Yesterday, in a small rainstorm, we walked in the early morning at Watch Hill with a few good friends. It was slightly overcast when we left home at 6:30, but by the time we arrived at the beach, some ominous clouds had gathered, and soon some lightning streaks were flashing in the east. We walked quickly with good conversation and lots of laughs, and finished with a full and filling breakfast at St. Clairs.

Later, toward evening, we met Jim and Ann and Joan for dinner at the Watch Hill Yacht Club. We saw a magnificent sunset as we ate and talked, and the food was delicious.

This morning, Delycia and I were up early and off on our bikes for a demanding 12 mile ride, along the river and then past farms and fields and old homes and finally back to the river and home.

STARS, PLANETS, AND CLASSROOMS

     In pensive, solitary moments, I sometimes see my classroom as a small universe itself. Like the planets and stars, my students and I are constantly moving in flawless harmony, even though it may not always appear to be so. Just as the stars may seem to be scattered in confusion across the sky, so my classroom may seem to a visitor to be abuzz with disorder. A trained observer, though, would see nothing but harmonious patterns in the distant night sky, just as someone who understands how teaching and learning works might (I hope) sense the intrinsic order in my class. Each star and planet shines and moves in its own well-ordered way, and each of us in my classroom contributes something ship-shape and special to the class. Some students are shining suns, supplying light for others, while some are small planets that shine in others' light, faithfully follow their orbits, and bestow their own uncommon beauty to the class. And the roles can change: One day I might be the sun in the galaxy of my classes, whereas another day I might be in the distant surroundings, a small, almost imperceptible star on the outskirts of the discussion in my ever-harmonious classroom on a country road that is always, amazingly,  just what it's supposed to be. 

Yesterday we took a strong and long walk on East Beach under the bluest of skies. The crowds were just gathering around 10:00, but we quickly found ourselves almost alone as we walked. I dropped down now and then for 17 push-ups at a time (great for me), and occasionally I trudged through the soft sand near the dunes, just to keep the heart pumping hard.

Later in the afternoon, we rode our bikes down to the Seaport, and before we knew it, we had purchased a grandparents season pass for $90.00. It gives me pleasure to picture us walking with Noah, Josh, Ava, Ilinka, and Louie through the grounds of the 1870's village, pointing out the strange sights and stopping now and then for a special treat.

A cool evening. Delycia fixed a superb dinner (the wilted lettuce salad was extra special) and we watched the PBS News Hour as a way of easing into the end of a fine day.

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

Some strange things have happened in the last few chapters -- so strange that both Delycia and I are questioning the plausibility of the story.  Somehow, it hardly seems plausible that  that, just by chance, Margaret's fiancé had an affair with Jacky Bast 10 years ago. It sort of threw both of us, I think, off track for a bit, wondering whether the book was breaking away from being a truly smooth and sincere story. I think what may happen to me is what has often happened with previous great books -- that gradually the beauty of the book will appear, as if a mist slowly rises and a spectacular city is seen. We shall see ...

Yesterday morning Delycia and I did some wedding errands, stopping at McQuades to set the details for the three-layer cake, then the Groton Town Clerk's office to apply for the marriage license, then to Nigrelli's jewelry store to try on our newly arrived wedding rings and order some engravings for them. It was a blue-sky morning with a fresh summer wind everywhere, a perfect time to take care of such cheery business. In the late afternoon, we drove to Misquamicut again for a leisurely few hours on the beach. We sat in our new beach chairs with extended leg rests, and enjoyed the songs of the surf, an always changing evening sky,  the cooling air,  and some delicious meatloaf sandwiches prepared by Delycia.

NOT MINDING

A famous spiritual teacher once said that the secret to his happiness was that he “doesn’t mind what happens” – meaning, I think, that he was always willing to accept the present moment precisely as it was. He knew that the present moment was all he ever had, and that therefore it was useless to resist it. He had seen the truth that resistance to the present moment is what causes all the problems in life, and he had made up his mind to avoid problems by simply relaxing and “not minding what happens”. He would willingly accept and even embrace whatever came his way, looking for its concealed blessings and benefits. I could certainly make use of this truth in my teaching, because, as it stands now, I refuse far more present moments than I accept. In fact, I seem to be almost constantly resisting what’s happening in my classroom, from the actions of my students to the outcomes of my lessons. I spend my days in the classroom picking and choosing – accepting this moment, combating this one, welcoming these two moments, spurning those four. This is disordered behavior, because if the present moment is all I ever have, to reject it is as foolish as trying to make Monday instantly transform into Friday. If this moment in my classroom, when the lesson seems to be lagging and the lassitude seems more present than spiritedness , is the only moment available to me, then it must somehow be right, letter-perfect, suitable, and superb. My job as a teacher is not to reject that moment, but to respectfully accept it and feel the special force inside it. There’s something profoundly perfect in every moment in my classroom, and I can discover it if, like the spiritual teacher, I simply slow down, loosen up,  and don’t mind what happens.

Yesterday we spent a lovely few hours in Brooklyn (CT) with Jaimie, Ava, and Noah. It was the best of weathers -- bright and breezy and cool -- and it was the best of times for Delycia and me. First, Delycia and Ava stood at the counter (Ava on a stool) and made fruit salad for dinner, while Noah and I had fun drawing and coloring pictures of the "Salsich Resort", complete with pool, hot tub, and slide. Noah smiled and laughed almost constantly. Next, we went outside and I started the grill for burgers and buns, and we continued playing with the kids -- Delycia and Ava working on a perplexing, 3-dimensional puzzle, and Noah and I supplying special touches to the "resort" drawing. The peace of Jaimie's place in the woods was all around us.

Dinner was around the table in the dining area, and such fun it was! There was fine food carefully prepared, and friendship without limits. How lucky we all felt!

In the evening, back home, Delycia and I watched, on our new bigTV screen, a recent British show about Merlin and Arthur -- not a total winner but a wonderful way to slip toward sleep.

Yesterday a dangerous, dark storm swept into Mystic, making the morning look like night at 9:00 a.m. The darkness and strong winds sent dome shivers through me, especially since Delycia was on the road in the storm.  I worried about her -- and about me, her lonesome partner. 


Toward evening, while Delycia was preparing her usual painstaking meal, I sat by the open window in the living room, reading and finding excellent literature for my fall English courses. It was a treat to take many moments to simply read and appreciate and get enthusiastic about teaching. It's been one of the steady pleasures of my life. 


 * * * * *
This morning we took a fast walk along the sunny river and up and down some hills, me with 5-pound weights swinging on both arms. 

A PLACE FOR CUPS

As I was having a mid-morning snack today, I set my coffee cup down on a small, serviceable table beside me, and it started me thinking about how important it is to apprise my students of the countless useful "tables" they have access to in their English studies -- inconspicuous but useful surfaces upon which to set ideas and feelings as they study serious literature and write their stately essays. In fact, my English class itself -- every second of it -- should be an assembly of such surfaces. The students should feel surrounded by endless roominess, more than ample space to set down all their ideas, from the simplest and smallest to the fiercest and most massive. As we're enjoying our cups of thoughts during class, we should know, as easily as we know the thoughts themselves, that tables upon which to set them are everywhere in Room 2.

On Saturday evening, we had dinner with a dear old friend and Peter and Linda at their home in Cambridge. There was much laughter for hours, including during an outdoor supper under a handsome patio chandelier and surrounded by flowers of all colors.

South Station (Amtrak), Boston

Yesterday, we ended my "surprise" (or "kidnapped") weekend in Boston with another visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in the morning, followed by lunch in its breezy courtyard among many other visitors, including two young sisters who pranced and skipped around while their parents sat at a table in the shade. Later, we sat in the Commons for awhile, taking pleasure in the simple kinds of happiness we saw among the many visitors. At 3:00, we boarded our train for a cool and serene ride down to our hilltop home in Mystic. We ended the wearying but very satisfying day by watching an early Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes, on our new big-screen television.

Misquamicut Beach

On Thursday, Delycia and I enjoyed a sunset picnic supper at Misquamicut Beach -- the first such picnic in our relationship. We drove to the beach around 5:30, just when the crowd was starting to thin out on the somewhat tropical afternoon, and we set up camp for ourselves down close to water and with a fine view of the early evening sunlight and sky. I plunged around in the softly moving surf for a few minutes, and then we enjoyed my simply-prepared picnic of sandwiches and cherries as the sun fell toward the west and the light dimmed and softened.

Yesterday, the first day of my "surprise weekend" prepared by Delycia, we walked with our suitcases to the Mystic station and took the train to Boston. We enjoyed the ride in the cool and comfortable car, whispering every so often but mostly reading and seeing the seacoast scenery pass by. We checked into our room at a very cozy B+B on Beacon Hill, and then spent the evening at a Buddhist center, where we participated in a guided meditation, ate a delicious Asian dinner, and listened to a lecture by a Buddhist monk. Home by 9:30 to our welcoming room for a fine night's sleep.

The Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum

Today, we had a brisk walk up and down the streets of Beacon Hill, and then met cousin Jim at the Isabel Gardner Museum for a quick look at some art and then an easygoing, conversational lunch. Tonight we'll take the subway to my old friend Linda's home in Cambridge for dinner with friends.

STEADY SURPRISES

This weekend, Delycia has planned some special surprises for me (she says she’s “kidnapping” me till Sunday), and it’s caused me to think about the significant role surprises play in my teaching. A surprise could be described as something unforeseen or astonishing, and surely such small or large wonders occur in my work almost moment by moment.  In fact, each second of class time is a surprise of a sort, coming upon my students and me in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. There’s no way to know what thoughts will arrive in our minds and when, and our feelings flow in and out of us in unsystematic ways, so surprise is literally what our lives consist of, English class included. Our minds make one startling thought this moment, the next moment a totally different one, and so on -- forever. Every second of class is a small outburst of newness, like stars at sundown starting to shine one by one.  It can’t be stopped, this constant release of wonders and amazements. Next year in Room 2 at my unassuming school on a woodland road, and this weekend with Delycia, surprises will be as present as heartbeats and breaths.

SMOOTHING

     Walking on the beach this morning with Delycia, I spotted and saved several smooth white stones, and later, as I saw them sitting on our blue bedspread, they brought to mind the “smoothing” process that seems so important in teaching. The stones had been smoothed down to total sleekness by the workings of the waves and tides, and the writing process we use in class seems to be a similar one of smoothing and steamrolling and pressing and leveling. The stones were once lumpy pieces of cracked rock from some mountain somewhere, somewhat like the students’ cumbersome and lumbering sentences in their first drafts – but over enough time, both the rocks and the sentences can be smoothed out to become something distinctive. The white stones that sit before me as I type are almost creamy in their utter smoothness, and sometimes I see sentences in student papers that are similarly smooth.  It just takes time – decades and centuries for the sea to polish the stones, and minutes and maybe hours for the kids to create effortless and easygoing sentences.  There’s something, too, to the comparison between the sea stones and my students’ young lives.  The kids are being tumbled about by life the way the sea tumbles stones, and inexorably the process is smoothing and polishing the students. The smoothness their lives attain may not always be the smoothness others want for them, but life will do its smoothing work in its singular way, whether we wish it to or not.  My hope for my students is that they learn to lean into the smoothing process instead of resisting it. Let life do its flattening and smoothing work with you, I want to say to the students. Let your own special smoothness and silkiness take shape, like uncommon stones in the shaping sea.  

The hot weather arrived yesterday, quite suddenly. By 10:00 a.m., the air was sultry and steaming, and by early afternoon, all we could do was sit on the porch and pretend to be cooled by the occasional breeze. Last night we slept fairly well, though, with a fan turned on high and oscillating so some air was constantly passing across our bed.

In the morning, we took a special, behind-the-scenes tour the Seaport, as a way of preparing some of us teachers for next year's emphasis on the sea and whaling. We received an overflow of fascinating information, just a small sampling of what's available to students. After the first hour I was weary with so many words spoken so fast, which was good luck, because it allowed to fully realize how tired my students get when I give them too many spoken sentences one after the other.

In the evening, we enjoyed supper at Jim and Ann's, with Dan and Li and Angela. The grilled sausage was juicy and tasty with some special hot mustard, and the blueberry dessert was delicious.

Early to bed, with the softly moving air from the fan and just a sheet covering us.

SOFTLY AND QUIETLY

This morning, as I tiptoed silently down the stairs so as to not disturb Delycia, I thought of the tiptoeing I do as I work among my students each day. These are kids whose lives deserve to not be disturbed – to not be bothered and badgered by a teacher who sometimes doesn’t see anything but his own lesson plans. They come to me, even as young as they are, with a wagonload of worries and fears, and it’s my business, above all, to not add to their anxieties. So I try to tiptoe when I’m teaching.  I try to take them down inspiring but peaceful paths. I try to teach lessons that will let them learn in enlivening but lighthearted ways.  There’s enough strain and pressure in their young lives. I’m in Room 2 each day to draw them away from uneasiness and show them the contentment that comes from creating a fine  paragraph or seeing the inner spirit of a story. Instead of anxiously and loudly, we try to go softly and quietly.

This morning, sitting on the couch with quiet sunshine all around us from the windows to the east, we made some specific plans for our wedding. We went over the ceremony -- the order of events, the words to be spoken, the hopes we have for the happiness of the day for everyone present. As we talked, it was almost as if we were working out the well-being of the rest of our lives as we set down the details of this  single special day in August.

The Mystic River

In the evening, we took our folding chairs down to the grassy park on the Mystic River and listened to some splendid band music. It was a lovely late-spring evening, with light waves of clouds across the sky and a softly-lit sunset. The music, we both thought, was exceptional. This was just a small community band from the Mystic-Noank area, but they surely knew how to make music together. Delycia and I were in a little heaven as we listened. Nearby, three children had heaven for themselves, too, as they danced and pranced around their mother, who listened to the music on a blanket at the center of her spirited family.

The Chapel on Enders Island

Yesterday we took a rolling and fairly relaxing bike ride around Mason's Island and over to Ender's Island and through the St. Edmund's Retreat Center. It was a cool morning with a slight, refreshing breeze blowing, and the ride seemed easier than some we have done. We caught many glimpses of the sea here and there -- a cove in the sunshine around a bend, a wide stretch of blue water out to distant islands. The retreat center seems to be a place of silence and serenity, with small stone buildings and the simplest of gardens here and there. We decided we would definitely return.

In the evening, Delycia went to yoga at The Egg, and I stayed home and read Shakespeare and started preparing supper. (This is my week to take care of Delycia -- such a pleasure!)

A SHEER GIFT

“It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.” -- Ephesians 3:7 (translation by Eugene Peterson)

     When I read this passage in the Bible this morning, I realized that it was precisely what I needed to overcome my occasional sense of discouragement about my teaching. For many years, I have been trying to “make myself” into a super teacher, which has inevitably led to periods of despondency. I guess I have thought of myself as a sculptor trying to shape a statue of a flawless teacher, or a movie director trying to design a film about perfect teaching, and a certain sadness has always set in when I have seen that the goal is a great way off. I have seen myself as the author, architect, deviser, designer, and overall boss and president of my teaching – with all the stress and occasional distress those labels suggest. This wonderful statement by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians helps me to understand that I have been utterly misguided in my approach to teaching. What happens in my classroom does not happen because of me. In fact, I am simply a part of what happens, just as a small branch on a tree is a part of the whole tree as it rustles in breezes. The Universe (what some people call God) “handles all the details”, as Paul puts it. The grand, infinite, and ever-harmonious Universe – the master sculptor, the main movie director – "gives" each thought and action that occurs in the classroom. It’s not something I  plan or produce or organize or control or am responsible for or need to feel guilty about. It’s the Universe's gift, moment after moment, all a “sheer surprise”. If I can understanding this remarkable truth next year, I will be totally relaxed as I enter the classroom – just as relaxed as I would be walking into a theater. What wonderful surprises are in store for me today? What has the grand movie-maker planned for my students and me?

"Howards End" by E.M. Forster

Howards End (from the film)

In Chapter 25, Margaret decides that she would like to live at Oniton, one of her future husband's many properties, even though he apparently has no use for the place. Also in this chapter, on the way to Oniton, one of the cars hits a cat, and all the cars stop and order the women to get into one care and drive off. Margaret, however, screams for them to stop, and finally jumps out of the car and injures herself. Forster writes this about what she was feeling afterwards: "[These men] had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust, and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had been killed had lived more deeply than they."
 

Today we enjoyed a special Father's Day cookout at Corina's house in Worcester, with Luke and young Ilinka. Delycia and I had a quiet drive up, with a stop for gas and bottles of water, and got to the house just when the chicken was browning perfectly on the grill. Corina fixed a delicious salad with English cucumbers and mint,  and a fine sweet potato salad. We ate well and talked long about all sorts of things.

Later, back at Connecticut College, Delycia and I attended a wonderful concert of early Mediterranean music. The musicians used unusual instruments, and used them to perfection. We applauded happily at the end of every piece.

Dinner was at the Stonington Pizza Palace, for a treat. We snuggled close in a booth, enjoying a veggie pizza and the best kind of friendship.

Today we drove to Boston to meet Aaron and see Noel Coward's famous play, "Private Lives". Delycia and I loved being with Aaron for a few hours, but I think we both found the play to be silly, pointless, and even somewhat insulting. It's a play that's famous for its witty repartee, but we found it to be a rather brainless display of humorous cruelty (as if cruelty is ever funny). I saw no point in the play -- no hidden truths, no deeper meaning, no reason for it to be put on stage to such applause as we heard today. It's a story of superficial friendship and out-of-control lust, and I think Delycia and I were both happy when it finally ended. Our applause was polite, but by no means wholehearted.

However, lunch with Aaron and a stroll around Boston with him before the play made the drive worth it, easily.

View from Napatree Point

Yesterday we spent the morning with friends, walking the beach at Napatree Point and then enjoying breakfast together at St. Clair's. It was a cool and perfectly clear morning, with just a wisp of a cloud or two above, and a bold, silvery light all across the water. We walked at a good but not grueling pace, talking and gesturing and simply satisfied to be where we were. Delycia was usually not by my side, but instead (good for her) getting to know my old friends, side by side. Breakfast was by the window at the cafe, with pancakes and sandwiches and steaming coffee. Later, Delycia and I rode our bikes quite hard down the shoreline past Misquamicut and back. The wind was a mighty one, and we pumped with considerable power most of the way. I was winded, totally, when we finished.

"Howards End" by E.M. Forster

For the past six weeks or so, Delycia and I have been reading Howards End for a few minutes each morning, and very slowly but surely I'm beginning to understand and appreciate what Forster was trying to do in this book. I have found it to be confusing at times, often losing track of who this character is and what that character wants, but gradually the good structure of the novel is revealing itself. Just yesterday, in fact, we realized that "proportion" is an often repeated idea in the book. Since we are reading it on my Kindle, we were able to quickly search the book for the word "proportion", and it came up dozens of times, the first back on p. 17. (We're on p. 170 now.) Here is a quote from p. 70, Mrs Wilcox speaking:
     "Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged—well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in—to live by proportion. Don't BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed ... "

WHO THEY ARE, WHERE THEY ARE GOING

    

     There are really only two things my students need to know in order to be successful in my class: who they are and where they are going. Someone might say, “Well, what about how to write and read? Isn’t that important?” – and I would say of course, but if they don’t know their innermost gifts and the goal they are going toward in the course, the learning will surely be shallow and transitory. They will learn and forget. They will write the dozens of essays and read the demanding books, and when the course is over they will forget them all and be no different than they were before my English class. I want them to have a foundation beneath their learning; I want them to learn because they know who they are and where they are going. I want them to understand, in a profound way, that they are boundlessly skilled creations in an astonishing universe. I want them to feel, every time they write or read in my class, that they are performing marvelous feats in a marvelous world. But I also want them to have a clear sense of where my course is taking them, and that’s something I need to work on. Often, I’m afraid, my students do not know the destination of the course, because I have simply not made it clear. We have proceeded in a “day by day” manner, with no eye on the distant road, the long-term goal. I need to diligently work on that next year. I need to show the students, a few times each week, where my course is hoping to take them. If I can do that, and if the students can keep in mind how blessed and brave they really are, then we have a chance of making what perhaps is my last year of teaching a truly wonderful one.

IT WAS JUST A SHOWER

It was just a shower, 
but his street seemed to celebrate
and shout in happiness. 
Heaven was here 
as he sat on the porch
and saw the holy water 
washing the houses 
and helping the sidewalks 
seem state-of-the-art 
once more.
So many birds, he knew,
were noticing 
what this light rain 
was doing 
to this dark morning, 
so many minds 
were making fresh thoughts
as this fresh rain fell.

GETTING A CHAIR FOR A PROBLEM

For roughly the first 40 years of my life, I was afraid of bad times. There was probably no more consistent theme in my life than the fear and avoidance of “problems”.  I was a timid and diffident warrior when encountering troubles, and when the troubles arrived -- probably because I was assuming they would – I was often fainthearted in facing them. I treated problems as adversaries, and more often than not they decisively defeated me.  However, in the second half of my life, I have slowly been able to see, to my astonishment, that the disappointments and burdens and sorrows of life are actually significant gifts that I should probably appreciate, and even usher in.  I understand now that problems, far from being my enemies, are actually friends – useful gifts sent from our generous universe to help me solve the puzzles of life. I see the surprising truth that I need these so-called “problems” as badly as my body needs water, for without them I would not be able to understand the flawlessness of the universe in all its unceasing manifestations. Now I try to calmly (and even gratefully, at least in secret) welcome each problem and ask what it has come to teach me. I unreservedly open the door of my heart and say, “Come in, problem or difficulty or setback or stumbling block. I am happy to see you. I have a feeling you are exactly what I need. May I get you a chair?”  

TWO KINDS OF GAMES

   We humans play two kinds of games, and I've slowly started to see that I have set up countless stressful situations for myself by playing mostly one kind – and taking it far too seriously. This kind of game we might call “the finite game”. It’s the game of “getting ahead”, in which there are boundaries and rules and goals and time limits and winners and losers. I was accustomed at an early age to play this game and take it seriously, and I have continued to do so, and in the process have created for myself a life of fairly steady strain and disquiet. There’s another game, though, that intrigues me, and that has always brought more peace to my life than unrest, more contentment than trauma – and it’s a game I want to spend my senior years playing and perfecting.  It’s called “the infinite game”, and it’s based on the radical concept that all of life is actually spiritual, not material, and is therefore without limits, or infinite. In this game, there are no boundaries, goal lines, time limits, and definitely no losers. It’s a game in which hardihood and heroism are ever-present, and fear falls away like an insignificant bystander.  Certainly I won’t stop playing the first kind of game – the finite game – because it has it’s proper place in everyday life.  I will continue to set out my clothes in the morning, make daily to-do lists, keep a shipshape house, be cautious with expenses,, take cost-effective vacations, – but the key difference is that I won’t take the game too seriously. I’ll know that it’s an enjoyable but ultimately innocuous and inconsequential game. It’s neither crucial nor critical nor essential. The only that game that really matters is the one we always win – the infinite game of the universe that is always happening, always momentous, and always satisfying.

EQUABILITY

I love the word “equable”, especially as it applies to teaching. It means, according to one dictionary,“unvarying, steady, free from extremes, not easily disturbed.” I would like my students to see me this way. In this world of fickleness and caprice bordering on chaos, my young students desperately need to be in the presence of adults who are stable, composed, and resolute. They need to see that some things – and people – do not change like the weather. They need to know that some people are predictably strong and calm, hour after hour, day after day. I would like to be one of those people for my students. Of course, it’s not easy. Equability is not like a suit of clothes one can simply put on and magically become serene and steady. It has to come from inside, from a deep understanding of the basic equability of the universe. Everything, from the farthest star to the smallest cell inside us, moves in steady harmony, doing precisely what it must do no matter what happens around it. And indeed, whatever happens around it is also happening exactly as it must, and in perfect harmony, no matter what appearances seem to suggest. If I can gradually come to a thorough understanding that I am part of this kind of equable universe, then, and only then, can I be a serene and steady teacher for my students. Then I can be, perhaps, like the reliable clock that keeps ticking at its quiet, steady pace in even the wildest storm. There would be something valuable in being that kind of teacher.

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

One way or another,
something always happens.
Perhaps the wind roars
around someone's windows,
or an orange falls open
in a person's hands.
Maybe a voice of fulfillment
sings a song for a friend,
or lamplight lands on a desk.
A car could carry
a promising life to someone's house,
or a man could make a pancake
for the person her loves.
One way or another,
something happens.
Sunshine could simplify this day,
or a storm could cause the trees
to clap their hands.

STEELED SINEWS AND HOPE

“So service shall with steeled sinews toil,

And labour shall refresh itself with hope.”

     Shakespeare, Henry V

     When I’m toiling along in a lesson, say, on commas in compound sentences, I need “steeled sinews”, and it would sure help if hope was refreshing me. My classroom labor is not the exhausting work of weightlifters or world-class runners, but  there does sometimes seem to be no end to the tiring challenges of teaching teenagers English. Since I sometimes seem to be sweating in a gym when I’m showing the students the particulars of good writing, the muscles of my teaching have to be hardened – steeled, as Shakespeare says. Surely gentleness should play a part in my teaching, but I hope the sinews of my gentleness are stout and hard-wearing, for then the work will be constantly recharged with hope. If that were the case, I might grow weary when I’m working through a chapter in Dickens with the students, but the weariness, surprisingly, would be silently producing strength and confidence. The more fatigued I became, the better I would teach, for buoyancy and coolness would be created by the very exhaustion I was feeling. Teaching, then, would be like being a fountain, in which water is always falling, but precisely because it falls, it seems to rise higher and higher.

ONE MORNING

There was nothing
out of which loss could be made.
Not the smooth silver computer
present before him on his lap.
Not the coffee in a brown cup
on the couch's arm,
nor the effortless wind
from the silent world
outside his window.
Plus, he knew that thoughts
of kindness and contentment
were being born by the billions
across the earth
at this precise moment,
and the next,
and the next.


So what could create loss?
The silvery light outside?
The moments
unwrapping like presents?