Fair Garden

Sitting in Church

2011-08-28T14:13:00.011-04:00

Swollen foot before the "boot" cast.

There is a popular church song, "On Eagles' Wings" that promises that God will lift you up. Sometimes I find the Eagle's wings are more comforting when folded around me.

Psalm 91:4

[H]e covers you with his feathers,

and you find shelter under his wings.

It has been three weeks since I broke my foot. The break itself is small, but the sprained ligaments down the side of the foot are still making life uncomfortable for me. So, in church, I have been sitting for most of the Mass. Sitting keeps the foot's throbbing at a minimum.

I place my booted foot, resplendent in black foam-filled, air-pumped padding and Velcro trim, on the kneeler and say my prayers while feeling very small. Even the eight-year-old towers beside me. Truly, I am curtained by people which makes the sanctuary seem far away, on the other side of a mountain. But, I am grateful to be where I am, in spite of the differences in my stature. I would much rather be IN church than at home praying with the computer. (I detest televised services having experienced too many of those in bedrooms, hospitals, and nursing homes with my mother.) I am certain I will be able to stand longer next week, and in a few more weeks I will be able to offer someone else a ride. For the time, I am dependent on the kindness of others

I truly am in a good place for having people pray for me. The obvious, temporary injury always gives me something to talk about, something to laugh about, something to anticipate being gone. It is different from the hidden problems that people hide from because they are so insidious and frightening in the manner they debilitate a person: cancer and depression and other illnesses that do not have one wearing band-aids or casts. An illness which allows a person to stand during a church service turns him into a sopping ball of pain when the room in his house is quiet, empty, and closed into itself. It is the harder one to endure.

Years ago, before churches made accommodations for handicapped access and wheelchairs, I sat with my mother in the servers' sacristy during Mass. We were about three feet from the open door, at an angle to view the whole sanctuary and altar, but out of view for all but a few people in the church. Since my brothers were frequent altar servers, it was my duty to stay with Mom until my sister was old enough to take turns for this duty of turning the pages of Mom's missal and being her companion in prayer. I had a folding chair, but I knelt on the cold asphalt tiled floor with no rug or padding. Mom sat in her wheelchair through the service, an exercise that exhausted her during those early years after polio. Later, she was able to build endurance and could last for several hours before needed to lay down and refresh. She was so grateful to be present at Mass.

Whenever I wish to define piety, the picture that comes to mind is that of Mom receiving communion. Father O'Brien would stop to give Mom and me communion before distributing the sacrament to the congregation. He wore a heavy brocaded chasuble with heavy incense odor still clinging to it. As though carrying a halo that needed to be put back in place, the server held the patten under Mom's chin. It reflected the act of Mom receiving the host, the host disappearing, and Mom bowing. Whereas I should have been saying my own prayers after receiving communion, it was hard not to watch Mom sitting with her eyes closed. What had she swallowed? More than bread, it was the Eucharist that sustained her; more than a world of support, she pulled Christ into her heart. I was too young to understand what I watched or felt. I simply knew that I observed the blessings of Eucharist as Mom's whole person seemed to wrap itself around what she had consumed.

I am grateful my penchant for sitting during Mass will not last, but I found a comforting connection to what I had experienced before while accompanying Mom, years ago. The handicap I am briefly enduring has allowed me a different view of my world. It is shorter, slower, and more limited than what Mom and others live. However, as my mobility and endurance return, so will my busy distractions. I will lose the quiet time I have had to reserve for icing my foot. I will stop craning my neck to look up to the eight-year-old. My time for stillness and slowing the world will need to be scheduled into my day.

It has been good to have a brief, forced time for sitting. There will be a time for standing, walking, and running.

Isaiah 44: 29-31

He gives strength to the wearied,

he strengthens the powerless.

Young men may grow tired and weary,

youths may stumble,

but those who hope in Yahweh renew their strength,

they put out wings like eagles.

They run and do not grow weary,

walk and never tire.

WYSIWYG

2011-08-03T09:29:00.001-04:00

A new word or acronym is validated when it makes it to print. In 1982, Byte magazine printed the following definition to an acronym for a 20th century phrase commonly used in advertising and slapstick comedy: “ 'What you see is what you get' (or WYSIWYG) refers to the situation in which the display screen portrays an accurate rendition of the printed page.”

I have never danced with any grace. What you see when I move is simply movement.

This is no surprise to anyone nor is it anything I have had to hide or lie to myself about. On this one point I can claim that I have been honest, and as small as that point is, it is the starting point for the string of self deceptions I try to keep at bay.

Being honest with myself.

I work at honesty and transparency, and I truly don’t want to offend anyone by the joy I feel just by dancing. I am simply an awkward, distracted lady who has graduated bifocals. They blur the world for me. Sometimes I miss signs or people who crouch in my peripheral vision. They are easy to miss as I spin, pretending to be graceful.

I felt no deceit or conspiracy to deceive anyone when I tried rinsing my hair to hide the gray, but I kept failing to keep up with the process. It was not up most in my priorities, because I don’t look at myself. So I would postpone, or do things in the evening, fit the process in of pretend beautification. Not a good way to establish longtime personal grooming. Time? There was always something else to do. The silver hair does not yet dominate my head (note it is truly bright, catch-the-light silver, not gray) but I am comfortable with it. Yes, that is honestly spoken.

Being honest about my shortcomings.

There are other things I must be honest about. There is the general aging process that has settled in. It truly must be acknowledged, for it has loosened my skin and surrounded my eyes with bags and sags, and my mouth has rays of fine lines that are not sunny. I make lists that I check before, during, and after a shopping trip, IF I remember to make the list.

Recalling names is another problem. How easy it would be if I could relax into simply remembering Pip or Joe Gargery. I love the logical names of Mr. Pocket (whether empty or full) and am always afraid I will slur or mispronounce a name. Sometimes, I will float in an almost-gotcha mode for a time span of 30 seconds (an uncomfortable time when the person stands face-to-face) to 3 days if someone has asked the do-you-remember question. And then the whole scenario of the friend will surface as though someone unfolded a crumpled piece of paper.

Recalling former student names is worse. Because my memory is so visual, I will see the student in her desk or answering in class. I will hear her voice and, sometimes, remember a paper she wrote. In spite of all the recall, her name will evade me or melt into a sister-friend-soundalike. Names and tag-lines and quick recall items have always been my nemesis. Various mnemonics help for a time, but the strategies do not unfold memory quickly when time has tucked them away.

As much as I play with words and love to repeat and memorize lines. I invariable remember the picture that is written in my mind over exact words. (I could describe in detail the wall Frost mended with his neighbor.) I don’t bowdlerize my Shakespeare, nothing so prudish because I remember those lines, it is the subtle meaning, the nuances that are essential to maintaining Shakespeare’s conundrums that invariably I flip and corrupt. How I find this frustrating. Pictures and chopped logic.

Refresh and relax.

Smoothing the brain comes when I wrap around a book and release judgment or control. Honest in the time and space, I read. Here I am unhampered by myself, my stiff fingers, or the fear of forgetting a name. I delve into the world created for me and, honestly, dance beautifully.

Welsh Rabbit or Welsh Rarebit? I am not the first to ask that question.

2011-07-01T11:26:00.002-04:00

I know I have had this discussion before, maybe with my mother. Is the lovely warm cheddar cheese melt called Welsh Rabbit or Welsh Rarebit?

My first introduction to this luncheon dish was during shopping trips with Mom. Lunch in a real restaurant was a real treat, since we rarely ate out. Also, the seasonings and elegant presentation of the luncheon were part of my manners education. Mom schooled me on napkin, fork and spoon use. Our usual biyearly Saturday morning excursion was through Severance Center, and we ate at Halle’s Geranium Room. Mom usually ordered the Rarebit.

Welsh Rarebit was a leading luncheon item on the famous Higbee’s Silver Grill’s menu, a popular dish served over melba toast. Very light, feminine, 60s fare. I only remember eating once in the Silver Grill when I was young. It was special then because of the cardboard stove that came with my meal. I probably returned there a few more times, but memory blurs rushed events. The downtown restaurants that stick in my mind are surrounded by story and special people, like Stouffer's at Euclid and East 14^th Street which was across the street from the Hanna Building. Grandpa Lennon was a stockbroker at the Hanna Building for Murch and Company. On the rare occasions I showed up for a visit at his office, he loved to treat me. I was a college student when, on one occasion, I was truly charmed to be introduced to people who stood up from their desks and adjusted their suit coats before they shook my hand. Then grandpa and I strolled across Euclid Ave. to the elegant dark interior of Stouffers.

Strolling was not a term anyone would use walking with Mom. My steps had to match the speed of her motorized wheelchair. Mom’s handicap meant that she planned her excursions down to the minute. She savored each escape from the humdrum confines of her wheelchair paths around the house. She plotted her trips to the Severance Mall so she could traverse the shops needed and make the purchases on her list within the time frame her body would allow. The luncheon was usually our last stop before Dad picked us up, and the Geranium Room was handicap accessible.

The rarebit was served over toast, but I liked it best when I crumbled the buttery muffins into the cheese. This was also a favorite of Mom’s. Yes, it was listed as rarebit on the menu, but the word never truly made sense to me. What was so rare about a seasoned cheese sauce? Years later, trying to recreate the recipe, the closest that would satisfy me was a sharp cheddar and beer sauce. I also spent years trying to perfect the muffin recipe.

What is in a name? Rarebit dominates in published recipes, but given the history of the dish, Rabbit makes more sense. The disparaging tone of a dinner absent of meet, even of something so humble as a rabbit, seems logical.

Most of the recipes I found in Joy of Cooking and other reputable tomes were named Welsh Rarebit; however, sometimes both Welsh Rabbit and Welsh Rarebit were given as the name of the dish. A hunt through the Oxford English Dictionary presented Welsh Rabbit as having the prior publication as also presented by the Online Etymology Dictionary:

“Among the English, Welsh was used disparagingly of inferior or substitute things, hence Welsh rabbit (1725), also perverted by folk-etymology as Welsh rarebit (1785).” http://www.etymonline.com

So the choice of name for a recipe comes down to the intent of the namer. Should the dish be modern or archaic? Should it blend with the heavy white napkins from Halle’s Geranium Room in the 1960s or the rustic table of a dark Welsh kitchen in the 1700s? I don’t think either name will disturb the taste of a good sharp cheddar and beer.

Regarding the linked recipes, the cook truly needs the full half-pound of real butter to recreate the Higbee muffin. No substitute will do.

Bon appetite!

What is Creative Nonfiction?

2011-03-10T22:02:00.001-05:00

I sent a notice to students regarding recent notification of the Norman Mailer writing contest. I have had several nibbles, but they always pose the question, "What is creative nonfiction?"

Words that seem to obviously explain the genre are confusing to students who want the security of a form, a guideline, an accepted and recognizable style. It is hard to accept the simplicity of two concepts that are inherent in creative nonfiction: creativity is neither predictable or secure, and nonfiction is true.

Then comes the hard work of writing that my students need to embrace. Gather the ideas and information, organize the presentation, and polish-polish-polish the language. Whether truth or fiction, the story must be well told.

"Ultimately, this controversy over the form or the word is not only rather silly but moot; the genre itself, the practice of writing nonfiction in a dramatic and imaginative way, has been an anchoring element of the literary world for many years," Lee Gutkind reflected.

Yes, the genre has existed since the first true fish story, but Gutkind has defined it through example by giving us the Creative Nonfiction journal.

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers » John Steinbeck’s Advice to Beginning Writers

2011-03-09T09:51:00.001-05:00

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers » John Steinbeck’s Advice to Beginning Writers

I cannot call Steinbeck's advice inspirational, but I will say is is honest. In a writer, that is an extremely admirable attribute. Know oneself, aware of shortcomings as well as gifts, because perseverance in one's craft it tedious. A writer's lot can be lonely in spite of the numerous characters with whom she lives.

Internet safety: Whose job to teach kids about it?

2010-02-26T19:47:00.001-05:00

Internet safety: Whose job to teach kids about it?

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Sonnet Attack #123

2010-02-21T07:30:00.001-05:00

How I attack, parse, chew and digest a sonnet (or any poem through the first read) is usually intuitive. Since I am female, I read Shakespeare's sonnets as a female and claim the emotions presented in each line unless there is something that jars within me. Why should I care if Sweet William was presenting himself as a lover or father figure to a man or a woman unless I am being judged for my historic analysis? Most of the time, for me, Sweet William's sonnets are songs of enjoyment or little toys - think rubrik's cube - to be turned inside out and reset with colored inflections.

Helping a student through an interpretation of Sonnet #123 in lieu of a performance, I found myself playing with the sonnet. I truly must be careful how I play this game with students, because I see patterns of images that are outside the box. Truly, I wonder how many scholars or pleasure readers link time's "pyramids" to Stonehedge or legal "registers" to tallies at a bridge game? Yes, Shakespeare was an astute business man, but there are many opportunities to list figures.

My student and I, also female, were discussing the dramatic recitation of Sonnet #123. Trying to loosen her up so she could relax into the game, I asked her to try a sultry voice. Her eyes widened while her analytical mind raced through the images of pyramids and historic measurements (registers) trying to find a hook on which to hang my request. "Sultry?" I responded that we are all seduced by Time, a frequent metaphor in literature, but this sonnet implies that the speaker is defying Time. Then I took my interpretation one step further. What is stronger, to argue or to attack? What attack is more effective against Time, combative or seductive?

I came home and checked my favorite tome, Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Nothing from Vendler contradicted me, which was reassuring, even though it did not jump into an analysis of images. She stated that, "Time always brings out the Latin side of Shakespeare, as his mind instinctively goes to Ovid [...]" (524). Linking phrases and specific words so my pencil practically imposed an geodesic dome over the sonnet, Vendler encouraged my game. Insinuating myself within Sweet William's head, I weighing the images: pyramid versus standing stone. Which evoked the truer, stronger, more exotic response? For the renaissance man, it was obvious. For me, I view his choice as evidence of his seduction by Time.

Playing with Time, I continue to ponder my own defiance.

Still Grieving

2010-01-11T19:50:00.006-05:00

The following continues my reflections on the sudden death of one of my students.

Dealing with grief for both myself and my students will continue to be an ongoing process. In my research on the topic, I have found some interesting sources. The Grief Blog is a wonderful resource for information and provides a forum for questions and stories. I was impressed with the professional outreach the site provides.

Searching for reliable sources with reputable contributors, I found a comprehensive article at the Scholastic site which was clear and helpful in explaining the importance of mourning, a society’s controlled and formal process of responding to death, and how mourning differs from the emotional grieving that a person experiences and, frequently, has little ability to control. Directed at teachers, Perry and Rubenstein’s article covered a number of questions succinctly. It ends with the following insight:

“Always remember that the loss does not go away, but the way children experience loss will change with time, hopefully maturing in ways that make it easier to bear. The traumatic loss of a parent, a sibling, and a peer will always be with these children. With time, love, and understanding, however, children can learn to carry the burdens of traumatic loss in ways that will not interfere with their healthy development.”

Sometimes wallowing in pain feels good, because it is better than the numb feeling that accompanies grief. However, young people are not always aware that emotions can come in cycles. They are not prepared to wait for the uncomfortable time of grief to pass. They are, rightfully, frightened that it will unexpectedly resurface. How vulnerable they are! Youth feel all experiences with such overpowering intensity. It is when they are most vulnerable that they need the most help dealing with their pain.

Stages of grief are not like steps on a ladder or stairs; the stages are more like rooms from a central hall that the person who is grieving moves, wanders, or crashes into at various times. I have to remember this when my students are having a hard time.

A Personal Connection

Shortly after Christmas I was sitting over a leisurely breakfast with my husband. Our children and guests had not yet risen, and we were discussing the various flotsam and jetsam of wrappings and feelings from the holiday. We entered into the uneasy subject of what was different about this holiday.: who had been able to join us and who was missing. Jon mentioned his mother. I said, “It’s been almost a year.”

There was silence. I watched Jon’s face blotch and soften into a blush of deep sorrow. He had entered a space where the very air pressed pain and loss into his cheeks and eyes. For that moment, we were back by Edith’s bedside, and Jon was holding his mother’s hand again.

We have rooms of sorrow next to rooms of wonder and joy.

The orchid from Edith’s funeral is sending off a blossom shoot. I have moved it to a new window; it will be blooming when my daughter Juliet delivers her baby. I wonder how close the great-granddaughter’s birthday will be to Edith’s.

Time does not erase grief. Over time, however, I have learned that I can touch and handle past grief without the fear that the pain will destroy my life. It is not an easy lesson.

Snow Angel

2010-01-06T14:09:00.002-05:00

This has been a long hard day. Last night, I received a phone call with the news that one of my students had suddenly died. I went to school knowing that I would need to try to help my students through a very sad day. My job as a teacher was hard because, like my students, I was also mourning.

It is true that each person approaches loss in a different way, but I wanted to give my students an opportunity to step outside of spinning disorientation that came with the unexpected loss of a classmate and friend. So I told them, for homework, to make a snow angel and then write about it for 5 minutes.

The assignment had been easy to think of. All day I watched the snow gently filling the air and softening the view. I longed to leave the ordered desks and rooms and go into the clean cold space that the trees seemed to hold waiting for me. It was evening when I realized that I too needed to complete the assignment.

I put down my purse and shopping bag, found a clean patch of snow by the garage that the dog had not pranced through, and lay down (sans hat). The snow was still sifting down, powdered-sugar style. I remembered that some of the fun of making a snow angel was looking up at the sky while doing it. There was an obvious break in the low clouds. As I looked straight into the sky’s night face, it seemed to open a bit of goodness-knows to me.

I could feel an ice crust under the 4 inches of powder that I swept away into wings. As a kid it had always been important to have your friend pull you up so as not to disturb the angel too much. But I was alone, a grandma in her heeled boots and long down coat (sans hat) who had placed herself in a cloud of snow, between earth and heaven, to make a snow angel.

Such is wonder and awe at the fragility of life. Such is breath and prayer and pulse of awareness. This is how one prays joy to muffle the pain of loss, with the awareness that snow and death are between earth and heaven.

I pushed myself up, and one hand crunched through the left wing. Brushing snow from my hair, I looked at the shadowed marking realizing that in the morning it would be no more than I ripple under the new snowfall. My snow angel would exist for a very short time.

There had been a time when I would have swished my nylon-padded legs all over the yard to place a multitude of angels under the sky. Later, there were the times I watched my children giggling – tongues out to catch the falling snow – while their arms and legs fanned joy. Tonight, I used one short-lived impression as a prayer for my student.

Fragile as a snow angel. We did not know how fragile she was.

Trip Taking

2009-07-29T15:32:00.001-04:00

It is time to look at the clock and make final preparations. Taking a trip makes one look at the basics of life, the core needs one has.

If walking out the door each morning is an individual adventure, embarking on a plane to another country is a communal adventure. How we rely on so many other nameless, faceless individuals to ensure that all goes smoothly!

Taking a trip makes one look at faces differently: with appreciation.

Hummingbird

2009-07-17T14:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, a hummingbird danced in the spray from my hose. I fell into wonder.

My garden – emphasis on “my” – sits behind the tomatoes and squash because it doesn’t need the full sun that tomatoes crave. My garden is full of herbs and small flowers. I let the forget-me-nots and creeping buttercups and bugleweed find their own snuggle spots between the pavers salvaged from different places. Now and then, however, I do a bit of tending to Jon’s vegetables if only to ensure that I get some. That is why I planted some marigolds around the squash to keep the rabbits from eating the flowers, and that is why when I saw the marigolds’ leaves hanging like deflated balloons around the stalks I pulled up a lawn chair and the hose and relaxed into making rainbows over the garden.

Somewhere we might still have a working sprinkler, but I don’t know where it is. I turned the nozzle between “shower” and “angle” to reach the plants most effectively. I had it on “angle”, which produced a square of heavy mist, when she came. I am sure the hummingbird was female because of her subtle coloring. She could have been a shadow with flecks of gold as she dipped and swerved, entered and retreated on the edge of the mist. She graced the air, drinking and then landing on a tomato cage.

Little sprites, little blessings, little visitors dance in and out of our days. How we wait for these moments wondering when they will come, hoping we will be graced. She flew to the coral bells and sipped from several blossoms before leaving me. Years ago, when I brought the coral bells from my mother’s garden, I had been told that they would attract humming birds. I had smiled politely and said, “How nice,” since I had never, ever seen a hummingbird in my mother’s garden. I had chosen the coral bells because I remembered how they had come. They had ridden around the corner in Mrs. Vance’s little red wagon and were part of the gift of love and beauty that was the garden my mother watched from her window.

As the coral bells bloom through the summer, I remember Mrs. Vance’s visits. In the coy progression of one blessing touching the next, her gift of kindness to lady in a wheelchair is why a hummingbird danced over my garden.

Distractions of Food and Markets

2009-06-30T12:13:00.004-04:00

I will admit to anyone who starts talking diets, I love food. However, my guilt regarding wasteful overeating equals my fear of blowing up like a blimp. I will be good about not taking a second helping, but I am horrid about keeping to a strict count-something-to-loose-weight regime. My best defense is to talk myself out of the in-between attacks that invariably come twice-a-day and use strategies to help distract me from thoughts of food. Writing is one of my distractions. You should know – for the sake of understanding this rumination – it is 10 AM.

It is the craving hour between breakfast and lunch when it is incredibly dangerous for me to walk into a grocery store. If I am stuck in to middle of a chore like sorting papers or doing laundry, I might conjure up the most glorious images of cheese and crackers, cherries and peaches, chocolates and nuts ever piled on a tasting counter. I begin reviewing the contents of the refrigerator and making mental notes of my food wish-list.

It’s always at the in-between times when I feel like I could hit the all-you-can-eat buffet and clean-up! 10AM - after being good at breakfast, oatmeal and fruit, maybe some sunflower seeds - the nibblies hit. On a normal day, I avoid food distraction by being in front of 25 students who might be gleefully explaining the irony of “Cask of Amontillado”, but this is summer. At 10 AM my summer schedule usually finds me at a between-chores stage measuring the time I have left in the morning against the new task I am beginning. What a great time for food, the wonderful comfort for planning the next excursion.

Of course, by the time lunch comes around I have settled a bit and can be sensible with my salad and fruit, usually. I confess I might – if it is available – have nuts or chocolate for being good and to delay (without success) the next in-between at 4 when I am certain I will perish by suppertime. When I start cooking supper, I invariably start nibbling. If Jon is cooking, I am saved. He hates having me in the kitchen when he is preparing food. I avoid being accused of each ingredient he spills and each onion he scorches and the opportunity to put cheese and other savories into my mouth, and I leave him to his commission.

Yesterday, Jon prepared lovely BLTs with Amish cured bacon purchased at the West Side Market. It was so lovely. The tomatoes were not-yet-marvelous since our backyard plants have only just set, and we have a few weeks before the Shaker Saturday Market (and, at a later date, our garden) will overflow with real Ohio tomatoes; but, the bacon was the real McCoy. I could actually taste the meat, and the fat was crisp, salty. I had the chance to relish the minimal processing of the market’s goods. At the moment, I can imagine the taste, and I remember buying the bacon at the Market.

Jon had invited me to accompany him on a summer excursion to the West Side Market. I had not actually stopped into the Market for several years. It is no longer within my travel range. Except for the Saturday market and other shops in Shaker, I have a tendency to go east for my market goods. This past year, since Jon had been a consultant at several west side schools, he had begun stopping at the market to indulge my request for fresh fish. Aside from fish, he began bringing home dried fruits and vegetables that were superior to any of the commercial brands. I had found the veggies wonderful for my in-between nibblies
.
The tented outside booths with their high piles of produce were just as I always remembered, but the interior with the meats and huge cases of cheese seemed darker. Florescent, the primary light source, was cold after the sun-glow canopies. Jon and I had just been to the North Market in Columbus a few days before, and the difference was marked. Between the meat counters and fish displays, Columbus’s North Market is full of eateries where one can get a box lunch or a complete dinner to take home. It caters to the young professionals who do not have the hours or expertise to prepare the food they have grown used to eating. Cleveland’s West Side Market is for basic food in its fundamental form. I admired the marbling in cuts of beef and the pile of haddock cheeks. We stopped by a counter that sold a wide variety of salts, lentils and grains and bought green bamboo rice and a rice mixture. We wove in and out of the smells and noise and glories of food making purchases until our arms were full.

As lovely as those thoughts are, I don’t want to be hungrier than I already am. I will grab some of my dried green beans while I try to distract my thoughts away from food.. The crunchy beans should have enough sweetness and salt to satisfy me while I sort through three more piles of notes and books.

My problem with dieting, or simply maintaining, is that food is so easily available. I have access to wonderful markets and high quality produce. I am placed in a very fortunate place. Of course I want to enjoy the largess, but I still have the Catholic-school-girl guilt about wasteful overeating. I do love food, but that is not a sin.

The picture is of Jon and Shane shopping in Columbus' North Market.

A view of LIFE: one response

2009-03-10T23:05:00.004-04:00

I was surprised, after puzzling through the youthful sexual awakening of young Michael in Schlink’s The Reader, to find myself drawn into the questions, truly deep questions about one’s responsibility to life. I should shout LIFE in three-inch capitals and then spend the next three months defining the concept I am presenting with the four-letter word. But, I won’t. I will let others ponder that personal relationship with all that is affected by existing and acting on during that existence. How one defines and views life is personal.

Schlink presents the character Michael’s understanding of his own life as intricately chained to the woman who awakened him to sex and to himself. As a youth, he was ashamed to acknowledge her, and as an adult he continues to be ashamed, “I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible.

“And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents. I envied other students back then who had dissociated themselves from their parents and thus from the entire generation of perpetrators, voyeurs, and the willfully blind […]” (170-171).

Unfortunately, even though he tries to disassociate himself from Hanna, she is as intimate as his skin. He knows she has touched and molded his personhood with the personal intensity of a parent’s relationship to a child. Michael’s bond to his father is less strong than his bond with Hanna, but he is a crippled soul. He cannot visit Hanna; he can only read to her on tapes.

This novel, that I had thought would simply develop into another bildungsroman, opened complexities. It jabbed a question that made me uneasy, “What would you have done?” (128). The question was asked by an illiterate woman who had tried to figure out the actions of a war-beleaguered modern world without having read stories, essays, religious tracts, letters to the editor, or any of those things that make a reader pause and adjust the way conscience sits on her head. Without having been able to hold words still before her eyes with awareness of all the potency of their meaning, how could she extend herself and her decisions beyond the present, beyond immediate reaction to an act? She couldn’t. She was limited by her inability to read. She could not delve more deeply than the oily surface of life that was presented to her.

There is the crux of Schlink’s message to each person who prides herself as civilized: one must read stories of others who have made good and bad choices if one is to be capable of decision. “What would you have done?” Hanna asks the judge with the sincerity of a person who encountered a machine that needed to be fixed but had no schematic. She reaches from her sensible simplicity, from her neat uniforms and cleanliness to the complicated messiness of law and judgments. At a moment when a simple action would have saved lives, she chose no action, because she could not act in a manner that would be orderly. Is this an inability to be moral? Is this an inability to see beyond what is practical?

Michael, having studied law, is aware of judgments expected by society’s codes of honor. He judges his parents; he judges his parents’ generation. But Hanna taught him a different connectivity to people, and he has lost understanding of her sensible touch.

As predictable as the ending was, it made me very sad. It seems to affirm my own lack of reaching out with understanding. How brutal I can be when I keep my life confined in the same way that Michael confined his visits to Hanna. He visited with someone else’s words on little plastic cassettes.

Schlink, Bernhard. The Reader. Trans. Carol Brown Janeway. New York: Vintage International, 2008.

Lists and Silences

2009-02-01T18:39:00.002-05:00

One of the assignments I give my students is to interview a person and write the story. I encourage the students to interview someone over 50 who is not their parent. Frequently students will call up a grandparent or family friend and begin to go through a list of questions. I have had several students sheepishly admit that they got to question #2 during the two-hour interview. Most people are anxious to talk about experiences that have been changed their lives. My father had experiences that he was silent about.

For one of Dad’s birthday-father’s-day-something-day presents I gave him a blank book. It was a very nice blank book with a leather cover and a poem on the front sheet. There were faint guidelines on the pages and a discrete ribbon to mark the writer’s place.

“What is this for?” he asked me with the same tone he had for the boxer shorts that were printed with boxer dogs on a previous gift day. For that gift explained that boxers were now all the rage; they were novelties, more than just underwear. He put it down as one more crazy not-a tie gift that I had come up with. The blank book, however, was different.

“I thought you could write stories or thoughts,” I said.

“What stories?”

My explanation fell flat. I got a gracious smile and hug, but the puzzled look on Dad’s face and the many times I saw the blank book in the corner where he had placed it made me realize that he would not write any narrative in it. On one visit, I actually peaked in the book and my suspicions were confirmed – it was still blank.

What was I expecting from Mister Silent, from Mister Hold-it-in, from Mister Keep-it close-to-the-chest? Why would I think, after his years of keeping his stories for only select ears, that he would write them for me.

Dad had opened up to my son when Jon was doing a report on WWII. He told Jon more than I had ever heard. Dad also told my brother-in-law stories when they were cleaning out the garage one year and Dad opened a box of memorabilia. I heard of the afternoon third-hand through my sister. My sister, too, had been surprised. There was so much that we didn’t know. The stories Dad told Jon and Ed referred to horrors and hardships he never wanted to share with my sisters or me. Daughters, in Dad’s world, needed to be protected from such reality.

Because Dad’s death was sudden, all of his notes and calendars were placed where he had been using them on the day he died. There was a pink blank book that Mom had used for notes, Dad had continued to use for lists and notes regarding handymen and people to call. The pink book was on the counter next to the leather covered blank book that I had given him so many years ago. The first page was still blank, but the next two pages opened facing each other with lists and figures in columns that Dad had measured out. I laughed.

All through out the house there were lists. Most of the lists related to measurements some budget notes. Some were so cryptic I was not certain what their purpose was.

This was the story I received from my father: he was a man who conversed more easily in numbers than in words, he showed his love through action, and he did use the gift I gave him.

2009-01-19T09:37:00.000-05:00

“Wisdom sings her own praises and is honored in God,
Before her own people she boasts;
in the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth,
in the presence of his power she declares her worth.”
Sirach 24: 1-2

The quote is from the Lectionary for Mass and is sometimes used for the second Sunday after Christmas. It has a different tone from the Jerusalem Bible’s which more strongly recognizes Wisdom’s power and her stronger unity and relationship with God.

“She opens her mouth in the assembly of the Most High,
she glories in herself in the presence of the Mighty One;
‘I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,
and I covered the earth like mist.
I had my tent in the heights,
and my throne in a pillar of cloud.’”
Ecclesiasticus [also Sirach] 24: 2-4

How often we rely on the mothering power of Wisdom to get us through days that alternate between being frenetically stuffed with affairs and, then, empty as an upturned box. To be close to Wisdom is to be close to one who acts, who nurtures, who is close to God. It is also to be close to one who thinks of goodness and meditates on the needs of others.

There was time, this last week, to think about the breath of Wisdom and the breath of life as I sat with my dying Mother-in-law. She is the last of my children’s grandparents to die. I felt Time's softness settle as her hand, so strong and so busy for so many years, was puffy and still in my hand. It would, at times, give a gentle tightening as though to tell me she knew I was there. We were quiet together.

I will confess, I had come with papers to grade (since I have trouble disconnecting from work), and I tried to grade a few. In over two hours time, I finished one and one/half papers. Being present for Edith consumed my time. Her hands surprised me, for they were so different from what were hands.

Edith’s hands were strong. When I first met Edith, she had an ancient typewriter set against the dining room windows, there she typed notes and letters. She had an awl for punching tag board and other heavy papers and cardboards for mounting her various competition buttons. She sewed, gardened, baked, taught Latin and Greek. She was willing to speak on a number of subjects: her trips to Europe, Uniforms and uniform buttons, paper dolls and other antiques. Her voice and her hands were always in use.

As she grew into her late 90s, my husband reminded the children when they were going to visit, “hold her hand when you talk to her, she likes that.” And that became more and more true as her eyesight and hearing continued to fade. Holding Edith’s hand seemed to make communication so much clearer. Her hands continued to have a strong grip, and she continued to use her hands in the pottery class and doing other crafts. She was prolific in making things.

I accept my loss of my mother-in-law, and I think of my own mother’s voice that sometimes rests with the strength of memory’s hands on my ears. They were women of presence and action, strong grandmothers to my children.

I think of them as I think of the breath of Wisdom that moves like a mist, the song of Wisdom that boasts and declares her worth to be present before God. It is a daily resolution to live in the breath of life and strive for Wisdom.

The photograph shows Edith reviewing a book with her granddaughter Beth and great-grandson Shane. Edith died Jan 17th; two months shy of her 100th birthday.

2007-09-16T22:47:00.000-04:00

"Do not lose courage, then,
if you feel inadequate and incapable
of doing what is expected of you."
-St. Angela Merici

I had a disagreement with a friend today, and I felt inadequate in explaining my opinion and uncomfortable in presenting the reason why I was choosing a specific course of action. My friend was disappointed in my decision. Even though I was certain of my rightness, I was so concerned I would offend that, for a few moments, I was tempted to acquiesce to my friend's wishes. I almost rescinded my decision. How wrong that would have been. For my momentary comfort in placating a friend, I might have opened myself, my friend, and others to harm.

Of course it is possible that my decision and actions are of no consequence and will cause neither joy nor sorrow; however, I cannot trust in being so insignificant, no matter how much it might be desired.

Strength and stubbornness are very different traits. I know that many times the trait people say I possess is only determined by the side of the table on which I am sitting. I can look into a mirror and judge myself. Can I look at the stars and see how God judges me?

2007-06-17T11:32:00.000-04:00

Struggles

Please be patient with me as I learn how to use the electronic connections that are available to me. I do not want to overload my work time or present a ponderous presence to those reading what I write. I value time and words.

I am presently working on researching how illness affects a person’s life. I am starting with polio narratives because my mother was a quadriplegic from polio, but I am not limiting myself to only her story.

Peace to all explorers. Life is wondrous.

2007-02-14T10:43:00.000-05:00

Light moves in waves, expressed
kisses tightly wrapped in a helix of stars,
nudged nuclear helices shone
in laser beams, unwrapping bright wisdom.

Love, universal as the water in one’s mouth,
never loses weight or size or essence,
the clear quality, the potent power, the tender touch
that caresses each writhing protein, each fume in space.

2007-01-27T22:49:00.000-05:00

Silence is one of the necessary comforts. It is essential to clear thought and meditation, to feeling secure in a place. It allows for reading so complete that I can enter a new world. It invites invigorating ideas, and sometimes, it invites peaceful sleep. Silence should not be frightening. It does not wrap me in loneliness, quite the opposite; it leads me to the full awareness that I am not alone.

How frightening it is that so many people are plugged into noise so completely that they cannot hear God.

2007-01-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

To have questioning faith is like having clay that is still soft and malleable.
It is frightening to think about molding a vessel that might crumble, that might shatter in the firing. A brick is secure and steady, but it doesn’t hold much.