My early twenties were the most difficult years of my life. I was fresh out of college. I had no direction, no desire to do much of anything. Everything I did, thought, wrote, saw, or heard had a pointlessness that I could neither get beyond nor ignore. I had originally thought that I wanted to become a professor of Religion. I went to Harvard Divinity School right after college. It was the natural, knee-jerk thing to do, as I had been going to school for sixteen years straight.
It became apparent that Div school wasn't going to work. I became ensorcelled by Greek and Latin, but I found at Harvard that the shepherds had become too much like the sheep. The sheep didn't care much about language mastery, just about "religion." It didn't matter that the texts upon which that religion was based were written in those languages.
I spent a year at the Div school, then withdrew. I applied to be a special student at the Yard in Classics, but was summarily rejected. No surprise, really. The true shock came when I was told by the secretary of the head of Harvard's Classics department - the secretary, mind you, not even the head, himself - that it was a bit late and I was a tad old to be getting into Classics. At another time and place, I would have told her what I thought of both the assessment and its author. But it wasn't.
Yeah, I was "too old".
An ancient 22.
Over the hill, but not picking up speed.
As an aside, St. Ignatius Loyola didn't start studying Latin until he was 33. All the lowly Loyola did was to found the Society of Jesus and play a key role in the Catholic Counter Reformation.
(I did eventually get my ph.d. at the University of Pennsylvania.
At the tender age of 34.)
It was just as well. I was riding on intellectual empty. I had been going to school for too long: grade school, high school, college, grad school.
Seventeen years straight.
It was definitely time for a break.
I still wasn't listening.
I began a Classics M.A. at Boston College. Prof. Emily Vermeule was good enough to recommend me for a spot there. But it was not to be.
A month into the term, I'd had it.
I took that euphemistically named "leave of absence" from the program at B.C.
I remember walking down Massachusetts Avenue in Allston where I was living, thinking, My God, what have I done? I might never go back to academia again.
It was terrifying.
It was the right thing to do.
I had to do something else.
Something completely...Other.
So I did.
I volunteered for the Boston Chapter of NOW, and then worked for Carla Johnston, the only woman who was running for Congress in the 8th congressional district. Tip O'Neill was finally stepping down.
Alas, Carla didn't win.
She didn't even have a prayer.
How could she?
There was a Kennedy in the race, even if his ego and his understanding of the world were inversely proportionate to one another - heavy on the ego.
As I said, I was living in Boston, specifically in Allston.
And it was here that I learned an amazing lesson.
From a plant.
My apartment was pretty nice, aside from (or next to) the roaches. With it came a plant which the previous owner had thoughtfully left for me. Or had simply forgotten.
I had no idea what to do with a plant.
I'd never really had one.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
So I just let it sit there, a soon to be no longer living memorial to my directionless existence.
The plant's leaves died, and so, seemingly, did it.
I could relate.
Then one day, I decided, What the heck, I'll water the plant.
Yes, it needed it. But I think I needed it more.
And besides, I had nothing to lose.
And everything.
A few days went by, a week, a month.
I kept up my daily ministrations.
I even got a spray bottle so I could keep its leaves moist.
And the plant - an English Ivy, I think - came back to life.
And began to grow.
And grow. And grow.
When I finally left Boston for my first teaching job, the plant was lush, its vines tumbling over the sides of its pot to the floor seven feet below, an emerald cascade.
I had never felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment.
But it was more than that.
I myself was pivotal in the turn around of this plant's life.
I mattered.
And in the simple act of giving this living thing the chance to grow, I had done the same thing for myself.
I did not then fathom the plant's gift to me. Nor did I see how great a role it played in my quest for the meaning of meaning. I didn't even know I was on a quest.
That plant may not have been key in my becoming a teacher. But it was instrumental in my staying one.
As I said. I didn't know then.
Now I do.
"Give and thou shalt receive."