You Kept Me Wanting, Wanting, Wanting

I used to imagine my teachers' lives outside of the classroom. These mystical humans with which I'd spend fifteen weeks at a time, staring at their podium-safe forms for an hour or more a day, and forced to regurgitate for the purpose of examination those truths they espoused were always the source of my adolescent curiosity. I might attach to them the kind of things I enjoyed. Hippie English teacher, Ms. Huey--the only liberal teacher in my white-bred Southern town who painted Dylan lyrics around the crown of her room--was surely a fan of decoupaging while listening to Neil Young. Or at least so thought my dreamy 16-year-old self. In fact, Ms. Huey, as I later learned, was quite the fan of wrasslin.' (Wrestling, for those who don't speak local twang.) Ms. Huey would shift her hips to face the chalkboard--a zinnia finding its hotspot--and my eyes were fixed on her trite gypsy skirts while wondering about the sort of meals she shared with her husband.

The bits of evidence I'd collect throughout weeks spent in their classrooms melded into one indiscernible vision of a person I could never fully know. The coach that taught Geography liked riding motorcycles and once took a long, mind-dulling jaunt across the state of Kansas before working as a prison guard. The Journalism teacher's husband, a local pastor at the town's largest Baptist church, nearly died when a turtle came flying through his windshield, clipping his flesh near the jugular. God bless him. There was the Chemistry teacher who had some mysterious suicide involving a swimming pool in his immediate family history. No one knew all of the details, but there was plenty of Virgin Suicides-esque conjecture surrounding the whole affair.

This obsession followed me through college and into graduate school where I obsessed over the instructors, who, though they became more accessible in their casual invites to department parties and end-of-school potlucks, still remained a mystery to me. I've been teaching for four years now, yet the student part of me can't help but wonder about the private lives of the instructors that are frustrating in their closeness while their true quirks remain cloistered behind the mores of hierarchy. Maybe it's the Southern in me, but I respect my elders and maintain boundaries between myself and those meant to instruct me.

For nearly six years, I've had the same advisor. This odd man with outmoded and politically incorrect commentary hails from an era long gone. Think of Mr. Hart in 9 to 5 without the inappropriate sexual harassment. I'm certain he might call me sweetie, though I've never felt nothing but respect for this man, who, though we've worked closely together for years, remains more a mystery to me than any other person in that department. His bad suits and lack of common sense are rendered impotent by his impeccable knowledge of the field and his eagle-eye editing skills.

I'm almost ashamed to admit the hours I've wasted hypothesizing about his musical interests, his hobbies, his sexuality, and even whether or not he has ever loved another being--animal or otherwise. Really, this man who eats the same odd lunch every day at noon--a pack of neon orange peanut butter crackers, one tin of tuna, a cheap, waxy apple, and one Halloween-sized piece of chocolate washed down with fiber-laced fountain water in a dirty mug--seemingly has no pleasure in life outside of his master discoverings of misspellings in major publications. (These instances are always revealed to me with a punctuated "Ah ha!" finger-gouging-the-air mini-celebration.)

To end here, however, is to only tell half the story. Though I might be his only fan, this socially awkward man, who deflects all of my attempts to know more about his life, has done nothing but make me feel as if I deserve this degree. I know enough to know he cares about me and my work and where I end up when it is all said and done. There are bits of evidence six years has earned me: He's Jewish, loves theatre and football equally, lifts weights regularly but hides it behind those pitiful suits, abstains from alcohol, is a crypto-Luddite in the most lovable sense, and once had a man steal books out of his office and try to re-sell them to him. I guess, for now, that's enough.

I wonder, when I'm sixty-years-old, crotchety, and tired to hell with this career, will I be the same unknowable force? I've already told you all too much as it is. I like to imagine that some student will hunt down this evidence of my existence, and it will all become clear: She liked to living room dance. She felt fat up until her late-20s, when it just didn't matter that much anymore. She listened to the same obsessive song on repeat until it made her dogs cry.