Teaching is a privilege like aging but, like aging, it is not for the faint of heart. Last week, at the start of a new adult writing class I was waiting for my students to arrive when the door opened and a young man and an older woman entered, the young man clearly agitated, hitting himself, and making noises that were, honestly, very like a wounded animal. In short order I discovered his companion was his aide and she was extremely reluctant to provide me with any information about her charge except to state he was a genius and a writer. I had yet to meet any of my students and wondered how I was going to manage to help/teach/contain this person while providing attention and information to the rest. Somehow, with the help of my kind students, this person calming down, and my own experience with crazy situations, we managed.

"When we finished with our laps, we hoist ourselves up out of the pool, dripping and refreshed, our equilibrium restored, ready to face another day on land." ―Julie Otsuka, The Swimmers

I was hiking in the woods up here when I heard on the drive home that a person I knew a long time ago was about to release a book, a sequel to an earlier book. I was flung back to my experience as a writer for the magazine that he edited. His reputation was bad, one of those '80s-era men who saw any woman as prey no matter how inappropriate the situation. I received a dream assignment from him, which would have been a cover story. The subject was basically the end of the sexual revolution, an era I had lived through but sadly did not find anything revolutionary. There was just the expectation that you would sleep with someone no matter how brief the encounter; no one took you on dates, and when someone said anything vaguely romantic, it was a tool to achieve a goal of meaningless sex.