolski

One of the reasons I loved these cafes was precisely that they had been around for so long.  If you meet anyone who has lived in Krakow before, they will inevitably tell you of their favorite cafe.  Almost always, the cafe is still there.  The servers may have changed, but the atmosphere and recipes remain intact.

The second, more important reason is that I associate these Krakow cafes with books and writing.  Anybody who has ever looked at a Buzzfeed post about irony or watched an episode of "Sex and the City" knows to mock the skinny, turtlenecked person in the corner of a Starbucks with his or her laptop for being a pretentious writer.  Walk into any Starbucks or Peets, and you will inevitably find at least one person hunched over a laptop, clearly writing the next Great American Novel, or a Screenplay, or a Beat-style Poem (the capital letters are necessary).  Krakow, often referred to as the cultural capital of Poland, undoubtedly has a similarly high proportion of would-be artists.  But they are harder to see amongst the others.  You seldom see a laptop at any cafe (although this is probably changing and will probably soon cease to be the case).  You will see people hunched over leather-bound journals or yellow legal pads.  People will be reading paperbacks, not kindles.  Writers, translators, artists, and musicians have their favorite cafes where they can sit incognito, reading or working for hours at a time.  In the United States, writers may have a preference for Starbucks or Peets or Dunkin' Donuts.  But more often than not, they are probably getting coffee to go, on their way to teach a class or meet with their agent.  Only in the case of celebrity authors, like B.J. Novak or James Franco, might it matter which coffee shop they choose.  (Tabloids are filled with proclamations that "Stars are just like us!  They get coffee to go!").    On Monday, the first day of my spring vacation, I walked to Brookline and decided I would sit in a cafe for a few hours, reading Paris to the Moon.  Once I'd finished my coffee, however, I was subject to glares from new customers coming in, looking for a place to sit and eat their lunch.  Why, if I was finished, was I still there?

I know there are real cafes and coffee shops in the United States, of course.  But the accusation that non-Americans often make--that we are a busy, hurried nation--often seems to be true, at least when it comes to coffee.  Many people still go and sit in cafes, especially in the morning (and even more especially if they are students studying for exams).  But the majority will grab their coffee to go, on their way to work or class (and to be clear, I am often one of these people, and I often lamented the fact that it is impossible to get good coffee-to-go in Poland).  This perhaps explains the monopoly Starbucks has on the coffee world.  When it comes to making drinkable coffee and serving it quickly and efficiently, nobody is better.  But suffice it to say, if anyone has a favorite Starbucks, it probably has more to do with how long the line usually is and less to do with how warm and inviting the atmosphere is.

For awhile, I thought I would never feel all that comfortable in Boston because there is no local cafe within walking distance of my apartment.  But one of my happiest days in recent weeks was discovering L.A. Burdick's, just down the street from where I work.  This small, intimate chocolate shop also serves coffee and tea (in real ceramic cups), along with beautiful cakes and tarts and pastries.  I was able to sit there for an hour in the morning, quietly reading, with nobody rushing me.  I decided that every month, on the last day of the session, when I have no work left to do, I will treat myself to a coffee and cake at this little cafe.  I will sit there, quietly reading, sipping, and munching, enjoying the solitude, and thinking about my book, just like I did so many years ago, on those trips to La Boulangerie with my mom.

L.A. Burdick's in Cambridge

Roots and Rootlessness

If you do a google search for the word "root," you get two main definitions.  The first says: "the part of a plant that attaches it to the ground or to a support, typically underground, conveying water and nourishment to the rest of the plant via numerous branches and fibers."  The second definition is more vague: "the basic cause, source, or origin of something."

It seems logical--and fair--to give our parents (or families) a lot of credit for providing us with roots.  After all, they provide nourishment, and certainly are the cause of our being around in the first place.  If we are lucky, they not only bring us into existence, but continue to foster our blooming throughout the years.

One of the traits I have my father to thank for cultivating is my love of music that might broadly be classified as Americana.  I don't know how a professional musicologist would describe Americana, but my definition includes folk music (from Cajun to Appalachian), bluegrass, and blues.  As might be guessed from the general theme of this post, I would also call this genre American "roots" music.  I suppose one reason we sometimes think of folk music as a root of our culture has to do with its going back a long way--it's an old tradition, and if we trace our folk music's roots, we would eventually end up at the origins of music from all over the world (we know, for example, that a lot of our music has been influenced by African traditional music, which was introduced by African slaves forced to come here).  Paradoxically, although folk music generally does go a long way back, the United States has not existed for all that long.  It's a difficult country to describe or pin down because of its short history and its melting pot qualities.  (A student once told me I didn't "look American."  "What," I asked him, "does an American look like?")  Perhaps part of our interest in our history stems from the fact that it is so short, and maybe this explains our desire to pinpoint cultural roots and influences.  Unlike some other cultures, which can trace their origins a millennium or two back and often have multiple founding mythologies, the United States culture is pretty murky.  (Of course, Native Americans are the original Americans, but it's tragically undeniable that the settlers' abuses of them diminished their influence on what is now American culture).

I think a lot of this rootlessness that is inherently American is part of what draws me to American folk music.  I am constantly trying to find common themes running through these songs, searching for what makes them still appealing today, hoping to recognize prototypes.  What is about the fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and guitar that lends itself so easily to certain chord progressions and narratives?  How did some of these songs provide comfort or entertainment for such different eras?

Although it would be nice and intellectual of me to suggest my interest in this music is the result of some great desire to help America create an origin story out of songs, I think it's much more my own sense of rootlessness that repeatedly pulls me toward American folk music.

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I think it's safe to say that many people who live in California do not come from families that have always lived in California.  My parents, of course, hail from Mississippi and Poland.  My mother's closest friend from college, my ciocia Magda, ended up in the same city, while her husband comes from New England (and, before that, Taiwan).  Another pair of my parents' closest friends were from Utah, while still others came from Germany, Michigan, and Georgia.  Instead of celebrating holidays with extended family, we celebrated with other wanderers who had made their way to California serendipitously or accidentally. Growing up, some of my friends hoped to live in California forever, but many others assumed they would one day live elsewhere.  California was just a stepping stone.  My parents, although attached to their friends and our house and some other aspects of California life (like fresh produce year-round), always hoped they'd one day go elsewhere.  I, too, felt that something more glamorous must lie in store for me.

But it was more than not being crazy about the town in which I was growing up.  I felt very alienated from other kids my age.  Looking back, I realize there were a lot of different factors that played into my being a bit of an oddball, but at the time, it seemed easiest to blame it on being Polish.  These days, people are often surprised by the extent to which I identify as Polish, given that a good 70% of my life has been spent on American soil.  But as a child, the only difference I could discern between myself and others was the fact that I had a strange Polish name and always spent my summers in Poland.  Countless children at my schools had parents who were immigrants, but I was the only half-Polish student in my classes, and so instead of seeing that we were all from part-immigrant families, I focused on being the sole Pole in the group.  Initially, I was resentful of my Polishness.  I would go up to substitute teachers before they called roll and insist they call me "Tosha," not Antonina, not anything else.  I would hiss at my mom if she tried to speak to me in Polish in public.  I practiced my American accent until it became second nature.

Later, though, I defiantly decided to be proud of my Polish heritage.  I practiced reading to my mom out loud  in Polish, played Chopin on the piano, and wrote to my cousin every few months.  I would brag to anybody who cared (or who didn't) about being fluent in two languages.

Then again, when I went to summer camp for the first time (in Poland), I realized I wasn't really Polish, after all.  The kids there wanted to hear all about California.  One girl would routinely stroke my hair, pleased that I was blonde, like all California girls should be (I'm not sure what she made of my brunette sister).  If I made a grammar mistake, everyone was very happy to point it out and correct me, all the while reassuring me that I had the best Polish of any American they'd met.

So I was not Polish, after all.

But I never felt as American as when I was abroad, either.

And my sense of home has only become more complicated as I've gotten older.  When I was studying abroad in Florence, Italy, I was delighted to see a Polish stall set up at the Christmas market in Santa Croce.  I went to speak to the gentleman working at the booth in Polish.  I was so happy to find someone who spoke Polish that I stayed for an hour chatting to him.  My roommates were all American.  But it took speaking to someone in Polish to make me feel both homesick and comforted.  The next semester, I studied abroad in Krakow (a city I'd been to two or three times since my parents bought an apartment there).  I lived with two flatmates on the opposite side of town, and Krakow never felt that familiar to me.  Sometimes I would go to the wonderful farmers' market near my parents' apartment, but there were few places that I felt attached to.  (After all, I'd only ever been there with my parents).  The closest to comfort I could find was the lovely bookstore Massolit, which we always visited in the summer, and which in 2008 was quite different from what it is now.  

While I loved my study abroad experiences, I was relieved to return to Irvine for my senior year of college.  I was overjoyed to see my friends again, to visit my favorite parts of the campus, to walk in the foothills early in the morning, to go to the beach for bonfires, to drive into LA to go dancing.  It was all so beautifully familiar, especially after I'd been away.

In a writing seminar I took in my last quarter, structured around the themes of transnational identities, we read two texts that struck a chord with me.  One was Zadie Smith's White Teeth.  I have to confess to having disliked Smith's book, but I appreciated the struggles each character faced in trying to establish themselves within one cultural context or another.  More poignant for me was Edward Said's essay "Between Worlds."  I felt a physical shock of recognition as I read.  In the essay, he describes feeling torn between two cultures, and thus never firmly grounded in either.  I think it was at this point that I realized my mother felt this way, too, much more strongly than I did.

I am not an immigrant, although I lived in Poland for three years.  But for some inexplicable reason, I don't feel firmly cemented into any one culture.  There are so many things about me that are American, in the deepest sense of the word.  My whole consciousness is American.  My way of thinking is the product of American culture and education.  My expectations of society are American.  These are undeniable facts of who I am.

But in a more definite way, it's difficult for me to feel like I am American.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm now living in Boston, which is as foreign a city to me as Zurich might be.  Boston is in America, but it's worlds away from Irvine or Fresno.  It's often described as the "most European American city," but very little about it reminds me of any European cities I've been to.  I feel more at home in the South, where I've visited dozens of time, than on the East coast.  But I'm not southern, and it's not only my accent that makes me stick out.  I was born in North Carolina, but have visited only once since I was a baby.  I haven't lived in California in five years, and if I moved back now, nobody in my family would be there.  Part of my rootlessness may have a lot to do with this figurative homelessness.

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I'm slowly coming to accept that I may never feel entirely at home anywhere.  Conveniently, my husband is similar in this regard, having grown up in two different cities in South Africa, then having lived and studied in England, Poland, and now the United States.  His family, like mine, has moved all over the world and currently also lives spread out.  It seems more than enough to be happy together, with our two cats, wherever we are living and wherever our families are living.

I know I don't want to live in Boston forever.  Of all the places I've lived, it feels the least like home to me.  It's not easy to say where the most like home might be, however.  Most days, I think I can wait to find out.

In the meantime, looking for those moments that make me feel that flash of recognition Edward Said's essay did is a good way to get by.  Memories can make you feel at home.  Anytime I smell a tomato fresh off the vine, I'm reminded of visits to my Mississippi grandfather's garden, where he would proudly show me the huge tomatoes he was growing and let me pick one if I was lucky.  The taste of raspberries reminds me of walking through the Mazurian forests with my mom in the summer.  The smell of the ocean--whatever ocean it is--reminds me of cool afternoons spent on the California coast with my family.  My childhood books remind me of the hundreds of different settings I've read in, safe in the knowledge that my family was nearby.  Beautiful cozy cafes make me recall my first real winter, spent living alone in Krakow.  And bluegrass and folk music--the first kind of music I remember having ever listened to, in the car with my dad, driving through the underpass onto Wishon in Fresno--has been an unchanging constant in my life.  It will forever remind me of every home, everywhere.

Alison Krauss (my favorite singer) with Dan Tyminski and Jeff White at the Copley Arts Festival, summer 2013

Holidays Abroad, or How I Met my Husband

Whenever I tell people that my favorite holiday is Easter, there's always a pause, during which I know they're quickly running through everything they know about me--am I a secret, crazy religious Catholic?  Could I be joking?  Do I not know about Christmas or Thanksgiving, infinitely superior holidays?  But beyond its being the holiday that signals spring is coming (or already here), Easter remains for me a special day to look forward to.

My whole life, I have thought of my mother as the perfect hostess.  She has always been an excellent cook (countless people have told her she should open a restaurant), but there's more to being a hostess than culinary skills, of course.  Her dinner parties are always beautifully planned, with each course being perfectly suited to the one that preceded it.  Dietary restrictions are always taken into consideration, and wines are carefully paired beforehand.  The tablecloth and candles are always coordinated, but not in an overt or kitschy way.  Even when my parents hosted large parties, they were never catered, and those pre-made sandwich wraps were never, ever present on one of our tables.  My high school graduation party didn't include a few boxes of pizzas and bags of chips; my father personally grilled about 50 drumsticks and hamburgers for my friends, and my mom made lemonade, a cake, and various dips by hand.

When I got to college, however, it turned out that I couldn't cook.  Not at all.  I couldn't even make pasta properly for many months.  Eventually, my dinners consisted of Lean Cuisine meals or cooked noodles with grated cheese sprinkled over them.

In 2008, I studied abroad in Italy, and it was there that I discovered for the first time that people my age could and did cook.  My roommate Sari could concoct delicious meals out of whatever was lying around the fridge.  She was not only supremely competent, but she also genuinely enjoyed cooking, even for six hungry roommates.  I was inspired, and very slowly began experimenting on my own.  I quickly learned how useful (and satisfying) it was to be able to make your own dinner, but I was confident that that would be the extent of my cuisine.

Vanessa the Chef on Via de Benci 14

Then came Thanksgiving.  Four of the girls with whom I lived were traveling with family who was visiting during the week of Thanksgiving.  Only three of us were left.  By this point, all of us were homesick, and the thought of Thanksgiving without our families was depressing.  One of the three of us, Vanessa, decided that we should have our own small Thanksgiving.  She would do all the cooking if Amanda and I could provide the wine.  Although it wasn't possible to get turkey in Florence in November, we had duck, which Vanessa cooked beautifully, and some semblance of the other traditional dishes.  Maybe we weren't with our families, but we were together.  (And if you think about, the Pilgrims were pretty far from home, and, like us, had set up camp somewhere that they may not have been entirely welcome.  It seemed fitting).  Most importantly, this Thanksgiving--my first one without my family--was the first time I realized that while family would always be the most important part of holidays, the traditions were also a pretty crucial part.

The following spring, I was studying abroad in Poland, and my roommates and I conscientiously prepared our own Easter brunch, following most of the major Polish traditions.  We even got our basket blessed at the Dominican church in the Town Square.

Mary, Kat, Anna, and I after our Easter breakfast

But then, in the fall of 2009, I was living alone in Poland, without roommates, and without too many very close friends.  The prospect of Thanksgiving alone was, again, terrible.  I had to work on the actual day, but I finally decided that I would host my own Thanksgiving.  I knew two other Americans living in Krakow, and had some other acquaintances who would surely be happy to sit around a table eating.  Along with my co-worker, we planned out the dishes and e-mailed our mothers to ask for recipes.  (Who ever knew that it was possible to prepare your own cranberries?)  We went on a big shopping trip to Tesco at the crack of dawn on Sunday (having been too hungover on Saturday to go) and started cooking.  Our friend Dan, an Australian, arrived nice and early, having apparently realized we might need help with the turkey part.  With other pots sizzling away on the stove, we put the bird into the oven, only to have a fuse get overloaded and all the power go out.

As we frantically tried to make the power come back on, we ate the chips we'd bought for our vegan friend.

It was certainly not a meal I was all that excited to eat, but the company was excellent, and there was something about hosting my first holiday away from home that made me feel especially grown up.

My first Krakow Thanksgiving

I went home for Christmas that year, but when spring rolled around, I knew I would be hosting an Easter brunch for all my friends who couldn't (or wouldn't) go home for the holiday.

Having one holiday under my belt, I decided to go bolder.  More guests.  Better decorations.  A cleaner floor.  Etc.

For various reasons, I was not terribly happy at that point in time, and I thought the Easter party might be one of the last days I would spend in Poland.  I had quit my job, had had my purse stolen, and had had a falling out with a friend (the Thanksgiving co-host).  I was ready to go home to be taken care of by my parents.  Easter would be my last hurrah.

To make matters worse, the Monday before Easter, I went home from dinner with friends and then became violently sick with a horrific stomach flu that was going around town.  I lived all alone and wanted nothing more than my mom to come make me chicken soup.  The next morning, a student and a friend both stopped by with various home remedies and snacks.  They both called every day to see how I was doing, and by Friday I felt a bit better. I went to a friend's house for Easter egg painting, and that made me determined to go through with my plans.

Saturday, I woke up very early to start cleaning my apartment (which was, to put it delicately, in a God-awful state).  I went to the farmer's market to pick up all the vegetables I needed, as well as flowers and traditional painted wooden eggs.  I dropped my loot off at home, then went to the supermarket to get the other things I needed.  I cleaned all day and even ate a yogurt (I'd spent the week avoiding anything besides plain rice or wafers).  I hid plastic Easter eggs around the house for my Finnish friend Susanna (who had informed me that she wanted an American Easter egg hunt).  I did all the food preparation I could, and finally collapsed into bed, exhausted, at 2 a.m.

Still fragile from the flu, but determined to be the most elegant and classy hostess ever

By about 10 a.m. Easter Sunday morning, there were substantially more guests coming than I had originally invited.  Susanna had some friends staying with her, and two other people she knew happened to live nearby.  My American friend Dominic was bringing a South African friend he'd met at an open mic a few weeks before, and my friend Helena had decided to bring her sister with her since their parents were traveling during the Easter weekend.

My beautiful Easter table

Dan, again being an angel, arrived early to help me move tables around and finish decorating.  Other people slowly started to arrive.  I was very proud of how the table looked, and especially touched by all the extra goodies Susanna and Helena had brought with them to make sure my table wouldn't run out of anything, what with all the guests.  Dominic was responsible for bringing the CD player, and when he arrived almost an hour late, I was a bit peeved.  But all my disgruntled-hostessness melted away when his friend, the South African, exclaimed as I opened the door, "My God, you look fantastic!"  As someone who had been very sick for a week (and had spent a good hour primping herself in the morning), I couldn't help but be charmed by the flattery, even if the flatterer was late.  At least both boys had had the good sense to dress nicely for my elegant brunch.

We finally sat down to eat.  Because there were so many people, I had to use both sets of plates, and teacups instead of bowls for the zurek (a traditional Polish sour soup with a fermented rye base).  We quickly ran out of cheese for the vegetarians to put on their sandwiches, and on several different occasions people ran out for more wine.  But we were having a wonderful time.  There were people from Poland, America, South Africa, Australia, Finland, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, and almost definitely one or two other countries I've forgotten.  Most of us didn't know each other that well, but wine and food make for good icebreakers.  On occasion, the smokers of the group would go downstairs to smoke.  On one such trip, I went down, too, and got to talking to the South African, Gordon.  He was telling Susanna about his literature class at the Jagiellonian University, and when he started talking about Czeslaw Milosz, I was officially smitten.  So few non-poets (and non-Poles) that I'd met were aware of him, and here was someone not even from the same hemisphere talking about his work.

As it got later and later, some people left to go home, and still others arrived for drinks and dessert.  Finally, a group of us went into Kazimierz, the beautiful Jewish quarter near where I lived.  We went first to Singer, a curious little bar that turns into a rabid, packed dance party late at night  (it's named Singer because the tables are made of old Singer sewing machines).  Later, we went to Alchemia, where Susanna and I took turns dancing with Gordon and his band mate Davie, from Scotland.

By the end of the night, I'd decided to stay a few more weeks in Poland.  I had such lovely friends, after all, and I'd met so many interesting people.  I hadn't had the experience back at home of having so many different people, from so many different walks of life, sit at my table, enjoying the meal I'd prepared so carefully.  And that feeling of having successfully hosted such a wonderful Easter still resonates with me.  To this day, it's one of my most beautiful memories.

Enjoying homemade Advocaat (a dessert drink similar to eggnog) with some of my guests

And then there was that charming South African.  He wasn't really the type I'd gone for before.  (For one thing, he was a lot hairier).  Boys I'd dated in the past had generally had a lot in common with me on paper, but not so much when it came to details.  Gordon, on the surface, did not seem like my type.  He was in not one band, but two bands;  he smoked; and he had a more stress-free attitude toward relationships than I could envision myself having.  He was a socialist with very strong opinions on almost everything, and, as a last straw, genuinely enjoyed sports.  But he had an ease about him that I found appealing and novel.  I thought perhaps I could, for the first time in my life, date someone casually without falling pathetically in love with him, and then many decades later have a nice memory to look back on and tell my grandchildren about.  (I actually imagined telling my children about the romantic spring I spent with a political South African in southeastern Poland).

Needless to say, the rest is history.  And personal.  I won't go into the details of our courtship, but suffice it to say, that hairy, opinionated, musical South African and I have been married for just over a year.  We've hosted a few holidays and dinner parties, and I imagine we'll host many, many more.  But Easter will always be my favorite holiday, because, by fate or sheer dumb luck, on April 4th, 2009, Easter Sunday, in Poland of all places, I met the love of my life.

The Story of my German Nun

Sometimes, when we are listening to music in Polish, my husband will turn to me and ask, "What was that line about?"  I will inevitably stare at him blankly, confused.  How should I know?  Does he think I am listening to the words?

My husband is a creative, poetical person, who composes a lot of his own music, reads Percy Shelley for fun, and studied philosophy before turning to political science.  Nevertheless, he is also deeply analytic.  He loves to figure out how things are constructed or why a group of parts makes a whole work.  When he listens to music, he listens to the chords and picks them out on his guitar.  He listens to the words and tries to find meaning in each word choice.

I, on the other hand, have never been able to do this.  It sometimes takes me months of listening to songs on repeat before I can learn the words.  I think I listen to the whole piece as a single, unified entity.  For me, for whatever reason, the parts are inseparable.

When I was five years old, a family friend moved to Delaware and gave my parents her old piano.  It wasn't a spectacular model, but it was a decent upright and she hoped our parents would encourage my sister and me to take piano lessons, which, of course, they did.  For a year or two, we took lessons with a wonderful, kind lady who lived across the street from my best friend.  I did not particularly excel, although when I re-watch the home videos my parents made of our first few recitals, it's clear I didn't recognize my own stunning incompetence.  When I was eight years old, we moved into a different part of Fresno.  My parents decided that, given mine and my sister's disappointing lack of talent, it was not worth driving back into our old neighborhood for lessons.  But nor were they willing to give up.  My father loved music and my mother dreamed of one day having one of her daughters play Polish Christmas carols on the piano.  So they found a different teacher who lived closer to us.

This teacher's name was Sister Anna Marie.  She was a nun.

My experience with nuns was limited, at this time, to the character of Miss Clavel in the Madeleine books.  I was envisioning a youngish nun who would take me under her wing, gently guiding me toward a righteous and musical path.

When we arrived for our first lesson, an short, elderly lady opened the door.  I was dismayed to discover this was my piano teacher (who insisted we call her Sister, which seemed horrifically strange to me).

She wasn't even wearing a habit.

My dad stayed for our first lesson, and as far as I recall, Sister tested our technique and asked us some basic theory questions.  She didn't seem interested in hearing us show off any of the pieces we'd learned.  She ordered us to go buy several books she required her students to have, among them a thick theory book and a binder in which we would be keeping our technique blocks.  To my horror, she explained to my dad that we needed to be practicing at least 45 minutes.  My sister was good at practicing the piano, but up to this point, I had sat at the piano and gone through each short piece exactly once, and I considered that perfectly adequate practicing.

For our next lesson, my dad simply dropped us off, and we walked to her apartment.  It was then that Sister's Germanic characteristics revealed themselves.  She had a pointer she'd rap the page with especially aggressively each time I made a mistake.  I'd imagine to myself that she was just barely able to prevent herself from rapping my knuckles with the pointer.  Instead of praising my weak attempts to master basic etudes, she employed sarcastic quips to shame me into working hard.  (It was very Catholic of her).  When my sister was having her lesson, I was not allowed to read whatever book I'd brought, and instead was required to go into Sister's study and play a really un-fun music computer game or listen to ear training tapes so I could identify what interval, pattern, or chord I was hearing.

I began to hate piano lessons.  One day, when I knew I hadn't made enough progress for that week, I decided I would break my wrist so I wouldn't be able to go.  I took a small rock from our backyard and dropped it on my hand.  My sister said it didn't look broken.  I despaired.

Eventually, Sister told my parents privately that she was going to move my sister into a more advanced group lesson (we had group lessons every month) and keep me where I was.  My parents, of course, told me.  At the time I assumed Sister had generously been trying to spare my feelings, but I think I know better now.  She knew my parents would tell me, and she realized this was the last chance she had to try to force me into becoming a better music student.

And, I'm ashamed to say, it worked.

The following week I practiced for more than an hour each day.  My mind would wander while I struggled over poly-rhythmic scales, but I'd snap myself back to attention.  I practiced them so much that I began to dream in scales.  The next time I went to a lesson, Sister said nothing about my minor improvement.  But I kept at it.  I began borrowing books from her to practice my sight-reading, a skill that I'd been unable to learn.  I practiced every day.  And though it might sound like revisionist history to say it, within a few months I was an entirely different student.  I practiced every single day, for at least an hour.  I passed my first theory test with almost 100%.  Sister acknowledged I might have become one of the better sight-readers she had for a student.   But for the most part, she refused to praise me.  I could play a piece through almost perfectly note-for-note, but she'd find the accidental I forgot to flatten or the crescendo sign I'd ignored.  I felt as though nothing I ever did would be good enough, but this only made me more determined to exceed her expectations.  Her favorite student was an extremely talented pianist named Stephanie, and Sister often made a point of praising Stephanie to me.  Now that I am a teacher myself, I've come to understand the importance of fine-tuning your methods to each individual student, no matter how exhausting that might be.  Sister clearly knew me better than I thought she did, and she effectively manipulated my fiercely competitive streak to shape me into a better pianist.

When I was a miserable seventh-grade student, a new school opened up in my hometown.  It was called University High School, and it was a college-preparatory and music charter school.  It was located on Fresno State's campus and students were going to be allowed to take college courses.  Because of how unhappy and unchallenged I felt in middle school, my parents decided I should skip eighth grade (a decision that, I should add, was viewed very, very unfavorably by the Fresno Unified School District.  When we dropped my sister off on her first day of seventh grade, numerous teachers and administrators made a point of telling me what a horrible idea my parents had forced on me).  In order to do so, I needed to take algebra in summer school, and I needed to be at my grade level (i.e., level 9) in terms of my piano performance and knowledge of theory.  (As a side note, there were various competitions and festivals students could participate in in California, and the most rigorous of these festivals involved playing technique blocks, playing four or five memorized pieces, taking a theory test, a sight-reading test, and an ear training test.  If a student passed all of these requirements with a silver or gold, he or she passed to the next level for the following year).  I was in level 7 that year, and in order to apply to UHS, would have to complete two levels in one year.  Sister was skeptical, but she agreed to help me.  Much to everyone's surprise, my first year doing the festival, I passed with silvers for both levels.  I applied to UHS and started attending that fall.

My musicianship classes were led by a wonderful, slightly crazy man named Mr. Jones (eventually nicknamed Jonesy by students when a math teacher named Mr. Jones was hired).  He was similarly demanding to Sister, and I thrived under his attention.  For the first time, I was really good at a skill that lots of other students admired.  (I had always been a good reader, but nobody cared about that).  In order to take drama at UHS, which met during my time slot with Sister, I had to start taking piano lessons on Wednesday mornings from 7:30 to 8:30, which left me just enough time to get to class for 9.  At this point, there was no question as to whether or not I would wake up early for lessons with Sister.  She was the first person besides my parents who forced me to work my ass off, and for the first time I could actually see my hard work paying off.  I'd been a decent student in school, but I seemed to have either an innate ability for certain subjects, like art or English, and a complete lack of intelligence regarding others.  But when it came to piano, I had to work harder than I'd ever worked at anything--but I was succeeding.

Sister began giving me more and more challenging pieces to practice.  She privately told my dad I was one of the most talented students she'd ever had.  I practiced sight-reading more and more difficult pieces and almost never missed a note.  My technique was never great, but I made up for it with perfect scores on every ear training test I took.  Sister could play a piece for me once and I could sing it back.  She encouraged me to sing along with the pieces I practiced to remember them better and to listen to the whole sound instead of focusing on the parts that were difficult for me.  She made me tapes of chords and intervals to listen to before I went to sleep.  During our lessons, I'd tell her about what I'd done that day in school, or about the violinist at my school that I had a crush on.   Before Christmas of that year, my mother suggested inviting Sister over for our Christmas Eve and I was thrilled.  She came and I spent the whole evening talking to her.  From that point on, Sister came to all of our big family holidays and celebrations.  Somehow, my terrifying, curmudgeonly nun had become one of the most important people to me.  It no longer felt strange to call her Sister.

Then, a few months before the end of my junior year in high school, the unthinkable happened.  Sister sent a letter out to all of her families, announcing she was retiring and moving to Texas to her convent.

I was heartbroken.  I considered going on a music-strike, refusing to play until Sister would finally give in and change her mind and save me from malnutrition.  But I quickly realized that as a nun, Sister probably had more experience in sacrifice than I did and would probably outlast me.

There's not much point in recollecting how hard the next few months were.  I felt on the verge of tears after every lesson and did not want to think about finding a new teacher.  Part of me was being childishly spiteful, but another part of me realized that no amount of talent would help me remain a good pianist.  I needed Sister to finish the equation.  Without her drive, I was only someone with an above-average ear and an average amount of self-motivation.

For the last recital her students would play, a number of families organized a few surprises for Sister.  I don't remember the details, but I think there were a few gifts and flowers.  I was asked to give a short speech about Sister and my experience with her.

I worked on my presentation for ages.  Sister was not given over to huge displays of emotion and I knew she'd frown if I cried in front of her (though I'd cried plenty of times in her bathroom when I was younger and felt she was being unusually cruel to me).  Nevertheless, I wanted to find a way of telling everybody how much she'd meant to all of her students, as well as a private way of telling her just how incredibly much she meant to me.  I didn't have a lot of experience writing, other than for class, but I tried to make my speech humorous; many of my earliest memories with Sister were now hilarious to recollect, especially the slightly nutty lengths I was prepared to go in what I thought was our battle of wits.  I finished the speech by telling everyone how special Sister was to each and every one of her students, and how I knew that for each one of us she was family.

I practiced giving my speech almost as much as I practiced my Bach.  I was determined that for this last performance I wouldn't miss a single note.  Although I normally banned my parents from coming to any performance I was playing in, I insisted my dad come to this one, for Sister's sake.

The evening was a huge success.  Instead of separating us by age, as she usually did, Sister had us all play together in a much larger venue. It was sweet to see some of her youngest little students play beautifully, and by this point many of her older students had become my friends.  It was clear that each student was doing his or her best, and I'd like to think many of us really did play our best that night.  After the music was done, various parents and students came up to give Sister the plaque we'd had engraved for her and the numerous bouquets that had been brought.  Then, for the last surprise, I came up to give my speech.

It's probably not a surprise to say I did break down and cry a bit by the end of my speech, but it was a big surprise to see Sister in tears when I went to hug her.

The longer I've been a student, and the longer I've been a teacher, the more I've realized how difficult teaching really is.  The same approach will never work twice, because every student is different, and every student needs a different teacher.  I think the best teachers are the ones who can tailor their teaching to each individual student without losing their minds in the process.  I listen to music every day, and never fail to think of Sister.  Although my parents taught me to love music from an early age, it was Sister who taught me how to listen to it.

I've been blessed with many wonderful teachers, from elementary school to my Master's program.  But I've only ever had one teacher like my Sister.

My beloved old piano in our Wrenwood house

On Old-Fashioned Spaces: the Independent Bookstore

When I was six or seven years old (I think), a Barnes and Noble opened on the corner of a busy street in my hometown, Fresno.  I don't remember my parents' reactions too well, but I imagine they were happy.  There must have been a few small bookstores in Fresno at the time (the lovely Fig Garden Bookstore was one of their favorites), but I guess Barnes and Noble was a big deal because of how many books it would offer.

I don't really remember the very first time I visited Barnes and Noble with my parents, but I do remember visiting it a lot.  I loved how expansive the space was, how white the walls were, how neatly the rows of shelves were organized, and at the upstairs cafe (which was not yet a Starbucks), you could get "Italian sodas," which were for us a very special treat.  There was a special sort of window seat on one side at the front of the store, and I vividly remember being read The Polar Express by my father while sitting there.  I soon decided that when I grew up, I would buy Barnes and Noble, and it would be my bookstore, and I would even sleep there, because I would love it so much.  (I had picked out a nice shelf in the travel section to sleep on).

When I started attending Powers-Ginsburg, I learned how magical libraries could be, too.  Our school library was huge, with purple carpet (the school colors were purple and gold), and books lining the walls as well as the shelves.  There was a big open space where younger students would sit on the days they visited the library and got to have the librarian read a story to them.  I was an oddball child, and I soon considered Mrs. Schafer, the librarian, to be my closest friend.  She would let me follow her around while she organized things, and often set books aside to recommend to me later.  She allowed me to check out more books than she was supposed to, knowing that I would take care of them, read them quickly, and return immediately for more.

As Barnes and Noble expanded (and Borders soon opened in the nearby River Park), I came to value the library even more.  I realize it's a common complaint to make, but the employees at the bookstores could rarely help me find what I was looking for, and never recommended books they thought I'd enjoy.  When we moved to North Fresno, we were delighted to discover a branch of the Fresno Public Library was minutes away from our house, and though its selection was limited, I faithfully visited every few weeks to stock up.  When I found a book I really loved, I'd buy it from Barnes and Noble so I could keep it forever.

When I was eleven, we moved to Oxford, Mississippi because my father was named the John and Renee Grisham Chair in Creative Writing for that year at Ole Miss.  The first day that we arrived, a writer from the English department, Dan Williams, was waiting to greet us in the house we would be living in, which was, incidentally, across the street from William Faulkner's house, Rowan Oak.  Later that day, my sister and I met Dan's daughter, Leah, and his wife, Cynthia Shearer, a writer and the curator of Rowan Oak.  Leah became a friend for life when she mentioned that she'd show us Square Books the next day.

Square Books was a bookstore started by Richard Howorth in Oxford's square in 1979.  Originally housed in one two-story building on one corner, it eventually expanded and now has several other buildings.  The building itself is lovely: it's a pinkish-ochre shade and with the small porch lining the second floor almost looks like an upscale saloon out of a Western.  The inside is bright and light.  At the front there are tables with new releases and signed author copies.  There is an upstairs part that has a small cafe (which is, mercifully, still not a Starbucks), but before you reach the second floor, there is a sort of mid-level, long landing that has children's books on it.  This became where I spent my happiest hours while we lived in Oxford.  My mother would take us there frequently, and on occasion my sister and I would walk there from our house (walking to the bookstore was a novelty we never tired of.  Not only were there not that many sidewalks in Fresno--certainly none that would take us from our house in North Fresno to the Borders in River Park--but it also wouldn't have been safe enough for us to go on our own).  The store's owners knew and recognized all of their frequent visitors, and nobody ever tried to shoo us away when we sat on the floor reading books.  Whereas many chain bookstores will ask customers to leave unless they are buying a book, Square Books allowed us to sit there for hours, even if we didn't buy the book, probably realizing that even if we didn't buy this particular book, we would nevertheless buy other books.

The whimsical second floor of Square Books

When we were living in Oxford, we traveled a bit around the South, and had the opportunity to visit other wonderful bookstores.  Lemuria in Jackson was another favorite, and we loved the mini-chain Davis-Kidd.

Although I was excited to move back home to Fresno, I felt the loss of Square Books deeply.  My middle school library was not as friendly as my elementary school one, and when I started high school, I had access to the Fresno State Library, which was helpful, but too large to provide me with the same warm environment I so missed.  In 2002, my parents bought an apartment in Krakow, Poland, and that same year we discovered what was then a lovely, tiny English-language bookstore, Massolit.  The owner was a charming, humorous guy who loved to make recommendations.  At the end of every summer, I would stock up on used books (especially books by Agatha Christie, which made the 13-hour plane ride home more bearable) at Massolit to take home.

But my most magical book experience came the year we visited my grandparents for Christmas in Indianola, Mississippi.  We were driving back and my parents decided we had made good enough time to make a big detour in the middle of Texas.  We were going to visit Archer City, home of one of my very favorite authors, Larry McMurtry.

I get the impression that Larry McMurtry is perhaps not as famous or popular as I'd always assumed he was.  When I mention his name, even to friends who are avid readers, I often get a blank stare.  Ask anyone, on the other hand, reader or not, if they know the movie Terms of Endearment, and chances are they've at least heard of it.  I read Lonesome Dove when I was in high school, and then proceeded to read The Last Picture Show, All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers, Billy the Kid, and numerous other books.  The year we went to visit Archer City, I had read almost everything McMurtry had published at that point.  I loved The Last Picture Show, because for all its bleakness, it was one of the few books I'd read that seemed to be set in a place not unlike where I was growing up.  Fresno is, of course, a lot bigger than Archer City, but in comparison to big cities I'd visited, it felt like a small town.  And it sometimes felt hopeless and impossible to escape.  I was thrilled to get to visit the city and try to pick out where Jacy's parents might have lived or where the pool hall was or where Genevieve might have parked her car before heading into the cafe to work her late shifts.  Archer City was exactly like what you'd picture if you read the novel.  Although it was beautiful, it managed to be simultaneously small and vast.  It felt a bit lifeless and oh-so-still.  But the smallness was also beautiful, and I cried when we drove past the vacant theater.

The Royal Theater in Archer City, TX

The highlight of the trip, of course, was visiting Larry McMurtry's four bookstores, a collection of stores known as Booked Up.  (I was saddened to see this article awhile back: Keeping the Last Bookshop Alive).  Unlike so many other bookstores, none of these had a coffee shop attached, and none of them sold cutesy bookmarks or mugs or magnets.  There were only books, but so, so many of them.  Imagine the Beast's library in the Disney film Beauty and the Beast; now imagine that same library, but in a big, warehouse-like room in Texas.

Larry McMurtry stocking books in Booked Up

Now I live in Boston, and have the luck of having many wonderful independent bookstores to choose from: Brookline Booksmith, the Harvard Book Store (my favorite, and not to be confused with Harvard's bookstore, the Coop), Porter Square Books, Newtonville Books, and The Oasis.  But for a time, I found myself guiltily going into the Coop to buy books.  It was right next to my work and it inevitably had what I was looking for and it was cheap.  But then I read George Packer's article on Amazon's monopoly on publishing (Cheap Words: George Packer) This made me decide never to buy a book from Amazon, never ever again.  Right after that, I got to go to the Southern Voices festival in Alabama with my dad.  Ann Patchett was the keynote speaker, and she finished her presentation with a plea to all the readers in the audience.  She reminded us that people often talk of themselves in the passive voice, saying we've been forced by Amazon/Barnes and Noble/WalMart/whoever to buy products from them because they're cheaper.  We do actually have a choice, she said.  Maybe for some items, those extra $2.00 you save are important.  But if you really love books, and you don't want Amazon to dictate what gets written, you can choose to buy books from your local independent bookstores.

And I think she is right.  I've had numerous, non-book-loving people patiently explain to me how behind the times the book world is, and how in fact real, printed books are about to go completely out of fashion.  I've seen Facebook comments about how wonderful it is that Amazon allows everybody in the world to self-publish, because, of course, everyone can write a great book.  I am realistic enough to realize that literature is never again going to have the respected place in the world it used to.  But I am also optimistic enough to realize we don't need to despair just yet.  My love of books started early, and each time I recollect happy afternoons spent sitting in small, unique bookstores, I feel re-inspired to continue giving those places my business.  I may not be able to save small bookstores all on my own (although I do read a lot), but I think there are enough book-lovers in the world that we might be able to save our favorite books and bookshops.  And if that's old-fashioned, who cares?