Unseen Blessings (26)

I decided awhile ago I'd allow myself to write about other kinds of new things here, new things outside the usual realm, but I haven't put this to practice until now. Earlier in the semester, I found out I wasn't going to get to teach my creative writing course next spring. I'd taught it for three straight spring terms, and I'd hoped to keep quietly getting to do so. But it turned out one of the full-timers decided to teach it online, so there I went. My new thing is I didn't get angry about it, didn't go to any bitter place I might have visited with ease. (I let myself acknowledge the parts that were crummy without getting caught up in the resentments.) And I resisted my urge to push down my fears about losing a class, to turn away my sadness over the loss. Instead I cried as though my heart were breaking, maybe for a minute, maybe two, sinking to my knees on the kitchen floor. Then I did a little letting go of money fears, my familiar ritual.

I turned my thoughts to the unknown reasons I may not be teaching the class, to that silver lining waiting to be revealed. I wrote an electronic Post-It on my desktop. "Do the English 18 dance." I was going to celebrate my loss with its unseen blessings. Then I found out I would not regain my English 1A from Santa Rosa in the spring, and somewhere in there, not connected to any of this is a conscious way, I made a commitment to myself to complete my two books by the end of next summer. Now I only have to teach 12 units next semester, and I dream of all the writing work I can do. I dream of those two manuscripts finished by the end of July, of each project a complete whole, something I can hold in my hands, begin to polish and hone. Unseen blessings, indeed. My desktop Post-It is still there. But now I have in mind a bigger dance.