Adult Learning

“Janice Harper?” My head jerked up, just over the rim of the desk, and I froze with one hand holding the book of short stories I was stuffing into my satchel and the other flat on the table for balance, my butt half on and half off the seat, my back horizontal to the floor. I looked over my left shoulder. She was seven rows forward, scanning the barracks-style classroom like a drill sergeant.

The room had erupted into its “day is done” rhapsody as my name rang out. Students – all teenagers, except me – were throwing backpacks over their shoulders, laughing, talking, shoving and moving with an energy no one could have predicted based on in-class participation. They were enrolled in Canadian Literature 101 because it was a prerequisite for university transfer; I was enrolled to avoid bathing and bedding two kids on Wednesday nights. Act your age. You’re an adult, a wife, a mother, a university grad, and the past president of the Tynehead PTA; she’s a community college instructor, tired, humorless, near retirement. I regained vertical alignment and aimed for insouciance. My arm jerked to half mast and my voice rose two octaves, as if I wasn’t certain I was me: “Here?”

Miss Livingston (the title she preferred) was holding a sheaf of lined legal paper, folded length-wise and neatly labeled in ink with the name and number of the course, the title of the assignment, a student’s name and a date. Locked now on my location, she came fast down the aisle. Oh shit… it doesn’t matter, lady. This isn’t a prerequisite to anything for me. I don’t have anywhere to go next — I don’t have a next. She stopped beside my desk and placed the paper precisely in the center of the scuffed, beige, Formica rectangle. I darted a glance. My name and a grade. Something plus – was that an F? Is F+ a grade?

“Ms. Harper,” she began with no preamble and little expression. “Are you a writer?” I bent closer — A+. She’s really nice, I decided. Release-of-anxiety laughter bubbled.

“Oh no, I’m just here for a rest. I mean — I trained as a physiotherapist and didn’t take any arts subjects but now I’m home with the kids and going a bit crazy so I decided to take a course to get out of the house and just do something different but I’ve never done a summary thesis before so I just followed the instructions you put on the board…”

Ignoring the non sequiturs, she persisted. “What do you write?”

“Well, nothing…” At her look my back straightened and I dug deeper. “Letters? I write letters. Our friends and families are all back East and I write to them – just newsy letters to friends and my in-laws and my parents and my sister.”

“How often do you write these letters?”

“Three or four a week? But I don’t really write. I mean, I don’t write stories or anything, I’m not a writer.” Was that a smile? Why is she smiling?

“Yes you are.”

Branded. Yes. You. Are. Yes… you are. Yesyouare. Yes-you-are. Miss Livingston was still talking.  “…some creative writing courses next.” Then I was smiling too, like a giddy child who didn’t think her turn on the Ferris wheel would ever come. Next…  I have a next.