Hearth

Crumbling is not an instant’s Act

-Emily Dickinson

My relationship with education begins with writing. And a red pen. I was constantly scolded for poor grammar and spelling throughout my elementary school education. Tests, assignments, and teachers notes written in red ink wound their way around my anxieties. There was always “something wrong” and I needed to be constantly corrected. My writing was an easy target; growing up in two languages and multiple versions of English confused my sense of spelling and grammar. My mother would force me to study English during the night. I spelled words for hours filling sheets of lined paper with dark ink and tried reading book that were way too advanced for me to understand. But everything I wrote was slashed with lashes of red ink and it bothered my mother that I never made any meaningful improvements. My teachers, on the other hand, loved to talk about my potential: “He has potential. If only he would apply himself.” This conditioning wound an idea of correctness that persists inside me. Writing was never friendly; rather, it was anxious, strict, and unforgiving. 

I didn’t apply myself and little applied to me at that time.

I grew up knowing I was mediocre because of a red pen. So I chose to live with never trying, never applying myself, and never getting hurt. I decided to hide my mediocrity, from my teachers and my mother. I learned how to forge my mother’s signature—I learned how to lie. I signed all my tests, report cards, and detention slips. I was happy just getting by, skipping school, and playing video games with friends.

I took my waking slow.

Dilapidation’s processes

Are organized decays.

My mother’s first cancer diagnosis changed her. After the chemotherapy she lost a lung and stopped trying to teach me English. We spoke only in Spanish, and each night we would just watch TV together while waiting for my dad to come home from work. She had survived cancer and was happy to have more time to spend with her children.

When I was in ninth grade, her cancer returned, and she attempted another round of chemotherapy. Around the same time, I made my first real attempt at applying myself in school. In high school, I had finally become an A student. It was around this time that I started carrying notepads. They helped keep me focused on my classes. All this seemed to make my mother happy, and these little acts felt like they were all I could do for her. I could see they gave her strength.

Before the end of my first semester, she passed away. The decline was sharp from her birthday in December to the day she died in January. Those last few weeks she didn’t have the energy to speak or eat, and my family was exhausted from the at-home care. The day she was admitted to the hospital, we sat for hours with her, clinging to her every breath as they grew further apart. She died that night and when we finally returned home, I left for school.

From that moment on, I became obsessed with staying in school. I got involved in any extracurricular that would take me. And I choose to walk away from the friends I grew up with. A year ago, we were just kids playing video games and skipping school. Now, they had girls, alcohol, and drugs. We took different paths. I did everything I could to stay away from who I once was.

Music became very important to me. It was a class that I naturally excelled at and there was lots to do after school. I remember my mother used to sit in the crowd during my performances. I continued to make music so I could run away from those feelings. After band practices, when everyone was gone, I’d just walk around collecting left behind pens and pencils. I carried everything in my backpack. When I left that hospital room, I felt I could only move forward. If my life didn’t start as soon as possible, I’d miss out on being happy.

In my last year of high school, I faced failure in my private and professional life. Rather than taking responsibility for my mistakes, I walked away. Senioritis, anticipation, and university acceptances were on everyone’s mind. I had my ticket out, and I couldn’t look back at the mess I left behind. I was on a fast track and heading to Wilfrid Laurier University for Economics and Accounting. My school mascot graduated from a silver hawk to a golden hawk. I had my trusty notebooks and stolen pens in hand. It really felt like nothing could stop me.

Ruin is formal […]

Consecutive and slow—

Fail in an instant, no man did

Slipping—is Crash’s law.

I failed out of WLU after my second semester. I didn’t keep up with my school work. Bad habits compound when you’re away from home. I stopped writing. I never studied or worked on assignments. I stopped carrying around that notebook. Instead, I spent hours during the day playing video games with online friends. I would fall asleep during lectures. Drink every weekend. Once, I rushed a fraternity to gain access to the Economics test banks. That didn’t help because I refused to study. And my part-time work at Costco only helped to fund food and alcohol. I tried to do too much without doing the bare minimum. I remember watching my grades slipping—Crash’s law—and thinking there was nothing I could do about it. It felt like the world was ending and all I could do was hope I could survive the crash.

I didn’t tell anyone about what was happened. I lied to everyone around me. I couldn’t let anyone know I needed help. So selfish, I couldn’t even share my failure, my crash. I was surrounded by people—some of the most intelligent and talented people—but I chose not to communicate. At the same time, I was hurting those I cared about most.

My family didn’t know a thing until I landed in BC in the summer and the purple envelope from WLU arrived. I spent four months in BC doing repetitive office work. My father and new stepmom drove across Canada to pick me up. I greeted them with frustration and contempt. My dad didn’t scold me—he just held me. I wish I could tell you that I apologized to him, that I broke down crying—but I was an ungrateful passenger all the way home. I hadn’t been home for a year and when we got there, I found the open purple envelope. The letter stated I was expelled, under academic probation…(“if only he would apply himself”…). The transcript littered with failing grades hurt me. It hurt to think about what I had done. It hurt to think about how my father must have felt seeing his only son fail.

I decided to concoct a plan to sneak my way back into academia. I was adamant about returning to school. No matter what. I needed to get back in, to prove to everyone that I wasn’t going to continue to be a failure. I started attending Seneca College for their Arts and Science University Transfer Program. I lied to them about my first year at WLU and by-passed that one-year of academic probation. I supplemented my tuition with a new part time job at a cigar and barbershop in my hometown. I lied to get the job. I had never smoked a cigar before, but I applied myself and learn enough to impress the manager. Yes, my mother died of lung cancer, and there I was working for Death at a rate of $14 an hour. But I began a new era in my life, and I was committed to destroying who I had almost become.

A fundamental pause

I started writing again. During my time at the cigar shop I would spend hours writing notes on cigars and baber products. The shop became my second home. Being the youngest employee there, I felt like I always had something to prove. I needed to be the most knowledgeable, most reliable employee. I believed the cigar shop would be my stepping-stone to bigger and better things. I needed to make something out of my time there. But I just became their best employee.

I was once proud of who I had become to them. I was the kind of salesman you saw on television dressed up in a collared shirt with perfectly styled hair. I did everything I could to keep their business open and busy.

I got good at selling cigars, and I started to see myself as the enemy. Inside, I stopped caring about the prestige, connoisseurship, and camaraderie. Secretly, I hoped people would quit smoking, stop coming, and spend their time and money on more important things. Instead, I sat there breathing in their problems and second-hand smoke. We were slowly killing each other. I couldn’t reconcile with what I had done. My writing dimmed into something darker filled with criticism and self-loathing.

So, I quit. Not the job but smoking. I realized I was using lies to protect myself. I won’t pretend like a few years of smoking makes me a recovering addict or something. But I do understand the cravings, the need for more. We all have these bottomless pits in our chests where we throw all the things we don’t want or need. Some of us have small holes, others bigger holes. But they’re all bottomless, it seems, and can never be filled. I should say here that I didn’t actually quit right away. It took me time to find the courage to stand up to my clients, my coworkers, my friends, and myself.

Sometimes, I miss those quiet days where I could sit outside the shop on a warm summer day reading Kurt Vonnegut novels. Is it odd that I feel nostalgic looking back?

T’is first a Cobweb on
the Soul

A Cuticle of Dust

A Borer in the Axis

An Elemental Rust—

At Seneca, I found a meaningful way to apply myself thanks to one of my instructors. His lessons and enthusiasm cemented my pursuit of a writing degree. I became obsessed with understanding my own writing, what it meant to me, and what it could mean to others. I read a variety of novels for different English courses at Seneca, but Frankenstein changed my life. For the first time, I applied myself to a book. I was in the book, within the book. I had different colour pens, and I would underline all the different themes I found in the novel. Shelley’s writing does so much with so little. Her words, rich with meaning and story, encapsulate the shifting ideologies between the period of Enlightenment and Romanticism. Frankenstein is timeless. It, too, is a story of education. And Shelley was my Prometheus. Her warm words—and warning—rekindled my love of writing. As I tussled and toiled with my Frankenstein essay for hours and hours, my instructor was patient with me and helped organize my thoughts. In those moments I learned that I cared about writing. That I cared about myself.

I made a monster out of something that wanted to better my life. The red pen was more than just wounds. I failed to understand what rejecting it did to my writing and myself. These cobwebs spun and wound themselves because I refused to learn from my mistakes, and everything I left behind.

What I needed wasn’t to embark on a new journey. It was to revisit the one I had failed to finish. The trail of crumbs and ashes were right there. This time I had the courage and responsibility to look back. I decided I wouldn’t let the circumstances I found myself in define who I was going to be and become. Writing would allow me to alter and transform my story.

So, I wrote the transformation at the edge of academia. My time at Seneca was ending. Every moment was necessary to cement what I wanted from my life. In that fundamental pause, I chose to pursue writing; The path to better myself. You see, success—whatever that means—distances us from what is most inward in ourselves. It distances us from everything, really. I know nothing about success, but I learned a lot about starting over. And this is the most important part in getting t/here.

I was re-beginning what was left behind in my self-destructive attitude. I picked up the red pen. Yes, it wounded me. But I didn’t need it for “correction”.

I need it for revision and a fresh set of pages.

This is page one.

Works Cited:

Poem By Emily Dickinson (1890)

Crumbling is not an instant’s Act

A fundamental pause

Dilapidation’s processes

Are organized Decays—

‘Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul

A Cuticle of Dust

A Borer in the Axis

An Elemental Rust—

Ruin is formal—Devil’s work

Consecutive and slow—

Fail in an instant, no man did

Slipping—is Crash’s law.

Yuwai Brian Wong is a Professional Writing student. He is passionate about learning and hopes to find purpose through his work. In his spare time, Brian enjoys playing and listening to all genres of music. 

hearth

I know nothing about success, but I learned a lot about starting over.

Yuwai Brian Wong is a Professional Writing student. He is passionate about learning and hopes to find purpose through his work. In his spare time, Brian enjoys playing and listening to all genres of music.