"Do you ever wonder," Shannon began, "why the moon looks like a face, or why people named the stars what they did? What if there are people out there and they don't like the names we gave them?"
"Huh?" Jonathan groaned, exhaling loudly and trying to roll over away from her. It was summer then, and the crickets were chirping a mating cadence outside their window. The thin blanket on the bed was bunched at the foot of the bed, its sticky closeness too much for a warm July night like this one. It was too hot to sleep, and Shannon started in on what Jonathan liked to call her "what ifs."
"Don't you ever wonder about those things?" Although she knew it annoyed him, she wanted to press him into a conversation. Why did she do this? She didn't know. Maybe she just wanted to feel him close to her, wanted to know he wanted her for more than the athletic event they'd just shared together. Maybe it was more subtly devious than that, wanting him to experience sleeplessness if she had to. You know, sympathy pains.
"Baby, it's 2 in the morning. Don't you ever stop thinking?"
"Not if I can help it," she grinned into the darkness. She rolled over next to him, tracing her finger along his spine. He farted in response, then started snoring. Sometimes she hated him, she thought, the idea coming unbidden to the forefront of her mind before she shook it away, an unpleasantness she told herself she shouldn't be thinking.
Yet outside the crickets chirped, above the sound of the rotating fan that brought some semblance of relief to the hot apartment and pulled in some of the outside air. She tried to sleep, but sleep ran like a sprinter far from her. Tomorrow she'd hate this, she'd have to go to work, but before then she'd toss and turn until capturing the final couple hours of sleep when the world rests and the crickets quiet, exhausted or satisfied, and a peace settles before the sun rises. Those two hours wouldn't be enough.
He'd always been tall, and she loved the sculpted, lean features of his body, his angled face, his strong hands. He reminded her of a movie star. She'd feel a pang of jealousy and pride when other women did a double take as he'd pass by (He's with me! Back off!). When they'd first met he'd smiled a lot. He still smiled, at work, when they were out, but behind closed doors the frame holding that bridge had sagged, if not cracked. They were losing it; she was falling apart from the inside, and she didn't know how to stop it.
And there it was, the thought that came as she lay next to this tall, lean lover she no longer knew, maybe no longer loved, just waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the night to end. It wasn't bad, there weren't storms in the sky, but somehow, it just wasn't enough. And that knowledge was eating her from the inside, clawing its way out. She rolled over, trying not to look at the numbers on the clock and squeezed her eyes closed, so tightly she saw flashes of light behind her eyelids. She was just tired, she told herself. Tomorrow it'd look different. . .
Monday, October 30, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Train Station (Tales from the Travelin' Man)
Freehaven. Salem. Maple Grove. Rock Island. Rochester. The names read like a train schedule, and that's mainly what they were, but not a direct, purposeful line that would run from point A to point B on a map, but a random, meandering criss crossing of places and days that had turned into two weeks. In fact, if it had appeared on a map, the journey would have seemed pointless, directionless. It was a good thing journeys couldn't be measured sometimes by how far you traveled, David thought.
It had been two weeks since Logansport, David mused. Two weeks, fourteen days, three hundred thirty-six hours . . .
He could break it down further, into minutes, and seconds, and even measurably smaller pieces, but that wasn't the point. His whole way of life had changed, his way of thinking. The people he'd met, the things he'd seen, and none of that could be measured in the time it took. He felt somehow closer to something that had seemed miles apart before. A weary sigh escaped him and sagged his shoulders; the things he'd left behind, the people he'd been so intimately connected to: Sarah, Robert, Cameron, Miles. He was walking away from them; he couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
Two days out of Logansport he'd realized he'd left the charger to his cell phone behind. He could pick up another, but thought maybe he was better off without it. No one had called, and he supposed he should get used to the silence. Hmm, silence. That was definitely something to get used to. It wasn't the silence around him, there was plenty of noise, between cars roaring by on the highway and horns honking in gridlock traffic in the bigger cities and airline jets roaring overhead. Even the smaller towns had their noise: children waiting for the bus on cold November mornings, the train passing through the middle of town at night, music pouring out of the bars and bells tolling from churches. No, the silence was coming from somewhere else, inside. His thoughts, his head, a large gaping emptiness where schedules and conversation had been, or the distraction of a TV running in the next room or a phone call to break up an hour's drive home. And if all that failed, music--cds or radio.
He couldn't rely on those distractions anymore, and as the miles passed underneath him, it became his constant companion. At first there was a loud ringing in his ears and a pounding headache, as if his ears and brain were going through detox, getting used to less stimulation. It threatened to tear him apart at first, demons breaking through the gap, threataning to run him into madness, over the bridge, off the cliff, restless and screaming. And then, just as it had built to an unbearable crescendo . . .
Nothing.
Peace. Stillness. The sound of his own breathing and a clarity. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of the sea at dawn, his feet firmly planted in wet sand, hearing the gulls, smelling the cool salty air in his lungs and on his lips, feeling the water pour like ice over his feet, around his ankles, and then back out again. And what surfaced to his consciousness, like the flotsam and jetsam from the sea, were fragments, bits of memory: pieces of conversation, a song, holding hands, the smell of perfume, an argument, reading a book, sitting on deadwood as the sun beat down and the wind blew through Shannon's hair. They were fragments, nothing more, but maybe if he picked up enough of the shards and bits there would be something whole emerge, something complete. Some kind of recognition or pattern would emerge, and the things he'd forgotten would be brought back, only sharper and with more clarity than he'd remembered. The pieces would be made whole, and maybe (he hoped) a part of himself would be made whole as well.
The stories also emerged. There was Rose, a 300 pound black woman in her forties, sitting across the table, dabbing her eyes with a tissue as she related a time when she was in high school that four girls had called her over to their van, then pulled her inside and repeatedly raped her. She hadn't told her mom; she probably wouldn't have believed it. And Linda, working dispatch, the night the call came into central over the radio. At the stakeout shots had been fired. The man and his wife had stayed inside, and met the knocking on the door with a shotgun. Her husband was in that stakeout. Someone had been hit, someone had shot someone else. A man was dead. No other details were in yet, but they'd let her know as soon as they had something. She twists the wedding band on her finger. Someone dead last month, another down tonight. How long could she keep doing this?
Enough.
David scratched the two week stubble that had nearly become a beard. Shaving was out, but he still grabbed a shower when he could at a truck stop, or a Motel 6, just to feel human again and get the grit of the road off him and sleeping on benches and in coach and cheap hotels. He checked his pockets. He still had plenty of money and even more to draw on from an online bank if he needed it. No, money wasn't an issue, he could live like this for year without running dry. He felt like a leaf blowing on the wind, a hollowness whistling through his insides.
There was something out there, elusive yes, but he was on its trail, a pattern he hoped, between the man behind Krogers asking for money, the grim tension behind the eyes of the newscasters on the tvs broadcast at the truckstops, the vendors shaking their heads at the gas station, the subdued voices of children in restaurants, the changing weather patterns and the flights of birds. Something was different. He didn't know what but he had to know.
At the same time, there was the growing sense that he was being hunted. He caught himself looking over his shoulder more this last week, almost habitual, and he couldn't remember when it had begun. It was catching up, the secret thing he feared, and he wondered in silent resignation when (not if) it would find him.
He pictured how it would happen. He'd be too slow, spend too muc time in one place and let the dust settle, lured into a false sense of security and with the belief that maybe what had been after him would have given up the pursuit. He'd be walking down the middle of Main Street in some sleepy town when he'd round a corner and there it'd be, staring him dead in the face, hackles raised, claws ready, looming large. And it'd have him. There'd be nothing he could do, nowhere he could run that it wouldn't have already anticipated, and he'd be left, shaken like a ragdoll before it was all over.
In the distance the sound of the approaching train could be heard, still far off. Most stations were automated these days. This one was not. He liked the way it felt, the way it smelled, like rubber and old leather. He stepped up to the counter and met the gaze of a middle aged, graying man looking out from behind a glass window.
"How far does this line go?" David asked.
"Depends. Where you coming from? Where you wanna go?"
David reached down into his left pocket and pulled out a $20 and some change and slid it on the counter between himself and the ticketmaster.
"Today," David said with a wry grin, "we'll let fate decide."
It had been two weeks since Logansport, David mused. Two weeks, fourteen days, three hundred thirty-six hours . . .
He could break it down further, into minutes, and seconds, and even measurably smaller pieces, but that wasn't the point. His whole way of life had changed, his way of thinking. The people he'd met, the things he'd seen, and none of that could be measured in the time it took. He felt somehow closer to something that had seemed miles apart before. A weary sigh escaped him and sagged his shoulders; the things he'd left behind, the people he'd been so intimately connected to: Sarah, Robert, Cameron, Miles. He was walking away from them; he couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
Two days out of Logansport he'd realized he'd left the charger to his cell phone behind. He could pick up another, but thought maybe he was better off without it. No one had called, and he supposed he should get used to the silence. Hmm, silence. That was definitely something to get used to. It wasn't the silence around him, there was plenty of noise, between cars roaring by on the highway and horns honking in gridlock traffic in the bigger cities and airline jets roaring overhead. Even the smaller towns had their noise: children waiting for the bus on cold November mornings, the train passing through the middle of town at night, music pouring out of the bars and bells tolling from churches. No, the silence was coming from somewhere else, inside. His thoughts, his head, a large gaping emptiness where schedules and conversation had been, or the distraction of a TV running in the next room or a phone call to break up an hour's drive home. And if all that failed, music--cds or radio.
He couldn't rely on those distractions anymore, and as the miles passed underneath him, it became his constant companion. At first there was a loud ringing in his ears and a pounding headache, as if his ears and brain were going through detox, getting used to less stimulation. It threatened to tear him apart at first, demons breaking through the gap, threataning to run him into madness, over the bridge, off the cliff, restless and screaming. And then, just as it had built to an unbearable crescendo . . .
Nothing.
Peace. Stillness. The sound of his own breathing and a clarity. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of the sea at dawn, his feet firmly planted in wet sand, hearing the gulls, smelling the cool salty air in his lungs and on his lips, feeling the water pour like ice over his feet, around his ankles, and then back out again. And what surfaced to his consciousness, like the flotsam and jetsam from the sea, were fragments, bits of memory: pieces of conversation, a song, holding hands, the smell of perfume, an argument, reading a book, sitting on deadwood as the sun beat down and the wind blew through Shannon's hair. They were fragments, nothing more, but maybe if he picked up enough of the shards and bits there would be something whole emerge, something complete. Some kind of recognition or pattern would emerge, and the things he'd forgotten would be brought back, only sharper and with more clarity than he'd remembered. The pieces would be made whole, and maybe (he hoped) a part of himself would be made whole as well.
The stories also emerged. There was Rose, a 300 pound black woman in her forties, sitting across the table, dabbing her eyes with a tissue as she related a time when she was in high school that four girls had called her over to their van, then pulled her inside and repeatedly raped her. She hadn't told her mom; she probably wouldn't have believed it. And Linda, working dispatch, the night the call came into central over the radio. At the stakeout shots had been fired. The man and his wife had stayed inside, and met the knocking on the door with a shotgun. Her husband was in that stakeout. Someone had been hit, someone had shot someone else. A man was dead. No other details were in yet, but they'd let her know as soon as they had something. She twists the wedding band on her finger. Someone dead last month, another down tonight. How long could she keep doing this?
Enough.
David scratched the two week stubble that had nearly become a beard. Shaving was out, but he still grabbed a shower when he could at a truck stop, or a Motel 6, just to feel human again and get the grit of the road off him and sleeping on benches and in coach and cheap hotels. He checked his pockets. He still had plenty of money and even more to draw on from an online bank if he needed it. No, money wasn't an issue, he could live like this for year without running dry. He felt like a leaf blowing on the wind, a hollowness whistling through his insides.
There was something out there, elusive yes, but he was on its trail, a pattern he hoped, between the man behind Krogers asking for money, the grim tension behind the eyes of the newscasters on the tvs broadcast at the truckstops, the vendors shaking their heads at the gas station, the subdued voices of children in restaurants, the changing weather patterns and the flights of birds. Something was different. He didn't know what but he had to know.
At the same time, there was the growing sense that he was being hunted. He caught himself looking over his shoulder more this last week, almost habitual, and he couldn't remember when it had begun. It was catching up, the secret thing he feared, and he wondered in silent resignation when (not if) it would find him.
He pictured how it would happen. He'd be too slow, spend too muc time in one place and let the dust settle, lured into a false sense of security and with the belief that maybe what had been after him would have given up the pursuit. He'd be walking down the middle of Main Street in some sleepy town when he'd round a corner and there it'd be, staring him dead in the face, hackles raised, claws ready, looming large. And it'd have him. There'd be nothing he could do, nowhere he could run that it wouldn't have already anticipated, and he'd be left, shaken like a ragdoll before it was all over.
In the distance the sound of the approaching train could be heard, still far off. Most stations were automated these days. This one was not. He liked the way it felt, the way it smelled, like rubber and old leather. He stepped up to the counter and met the gaze of a middle aged, graying man looking out from behind a glass window.
"How far does this line go?" David asked.
"Depends. Where you coming from? Where you wanna go?"
David reached down into his left pocket and pulled out a $20 and some change and slid it on the counter between himself and the ticketmaster.
"Today," David said with a wry grin, "we'll let fate decide."
Monday, October 23, 2006
Travelin' Man: Part Two
At 6am he boarded the train for Logansport. The cup of coffee in his hand steamed into the chill October air. It had a crisp feel this morning, the air, and smelled faintly of dead leaves and coming frost. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his free hand, gripped the steaming cup with the other and cinched up the strap to his attache so it hung snugly against his body. A change of clothes, his laptop, a journal and a couple pens, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of rootbeer, bottled water, and a couple breakfast bars were stowed away in separate compartments inside the bag. David breathed in and let the air bite into his lungs like small pinpricks, and exhaled with a cough. In a few minutes the train left the station.
The earth is a woman, the earth is a woman, the earth is a woman. The clicking of wheels on tracks beat out a rhythmic cadence, and since he was a boy he'd hear these phrases over and over in his head, whether when he was jogging, driving, walking, or listening to music. They didn't always make sense; he didn't know how they'd come into his head, but they would pound incessantly, insistently into the nether reaches of his subconscious. The earth is a woman.
If it was a woman, then she must have many faces, he thought. Something about it seemed sensuous; he'd come to know her well, had seen her soft rolling curves, the jagged cold heights, the deep, wet rivers and soft valleys that contoured her landscape. He'd traced and retraced her body, and the more he saw of her, the more mysterious she seemed. And elegant. Lithe and graceful as a dancer she was, sophisticated as a high class lady, worn and knowing at times as an elderly matron, and wild and passionate as a young lover. He stared out the window as the sun turned harvested fields to golden brown, and the woman underneath him danced and swayed under the train's caress.
* * *
Shannon's back had been killing her. The digging of Jonathan's fists into the knotted, twisting hard boulders of her back yielded temporary release, but then would close ranks again with reinforcements. She was breaking apart; she could feel it. Her spine ran like a twisted river, grating and grinding against the rocks, chewing dirt from the banks only to dam it up further downstream and shut off the flow. Then came the headaches, the blinding, searing light in the back of the skull or just behind the eyes that exploded like a shower of sand in the desert, and walking, moving became like shards of glass, grinding and biting into the nerves and synapses, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, leaving her screaming in the darkness. She wanted it to end, wanted to find relief in the comforting arms of sleep, but it evaded her, leaving a restless torment in its place.
Jonathan didn't understand. She knew, by the sometimes helpless, sometimes cynical look in his eyes when she said she was tired and had a headache that it was wearing on him. How can you love someone who's splitting apart, shattering like glass before your eyes? For now, he had been patient, but was becoming more insistent, more demanding. The probing of his hands was more hungry than therapeutic. Was he enjoying when he caused her pain? Why hadn't she just stuck with a dog, they were less complicated, more accepting without conditions. Oh God, make this pain go away.
* * *
Millie sat across from him, talking about death again. Had he read the obits? Had he read about the nuclear tests on the other side of the world, the beating two blocks away? He grunted noncommitally, turning the page on the History of the Greeks. The lecture was coming up, and then the conference, and he wanted to know more about the Minoans before then. He'd been to Knossos, had visited Thera, had gotten lost in the labyrinthine palace or in the illustrated texts he'd studied before going. Susan was starting college, Millie had her scrapbook club. It always seemed simpler to study history than to walk out his door down the street to the sidewalk. He'd read some of the police reports. He knew of the woman who'd been run down as she was getting her newspaper at the side of the road. It had been early. The driver hadn't seen her and the sun was just coming up. He'd rounded the corner, coming home for some sleep after working third shift at the plant. Her pink pajamas had camouflaged her, blending in with the rose colored horizon. Trees had cast a shadow. When he saw her it was too late and she went flying, a marionette lying grotesquely across the road, twisted perpindicular like no human body should look, the pink nightshirt soaked through red. He could see her then, but it was too late.
Harold wasn't interested in the obits. The snake cult and bull dancing would have to take his attention for now.
* * *
Logansport wasn't his destination. He'd stop there, get off the train, stretch his legs for a while. He might even find a nice diner to grab some lunch, a burger or a turkey sandwhich maybe, and figure things out from there. He had a map, had an idea he'd head west, past the river, but wasn't sure after that. David wasn't even sure why, it was more of a compulsion, heading somewhere, looking for something, being drawn. He'd know it when he got there, but for now he'd be content to be on the road. Away from where he'd been. Away from the Uhaul truck and the departed and the memories he'd left behind or that had left him behind. For now, he'd keep travelin'.
The earth is a woman, the earth is a woman, the earth is a woman. The clicking of wheels on tracks beat out a rhythmic cadence, and since he was a boy he'd hear these phrases over and over in his head, whether when he was jogging, driving, walking, or listening to music. They didn't always make sense; he didn't know how they'd come into his head, but they would pound incessantly, insistently into the nether reaches of his subconscious. The earth is a woman.
If it was a woman, then she must have many faces, he thought. Something about it seemed sensuous; he'd come to know her well, had seen her soft rolling curves, the jagged cold heights, the deep, wet rivers and soft valleys that contoured her landscape. He'd traced and retraced her body, and the more he saw of her, the more mysterious she seemed. And elegant. Lithe and graceful as a dancer she was, sophisticated as a high class lady, worn and knowing at times as an elderly matron, and wild and passionate as a young lover. He stared out the window as the sun turned harvested fields to golden brown, and the woman underneath him danced and swayed under the train's caress.
* * *
Shannon's back had been killing her. The digging of Jonathan's fists into the knotted, twisting hard boulders of her back yielded temporary release, but then would close ranks again with reinforcements. She was breaking apart; she could feel it. Her spine ran like a twisted river, grating and grinding against the rocks, chewing dirt from the banks only to dam it up further downstream and shut off the flow. Then came the headaches, the blinding, searing light in the back of the skull or just behind the eyes that exploded like a shower of sand in the desert, and walking, moving became like shards of glass, grinding and biting into the nerves and synapses, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, leaving her screaming in the darkness. She wanted it to end, wanted to find relief in the comforting arms of sleep, but it evaded her, leaving a restless torment in its place.
Jonathan didn't understand. She knew, by the sometimes helpless, sometimes cynical look in his eyes when she said she was tired and had a headache that it was wearing on him. How can you love someone who's splitting apart, shattering like glass before your eyes? For now, he had been patient, but was becoming more insistent, more demanding. The probing of his hands was more hungry than therapeutic. Was he enjoying when he caused her pain? Why hadn't she just stuck with a dog, they were less complicated, more accepting without conditions. Oh God, make this pain go away.
* * *
Millie sat across from him, talking about death again. Had he read the obits? Had he read about the nuclear tests on the other side of the world, the beating two blocks away? He grunted noncommitally, turning the page on the History of the Greeks. The lecture was coming up, and then the conference, and he wanted to know more about the Minoans before then. He'd been to Knossos, had visited Thera, had gotten lost in the labyrinthine palace or in the illustrated texts he'd studied before going. Susan was starting college, Millie had her scrapbook club. It always seemed simpler to study history than to walk out his door down the street to the sidewalk. He'd read some of the police reports. He knew of the woman who'd been run down as she was getting her newspaper at the side of the road. It had been early. The driver hadn't seen her and the sun was just coming up. He'd rounded the corner, coming home for some sleep after working third shift at the plant. Her pink pajamas had camouflaged her, blending in with the rose colored horizon. Trees had cast a shadow. When he saw her it was too late and she went flying, a marionette lying grotesquely across the road, twisted perpindicular like no human body should look, the pink nightshirt soaked through red. He could see her then, but it was too late.
Harold wasn't interested in the obits. The snake cult and bull dancing would have to take his attention for now.
* * *
Logansport wasn't his destination. He'd stop there, get off the train, stretch his legs for a while. He might even find a nice diner to grab some lunch, a burger or a turkey sandwhich maybe, and figure things out from there. He had a map, had an idea he'd head west, past the river, but wasn't sure after that. David wasn't even sure why, it was more of a compulsion, heading somewhere, looking for something, being drawn. He'd know it when he got there, but for now he'd be content to be on the road. Away from where he'd been. Away from the Uhaul truck and the departed and the memories he'd left behind or that had left him behind. For now, he'd keep travelin'.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Saturday, October 21
It's unusually warm and sunny today for late October, and it's hard to think anything bad about the day, so I won't. In response to the last blog, the early Monday went well. I ended up working 15 hours that day, but gave a lecture on 18th century art: Rococo and Neoclassical, and then wrote a lecture on 18th century lit for the next day.
The weeks fly by. We're halfway through the semester. I did the math this morning and realized I moved to Illinois four months ago. I've been to Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky, started a new teaching job, had friends divorce and had one of them end a 13 year friendship with me. At the same time ended a friendship with a girl I'd dated and talked about marriage with. She moved to Chicago. We haven't spoken since. Have stepped back from other relationships, stepped into others, and some days feel like I don't know how I got here, wonder when I'll feel like I've found home, and other days feel like there's no place in the world I'd rather be than at this place, this time, in this way. Pretty crazy, huh?
Last night I saw a football game with my good friend J.Rob. Actually, we go to the game to watch the halftime show, and mostly just use the game as an excuse to catch up and chat. It's cool to watch the ball move up and down the field, but that's just a side benefit. High school football tickets: $4. Conversation: priceless.
There's a smalltown diner called the Arcade where I sometimes go on Saturday mornings. I'm a person of habit, so I usually order a cup of coffee, and a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel. It's a busy place on Saturday mornings, but it reconnects me to the realization that I'm living in a small town, with farmers and bankers and old state senators and college professors, most of whom today are wearing flannel.
The other day, in the midst of talking about Plato's philosophy, I told a group of my students that I'd gone rock climbing last Saturday. They thought it was great and wanted to go too, so now we're trying to get a group together to go rock climbing. I also found out they like to play Settlers, a game I was introduced to in Michigan, and we'll probably get together to play that too. I've come to think that some of the most valuable interactions that take place between teacher and students don't happen in the classroom, but outside it. It was this way when I was in college and grad school, sitting with a cup of coffee or tea with one of the profs, sometimes a beer, talking about writing and school and Ph.D. programs and life and health, world events and relationships.
Now I'm one of them. Some days it scares the crap out of me.
I think there are two major ideas when it comes to teaching. One is an Industrial Age idea, where students are the product and teachers are disseminating information (the "Sage on a stage" idea). Read the book. Absorb the information. Take the test. Write the paper. Rinse. Repeat. I always wondered why I'd lose passion for reading when I was in class, but pick it up again over summer break when I could read what I wanted to read. There's something to be said for discipline. There's also something to be said for something different too.
So the second model, the one that seems more organic, is a discipleship, mentoring idea. When the students and I have lunch together, it's still a classroom, but in these cases they're often teaching me as much or more as I'm teaching them. They're also asking the questions they want to ask. What about relationships? What about loneliness? What about this job I'm looking into? Jesus, Aristotle, Socrates and some of the Eastern teachers followed these models. It was definitely more organic, fused together the realization that learning and knowledge isn't just what happens in a classroom in a lab under sterile conditions, but has to connect to life, has to be lived out, has to actually on some level work and affect the ways we think, act, and live, and the ways we relate to each other, live in families and live in community. This is a different kind of knowledge; it's intimate; it gets down deep into our bones and changes the fabric of who we are. Experiences change us for this reason, practical application, hard knocks, reflection. For some reason this model excites me, makes me feel more alive and enjoy teaching more than the other.
The weeks fly by. We're halfway through the semester. I did the math this morning and realized I moved to Illinois four months ago. I've been to Idaho, Oregon, Kentucky, started a new teaching job, had friends divorce and had one of them end a 13 year friendship with me. At the same time ended a friendship with a girl I'd dated and talked about marriage with. She moved to Chicago. We haven't spoken since. Have stepped back from other relationships, stepped into others, and some days feel like I don't know how I got here, wonder when I'll feel like I've found home, and other days feel like there's no place in the world I'd rather be than at this place, this time, in this way. Pretty crazy, huh?
Last night I saw a football game with my good friend J.Rob. Actually, we go to the game to watch the halftime show, and mostly just use the game as an excuse to catch up and chat. It's cool to watch the ball move up and down the field, but that's just a side benefit. High school football tickets: $4. Conversation: priceless.
There's a smalltown diner called the Arcade where I sometimes go on Saturday mornings. I'm a person of habit, so I usually order a cup of coffee, and a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel. It's a busy place on Saturday mornings, but it reconnects me to the realization that I'm living in a small town, with farmers and bankers and old state senators and college professors, most of whom today are wearing flannel.
The other day, in the midst of talking about Plato's philosophy, I told a group of my students that I'd gone rock climbing last Saturday. They thought it was great and wanted to go too, so now we're trying to get a group together to go rock climbing. I also found out they like to play Settlers, a game I was introduced to in Michigan, and we'll probably get together to play that too. I've come to think that some of the most valuable interactions that take place between teacher and students don't happen in the classroom, but outside it. It was this way when I was in college and grad school, sitting with a cup of coffee or tea with one of the profs, sometimes a beer, talking about writing and school and Ph.D. programs and life and health, world events and relationships.
Now I'm one of them. Some days it scares the crap out of me.
I think there are two major ideas when it comes to teaching. One is an Industrial Age idea, where students are the product and teachers are disseminating information (the "Sage on a stage" idea). Read the book. Absorb the information. Take the test. Write the paper. Rinse. Repeat. I always wondered why I'd lose passion for reading when I was in class, but pick it up again over summer break when I could read what I wanted to read. There's something to be said for discipline. There's also something to be said for something different too.
So the second model, the one that seems more organic, is a discipleship, mentoring idea. When the students and I have lunch together, it's still a classroom, but in these cases they're often teaching me as much or more as I'm teaching them. They're also asking the questions they want to ask. What about relationships? What about loneliness? What about this job I'm looking into? Jesus, Aristotle, Socrates and some of the Eastern teachers followed these models. It was definitely more organic, fused together the realization that learning and knowledge isn't just what happens in a classroom in a lab under sterile conditions, but has to connect to life, has to be lived out, has to actually on some level work and affect the ways we think, act, and live, and the ways we relate to each other, live in families and live in community. This is a different kind of knowledge; it's intimate; it gets down deep into our bones and changes the fabric of who we are. Experiences change us for this reason, practical application, hard knocks, reflection. For some reason this model excites me, makes me feel more alive and enjoy teaching more than the other.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Early Mornings
I woke up at 3:45 this morning.
3:45! Yeah, that's early.
So I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I've figured out that it's best not to fight it, so I got up, and was at the office at 5am. I've had a cold for the last week--first in my lungs, now in my sinuses--so I think it's on the way out, but it's made for some miserable days and nights. Did I mention I don't do "sick" well?
So it's 5 in the morning and I'm driving through Lincoln. It's obviously still dark but warm, and there's a musty smell in the air, like the leaves are turning to dirt while they're still on the branches, or like a 50 lb. cat decided to roll around all night on the back porch. One of my fears when I leave this early in the morning is being greeted by a possum or a skunk. I hate both, especially if they're mean or have rabies.
I wasn't expecting to see anyone out, but I saw two people out separately, walking their dogs. "What are they doing up this early?" I thought. "Oh yeah, I'm up too."
It's quiet this early in the morning, quiet and peaceful, and even though I have a long day ahead of me I felt like today was going to be a good day. In a few hours people will start arriving to work. A couple hours later students will start waking up, and in about eight hours from now I'll be lecturing on 18th century art. Not bad for a Monday.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Going home
He'd left home when he was 17, maybe before. It hadn't been his home, but someone else's, so at 17 he began a new home. Most of the time he was never there, he was busy wandering the neighborhood, or knocking on other people's homes, or sitting with them in their living room.
Over the years he had knocked on a number of doors, and a few had let him in. Most told him to go away. He would look in through the windows at night, when the lights were on inside, watching families sit down to eat, watching couples snuggling on the couch, wishing that he had a home like that to go to.
One day he found a home he really liked. The woman who lived there was working in her garden, and he stopped to chat, at first over the fence, and not quite sure he wanted to go in through the gate, but she invited him in and before he knew it he was in her yard.
They continued to talk and he would often stop by to see if she was home. They'd stand in the doorway and talk, and sometimes she'd invite him into the living room where it was nice and warm. Some days he'd be present, engaged, listening and talking and things would be comfortable. On other days he'd seem distracted. They'd stand in the doorway and he'd look over her shoulder into the living room, or they'd sit in the living room and he'd find his eyes wandering to her bedroom door, which was always closed, except for one time when it was cracked just a bit.
On those days she would become frustrated. "What do you want? Are you listening?" she'd say. "Are you here to visit or to scope out the place to break in when I'm gone or asleep?" He'd apologize, say that wasn't the intent, and things would go back to normal. "I'll concentrate more," he thought "I'll be engaged. I'll be present." But then he'd find himself longing to see other rooms in the house, the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. Almost always on days like this his eyes led to the bedroom.
On these days she'd push him back outside, and on one particularly cold day he found himself on the other side of the door, digging his hands in deep, walking down the sidewalk, through the gate, past the fence, and down the road.
He walked a long way that day, and the next, and the day after that. It was all confusing. Every step took him further from the house. He began to forget what it looked like; he wondered if he'd ever go back. He wondered if he ever wanted to. He tried a few other doors at a few other houses, but it was fall when the sky is gray and the wind is cold and his attempts at the doors were lackluster and haphazard. He didn't want inside anymore, didn't know if he could. Dinners, fireplaces, couches and TVs belonged to other people, but it was much like watching a movie of other people's lives. The screen always separated the two worlds.
He began to miss his own house. The grass had grown, the weeds had sprung up, windows had broken in the house and a couple storms had ripped through the neighborhood. He was carrying in his bag a few gifts from other houses--freely given, not stolen--and he decided to begin decorating his house with some of those. A chasm had widened between his house and others, and some of the bridges had broken, but one or two were still usable, and he crossed over on one of those, back down a road that had become cracked and uneven, to the gate of his own house. He pushed it open (it creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges). He walked up to the door, noticing the loose bannister and the peeling paint, the draft of the broken windows, and went inside to get to work.
Over the years he had knocked on a number of doors, and a few had let him in. Most told him to go away. He would look in through the windows at night, when the lights were on inside, watching families sit down to eat, watching couples snuggling on the couch, wishing that he had a home like that to go to.
One day he found a home he really liked. The woman who lived there was working in her garden, and he stopped to chat, at first over the fence, and not quite sure he wanted to go in through the gate, but she invited him in and before he knew it he was in her yard.
They continued to talk and he would often stop by to see if she was home. They'd stand in the doorway and talk, and sometimes she'd invite him into the living room where it was nice and warm. Some days he'd be present, engaged, listening and talking and things would be comfortable. On other days he'd seem distracted. They'd stand in the doorway and he'd look over her shoulder into the living room, or they'd sit in the living room and he'd find his eyes wandering to her bedroom door, which was always closed, except for one time when it was cracked just a bit.
On those days she would become frustrated. "What do you want? Are you listening?" she'd say. "Are you here to visit or to scope out the place to break in when I'm gone or asleep?" He'd apologize, say that wasn't the intent, and things would go back to normal. "I'll concentrate more," he thought "I'll be engaged. I'll be present." But then he'd find himself longing to see other rooms in the house, the kitchen, the den, the bedroom. Almost always on days like this his eyes led to the bedroom.
On these days she'd push him back outside, and on one particularly cold day he found himself on the other side of the door, digging his hands in deep, walking down the sidewalk, through the gate, past the fence, and down the road.
He walked a long way that day, and the next, and the day after that. It was all confusing. Every step took him further from the house. He began to forget what it looked like; he wondered if he'd ever go back. He wondered if he ever wanted to. He tried a few other doors at a few other houses, but it was fall when the sky is gray and the wind is cold and his attempts at the doors were lackluster and haphazard. He didn't want inside anymore, didn't know if he could. Dinners, fireplaces, couches and TVs belonged to other people, but it was much like watching a movie of other people's lives. The screen always separated the two worlds.
He began to miss his own house. The grass had grown, the weeds had sprung up, windows had broken in the house and a couple storms had ripped through the neighborhood. He was carrying in his bag a few gifts from other houses--freely given, not stolen--and he decided to begin decorating his house with some of those. A chasm had widened between his house and others, and some of the bridges had broken, but one or two were still usable, and he crossed over on one of those, back down a road that had become cracked and uneven, to the gate of his own house. He pushed it open (it creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges). He walked up to the door, noticing the loose bannister and the peeling paint, the draft of the broken windows, and went inside to get to work.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Definitions of Love
A woman wants a man with washboard abs, who dresses well, who smells good, who tells her she's beautiful, who makes her laugh, who fixes the cars and the lawns and always knows the right thing to say.
A woman wants a man who's strong, who's sensitive, who earns money but is often home to take care of her, to take care of the kids. A woman wants a man who takes her places, who has sex when she wants it and not when she doesn't. A woman wants a man to tell her it'll be okay, to put the seat down, to leave his shoes at the door, to play with the kids, to ride a motorcycle and look good in a leather jacket, to paint the living room and expand the kitchen.
A woman wants a man who won't complain when she spends too much, who won't be upset when she's out with the girls, flirting with other guys (he's secure after all), who doesn't flirt with other women. A woman wants a man who lives close by, who lives far away, who won't hit her, and if he does, apologizes and says he'll never do it again (and she'll believe him). A woman wants a man who will cheat on her (if he's sexy enough for others, he's sexy enough for me), at least she'll stay with him. A woman wants a man who will stay with her if she cheats on him. A woman wants a man who will never cheat on her. A woman wants a man who's stronger, kinder, harder, softer, nicer, more decisive, less authoritative, less stubborn, more like a dog, less like a dog, who likes to kiss but always has good breath. A woman wants a man to tell her what he's thinking. A woman wants a man to not talk so much.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Random
Recent events:
1. Got flipped off on a web site that once hosted a business co-owned with former friend. (Wow, how does that happen? Someone devotes an entire website just to flippin' him off!"
2. Nearly got into a slugfest with same former friend. Former friend emails next day to officially announce he is retiring from the friendship, will not contact, no, nada, never. One day later former friend text messages to tell him his favorite cat has come home.
3. Tired of talking about former friend with friends, strangers, mutants, or guests, or professional online personalities.
4. Ponders why, if so many people hate marriage why so many people try it anyway.
5. Wonders if he'll work another 12-15 hours today.
6. Realizes what itunes is and what it does (a bit behind in the technology end). This comes following the purchase of an ipod (wow, another novelty).
7. Has 90% attendance in 8am class. This is a first since, well, the first day of class!
8. Has dreams about French bathrooms and how the French don't give you any privacy in the toilet, even though he hasn't been in many French bathrooms to speak of.
9. Gets an email from girl saying he should not care about her. He doesn't respond. She writes back to ask what he things about her saying he should not care about her. He responds saying he needs space. She responds later in the day saying she'll respect that and give him space. She writes again the next day saying that this is the two year anniversary of a best friend's death. She thinks she's okay, just thought he should know. He doesn't respond.
10. Shoots more baskets at the gym. One of the only things that makes sense. Feels like basketball is becoming an extension of his hand. Wonders if he could date said basketball. Hates playing, but likes shooting free throws and layups and going jogging, but not all at the same time. Realizes career as basketball superstar will most likely never be realized (*wicked laugh* No, it could be! It could!). Decides to take up rock climbing again.
1. Got flipped off on a web site that once hosted a business co-owned with former friend. (Wow, how does that happen? Someone devotes an entire website just to flippin' him off!"
2. Nearly got into a slugfest with same former friend. Former friend emails next day to officially announce he is retiring from the friendship, will not contact, no, nada, never. One day later former friend text messages to tell him his favorite cat has come home.
3. Tired of talking about former friend with friends, strangers, mutants, or guests, or professional online personalities.
4. Ponders why, if so many people hate marriage why so many people try it anyway.
5. Wonders if he'll work another 12-15 hours today.
6. Realizes what itunes is and what it does (a bit behind in the technology end). This comes following the purchase of an ipod (wow, another novelty).
7. Has 90% attendance in 8am class. This is a first since, well, the first day of class!
8. Has dreams about French bathrooms and how the French don't give you any privacy in the toilet, even though he hasn't been in many French bathrooms to speak of.
9. Gets an email from girl saying he should not care about her. He doesn't respond. She writes back to ask what he things about her saying he should not care about her. He responds saying he needs space. She responds later in the day saying she'll respect that and give him space. She writes again the next day saying that this is the two year anniversary of a best friend's death. She thinks she's okay, just thought he should know. He doesn't respond.
10. Shoots more baskets at the gym. One of the only things that makes sense. Feels like basketball is becoming an extension of his hand. Wonders if he could date said basketball. Hates playing, but likes shooting free throws and layups and going jogging, but not all at the same time. Realizes career as basketball superstar will most likely never be realized (*wicked laugh* No, it could be! It could!). Decides to take up rock climbing again.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Travelin' Man
And he said death come quickly, I'm takin' the next train outta town. There ain't nothin' for me here, ain't no reason to stay.
So he hoisted his pack on his shoulder, the only belongings he had left--a change of clothes, a loaf of bread, a wallet full of faded bills and a blanket--and he made his way, he made his way off today.
Cuz there wasn't no reason for where he was goin', and there wasn't no reason to stay.
Day turns to night, and night turns to day, and the travelin' man, that travelin' man made his way,
and that's the last we seen him, and we sure don't know where he's gone, cuz he kicked off the dust from his dusty shoes, and he said "I'm gonna go find my fate today."
So he hoisted his pack on his shoulder, the only belongings he had left--a change of clothes, a loaf of bread, a wallet full of faded bills and a blanket--and he made his way, he made his way off today.
Cuz there wasn't no reason for where he was goin', and there wasn't no reason to stay.
Day turns to night, and night turns to day, and the travelin' man, that travelin' man made his way,
and that's the last we seen him, and we sure don't know where he's gone, cuz he kicked off the dust from his dusty shoes, and he said "I'm gonna go find my fate today."
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