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Most writers will confess that they are constantly on the prowl for ideas. They know what a gift it is when one presents itself unexpectedly – as happened to me on Tuesday, when what I thought would be a quick service on my HVAC system turned into a 3-hour tutorial on how to live.

A younger, more impatient me would’ve been annoyed by having to give up an entire morning and being expected to engage with a service technician as he worked.  But the older, newly-retired me was quite charmed and intrigued. No doubt he enjoyed my openness to his teaching.

It needed to be a story rather than a poem, but it also required brevity, so I opted for a “flash” piece of fewer than 1,000 words.  It also needed to be grounded in the voice of Jan (“Yann”), the technician, so I chose the poetic device of using italics to distinguish his voice from my own as narrator.  So this is a hybrid piece – part story, part poem, and entirely true.

I believe it’s also a story that needed to be shared, so I’m posting it here for anyone who is in a thoughtful mood.  Coincidentally, a few days prior to this encounter, I’d just finished reading A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, and it was impossible not to see a little Ove in Jan. When the new film comes out (that is – delightfully – to star Tom Hanks), I know I will also be seeing Jan in his portrayal of Ove.

 

Annual Clean & Check

 

Come closer, look, he instructs, holding the little silver box. You hold this, you participate! He hands me a wand displaying numbers, connects it to the box. You see?  Old capacitor no good! Is only 6.6. He unpacks a new silver box, connects the wand to it. Now, yes! New capacitor is 7.7. You see? He shows me the target range, does the math aloud. Furnace is fine, but capacitor must be replaced. Will be covered by Nicor, not to worry!

He is now into hour two, Jan the expert technician who cuts no corners, who invites me to watch his every move. Not like some of these younger guys who shoo you away, no? “You go! No need to waste time here while I work. You go do what you need to do!”  Jan looks me in the eye. No. You see me work, you know I am not cheating you.

Outside at the A/C unit, he pries open a metal door. Ach! You see? he cries as crumbling papers fall out. No one opens this unit for how long? No one takes time! He adjusts the flashlight on his headband and peers in. Twenty years! He shakes his head, reaches up to put his fingers around the pipe leading into the house. Not good. This pipe should be sweating. Means freon is not moving through. Like a clogged vein – unit tries to pump but too weak. I will give it freon! We will see. He takes up the garden hose and begins a meticulous cleaning.

Now into hour three, gadgets testing the freon outside, we are back in the basement. A few more things to do here, he says, stepping behind the furnace, pen in hand. He is quiet for a moment. When he steps back around, he looks like a scolded schoolboy. Come see, he beckons. He points to the yellow sticker I had never noticed, filled in each year by the Clean & Check technicians. I was here 8 years ago. He points to the scrawl on a line toward the top. That is me. I am ashamed I didn’t do a good job that time. Different company then. I was a different man. I worked on their clock then. My clock now. He taps his chest three times loudly enough that I hear the thuds.

Jan takes off his flashlight head strap, folds it neatly into a pocket, then begins to tuck away his other tools into their spots in his bucket. He tells me of his three boys, of coming to America twenty years ago, of leaving the oldest son behind in Poland, a young man in love. Of the son’s cheating wife, of the divorce, the drinking, the depression. Then two years ago, his son’s suicide. His own wife’s broken heart.

I am 63 now. I could quit tomorrow, Jan tells me. I could find a job anywhere. Don’t need this job, this company. We walk back upstairs, then to the patio to see how the freon is doing. This company, that company, they all want you to work fast, one hour at each house, cut corners. Sell people things they don’t need. I refuse. He shrugs, then smiles. They could fire me. But they don’t because I get good reviews. This is why I love America. I have important skills. If I don’t like one job, I can find another.

Very important to take time, Jan says. Do things right. Always good can come from bad, always. My wife won’t see it. My son’s two boys, they are 19 and 17 now. They are strong! They grow up fast when their father dies. Angry? Yes, of course. But not defeated. A little good from bad. My wife. . . He shakes his head, lowers his voice. Still she has all the pictures of him on the walls. Always crying.

Now moving into hour four, Jan is nearly finished. We have been waiting on the patio. A timer on his phone dings, and he checks the gauge. Ah! You see? Freon levels way up now! He points to it so I can see this for myself. Old unit will still work for you! He touches the pipe leading to the unit, grins up at me. Yes! You touch! Pipe is sweating! Freon is getting through like blood in a good vein. He pats the unit fondly. She works okay. She is alive yet!

He slips into his blue shoe covers one last time as we step into the house. I thank him for taking so much time, for being so careful, for keeping my air conditioner working, hopefully for another year. Well, he reminds me, could die tomorrow, no guarantee! But today – he extends his arms, tilts his chin up into the air – nice cold air for you. I make sure you have this comfort, this nice cool home. This makes you happy, I know. To make people happy, you must take time.

We finish the paperwork, shake hands. He finally accepts my tip. You do one more thing for me, please. You give me a good review.

– – –

 

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How does anyone sum up a career?  By days at the desk?  Projects completed?  Money earned?  Hairs turned gray?  Lives affected?

I’ve spent the majority of my waking life since age 5 in classrooms, as student and teacher – sometimes both on the same day.  My first teaching job was as a graduate assistant at Northeastern IL University in 1982, where most of my students were from other countries and were older than I was.  Now, I’m about to retire from a 32-year career in District #214, the district I graduated from in 1978….and I’m old enough to be my students’ grandmother.

I could reduce the whole thing to numbers, with some vague approximations:

 

Schools attended, K-U:  8

Schools taught at:  5 (but mainly 1)

Days taught:  6,200

Students taught:  9,000

Courses taught:  35

Pages of student writing graded:  1/4 million

 

And then, probably like most people, there are these numbers:

 

Percentage of fantastic days:  10

Percentage of awful days:  10

Percentage of days when things went just fine:  80

 

But numbers, while eye-opening, don’t add up to much until we think about the arc of time they cover.  I’ve done other work here and there, too, and learned from other people about the kinds of challenges any jobs pose, requiring us to find the motivation and energy to get through each day.  For people who make careers a big part of their lives, staying on the full-time treadmill for 30-40 years, we have to find purpose and dignity in the work if we’re going to have a sense of satisfaction at mid-life.  That’s always been easy for those of us who love what we do and believe our work is important.  It’s going to be harder, I think, to live as purposefully now that I’m leaving the profession behind.  But what a fun challenge it will be, and one with very little stress since it impacts only me.

I’m so lucky and grateful to have had a calling that has rarely wavered since childhood – modeled by my father and so many excellent teachers throughout my life.  Up until my final lesson last week, I found myself up for the challenge of working to make my students’ time in the classroom worthwhile.  But I’m definitely starting to slow down.

Over the last 34 years, teaching (like any other profession) has changed radically.  A tiny sliver of what I do or how I do it in 2018 aligns with what I did in 1985.  But as an English teacher, my goals have always centered around language – voices received and voices expressed.  We do this with thoughtfully-chosen books, essays, poems, stories, and films that hopefully open our students’ minds and hearts to the fullness of their own and others’ humanity.

I’ve been so fortunate in so many ways, from birth onward, in having the choices and opportunities I’ve had, especially in my working life.  I will always appreciate and value my own lifelong education, the schools and communities I have worked in, the many wonderful colleagues I’ve respected and loved, and the thousands of students who have kept me on my toes with their curiosity, enthusiasm, challenges, humor, audacity, gratefulness, and marvelous individuality.

 

classroom lights go out

energy of three decades dissipates

emptiness, fullness, farewell

 

—  —  —

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During my 33 years of teaching high school English in the suburbs of Chicago, I’ve certainly seen trends come and go — in teaching, in parenting, in the national and global mindset about what schools should be and do. But since I first wrote “Welcome to Ms. Hutchinson’s class” on a chalkboard back in the fall of 1985, I have never felt the kinds of stresses and heartaches that I feel right now, in my final year.

A year ago, we were reeling from our White House occupant’s brazen and lawless attempts to close our borders to certain people he deemed “undesirable.” Some of my students belong to families that come from these countries or have friends that do. How could I comfort them?

Next, he broke promises made to many of our country’s young people who — through no decision of their own — are here without legal status but who have made America their home. Many don’t remember living anywhere else.  When I look at my students right now, knowing several are likely caught up in this nightmare, how can I comfort them?

And now, in the last 3 weeks, many have claimed that guns are not only benign but actually belong in the hands of people like me — teachers charged with keeping children safe. Only in a nation that has devolved into total madness would anyone believe that more guns in schools will bring safety.

Much of me is sad to be retiring from a long, fulfilling career of teaching. But an equal part is relieved to be walking away from the political quagmire my classroom has become. It makes me weep to think of the students I have not been able to help over the years, especially those in my classes right now whose new kinds of turmoil I will never know. For them, I’ve written this Villanelle.

 

The Weight of Their Backpacks

 

Their backpacks are heavy and weighing them down
as they file off the bus in the dim morning light
with problems too large for the shoulders they own.

How can they possibly sit to focus or learn
when their parents may be missing by bedtime tonight?
Such huge, heavy burdens keep weighing them down.

The chance of a bloodline, of a face deemed too brown
now threatens the home that came by a hard-earned fight.
Such betrayal will not fit on the shoulders they own.

As children they claimed their own voice, found their ground,
and bloomed into youth who reach and dream and strive.
But those backpacks, so heavy, now weigh them back down.

These days they don’t speak, since to make any sound
risks the arrival of uniformed men in the night.
But how should they shoulder such fear on their own?

Their eyes reveal an anxiety deeply profound.
They are starlets whose futures hang on “maybe” or “might.”
We must strip off the huge backpacks weighing them down
and place them firmly upon new shoulders – our own.

 

Illustration of woman and flag:  James Noellert, Detroit Metro Times, 2/2/17

Photo of backpack:  Thinkstock

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Most days I believe this polarization is beyond repair.  The divide between blue and red has become an unbridgeable chasm, and our nation may very well be in its death throes.  It’s easy to get caught up in the despair and the rhetoric, the dire predictions for the planet and our species.  Much of the time, that’s where I find myself.

But every so often, I’m reminded of the fact that the great majority of people just want to live their lives in peace.  Most of us are good, decent people — flawed but compassionate, opinionated but full of love — more often concerned about our own small circles of family, friends and jobs and enjoying the day than about the larger problems looming ahead when we bother to look toward the horizon.

And this leads me to believe that perhaps we will all soon reach a point where we are tired of all the screaming and accusations, tired of the whole chaotic mess.  Can we envision a time in the near future when we’re ready to find our way back to having open, honest communication?  If we can envision it, maybe it’s possible.

I used a trusted old technique recently — the abecedarian — to explore what it might take to unwind the tightly-wound top we’ve spun ourselves into.  The alphabet is just as recognizable backward as forward, after all.  Zippers go down as well as up.

If we can envision it, if enough of us want to see it, I have to believe we can make it so.  If we’re going to turn things around in time to secure a future for this world, it’s going to take a collective effort.

Time to turn the alphabet around and see what happens.

 

Rx

 

Awareness of those sneaky

Bogeymen hiding in your

Closets and computers.

Deliberate confrontation when

Evil disguises itself as good.

Fearless speaking of truth –

Girls and gays and all

Human beings marginalized

In the name of security or God.

Justice, justice, justice.

Kingmakers brought to their knees.

Lights beamed behind closed doors:

Menaces and bigots exposed, all their

Nefarious abuses of power with

Obsessing oily hands and mouths.

Print their names in bolded caps.

Quell any pathetic outcry with

Ramrods of legalese.

Shout their names into a million

TV sets and living rooms.

Untie blinders from every eye.

Vanquish the deniers – hypocrites

Who prevaricate & victim-blame.

Expose all excuses as excrement.

You have the power to upend it all – you

Zealous disciples of self-righteousness.

.           .           .           .

Zero sum game, this

Yawning gap between us –

X in the middle, a deep abyss.

Who will extend the first hand,

Vault across with an olive branch,

Utter – plainly and calmly –

Truce?

Speak in the language of humans:

Respectfully.

Quietly.

Palms up, pentitent.

Only then can we begin to

Name truth as truth,

Make a reality from the haze,

Leave lies and myths behind, their un-

Kindest cuts still bleeding,

Join in what we know

In our deepest selves to be the most

Human act:  forgiveness.

Get down on our collective knees,

Fall together in one

Earnest plea for

Deliverance from the dark

Corners we’ve painted ourselves into.

Behold our imperfections. Yet each of us

Altogether capable of humility.  Of love.

 

———-

 

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So, did Vincent van Gogh really slice off his own ear?

 

That’s been the story for over 100 years – that the brilliant but undiscovered, tortured artist went mad that fateful Christmas Eve of 1888 in Arles, arguing with his sometime friend, Paul Gaugin.  After Gaugin stormed out, van Gogh supposedly hacked at himself with a knife and then sent the ear to a woman he loved – who promptly fainted.

 

But now, some have begun to question the story.  Adam Gopnik, in last week’s New Yorker, writes a thoroughly researched and fascinating essay arguing that more likely it was Gaugin – the reluctant, surly friend – who had finally had enough of the constant, obsessive chatter from the “madman,” and with one quick flick of his rapier, sliced his ear cleanly off.  Apparently Gaugin was an expert swordsman and carried a rapier with him as one might a walking stick.

 

Gaugin fled to Paris and never saw Van Gogh again, much to brother Theo van Gogh’s dismay.  According to Gopnik, Theo took such pity on Vincent that he had paid Gaugin to go to Arles to help Vincent realize his dream of an artists’ colony.  Gaugin’s heart wasn’t in the effort, and the result is history. After the ear incident, van Gogh went to live in an institution, and just a few months later shot himself (or was shot by hooligans– yet another mystery).

 

When I read this revised account of the story, I found myself feeling strangely empathetic toward Paul Gaugin, who in a moment of total exasperation (though no doubt fueled also by alcohol), had finally had enough of his friend’s constant raving.  This is because I, too, have had moments when I thought I would lose my mind for exactly the same reason.

 

My son, since he first learned how to string words intelligibly into sentences at age 4, has quite literally never stopped talking.  One night when he was around 6 or 7, he announced it was time for bed because “my mouth is tired.”  And I replied, “Yes, and so are my ears!”  I’ve come to understand that it is very difficult for him to process language without hearing it.  He reads books only by reading them aloud or listening to audio versions.  And he thinks best when he can hear his own voice speaking all of his thoughts aloud.

 

Now 26, my son’s dawn-to-dusk litanies continue.  Just yesterday, on a 20-minute drive with him, I was subjected to a constant monologue in which he listed all the pizza restaurants in the area, naming which have recently closed, which new ones have opened or expanded, what their hours of operation are, and whether they offer dine-in or delivery options.  Since this happened on a sunny morning when I happened to be in a good mood, I was able to focus on the song playing on the radio, mindlessly offering an “Oh,” or “Okay,” every so often to let him believe I was listening to him. Other times I am not so patient. Often I just want to cry.

 

Reading about van Gogh, I began to wonder:  might he, too, have been an auditory thinker?  Might he have been on the autism spectrum, unable to stop his mind from racing, obsessing, cataloguing, repeating?

 

We’ve made such progress in our understanding of autism – from the mid-90’s when I carried little “Autism is….” cards to hand to strangers who gawked or scowled in the grocery store when my son threw a tantrum, to today where the attitude of “We’re all a little bit on the spectrum” prevails.  And yet….without a miracle that can re-wire my son’s brain, he will forever struggle with a nearly-crippling anxiety and uncertainty about other people’s feelings, fretting about whether or not they like him.

 

Apparently, van Gogh’s torment, too, was insecurity about being liked and accepted.  His vision when he moved to Arles was, his letters say, to find beautiful women who would love him, and to be surrounded by other artists who would all paint together and thrive as a collective.  This vision of a merry commune never materialized, largely due to van Gogh’s own tendency to drive others away with his intensity and his obsessive, stream-of-consciousness chatter.

 

Gopnik says of van Gogh, “When his mind went wrong, he became all heart.”  He loved and needed others’ love too much, and in all the wrong ways.  In this, I see my son, the collector of people, the empath who channels people’s warmth or coldness in equal measure and who is either totally validated or rejected by each. For weeks and months after an encounter, my son worries about it.

 

Using Gopnik’s quote, I’ve created a golden shovel poem, where the words of the quote are used as the final words in each line:

 

 

Empath

 

 

Who can understand the turmoil – when

suddenly nothing makes sense, when his

eyes and hands freeze in panic, when his mind

loops again and again over where he went

astray, the scrambled words wrong, all wrong.

Please no, do not reject me, he

silently pleads.  Love me.  When he became

a man it got so much harder.  All

he knows is the constant bruise of his heart.

—–

 

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I’m drawn to the heartbreak of memoirs – the beautiful stories writers tell of their own messy lives and regrets. Lots of famous people write memoirs (or have them written), but I love the memoirs written by excellent writers, a.k.a. literary memoirs. Reading of their quests for joy and meaning, we’re fortified to work harder at the same quest. Reading of their attempts at atonement, we find the need to face our own checkered narratives more honestly. In fact, one common thread noted by several memoirists interviewed for Meredith Maran’s 2016 book, Why We Write About Ourselves – is that a successful memoir must pay heed to the old adage of a fiction writer: “Be twice as hard on the narrator as you are on everyone else.” In your memoir, the narrator is yourself.

Some favorites of mine in the literary memoir category include the following – all very highly recommended by many other writers and in no particular order:

The Boys of My Youth, by Jo Ann Beard (1998)
Dear Mr. You, by Mary-Louise Parker (2015)
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed (2012)
The Tender Bar, by J. R. Moehringer (2006)
Stop-Time, by Frank Conroy (1965) – (often cited as the model for the contemporary memoir)
Just Kids, by Patti Smith (2010)
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn (2004)
An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard (1987)

One I’ll add to the top of the list is the new book by Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. In this gut-wrenching memoir, Alexie lays bare his many wounds and doubts as he reflects on his mother’s recent death and on his life as a “rez” kid – poor, ugly, often neglected and taunted. He struggles to accept his own choice to leave the reservation as a teenager, and he agonizes over the possibility that his mother didn’t love him . . . or that he didn’t love her. Half written in prose and half in poetry, Alexie artfully weaves memories with mature reflection as he moves – we hope – toward reconciliation.

Alexie recently announced he was cutting short his book tour due to a deepening despair and depression. Adding to his decision were signs from his mother that he should stop discussing the book with others and just go home, suggesting she was offended by his words and actions. As an indigenous man, Alexie believes in the power of the spirit world and dreams; a visitation from his mother one night in a dream – with her holding up a stop sign – was the final straw. He explained in a Facebook post, “As I write in the memoir, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I see them all the time. As I also write in the memoir, I don’t believe in magic, but I believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.”

Reading about Sherman Alexie’s dream experience called to mind a dream I had about my own mother just 2-3 years ago. It was one of those brief but powerfully vivid dreams – giving me a memory that seems now as real and powerful as any memory of reality. I’ve tried in vain to write a poem about the dream, but after reading Alexie’s book, I’ve decided that the Japanese hybrid form of haibun is what it calls for. Haibun uses a descriptive paragraph followed by haiku to capture the sum of an experience.

 

My Mother Speaks to Me in a Dream

In my car one night, you’re on the phone with Dad, just hanging up. Hurry home, you tell me. He’ll be there by eight o’clock. As if our being there depended on it. It’s dark in the car, and you’re wearing your brown coat and a scarf on your head, like you always did in the winter. Your urgency tugs at me – yes, I’ll get going, get home quickly. But you’ve been gone more than thirty years now, and you’ve never seen a cell phone let alone used one, so I become aware that I am dreaming. In this dream I have become the mother, now older than you ever were. Tell me, where is this home you speak of, where my father will be waiting? You hold the phone in your two hands and stare out at the road ahead, face softly lit by the dashboard lights, your mission clear. And then you are gone.

 

your voice in the dark
return, return, you implore
the urgent speed of years

 

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I’ve been awash in words this summer, even more than what’s usual for an English teacher and avowed word geek.  I’ve learned that English contains by far more words than any other language – which makes sense since it’s such a mash-up of other languages (due to all that continual conquering by folks from other regions).  According to The Story of English (McCrum, Cran, & MacNeil, 1992), the complete Oxford English Dictionary lists over 500,000 words, not including another half million technical and scientific words that they haven’t yet squeezed in.  That’s a million in all!  Astounding.  The next largest, German, has a measly 185,000, and French, a mere 100,000.

Even though thousands of the words in the OED are no longer used, we still have dozens of synonyms for many words at our disposal and countless adjectives to describe feelings, movements, or elements of nature.  Sadly, though, most native English speakers only use 20,000 to 35,000 words in their daily lives.  While most of us know nearly 10,000 words by age 8, we apparently  stop accumulating new words somewhere around middle age, unless we make a concerted effort not to.

 

If you’re a word geek like me, you won’t want to miss the new book, Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, by Kory Stamper, a lexicographer and editor at Merriam-Webster.  Fascinating, hilarious, and sometimes shocking, Stamper educates us about everything from the history of words to the difficulty of updating each edition of the dictionary in a culture that coins new words and phrases daily.  She devotes pages to explaining how the internet has radically changed the job of the lexicographer, and she carefully explains just what dictionaries are supposed to do – then also reveals all the misconceptions people have about that.  She chooses to ground much of these discussions in chapters centered on key words:  but, irregardless, surfboard, take, bitch, nuclear, nude, marriage.  (You can likely guess the issues with some of these words without reading the book!)

I’m not kidding when I confess that this book was more of a page-turner for me than any sizzling mystery story.  Stamper’s writing style is highly conversational and readable, making a potentially deathly-boring topic come alive with very contemporary anecdotes and humor.  Some of her passages verge on the poetic.  She clearly loves her job and loves the English language.

 

So, just as I’d finished reading Word By Word, I headed up to Madison for another

glorious week among fellow poets at U-W’s annual Write-by-the-Lake conference.  And on the first day, what did I discover our focus for the week was going to be?  The power of strong WORDS.  Our instructor, Marilyn Taylor, challenged us to write four poems, one each day, that explored not only a different topic but that used unusual words – which she had compiled for us in advance by scouring other well-written poems.  This created a marvelous constraint for us and shoved us – hard – out of our lexical complacency!

For example, a poem about death or loss was NOT to use any of these tired old death-poem words:  death, loss, grieve, sadness, mourn, sunset, heart, or heaven.  Instead, we needed to find a way to incorporate some of these:  blossom, brittle, dappled, Matisse, pink, polka, smudge.  Most of us agreed it took over an hour just to hit on an idea and get started!  But it was a delight each morning to share our 15 wildly different poems with each other.

A good poet friend of mine has shared that she’s been using this technique – gathering interesting words in advance – for several months now, and creating poems she never would have written otherwise.  They are remarkably fresh and powerful.  Clearly, this is a process I need to start using with my own poetry.

 

The first poem I composed in Madison is the strangest of the four, and maybe also the strongest, simply because of its weirdness.  The topic was food/cooking.  I owe the entire poem to the word list, primarily “unmoored,” which sparked an eerie scene in my mind.  I call it “Fever.”

 

Unmoored, marooned, the ship lurched and we

clutched the railing, momentarily forestalled in our

desperate quest to find the source of the smell –

glimmering onions and mushrooms, voluptuous

vegetables – sautéed by some magician below.

Three days after escaping brutal pirates,

we few survivors, slowly starving, awakened

dreaming about home and sun and the great

periwinkle sky barely visible through

louvered windows in the stifling cabin

where we had found meager refuge.  Then

that savory incense pinched us, reeled us in –

hypnotized, unbearded and naked with hope.

Whispering prayers, we made the descent,

deep into the marrow of the iron beast,

where at last we discovered great fires

popping with the brilliantine slick of olive oil.

Outlined by the blaze in the blackness

was a taut, tattooed chef, preening like some

La Scala diva and brandishing machetes

like ginsu knives, his wry smile daring us

to step forward and eat . . . or be eaten.

 

 

One more great tool I learned about this week was a new online dictionary/thesaurus called Onelook.com.  The extensive lists of synonyms and antonyms they’ve compiled teem with choices you’d never come up with on your own.  (Like “chockablock”!)  Now, how to write a poem about swimming using the words mathematics, shinbone, and wysteria…..

—

 

Sitting in the audience of “Mamma Mia!” the other day, I found myself watching the members of the ensemble rather than the leading players.  Even when it was only Mamma on stage, my eyes wandered to the orchestra, the audience, or the set pieces.  Not that the actor playing Rosie wasn’t wonderful, but I guess I felt like I’ve seen leads belting out soulful tunes enough times to know how it looks.  I was more curious about all the other stuff going on in the room – how the lights were fading or changing colors, or how that big bunch of flowers had been hung from the rafters.

Lately I’ve found myself less and less interested in the “main attraction” of the day and more captivated by the background, the periphery.  I’ve seen enough glitz, been distracted too many times by the new, bright, red or shiny thing, the loudest voice, the fastest car.  I’m bored by it.  Let me see the people behind the scenes putting it all together.  The roots under the roses.  Rather than reading about any First Lady, I’d like to read about one of her assistants, or better yet, someone as far away from the  White House as possible.

At first I thought this was just an anger response to the news cycles, where certain people now throw out constant distractions via Twitter storms – while the much more interesting stuff is buried at the bottom of page 8 or 20 minutes into the newscast.   That’s probably part of it.  But it’s also probably just due to aging – slowing down, recognizing I’m past the halfway mark, wanting to savor more of what’s happening in real time.

I read differently now, listen to music differently.  It’s possible I’m a better driver, too, since it doesn’t take so much effort to force myself to be in the present and pay attention.  I’m grateful to be growing more patient with my son, whose disability keeps him ever obsessing and vocalizing about his narrow interests.  Relax, I tell myself.  One day, you’ll miss his chatter, when he’s settled into a group home and you don’t spend so much time with him.

Perhaps this tendency to slow down and be more thoughtful as we age is one reason why most cultures honor their elders.  My father is quite content at 85 to sit by his large picture window and read all day long, alone with his thoughts.   When I think of the collective wisdom of his generation, I’m humbled.  So tell me more about life on the farm, Dad.  Describe for me again how it felt to walk 6 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways.

Periphery

 

At the periphery, images so often unnoticed

now come into focus:

 

Ivy woven like mossy lace fills the ground

around crimson roses.

 

Rows of dancers dressed in white line the stage,

their paralleled legs a perfect arch

around the prima ballerina in pink.

 

Air waves mingle as I listen to the news,

the faint wailing of Mariachi

echoing at the edge of the dial.

 

I have begun to pay attention to the bass line

instead of the bleeding lead guitar,

to sing along with bluer harmonies;

 

To see the shades of light in those billowing clouds

daubed above Monet’s purpled haystacks

in the center of the golden frame;

 

To find each sparrow on the patio as distinct—

each stripe and patch of sienna or tan

made that much richer when set against

the gaudy scarlet of the cardinal in their midst.

———-

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I’m not one to write metaphoric poems.  They can be overly dramatic and seem old-fashioned, reminiscent of the great Romantics of prior centuries. But on the Solstice this year, I couldn’t avoid feeling as if we were all trapped in a metaphor of serious consequence.  The events of the last several weeks have left millions of us stunned and rudderless.  Reality is not offering much that is poetic at this year’s end, which is supposed to be a time when we feel the anticipation of the return of the light.   So, metaphor it is — with a nod to the often cheerless William Blake.

 

The Coming Dark

 

We wander out into the field,

stars hidden behind clouds,

the snow glowing gently purple

in the day’s remaining light.

 

We’ve forgotten what we seek

but here we are, in winter’s dark,

our deep tracks behind us

to tell us where we’ve been.

 

Blake wrote of Winter raising

his scepter over the world

to “wither all in silence.”

We tunnel into a drift to sleep.

 

We’ll search until we find

the elixir we know we need.

Chill settles into our bones but

we have warmth yet. We breathe.

 

 

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My seasonal poetry trigger is out of whack.  Last fall, I felt the urge to write about winter.  Now it’s begun to snow, and I’m stuck thinking about summer.  But in both cases, the idea for a poem was sparked by a random memory, and when the Muse comes knocking, you let her in.

The other day I heard “Happy Together,” the old pop tune by the Turtles, and was instantly transported to the concrete deck of Lions Park Pool, where I spent a good chunk of my childhood summers.

I realized that this happens several times a year, the jogging of memory to The Pool.  I think this is because of its smorgasbord of sensory images, which have lodged, as an intense unit, in a back corner of my brain.  So it was pretty clear this was a seminal experience that I needed to work out in a poem.

The problem is that trying to craft a childhood memory poem is like walking a taut wire across a yawning gulch of sentimentality. One tiny slip, and the poem is lost to the goo amidst glittering raindrops and over-loved Teddy bears missing an eye. Plus basically every greeting card ever printed.

Lions Park Pool is my epitomal growing-up place — that place each of us has in our past where we faced fears and overcame them and where we developed our core sense of self.  But Lions Park Pool was also full of flower-covered towels and bathing suits, splashes and screams, pop tunes, Dreamsicles and Sno-cones, bright sunshine, and a sea of goose-bumpy bodies with raging hormones.  Cliches all.

How can any writer evoke the intensity of such a key experience, yet still manage to keep the poem fresh, surprising, and honest?  Well, it’s just plain hard.  But it’s important to attempt it; these poems and essays are the ones that help us understand who we are and what it means to be human.  (Plus readers tend to really like them.)

Honesty doesn’t have to be depressing.  But happy places don’t have to sparkle, either.  We have to dig down to get at truths — even simple ones.  We need to choose the most significant details for the purpose of the poem, not just settle for the easy image because it’s fun.

This poem about Lions Park Pool took me days to write and probably fails in both regards — in its attempt to avoid sentimentality and to capture the essence of a girl’s first steps into adulthood.  But hopefully it will invite similar memories for a few readers and provide some insights into their earlier versions of themselves. On a more personal level, it might evoke a fun connection for my friends who grew up with me in Elk Grove Village and remember the pool before it was transformed into the Rainbow Falls Water Park.  (Ack.)

 

Lions Park Pool

 

My mind returns again to the pool,

that steadfast slab of aquamarine

filled each year for the village kids

who descended on bikes to bare their limbs

in a frenzy of seasonal freedom.

 

Sensory overload is what we craved—

(is this why I remember it so well?)

—twinned smells of chlorine and coconut,

the din of splash, shriek and whistle,

that blissful rush of cool on skin

newly crisped by the exulting sun.

 

One best friend was all you needed.

Layered between blue water and sky

afloat on our backs, or eeling through forests

of glowing legs, our eyes open and stinging—

we swam and dived till we pruned,

then scurried over concrete to flimsy towels

laid out along the chain-link fence.

 

Lying on our bellies, chins on arms,

we’d gaze at the bronze Adonises

in the lifeguard chairs with idolatry

pure and unashamed.  Our legs,

(so small and unshaven) splayed behind us

like knob-kneed foals’, could jump up

on a whim to climb to the high dive and soar—

then touch bottom and catapult back into air.

 

Our nascent bodies, arms wide to life,

hang burnished in that moment—

where buoy ropes and Top-40 beats

reassure us—yes.  This happiness is all

we’ll ever need to claim or to believe in.

 

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(Swim drawings: Annette O’Toole, Pinterest)