The Beautiful Changes

Have you noticed the beauty of the earth this week? Did you take it in today? It is brilliant in every sense of the word.

Today, I led a school-wide assembly of Kindergarten through fifth grade students right after a breathtaking drive up Signal Mountain in the flush of autumn. It was like a rainbow fell from the sky. I could smell the rain that would come within a few minutes, and I felt overpowered by my own senses. The idea that I would have to go inside a building for the next seven hours had the same effect on my face as if gravity had just increased seven fold. The first person to see me in the school building asked me what was wrong; her concern was so great, she thought a close relative of mine had died.

The cafetorium—which makes neither an adequate cafeteria or auditorium—in which our assembly would be held is in the center of the school. It has no windows and only those hideous bluish lights that drain the color right out of clothes and skin. I set up the microphones and the CD player and the podium. I seriously thought of urging the teachers to take their children for a walk in the woods for 40 minutes instead of subjecting them to an assembly. It didn’t matter to me that it was raining, or that an author was coming to tell the children stories, or that we were supposed to be launching our book fair.

I did the only thing I could. I ran to the library and googled three poems to read to the children and faculty.

Once the assembly started, I could tell the kids were restless. They probably wouldn’t want to hear poetry while sitting on the cold linoleum floor under the miserable lighting. Maybe a story would be better.

I started by asking the two questions I asked you at the beginning of this post, and the response came back as an overwhelming “No.” Who could not notice this? The afternoon before when I walked to my car, I stepped out of the building and suddenly became incapable of movement. My nostrils flared, my eyes dilated, my heart raced, my mouth slacked. Something as beautiful as summer was now transformed into something else beautiful, and while nothing had really changed, everything had changed. One of my students wrote about a time that she was watching a horse over a fence and her father leaned over and whispered, “She’s yours”, and when she looked back at the horse, everything was different. The horse was different somehow, just like the acreage surrounding my school. And the people, the students, the parents, the teachers around me were talking about dogs and video games and new clothes and there was an argument, even. How could anyone be talking? I thought of this when the children in assembly said they had not seen the beauty of the earth, and I thought of a story I read in third grade, a science fiction story of a colony of people that lived on Jupiter, and so I told it to this wiggling audience.

The story takes place in an elementary school room on Jupiter, and everyone is excited because this is the day that they will see the sun. With the atmosphere being what it is on Jupiter, the colonists only see the sun for a few hours every seven years. As a prank, the students lock one girl in the closet for a few minutes, but then the sun comes out. The students forget about the girl and race outside and stare at the sun until it disappears. And while I didn’t say it, I felt like the girl locked inside by the students, except that these students weren’t even going out to look at the sun, either.

So, I read them a poem that my first grade teacher, Mrs. Martin, read to me. I don’t know if it is great poetry or not; I cannot be that objective about it because I love it. I love it because it is about autumn and because I loved Mrs. Martin.

 

October's Party 
George Cooper 

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."

 

When I was grown, I met Mrs. Martin again. She was old when I was in first grade, and she was older and shorter when I saw her in the parking lot. But she seemed younger. She had a kayak on her car, and just that was like discovering an entirely new person. It is amazing that beautiful things change into other beautiful things, like summer to autumn; younger people into older people; strangers into friends. This is why I read this second poem to the students.

 

The Beautiful Changes

BY RICHARD WILBUR

 One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes

In such kind ways,

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

Those poor children, having to endure such desperation thrust upon them. They didn’t even know what happened. “Did you like those poems?” I asked, and it was silent except for some boys in the back who shouted “No!” and a few Kindergartners who shouted “Yes!” because that’s how each group responds to everything. I did not read the third poem.

“When you go outside today, children,” I concluded. “Look up. Look around. It will be gone in a few hours.” To which someone said, “What? The sun?” and a few teachers chuckled.

And then the safari music started from the public address system, the PTA mothers took the microphone to launch the book fair, and I went out on the front porch of the school to watch the rain wash the rainbow off the trees.

 

Chasing After the Ukulele

“That’s it,” I thought. “That’s the sound I’ve been trying to get.” I was sitting cross-legged in my parents’ basement one Christmas several years ago with my Ukulele in my lap. Dad had set me up with a microphone, a mixer, and some headphones. He had angled the microphone and placed it close to the strings. When I strummed, the headphones delivered the rich, full tones that I had become accustomed to. When I tried to record at home, the result was flat and two-dimensional. This sound of the ukulele—the bell tones of the higher strings, the plucky and thick lower strings, the muted padding of my fingers pressing into the fret board—this sound was complete, except that it was even better because it was amplified perfectly directly into my head.

When I played it back, it seemed lackluster. It was definitely better than the recordings I had created back home, but something was missing. I put the headphones back on, pulled in the mic, and started over. Again, I found that intimate sound of the ukulele that I had never been able to capture before. And again, the playback was somewhat diminished. On the third try, I realized what was happening. When I played the ukulele, its vibrations buzzed through my torso. By being close, I heard the pure, warm, familiar tone, but I also experienced the physics of the music. By bringing a high-quality microphone nearly between my fingers and the nickel-wound nylon strings, the sound could be preserved, but the depth of the moment could not be duplicated.

It occurred to me that no one can know music like a musician does. A person will never really be able to understand the full sound of a saxophone unless he puts the wet reed in his mouth and his fingers on the padded buttons. I remember thinking this a few years later at an Interlochen Arts Academy student concert. The audience had no problem enjoying the performance, but no one there—even the musicians—could ever have the whole experience. The first violinist was privy only to the wooden box in her fingertips, and even though she was literally surrounded in sound, only her instrument reverberated through her in a deep and personal way. To know her violin so well, she could not—and may never—know the bassoon two rows back.

At Vandergriff Park last week, Marcy and I walked the little, oval track while the kids played on the playground equipment inside the loop. Several families were there as well as some teens and a very brave spandexed yoga troop. Marcy and I marveled at our little family, fretted over the economy and politics, batted about career plans, and breathed in the first breath of October. After the conversation subsided, I watched Marcy out of the corner of my eye. Her mind never slows, I can tell. I have periods of time in which no words are in my head; this, I believe, is unimaginable to Marcy. She is like my ukulele, reverberating deeply in me. No one else can know what it is like for me when I am engaged with her. Someone could get close and listen to us talk for a good while, but the experience would be lacking the subterranean tremors that make the bones hum like railroad tracks before the train.

The converse is true, too. Of all the people in the park, I understand no one except those with which I am connected. They are all bassoons and I am walking with my violin.

I imagine that a ukulele cannot appreciate itself the way I appreciate it. The vibration that I find so essential to its experience is probably inane to the ukulele—normal, even. I wish Marcy could see herself the way I see her. I wish everyone could. For that matter, I wish I could see myself the way Marcy sees me. If half the things she says about me to me are true, then I want to meet me.

What I do know is, none of this can be captured. The best I can do is to be awake, to be paying attention, to strum the strings, to listen, to feel, and to respond; to enjoy the wind through my fingers and not try to catch it.

A Semester of Psychology in 76 Words

My brother, Steve, and I were standing in the backyard a while ago with our very young toddlers toddling around, and he told me this story:
---
Once in college, my schedule was tight and I really needed to get out of a psychology class. I asked the professor if he would let me clep out of his course, and he said that if I could answer one question right there, then I would get full credit for the class.

“Okay,” I said.

“Finish the sentence,” he said. “All behavior is…”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Learned!”

“Nope,” he said. “I’ll see you in class.”
---
Well, of course I bit. “What’s the answer?” I was surprised. I would have guessed learned.

Steve shook his head. “I should have thought about it for a while,” he said. “All behavior is motivated.”

This story has always stuck with me. Motivated. That’s interesting. As a teacher, I work with people all day—students, other teachers, administrators. Everything they do is motivated.

That’s really wild. It’s also pretty useful.

Art and Craft

Who’d create a crippled craft,
With a little fore and a little aft
Built with bricks a shapely boat
Mortar-moored where it cannot float?

A landlocked hard ship, run ashore
Not intended to perform
Stem and starboard, merely sculptural
Scuppers, stern, all for nautical

But do not pity this city ship--
Made to please the ones that slip
And eddy in human ebb and flow;
More art than craft this little boat.

Over the gunwale they climb midship
Ported away with minds adrift,
Celebrate its street-side nestle,

And give way to the privileged vessel.

Standing in the kitchen while the children nap...

“Why do you eat blueberries by the handful?” she asks.

“How else would you eat them?” I ask.

“One at a time,” she says.

“But,” I say, “they are so tiny. They don’t take up enough room in my mouth.”

“Well,” she says, “when you eat a handful, they are all gone at once. I bet some of those berries never have a chance to be tasted.”

I say, “But you can hardly taste them individually.”

“No!” she says, “No! You can enjoy each one by itself, roll it around on your tongue, pop the skin with your teeth, and drink the juice. And the experience lasts longer.”

“Longer, yes, but less intense than a handful of berries simultaneously crushed.”

She says, “You have to think of each one as you would think of a day. You can’t take them all at once like you would a week or a month. You would miss out on all the little pleasures.”

I say, “But if I take them several at a time, the sour berries and the overripe ones balance each other out.”

“But, they are expensive, so it is best to savor them slowly.”

“They are much cheaper off the bush,” I say.

“But we don’t have a bush; we should plant one,” she says.

“If we planted one,” I say, “would you still eat them one at a time?”

“Yes,” she says. “If you had to pick them individually, would you still eat them by the handful?”

“Hmm, that is a good question. Would you pick them for me?”

She says, “I would, if I knew that each time I pulled a little blue berry from the bush that you would take the time to appreciate it for its own experience.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’d appreciate its contribution to the congregation in my mouth.”

“Then you can pick your own.”

I've Been Wanting to Tell This One...

Several years ago, I found a rat drowned in Katie’s water bucket. Through a series of events, Katie (an Australian shepherd) had inherited a detached two-car garage, the cars had been evicted, and a colony of rats had moved in with Katie to share in her dog food and the bird seed we kept around.

I don’t know how long the rats had claimed residency because I never went in the garage anymore. In fact, I didn’t even call it a garage; I called it a two-car doghouse.

I guess the drowned rat should have been an indicator of more rats, but it did not occur to me. I thought of it as a freak accident—a stray rat looking for a drink.

About a month later, Marcy and I were driving home and I saw a creature running down the center of our street. I wasn’t sure what it was at first because it was so large. I thought maybe it was a mutilated beaver or a deformed rabbit or something. As we drove past it, I saw it was a rat. The rat looked at me and smiled, and I’m sure if it wasn’t so busy propelling itself down the street, it would have waved. Or, knowing what I know now, maybe it would have laughed and shot me the bird. Who knows.

Later that week, before sunrise, I went out to our back-porch-turned-laundry-room. In the days of cheap energy, I used to stick my shirt and slacks in the dryer with my bath towel for five or ten minutes. That way, I didn’t have to iron my clothes, and the dryer would get the wrinkles out while I ate breakfast in my skivvies. Also, I love clothes straight out of the dryer. As I tossed my clothes in the dryer, I heard the paper bag of bird seed rustling about. Just then, Katie came out of the kitchen into the laundry room with all of her senses perked up. Out of curiosity, I peeked into the bag at the same time that a very large rat jumped straight out of it. I remember the next sequence in slow motion: the rat floating up into the air and twisting around in flight, me going rigid with shock so quickly that I ascended into the air and lighted on the dryer, Katie trying to get traction so that her body would match the speed of her legs, the rat clawing in the air in anticipation of hitting the ground running…which it did, right out the back door. Katie slammed into the dryer, the wall, and the door as she chased the rat to who-knows-where.

Huh. Freak accident number two.

A few days later, Mr. Maytag was washing the dishes, Mr. Coffee was making breakfast, and I was giving my clothes to Mr. Kenmore when I heard the birdseed bag rustling again. It occurred to me that perhaps I ought to shut that back door at night. I lunged at the bag and caught it in a choke hold right at the top. The bag came alive. At first it hopped up and down in my clutched hands, and then it started swinging around in a circular motion. Something inside started cursing at me. And then I realized that I was holding a wild and terrified animal in about 30 pounds of bird seed while I was standing in my skivvies.

Katie was willing to solve all my problems for me. She jumped up and down and barked and batted the bag and scratched up my goose-pimpled legs in frustrated anticipation. Once the summer before, a squirrel that lived in our yard (and quite intentionally taunted Katie to no end) miscalculated some minor thing—I don’t know what, wind speed or something—and ended up in Katie’s mouth. Katie had the squirrel by the abdomen, facing out. The little squirrel thrashed and thrashed and yelled and yelled and promised Katie all kinds of good things and gave her all kinds of compliments, but Katie was not swayed by her new toy to release it. However, I was there and I tried to reason with Katie about how squirrels never take baths and they really don’t make great toys and think of all the fun she’ll miss if the squirrel isn’t there to chase through the patio furniture, but Katie had waited a long time for this moment and just lay down with her little squirrel still wiggling in her mouth. So I said, “Katie, put the squirrel down.” She couldn’t really say anything, but she pleaded with her eyes just as clearly as she could with her voice. She stood up with the squirrel, and I could tell I would have to be firm with her. I put on my big, firm, deep voice and said, “Katie. Put the squirrel down. Now.” And she did, ever so gently. The squirrel ran up the cedar tree, onto the lowest branch, and all the way out to the edge so that the branch dipped down a little. She hung on as the branch swayed down towards Katie and she gave Katie a good what-for before running further up the tree.

I could tell Katie always regretted obeying that day, and she had no intentions of letting another opportunity like that go again. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t carry this sack of rat and bird seed around with me all day. I went out to the big garbage can on the street and tipped it over, dumping all the trash out on the driveway. Then, I dumped the bag out inside the giant can. There was the rat. She jumped up a few times, but the can was too big. Watching the rat down there, I felt like I had no option but to kill it. I grabbed a garden rake and took to the task.

When I was done, I cried for a long time. So did Katie.

When I put the garden rake back, I noticed that the garage was filled with rat excrement and that many of my tools and stored items had been chewed. By the end of the week, I had put rat poison in the garage and banned Katie from going in. Killing the rat with the rake was hard, and putting the rat poison out was just as difficult. I asked the guy at Ace if the rat poison will kill the rats painlessly, and he assured me that no, it would kill them in a fairly agonizing death. I did it anyway.

I only found seven rat carcasses later that month. I was sure there would have been more. It took a long time to clean out the garage of destroyed items and poop and dog hair and dead rats. One morning, while I was working on it, a little red Honda Civic pulled up. The driver emerged, and I recognized him as a regular at yard sales. He always came to our yard sales, dickered forever, and never bought anything.

“You havin’ a garage sale?” he asked.

“No, just cleanin’,” I told him.

“I remember this place,” the man said, “I tried to buy a desk from you. You had it priced for ten dollars and I offered you two, and you wouldn’t take it. Do you still have it?”

I told him I did. He looked smug. “I knew you wouldn’t sell it for ten dollars.” Then he spotted it in the garage where it had been since that yard sale six months earlier. “Well, there it is! Would you still sell it?” He walked in uninvited and opened up a drawer. Three dead rats fell out. He opened up the other drawers and a total of eight dead rats were found in their high-rise nest.

“I’ll give you two dollars for it.”

True story.