Cringe

I have been thinking about who I might be tutoring, and how to ask the Learning Center organizers about how to place me. And I wanted to ask for someone bright, of any background. I thought about having to teach my father, and the light came on, why I want to do this.

My father grew up in a French speaking family, "River Canard French," uneducated, illiterate French. He attended school in English, rural Ontario, no help at home. Even his parents were nominal, he was mostly "raised" by his older brothers - always a bad idea. Got to about sixth grade, but when I was in third or fourth grade, he was at sea with what I was learning. (Not that he ever really tried to help with my homework at any age.) He never read for pleasure, and was angry with anyone reading a book - considered it "rude." My mother only read when he was at work, and I learned to stay away from him when I had a book in my hands. I was often mocked for "thinking you're so smart." In his defense, he did pay for me to attend catholic school, mom insisted, but he could well have vetoed the tuition. Whomever he did it for, whatever his resentments, I did get a good education, and it was his hard work on a factory floor that paid for it.


Aside from a facility to keep his cars and house in decent repair - which is a considerable job, he had no real skill. He was a mean, petty, and stupid man. Unlike most kids who think their fathers stupid until their fathers get suddenly smart once the kid becomes an adult, I only lost more and more respect for him over the years. My mother got him playing Scrabble, and he did go through a phase, when I was in high school and college, where he did try to read better. Mom assured me he'd made a lot of progress, but I remain dubious, as she always overestimated him to me. The deck was stacked against him from the start, he didn't make much of what he had, making him a man to be pitied. My hatred has all evaporated.

But I need for whomever my student is, to not push all my father-buttons. I do want to give to someone what he needed, if he had just a bit of native intelligence, curiosity, will to learn. This old hurt is, I think, what moves me to do this. As soon as the realization came, it filled that question completely. I will talk with my coordinator about this weakness, and request consideration accordingly.

A woman's got to know her limitations.

Went to get my permanent tooth cap. Dentist put it in, had me bite down, "tap, tap." I tapped, then crunched. Broke the new cap before it even got in. So, they got the new one to the right dimensions, put the temporary back in, and made me a new appointment. I laughed with the dentist and his assistant, had to keep tapping and grinding on it to get the right shape for the remake. Fingernails on blackboard. I kept laughing, what else could I do?

That crunch is familiar not only from breaking my teeth, but from my work.

Sometimes I have to prep an arm or leg that is quite broken, after the patient is anesthetized, and I get that crunch of broken bone edge against broken bone edge. Crepitus is the official term. It's the one sound in my work, the one feeling, that still gets to me, viscerally. I told D about this most carefully, and it didn't take much. He knows that feeling from the inside, in all kinds of bad ways. And he needs to stop reading right here.

Really hard to have to hold a badly broken arm or leg, hold it in a sterile manner, wash it fairly vigorously with prep solution, while it is not stable, and making scrapey-crunchy noises, until it can be draped. Of all the jobs I have to do, this is the one that still makes me shudder. Doesn't stop me, but I cringe every time.