Actually, I suspect it isn’t really any of the above. I’m probably just trying to find excuses to justify the vague, moody miasma that’s been hanging round me lately… and more likely than not, it’s just one of those inexplicably emo things that will go away on its own with time.

The RJ lit trip made a stop at York last Wednesday, and I was very happily assigned to the campus tour group which had Mr Purvis in it And it dawned on me, really dawned on me, how much I have changed since I was the shy silent girl in the back of TS2. I found myself strangely able to have a real conversation with him where in the past I would have been too terrified to do anything other than nod and smile; we had a very thought-provoking chat about literature and life after university as we walked round the campus, and it might just be the very first time I’ve really understood the human side of this teacher who was such a prominent figure in my JC days. He told me about how he was glad I’d kept the faith with English, and that he really regrets not doing a Masters after getting his first degree - and how, now, thinking about it, he’s afraid he’s not good enough for an MA and that his BA was really a fluke.

Hearing that, just that one line, from someone who was almost singlehandedly responsible for igniting my obsession with lit and pushing me towards the path I’ve taken… it was heartbreaking. I felt there were so many things I wanted to say to him: I wanted to tell him he was good enough, that it wasn’t just luck, that he’s been inspirational not just to me but to a lot of other students, and how could someone like that be a fluke of the system?

But I couldn’t find the words. I struggled with what sounded, to my ears, like hollow reassurances; I don’t even remember what I said in the end. We moved on to talk about how beautiful the campus is in spring, my mind trailed off and I started wondering if I should tell them that the lake is really toxic, actually, and I forgot all about it for the moment.

Thinking back, I wish I could have said everything I was feeling. I wish I could have poured it out, I wish I could have found a way to show it. But there will never be a way, when words just aren’t enough, and it will always be one of those increasingly frequent instances where the empty signifiers of everyday language are just sorely, sorely inadequate to the occasion.

Sure, last time it was Mr. McConnell who came, and he’d taught me for S-paper and he did remember me and it was nice chatting with him, but he did only teach me for a year at a once-a-week class where I was practically invisible because I was silent throughout… not that I talked very much during Purvis’s classes, but his lessons, his obvious love for literature, whatever little bits of conversation I had with him out of class - they were all such a big part of why I chose this subject in uni, how it finally dawned on me that lit was my thing, how I came to see it as so much more than a dry, analytical sifting through dusty old words.

I’m so bizarrely weirdly excited, and happy, that he’s coming to York. I don’t even know if he remembers me (it’s been ages and he probably doesn’t since I have been very remiss in visiting RJ - the new campus is so cold and distant), but… yeah. This is another blast from my past that really means a lot to me. I’m stoked. ♥