Bits for Sunday, March 16, 2008

This week I went to a poetry reading. Yes, you read that right. Poetry. For those of you who attend my church and were present on the famous “bachelorette” night – you will recall that I said out loud that I am not a poet. Can’t write it, can barely understand it, and retained my honor scholarship despite that class in college only through the immense grace and mercy of my professor.

Nevertheless, I went to a poetry reading this week. The poet, Susanna Childress, was in college with me – actually a year behind me in school. She was one of those writers that made all the English and writing professors tingle with joy because she was so good. To say she has a gift is an understatement. She knows how to properly use words that I’m still sounding out. She can do things with her writing craft (probably with little effort) that I couldn’t even begin to understand after having a four year degree in the subject.

Yet the thing I loved about Susanna was that she was a real and fun friend. There were many writers in my classes who intimidated me profusely when we had to participate in the dreaded peer-editing exercises. They handed me the next great American literature fresh off their printer, and I handed them what felt like the next draft of a Berenstein Bear book. And Susanna was the one that intimidated me most because I was so afraid that she would be bored with what I wrote…and I would be too stupid to understand what she wrote. But those fears were in my mind only, and she was always so much fun in and out of class. Full of life and personality, she had a way of easing my fear of her intelligence and ability.

Well, Susanna has since graduated…and graduated again with a master’s degree…and graduated again with a doctorate…and gotten married…and published a book of poetry…and currently she’s a guest professor at a college in Michigan.

So you can well imagine why, as I drove the few blocks from my house to the reading, I was secretly hoping she might not remember me and if she did remember me, I fervently hoped she wouldn’t ask what I was doing these days. So little has changed for me since I knew her before that I had to make sure I wore something to the reading that I didn’t own in college…I at least wanted her to know I’d purchased a new outfit here and there!

I arrived at the reading, which was filled with college students who were required to go to such things…and I remembered those days for me. Oh how I love being out of school! I walked in and amazingly enough, she spotted me before I even saw her! She ran right up and gave me a hug…so much for remaining anonymous.

The evening began, and she took her place behind the microphone and began reading from her book, and I began trying to decipher such words as convivial, fricatives, parsimonious, and stratagem. She promised during one poem that I would be able to catch a glimpse of some sort of rhyme…but truly, the only rhyme I’m smart enough to follow is in the style of Dr. Seuss. And Susanna doesn’t write about green eggs and ham, or Horton hearing a Who.

The reading ended and I had a minute or two to catch up with my friend…during which time she asked me the dreaded question of “So what have you been up to since college?” I took a deep breath and zoned in on the main accomplishment I could find – getting a house. She looked straight at me and said “Ohhhhhh I’m so jealous of that! I’m going to spend the next two years commuting every week between two states and teaching at two colleges. I would just love to have a house and settle down.”

Another one of those moments when I’m sure God was sitting there nodding and saying “See?? I try to tell you and you just don’t pay attention to Me.” Yes, yes. There I was, face to face with the published, doctorate-holding, happily-married friend of mine, and still there was something about life in Bekah-land that could hold some merit in her mind.

So I can’t write poetry. It’s okay. I made peace with that a long time ago. I’m perfectly satisfied to be able write the way I write. So I don’t have my doctorate. It’s okay. I probably have more gray hair than she does, but at least I came about it without the stress of writing a dissertation.

Before I left the reading, I purchased her book. She gets eleven cents a copy and I wanted to help the cause. I read through a few of the poems. I would have to do some serious studying to grasp even a fraction of their well-honed craft. But I am excited for her that she was able to publish this book and I’m glad to own a copy. And while she pursues teaching and publishing book number two, I’m going to enjoy my settled life in my (currently unsettled from cooking-clutter) house.