Six-word Saturday

Back in school—and loving it!

Last April, some of my poet friends told me about a wonderful free poetry course offered through Coursera, Modern & Contemporary American Poetry. I checked it out and signed up right away, and I'm looking forward to its start in September. I also signed up for some other great courses, and this week I began my first one, History of Rock, Part 2. I'm really enjoying the lectures and the discussions. It's been many years since I graduated with my master's degree—seventeen, actually. Yikes!—but I've always missed being in school, and now it's great to be back!

 

Have you ever taken a Coursera course? Would you?
 

Wishing you all a happy Saturday. ☺

 

Z is for Zenith

Once upon a time, there was a television--a Zenith, to be exact. It was a small TV, but it served a big purpose: entertaining Dana the College Student. It spent its days on a much-too-big TV stand in her much-too-small dorm room, dutifully fulfilling its destiny.

Television-watching freedom at last!
Image courtesy of Rebecca Merrett,
rgbstock.com

I loved that little thirteen-inch Zenith. My parents had bought it for me around Christmas time of my senior year. They had given me a choice between a microwave and a television, but there really was no contest. I figured I could always go to the cafeteria for meals or eat cereal or ramen noodles cooked in my hot pot in my room. What I couldn't always do was watch what I wanted to on the floor's one TV. There was just too much competition, and unless I wanted to wrestle for my right to watch Beverly Hills, 90210, I knew it was best to steer clear of the common room.

Looking back, I'm surprised I managed to get any homework done once I started sharing my single with the Zenith. I guess it helped that I didn't have cable and was able to pick up only one network, NBC. Still, NBC featured some great programming back in the "olden" days of 1993 and 1994, and I remember watching Seinfeld, ER, Mad About You, and F•R•I•E•N•D•S--all great shows that I still love today.

After I graduated from college, I packed up my TV and went on to graduate school. That tiny TV looked even smaller in my brand-new apartment, but it remained a treasured possession. In fact, I guess you could say I had formed a sentimental attachment to that Zenith. Did I refuse to go out with my friends in favor of staying home with my TV? Of course not. I'm sentimental, not antisocial. Still, that TV had been with me through a lot: it had helped me stay awake during all-night cram sessions, consoled me after fights with boyfriends, helped take my mind off worries that would threaten to keep me from sleep... I used to say that I had two possessions I would do my best to rescue if there was ever a fire: my Skylark and my Zenith, both of which offered me a much-needed escape from life whenever I needed it.

But one day I noticed that the Zenith wasn't working as well as it once had. It turned fickle at the worst possible moments--like during the many but crucial "Will-this-patient-live-or-die" scenes on ER. Sometimes it displayed a picture but had no sound; sometimes there was sound but no picture. I feared I was losing it (the TV, not my mind, although I have friends who would beg to differ). I started babying it, talking to it, cajoling it, even giving it a little slap when it wouldn't listen to me. I didn't know it then, of course, but, for better or for worse--and minus the slapping--that TV was helping me hone my future parenting skills.

No matter my efforts, though, the Zenith continued to decline, yet somehow I couldn't part with it--not even when I finished graduate school and packed up a U-Haul to move 1,300 miles away to Nebraska to teach. Yes, that old, broken-down, works-only-part-of-the-time-but-still-isn't-quite-dead TV made the trip with me.

I know what you're thinking: I was crazy to keep the thing, right? Why didn't I just go out and buy a new one? That would have been the logical solution, I admit, but I've always been much too sentimental about things, and I have an especially hard time parting with anything given to me by someone I love. To add to that, I was moving far away from home and family, from the Midwest to the Plains, from security to uncertainty... No wonder I wanted to cling to something from my past.

So I moved that TV into my new (rented) house. It wasn't long before it wouldn't work at all, but instead of tossing it out, I boxed it up and put it in the basement, where it wouldn't have to see its replacement and where I could still keep my memories. It wasn't until nearly seven years later, as we were packing up yet another U-Haul, this time for my move to Wisconsin, that I allowed my dad to throw that Zenith away. I couldn't do it myself, and somehow it seemed fitting that one of the people who gave it to me was the one to get rid of it. I guess that having it live in the basement for all those years made me realize that I could live without it--and more importantly, that living without it didn't mean that I would be living without the memories.

And that was a big realization right there. I had come to my zenith in regard to my Zenith, just as we are now at the zenith of this challenge. I'm sad that the challenge is over; I had so much fun meeting other bloggers and enjoyed writing to a theme. I'll save the rest of my thoughts for my reflections post on May 7, but I want to say now that I appreciate each and every one of you who takes the time to read my thoughts. Reading your comments has been the highlight of my day. Thank you!




So how about you? Have you ever owned a Zenith or formed a sentimental attachment to an object? (Please tell me I'm not the only one!)

Friendship

Today's 100 words:

It's sad how some friendships just end as if there was never any importance or significance to them in the first place. Yesterday I was reminded of a good friend I met in college. Beth was smart and kind, the type of person who was always there when I needed help or advice. I tried to be the same for her. However, one day--just like that, it seemed--the friendship was over: she wouldn't talk to me; she moved away when I came near... To this day, I don't understand what happened--but I know I still miss her.

Getting older

Today's 100 words:

My husband, who is thirteen years older than I am, keeps telling me what hell it is to get old--how hard it is to watch things that previously worked well start to deteriorate, like eyesight and knee joints. I'm not quite to that point, but I have noticed in the past year or so that I can no longer go without as much sleep as I could in my college days. Back then I could survive for days on a couple of hours, but now I long for days when I can sleep for more than five hours a night.

You live, you learn

Today's 100 words:

 

They say what goes around comes around, and I think there's some truth in that. Greg and I dated for six years, through high school and part of college. He was sweet, kind, and wanted to be with me, always talking about our future. For a time, I felt the same; I thought nothing would drive us apart. But then I met Rob--older, attractive, dangerous Rob--and I left Greg with no real explanation. But one reaps what one sows, I think. Not long after, Rob, who I loved like Greg had loved me, dumped me in the same abrupt way.

Homebody

Today's 100 words:

Growing up, I was always somewhat of a homebody. I attended a college that was only about an hour and a half away from my hometown, and I had no intention of beginning my career too far away from my family. As my graduation from graduate school neared, though, I realized that college teaching jobs were scarce in Upper Michigan, and, finding myself carried forward by the momentum of my friends' enthusiasm for the job hunt, I applied for work all over the country. The result: I was offered and accepted a job in Nebraska, so very far from home.

Choose your own life

Today's 100 words:

I often think about how things would be different had I chosen another path. Every decision I've made thus far--including the seemingly insignificant ones--has brought me to where I am today. Even something as innocuous as what I chose to eat one day in the college cafeteria may have had a major impact on my life. If I had stood in the pizza line instead of at the salad bar, would I have met somebody who would factor into my life forever--a life-long friend, business associate, spouse? It's the little decisions that make up a life.

Never really the end

Today's 100 words, a continuation of sorts:

Like some kind of trained pet, I was always available when you called, even after we were no longer a we, even when there was no longer anything holding the two of us together. And on that last day of the semester when your car broke down fifty miles from the college as you were traveling home, you called me, knowing I would come, and I rushed to your rescue, even though I had my own packing to do and my own plans.

It was so hard to learn to live without you when you were always there.

Nearly the end

This morning's 100 words:

 

You came over for dinner that night--reluctantly, although I didn't realize it then. I'd made something special, probably chicken with rice, the only meal I had ever really attempted to cook in my small apartment kitchen; like you, I subsisted mainly on fast food, chips, and visits to the college cafeteria. I remember that you walked in, late, and sat on the floor next to the coffee table. The food was already cold; I'd called you early, but you'd taken a long time to arrive. The food wasn't all that had grown cold--but I didn't know that yet.