Nuggets

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I sit at an absurdly large wooden table in Wheeler Hall and learn the secrets of nine strangers. It’s an impractical table, with its incredible width, but for this class it’s somewhat fitting. My professor is an enigmatic fellow with a hook for a hand. I’m a senior here at UC Berkeley, graduating in just under two months.

As is often the case being Christian at Berkeley, my beliefs frequently collide with those of my peers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this personal essay writing workshop. I applied to this class on somewhat of a whim last semester and, to my surprise, was accepted into English 143N — Prose Nonfiction, an upper-division creative writing course at Cal. I’m no English major, or creative writer for that matter, but I think I’m managing to hold my own among some bright writers.

The most recurring themes in our essays are the writer’s reflections on relationships with family, gender identity, religion, or romantic partners. Mine are often about that last subject — something of a running joke in the class among my peers now. For our first assignment, I labored over a piece about the memories attached to my quiet hometown, Thousand Oaks, including memories of a former girlfriend. Depending on which of those nine people you ask, the essay I ended up with was either about disappointment, longing, finding peace, or gratitude.

An unexpected gift my peers have given me is perspective — both in their remarks on my works, and in what they choose to reveal about themselves in their works as well. I’ve read many pieces by my peers regarding their experiences being queer. Some of my queer classmates recount memories of feeling ostracized in high school, some detail the tumultuous relationships with their parents, and others write about the beauty of being well loved by their friends.

Many of these nine peers have become my friends even outside of the classroom. We’ll eat pizza and drink wine, read each other’s haikus and essays, talk about our personality types, or just study. My relationships with them are life-giving, and they are relationships I want to keep with me for a long while.

My professor dispenses a great deal of wisdom. He drops little nuggets here and there. One of these nuggets is to steal the good things you find in other’s writing for your own. For example, in one memoir we read, Mississippi Solo by Eddy Harris, Harris narrates his journey down the Mississippi river by canoe. We were asked to pay attention to the fact that Harris contradicts himself in his writing many times, and our professor’s assertion is that this is ok, and maybe even something we ought to consider implementing into our own writing; sometimes it’s okay to contradict yourself. After all, the personal essay is an investigation of the self, and of one’s own ignorance, according to writer and critic Phillip Lopate.

When my peers reflect on personal identity, these are the essays I find most beautiful and compelling. These essays also host elements that conflict with my religious beliefs. I often am left to ponder what to make of this apparent clash of convictions.

Entering into friendships with these nine strangers so seemingly different from me has changed me. In these newfound friends of mine, I have come to love and admire very precious things about them. They have a real care for the world, a deep compassion for one another, a strong sense of justice for the oppressed, neglected, and forgotten, and a clear desire to know others and to be known by others as well.

My professor encourages us to not attempt to capture experiences in our writing, instead investigating and reflecting upon them. I’m halfway to understanding what he means. He also is prone to digress from the topic of discussion more times than is reasonable to keep count per class period. And I love that.