Jack Bergquist

The night before my first class last year was also the first night in my new apartment. I slept on a thin futon mattress on a thinly insulated floor above a bass-thumping bar. The next morning I almost threw up from nerves and lack of sleep.

I walked into school and found the room where I was to have class with professor Opal Palmer Adisa and a group of students, who, unbeknownst to me, would soon be family, just as Opal would. As I said, I was fairly nervous about beginning this next chapter of my life, but Opal was the greatest gift god could have given me. I am not prone to hyperbole. Opal was a gift; "Walk good," she says.

On that first day we sat down and did a traditional round-the-table introduction, which was the last superficial engagement we had the entire semester; I suppose we had to get it out of our systems. From then on, every class would begin with the same exercise: our little family would sit down, and Opal would have us breathe, forget about the outside world—our boss, our overbearing partner, our unpaid credit cards.

She would tell us a story that took us out of our conscious minds. She might start us out on a beach, or in a tropical rain forest, or in the bed of a warm lover. But wherever her storytelling started us, each student ended up in an individual world.

We freewrote for 10, 15, 20 minutes; the only rules were to keep your hand moving, to let your mind spill out, loosen up, like stretching your muscles before a run.

Some of the words that came out were erotic, some were expositions of inner turmoil or expressions of joy accompanied by most everything else that can come from freewriting (at least from a delightfully unique group of individuals such as made up our class).

Thinking back, this statement should be anything but parenthetical; an essential aspect of our class was the uniqueness of its students. Everyone brought something different to the table, and Opal helped to illuminate each person for everyone else to see. Not only did we grow as students; we grew as individuals. That's a good formula for brewing something special.

As the weeks slipped by, I always looked forward to Opal's class. One was in CCA's courtyard; one was on Rodeo Beach, storytelling around a bonfire; one was at her house, over a home-cooked meal. All were special.

To me, Opal embodies CCA. Her openness, encouragement of expression, desire to learn, desire to be human, to love, sweat, write, come back and say ah!—all of this pretty much sums up what I felt going through my first wonderful year.

Jack plans to graduate in 2007.