First, Furaha

Queen, Mother, Alchemist

No one

could ever follow you

My Dad taught me

to drive a stick shift

when I was 15

in a pocket-sized

jaw rattling

’81 Volkswagen Rabbit, diesel

Neutral state

one foot on the brake

clutch to a torn floorboard

Gearstick a hard left and up

Release the break, ease the clutch

(slowly), accelerate

We jerk forward, clattering engine exhales, along with my Dad

“Hey, lead foot, listen to me”

Imagine the pedals delicate, like puppy feet

Push one little puppy foot forward

release one little puppy foot back.

More lurching, stalling, cursing

teenaged “I can’t do this”

“Yes, you can”

Dad carefully repeats each direction

as if imparting a family recipe

Release, press, shift, left and up, release, press

Puppy paws puppy paws puppy paws

And then…I feel the catch

this moment of magic after my breath and arm and foot ballet

We are the Champions echoes in my ears

Interrupted only when Dad says, okay, good, now time to shift

Because after all of that

We are still

only in first gear

I am in this memory

as we “come back” to “start again”

Some of you have been crouched in runners’ stance

just waiting for the air horn

I hope I’m not alone

In feeling I’ve been circling a mostly empty parking lot

trying to get into (and out of) first gear

Most days thankful to feel the catch at all

This year, I lost my Dad

All of us collectively enduring devastating

significant loss

Grief in all shades and varieties

All while circling in a blurry, disorienting loop of time

We are hesitant at best, terrified at worst

Exhausted before we even begin.

Can we choose to see this in each other? To see each other?

Can we admit there is so little

we can truly control (is there anything?)

Maybe, maybe not

But we can influence

We are academics after all

Influence each other with our patience, our compassion

our students with our vulnerability, our understanding

ourselves by gifting these graces inward, genuinely

I drove that Rabbit for years

I don’t have my Dad here in my passenger seat anymore

or maybe I do

But, 30 years later, I hear his voice clearly

“When that clutch goes down, Mandy,

you can’t do it half-way, you press that baby

all the way to that floorboard.”

We still have days ahead of

lurching and stalling, curses, and sighs

and “I can’t do this”

What we also have (and even stronger because of)

Is our relentless compassion

Press that baby all the way to the floor board

Even when our jaws are rattling

Horse drawn carriage

click clack click clack

driver in a top hat

​He tips the brim and holds my eyes​

lips reveal hushed German secrets​

a cigarette unrolls from his left palm​

Near the cathedral​

with the glorious, pointed steeple​

Graffiti images bathe the alleys​

one a barn-red penis, also pointed up​

two matching red circles suspended below​

Anti-Neo-Nazi pamphlets in between​

Across the ashen alley​

a stern-faced goddess ​

grips a patina wreath in each cold grasp​

Her bronzed body​

cool and slick​

I expect to hear piano quartets

Instead, I hear the grind of skateboard wheels​

and the slaps of wooden deck ​

clack clack, clack clack​

Viennese adolescents practicing ollies​

what would it be to grow up in Vienna?​

acne, vulnerability, first kisses, heartache and fear

Same as anywhere, really​

just beneath a canopy of 14th century bridges​

and aloof eyes of 17th century statues​

Unnoticed by the Old-World woman ​

laboring through the fogged park with her cane​

no matter to the pigeons with their Old-World wings​

Mary Oliver

Zora Neale Hurston

Eric Paul Shaffer

Anne Lamott

John Francis

A. Manette Ansay