Tay

Constant Reader, this post fits outside the normal flow of my ongoing narrative.

I recently attended a memorial service for a teacher who was special to me. Pamela Taylor was her name.

We called her Tay.

Pamela Taylor died of cancer.

Pam Taylor is dead; long live Tay.

Tay is a legend, and her legends are legion.

She was a fan.

She was a critic.

She was a teacher possessed.

She was a gift and a bane.

She was hard.

She was kind.

She was...

Everyone who went to Gunnery walked the school walk. It's an experience we all share. If you went to Gunnery during Tay's era, we share something more.

We share Tay.

---

Tay had a soft spot for me. I think. Maybe. It's the best explanation I have.

I never got the hairdryer treatment—she never raised her voice at me, blowing me back in my chair.

I got The Look. (Actually, I got several of The Looks.)

More often, I got something else...

---

Tay was our soccer team's most ardent fan. She perched on the cusp of the hill overlooking our field, a gargoyle presence, old and inevitable as time itself.

When we sucked (and gods, did we suck—at first), she was there, shrouded in her smoke, peering at us through darkened lenses. She cheered, passionately. And she jeered, intensely. God help the referee who dared whistle foul. But no gods could help the Highlander who failed to fight. We knew what she expected.

When we got better, so did she. More cheering and less jeering, but when we let her down... She was efficient. She was effective. And she was right.

We got good. We got very good.

Tay was with us; the gargoyle transformed.

She still perched. Someday I should bury a stone to mark Tay's Place. But she was seldom alone. She brought others, or others joined her, though I more think it was her gravity that drew them.

And she cheered.

And in the rasp of Tay—as it boomed across the muddy fields upon which we plyed and played—you could hear her pride. And as the weather deteriorated and our standings improved, Tay was...Tay. She lorded over our bog, like some Flanderian queen under her burgundy and white umbrella. Inevitable, and terrible, and wonderful.

Then we won. We had no more hills to conquer.

And Tay was there, among the thong. Proud queen.

Tay, thy name is constancy.

Long live Tay.

---

Tay smelled.

So do you.

So do I.

But I don't remember the way you smelled; and chances are, you don't remember me well at all.

But I remember Tay.

I hated morning so much I would be one of the first to breakfast. I hated being around people before I was ready, and getting to breakfast early guaranteed that I could avoid most everyone. Except for Tay.

Honest Reader, memory tells me that Tay was always there. I know that can't be true, but this is my telling of her myth. And in my tale, she is always there. 

I'm cursed with a strong sense of smell. (My children are doomed—I'll know everything they're up to as they explore adolesence.) And I never smoked.

Tay smoked.

And I remember dark winter mornings of biting frost and crunching snow and crusted eyes, and I remember trudging into the dining hall. And I remember the brimstone that greeted me.

"Whitney," she would say.

"Tay."

Thus my day would begin—with Tay in my nostrils.


And I remember post caffeine-and-nicotine theme conferences, when the red pencil danced and the brimstone burned.

Thus were my lessons infused with Tay's scent.


And I remember The Hug. It was the first hug, of which there would be two.

T'was a dreary Connecticut evening. We hadn't won.

Though I had distinguished myself against a hated rival, I was gutted, heartbroken. I wanted that win. And as I stood there soaked and shivering, starting my long crawl into that safe place deep inside, she hugged me.

Tears. I buried myself, her shoulder and her hair my cover.

She pulled me out and up and in.

She said now-long-lost somethings.

And I remember the damp, the polyester-and-wool, and the brimstone. And I remember the love.

She gave, and I took.

Long live Tay. 

---

I was a useless student.

To call me contrarian would be close to the mark, but it would be missing something essential.

I was lost and lonely and confused and every adolescent cliche. And I was too damned smart, too effing creative, and too undisciplined; I was selfish and foolish and arrogant and stupid and I knew everything and I knew nothing.

And if you knew me then, you know it's true.

In his eulogy for Pamela Taylor, Ed Small phrased it beautifully: "She drew the best out of you without you even knowing it."

AP English, some kind of seminar thing, and I blew it off like most everything else.

Tay never said a thing.

Tay was the facilitator, assigning readings, stimulating discussions, readying us. Well, not really "us," since I never went.

Originally, the seminar was a golden opportunity to spend time in the close company of certain attractive young ladies (with whom I entirely failed to get along). But I quickly decided that it was too much work—another dose of Tay was too steep a price.

You see, I already had Tay as a classroom teacher. We connected there—having one-to-ones about this or that that seemed to exclude everyone else. She constantly gave me rope; I never hanged myself.

So I stopped going to the seminar.

Tay never said a thing.

The weeks passed, and the year stretched on, and the examination neared, and suddenly one Saturday I found myself with a dry mouth and a blue book and a pencil. The exam asked me to consider a question and write an essay, referencing specific literary works—none of which had I read, many of which Tay had assigned.

Naked I sat, exposed.

I. Was. Fucked.

I had two choices.

Stay, and I would fail. Go...and declare myself a failure.

To be or not to be...

I closed my eyes.

I breathed.

And I started to weave.

Of its own accord, the pencil wove its way across the looming lines, over and under and back on itself. And I filled a page. And another. And I warmed to the task, writing about a book I'd read on my own—a book I'd never studied or discussed or pondered or deconstructed.

And it was done.

The weeks passed, and the year stretched on, and spring sprung and graduation neared, and I got an envelope in the mail. I opened it.

5. Out of 5.

In my Catch 22 I'd written about "Catch 22".

I rocked it.

I headed toward Gunn from the dining hall, and Tay was walking across campus. I called out to her, waving the paper in the air like some damned-fool, barefoot newspaper boy in an old Disney movie.

I handed her the paper. And she hugged me.

And this time I didn't bury my head and I didn't cry.

This time I laughed, and I remember what she said: "I knew you could. You were ready."

I saw her eyes, and (in my telling of this myth) I saw her cry.

And I remember the way that spring day smelled—all hope and growth and warmth and joy...

And no brimstone.

Long live Tay.

 ---

Tay taught me, without "teaching" me a thing.

She gifted me with two lessons.

She taught me to write without "writing." She inspired me to find my voice—to be true to me. It's taken me more than 20 years to realize her lesson.

Long live Tay.


She taught me to live.

Without a single word Tay encouraged me to be...me—even as I struggled to find me.

I understood that the unexamined life was not worth living, so I examined life to its core. But I didn't understand that life itself was worth living—for its own sake—and that every wound proves to be as valuable as every triumph.

She encouraged me to think for myself and to be myself. She showed me that life could be lived with integrity—that you can be both true and honest...and real.

It was the way she lived; it is the way she lives on. 

Long live Tay. 

Pledge observed.