S. L. Wisenberg
Because I touched the caterpillar to see if it was still alive and it reared up. As if in pain.
Because I drowned the live frog in alcohol, knowing it wasn’t for science.
Because it was for science but I was 8 or 10 and I was not a scientist, I was trying to be a scientist, I had read the directions for suffocating and pinning butterflies but didn’t follow them.
Because I loved frogs. And butterflies and worms and what we called doodle bugs but you may call roly-polies or pill bugs or armadillo bugs. They are shiny, segmented and primitive.
Because I didn’t send the name of employees to be paid, didn’t send the names in time.
Because I was scared I had the wrong names, not enough names, I felt as if I would never get the names right, I would leave someone out or include someone who shouldn’t be paid. So I missed all of them, all of them missed a paycheck because of me. I paid them cash to make it up and only one fully reimbursed me. And I feel bad because it was my fault and the person in charge took me to an office where the person in charge there said my timing didn’t make any difference. I’m sure I feel worse than the two who still owe me money.
Because I reported a lapse. I was a whistle-blower.
Because I was in the right. But I did it for the wrong reason—for revenge. I did it for revenge. You should not do anything for revenge unless you have power. I thought smartness was the same as power. Power is more powerful. Which everyone knew but me. It was obvious.
Because I didn’t have tenure. I didn’t have a union or triple-year contract. The dean was on contract too but he was still the dean. He still is. The dean will always be the dean. A dean is forever, a monarch.
Because I tried to write about it anonymously but made so many changes to anonymize it that it was no longer me or the dean or the ethical lapse, which it turned out he didn’t understand.
Because it didn’t matter that he didn’t understand. It mattered that he was the dean.
Because I couldn’t get the copier to work.
Because they closed up the office early but I did everything too late and by impulse.
Because I’d look up new examples in the middle of class to read aloud.
Because I would grade last week’s papers while the students were writing in class. Everything at the last minute and the instructor in the next room graded that week’s papers during class, handing them back at the end of class. She gathered up her notes and books and sleek coat at the end of class, one smooth package. And was out the door.
Because she used to be my student.
Because years ago I didn’t take the job of my friend, which was offered to me, because it would mean him losing the job.
Because he still has it.
Because I didn’t apply for the full-time teaching job because I wanted part time.
Because I wanted to freelance. I believed in print, in print paying writers forever, in the thousands.
Because magazines used to pay in the thousands.
Because I haven’t been paid thousands in decades.
Because I accused the dead.
Because I told one person about this accusation. Because this person has hated me since.
Because I thought it was true.
Because that person did not respect my truth.
Because I was too harsh in telling my truth.
Because the truth is uncertain.
Because at 18 I enrolled in the wrong university. I should have gone to a college for clever, silly, political students instead of the safe bet. I should have moved to New York City after college and lived in a closet or a room the size of a closet.
Because I didn’t spend time with the lively people at that university, the theater majors. Because I was a journalism major but didn’t read newspapers. I stayed in journalism school because I would be guaranteed a job. There used to be jobs for the taking, small dailies everywhere.
Because I didn’t stay in Massachusetts that time, either.
Because I stored my furniture all over town.
Because I love the Back Bay. The buildings. Trinity Church. The New England compactness of the city. The feeling of looking at the brick, the arches, the engravings—like praying.
Because as a child I tried to teach the dachshund to ride a tricyle.
Because I still have dreams where I haven’t fed the dog in days. He has run away searching for food and water.
Because he died. We didn’t know he was sick.
Because complicated love can be so complicated it is no longer love.
Because he thought he understood me.
Because he knew my pain but not my anxiety or fear.
Because fear was what I was. What I had. What contained me.
Because I cried at the first job, mostly at lunchtime. I cried when people hung up on me, I cried when sources were harsh to me.
Because journalism offered a paycheck but also pain.
Because I didn’t stick with French.
Because I didn’t keep up my Spanish.
Because I bought her a blouse and champagne for her wedding even though I suspected she needed American dollars more and didn’t drink.
Because in Latin America many Catholics have become non-drinking Protestants.
Because I want to name my impulses the devil’s thrust.
Because I can’t get myself to bed on time.
Because there is no time anymore. There is only Zoom.
Because I think I will tell such-and-such to my grandchildren or children and I already have stepchildren and grandchildren and they are far away. They used to be close, but that was before March 2020. And we don’t have conversations like that, the ones that begin, In my day…
Because I met my husband when I was 39, just on the edge, perhaps, of fertility, and I didn’t want children of my own but I wanted to make the decision myself.
Because I wouldn’t mind being pregnant but I wouldn’t want to take care of a baby or young child or pay attention to an older child.
Because I would like to experience giving birth. My stepdaughter let me hold her leg open in the delivery room. I saw the crowning. I saw my granddaughter before she was fully born. The top of her head.
Because I still think I am young, I think I could get pregnant. I feel the same as I did when I was 25, 35.
Because when I turned 30 I thought I was old.
Because I used to calculate the age of every author with a new book, and tell myself, They are older than I am, my time will come. Now I note when an author was born after I graduated from high school. After I graduated from college. After I published my story in the famous magazine.
Because they are younger and younger.
Because I did not intend to have this life.
Because each time I work on journalism I am anxious every minute and spend too much time researching.
Because I make mistakes.
Because I am so skilled at finding others’ mistakes.
Because I was supposed to be famous. By half my age.
Because at half my age I had a story accepted by the New Yorker. I was afraid I would be hit by a car while riding my bike before the story was published. Right after it was published I was afraid people would take it the wrong way. Years after it was published I had to explain to a nice young podcaster interviewing me what the context was, what things were like among progressives in the 1980s and early 90s. US out of Central America. Reagan and Bush the elder. Iran-Contra. Protests against nuclear weapons. The old days.
Because I wasted my time on this earth.
Because I worry about my time left.
Because I ask myself, If you had one month to live, two, five years—what would you work on? What would you do? R said he wanted his tombstone to mention his friendships, not his work, and I am the opposite. But I do love my friends.
Because anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds make writing not as necessary as air.
Because who will produce my play.
Because who will read my work.
Because no one reads literary magazines these days except other writers. What's wrong with other writers? There are too many writers and not enough readers though the writers are the readers. I supposed I could think of them as readers who happen to be writers.
Because we keep producing more writers who became non-tenure-track teachers who have wobbly finances and no insurance.
Because everyone is selfish and hoping.
Because health care and housing and education are not rights in this country.
Because the race is not to the swift. The mediocre win and win and they are younger and younger.
Because my mind is my asset.
Because I am older than you. Because my mind is a relic.
Because from 2008 to 2016 I was older than the president.
Because I am afraid I will lose my mind. I am afraid my husband will lose his.
Because I am afraid I will look back and wonder why I didn’t know that right now was the good old days, despite COVID.
Because we are safe.
Because we have outdoor space and plants.
Because the pansies are still alive in August.
Because we have love and food and money.
Because we walk for two hours at night or ride our bikes, noting cast-iron columns and Italianate curlicues. The Italianate leaps into my heart.
Because we have been together one-quarter of a century and we are happy together. But I am afraid that the fear is clouding it all.
Because for decades we were in the streets and plazas protesting dictators and US policy and nuclear power and nuclear weapons and human rights US invasions and climate damage but we can’t protest now because we don’t want to get COVID. We are playing it safe.
Because we did not go into the streets when Michael Brown was shot.
Because we are playing it safe.
Because love is loss.
Because loss is not love.
Because the dean keeps his perch.
Because his wife had breast cancer, as I did, but she died.
He married again.
I don’t want him to deserve happiness.
I can’t shake off this hatred, this getting back at.
I hate the other person who was in charge more than I hate the dean. I know I am petty. I know I am a speck of dust in the history of the world and consciousness.
I tell myself living well is the best revenge. I tell myself. I tell myself that hatred, that rage, does nothing. That it turns inward, and corrodes. I know all that. I do. I know that I am rust.