A week after the Cruise, back in Raleigh, on a Saturday night I began to feel an ache in my right side.  Familiar, the ache had a familiar feel; something from the shadow of my past.  I went to bed and awoke to searing, jabbing pain moving through my right side. 

     It’s serious when it hurts to breathe, but I thought I knew what was going on, so I went to Mission Valley CupAJoes for breakfast.  I looked terrible, bent over, walking like a zombie, sometimes gasping for air.  Looking at me with alarm in his eyes, I had to assure Dave that I was not dying. I got coffee, juice and a breakfast sandwich.  I ate.  Then, I made my way to the emergency room.  In constant pain, I was under the watchful eyes of Dr. Pleasant.

       Yep, I am not making that up; Dr. Pleasant.  When this young, white woman introduced herself, I looked up at her and said nothing.  Despite the pain I was in, I smiled.  She said, “I know… you can’t make this stuff up.”

     For the next five hours, I was under the care of Dr. Pleasant and her nurses.  I thought I knew what was going on, but because I have had a blood clot with pulmonary embolism in the past, many tests had to be run. Blood was drawn, EKG, nuclear breathing tests of my lungs to search for a blood clot.  

     No matter because I was kept by the good company of the atmosphere of Elizabethan London, the School of Night, Matthew, a thousand year old Vampire, Diana, his wife, who is a modern day woman and scholar, who is also learning that she is the kind of Witch who spins time. I was reading the second book in Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy. The first book was “A Discovery of Witches,” a compelling, multilayered, metaphysical-historical fiction. 

 

     After reading and being overtaken by that discovery of witches in the summer of 2011, I was upset to realize that “A Discovery of Witches” was part of a trilogy and that the second book was not due for another year.  Now summer 2012, the second book, “Shadow of Night,” is published and the story has blown me away.  No it is not the kind of book that stops real physical pain. I have never found such a book. But yes it is the kind of book that helps you hold pain at bay by giving you a delicious story on which to concentrate. 

     

    Diana and Matthew have gone back in time to search of an ancient text that might explain the origin of creatures (Witches, Vampires, Daemons). Imagine being in Elizabethan London in the company of Christopher Marlowe (a daemon), Walter Raleigh (a human), walking the rough, muddy, streets of that London, and meeting royalty because your husband, your Vampire is a spy for the queen. He is Shadow.

     Imagine too that it is in this time you have available to you a cadre of witches (Goody Alsop being one) who can teach you about your powers and your true identity as a creature.  And imagine too the possibility of a child conceived of the union of a powerful, unexpectedly humane (yet to be feared) vampire Matthew and the modern witch-woman Diana he truly loves.  It is Matthew, the Vampire, who speaks of what a child needs.  He says: “All a child needs is love, an adult to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.” 

     No wonder that Diana is drawn to him. No less because of her own fierce, independent spirit. Diana is a scholar in search of ancient secrets, and she is possibly one of the most unique witches of all time. 

     Now you’ve got yourself a story, an adventure, and one that is in the hands of a true writer and storyteller.  Pain or no, that’s good company.

     Oh, about that pain. I was right. Pleurisy.  Look it up.

    Sometime in April (2012), I got a call from Phillip, my “…little brother.” 

   “I have a question,” he said.   “Ok…” I said.

    “Well, I have talked to Elinor and J.C., Carlos and Tresha, and they all have agreed to go on a cruise in June.  What about you?”

    “A cruise?” I said.

    “Yeah, five days, leaving Jacksonville.  So how about you?

    My brother Phillip knows me.  After all we have always been brothers.  And although I say he is my “…little brother,” he is 58 years old.  That’s how long he has been my “…little” brother.  So Phillip knows me and knows my tendency to be fine being by myself. In other words, he set me up.  He asked everybody else first, and once they agreed asked me “…well, what about you?”  He set me up.

     Phillip and his ten year old son, Phillip II, had worked it all out.  The two of them had researched the cruise, chosen the Cruise liner and Cruise ship, as well as choosing the proposed dates to coincide with the beginning of summer and for me the end of my semester.  That is how it came to pass that on June 4, 2012, we boarded the Carnival Fascination for a five day cruise with a stop in Key West and one in the Bahamas.

      Let me tell you we had a good time.  The two Phillips had planned this very well.

 

     The two Phillips had a suite, with a large balcony.  On the same deck level, Elinor, our sister, her husband J.C. had a room that adjoined the room shared by their adult children Tresha and Carlos, which also had a balcony.  I was on another deck level with an ocean view window.  So the ocean was ever present.

     Phillip and I both served in the U.S. Navy with duty aboard ships that stopped in ports around the world.  He and I were not interested, and did not ever get off this Cruise ship.  For us, it was about being again on the ocean, out on the big water that mattered most.  Everybody else got off at the ports of call.  Phillip and I stayed onboard the ship and talked to each other as brothers, about events in our lives that we had never discussed with each other.  We discovered that we had the same psychological experience on our first cruise; being on the big water the first time felt like finding our place in the world; a place with nothing but adventures to be lived.

     What a time the family had on this five day cruise.  We sometimes had lunch together, but we always had dinner together.  Before dinner we would gather in the suite of the two Phillips and sip wine, talk, tell stories on each other and on our now dead parents (grandparents to some in the room). On the dress-up dinner night, we had a little celebration for Elinor and J.C. to honor their fiftieth wedding anniversary.  Fifty (50) years of marriage!

  

    When we weren’t together, we did our own thing.  Me, I was in my room reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63.  What would you do if you found a way to go back in time?  Would you try to change history by stopping some awful event?  If you did try to go back to stop that event would doing so be easy? If you fought through the hard parts, changed history, would the change work out for the better?

    Up to this point, the only book of Stephen King’s I had read was his masterpiece, “On Writing.”  I just was not attracted to his novels since they were all horror.  Yet I wanted to read something of his because of two movies made based on his fiction writing, “The Shawshank Redemption,” and “The Green Mile.” I was intrigued because those two movies told a story, were about something, and were filled with the poetry of life.

      When I came across his novel, 11/22/63, I was drawn to it because I was a teenager in Louisiana when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Not only that, but my father was a local, grass-roots politico and staunch supporter of Kennedy in the hope that he would lead the federal government to improve the situation for black people in America.  King’s novel was about changing what happened; preventing the assassination of one of our most important Presidents.

    I have so many things to say about reading King’s novel while on this cruise.  First King’s book is a master class on how to write a compelling, can’t put down, intelligent, thought-provoking novel. Every detail brought up was used to strong effect in the novel, somewhere, and usually after you had forgotten the detail.  Second, King’s research on Lee Harvey Oswald and that time in America is impeccable.  Third, I found out King is a romantic in the best sense of that word; a believer that there is hope in what we try to do, hope even if we fail, and hope for the relationships we are willing to really work for.

     In his novel, King reminds us, if not teaches us that time is obdurate; resistant to change.  Time will fight you.  But dancing is life.

     During the cruise I read for hours every day. All twenty-four hours a day, the ocean was under me, dancing.

    At the end of the Spring-2012 semester, as graduation approached, I started to get thank you notes and cards. 

      I really don’t think these are necessary, but students give them to me no matter what I think.  May, 2012 the notes and cards began to come to me.  But this year was a little different.  This year, many of the notes gave a summary of what the student felt was so important in my teaching that they would never forget.  A number of students summarized what they thought the important lessons were from my teaching.

     For me it was interesting to read these summaries of the basic lessons students got from my introduction to social psychology-interpersonal relationships class. Since the course is really a course on what it takes to build and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships, what my students said they learned had to do with that.

 P.R., a male wrote:

     “During the last semester of my senior year I expected to be burnt out and want to leave campus by 4:30pm after three hours of class, but I find myself excited and ready for your class every Tuesday and Thursday at that time.  Everybody has internal struggles and questions about who they are and their role in the social world.  Those questions cause insecurity in students that can stick with them the rest of their life and affect them greatly.  You help us answer the one question; “I’ve had so many relationships fall apart in my life; how do I maintain a healthy, positive relationship?”  It’s easy; be honest (to yourself and others), take your time, go slowly, don’t rush things, and listen to other people.  Thank you so much.  I plan to take this knowledge with me forever.”

    One student was insistent that she had something to give me.  Whatever it was, she was unwilling to put it in my mailbox.  When we were finally able to meet this summer, she gave me a thank-you card.  She thanked me in person.  After she left my office, I opened the card and found these words.  She wrote:

 Dr. Nacoste,

     Where do I even begin?  I took Psy 311 (your course) in Spring 2010- best class ever.  I learned so much:

 1.      People do not just spring into existence just because I get interested.

2.      Long distance relationships are always at risk of failing.

3.      You have to work through interpersonal conflict if you want the relationship to work.

4.      Don’t take people for granted because anyone can ‘…walk the hell away.’

     I want to thank you for everything.  Sincerely, G.M.

    Even for me, this particular semester, the classroom experience had been powerful. Through the questions they asked, the way they asked their questions, I could feel my students digging into the lessons; really learning, really changing.  I was convinced of that by what happened after the final exam. 

     By email, a young woman asked for an appointment before she left for the summer.  We set it up and she came to my office, right on time.  When she came in I recognized her from the classroom.  She sat down and said,

     “I want to thank you. I have so much to say that I put it in a letter,” she said.

     “A letter, really?” I said.  I expected her to hand it to me.

    “Yes… and I’d like to read it to you.”

     “Oh… well, please go ahead.” I leaned back into my office chair.

     She unfolded what looked like two sheets of paper.  She started, “Dr. Nacoste…”

     At that beginning she burst into tears.  I searched in my desk drawer and pulled out the packet of tissues I have learned to keep around.  I handed her the packet.

     “That’s why I wrote it all down, because I knew I would be emotional.”

     “I see,” I said and waited.

     “Dr. Nacoste,” she began again.

     …I have to admit your class surprised me.  I thought I knew what I was getting into because I had so many friends who had taken your class and could not stop talking about how wonderful it was. I knew that you were a highly respected teacher. I knew I would love the class, but I didn’t expect to take away so much from it.

     There were so many days where you would say something and it would just hit me.  I wrote about one of those days in my (one new thought) paper.  I had been in a three-year relationship that was not working.  I was miserable, but I stayed.  Thanks to your class I left.  I walked the hell away. I realized that I can still reevaluate my relationship [with my own standards], much like my boyfriend had when he cheated on me, except I could handle things a little bit differently.  I could just leave… so I did.

     I was angry for a long time.  I was angry that the person who was supposed to love me had cheated on me.  I was angry that this wasn’t the first time this had happened to me.  I was mad that my dad told me from the day I turned sixteen that every man would cheat on me… and then they did.

     So this brings me back to what I took away from your class.  What surprised me most?

     Forgiveness and hope.

     I figured out that most of my misery was coming from the fact that I was mad all of the time.

     Over the course of your class I learned what might have motivated people to act the way they did and it was not their ‘selfish, mean, inconsiderate ways.’ You taught us, ‘everyone is fighting a great battle.’ Just as I explain my own behavior in situational terms, so does everyone else. Everyone has something going on. Many times we do not mean to hurt anyone, but we do.

      I realized that my ex probably wasn’t lying when he said, ‘I never meant to hurt you.’ There were times that I hurt him without meaning to and I see that now.  The pain from this failing relationship was not only affecting me. 

     After talking to my father about how much he had hurt me by telling me every man would cheat on me, he told me he was trying to protect me from getting hurt the way he had when he suspected his ex-wife was cheating on him.  I never knew that.

     I will probably never speak to my ex again, but I forgive him.  I cannot hate a person for having natural incompatibilities with me.  We both made mistakes, but we both deserve to be happy.  I also forgave myself for the mistakes I had made.  I have humps on my back, but who doesn’t.  We’re human.

     I also hope that one day I will be in a healthy relationship with a person I trust. I had given up on that dream for a long time, but in one of your lectures you said, ‘…we will all be in relationships with people we should not have trusted but that does not mean we should give up.  When you give up you cripple yourself.’ This quote sticks with me every day now.

     Thank you so much for making me open my eyes.

     I would also like to thank you for being an amazing teacher. I have never seen a teacher who could present anything the way you can.  The way you relate the material to real life, incorporate music and poetry into lectures, and give the subject emotion is absolutely incredible.  Thank you for taking the time and effort to make your class the way it is.

     You said on the first day if we wanted to keep our ‘…naïve, romantic ideas about love,’ that we should drop your class. I’m glad you took those ideas away from me because now I realize that when you look at relationships realistically, they are HARD. It takes a lot to make one work.  There are so many things influencing the dyad that it’s amazing to me that any relationship can last for so long. That’s also what makes it more magical and incredible than any fairytale.

     Thank you for making me see this.  Thank you for everything.

     W.C.

        Throughout her reading of her incredible letter to me, every now and then W.C. had wiped away some tears. When W.C. finished reading her letter, we both sat quiet for moment. 

     “I am without words,” I said.

     “Thank you for letting me read this to you.  This was very important to me.  Thank you for everything.”

     We both stood.  I opened my arms and she came to me like a daughter.  We released each other and said our goodbyes.

    Teaching about relationships is a hell of thing.

     With that, Summer 2012 was starting for me.