The Daily Write: Paradoxical (September 6, 2012)

Paradoxical

He wrote about my "perspicuous" transitions. I was impressed, although I had to look it up. Actually, I still do. I never remember what it means, but I always remember how it makes me feel. He was a tough teacher, Alan. He would hold the door closed if a student was late so they couldn't get in, and during lectures, pace around our small table breathing into the space over our heads and at our backs.

I once got up and paced along with him, never being the kind to accept power for its own sake.

The class was 1/2 Marxist Economics and 1/2 Method Acting. Really. And both were hard. For the former, we read tomes and wrote papers I'd have a hard time explaining now. Not without looking up words and concepts. I used Jaggar's Feminist Politics and Human Nature as my primary text and felt smart for doing so. I kept the book for years afterwards to marvel at my own notes in pink and blue on almost every page, in the margins, underlines, across the top. And the latter, we rehearsed, hard. He critiqued, forced that fourth wall up so we couldn't see through it, and demonstrated his own prowess by having us all come up to Ft. Lewis to watch him perform a lead in Death Trap.

Alan wasn't a particular funny man, and he was hard pressed to laugh at himself, which made him more difficult. His seriousness permeated everything he did and he expected the same from all of his students. But, we were a special group, drawn to this odd combination of theory and practice, and we kept up.

When I started college with only a G.E.D., I felt inferior. When I made it through Alan's class with a great evaluation and Marxist theory falling out of my mouth with ease, I felt smart and accomplished. He may have been an asshole, but he was a bad ass and I was better for it.

per·spic·u·ous/pərˈspikyo͞oəs/

Adjective:

(of an account or representation) Clearly expressed and easily understood; lucid. (of a person) Able to give an account or express an idea clearly.