and the beat goes on…

It was in the dog days of June last year, the last day of classes for writer’s craft- the publishing project was done, no formal examination, just a short story, for which anyone who wanted an extension could ask, even in the 11th hour, cause I just wanted to read something good, and so there wasn’t much reason to even be there on the last day of class.

But one of the students who was there was Hubba. And she came up to me very excitedly, saying, “Guess what I’m doing, Ms. Parrish? I’m going back to Pakistan. And guess what I’m doing?”

I braced myself. But smiled to share her enthusiasm, “What? What? Tell me!”

“Well!” Hubba’s enthusiasm and delight and warmth always radiated a wide circle around her. “Even though I don’t need to earn money for University there, my father said I could do some work, maybe teach something while I’m there, cause it’s not so formal. And he said I should teach something that interests me.”

“Really?… really!”

“So I told him what I was really interested in was writing. So he said, okay. Do that then. ”

“…. really??????”

“Ya! So I’m going to teach Creative Writing in Pakistan!”

Never, never since starting teaching at Garneau 10 years ago did I ever even dream that this would be the story that a student of mine would tell me.

When I went to give Hubba the “wings” award at Commencement, I didn’t recognize her, even standing 20 feet away from her. I thought maybe she hadn’t been able to make it and I wondered who the young woman approaching me was. And I kept wondering until she was standing 4 feet away from me. I had never seen her without her Hijab.

And now, this thing is really happening. (what happened? how did it happen? was what was happening what we wanted?) Hubba is preparing to teach a creative writing class. And she’s asked for my input.

and said, but of course! but hey, why not do this like Rilke did it?

so we’re doing that.

over here.