Let's start at the beginning, in fair Virginia where we lay our scene...
I was an awful student growing up. I
hated school. I hated the repetition and the constant parade of
things that I was certain that I wasn't ever going to need to know. I
failed English and Math pretty consistently in middle school. My
failures in English were deeply baffling to my parents as I'd always
been a voracious reader. I had a big vocabulary as a little kid.
However, I was definitely of the opinion that a lot of the analysis
that went on in English classes was silly. I just couldn't understand
where my teachers were pulling all these things from. (I had several
rude guesses, of course)
I remember the day that this started to
change. I was in my eighth grade English class and we opened up our
copies of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I was NOT looking forward to it.
I had gone with my mother to see a production of Julius Caesar a few
years before and Shakespeare was, to my mind, for boring, pretentious
people. I was certain that I was going to hate
reading it.
However,
by the end our Midsummer unit I was completely hooked. I hadn't
expected something that I thought would be so dry and boring to be so
relateable. As the
girl who was always just “one of the guys” I really felt for
Helena. (Except for the height thing) The only kind of romance I knew
was the unrequited kind, so watching her pursuit of Demetrius struck
a chord for me. I could feel her desperation and yes, the resentment
of prettier friends for whom the guys were always falling. I could
relate to the willful Hermia deciding that she wasn't going to listen
to her parents and that she'd just run away to follow her heart.
In all
honesty, Midsummer was maybe not the best play for my already
smart-ass self to read because it introduced me to the ever-awesome
Robin Goodfellow. I loved
Puck. He still is one of my favorite Shakespearean characters. The
last thing I'd expected was that I would be cracking up while reading
Shakespeare, of all
things. It was a good lesson in keeping my mind open. You never know
what you're going to like until you try it.
That
was only the first of the lessons that Shakespeare taught me. The
next one is the one that is largely responsible for where I am now,
career-wise.
Studying
Shakespeare was the first time I ever really felt good
at something. I'd struggled so much in school before reading
Midsummer, but after our Shakespeare unit was finished my sense of
self-confidence had grown exponentially. While many of my classmates
struggled with the language and pulling meaning from the Bard's
words, I didn't. I could read it and understand it quickly. I could
interpret it easily. Suddenly all the crap that my English teachers
said about allegory and metaphor made sense.
I found myself looking for double meanings where before I would have
tried not to see them.
My writing improved as I worked to express the beautiful things that
I saw in the text. Suddenly I was getting A's in English and looking
forward to class. I didn't feel like such a failure anymore. I was
good at something. I
stood out in a positive way. I wasn't useless. I started writing more and more as my confidence grew. I actually started to like writing, something that would have been impossible before. Soon, that fondness for writing grew to a passion, a passion that has come to define who I am and what I do.
Once I
got to high school and we moved to more complicated plays I looked
forward more and more to our Shakespeare units. I gobbled them up. By
senior year I chose a Shakespeare class as one of my electives just
to have the opportunity to study some more of them. I had no idea
what an important choice that would end up being.
Those
of you who have read this blog from the beginning know that senior
year of high school is when my depression stopped being something I
could handle alone. Senior year was when I first started cutting
myself and eventually, senior year was when I tried to kill myself.
I
have, sitting next to me, the book that was on my desk the night I
tried to kill myself. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. Kevin and I
had been studying for the big Shakespeare test that all seniors at
our high school took. I was doing Shakespeare trivia with my best
friend during what I was certain were going to be my last moments on
this earth. And I was ok with that. However, as you all know, Kevin
realized what I was up to and stopped me. He asked me to get help and
to keep the faith with him I went to one of the teachers I trusted
most and told him what I'd done. He gave me forty-eight hours to get
help before he'd go and report my suicide attempt. He didn't want to
deprive me of the control to do it and to this day I am infinitely
grateful to him for that.
Of
course, during those forty-eight hours I went back and forth about
what I was going to do. I didn't want to tell anyone because I was
afraid I'd get kicked out of school and sent home. I definitely
had the thought that I had to “finish it” before then. I didn't
want to deal with more shrinks and more meds and more of
disappointing my family and friends. I was stuck and had no idea what
to do.
During
that time the English elective that I was taking was reading King
Lear. I liked the play well enough (mostly for the Fool), but I was
having a lot of trouble engaging with ANYTHING during that time, even
my beloved Shakespeare.
We
were going through Lear line by line (or close to that) when we
reached the section where the blind Gloucester believes that he has
thrown himself off a cliff and miraculously survived. He
says:
“Henceforth
I'll bear affliction until it do cry out itself 'Enough, enough, and
die.'”
I'm
hoping that my note next to his words was my literary analysis of a
play in which lies and lying are very important, though it may well
have been the first bitter thing that popped into my head: “His
reason for not killing himself is a lie. It's all a comfort
illusion.”
However,
as my teacher and class moved on I found myself looking back at
Gloucester's words again and again.
“Henceforth
I'll bear affliction until it do cry out itself 'Enough, enough, and
die.'”
Wasn't
that what I was struggling with? I had tried to kill myself too and
been 'saved' in a way. If an old man whose eyes had been gouged out
could have hope, what was my excuse? I had always prided myself on
being a strong person. Was I, or wasn't I? Fuck affliction. I was
stronger than affliction. I too could “bear affliction until it do
cry out itself 'Enough, enough, and die.'”
I
changed reading those words. I resolved to go and get help, which I
did. The weeks following that were some of the hardest of my life and
more than once I found myself in the dark place thinking of ending it
all. But Gloucester's words kept coming back to me, as they still do
when things get really, really bad.
“Henceforth
I'll bear affliction until it do cry out itself 'Enough, enough, and
die.'” has become a mantra for me.
After
high school Shakespeare remained a big part of my life. It was the
concentration in my English major. I...may have taken all of the
Shakespeare courses that my school offered and then had to start
inventing some to take as independent studies. I got a little bit of
a reputation for being “that Shakespeare girl”. I would argue on
the most obscure points with friends for fun. I learned to rap
Othello. When my grandfather passed away, I recited Sonnet 60 at his
funeral. After a bad car accident where I flipped my car on the ice,
I still showed up for
my Shakespeare class that day.
Granted, my advisor (who was one of the teachers) wasn't thrilled
with me for coming to class instead of, ya know, going to the
hospital. I was so messed up emotionally after that that I
needed the comfort
that I got from the Bard's words.
The
Bard is well known for having changed the very face of our language,
but better writers than I have discussed this at length. I wanted to
take the time to reflect more on how he has changed me. I wouldn't be
what I am or where I am if I hadn't come into contact with the
immortal Will.
Will, my old friend, “so long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this,
and this gives life to thee.”
Love,
E.W.
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