The Inspector, Part 3

When I was a teenager, my mother started to call me The Inspector because of my penchant for spending an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror. I think most teenagers spend a lot of time in front of the mirror; after all, we are for the first time going through rapid bodily changes while also trying to attract the opposite sex for the first time. Being that I had quite a bout of acne in this stage of my life, it is possible that I spent more time than most in front of the mirror. Perhaps I thought that by staring at my zits, they might disappear.

This habit of looking at myself in the mirror carried through into my adult life, so much so that while living in New York, Shawn once accused me of being vain. In fact, she sang the song to further drive home her point. I was quite defensive at this accusation. I’ve never considered myself vain—I was merely inspecting, and to prove the point, I decreed that I would not look into the mirror for one week.

One week later, I took the notes I had written on this experience and formed them into an essay, which I then turned in to my professor at The New School for my writing assignment. At my group critique, my professor led off by skewering my essay ruthlessly. My classmates, taking her lead, followed with scathing remarks. The essay, I’ll agree, was not great, but I though the gusto that my professor took in dismantling it a bit harsh. I did not like her for this.

My professor was Lucy Greeley. She told me I should read her book.

Looking back now, I can see how I stumbled here, how, as a person with a face, I had failed to consider that my teacher was not like me, that my week without a mirror was trivial compared to her life before one. Still, I did not like her. She was mean.

Many in my class did not like how mean Lucy was. When it was time for us to choose our advisors for our theses, none of us chose Lucy. This hurt her. One day she popped in to one of our literature classes and asked again if anyone needed an advisor. No one responded. Downcast eyes. I could see that it hurt her, but I didn’t want to work with someone so difficult.

It would have been wise of me to do so.

There are two kinds of writing teachers, the nurturing kind, and the cruel kind. When I reflect on my time at the New School, I know for certain that it was the third essay I wrote for Lucy’s class that was my best of my entire career. It was the best because Lucy’s meanness made me reach down for something that was raw, that might shock the class, and the essay that resulted she praised and praised. My classmates, taking her lead, followed with laurels.

Not long after Lucy ducked her head into our class, she killed herself. This fact was difficult for all of my classmates, difficult because of our guilt, and difficult because of our anger. How mean of her to give up, such a strong woman who had been through countless surgeries to recreate her face, to lay down in that grey city and give in to the unfairness of it all.