FORCES

 There sometimes seem to be serious contrary forces in my classroom – forces that follow me around as I try to fulfill my lesson plan, forces that find all kinds of ways to oppose what I had planned to do – and yet, there is always, I know, a force inside me that is mightier than any of these rebellious ones. I often fret, as I’m waiting for the students to show up for class, about the countless things that could go wrong – and it’s interesting that I call them “things”. They seem to be solid and substantial objects, these powers that pretend to threaten my teaching, and yet they are as slight and transitory as softly flowing winds. In my mind, they make the noise of confusion and disarray, and yet they pass by and disappear as surely as bubbles in a stream do. What doesn’t pass by – what stays with me persistently and eternally – are the vast forces I have inside me, simply because of the gift of good thoughts. For every “problem” that seems to present itself as I’m teaching, there’s a thought that can throw out enough light to light up a dusky sky. For every rebellious force that finds ways to pester me, there’s the exultant power of vast and reassuring ideas. I just have to stay calm. I just have to wait and watch for the ideas that always arise, and that easily sweep away, like insignificant dust, any problem that pretends to be stronger than good teaching and learning.  

 

More rain yesterday -- a steady soaking about six in the evening. Delycia and I worked on various projects and listened to the rain streaming in the trees and across the sides of the house. We took a short drive during the storm, and it felt like our little car was cruising through a soft and friendly waterfall. 


Earlier we spent the day drifting from watching the Olympics (we loved the strong, self-assured look of the women cyclists as they raced along the English roads) to talking about details for our wedding this weekend to passing perfectly undisturbed moments beside each other on the couch. Lucky us!

THEY RODE

They rode like the light 
when it lets itself flow 
through forests and along rivers
like The Mystic. They rode
for no other reason than to remember
to think about bright things -- 
the burnished river they rode beside, 
the bringers of the good news 
that is everywhere, 
the wisdom of roads 
and small stones in driveways
and birds scattering suddenly 
because of simple happiness --
just above him, in fact, 
as he helped these words 
work together on this page. 

As I'm typing this, a steady, soaking rain is relieving all of Mystic, and maybe places all around us. It started fairly forcefully just as I put some pork steaks on the grill, so going in and out to see about the steaks was a wet affair. Now the rain is simply a steady shower, soaking the impoverished grass and all green things.

The Mystic River

This morning we took an early bike ride, right along the shining river and out across the country roads we now know so well. Delycia drove herself hard all the way, and again, I had to give everything just to keep up. She rode like winds blow and rivers run. I was bent over and breathing hard when we reached the house, but I'm sure she could have climbed a few more hills on that yellow, good-looking bike of hers.

Yesterday was a day off from serious exercise. The morning was a mixture of rain and mugginess, so we stayed inside and did some simple jobs --me with my finances and Delycia doing her correspondence and record-keeping. In the evening, Jim and Ann came for dinner on the deck as the light faded off to soft grays and browns. We ate and laughed and looked down at the Mystic roofs from our hilltop house. 

The morning beach at Napatree

On this warm morning we met some friends for our regular Friday beach walk. Walking east back to our cars, we felt lucky to be looking at this lovely scene.  >>>

Delycia's morning glories on the deck

We've enjoyed the last few days back home from our trip to St. Louis. The weather has worked its way around to cool nights and not-so-hot days, allowing us to take some fine walks and bike rides. Just today, in the early morning mild air, we rode out to Watch Hill, working ourselves as hard as possible, especially on the long rise beside the river and the cemetery. We finished with a filling, flavorful breakfast at a cafe beside dozens of boats resting on the river.

Last night, we sat in the park for a fairly impressive performance of Macbeth, put on by Westerly's Granite Theater. It was a lovely night with only a spray of clouds and a few stars across the sky, and a pleasant breeze passing along now and then. The play had some powerful moments, but mostly it was just nice to sit with Delycia and hundreds of others in a happy summer setting on a what seemed like a flawless evening.

Sunday morning at the airport in St. Louis, surviving a three-hour delay. We have our books and drinks and food, and the cool air-conditioned air feels fine, so we're actually enjoying ourselves. It's 68 inside, 98 outside as we sit beside the big windows watching planes smoothly come in and take off.

Yesterday was a great day for our family. Some 70 of us of all ages enjoyed a festive party at Barbara and Mike's lake house. The swimming and boating was the best, the food was perfect, and the friendship, of course, was what really counted for Delycia and me. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Surviving the heat in St. Louis! We flew yesterday into 100+ temperatures, and have been braving it all by keeping ourselves inside in air-conditioned places (which is almost every place). Dinner last night with brother Al and Mary Anne in a Greek cafe, then early to bed in our refreshingly cool hotel room beside the airport.

This morning we took a delightful walk in Forest Park in surprisingly cool temperatures. We both enjoyed the various views in this loveliest of city parks -- hilltops terraced with fully-tended flower gardens, small streams loaded with lily blossoms, and the many man-made paths for walkers and riders. Breakfast with Susie and Kent at a quaint cafe in the Central West End, then three of my brothers and I brought our family memories to a lunch at Schlafley's beer garden in Maplewood. Dinner tonight with Pete and BeBe.

Napatree Point, RI

Early walk on Napatree Point yesterday. A glassy-clear morning, with just some strands of clouds across the sea. I took some splashes in the water along the way, Delycia sitting on the sand and smiling at her husband-to-be. We collected pieces of silver driftwood and some round stones to use at our wedding ceremony (not sure how just yet).

Long drive later to LaGuardia Airport Hotel for a flight to St. Louis this morning. A thrashing thunderstorm swept through just as we arrived at the hotel. Soaked shirt and shorts, but lots of laughter too.

Pizza in the hotel cafe, then a quiet night together.

ONLY TURN

Sometimes my students and I find a piece of literature to be a thoroughly perplexing problem, a maze we can't make our way out of, but usually we find that if we only turn in a new direction, a door to understanding opens almost effortlessly. "We need only turn," I sometimes say to the class -- and they know I mean make a simple turn toward a totally new way of thinking about the piece. It's happened so often. We'll be wandering in a complicated page of Dickens or George Eliot, with little light to show us the way, when one of us -- usually a student -- will suddenly say something like, "This may sound strange, but what about ...", and then she or he will take us down a trail none of us had seen, and sometimes lead us to a secret that shines a brilliant light on the piece. "Only turn" is a motto we make use of in my class, and I also use it in my personal life, like turning down an undiscovered street and seeing something shining -- a house or some trees or a single person -- as if it was placed there just for me. 

This morning we started early, with breakfast on the porch by 6:30, and off on our bikes by 7:15, in the cool early hours. We rode hard for about an hour--at least it was hard for me, if not for daring Delycia, who sailed down the roads sometimes far in front of me, past shadowy fields and houses just starting to stir, and past birds by the hundred singing their best. The rest of the day we spent in the shade of the yard with the supportive breezes, or up in the air-conditioned bedroom with the window shades up to see the overflowing summer trees. Dinner at Water Street Cafe with friends.

WHEN A LION ROARS

     There are times in English class when whatever literature we're studying shouts to my students and me -- roars the real truth to all of us. A sentence in a short story, a line in a poem, the last wonderful word, even, in a long novel -- all these might never yell so loud as when they speak out to us in my standard and surely commonplace English class. I come to class with no special announcements, no flags flying, no beguiling acts of showmanship, but every so often the literature leaps out at us with all the dramatics we could desire. We might have plodded through some pages of Shakespeare when, with a strange shout, a single line might let itself loose on us. We might have studied a poem with scholarly constancy when, with a sudden roar, the whole thing throws itself at us with its total truth. Perhaps this also happens in my personal life. Can the significance of life itself raise its voice for me from a sunset at the beach? Does what the world is all about sometimes call out its message in the smile of a single friend?    

Another sizzler. Walked with Delycia in the cool hours, down to the river on shady streets, feeling the flow of the cooler river winds. Carried 5 pound weights, swinging and lifting them as often as possible. Breakfast on the deck -- egg white sandwich with broccoli and old grilled chicken pieces and the hottest coffee (even on the hottest mornings). Drove to Jaimie's to talk over plans for the big day. Love those shady lawns and flowers, such a sweet spot for a senior-citizen wedding! Netflix delivered Season 2 of Downton Abbey. Can't wait to hear about the war and what Mary will do about Matthew! 

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

More on Howards End from J. B. Beer (Lecturer at the University of Manchester):

   "The wisp of hay which Mrs Wilcox holds participates in a stream of symbolism that runs through the entire novel. She is first seen by Helen with her hands full of hay; and when Margaret begins to take her place, later, she also picks up the habit of playing with grass -- at one point leaving a trail of it across the hall. The novel ends with a great hay harvest.

   "Mr Wilcox and his children, on the other hand, are allergic to hay, and have to shut themselves away from it. Their allergy reflects a psychical limitation. Hay-fever, in fact, seems to correspond to the 'peevishness' of earlier novels -- Margaret's brother Tibby, who also suffers from it, is described as losing some of his peevishness when he goes to Oxford. 

   "That the symbolism as a whole is deliberate is confirmed by a brief comment on Mrs Wilcox: 'Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower." 

NOTICING

Recently I discovered that the the word “notice” comes from the Latin word “noscere”, which means "to get to know". Noticing something, then, doesn’t mean, as I used to think, simply glancing at it in passing, as in “I noticed some new blossoms in the garden this morning.” That’s the kind of noticing I’ve been doing for years – just glimpsing things, taking a quick look as I rush by on my endless errands. It’s been especially true in my teaching, where I’ve often scurried through my lessons with blinders on, hardly paying a moment’s attention to the individual students sitting before me. Truly noticing means truly getting to know, as in studying, paying attention to, and learning about. If my goal in teaching is to get better at noticing things, this means I have to slow down and seriously observe. I can’t just glance at my students and then proceed to push through the lesson. Really noticing someone is earnest work. It requires observing, contemplating, beholding that person. It can’t be done quickly, in passing, the way I have often noticed my students. In a way, the word “notice” implies being a student, for I have to study someone in order to truly notice them. Perhaps this means I have to be as much a student as my students are. They are students of English because they are trying to notice (get to know) all the important concepts of reading and writing. I, on the other hand, am a student of my students. I need to study them. I need to get better at genuinely noticing them -- beholding them -- moment by moment, day by day.

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

Over the least few days, Delycia and I read some commentaries on the novel which enlightened us as to some of the more subtle beauties in the book. In "Forster's Howards End" (Explicator 42.1, 1983), Neil Heims  makes the interesting point that Forster was using some lines from Shelley's "Adonais" to develop one of the major themes in the novel -- the contrast between the "white radiance" of the eternal All, and the mundane everyday affairs of people like the Wilcoxes. Also, J.B. Beer, in a book devoted entirely to Forster's novels, discusses some of the underlying symbolism in the book. It was very helpful to read what others have thought of this interesting but often puzzling book. 

Evening at Misquamicut Beach. More people than usual, a beach spread with families and friends and a few spirited swimmers in the still icy water.  Sandwiches, cold chicken, green beans and tomatoes in Italian dressing for dinner as the light dimmed across the water. We read in our big green beach chairs, sometimes stopping to talk or take in the view of the evening coming slowly on. A family in front of us -- mom, dad, a 3-year-old, and a roly-poly, smiling baby -- showed the spirit of the summer beach as they sat before the swishing, incoming surf.

"Howards End" by E. M. Forster

     After reading it aloud to each other for probably at least two months, just a few pages each day, Delycia and I finished the book yesterday, and I think we were both impressed -- perhaps even overwhelmed -- by the power of the ending. I don't mean that it was a surprise ending, something shocking and maybe gimmicky -- just an ending that powerfully pushed the book up from being an interesting story to the level of good -- even great -- literature. As we said to each other while sitting on the porch-swing after reading the final paragraph, the book has depth, something lacking in the great majority of merely "good" or "interesting" novels. Howards End, you might say, is like an ocean. The storyline moves fairly quietly along the surface, while vast currents of feelings and ideas swirl underneath. What's fascinating -- and I've seen this phenomenon in many of the great novels I've read -- is that the depth of the book didn't fully reveal itself until the final chapters -- actually the final pages. Forster's novel turned out to be a massive iceberg, with only the tip showing until the immense complexity and profundity of it all rose to the surface in the last chapters and pages.
    This brings to mind something I've always suspected -- that reading a book out loud, and collaboratively, with one or more fellow readers, can bring out the beauty of the book far more fully than reading silently by yourself. Delycia and I read the sentences aloud and slowly, with as much feeling as possible, and that in itself helped the force of the story come forth. However, we also paused whenever we felt it necessary -- to discuss a sentence, look up a word, highlight something, or notice again a theme we had seen earlier. You might say we strolled through the book instead of rushing through it. We weren't as interested in what happened, as in why and how it happened, and how interestingly and beautifully it was described. We got to know this book really well. To use the "depth" analogy, we dove into the book, page after page, and swam in its depths, and thus refreshed ourselves.

     Now, happily, we are going to spend a few days going back through the book, examining our many highlighted sentences, looking again for themes we noticed earlier, and reading scholarly commentaries on the book. After a true reading adventure, it's important to take a few days to look back upon -- and truly savor -- the experience.

ALLOWING, LIKE WATER

It often occurs to me that I spend a great amount of time resisting, and very little time allowing. In fact, I probably resist, in some way or other, most of the present moments in my life. There’s always something just a little unsuitable, a little dissatisfying, in each moment, and so I resist it. Because it doesn’t seem perfect, I struggle against it and try to move on to the next moment, which I hope will be less flawed, more stainless and pristine and perfect. I recall a day last spring, for instance, when some girls in my class started giggling at an inappropriate time, and instantly I went into my best resistance mode. I bristled up a bit, put on my sternest face, and spoke in somber tones to the girls. It was as though their behavior was my physical enemy and I was out to vanquish it. The surprising problem with this approach is that, in trying to resist their behavior, I only added strength to it – and this is precisely what resistance to any present moment does. By struggling to eliminate their behavior, I only intensified the effect of it. By showing my most unsmiling look, I actually made the problem seem more powerful. Perhaps this is what Jesus understood when he encouraged his friends to offer no resistance to evil. He wasn’t suggesting that they be weak and passive. On the contrary, he wanted them to demonstrate the greatest power there is – the power of allowing. He knew that by letting any present moment be exactly what it is, they could actually eliminate any ability of that moment to control them. The ancient sages  understood this, which is probably why they were so drawn to water as a subject of meditation. Water never resists, and yet it is one of the most relentless and majestic forces on earth. If you try to “fight” with water, it simply yields, gives in, and thus wins the victory. Drop a heavy rock on a lake, and the lake merely allows the rock to enter and sink harmlessly to the bottom. However, this doesn’t mean that water is weak. Anything that can support enormous ships weighing thousands of tons is surely not weak. Perhaps, as I’m working with my students, I should think of myself as an ocean that is both yielding and strong, both gentle and compelling, both resilient and steadfast. No matter what types of “ships” my students may be on a given day, I can allow them to be what they are, and strongly support them as the ocean supports its ships. No matter how many "rocks"they drop on me, no matter how many cumbersome and vexatious behaviors they seem to unload during English class, I can good-naturedly give way and allow them to sink serenely into the depths. It would be a sweet and strong way to teach.

Walked the beach with friends before breakfast, then fine food at a Belgian cafe in Westerly. Home to some quiet time for reading, writing, wedding-planning, then sandwiches on the porch in a cheering breeze. Cooler today. Drove by some for-sale homes in Mystic, interesting but not for us. Delycia's caesar salad with chicken for dinner, then Downton Abbey, Season 1, Part 6. (I'm catching up!)

DAILY DISBELIEF AND ASTONISHMENT

This coming school year, as usual, there will be many miracles occurring at each moment in my classroom, and, as usual -- and amazingly -- I fear the students and I will be mostly heedless of those miracles. Each of us is a ceaseless wonder, and yet we generally pass the minutes of my class in ignorance of this, as though what’s happening in those minutes is tiresome instead of astonishing. During English class, we’re in the presence, as it were, of many Grand Canyons, and yet we act, most of the time, like we’re not especially interested. This year, I must somehow let my students know, and remind myself, that life, including my class, is an endless spectacle. As we sit in my classroom, each of us will be an ever-renewing fountain of impressions – thoughts and feelings that seem to flow from nowhere and are as vast and ever-lasting as the sky. Each of us will be transformed every moment – perfectly and beautifully re-made with a brand new thought. The Grand Canyon is an apt analogy. If my students and I were visiting the actual Grand Canyon, we would be exhilarated from start to finish, and yet this year there will be splendor enough in my classroom on Barnes Road to surpass a dozen Grand Canyons. There will be the boundless birth of ideas. There will be -- and I'm totally serious -- wisdom as staggering as the Rocky Mountains. There will be several dozen oceans of thoughts as vast as the Pacific.  By rights, my students and I should keep our eyes wide open in disbelief and astonishment.

Dartmouth College

Yesterday, Delycia and I had a quick trip north to see her son Aaron, and to meet with a financial advisor. We had dinner with a dear friend of Delycia's at a cafe near Dartmouth, and spent the night in a small, welcoming room in a motel nearby. This morning we met with our advisor, and then had a cheerful breakfast with Aaron at a small bakery in Claremont. Driving home, we talked and laughed and looked ahead to our fortunate future.

WAITING FOR FLOWERS

     Waiting is an activity (or non-activity) that a good teacher must cheerfully take part in on a daily, sometimes hourly basis – and it can be a fulfilling and uplifting activity. We usually think of waiting as a strain and discomfort, something we do because we can’t yet do what we want to do. We say things like, “Can you believe that I had to wait that long?”, or, with a frown, “I guess I’ll just have to be patient and wait.” Indeed, for some people, waiting is one of the worst possible punishments, an activity appropriate for a place like hell. However, I try to think of waiting in a different way, as an activity that, for a teacher, could be beneficial and even illuminating. The teacher and his students are like a gardener and his flowers. Surely the gardener understands the rewards and pleasures of patient waiting. The days and weeks pass, and the good gardener often does little more than peacefully pass the time. He knows that great forces are working underground as the seed and its surroundings silently make their miracles. His most important act, in some ways, is to wait. And so it is for the good teacher. Like the gardener, he knows that vast, sweeping forces are at work in this marvel called “education”, and that he must respectfully accept them and allow them to work. In this sense, waiting has a lot to do with humility. The teacher understands that what happens in his classroom is not about him. It’s about the students and understanding and epiphanies and wisdom, and often the best thing the good teacher can do is stand out of the way and simply wait. Flowers blossom in their own special time, and so do students.

A FAR LARGER PLACE

One of my goals as a teacher is to help my students realize how immense their minds are. It’s actually an immense task, because I’m sure most of the students feel, as probably most of us do, that their minds are the opposite of immense – not just small, but very small. They probably picture their minds as undersized appliances inside their skulls – small-scale factories that struggle all day to shove out clumsy answers to questions and second-rate solutions to problems. They probably feel wholly insecure as they attempt to keep their minute mental workshops manufacturing ideas during class. It’s regrettable, because I believe they are missing a delightful truth about their minds, and all minds -- that they are actually part of a single vast mind -- or Mind -- that has no limits whatsoever. My students think their thoughts come from a little lump of flesh inside their skulls, when in reality they come from the immeasurable universe itself. One way I can help them to understand this mysterious fact is by repeatedly asking them, “Where did that thought come from?” When they make  magnificent statements, which they often do, I can cajole them into inquiring whether such a splendid thought could have come from some scanty substance inside their heads. Perhaps in this way, I can slowly help them to glimpse the grandness of the thinking process and the vastness of the phenomenon called intelligence. Perhaps I can lead them to the realization that their thoughts (about 50,000 each day!) come from a far larger place than they have ever imagined, and that they dwell in, and are a part of, that place.

A day off yesterday from far-off trips and notable events.

In the morning we drove to school and spent a few hours painting the front side of the middle school building. Fortunately we were in the shade, so it turned out to be fairly stress-free work. Delycia worked in her usual well-organzed way, and I kept pace as well as possible. Now and then a friend would stop to talk, giving us a respite, and I enjoyed several breaks for big drinks of ice water from the thermos. Delycia, though, kept sweeping the brush back and forth, laying the brown paint on with proficiency.

After supper, we drove down to the park by the river to listen to the weekly band concert. The late sun was bright for a while, but soon the sunset started, and cool air came to us from the river as we listened to the horns and winds working through their songs.

Yesterday we took the New London ferry to Orient Point  (Long Island) with good friends for several hours of comfortable bike riding. The weather was cool and bright, and the flat roads made the riding a relaxed pleasure. One of the highlights was a stop at a roadside lavender farm -- yes, a farm specializing solely in lavender. Spread out before us were many acres of the purple flowers, through which visitors were passing and snipping blossoms for their baskets. None of us had seen such a sight, and so we spent many minutes enjoying it. Two women had set up their easels and were painting the scene, and we chatted with them about what they were seeing and what they were trying to do in their paintings. Before we rode off up the road toward Greenport, Delycia and I asked a woman to take our picture with the countless purple blossoms spread out behind us.

Altogether, we rode 31 miles, and were thankful, I think, to settle into our shady seats on the ferry back to New London.

Dinner at home on the porch, as usual -- a tasty tuna salad prepared by Delycia.

On Saturday, Delycia and I drove up to Hopeville Pond for another happy gathering of the family for swimming, playing in the sand, and general summer joyousness. It was truly one of the best days I've had there. The weather was sparklingly cool and bright, and the water seemed perfect for the fun we had -- diving through huge inner tubes ($2.98 from JobLot), lounging on boogie boards, little kids pushing big adults under. Delycia organized the sand activities, and she and the kids built some impressive castles, complete with turrets made from wet dripped sand. We all brought picnic lunches and enjoyed them on a table in the same of a big tree.

Yesterday, we went to Providence Place for an informative 90-minute one-on-one session at the Apple Store. A young man named Bryan, sporting a long, disordered beard, was a great help to both of us. He roamed the table, working with us and several others, and I usually saw a slight smile on his face as shared his wisdom about Macs.

Around 4:00, Matty came over, and he and I sat in the refreshing shade in the backyard and talked for about an hour, covering many topics and taking pleasure in this privilege that dads and sons have.

Last night we took a picnic down to the beach again, and stretched out in our chairs to take in the lovely late afternoon and evening scene. The sky, as usual, was especially interesting as it switched slowly from brightness to various soft shades of mostly blues, grays, and pinks. We noticed a haze rising from the surf beside the sand up and down the beach, almost to the point where it concealed the people somewhat, as if a  strange summer fog had flowed in from somewhere.

For supper he had turkey-brie-and-raspberry mayonnaise sandwiches, with chubby cherries on the side. Afterwards, Delycia walked the beach for about thirty minutes, and I stood to dry my suit off from swimming in the surf and read some pages from The Sea Around us. 

Earlier in the day, we took a fairly punishing bike ride along the shore from Mystic to Groton Long Point and back. It was hot and the roads were hilly, so we were happy to get home into the shade of the front porch and some glasses of cold, reviving water.

Today (Friday) we enjoyed our weekly walk with friends along the already warm sand at Napatree Point. A dear friend from long ago, Katie, joined us with her partner Laura, and it was wonderful to catch up with Katie as we walked easily along. The morning beach was at its serene and brightly-colored best. Later, I had lunch with Carol and Dave on the patio beside the river at The Bridge. The breeze was just what anyone needs, and the conversation was as gracious as it gets.

Another hot one yesterday. It was raining in a steady, steamy way in the morning, so I worked out by walking up and down the stairs with 10 pound weights in my hands. Every so often I stopped and swung the weights out in front or raised them overhead a few times, and then started on the stairs again. Later, Delycia and I walked briskly to the bank and back, climbing the hills with strong hearts.

I spent some time in the afternoon sitting in our air-conditioned bedroom, reading and appreciating the view out the big windows across the trees and roofs of Mystic.

Dinner to celebrate the 4th at Ann and Jim's. The burgers were the best I've had in a while, and my big green salad with homestyle dressing was a hit with all.

We had a day apart yesterday -- Delycia up north visiting her good friend Evelyn, and I back home in Mystic staying cool with fans and breezes. I got considerable work done on my finances, and also school work for the coming fall, and Delycia said she and Evelyn had a long, enlivening, and useful walk, about 9 miles worth.

In the evening, we sat up our chairs in Mystic River Park for the weekly Tuesday night band concert, and it was something special indeed. It was the Thames River Big Band, and they surely knew how to play their kind of music. Delycia and I settled into our beach chairs and smiled, I think, for the entire hour-plus of spirited music. It was especially heartening to see so many senior citizens -- some in their 80s and 90s, for sure -- thoroughly relaxing and enjoying themselves. We noticed one old fellow, at the end, rocking back and forth in his chair, smiling and cheering with pleasure.

MOZART AT 90 DEGREES

For him, Mozart's melodies
made the most of the muggy day,
sending discomfort off
like darkness comes to a quiet end
when dawn starts to sway
outside the windows.
He wished she was with him,
to hear how violins and cellos
always choose comfort and coolness for him.
Warm weather tiptoes up the steps
and softly knocks,
when Mozart is on.

PLAYING ROLES IN ROOM 2

I’ve never realized it before, but when I’m teaching, I’m almost constantly engaged in “defining” myself. What I mean is, I’m picturing myself as a certain type of person in a certain type of role – a person with a specific outline or form. I see myself as a “teacher” or “adult” or “disciplinarian” or “friend”. These roles, these definitions of me, shift constantly as I’m teaching, but they always seem to be there. This is all well and good, as long as I am aware that they are only definitions, only roles I’m playing, and not the real me. The problem arises when I unconsciously become identified with these roles and begin to believe I am the roles – and it happens often, almost constantly. If I’m honest, I have to admit that my days in the classroom are spent, for the most part, in the unconscious acting-out of my various roles, with very little thought given to who is the real power behind the roles. What I would like to do this coming school-year is be more aware of what’s really happening in any situation – and what’s really happening is the infinite universe going about its beautiful business. In a very real sense, the power behind all the roles I play in the classroom is the entire universe (some people call this “God”), of which I am a part. What I should be doing in my classroom, instead of getting all caught up with my limiting definitions as teacher, adult, disciplinarian, or friend, is quietly observing the infinite, indefinable wonders that occur moment by moment in the interactions between my students and me. Yes, I have to play roles in my work as a teacher, but I want to always remember that they are like the waves on the surface of the ocean. The roles I play as a teacher are interesting, but the real power – a vast, illimitable power, a power that makes everything work, a power that I am part of – is underneath.

Yesterday was Delycia's day off from cooking, housework, laundry, and shopping (her second of seven), and it gave me pleasure to see her lounging around and enjoying some strongly deserved rest and peace. In the early afternoon, she fell asleep in the shade on the hammock, an open book resting on her chest, the leaves shaking above her very softly. I snuck out without waking her and shopped for groceries in the refreshing store (the day was sticky and stuffy) and came home and grilled chicken and broccoli and potatoes. I let it all cool down and we had a reviving meal on the deck as evening came on with breezes.

WHAT SHE DOES

She helps him hold the world
a little more closely and lovingly,
helps him look more carefully
at how life
displays itself in partnerships,
how the smallest things
slide together like perfect puzzles.
She shows him how
to bring the gifts of life
into fuller view,
the way certain paintings
seem to come forth from their frames
just for them
when they visit museums together,
holding hands sometimes
to stay close.

Yesterday was a magical day with little Louie, our newest (10 months old) grandchild. In the morning, Delycia and I met Annie and Louie and Jan at the Stonington beach for a few hours of breezes and sunshine and comradeship and many laughs at Louie's charming baby behaviors. He is a mystical lad from somewhere far off, and we all feel fortunate to have him with us (and for many, many years to come). He giggled and cooed and cowed us all with his lively tugs and pushes and grabs and grunts and smiles. Annie and I found a few moments to swim out to the dock and talk things over under the blue sky, and then swam back to be with the plump and portly center of our lives. 

Later, Annie came to Burrows Street with Louie, and we all lounged in the speckled shade in the backyard, feeling a peace we feel lucky to have. 

Fearsome thunder and lightning around six -- some of the most ferocious bangs I've heard. The lights flickered, went out, then came on again, and the evening evened out to a cooler and clearing one, and we two best friends found beauty in it.