Take A Load Off

Our four-day cohort gathering convened in a mid-town Atlanta hotel. The final session was filled with cheerful goodbyes and promises of continued conversation. After lunch, the participants left for the airport. Wabash Center staff members Rachel Mills, Paul Utterback and I were going home the next day. About 2pm the three of us sat together in one of first floor lounges of the hotel. We were debriefing and making plans for the next event. Without warning the electricity went out. The hotel’s backup generators did not turn on. The sudden darkness of the building, even with afternoon sunlight streaming into the large lobby windows, brought an uneasy feeling. Hotel staff rushed to rescue people trapped in the elevators. Arriving guests were unable to check into rooms. Guests who had been in rooms walked down the stairs and found seats in the lobby and lounges. We, along with the many other guests, were instructed by hotel staff to wait in the hotel bar. We were offered free cocktails and promised that the electricity would soon be restored. 

By 6pm, still without power, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. The restaurant and all the shops in the area had electricity. After lingering for an exceptionally long time in the delicious Indian restaurant, we returned to the hotel feeling confident that given the amount of time that had past that the hotel’s electricity surely would be restored.

We entered the hotel lobby through the circular doors, and it felt as if we had gone through a portal into a disaster zone. Without the sunlight streaming through the large glass windows, the hotel lobby was mostly dark. The power loss meant little ventilation. The air was stale and uncomfortable. Flickers of light from cell phones and laptops were sprinkled around the large room. People were sitting on the furniture surrounded by their luggage. People were propped up on the floor along the walls. Everyone looked forlorn. A dank self-pity was heavy in the air. I heard a mother trying to comfort a crying infant. No hotel staff was at the registration desk. Muffled conversations on cell phones and whispered talking in small groups increased the eerie circumstance. A few people sat alone, staring off into space, looking drowsy and angry. The usually active pool table and ping pong table were unoccupied. One man had fallen asleep on the couch and his muffled snoring sounded like choking. 

We made our way through the crowd and back to the bar area where we had spent several hours in the afternoon. The mood at the bar was equally gloomy.  The bar tender noticed us and waved us over to where he was standing. As if he was passing along a secret, the bartender informed us that power had been restored on floors 6,7, and 8. He asked us where our rooms were. Our rooms were on the 6^th floor. The bartender said, “Follow me.”  We obeyed. The bartender guided us through the crowd to a side door of the hotel and out into a small alley. He told us to get in line. We joined a line of people who were going to walk up an outside fire escape to the floors with power. 

As we started marching up the unlit stairwell, I was nervous. I was unsure if my arthritic knees could climb the six flights. I walked behind Rachel who was behind Paul. There were many people climbing in front of Paul and but only a few people behind me. Hotel staff had placed plastic glow sticks on the stairs and at the landings.  The dimly light staircase was creepy. The moment felt unsafe, even dangerous.

As we ascended, the climbing pace was slow, but steady. The woman in front of Paul dragged her luggage. Her suitcase hit every step making a sound that was loud and unsettling. After two flights of stairs, the woman’s breathing became labored. The sound of her bag hitting every step and her heavy breathing amplified the precarity of our situation.  Still climbing, I heard Paul say to the woman ahead of him, “Ma’am, can I carry your luggage?” Through her wheeze and shallow breathing, the woman responded to Paul, “No.” 

After another slow-paced flight of stairs, and over the thump, thump, thump sound of the dragging luggage, Paul asked again, “Ma’am, I don’t mind. Can I help you with your luggage?” She did not answer immediately, but when she answered she said, “No.” I wanted to scream out and tell the woman, “Let him help you with your luggage, damn it!” But I did not. I was afraid that an emphatic interjection from me would make an already bad situation worse. By the time we got to the fifth floor, with her breathing quite loud, Paul asked the woman ahead of him again. He was almost pleading, “I can carry your luggage. I don’t mind.” The woman, a third time, said, “No.” 

When Paul, Rachel and I got to the 6^th floor landing, a hotel staff person with a glow stick in his hand was holding open the hallway door. We walked past the man and into the lit corridor. As I crossed the threshold, I said a prayer, “Thank you.” The doorman mistook my prayer as gratitude to him and he replied, “You’re welcome.” I was grateful to all who had given us safe passage up the dark staircase. We walked to our rooms, spent a restless night in the hotel, then checked out early the next morning.

I suspect the woman walking ahead of Paul got to her room.

I do not know. 

I hope she did not need medical attention later that night. 

Now, months after this harrowing event, I am haunted. I am haunted by the sound of the woman’s labored breathing, as well as by the sound of her luggage hitting every step of the six flights of stairs. My haunting has lingering questions. 

Question One

Why was the woman unable or unwilling to accept help in her moment of distress and anxiety? We are accustomed to experiences of needing help with no help being offered; or needing help but no help being available; or needing help but help is not possible or too expensive or reserved for someone else. But this situation was none of that. Paul offered and was quite able to carry the woman’s luggage. He noticed her dilemma and offered to help. Why was his offer of assistance refused? 

We can speculate on the reasons Paul’s gesture of help might have been declined. Perhaps the woman was too afraid to trust Paul and believed if he carried her luggage then she would owe him a debt or she would owe him a favor in return? Maybe she despised chivalry and refused the genteel gestures of all men? Or, perhaps she was used to doing everything for herself. Maybe she genuinely did not think that—through her wheezing and dragging of luggage—she needed help. 

Question Two

Why, for the good of the others climbing the stairwell, did the woman refuse the offer of help? Surely, she could hear the loud, exasperating sound made by dragging her luggage and how this was nerve wracking for others. Surely, she felt the ways that that sound exacerbated an already bad situation. Why, in considering the needs of the group, did she not know that relieving her burden would lower the collective anxiety? Did she know and not care? 

In the woman’s defense, maybe it is easier to accept help when we are not traveling alone. Maybe accepting help requires that we are not riddled with fear or struggling to breathe. Or, maybe it is easier to accept help from people we know and trust. Maybe she had previously been betrayed by strangers offering assistance in the dark. 

Is it better to only rely upon yourself? 

Accepting help can demonstrate that you, like all of us, have limitations, weaknesses, inadequacies, and needs. Receiving help shows that there are others who have more capacity, more ability, are better fit or are more prepared. The vulnerability of showing our needs might be too much for our egos or for our self-understandings. Perhaps we like thinking of ourselves as self-contained, self-reliant, and in no way dependent. What do our refusals of help cost the community? What is at stake for the community when individuals refuse assistance? 

Living with the illusion of independence in the teaching life can result in long, uphill, journeys of dragging too much stuff and straining to breathe. What would it take for our teaching journeys not to be onerous, especially when help is offered? What if agreeing to accept help becomes part of the culture of our faculties? 

So that we might learn from this peculiar situation in ways that might strengthen our teaching and teaching life, ask yourself:

• When have I been the woman dragging my bag up hundreds of stairs, while gasping for breath, and refusing assistance when offered? 
• When has my judgement about my teaching and teaching life been so poor as to refuse help?
• When could my burden have been relieved had I said yes to an offer of assistance?
• When was I unable to see that help for me would have benefited the community?
• When is it necessary to refuse help and when is it foolish? 

Reflection

1. Identify a burden in your teaching or teaching life. Ask for help.
2. Identify ways you carry too much baggage. Ask for help.
3. Identify colleagues who are struggling in their teaching or teaching life. Offer help.