Sunday, September 26, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
I leave for work, which is quite far afield, when it is not quite light. Lately I listen to the Missa Gaia from door to door. I sing my head off, I think about how I did/will interpret it, and I arrive to work feeling better than I would if I had been listening to the news. I look for red tail hawks. I marvel at how the horse fence keeps in morning mist. Occasionally I witness the flutter-flutter-glide pattern of a butterfly or two. This morning a white spider decided it was a good time to wander around my steering wheel towards my left hand. Really, St. Francis, do I have to honor all the creatures?
The sky was absolutely lovely --- its colors straight from a Monet. But the thing that had me mesmerized was the early morning moon! The road dips and twists and sometimes it was on my left, sometimes my right, sometimes above the line of pines, sometimes below. When it was out of sight, I actually began to miss it. It brought to mind the thoughts of my teens....
When I was 15, 16, and 17, summer mornings were spent in a small chapel in my home town. I was a daily communicant in the place I biked to every morning for mass. My closest friend at the time also attended. It was us and a handful of pensioners. For most of my life, I have wanted to get back to that habit. When I had cancer and felt I was in danger of losing my mind, I did. I conveniently lived within walking distance of a church at the time, and a loving co-worker who is himself battling cancer now went way out of his way to pick me up after mass to bring me to work each morning which made this possible. I often thought that during my sabbatical from teaching a few years back I would attend daily mass again, but I never did. These days, if you read this blog enough, you know that my early mornings are spent elsewhere. I communicate with the sea as close to dawn and as often as possible.
It was during those adolescent mornings, though, that I began to think of the sun and the moon as the presence of the holiest mystery. They were cosmic manifestations of the immortal and almighty. When I looked into the sky and found them, I felt drawn to the eucharist. When I pedaled down my parents' driveway towards the pews of that tiny church, I looked at the sky and whispered a sort of 'Good Morning ... I am coming.' When I recall that now, it is difficult to imagine that kind of fervor. I miss it. Life is cushier with that kind of faith.
I think my church is genius. I get a charge out of the very word transubstantiation, for example. In those days I thought it was the coolest thing that the communion wafer had the mottled look of the moon. These days, of course, I see the shape itself as a perfect metaphor. Beginning and end; alpha and omega. The calendar. The hour. A life.
So in my car these days I follow the bouncing ball ... I look for it, on the horizon, peeking out from a line of trees, on my left and on my right. There's a bit of that certainty left when my eye rests on it. Like when you see the face of an old friend. You know that every moment we change. You know they have had moments as you have had moments between when your eyes rested on them last and now, but their visage still brings a peace. Good Morning. I am coming. You know me. I have my self to share. And I sing a familiar song. A song I have been singing for thirty years... because, lucky for me, you don't necessarily have to be on fire to sing!
The sky was absolutely lovely --- its colors straight from a Monet. But the thing that had me mesmerized was the early morning moon! The road dips and twists and sometimes it was on my left, sometimes my right, sometimes above the line of pines, sometimes below. When it was out of sight, I actually began to miss it. It brought to mind the thoughts of my teens....
When I was 15, 16, and 17, summer mornings were spent in a small chapel in my home town. I was a daily communicant in the place I biked to every morning for mass. My closest friend at the time also attended. It was us and a handful of pensioners. For most of my life, I have wanted to get back to that habit. When I had cancer and felt I was in danger of losing my mind, I did. I conveniently lived within walking distance of a church at the time, and a loving co-worker who is himself battling cancer now went way out of his way to pick me up after mass to bring me to work each morning which made this possible. I often thought that during my sabbatical from teaching a few years back I would attend daily mass again, but I never did. These days, if you read this blog enough, you know that my early mornings are spent elsewhere. I communicate with the sea as close to dawn and as often as possible.
It was during those adolescent mornings, though, that I began to think of the sun and the moon as the presence of the holiest mystery. They were cosmic manifestations of the immortal and almighty. When I looked into the sky and found them, I felt drawn to the eucharist. When I pedaled down my parents' driveway towards the pews of that tiny church, I looked at the sky and whispered a sort of 'Good Morning ... I am coming.' When I recall that now, it is difficult to imagine that kind of fervor. I miss it. Life is cushier with that kind of faith.
I think my church is genius. I get a charge out of the very word transubstantiation, for example. In those days I thought it was the coolest thing that the communion wafer had the mottled look of the moon. These days, of course, I see the shape itself as a perfect metaphor. Beginning and end; alpha and omega. The calendar. The hour. A life.
So in my car these days I follow the bouncing ball ... I look for it, on the horizon, peeking out from a line of trees, on my left and on my right. There's a bit of that certainty left when my eye rests on it. Like when you see the face of an old friend. You know that every moment we change. You know they have had moments as you have had moments between when your eyes rested on them last and now, but their visage still brings a peace. Good Morning. I am coming. You know me. I have my self to share. And I sing a familiar song. A song I have been singing for thirty years... because, lucky for me, you don't necessarily have to be on fire to sing!
It lives in the seed of a tree as it grows
You can hear it if you listen to the wind as it blows
It's there in the river as it flows into the sea
It's the sound in the soul of a man becoming free
And it lives in the laughter of children at play
And in the blazing sun that gives light to the day
It moves the planets and the stars in the sky
It's been the mover of mountains
Since the beginning of time.
Oh Mystery, you are alive
I feel you all around
You are the fire in my heart
You are the holy sound
You are all of life
It is to you I sing
Oh, Grant that I may feel you
Always in everything
And it lives in the waves as they crash upon the beach
I've seen it in the gods that men have tried to reach
I feel it in the love I know we need so much
And I know it in your smile, My Love,
When our hearts do touch
And when I listen deep inside
I feel best of all
Like a moon that's glowing white
And I listen to your call
And I know you will guide me,
I feel like the tide
Rushing to the ocean
Of my heart that's open wide
Oh Mystery, you are alive, I feel you all around....
-Paul Winter
(You can hear a snippet of it here:
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
"New classroom, new students, old joys."
- blog entry , September 14, 2010
Old sorrows, too. I haven't been able to get one particular student off my mind of late. I couldn't figure out why, really. I was deliberately thinking about him in terms of exactly how I would describe him for the blog entry character sketch series I am committed to... but this was more that that. Last night over dinner with Christy and Suzanne, it suddenly became clear. A lot of things became clear. THIS one was that he was my student in this new/old classroom I have moved back into for this school year.
He was young. I think it was 2002. He was in a class of students much less cognitively capable than he was. He was charming. He beamed. (Trying to describe that indescribable incandescence, again!) He also cried. He could say one word. It was "Yes." He was quadriplegic. He lived in a group home. He cried a lot. I had an inordinate number of support staff working in my class. That means that the physical issues in my classroom merited it. I would read stories to twelve students, but only one could understand them. I would hold the book in one hand and rub whatever part of his body he was complaining about with the other. One staff person in particular would complain that I was spoiling him. It soothed him. Do what works was my rationale. Human touch works. I do not care what anyone has to say about that. If a child is soothed by indulging their wants, really where is the harm? They will expect the same treatment in the future would be some one's answer.
Whatever. In the last week that I saw him, his cry had changed. And it was not shoulder or leg that wanted rubbing. It was his stomach. He took longer to calm. He cried more often. I was more than concerned. There is a lot about this that I won't go into. I will say this: there was a three day weekend at hand. I went to my then relatively new principal and said, essentially, this: I want you to call the group home and tell them he cannot return to school without a full physical. She asked some questions. My answer was "I think he is gravely ill." She asked some more questions. I answered again "I think he is gravely ill," and this time I added "I am not using that word lightly." She said she was sure I wasn't.
Again, you know how this story ends. The weekend passed. He was in the hospital by Saturday. He died soon after. Cancer throughout. When we returned to school, in the office, clocking in, I heard the news. The principal wasn't in yet. When she did arrive, she came looking for me directly. I turned to go out of my classroom and had started down the hall when we saw each other. She was walking towards me with open arms. [ This is significant because she has retired and we are since strongly advised not to embrace each other or our students. ] We were both fighting back tears. She said she was sorry. I said I was too... and sorry that I was correct.
I said when I began these vignettes that they would be about the students I had lost as well as meaningful encounters with other professionals. This particular principal was a master. I will speak of her again regarding her support involving another student of mine who slowly left us. But really, in the scheme of things, what I have already said about her was, in my experience, remarkable. She listened. She really listened. And she showed genuine warmth, support and attention.
I wrote what appears below not too long after he passed away. I can be quite esoteric, so to elaborate...
Once when it snowed, I went out a door just outside the school cafeteria that no one was supposed to use to get some snow for Franki (a quadriplegic kid never gets to play in the snow and he had nodded to me that he wanted some) and quickly made a snowman in a pie tin. Whoever had gone out that door was about to get their head chewed off by the aforementioned principal, but when she saw me hurriedly coming in and already talking to him as I turned the corner, I watched her swallow her reprimand and smile. This is why he reminded us of snow. As I already have noted the only word he could say was 'yes,' so that is in here as well. The reason I said he was in someone else's eyes is because we heard his were donated after his death... and when the radiator clanged in my classroom for months I would think it was him blowing me a kiss. (I imagine that this winter I will hear that sound again and look up with the same expectation.) Who says writing poetry is hard? Poetry is real life written down in a stack of short lines with a little bit of added constraint!
Franki,
We wake to find who has fallen in the night.
When this news touches us we crumble.
In our classroom the shape of the space you occupied changes.
You are walking through it.
For days, each time the wind whips around us,
we are startled into the sting of the loss of you.
When the radiator clangs we look up
thinking you have blown us a kiss.
We'd like to place a thin black frame around our mourning.
We will miss this and this and this.
But you are everywhere: in snow, in tears, in "yes,"
and behind someone else's eyes.
I've found the disk with your photograph.
When the MacIntosh whirrs and follows our command,
you smile at us again
and we throw our arms around it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
- blog entry , September 14, 2010
Old sorrows, too. I haven't been able to get one particular student off my mind of late. I couldn't figure out why, really. I was deliberately thinking about him in terms of exactly how I would describe him for the blog entry character sketch series I am committed to... but this was more that that. Last night over dinner with Christy and Suzanne, it suddenly became clear. A lot of things became clear. THIS one was that he was my student in this new/old classroom I have moved back into for this school year.
He was young. I think it was 2002. He was in a class of students much less cognitively capable than he was. He was charming. He beamed. (Trying to describe that indescribable incandescence, again!) He also cried. He could say one word. It was "Yes." He was quadriplegic. He lived in a group home. He cried a lot. I had an inordinate number of support staff working in my class. That means that the physical issues in my classroom merited it. I would read stories to twelve students, but only one could understand them. I would hold the book in one hand and rub whatever part of his body he was complaining about with the other. One staff person in particular would complain that I was spoiling him. It soothed him. Do what works was my rationale. Human touch works. I do not care what anyone has to say about that. If a child is soothed by indulging their wants, really where is the harm? They will expect the same treatment in the future would be some one's answer.
Whatever. In the last week that I saw him, his cry had changed. And it was not shoulder or leg that wanted rubbing. It was his stomach. He took longer to calm. He cried more often. I was more than concerned. There is a lot about this that I won't go into. I will say this: there was a three day weekend at hand. I went to my then relatively new principal and said, essentially, this: I want you to call the group home and tell them he cannot return to school without a full physical. She asked some questions. My answer was "I think he is gravely ill." She asked some more questions. I answered again "I think he is gravely ill," and this time I added "I am not using that word lightly." She said she was sure I wasn't.
Again, you know how this story ends. The weekend passed. He was in the hospital by Saturday. He died soon after. Cancer throughout. When we returned to school, in the office, clocking in, I heard the news. The principal wasn't in yet. When she did arrive, she came looking for me directly. I turned to go out of my classroom and had started down the hall when we saw each other. She was walking towards me with open arms. [ This is significant because she has retired and we are since strongly advised not to embrace each other or our students. ] We were both fighting back tears. She said she was sorry. I said I was too... and sorry that I was correct.
I said when I began these vignettes that they would be about the students I had lost as well as meaningful encounters with other professionals. This particular principal was a master. I will speak of her again regarding her support involving another student of mine who slowly left us. But really, in the scheme of things, what I have already said about her was, in my experience, remarkable. She listened. She really listened. And she showed genuine warmth, support and attention.
I wrote what appears below not too long after he passed away. I can be quite esoteric, so to elaborate...
Once when it snowed, I went out a door just outside the school cafeteria that no one was supposed to use to get some snow for Franki (a quadriplegic kid never gets to play in the snow and he had nodded to me that he wanted some) and quickly made a snowman in a pie tin. Whoever had gone out that door was about to get their head chewed off by the aforementioned principal, but when she saw me hurriedly coming in and already talking to him as I turned the corner, I watched her swallow her reprimand and smile. This is why he reminded us of snow. As I already have noted the only word he could say was 'yes,' so that is in here as well. The reason I said he was in someone else's eyes is because we heard his were donated after his death... and when the radiator clanged in my classroom for months I would think it was him blowing me a kiss. (I imagine that this winter I will hear that sound again and look up with the same expectation.) Who says writing poetry is hard? Poetry is real life written down in a stack of short lines with a little bit of added constraint!
Franki,
We wake to find who has fallen in the night.
When this news touches us we crumble.
In our classroom the shape of the space you occupied changes.
You are walking through it.
For days, each time the wind whips around us,
we are startled into the sting of the loss of you.
When the radiator clangs we look up
thinking you have blown us a kiss.
We'd like to place a thin black frame around our mourning.
We will miss this and this and this.
But you are everywhere: in snow, in tears, in "yes,"
and behind someone else's eyes.
I've found the disk with your photograph.
When the MacIntosh whirrs and follows our command,
you smile at us again
and we throw our arms around it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle....
-Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
I purchased our tickets for the Paul Winter Solstice Concert at the Cathedral today. I have been doing this particular dance for nearly thirty years; essentially ever since I had my own money in my pocket. I think, if someone asked me to choose the music that really tells the story of my life, it would be Paul's. I gave my future husband a second glance because he was running around with a promotional t-shirt for the Consort's Common Ground album when we were 16 or so.... the back of the shirt really drew me in... it was a light blue rectangle with same color text asking this question: "A peace treaty for whales?"
A year later I was on my way back from my first semester at college and stopped at the cathedral to fall in love with the place. I didn't know that was going to happen, of course, but it certainly did.
A few years later I was living at Columbia University and going there every chance I got. By 1985, I was out of school and living in the Bronx. I wrote to the Dean of the Cathedral and asked if I could interpret the next performance of the Missa Gaia, and then did that for more than a few years. As it happened, I became ill and lost my gig by default. But I still went to listen, if not participate in the performance. Missa Gaia is quickly coming upon us (first Sunday October to honor the feast of St. Francis). I have dragged so many friends to this event over the years that I am accused of being responsible for a few conversions! I do not know exactly how that works since I am an erstwhile Catholic and the cathedral is squarely Anglican, but it is the kind of blame one takes easily.
After the animals get blessed, we will turn around and I will be sitting with my husband, my mother-in -law and my new convert to the event, Christy. She came with us last year. As did my dear friend Chris. He had the best time.... and I had the best time sharing that experience with him as we have so many, many times before! I wrote Christy a long and beautiful letter afterwards(if I may say so myself) . I kept a copy of it, but have no idea where it has gone to. Months later she told me she carries it in her bag and shows it to too many people. It warmed my heart. It brought me so far back to when we were all so young and carried each other's letters with us... shared them with whoever would sit still to humor or envy us.
This week a dear friend had her hip replaced. I have been trying to get to see her, but I have not been able to make it. I heard a friend of ours would be going to the hospital to visit, and I hurriedly wrote the patient a note in a card I choose for its prevalent orange (her favorite color). We've been kind of out of touch and I have been full of doubt about our friendship. I think it is the grief. C.S. Lewis, in his A Grief Observed, opens with " No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." Lately I easily believe that all my friendships are collapsing. I think it is the anxiety he speaks of. I hope I am correct. Anyway, the intrepid co-worker came to see me the next morning and said our friend was very moved by my note. She must be feeling very tender, indeed. I must be as well, as evidence by my the rapid-fire shock and relief with a tear chaser.
I try to remember to do things with my hands. I try to write hold-in-your hand letters--- now more rare than ever in our world. I try to sew because I believe it is a therapeutic act. It makes me like thousands of women over thousands of years. It connects me to mother and grandmother and beyond. Quiet descends, indeed.
Last year, I finally sat down and executed an idea I had at the first Paul Winter Solstice Concert I attended. This simple picture in thread was thirty years in the making! When it was 'drawn' I shaped it into a christmas stocking and gave it to Christy as a memento of the concert. I will be so happy to sit beneath the blue ball with her again. And with my husband, and his (our) mother. I will be so at home in the chest-deep chants. I will weep uncontrollably for my friend whose absence will be palpable. I will be on watch for his presence, just as palpable!
I will think of the shape of the cathedral. I will watch spirit burst open the cube of the cathedral's cross. I will think of my husband's back as I read it in the high school hallway, and of the many years from there to here. And next year, I will ask Paul if I can interpret the Missa Gaia again. This year I will ask Christy if I can borrow my letter back and if I can share it here with whoever is out there listening in the ether!
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
School is in session. New classroom, new students, old joys. My most difficult student from last year came to find me (I am happy to say ALL my students from last year came to find me); as I was walking away from our brief chat I heard her tell a peer "Her new students--- they are so lucky!" Makes everything right with the world. I make sure I see them during class changes. They make sure they come and say good morning before they go to their new classes. We will all adjust. I am not forgotten. They are not forgotten. What more could we want?
In setting up my classroom, I found an old folder with the things that were once on the bulletin board above my desk , and in it found a childhood picture of Chris along with a poem he emailed me the first week in September a few years back. It was lovely. As he was. I love and miss him so very much!
Little Stones at My Window
by Mario Benedetti
by Mario Benedetti
translated by Charles Hatfield
for roberto and adelaida
Once in a while
joy throws little stones at my window
it wants to let me know that it's waiting for me
but today I'm calm
I'd almost say even-tempered
I'm going to keep anxiety locked up
and then lie flat on my back
which is an elegant and comfortable position
for receiving and believing news
joy throws little stones at my window
it wants to let me know that it's waiting for me
but today I'm calm
I'd almost say even-tempered
I'm going to keep anxiety locked up
and then lie flat on my back
which is an elegant and comfortable position
for receiving and believing news
who knows where I'll be next
or when my story will be taken into account
who knows what advice I still might come up with
and what easy way out I'll take not to follow it
don't worry, I won't gamble with an eviction
I won't tattoo remembering with forgetting
there are many things left to say and suppress
and many grapes left to fill our mouths
don't worry, I'm convinced
joy doesn't need to throw any more little stones
I'm coming
I'm coming.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Yesterday marked the beginning of my 26th year as a teacher. Of course yesterday also marked the anniversary of the end of the world as we knew it. Nine years ago yesterday I got off a LIRR train and went to the KMART in Penn Station to buy school supplies for my new class. The loot was too heavy to carry onto the subway, so I hailed a cab and headed north while two planes headed for the towers. At school, a co-worker ran into my classroom and asked me to turn on my television. This was not possible. It had no antennae and my tv was only occasionally used to view videos. My co-worker already was sure terrorists were responsible for the news he had heard on the way to work that morning... that one plane had crashed into the WTC. I turned on the radio, but as students arrived, I had to turn that off. There was a meeting scheduled for the faculty that morning. I remember NOTHING of that. As we left to go back to our rooms, where soon students would return from breakfast , we passed the model apartment, which was packed with people standing around a television that apparently had cable. Within minutes of arriving there, the first tower fell. A long time close friend spontaneously turned around to me and crying, we embraced. I remember asking the stupidest question of my life into her ear: "Did they get everyone out?" The mind simply cannot process such horror. You hope beyond hope. Our time was up, tho, in more ways than one. We all had to get back to our classes.
In an effort to keep everyone calm, we were essentially in a news black-out for hours at a time, unlike the rest of the world. I do remember turning the radio on again when students left for lunch and hearing about the Pentagon and the crash in PA. I distinctly remember turning it off when the students were about to return, and as I did, I thought that I would not be able to get home that evening because I was so certain that bridges around Manhattan would be the next targets and by the time the kids got on the buses, they would be gone.
Inexplicably, they weren't, although they were closed. At around 3 am the next day, my husband was able to get over one to come get me. Traversing the bridge home, I looked west and saw the empty skyline that my eyes have lingered on for nearly a decade now. Absence became something you can see. That early morning, the only thing visible was the huge plume of smoke. For weeks, whenever I was on a subway platform (outdoors in the Bronx), you could taste and smell it. Sometimes, even halfway out to Montauk, you could smell it as well. Walking through Penn Station every morning for months, you could see the families heading toward the Port Authority help offices and the growing Wall of the Missing. Also everyday, both to & from work, there were the firemen and recovery workers passed out from exhaustion on the floor waiting for their trains home. I remember walking through one morning that first week and seeing all the police and firemen... looking down at the floor, I recall the lazy observation that their shoes were covered in ash and then the split second horrifying realization and distinct thought "they never will find anyone---they are there, on their shoes!"
Every morning for months it was the same... passing the office of the family help center and the still growing wall... now a depository for recollection and totem. On the 2 train towards work, if I was not reading the biographies in the Times, someone was. Everyday I wept uncontrollably during that ride. The overwhelming sorrow was so palpable and so much.
I knew people who walked home covered in that ash. I met survivors. I met mourners. I cannot look at the skyline from my daily bridge traverse without seeing what is forever gone. And forgetting has never been an option.
Text copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll .
Saturday, September 11, 2010
9/11 ...Tho' much is taken, much abides....
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses
Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses
Lord Alfred Tennyson
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Friday, September 10, 2010
“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”
— Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”
[born Sept. 8, 1828]
He wrote THE long story (War and Peace); turns out he could also write the short story. Here is a link to my favorite: http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2896/ .
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Thursday, September 9, 2010
It was my first year teaching. He doesn't come to mind when I think of my first day of school, though. He was too sick to show up until December or so. I can remember different members of the staff dropping into my room saying "Ralph's* here!" excitedly because they saw him on the bus. I was excited, too, I had been told over and over that I would love him.
Honestly, it is twenty-five years ago and at this new and difficult job, things were and still are sometimes a blur. I vaguely seem to recall that he never made it into the school the first day that he tried to. An ambulance had to be called before he ever got off the bus.
Ralph was on the older edge. Closer to 21 than 14. He was a quadriplegic. He could approximate recognizable words. He was African American, although that doesn't matter a bit except to help you develop a mental picture of him. He had a beautiful face which became absolutely luminous when he smiled. He smiled often and easily. But the strain of any physical movement could also be seen easily on his face, and the strain was so obvious from his jaw to temple, particularly. Looking back at my impressions from so long ago, today I would guess that he had both Cystic Fibrosis and Cerebral Palsy. He was also the thinnest young man I had ever seen. I also would always think that if we could unfold him (untie the pretzel of his limbs), he would probably be about 8 feet tall.
Whenever he did finally make it into the classroom, everything I had been told about how adorable his personality was proved to be true. There is an interesting fact about kids like Ralph that I wish I could explain. They appear to love you before they even meet you. Maybe it is because their lives are so limited by their physical presence and/or realities (like 99% of their days are spent in their apartment) that they love the experience of reaching you in a different place, but I do not think that that is the whole story. I think they love in an entirely intense way. I think they understand that their time is short. Their experiences are or will be limited, and they develop a keen sense of who people are. Do you look at them? I bet that is the first test. Do you talk to them? Test two. Do you make the effort to understand their responses, even if unintelligible, even if their response will only be in the slightest nuance of facial expression? Three. These tests take minutes for the student to administer, if you pass, though, you can forevermore do no wrong, essentially. You are golden. If you fail, it seems, you become invisible to them. Back to my precious time theory. They will not bother with you again. They will not be rude or hold a grudge, but their eyes will not follow you with regard ... the beacon of the light that is their face will not shine on you again. I was lucky. I had buckets-full of experience with deaf people. I spoke facial expression fluently. I was in.
Ralph's legs shook. Ralph sometimes cried. The way to alleviate this was to tip his wheelchair backwards. Sit behind him and tip his wheelchair backwards while holding it up. This took the lifetime of pressure off his spine and lower back. What I didn't know before meeting Ralph, what had never occurred to me, was that staying in the same position led to horribly painful degeneration. The only other way to alleviate pain was to take him out of his chair and put him on a mat on the floor in the classroom. Problem was he was very thin, but very long, and his limbs were spastic and flew in every direction. Two person job at least. Then when it was time go home, for example, it was almost impossible to get his body to go back into the position it hated. It was very difficult to cajole people to help me do this and it could not be done solo. And that is how I came to rely on Joe.*
Joe was Ralph's physical therapist. His face was also quite luminous. People like Joe do not wear their heart on their sleeve. It is plastered on their forehead. Joe was half Italian and Half Jewish. His name had all the syllables I was familiar with, but he dressed like a modified orthodox Jew. He had one blue eye and one green eye. I often thought this was a physical manifestation of the dichotomy of cultures living in him. AND he was a fantastic and tireless physical therapist. Any time I asked him to help me take Ralph out of his chair and/or work on him to relax his limbs to get him back in, he did. And he did it on our lunch hour. And he did it with a happy smile and engaging conversation. Ralph loved Joe as much as I did. The impression that Joe made on me regarding how to be was as indelible as the impression Ralph made on me. I do not think I would be the same teacher I am if not for his presence in my very early career. Our professional and personal paths have crossed in many, many ways in the quarter century I have known him, but I am particularly grateful that he was there when Ralph was there. And particularly grateful that they were both there, for me, right at the beginning.
As I said, these portraits are about students that I lost. You already know how this story ends. Thinking about Ralph, I cannot forget his wake nor what I learned about his mother after he was gone. Those remembrances speak to the same themes in some ways, in new and much broader themes in others.
Ralph's wake was in Harlem. I was twenty one and obviously not from the neighborhood. Just walking down the street trying to find the funeral home, I was getting some attention. I would realize through my very long career and too frequent occurrence of this kind of outing, that people figure it out pretty quickly. Young white female entering funeral parlor. You don't have to introduce yourself as the teacher.
As much as I learned from Joe about how to be a worker, I learned from the funeral parlor employees how not to be. First, they told me the wrong viewing time when I phoned, so I was there alone, and never did see his mother that day. Then they led me into the tiniest viewing room I had ever seen. There was room for the casket, a kneeler and, I think, three folding chairs. I am saying there was room for the casket, because the casket was not there yet. I watched them bring it in. I watched them almost drop him several times. I watched all the while thinking about how I had never seen anything like this and how that fact was all about expectation. When they finally finished setting up, I sat for a time. It was very quiet. I heard some rustling. As I sat there, looking at Ralph... Ralph relaxed and straight, by the way, as I had never seen him, suddenly a mouse ran along the long line of the casket closest to me. I actually thought, in a thought that I obviously have never forgotten 'thank god you are gone, because this would make you crazy.' In my classroom, very occasionally, when Ralph was on the floor on the mat he would suddenly become very agitated if he saw a bug of any kind or the occassional mouse anywhere. When you cannot move, as you can imagine, such a sighting is very serious. He would have freaked if awareness was part of this experience. I stood to kiss him goodbye. When I bent towards his forehead, I could see candy wrappers behind the parlor lamp and floral decorations flanking the casket. Mourners would not do that. Workers would, although I think we would need a different word for them. As I said, I learned along the lines of a familiar theme through my experiences with Ralph, and as much as Joe taught me how to be, my visit to the funeral parlor taught me how not to be.
After he was gone a week or two, and in the months and years to follow I would be in touch with Ralph's mother now and again. The communications while Ralph was with us were about how much he wanted to come to school , but couldn't or whether he had a respiratory infection or not, and the like. When he was gone she told me about how he came to be her son, because he wasn't. He was her best friend's son. She and her friend had an understanding. And when his mother was accidentally shot and killed on the street, the woman I was speaking to came to be his mother. In the years that followed she would always call me around christmastime to talk about how empty things were without him.
I said these stories would be dramatic and brave. And I said this portrait would touch on broader themes. It was the mid-eighties. Was that when we had a president who talked about a thousand points of light? These are the broader themes: social and economic injustice and the inequity of expectation. Another theme is light and the incandescent quality of a smile or of a friendship.
* The names in these portraits have been changed.
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Honestly, it is twenty-five years ago and at this new and difficult job, things were and still are sometimes a blur. I vaguely seem to recall that he never made it into the school the first day that he tried to. An ambulance had to be called before he ever got off the bus.
Ralph was on the older edge. Closer to 21 than 14. He was a quadriplegic. He could approximate recognizable words. He was African American, although that doesn't matter a bit except to help you develop a mental picture of him. He had a beautiful face which became absolutely luminous when he smiled. He smiled often and easily. But the strain of any physical movement could also be seen easily on his face, and the strain was so obvious from his jaw to temple, particularly. Looking back at my impressions from so long ago, today I would guess that he had both Cystic Fibrosis and Cerebral Palsy. He was also the thinnest young man I had ever seen. I also would always think that if we could unfold him (untie the pretzel of his limbs), he would probably be about 8 feet tall.
Whenever he did finally make it into the classroom, everything I had been told about how adorable his personality was proved to be true. There is an interesting fact about kids like Ralph that I wish I could explain. They appear to love you before they even meet you. Maybe it is because their lives are so limited by their physical presence and/or realities (like 99% of their days are spent in their apartment) that they love the experience of reaching you in a different place, but I do not think that that is the whole story. I think they love in an entirely intense way. I think they understand that their time is short. Their experiences are or will be limited, and they develop a keen sense of who people are. Do you look at them? I bet that is the first test. Do you talk to them? Test two. Do you make the effort to understand their responses, even if unintelligible, even if their response will only be in the slightest nuance of facial expression? Three. These tests take minutes for the student to administer, if you pass, though, you can forevermore do no wrong, essentially. You are golden. If you fail, it seems, you become invisible to them. Back to my precious time theory. They will not bother with you again. They will not be rude or hold a grudge, but their eyes will not follow you with regard ... the beacon of the light that is their face will not shine on you again. I was lucky. I had buckets-full of experience with deaf people. I spoke facial expression fluently. I was in.
Ralph's legs shook. Ralph sometimes cried. The way to alleviate this was to tip his wheelchair backwards. Sit behind him and tip his wheelchair backwards while holding it up. This took the lifetime of pressure off his spine and lower back. What I didn't know before meeting Ralph, what had never occurred to me, was that staying in the same position led to horribly painful degeneration. The only other way to alleviate pain was to take him out of his chair and put him on a mat on the floor in the classroom. Problem was he was very thin, but very long, and his limbs were spastic and flew in every direction. Two person job at least. Then when it was time go home, for example, it was almost impossible to get his body to go back into the position it hated. It was very difficult to cajole people to help me do this and it could not be done solo. And that is how I came to rely on Joe.*
Joe was Ralph's physical therapist. His face was also quite luminous. People like Joe do not wear their heart on their sleeve. It is plastered on their forehead. Joe was half Italian and Half Jewish. His name had all the syllables I was familiar with, but he dressed like a modified orthodox Jew. He had one blue eye and one green eye. I often thought this was a physical manifestation of the dichotomy of cultures living in him. AND he was a fantastic and tireless physical therapist. Any time I asked him to help me take Ralph out of his chair and/or work on him to relax his limbs to get him back in, he did. And he did it on our lunch hour. And he did it with a happy smile and engaging conversation. Ralph loved Joe as much as I did. The impression that Joe made on me regarding how to be was as indelible as the impression Ralph made on me. I do not think I would be the same teacher I am if not for his presence in my very early career. Our professional and personal paths have crossed in many, many ways in the quarter century I have known him, but I am particularly grateful that he was there when Ralph was there. And particularly grateful that they were both there, for me, right at the beginning.
As I said, these portraits are about students that I lost. You already know how this story ends. Thinking about Ralph, I cannot forget his wake nor what I learned about his mother after he was gone. Those remembrances speak to the same themes in some ways, in new and much broader themes in others.
Ralph's wake was in Harlem. I was twenty one and obviously not from the neighborhood. Just walking down the street trying to find the funeral home, I was getting some attention. I would realize through my very long career and too frequent occurrence of this kind of outing, that people figure it out pretty quickly. Young white female entering funeral parlor. You don't have to introduce yourself as the teacher.
As much as I learned from Joe about how to be a worker, I learned from the funeral parlor employees how not to be. First, they told me the wrong viewing time when I phoned, so I was there alone, and never did see his mother that day. Then they led me into the tiniest viewing room I had ever seen. There was room for the casket, a kneeler and, I think, three folding chairs. I am saying there was room for the casket, because the casket was not there yet. I watched them bring it in. I watched them almost drop him several times. I watched all the while thinking about how I had never seen anything like this and how that fact was all about expectation. When they finally finished setting up, I sat for a time. It was very quiet. I heard some rustling. As I sat there, looking at Ralph... Ralph relaxed and straight, by the way, as I had never seen him, suddenly a mouse ran along the long line of the casket closest to me. I actually thought, in a thought that I obviously have never forgotten 'thank god you are gone, because this would make you crazy.' In my classroom, very occasionally, when Ralph was on the floor on the mat he would suddenly become very agitated if he saw a bug of any kind or the occassional mouse anywhere. When you cannot move, as you can imagine, such a sighting is very serious. He would have freaked if awareness was part of this experience. I stood to kiss him goodbye. When I bent towards his forehead, I could see candy wrappers behind the parlor lamp and floral decorations flanking the casket. Mourners would not do that. Workers would, although I think we would need a different word for them. As I said, I learned along the lines of a familiar theme through my experiences with Ralph, and as much as Joe taught me how to be, my visit to the funeral parlor taught me how not to be.
After he was gone a week or two, and in the months and years to follow I would be in touch with Ralph's mother now and again. The communications while Ralph was with us were about how much he wanted to come to school , but couldn't or whether he had a respiratory infection or not, and the like. When he was gone she told me about how he came to be her son, because he wasn't. He was her best friend's son. She and her friend had an understanding. And when his mother was accidentally shot and killed on the street, the woman I was speaking to came to be his mother. In the years that followed she would always call me around christmastime to talk about how empty things were without him.
I said these stories would be dramatic and brave. And I said this portrait would touch on broader themes. It was the mid-eighties. Was that when we had a president who talked about a thousand points of light? These are the broader themes: social and economic injustice and the inequity of expectation. Another theme is light and the incandescent quality of a smile or of a friendship.
* The names in these portraits have been changed.
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
25 Things About Me (forgive me, school is now in session):
1. I ate peanut butter and strawberry jam on whole wheat for breakfast the morning I composed this list.
2. I was born way too early and way too small and my first meaningful relationship was with a lightbulb.
3. In thinking about this list of things, I had a hard time not being sarcastic or just silly.
4. I don't like Mondays.
5. I understand now what my father meant when he said there wasn't a day he didn't think about his grandfather and father.
6. Just writing that made me weep.
7. I also cry like crazy at the Smithsonian looking at Lindberg's plane, touching the rock from the moon, etc. ... let's not even talk about the Lincoln Memorial. I looked at stuff like this as if it was my religion when I was very young through my viewmaster, and never imagined I would ever see them.
8. My favorite book when I was little was My Donkey, Benjamin. It was a lot of kids' favorite book, apparently... it is very rare and expensive when you can manage to find it.
9. In it, a toddler runs through her village naked looking for her runaway donkey. The illustrations are black and white photographs. Wonder what that tells you about me?
10. My husband got me a copy of the book for Chiristmas 2007.
11. Another year he made me a guitar.
12. He also took me to the Smithsonian.
13. He teased me that he would never take me there again everytime he found me crying someplace.
14. I have worked in the same school at the same job since I got out of college, and still love it.
15. One day, one of my old students visited me. One of the things he said was "You know who died? (pause)... John Updike." I teach mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, learning disabled 14-21 year olds in the South Bronx. We read a lot of poetry. This particular student loved Whitman and Updike. First I smiled, and later , thinking of it made me cry.
16. I still love poetry --- it helps me make them love it , too.
17. My favorite color is still blue
18. My favorite food is eggplant when it is not lobster. Bean sprouts run a close third.
19. Re: politics, I have been jaded from years of disappointment.
20. I have an amazing memory by anyone's standards. It's a little less amazing than it used to be, but still makes people's jaws drop.
21. I still have dreams about my dog, who died in on Ash Wednesday of 1985... at the time I was seemingly the only Catholic at a Presbyterian college. People were fascinated with the idea of Lenten sacrifice. I started answering their "what did you give up" query by saying that I gave up my dog.
22. I also still have dreams that I am trying to make it to the campus post office to receive or send letters AND that I have not attended some History and/or Math class and will not be allowed to graduate.
23. I briefly did a stint of graduate school in the United Kingdom, and felt like I was home in Scotland, which would make my ancestors smile.
24. My mother was an extreme Catholic, my father was essentially a Transcendental Pantheist. That cracks me up.
25. My plants all need watering.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Oh the waves crash in and the tide pulls out
It's an angry sea but there is no doubt
That the lighthouse will keep shining out
To warn the lonely sailor
The lightning strikes and the wind cuts cold
Through the sailor's bones to the sailor's soul
Till there's nothing left that he can hold
Except the rolling ocean...
The alarm was set for 5:30, but I woke long before it went off and was dressed and out the door by that appointed time. Husband opted to stay in bed after I promised not to go into the water, but foregoing this trip was out of the question because it is the last day of my summer. I raced; in fact, I fairly flew.
A few months ago now, I purchased several of the Transatlantic Sessions recordings. I had wanted to do so for years, but they are somewhat rare and somewhat expensive, so I put it off again and again. Then there came a time when I was so desperate for relief from grief that I gave up and in. I was right to covet them so long... they do soothe the soul and seem to have become the soundtrack of these days. I usually skip the song quoted above, but this morning I played it in constant rotation.
The grass beneath the tower turnaround was apparently not on the breakfast menu... only the same adolescent three point buck was there. I took some blurry shots with Chris' camera (since mine also lost its fight with a storm or a wave, however you look at it) and moved along because sunrise was fast approaching. There were a lot more people on the beach, probably curious to see how much it the hurricane had carried away. The answer I would give might range from 'enough' to 'a lot;' both would be accurate.
I wanted the perfect shot, of course; a cap for this summer. I also wanted the perfect shell...some significant talisman to carry me into the new school year... but there was very little yield. The camera battery was dead after I was just getting started. Oh well, let THAT idea go. The shells were different. The storm had thrown the heaviest clam shells towards me and they wouldn't fit in my jar. I tricked the camera into a few more shots because by now the sun was really rising and IF I could manage to compose and snap quickly, before the warning of the exhausted battery, it would indeed allow me my souvenir. In typical fashion, I beat that dead horse. The poor dear.
I remained true to my word and did not go in, although I have to admit, even though I was being careful, I almost got wet because things are not exactly calm or predictable yet. The sun rose. There were some shells in my pocket. And it was time to go. I leaned on the cold metal railing of the boardwalk as I have so many times, looked east and wept. I don't know what movie the idea in my mind came from, but I was thinking that I needed some one's hands to break through my ribcage and hold my beating, bleeding heart. Witness it, in a way, and at the same time safeguard it. I feel as raw as that image, after all. [ The couple who came running to find me on Friday morning came by and we spoke briefly. They wished me well at school, I added I would try to make it on weekends for a while yet. I will see them again. They try to come, even in the dead of winter, they said. ]
Stepping off the boardwalk toward the parking lot, low overhead there was a familiar V formation of geese... and immediately my mind went to that poem by Rachel Field that Caroline recited in the poetry reading at school a few years back: "Something told the wild geese it was time to fly./Summer sun was on their wings/Winter in their cry!" I wondered if it is that simple... step off the wooden planks, flip the switch and step back into school? Heading away from the beach there were COUNTLESS groups of deer, many (particularly bucks) I had never seen. It is shocking how quickly you can identify something that you assumed was indiscernible from another. The bucks' antlers and even their stature stays with you. The does have the quality of their coat or the shape of their ears to help with the 'don't I know you?' The fawns? Even some of them are cuter than others, and now that the weather is getting cooler, not just age is changing their now fuzzy spots.
At home the house is still and I fight with Chris' camera as much to download as I did to shoot, and while I do a friend I sent a birthday package to chimes in with a message via this internet miracle: "Oh C---! Many and profound are my thanks, my smiles, my songs for you! " Before we promise each other more words later, I am weeping again, this time in gratitude. We laughed together on the phone in a way I did not think possible on Friday afternoon when the full weight of the smackdown with Earl was on my body and mind, but there are years to be grateful for... years of regard between us, and his voice again and again a thread in my consistent plot.
The song of the sailor is a hum in my mind, and most likely will be throughout the day and into tomorrow:
The distance it is no real friend
And time will take the time
And you will find that in the end
It brings you me the lonely sailor
And when the sky begins to clear
The sun it melts away my fear
I'll cry a silent weary tear
For those that need to love me
But I am ready for the storm yes sir ready
I am ready for the storm
----- ready for the storm
~ Kathy Mattea / Dougie MacLean
Transatlantic Sessions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4Wpychxh8&p=46CDF2CFE502F215&playnext=1&index=30
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
It's an angry sea but there is no doubt
That the lighthouse will keep shining out
To warn the lonely sailor
The lightning strikes and the wind cuts cold
Through the sailor's bones to the sailor's soul
Till there's nothing left that he can hold
Except the rolling ocean...
The alarm was set for 5:30, but I woke long before it went off and was dressed and out the door by that appointed time. Husband opted to stay in bed after I promised not to go into the water, but foregoing this trip was out of the question because it is the last day of my summer. I raced; in fact, I fairly flew.
A few months ago now, I purchased several of the Transatlantic Sessions recordings. I had wanted to do so for years, but they are somewhat rare and somewhat expensive, so I put it off again and again. Then there came a time when I was so desperate for relief from grief that I gave up and in. I was right to covet them so long... they do soothe the soul and seem to have become the soundtrack of these days. I usually skip the song quoted above, but this morning I played it in constant rotation.
The grass beneath the tower turnaround was apparently not on the breakfast menu... only the same adolescent three point buck was there. I took some blurry shots with Chris' camera (since mine also lost its fight with a storm or a wave, however you look at it) and moved along because sunrise was fast approaching. There were a lot more people on the beach, probably curious to see how much it the hurricane had carried away. The answer I would give might range from 'enough' to 'a lot;' both would be accurate.
I wanted the perfect shot, of course; a cap for this summer. I also wanted the perfect shell...some significant talisman to carry me into the new school year... but there was very little yield. The camera battery was dead after I was just getting started. Oh well, let THAT idea go. The shells were different. The storm had thrown the heaviest clam shells towards me and they wouldn't fit in my jar. I tricked the camera into a few more shots because by now the sun was really rising and IF I could manage to compose and snap quickly, before the warning of the exhausted battery, it would indeed allow me my souvenir. In typical fashion, I beat that dead horse. The poor dear.
I remained true to my word and did not go in, although I have to admit, even though I was being careful, I almost got wet because things are not exactly calm or predictable yet. The sun rose. There were some shells in my pocket. And it was time to go. I leaned on the cold metal railing of the boardwalk as I have so many times, looked east and wept. I don't know what movie the idea in my mind came from, but I was thinking that I needed some one's hands to break through my ribcage and hold my beating, bleeding heart. Witness it, in a way, and at the same time safeguard it. I feel as raw as that image, after all. [ The couple who came running to find me on Friday morning came by and we spoke briefly. They wished me well at school, I added I would try to make it on weekends for a while yet. I will see them again. They try to come, even in the dead of winter, they said. ]
Stepping off the boardwalk toward the parking lot, low overhead there was a familiar V formation of geese... and immediately my mind went to that poem by Rachel Field that Caroline recited in the poetry reading at school a few years back: "Something told the wild geese it was time to fly./Summer sun was on their wings/Winter in their cry!" I wondered if it is that simple... step off the wooden planks, flip the switch and step back into school? Heading away from the beach there were COUNTLESS groups of deer, many (particularly bucks) I had never seen. It is shocking how quickly you can identify something that you assumed was indiscernible from another. The bucks' antlers and even their stature stays with you. The does have the quality of their coat or the shape of their ears to help with the 'don't I know you?' The fawns? Even some of them are cuter than others, and now that the weather is getting cooler, not just age is changing their now fuzzy spots.
At home the house is still and I fight with Chris' camera as much to download as I did to shoot, and while I do a friend I sent a birthday package to chimes in with a message via this internet miracle: "Oh C---! Many and profound are my thanks, my smiles, my songs for you! " Before we promise each other more words later, I am weeping again, this time in gratitude. We laughed together on the phone in a way I did not think possible on Friday afternoon when the full weight of the smackdown with Earl was on my body and mind, but there are years to be grateful for... years of regard between us, and his voice again and again a thread in my consistent plot.
The song of the sailor is a hum in my mind, and most likely will be throughout the day and into tomorrow:
The distance it is no real friend
And time will take the time
And you will find that in the end
It brings you me the lonely sailor
And when the sky begins to clear
The sun it melts away my fear
I'll cry a silent weary tear
For those that need to love me
But I am ready for the storm yes sir ready
I am ready for the storm
----- ready for the storm
~ Kathy Mattea / Dougie MacLean
Transatlantic Sessions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4Wpychxh8&p=46CDF2CFE502F215&playnext=1&index=30
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Around 2 pm yesterday I stopped grinning so much; not altogether, mind you, but not exclusively anymore because just around that time things began to really hurt. My left arm, which is now black and blue, isn't telling me how much it enjoyed being so down to earth yesterday. Neither is the skin on my legs which feels peeled by the sand it had a close encounter with; peeled the way one would peel a carrot! Something in my sternum isn't singing a happy tune either.
When I was being interviewed by the news crew in the beach parking lot yesterday, I was thinking about how much I really didn't want to talk about what had just happened. I was, honestly, thinking I wanted to talk about something WAY more important with my 45 seconds of fame. I was thinking that I wanted to talk about being a teacher.
Being a teacher has been on my mind a lot. Being a teacher, after all, allowed all these beach walks to begin with. And being a teacher brings them to a screeching halt. And, standing in that parking lot yesterday, trying to smile and be cordial to the poor soul who had the job of waiting around for something dramatic to happen so she could get some footage, I was thinking about how much I needed to get going so I could go to school and set up my classroom.
So, after I said goodbye to her and her microphone and him and his camera, I drove home, washed the copious sand off of my self, described the morning's events to my nuclear unit, and took off for school. During the hour and 30 minute drive into the South Bronx where I teach, my driving instructor left a message on my cell phone. He had already seen me on the news. Great. Tell me again why I agreed to speak to camera guy and microphone gal? Oh yes, I actually felt sorry for them because they had nothing to do. They were hanging around as I headed for the beach and they were packing up as I headed for my car and in between nothing much had happened. They kind of rushed me when the realized something sort of had happened, after all!
My driving instructor said something rather interesting in the message he left me: "You are one brave lady to drive over that bridge on a day like today! " Huh? The wind hadn't even kicked up yet...what was he talking about? And besides, he thought the brave thing I did yesterday was drive?! ? I have news for you, buddy (I thought to myself), the brave thing I did was crawl out.
If I had microphone gal's ear today, I would probably have something much more interesting to say than how a wave felled me like a tree. I was thinking about bravery and drama when I arrived to work at a school that is in no way ready for students yet. We received notices in the mail that we will have three hours to set up our rooms on Tuesday for when students arrive Wednesday. When I pulled onto the block where the entrance to the school is, I took the last free parking space. As I walked towards the entrance, I could identify the owner of each car I passed. THIS is what I wanted to talk to that reporter about--- that on one of the last days of their vacation, enough teachers came in to set up their classrooms to fill a city block because they KNOW that three hours is not enough to prepare for the the arrival of students on Wednesday, not to mention the year ahead. And by the way, I took the summer off. Most teachers do not. Most of those cars were parked somewhere on that block all summer long.
So, as I said, around 2 pm the grin was wearing thin, and part of that was pain, but part of that was remembering that sometimes being a teacher is like clawing and crawling your way out of wet moving sand. Because there's no real way to be ready for what begins on Wednesday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This September I begin my 26th year teaching in the South Bronx at the same school where I began teaching straight out of college. I have been a teacher of severely multiply handicapped and mentally retarded , of deaf- blind, and now of emotionally disturbed/ learning disabled 15-21 year olds, and of seemingly every classification in-between. I LOVE MY JOB, or I would not be doing it.
I had a quiet moment or two today and I began to think, as I always do at this time of year, of the students I have lost. Over the next little while some of these posts will be about those students, other teachers and school personnel who impacted them and/or myself. Partly I will do this because I miss them , and reminding myself of who they were or what was left behind in their absence makes me better prepared to do my job everyday. Partly I will do this because you will never, ever hear their stories or mine as their teacher on the midday news. I can assure you their stories are full of both bravery and drama.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Well, my father would be smirking. Meanwhile, I have sand between my teeth. Why? Because I literally had to crawl out of the ocean this morning after a sudden overly ambitious wave took too much of the sand from beneath my feet! The morning was lovely. It was very dark and cloudy and a buck stepped right in front of me through the fog suddenly. I took some rather nice photos underneath the tower. The fawns are so much taller now, and I do not think it was just the early hour that made their spots less visible.
The beach was humming with excitement as roll after roll of thunderous wave hurled itself onto the sand. There were more men than usual, standing with their arms crossed across their chests, smiling and staring out at the ocean . They seemed almost proud of what was going on, as if they had something to do with it. I had my camera with me, which I rarely do unless my husband is there to take it for me when it is time for me to go in. He wasn't with me, he elected to stay in bed when the alarm sounded this morning. There would be no 'going in' today with all the dire warnings about the force of the tide. I was just going to get my feet wet, so I was taking some shots. I walked for a bit ankle and shin-deep in the water, stopping to admire the spectacle now and again. One especially strong and large wave surprised me and got me wet up to my waist and I turned to walk out of it. It was a nice plan, but as the water rushed back out, it brought what was underneath me with it and I was brought to my knees , back to the waves. I hurt my arm. And my legs --- well, I couldn't really feel them enough to stand up. Another wave was coming and I literally had to crawl out on my hands and knees because the force of the water seemed too strong to gain balance in. At some point I judged I had crawled far enough and turned and just sat... a couple I see everyday were running towards me. From where they were standing I had just suddenly disappeared. Later they told me they lost their daughter-in-law three weeks ago. She had drowned. I couldn't stay where I was for too long, the waves were still pounding--- no doubt are pounding still. Hurt or no, I had to get up and get out of there. The camera is all sorts of jammed. There will be photos eventually, but it may take a while.
Those aspects of my father... they are most definitely the things he handed down. * I am laughing, too... big, stupid grin. What does it matter? It happened. You crawled out. You are going to be sore as hell. You are probably going to be on the news today (yes, interviewed just afterwards). You played an exhilarating game with a hurricane. You didn't win. It definitely twisted your arm behind your back until you said "Uncle!" But it was still a good game!
* see previous post
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
The beach was humming with excitement as roll after roll of thunderous wave hurled itself onto the sand. There were more men than usual, standing with their arms crossed across their chests, smiling and staring out at the ocean . They seemed almost proud of what was going on, as if they had something to do with it. I had my camera with me, which I rarely do unless my husband is there to take it for me when it is time for me to go in. He wasn't with me, he elected to stay in bed when the alarm sounded this morning. There would be no 'going in' today with all the dire warnings about the force of the tide. I was just going to get my feet wet, so I was taking some shots. I walked for a bit ankle and shin-deep in the water, stopping to admire the spectacle now and again. One especially strong and large wave surprised me and got me wet up to my waist and I turned to walk out of it. It was a nice plan, but as the water rushed back out, it brought what was underneath me with it and I was brought to my knees , back to the waves. I hurt my arm. And my legs --- well, I couldn't really feel them enough to stand up. Another wave was coming and I literally had to crawl out on my hands and knees because the force of the water seemed too strong to gain balance in. At some point I judged I had crawled far enough and turned and just sat... a couple I see everyday were running towards me. From where they were standing I had just suddenly disappeared. Later they told me they lost their daughter-in-law three weeks ago. She had drowned. I couldn't stay where I was for too long, the waves were still pounding--- no doubt are pounding still. Hurt or no, I had to get up and get out of there. The camera is all sorts of jammed. There will be photos eventually, but it may take a while.
Those aspects of my father... they are most definitely the things he handed down. * I am laughing, too... big, stupid grin. What does it matter? It happened. You crawled out. You are going to be sore as hell. You are probably going to be on the news today (yes, interviewed just afterwards). You played an exhilarating game with a hurricane. You didn't win. It definitely twisted your arm behind your back until you said "Uncle!" But it was still a good game!
* see previous post
All photographs and text, unless otherwise noted, copyright (c) 2010 C.M. Carroll
Thursday, September 2, 2010
"I miss my father... I miss everyone!"
- closing lines from the movie
Central Station
There is a hurricane coming. And I am missing my father. My nuclear unit was supposed to be on the road to the Smokies by now. We reconfigured based on several realities. My husband still has these last few days of summer off with me, so we set the alarm again. I think he said something about going to the beach while there still WAS a beach. The weather people are already screaming about rip tides. Ah! The drama of the natural world, I LOVE IT! It is what's been handed down.
There was a slip of paper that caught my eye earlier this week--- where was that? Oh yes, in the phone book. I just found it again. Funny, its about a boat launch. Of course it would be! Last night my husband said they might not let us onto the sand and added "Have you ever been on the beach in a hurricane?!?" Scoff... Of course I have, my father.... Hurricane? Let's get in the car. Ice storm on Christmas Eve? What are we waiting for? Fire rapidly devouring how many acres? Would you hurry up, already! That was my father, at home in the elements.
At least one bridge I cross each time I head for the sand, I distinctly remember describing as "humpbacked" when I wrote a poem about a whale my father took me to see when I was 17. It was a small whale, and sort of trapped in a local inlet by circumstance (unexplained illness) and geography. Eventually, everyone knew it was there and it rapidly became a madhouse. But my father knew earlier and when I wanted to go in the water with it he said "Sure!" And, inspite of the growing crowds, he continued to offer it as an idea each day, until the little guy was heavily medicated and sort of towed out into the great beyond.
My father was a computer geek in the 1960's and made his way to Manhattan everyday on the train to act that interest out. It is strange to think of that now, with the all of everything else I know about him. At any given time, he was building five or six boats, sometimes for himself, sometimes for others. There was a catamaran hanging from the basement ceiling. The blue kayak was on the wall in the garage. There was a cabin cruiser in the driveway (the ONE boat we ever had that he actually didn't build). My favorite was the 25 foot canoe I watched him construct with inch-wide cedar strips. A thing of beauty is a joy forever, indeed. He would have loved these daily beach treks--- he took that long road at midnight every chance he got to avoid traffic (wink). And he would want to be there tomorrow when the storm hits; when things are really swelling.
When he wasn't reading or tending a garden, building boats or painting, he was making elaborate inlaid wood pieces of art. Someone wanted a version of The Last Supper? Sure, I'll do it. Durer's Praying Hands? Next week.
This morning, my nephew sat in our living room and picked up something I had laying in a small pin dish on the end table. He was groggy and was working hard at figuring out what was in his hand. Finally I said "praying mantis egg sac" and he gave me a nervous look. "Nope, dormant," I offered and then held out my hand for transfer to show him where the thousands of little mites had exited. He asked some questions, I gave some answers. I told him I order these sacs every year, told him where I release them, how many I still find in the same place at the end of that day, and where I find them full-grown around a year later. I pointed out the golden ridge on the sac, and told him it appears on the butterfly chrysalis I also buy for school. I told him the next time he goes to get his bike out of the garage, to look up in the house number above where there is a wasp's nest, and we followed with a short treatise on the difference between a paper wasp and a mud wasp. I was there, but believe me, that was my father talking! I was sure to tell him that his grandfather insisted we attend every backyard mantis sighting with a reverent attitude.
For a short time, my father and I were both traveling by commuter train to and from work, but on totally different schedules. I will never forget being on the train one day, reading or dozing when suddenly a familiar cough caught my attention. I waited. There it was again. I gathered my things and went in search of the source. In the faceless, unknown throng I found and then joined my father. When I am out in his world, and see the things he loved, I feel that moment again and again. Maybe that is why I go anywhere at all.
So on a summer’s day
Waves collect, overbalance,
And fall;
Collect and fall;
And the whole world seems to be saying...
“That is all”
More and more ponderously,
Until even the heart in the body
Which lies in the sun on the beach
Says too,
That is all.
Fear no more, says the heart.
Fear no more, says the heart,
Committing its burden to some sea,
Which sighs collectively for all sorrows,
And renews, begins, collects, lets fall.
And the body alone listens
To the passing bee;
The wave breaking;
The dog barking,
Far away barking and barking.
- Virginia Woolf
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
For PJS
I have been listening to Joseph Campbell lately. I have been reading myths and fairy tales as well. I have been thinking of my own myth, after all, and seeing it in the perspective of universals is comforting to me, so... well, no big surprise.
Now, I have a friend who will begin his personal new year as his clock strikes midnight tonight. I was chatting with him recently and said I would write him a letter. I think he'll give me a pass when I forward him this post.
Campbell, in his Power of Myth retells an idea found in Schopenhauer's essay "On an Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual," in this way:
...when you ...look back over your lifetime, it can seem to have had a consistent order ... as though composed by someone. Events that when they occurred had seemed accidental and occasional or as if by accident turn out to have been indispensable factors in the composition of a consistent plot. So who composed that plot? Schopenhauer suggests that just as your dreams are composed by an aspect of yourself of which your consciousness is unaware, so, too, your whole life is composed by the will within you. And just as people whom you will have met apparently by mere chance became leading agents in the structuring of your life, so, too, you have served unknowingly as an agent, giving meaning to the lives of others, the whole thing gears together like one big symphony, with everything unconsciously structuring everything else...it is as if our lives are the dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters are dreaming , too; so that everything links to everything else, moved by the one will to life which is the universal will in nature. It’s a magnificent idea – an idea that appears in India in the mythic image of the Net of Indra, which is a net of gems, where at every crossing of one thread over another there is a gem reflecting all the other reflective gems....
The friend who celebrates his birthday tomorrow is someone, in truth, who I have barely known. Our paths crossed--- we've literally been in the same place and face to face ONCE , but the people we know know us. And I feel very close to him, indeed, because of conversations and pivotal moments we have shared and the influence he has had on me in them. Someone we both know says of friends "you're in my soup" which I suppose can be interpreted as you give me nourishment, warm my belly, and make me feel good. I say "you are on my roselle" and mean you balance me, you point me in the right direction, you help me find my way when I am lost. But I also see him as a character in the order of my consistant plot. He's in my story, he's in my dream, he's in my soup, he's on my roselle, he's in my net, and, indeed, he is a gem. And I wish him every good thing in his new year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)