I heard a great story the other day. Listening to NPR, I heard this bit from Daniel Klein as he talked about his book, Travels with Epicurus. In that book he recounts his return to the Greek villages of his youth, and the bits of wisdom that he heard as he traveled throughout the island. His overall theme has to do with the Greek philosopher Epicurus, as the title indicates, and he peppered his interview with many Epicurean tales. Most interesting to me was the fact that, while Epicurus is now often identified with extravagance and hedonism, in actuality he preached the gospel of contentment; the notion that rather than wanting more and more stuff, we should actually be happy with the stuff we have, which reminded me of the Sheryl Crow line from her song “Soak Up the Sun.” That line goes like this: “It’s not having what you want,/It’s wanting what you’ve got.” The distinction is subtle, but has a huge relevance to me in my life now.

The Klein story goes like this:

A rich American returns to the Greek island of his youth to visit. He spends his time visiting relatives, wandering the island, and generally soaking up the local culture. One day he finds himself walking on the beach. Up ahead of him, sitting on a log, he sees an old man. The old man is sitting, drinking an ouzo, smoking a cigarette, and enjoying the spectacular sunset. The rich American is welcomed to join the old man, who is serenely enjoying the tableau before him.

This lasts for a few moments, the two sitting in perfect silence, before the American glances behind the old man at the unkempt, wild grove of olive trees just off the beach. The trees are laden with olives, some occasionally dropping to the ground, but are wild and overgrown. “Who owns these tress?” he asks the old man.

“I do,” the old man replies. “When I am hungry, I go and pick a few olives off of the ground to eat.”

The American is astounded at this. “But the trees are so fine,” he states, “that you shouldn’t just let them sit here in this state!”

“Really?” the old man says,  ”so what should I do?”

“Well, you should trim some of those branches up. It will increase the yield from the trees. Then you could harvest all of those olives.”

“Really?” the old man says, “what would I do with all of the olives?”

“You could ship them and sell them to America. Olive oil is in high demand in the states right now.”

“Oh,” the old man says, “and why would I do that?”

“To make a lot of money, of course!”

“What would I do with all of the money I would make?”

“Well,” the American counters, becoming animated and pacing back and forth next to the log, ” You could buy a big house filled with lots of servants, so you wouldn’t have to do any chores.”

“Oh,” the old man says, taking a drag on his cigarette. “so then what would I do with all of my free time?”

The American thinks about this.”Well, then you could sit back and do whatever you want to do!”

The old man thinks a bit on this as he finishes his ouzo and says, “Like sitting on this log, smoking a cigarette, drinking an ouzo, and watching the sunset?”

I like that story for so many reasons, one of which being the fact that we often strive for so much, yet have no idea why we’re striving for it. Money, power, fame, they are all hollow gods that we have been told matter. None of those things matter in the long run. It’s really, like Sheryl Crow states, wanting and enjoying the things you have, like the old man in the story. A very Epicurean notion, and one that surprised me.

Who knew I was a disciple of Epicurus?

There are moments in life that require thought, and there are moments that require swift and decisive action. I have muddled through life- both writing and personally- deep in thought. There have been moments of action, yes, like the sporadic activity surrounding the writing of a story, but for every story written I have ten that died within the recesses of my brain, victims of over-thinking.

Lately I have subscribed to the “move on” mentality; forge ahead and just write. It got me published on a website and opened up the possibilities for more. In short, that’s good. So it seems that moving ahead works. But there are many things that I have left unfinished, lost in the mire of the past. I’ve thought long and hard about these other things, the things I dared not plan on or hope for. Those have come around now, materialized out of the past like a brilliant light gleaming at the end of a long tunnel, and it’s tremendous.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s like this: work that I spent years planning but gave up on has surfaced again. I am moving back there, going home, feeling good, optimistic, excited. I have shed the craziness of the past, moved on to new, stable ground, and I am thrilled to be there. I am climbing out of the tunnel. There is such a sense of joy that accompanies this.

The darkness is ebbing, just not as quickly as I ‘d like it to. I’m sprinting for the light now, being pulled off my feet with its strength, stumbling and trying to stay upright. And I know that anytime you spend time in the dark you have to slough it off and shed the stains that characterize your time in the tunnels. That’s where I am.

I can see the light; it is very, very close. And what exists outside of the tunnel promises to be more dazzling than anything I ever could have imagined. I need to climb out of the darkness first, though, which I’m doing, because I won’t make the mistakes that I made in the past. I have too much to lose. I want too much to let that happen.

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Driving south on the New York State Thruway this week, I passed by the small village of Ravena, which the highway bisects on its inevitable journey south to New York City. This is significant to me always because Ravena is my hometown,and every time I pass by it on the Thruway I’m reminded of where I come from. I get to see the decay that has been wrought on the village over the years, as Main Street’s shops closed and the sprawl took people away from the small town into the more affluent suburbs closer to Albany. People move out, and the subsequent vacuum left in their wake is the tableau splayed out for all drivers to view on their high speed car trips to places bigger, more bustling, and more exciting.

The catalyst for my southerly trek was a friend’s father’s wake, which is a somber enough event to begin with, and the brief glimpse of the old digs didn’t help raise my spirits, but what really was striking was that, just the day before,I had chaperoned a trip to New York City that saw me and my students navigating the heart of midtown Manhattan. Talk about contrasts. The skyscrapers and affluence of the city shining in stark contrast, just twenty-four hours later, to the despair and blight of the small town got me thinking about the significance of setting and how much of a role it plays in fiction.

I’ve always felt that setting plays a major role in fiction (no revelation there), that it almost acts like a “sixth man” on a basketball team, or an added character whose muteness- sometimes- adds to the story in immense ways. It is this additional character that adds texture to the tale. Huck Finn isn’t Huck Finn unless it’s set on the Mississippi River. Catcher in the Rye needs the expansiveness of Central Park juxtaposed with the claustrophobia of Manhattan to make its point. I could sit here all day and rattle off books that use setting as a textural element, but the point is that there are inherent features, unspoken signifiers, embedded in all places. Tap into those signifiers and the world opens for the reader. Disregard them, as lots of young writers do, and the story ends up flat and featureless.

But texture isn’t the only thing that setting does for fiction. It also serves as a delivery mechanism, in some cases, for theme. In those cases, writers use setting- place- to transmit theme. Take, for instance, Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie, a Girl of the Streets. Set in turn of the twentieth century New York, Maggie’s inevitable downward spiral into prostitution and death rings simultaneously as a treatise on Social Darwinism and an indictment of the living conditions of New York at this point in time. Set this in Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Perth Amboy, and it loses some of its thematic punch. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle also utilize place as a means of thematic development. Different places, different themes.

Lastly, place carries with it emotion. This is highly subjective for each reader, but the beauty of the universality of place is that the resident of Dublin can be just as inured of the threat of urban violence as a resident of Sydney. The classic rhythms and tropes of a Ravena summer can be shared worldwide with residents of similar places. It is a shorthand, of sorts, a pipeline into the emotional core of the reader. And, while you may not be able to discern all of the possible reactions to a place, there is a safe assumption that your recreation of place will elicit fairly similar reactions nonetheless.

Driving past my hometown on my way to another small town to pay my respects to a friend and his deceased father, these things all struck me. But the dominant emotion that coursed through me as I hurtled by at seventy miles an hour was one that I think most fiction writers can bank on when they lovingly recreate their places for their readers: loss. Whether it was just nostalgia or something a bit deeper, I couldn’t help feeling loss for the past, loss for a time of deep innocence, and loss for a reality that will no longer exist. I am quite certain that I share that emotion with many other small towners who have left the cocoon of safety in small towns for parts bigger and broader,even if, in my case, the place is only just a bit bigger. And the emotions came to me automatically, right out of my core, and were triggered by one fleeting image. That’s pretty powerful stuff.

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I’ve expanded! Moving outside of fiction was always something I thought might do, but wasn’t really sure when or where. I flirted with the idea of writing for a few political papers and magazines, but those haven’t really panned out. Last year I was made aware of a local golf website and its proprietor, Frank Ciarlo.

Frank had lots of big ideas for me: editing a youth golf website, the weekend warrior column that could morph into other media, interviewing local golfers. But in the midst of it all, I balked. Timing in life is everything. I wasn’t ready. I begged off for the season, focused on teaching, but never lost the notion of writing the golf column. I settled back into my comfort zone.

In the new year, though, things came to a head. I needed to move, because after you’ve been talking about it for so long, sometimes it just needs to be done. Indeed. I can’t really explain it, it just happened. From apathy came motivation, and from motivation came the first article.

I wrote about a conversation with a friend over a few beers. It really represents the perspective of the duffer, the occasional player who knows just enough to be dangerous. And it was fun to write. Which surprised me, because I was so focused on fiction that the thought of any other writing didn’t do anything for me. But once I got rolling, it was really refreshing. A break. It energized me. I found that I really did enjoy writing.

So here it is, in all of its humble glory. Hopefully there’ll be many more to come!

http://capitalareagolf.com/general/friends-in-warm-places

They’re banning books again. This time in Fairfax County, Virginia. The book is Beloved, by Toni Morrison. They’re not burning the book- not yet- but I’m still  incensed. The full article from the Washington Post can be found here.

The gist of the story is this: Laura Murphy, a concerned mother whose 17 year old son read Beloved in his senior AP class, has brought her concerns to the school board. Apparently the youth, a college freshman, quit reading the book because it “depicts scenes of bestiality, gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder, content she believes could be too intense for teenage readers .” Her son complained of night terrors. At seventeen. From a college level class he voluntarily took. And he could even opt out of reading the book if he objected, which he didn’t; he just quit. An AP class. And now mom has taken her objections to the school board in an effort to have the book banned from the curriculum.

She lost. The school board, in a moment of clarity, shot down her complaint. Undeterred,  ”she plans to take her complaint to the Virginia Board of Education, where she will lobby for policies that will give parents more control over what their children read in class.” Which is frightening, really. Another loud mouthed, narrow minded zealot advancing an ultra conservative agenda that completely flies in the face of democratic principles and the notions of the free exchange of ideas. One can hope that she fails, miserably.

No one will deny the fact that Beloved is a tough book, brutal even. It does depict slavery at its worst, despite its fictional nature. There are moments of bestiality, rape, torture, and infanticide. But Morrison has based her account on lots of factual evidence. Margaret Garner did kill her child rather than return her to slavery. Evidence of rape and torture are well chronicled. Let’s face it: slavery was a brutal, inhuman institution. Children shouldn’t be shielded from it, especially seventeen year olds ready to face the reality of the world around us.

The book shouldn’t be read by kids not prepared to handle the content. It’s not a middle school book by any stretch. But if we allow Laura Murphy to advance her right wing agenda (there are accusations surrounding her agenda in advancing this fight), our kids lose. A sanitized version of slavery, much like the sanitized version of Huckleberry Finn, only serves to limit our children’s understanding of the scope and brutality of the peculiar institution, our national shame.

I have taught Beloved for seventeen years. I have no plans to stop teaching it. I teach it sensitively and explain it as the students read it. I think it is an important book, beautifully crafted. I hope I’m never, ever told that I can’t, because then I’ll have to start thinking about changing my profession.

Hot on the heels of the above mentioned Washington Post article, Joyce Carol Oates tweeted the following tweet last night. It reads, “My novel We Were the Mulvaneys “on trial” at a Florida high school. A single parent objecting to a single “offensive” word out of 100,000.” I looked it up and couldn’t find any evidence of what she was talking about, but I’m sure it’s going on. Another bit of sad testimony to the level of intolerance that exists in this country.

Books should inspire strong emotions. In some ways, the desire to ban a book is indicative of the quality of some of the books that are under siege. Not all, mind you, but a fair portion. Beloved joins other luminaries like Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, and The Bible. Not bad company.  Let’s keep hoping for cooler heads and wise, educated people in positions of power. Our culture depends on them, and us, to not remain silent.

This following poem is from Edgar Lee Masters:

I HAVE STUDIED many times

The marble which was chiseled for me—

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.

In truth it pictures not my destination

But my life.

For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;

Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.

Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny

Wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is the torture

Of restlessness and vague desire—

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

This is from his Spoon River Anthology. So very powerful. I know this is nothing new, nor is it very profound to just post a poem- especially one that isn’t your own, but as I sit here and wait for the great Nemo to hit (yes, they named the storm Nemo, as if calling it by the name of a cute clown fish will give it any increased terror), I started thinking about where I’m going in my own life. Which can be scary and is not so reassuring a proposition all of the time.

I watched the light flakes come down this afternoon from my bedroom where I napped after school was let out early. I reflected on Masters’ poem “George Gray,” complete with its sad and haunting image of a man who equates his life with that of a ship moored safe at harbor, afraid to venture out beyond the headwaters, and figured something out.

I don’t want to be George. Who does?

I don’t want to live my life in fear. Again, who does?

I know it’s kind of melodramatic and grand, I know, but it’s all I have today as I await this blizzard and my repeated rounds of shoveling. At 44, I don’t want to come to the same dramatic conclusions that George does. Instead, I want to embrace what’s out there and live.

So…expect me to be out there more in terms of writing. I’ve already lined up two projects to work on: one for a local golf website and the other for a progressive web magazine. I may also get jumping on that damn stalled story.

Either way, I want to be out there, not in here. I’m ready to break through the headwaters and lower the sails, because, god knows, I don’t want to look back with that kind of regret.

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Just when you think it’s safe to listen to the radio, a sappy love song hits you right in the nose. I present Owl City, “Vanilla Twilight,” for your consideration and listening pleasure.  The song is just openly romantic. It makes me pause, a bit, and reflect on the power of well chosen words.

Yeah, I know: troubadours have been doing it for thousands of years. There’s a reason for that, after all.  It really is a nice song, and I’ve included the lyrics and the video below.

“Vanilla Twilight”

The stars lean down to kiss you
And I lie awake and miss you
Pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere

‘Cause I’ll doze off safe and soundly
But I’ll miss your arms around me
I’d send a postcard to you, dear
‘Cause I wish you were here

I’ll watch the night turn light-blue
But it’s not the same without you
Because it takes two to whisper quietly

The silence isn’t so bad
‘Til I look at my hands and feel sad
‘Cause the spaces between my fingers
Are right where yours fit perfectly

I’ll find repose in new ways
Though I haven’t slept in two days
Cause cold nostalgia
Chills me to the bone

But drenched in vanilla twilight
I’ll sit on the front porch all night
Waist-deep in thought because
When I think of you I don’t feel so alone

I don’t feel so alone, I don’t feel so alone

As many times as I blink
I’ll think of you tonight
I’ll think of you tonight

When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I’ll taste the sky and feel alive again

And I’ll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won’t forget you
Oh, if my voice could reach
Back through the past
I’d whisper in your ear
Oh darling, I wish you were here.

The Mayans were wrong. We’re still here.

Well, the misreadings of a few archaeologists who looked at the end of a Mayan cycle as the end of the world were actually wrong. Go figure. So the world is still here, Christmas has come and gone, and life as we know it trudges forward. And snow is in the forecast.

Joy to the world.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is invariably the time for reflection, best of lists, and resolution making. I shy away from resolutions because I don’t usually keep them (I’m thinking of the many I will write every day for at least an hour and I will get up at four a.m. and make it to the gym resolutions that have died of disuse shortly after being uttered; January is the place resolutions go to die). I’ve done best of lists in the past; those are helpful and I really probably should do one this year. But I won’t, I think. In the end, best of lists don’t work for me, either. Which leaves me with the thing I will do and have been doing all along: reflecting.

I know that list making and resolutions are a form of reflection, albeit stylized and molded into certain forms, so I’m really splitting hairs here. My reflections take shape in my writing, the phrases in a blog, the paragraphs in a story, the stanzas of a poem. Maybe a tweet or two. A Facebook post isn’t out of the question, either, but these aren’t really the best venues for deeper, meaningful communication. It all comes down to me and my keyboard.

I mean, that’s what writing is, anyway: a healthy way to explore the inner geography, a sane way to vent (which is much needed in the wake of the recent lunacy in the world. I plan on doing this a couple of different ways, this blog post being the first. The others, well, we’ll see how that goes.

Which leads me to my big end of the year thoughts. I’ve learned quite a bit this year about myself, which makes me really happy. I have hit that point of self-realization where I can actually see where I was before, and I can find that spot lacking. As much as I railed out against being a zombie, I have to say that in some ways I was just that. Some times you need a really big shock to your system to dislodge you from your safety zone. The latter half of the year found me dislodged and setting out for the proverbial promised land. I drove cars, flew in airplanes, and boarded trains. I saw new lands, new vistas, and new points of view. I walked through new terrain, was forced to evaluate myself (and I sometimes came up lacking: who doesn’t if a real, long, probing inspection is given?), and had to confront insecurities and fears that I had successfully kept submerged. It was hard. Sometimes it was downright frightening, as I didn’t always handle it gracefully. But I did it. Six months worth of journey. And I am better for it.

Some people take longer, this I know. Some folks are on the years-long plan for self-awareness, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We each move at our own pace, and this cannot be rushed (another really good lesson I learned), no matter how hard we wish it. Some folks will never move (sad, and hopefully not true, but I’m not so certain), preferring to sit comfortably in their own comfort zone, eschewing the life and possibilities that live right beyond the threshold.

And I don’t think I’m done with my own journey: who ever finishes that isn’t dead? So as I happily embark on this next phase of my trek, I don’t question what I’ve seen, felt, or experienced. It’s all part of the trip. It’s better to be a traveller. I think that’ll be my mantra this year. That sounds nice.

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It’s December. The holidays are upon us…again. It would be disingenuous if I tried to say that I didn’t absolutely love this time of year, but I suppose that there are things that get in the way of truly enjoying the season.  For me, well, if you’ve been reading along with me then you know all about the things that have gotten in my way lately.

I don’t want to write about that again.

Instead, I’d like to write about something that I used to have lots of stock invested in, and hope to someday again: the future. According to Hugh Macleod (the absolutely brilliant Gaping Void cartoonist whose work I feature on these pages), the future is alive and well, and located in the most intimate of places: between your ears. I happen to agree.

First, the sensual gray matter nestled in your bony cranium cup is, without a doubt, the strongest muscle in your body. Forget the whole long muscle/short muscle debate. Stop talking about the tongue (intriguing when seen as the strongest muscle, but only in the most pedestrian sense- not at all romantic…well, sort of…)- it can’t hold a candle to the incredible strength of the brain. For me, the brain is the key to all kinds of things: getting in shape, succeeding at work, moving my life forward, to name a few. It can change the course of your day, your week, or your life. Now I know discipline and vision and all kinds of other things matter, but they reside in your noggin, too, so it’s really a one-stop shopping spot. Once properly harnessed, there should be no holds barred, no paths forbidden. Harnessing can be tough, but that leads me to my second point. But, to recap, the brain rules, bottom line.

My second point deals with attitude and motivation as the harnessing force. Your brain and your attitude towards change need to work hand in hand. I’ve seen very intelligent people- both intellectually and emotionally- fail at moving forward because the attitude/motivation component isn’t there, or it’s out of whack, and that’s sad. They kind of languish in the here and now (I wrote a whole piece on priorities and principles, and that speaks to this), delving into priorities and shoving off principles, or thoughts of principles, or discussions of change and growth. It’s easy to be seduced by the here and now, harder to develop the vision that incorporates the here and now while zeroing in on the future. One more meeting, one more promotion, one more set of papers. But the sad truth is that there will always be one more thing, one more obstacle to moving on, if you allow it to be that way.

But if you can push that away, slough it off and embrace that vision, well, that’s something special.

And that’s where I want to be.  I think I’m getting there. I live in my head, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m trying to keep my balance. I want the future to be in the equation again, whatever that future may be, and I’m willing to board a train to see what that may be, or drive my car, or ride my bike. The future is between my ears, and your ears. It’s time to embrace it.

For now…all aboard!

In the grand scheme of things, what is it really all about? Is it our accomplishments? The achievements we so proudly sought out, sometimes sacrificing all for, will they really be the things we hang our hats on at the end of the day? Writers long for publication- God knows I’m no different- but really, is this it? Will having my name appear in some glossy literary magazine make it all ok for me, or will the first book lead to the hunger for more, bigger accomplishments? And when I’m done, what will there be left for me? A legacy, hopefully, but not the most important thing. What will be left for me will be the friendships and loves, not the work, not the stories and the books.

Hugh McLeod’s cartoon to the left is striking to me because it epitomizes the work/life balance in such a succinct manner. Principles do trump priorities, or should. It is unfortunate when it doesn’t work this way, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes- probably more than any of us care to admit- we get lost in the  race for the accomplishment. It defines us, or comes to define us, and in the process of defining we warp something elemental and pure about us. It’s like a crucible, you know? Put something in the crucible, heat it under incredible pressure, and watch it warp.

I’ve been reflecting on this all fall. Professionally, teachers are being asked to focus their energies on lots of things that, at first glance, seem to have a lot less to do with teaching and more to do with statistical analysis. The changes, in reality, are meant to focus teachers on their craft, and they probably will (at least at some level), but the reality is that all of the work we have done this fall with SLO’s and APPR’s won’t change much of what we do. Good teaching will continue to be good teaching, improve even, because that’s what good teachers do: they improve their craft. Mediocre and poor teachers will be placed under strain. Some may improve a bit. Most will turn defensive and bitter.

I don’t disagree with the fact that the state of the profession needs to change, and that a new evaluation system is in order. I just don’t think this particular approach will work, and it will, in it’s ubiquity, probably do more harm than good. For me, checking off the APPR and SLO requirements becomes more about priority than principle. I just don’t buy it, and I have serious doubts about the apostles who preach it like it’s gospel. They are buying into the priorities, but failing to internalize the principles, and I know this because if they truly were preaching the words that they supposedly lived by, they would have been saying it long before it became institutionalized in some textbook, or textbook series. But, unfortunately, in order to continue in our leadership roles, in order to show compliance, these are just the type of things that will happen. Some of us will even believe that scores on a spreadsheet really do signify profound change. Maybe, but I’m not convinced.

Until the changes we see are ingrained in a culture of sustained inquiry, until teachers are free to experiment and develop new strategies without the fear of the quarter exam, the unit assessment, the data czar, only then will the changes stick. Until then, it’s more about fear and conformity, and less about principles and beliefs.

I will continue to toil away doing what I do, trying to balance all aspects of my life.  Thinking too much about it gives me a headache, so I’ll refrain as much as I can. Your brain (thank you, Hugh!) is truly not your friend. There are moments when I think it would be easier to just acquiesce and follow along. I could just do my thing, follow the rules that State Ed. spits out, and be at peace.  But I think if I tried to pull that off I wouldn’t make it. I would crash and burn. For me it’s about being true to myself and fostering the relationships that I feel will sustain me long after the work I do is over, not pursuing some priority that, when it’s all said and done, won’t warm my soul.

We all have to eat, some of us need to live. No corpses here.