The Gorgeous Wretched End of the Semester
The End of the Semester. I hate it.
Grades are in. I am rereading my little thank you notes from kind generous students (Oh thank you Corrie and Amanda and Charlie and David and Grace and Madelyn and all of you writers). I’m using these notes to soften the hard landing that is the end of the semester. These notes, these students, this work, it means so much to me.
I hate the end of it! I hate that I won’t see the students for a long time. I hate that I won’t get to read their works-in-progress. I hate that I won’t wake up thinking about a way to teach sentences, or to talk about Van Jordan or Scott Blackwood or art or any of it.
May is an End, and that reminds me of other ends, all terrible: the end of a rare and particularly meaningful love relationship, the end of my mother’s cognizant life, the end of Florida, the end of my chin, the end of my beloved dog. Oh horrible debacles, the ends. I love the on-going! I love the never ending, call it the permanent press—the idea we’re meant to be, here, alive, loved, always.
(Cycling puts one back in the groove of the on-going better than just about anything else.)
Last summer was The Bad Difficult time, I was overwhelmed and grieving so much. So this summer I am taking steps.
First, I’ve got the little love notes, laid out before me like stepping stones and second, I have made a list. I made a list of things that would make up the Greatest Summer Ever. Why I didn’t think of this before, I do not know. I get sad at the End of the semester and I forget to think of brilliant ideas.
(I’m keeping the list a secret for now. Making a great summer or any summer at all feels a lot like writing a new essay…or falling in love with someone …it’s best to keep it to one’s self…for awhile….) I don’t want to hex it.
I’m making the end into something.
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