Feels Like Home to Me

I was at Target the other day when I heard someone walking towards me say, “Hi. Ms. Trevino.” I looked over to see a couple approaching me. The guy, the one who seemed to know me, had a wide smile on his face. He looked familiar, but I still wasn’t 100% certain who he was. However, calling me Ms. Trevino told me that he was either an old student or a law professor. Since he seemed to be in his mid-twenties, I decided on the former.

Still being unsure of who he was but not wanting to hurt his feelings, I smiled and said hello. He looked at his companion and said, “This is Ms. Trevino. She was my very first professor in my very first college class ever! I was too dumb to know better than to register for English 1301 at 8 am.”

Student. 8 am class. My mind hazily started going through a mental roladex of hundreds of students.

To buy myself some time, I reminded him that if he was in a Triad then his schedule was probably out of his hands so he was unlucky rather than dumb. They laughed about that and his companion eventually called him Taylor.

Taking a chance I said, “Taylor, didn’t you write a paper about how your grandfather died of lung cancer and that’s why you were against cigarette smoking? And you and your high school football team started some kind of anti-smoking campaign at your high school, right?”

It was then that the flood of memories began. I told him that I thought he sat immediately to the left of my workstation area, and he exclaimed that he did and began laughing. He was astonished that I remembered those details. I explained that he was in the first class I had ever taught at the university, and that I was probably as nervous as he was the first day. He said he remembered thinking I was a student when I walked in. We went on to exchange pleasantries and then said goodbye.

How was I able to make these connections? The personal essay. Although I had a bumpy first semester of teaching and deciding what types of writing assignments to give my students, I always included some form of the personal essay. It didn’t take me long to learn that personal writing, although difficult for some, was the best way to get students interested in writing. Especially when students were arguing over never needing to write because they had chosen X as a career path, personal essays made the craft of writing relevant. Personal writing made putting pen to paper, hands to keyboard, and ideas to paragraphs more enjoyable for the students. My goal was always to get students to WANT to be in school rather than see it as a chore to be endured.

For me, I was able to learn more about each student as a person. When Olivia didn’t show up to class on time, I knew it was because her parents had died and she was raising her two younger siblings and had to take them to school. When Denise didn’t show up to class for days, I wondered if her baby might be sick. I remembered what it was like for my mom to be a single mother so things must be tough on her as a single mother and college student. Sun’s explanation of the censorship and oppression he faced when growing up in South Korea allowed me to give him time to open up and then eventually appreciate his candor as an ultimate success. Knowing that Justin had parents who were both deaf helped me not be so annoyed when he talked my ear off during most classes.

The personal essay isn’t always viewed as a valid or challenging form of writing. In fact, putting your own thoughts, feelings, and life into words and allowing someone else to enter that very private place is one of the most difficult forms of writing there is.

With the personal, you can’t hide; you become vulnerable.

"If you are so panicked by any examination of your flaws that all you can do is sputter defensively when you feel yourself attacked, you are not going to get very far in the writing of personal essays. You need to be able to see yourself from the ceiling. The point is to begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a specific, legible character." ~Philip Lopate

I’ve learned to embrace that vulnerability, and I tried to create a relationship of trust with my students so that they would trust me with those stories and allow some exposure, as well. Letting down our defenses isn’t always the easiest task – especially not at 18 years old. In time, they did trust me and sometimes even trusted someone else in class enough to allow peer review of their writing. When you learn to celebrate your stories rather than hold them close, you allow yourself to be remembered by that college professor who has encountered hundreds of students and might not remember you if your anti-smoking paper was based solely on mainstream ideas and opinions.