Almost a year ago, my book Nontraditional: Life Lessons from a Community College was published. It’s a collection of linked essays, a memoiresque look at my nontraditional start in teaching and some of my nontraditional college students. One of the book’s themes is about our need for second chances. Many of my nontraditional students saw their time at our rural community college as a second chance after missed opportunities due to immaturity, a lack of money and support, and sometimes even jail. I also saw my teaching opportunity as a second chance, having been forced after college to take a job in insurance when I couldn’t find a writing position. There’s something about getting a second chance that makes it more meaningful and more appreciated than had everything worked out the first time.
I was reminded about the sweetness of second chances when I recently read a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer:
“Second Chances”
Twelve minutes after I put
the pumpkin pie in the oven
I saw the two brown eggs
still sitting on the counter.
There are times it’s not too late—
when we still might see the loved one
if we go now,
still might catch that plane
if we just keep running,
still might save that friendship
if we pick up the phone
still might stave disappointment
if we pull that pie from the oven,
pour out soupy filling back in the bowl,
blend in the eggs.
How rich it tastes, that second chance
infused as it is with the risk of loss,
served perhaps with whipped cream,
the custard so sweet, so spicy.
Most of my nontraditional students knew the value of a second chance. One of them, a tire worker at a factory, told me that getting his associate’s degree was his only shot to get out of a physically debilitating job and start a new career in electrical engineering. “How did you decide on electrical engineering?” I asked him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I like math, and I thought learning something like electrical engineering would be fun.” Second chances offer hope. They whisper to us about excitement, even fun. These students and I were reworking ourselves, blending in the forgotten eggs and somehow knowing that just one small change at that moment could alter the arc of our lives.