Gentle purple explosion

As a child, summer began the day I rode a bus home on the last day of a school year. At the end of this day’s ride, I would step off and walk into summer vacation.

Every other day of the school year consisted of routine. Walk from school a few blocks to the bus stop. Wait on the corner, always a bit nervous because creepy hood Whitney Miles stood in front of his house on the opposite corner, smirking at me as he did every day, hair slicked back in a greasy ducktail (D.A., as we called it, a far less polite term than “tail”), a pack of cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of his white t-shirt. Looking back, Whitney probably was harmless and more than likely lonely. We didn’t have many greasers at Smith Elementary School in Oakwood, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. He simply did not fit in. Neither did I, but that’s another whole story.

When summer began, I knew I would spend more time outdoors, away from the cement and noise of downtown. I would trade the lonely hotel room where I lived because of my father’s occupation for a country club swimming pool or, even better, a week at my grandparents’ house in Toledo, where I eagerly mowed the lawn, ran through the sprinklers on days that water rationing would allow, and sat on the porch swing chatting quietly with my sweet grandmother.

Summer meant I would spend hours playing Clue with my friend Craig Campbell, always accusing him of cheating (because he did). He won every time. I never could prove that the true perpetrator of murder was Professor Plum, who committed the deadly deed with the candlestick in the conservatory. After we tired of Clue, which we enjoyed while our parents played bridge and drank martinis, we ventured into Craig’s backyard and experienced the magic of lightning bugs. We laughed with delight as they flicked their way through the dusky night sky, and we captured as many as we could. Not realizing at our young age that we were being inhumane, we put them in a glass jar with holes in the cap, even adding grass so they would have food. They never lived until morning.

Even earlier in my childhood, summer meant paddling a canoe on Lake Winola, near Scranton, Pennsylvania. It meant riding a bit recklessly in Nancy Smith’s motorboat, frolicking over the wakes of other boats, laughing with glee as we rode high on a crest and then smacked back down on the other side. Summer meant digging up earthworms to save for bait when we fished off the boat dock later in the day. It meant stuffing my mouth with freshly picked blueberries while hiking in the Poconos, and it meant running around with sparklers on the Fourth of July.

Now, many years later, peeking into my twilight years, the first brilliant lavender blossoms of jacaranda trees signal the beginning of summer. They create a symphony of purple beginning in late May and lasting well into July. During my 20-year tenure at a local high school, one I loved and one that made my life feel tethered and tedious at the same time, huge jacarandas in the school quad began to blossom just before graduation. Tedium transformed into delight. The jacarandas changed day by day, eventually laying a soft violet carpet to cover the remnants of each day’s lunch and wads of gum. They made me realize my students and I had survived another year. They meant we would celebrate the culmination of hard work, laughter, tears and sneers. They meant I could take a much-needed break from grading papers, and students could take a break from writing them. They gave hope of a new beginning for everyone. They signaled a bright tomorrow. 

As a gift from God, I live in an area of Southern California where I see jacarandas at every turn. The median on a street I travel every day has blocks of them, each in various stages of bloom. The one in my backyard is teasing me with just a few blossoms. The one in my neighbor’s yard is a delightful palette of greens and lavenders. The ones at the local high school, right on cue, have bloomed completely. Of course they have. Graduation time is here.

I love this annual gentle purple explosion. I love the sense of ongoing creation. I love nature’s artistry. I love the coming of summer. I love jacarandas.

More Thoreau

Perhaps I took a bit of a risk by alluding to "size isn't everything" in a room full of adolescent testosterone. I couldn't help it. As we continued talking about Henry David Thoreau's "Battle of the Ants," I remembered Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself 31," quoted here:

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand and the egg of the wren
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels . . ."

When I read it to them and explained that a pismire is an ant, I swear I could hear I collective groan. "Can't she get over the ants?" the groan seemed to say. When I told them that Whitman's whole transcendental point is that "size isn't everything," at least I had their attention.

I love Whitman. I want them to love Whitman, and maybe some of them will. That's why I keep teaching.

Teaching Thoreau

I taught Thoreau today.

At least, I think so.

My audience of a dozen 11th-grade cadets at an all-boys' military boarding school perhaps did not lend itself particularly well to the study of a 19th-century philosopher and observer of nature. They like the rebel in him, though. One of the boys had read Henry David Thoreau before at his previous school.

"Oh, yeah, he's the dude who sold all his stuff and went to live in a vacation home, right?"

If one considers two years' solitude in a rustic hand-built cabin at Walden Pond in Massachusetts a "vacation home," so be it.

Actually, they think he's crazy, especially in the part where he observed ants for a day and compared them to Greek soldiers.

Nonetheless, they succeeded in having a rather stimulating discussion about Thoreau's use of Greek allusions and the metaphors for life that he creates from his observations, including the battle of the ants. They questioned wars and the alleged purposes for them. They understood his aphoristic sentences, especially one of the most famous: "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music in which he hears, however measured, or far away. " At an age when many of them scoff at others who differ from the norm, and when few take the risk of exposing their innermost thoughts and ideas, they enjoyed gnawing on this bit of wisdom for a while.

I love Thoreau. One of the hardest parts of teaching high school English is the utter disdain with which some students reject authors I love. They don't get why I envy my colleague who won a grant to spend the summer at Walden Pond studying the transcendentalists. They think I'm crazy, like Thoreau.

Starting this journey

I don't like to read manuals, although I do try to follow directions when I have to assemble something. Learning style tests label me as kinesthetic and visual; I prefer doing and seeing. In simple language, I learn best by trial and error. That's why -- to experienced bloggers -- I probably will have blunder upon blunder here. I skipped the manual.
Even though it's common to almost everyone under my age who sits at a computer, blogging is a new journey for me. I met someone at a professional event for publishers and writers this week who put me in my place. First, when I told her I was "thinking about" some different writing projects, she said, "Thinking about it isn't enough. You won't do it. To do it, you have to do it." Duh! (I didn't really say that. My brain just went into the lingo of teens, around whom I spend the majority of my time.) Second, she handed me a sassy-looking business card and told me to check out her blog.
Result of the conversation? Now I'm doing one of those projects -- starting a blog, not just thinking about it. As soon as I can put together an idea for business cards, I can hand them out with attitude, too. Easy enough, at least enough for the first baby step.

Today's Teacher Pets story: If You Get Yourself In, You Can Get Yourself Out



When I heard the frenzied scratching by the kitchen cupboard, I figured that Ginger, my seven-year-old Tonkinese cat, had simply wound her way through some of the large bowls and casserole dishes stored there and couldn't quite figure out what to do next. Instead, I discovered with dismay that she had somehow gotten stuck between the back of the cupboard and the wall. After about an hour of occasional wild-sounding meows and more scratching, reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe story, and without having figured out how she ever managed to find her way behind the cupboard, I called the humane society to see what I should do. As an after-hours caller, I was referred to the sheriff's department non-emergency line, which referred me to the fire department.
The fire captain gave me the standard "cat talk."
"Lyn," he said, "we can come out if you want us to. We can punch a hole in your wall or whatever it takes, but here's what we have found out over the years. Time after time, when a cat is stuck in a hole or up a tree or in a cupboard or wherever, it won't stay stuck. If she found her way in, she will find her way out."
In short, he advised patience.
Two and a half hours of patience later, I finally noticed Ginger's face poke out of a small hole in the cupboard by the sink. How she got in, I don't know. How she got out, I saw. She finally snagged her paws over the edge of the wall and hauled herself, slipping and sliding, back through the space. She shook herself off -- perhaps with a "Thank-God-that's-over" shrug -- and then proceeded about business as usual as only a cat can do.
I have thought often about that statement the fire captain made: "If she found her way in, she will find her way out." It applies to my own life, too, especially in terms of spaces where I have no business going or spaces where I don't quite fit. I might find my way into someone else's problem to solve, taking it on as my own. I might find my way into a situation where I don't belong, either physically or ethically. If I find myself in those spaces by accident, it's one thing. If I go there intentionally, it's another. If my desire to help someone I care about takes on the flavor of control, then I don't belong there. If my desire to keep job security begins to compromise my professional standards, then I don't belong there. Ginger's In and Out Lesson applies.
If I found my way in, I can find my way out. I may have to stay stuck until I'm extremely uncomfortable. I may take some time to poke around before I stick my head out of the dark spaces. I may have to stretch my limits or scratch and claw, but I will emerge on the other side.
Then I can proceed, perhaps not with business as usual, but with a new outlook.