English Major (pt. One)

Below is the first entry of two about a recent discovery I've made. The second part is going to conclude it in a way that will make the whole thing a lot less pessimistic-y.


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Choosing classes for my coming school year, browsing over the classes that looked interesting,

Classics. Writing. Literature. Journalism. Rhetoric.

it began to dawn on me. Two words were forming, whispering, increasing slowly in volume, steadily as the ticking of a clock enveloped in cotton, fastening itself to me, burning itself into my forehead in scarlet letters, a neon arrow hovering dagger-like above me, calling me out, pulling me towards a realization I was not ready, decidedly unready, to face:

English major.

No. Anything but that.

I am the daughter of my father, a man who could have literally any job in the world. His natural abilities coupled with his hard-earned skills could have landed him a gig as a scientist, a mathematician, a fiction writer, a reporter, and editor, a science writer, a teacher, a songwriter / musician, a consultant, an economist, a historian, an engineer, a food critic, an inventor, or anything involving heavy lifting and making puns. I am the daughter also of my mother, a doctor, “single and loving it,” with an apartment in Cole Valley, spunky and sporty and retired at 47 and about to embark on a road trip around the country on her savings.

Was it to be I, the daughter of two intellectual success stories, having lived in San Francisco my entire life and having received (and in the process of continuing) an elite education, who would end the line?

Images flashed through my mind: myself, miraculously sporting stubble on my face, holding a cup and a cardboard sign—will recite Lorca for food. Myself, a beleaguered English teacher, explaining Romeo and Juliet for the fiftieth time to seventh graders who couldn’t care less, having left San Francisco, the only city I could ever truly love, and now living somewhere in Middle America, the only part of the country I could afford. Myself, working at a Starbucks, occasionally reaching down under the counter to hit a few keys of the laptop I kept there, having finished the first paragraph of my book after three years…