I turned 31 this past week, but I didn’t feel it until I walked into my mother’s house on Thursday. It was an empty house; my mother’s dog wandered outside as I turned on all the lights, unlocked all the doors. It was the slow, methodical pattern of flipping switches and clicking buttons and roaming through the narrow walkways that brought me back into the present moment after a long day. My birthday had been celebrated, and I had resumed filling my schedule with work from 8 AM to 8 PM.
Somewhere in the middle of scooping dog food, I stumbled on the thought that had been floating in the back of my mind since my mother’s passing: This was now my house, my dog, and my life.
The silence was unsettling, so I played John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, a favorite classroom melody from my high school teaching days back when I was 23. I began reflecting on this new day in this year 31.
I started early at the CSLAP office with an interview by local media for Hispanic Heritage Month. The interview focused on our team’s CSLAP work and my books, and stories came easy to me — as they always do when they are true and meaningful — yet I could not help feeling self-conscious as the cameraman roamed around my desk for B-roll footage.
I felt as if I was being seen in a new, indescribable way. Media interviews in the past did not evoke a sense that I was looking at myself from the outside-in. As if I were the interviewer, I spoke as if everything was new to me. This was our office; this was our impact. Yes, over 1,500 lives have been changed thanks to us. Many, many more if you count the students who only attended 1 class, or who were helped by one of our students. Yes, we saved lives during the pandemic. Yes, these are my books; this is my message to the world. By the way, this book won an international award last week.
With the interview concluded and my books still on my mind, I calculated I had enough time to restock at a local bookstore before heading off to teach my English college course. The thought of cramming yet another task into my 12-hour day reassured me that I was still me and not the interviewer or cameraman who walked out the door.
On the way to McAllen, I drove past innumerable political candidate signs lining the streets. Since January, folks affiliated with the local Democratic Party have been reaching out and asking me why I am so focused on books instead of electoral politics. According to the rumor mill, I see myself as above the fray in my ivory tower, or I cared about democracy only when I was running for office, or I am too aloof to backslap and play nice like a good political player.
These folks likely do not know the demands of my previous job doing anti-poverty work, my transition from CSLAP director to board chair, my mother’s passing and the legal hurdles. And yes, my writing and my books. But their narratives resonated with me, a man alone in his car with his books listening to CNN commentators talk tirelessly about the Harris-Trump debate. The stories others tell about us reveal something about the stories we tell about ourselves, I believe.
To them, I am the former candidate who might run again one day. To myself, I am the former candidate searching for something else — a way to make an impact outside of electoral politics, yes, but also to find joy, to chase life.
True to form, I recalled my favorite lines from Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself”:
“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”
After restocking my books, I rushed to campus to teach. As I watched my student’s faces react to my passionate lecture on the power of the essay genre, I couldn’t help but reflect on how happy I was doing this work. I was in a state of flow similar to how I feel while reading a good book or writing well.
When I turned 30, I found a letter I wrote to my 30-year-old self at age 17 and posted it on this blog. In the letter, I waxed poetic about how becoming an English professor would help me change lives. Ironically, I read this letter a mere 2 weeks after I started a new career that could not be further from being an English professor. After a taxing year of wasting my time with fruitless projects and getting yelled at by a consultant, I left — leaping into the great unknown as several job applications remained in limbo.
The logic of leaving the job behind while my path forward remained uncertain was simple: It was my decision. In retrospect, age 30 was defined by forces out of my control: the job not turning out the way I thought long after I transitioned from CSLAP; my impact being stymied by a consultant who blurted, “I don’t care, you’re only 30!” during a verbal argument; the political narratives being projected onto me and their yet-to-be-seen consequences; my mother’s death.
Quitting felt like I was taking my life back. For months, I had hung a graphic of another Walt Whitman quote in my office: “Now, voyager, sail thou forth / to seek and find.” These words were imbued with new meaning as I carried the graphic along with my belongings to my vehicle on my final day. I drove away with the song “I Want Out” by Helloween blaring out my window.
I received my job offer from South Texas College the following week, snatching me away from the unemployment line.
All these memories flooded my mind as I waited for my students to open their Chromebooks to Blackboard. After I concluded my classes for the day, I dedicated the remaining daylight hours to meeting and working with CSLAP students back at our office, the site of my morning rendezvous with this new version of myself.
At age 31, I was now living up to the vision I set for myself at age 18. I was now helping students unlock their voices, expand their minds, and sharpen their writing skills as a professor. I was now helping students like me go to and through college with CSLAP. I was now publishing award-winning books and becoming a writer like Jack London. I was now the man my younger self believed I should and could become.
Such was a day in my life in this year 31. I reflected on all these thoughts as I reclined on my chair inside my house and Coltrane blew madly into the wind, the music from my past filling the silence of my present.
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