Cursive

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
D'Nealian Script, a cursive alphabet — lower case and upper case.

"I've always believed that there was a certain age
after which I would be all well and I'd stop feeling
as if I'd been abandoned here on earth with no explanation.
When I was little, the magic number was 6 --
the first - graders had maturity, secret information
(like gnostics), and lunch boxes. Then 13, 18, 21 . . ."
~ Anne Lamott ~
from Grace Eventually (p 243)
When I read these words a few years ago, I identified at once with Lamott's first - grade faith that all would be well and her misconception that the bigger kids had all the answers. Her gradual deflation expresses precisely the dismay that I felt back in grade school when I learned the truth about cursive writing -- that it was a sham, a trick, a false lead. My first real disillusion, way worse than finding out about Santa Claus!

I shared my cursive writing story recently with epigrammatist, writer and artist Michael Lipsey when he posted a similar sentiment on facebook:

"The biggest misconceptions of youth are that
somehow things will fall into place as you get older,
that there will be answers to the larger questions,
that you will attain maturity, and certainties,
and self-confidence. Perhaps this is true
if you have a talent for self-deception.
But eventually you figure out
that there won’t be any of these things --
that you will just have to muddle through
as best you can until the end."

[Previous thoughts from Michael Lipsey on my blog:
"A Little Crazier" ~ "Parallax" ~ "First Friday"
And future thoughts: "My Times" & "Winnow the Dreams"]
The words of Lamott and Lipsey brought to mind something that my wise eldest brother wrote to me back in 2002, following an introspective late summer conversation beside the pool:

Dave wrote: "In 1996, I truly thought that going back to school would be a turning point. I guess it was one more door that I thought had a magic chalice or a secret code word behind it. As a kid growing up I was always convinced that sooner or later I would turn a corner and all the concealed things of the adult and/or bigger world would be revealed. First I thought it was puberty but that just brought the usual frustrations and problems. Then I was convinced that it was being a teenager but that also was more frustration. Somehow I just knew that when I turned 16, Dad would take me aside and clear everything up.

"I was also sure that the Marine Corps [1965] would be a lease on a whole new life which, in a way, it was but not in the way I anticipated. When I was in Chicago and turning 21, I knew intellectually that it meant nothing but still had a secret hope that there was a missing block of knowledge that I would be privy too. After that I quit looking for magic doors but still held the inner kid hope that something would turn up. Hell I even joined the Masons when I was 42. There are no magical turning points. No epiphanies. No blinding lights. Just the slow process of living and doing and trying to make the pieces connect as you roll along [emphasis added].

"I have finally come to the conclusion that it isn't what you do but where your head is at when you do it. That's why old men can fish where there are no fish, talk when there are no listeners and write when there are no readers. They don't require the other side of the equation to feel complete, albeit a bit melancholy at times."
~ from Dave the Brummbaer

[Previous posts from Dave Carriker on my blog:
"Up & Down" ~ "It's Magic" ~ "Porsche"]
My brother's description of waiting for the big moment when all would be revealed to him by Dad or God or the Marine Corps or whomever reminded me of that disappointing day that I have never forgotten when I came home from grade school, having made the big leap from printing to cursive writing. I had been looking forward to this milestone for a long time (or so it seemed in my short life), starting back in first grade when I could only print, anticipating the secret joy of cursive writing to be learned in second grade.

I was kind of like giddy Gilderoy Lockhart (former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher) who childishly brags when offering autographed copies of his photographs: "I can do joined - up writing now, you know!" (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, p 509).

The long summer between first and second grade came to an end, and I received my cursive writing workbook and soon mastered the task of joining the letters. Somehow, though, it was not quite as exciting as I had expected. In fact, after the big build - up, it did not really seem that much different than printing after all. Maybe the real fun was yet to come, in a more advanced step that would follow the mere connection of letter to letter.

So I asked my older sister Peg: "How long before we start connecting the words?" Imagine my dismay when she informed me that this would not be happening! Of course, the difficulty of deciphering "joined - up" words had never even crossed my mind. As far as I was concerned, that was just another one of those as-yet-to-be-revealed skills. I can still remember the "you-funny-little-kid" expression on Peg's face as she prepared me for the big let down: "You don't ever connect the words; those gaps are always there! What? This was it? No answers to the larger questions? I had arrived . . . already? Was I ever astonished!

It was supposed to be like those tender lines from Neil Young's beautiful song, "Philadelphia: City of Brotherly Love":

"And when I see the light
I know I'll be all right.
I've got my friends in the world,
I had my friends
When we were boys and girls
And the secrets came unfurled."
But no. There was no unfurling.

This was no doubt my first inkling that the Platonic vision of complete perfection might never become available to me here on earth. I guess we have to wait until the afterlife to see all the words connected -- and all the worlds. For the time being, we write through a glass darkly, filled with gaps, searching for connections.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mysterious Mirror Writing

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, August 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Earl's Birthday ~
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

The Desolation of Abode and Boy

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSWaiting for the Moving Van ~ June 2004

************************

This picture of Sam polishing the kitchen tiles
was taken in August 2001, on the day we moved in,
pre-figuring the above photograph of Ben,
taken three years later on the day we moved out.
For today, I have pulled together yet another moving day blog post, this time featuring a poem by my son Sam, written back in 2007, when he was a freshman in high school. At the time, I thought he did very well, and I still think so. I am honored to feature him today as my guest blogger.

I confess, it was my idea (interfering mother) for him to experiment with the pantoum style, thinking that the repetition would capture the echo of the gradually emptying house; but all the rest was up to him.























Farewell

The barren house deserted and devoid,
The home depleted of its frills and friends.
The desolation of abode and boy,
Packed up and sent off to another place.

The home depleted of its frills and friends,
Who will replace the boy that loved her so?
The lonely house cries out; it wants to shout,
“Come Back, Come Back! I can’t be left like this!”

Who will replace the boy that loves her so?
The boy that laughed and cried within her walls,
Humming and thrumming through welcoming rooms,
Now stripped down to bare bones and skeleton.

The boy meanders far from all he loved.
The desolation of the house and boy
Like Tara and Scarlett, separate and sad,
Their barren hearts deserted and devoid.

by Sam McCartney, age 14


To accompany their completed poems, the students were also required to submit an explication of their poetic process. Sam explains:

In my poem "Farewell," I used alliteration, internal rhyme, literary allusion, personification, simile, and hyperbole . . .

Alliteration is definitely my favorite poetic device, so I started my poem with "deserted and devoid" and continued with "frills and friends," "bare bones," "separate and sad" . . .

The lines in which I use internal rhyme are 7: "out / shout"; and 11: "humming / thrumming." Internal rhyme, for me, is a really effective way to enforce an idea. For example, on line 7, I really want to personify the house and enforce the idea that is is crying out in anguish; and on line 11, I really want to enforce the idea of the boy joyfully running through the house.

Finally, I chose an allusion to another work of literature. I think the placement of this device in line 15, which is near the end, really ties the poem together. The whole relationship that is being described throughout the poem between the boy and the house is similar to the feelings that Scarlett, the main character in Gone With the Wind, has for Tara, the house she lived in as a child. She was separated from that house during the Civil War and several years after.

As for the process that I underwent to complete my poem, it was a tough process that caused me a lot of stress and panic. I was trying to write my poem when my mother asked me to download pictures from her camera for her. As I completed this task, I started looking at the photographs from the day I moved from my house in Philadelphia. There was my brother, stretched out forlornly on the kitchen counter - top in our wonderful old house. As I looked at this picture, a flood of memories came to me and the poem wrote itself after that.


When I got the poem written down on paper, I went through a thesaurus to sophisticate* my poem by using words like "meanders" instead of "walks around." Also, I let my mother read the poem to add her insightful ideas. She showed me one of her favorite poems (see below), written in the form of a pantoum, thinking that I might like to experiment with this poetic pattern, in which line 1 of each stanza is an echo of line 2 in the previous stanza (until the final stanza, which can rearrange the pattern in a variety of ways). She also helped me keep the poem in blank verse by using her vast vocabulary** to keep all the lines 10 syllables long.

For example, in line 3, I could not get the line longer than nine syllables. She suggested that I replace the word "house" with "abode," which added one more syllable. Earlier that day, my teacher had suggested that I consider the word "abode" as a synonym for "house," so I knew it was the right choice for my poem.

Using the devices of alliteration, internal rhyme, and allusion taught me a lot about how the sound and sense of a poem go together to create the final impression. In my case, I wanted to capture the sad, hollow feeling of moving day, when residents say farewell and every stray sound echoes bleakly through the empty rooms. I hope my readers experience this feeling when they read my work.

**********************************************************

*sophisticate: at this point, Sam's teacher has written in the margin of his final draft: "Is this a real word?" I think the correct answer would have to be: "It is now!

**vast vocabulary: I swear I did not put Sam up to saying this!

**********************************************************

Here is the other poem Sam refers to, the one that I had suggested he read to get a feel for the pantoum:


Always the One Who Loves His Father Most

Always the one who loves his father most,
the one the father loves the most in turn,
will fight against his father as he must.
Neither knows what he will come to learn.

The one the father loves the most in turn
tells the father no and no and no.
but neither knows what he will come to learn
nor cares a lot what that could be, and so

tells his father no and no and no,
is ignorant of what the years will teach
nor cares a lot what that could be, and so
unties the knot that matters most, while each

is ignorant of what the years will teach,
they'll learn how pride -- if each lives out his years --
unties the knot that matters most, while each
will feel a sadness, feel the midnight fears.

They'll learn how pride -- if each lives out his years --
will lose the aging other as a friend,
will feel a sadness, feel the midnight fears.
The child and then the father, world without end,

will lose the aging other as a friend.
And then the child of that one, too, will grow --
the child and then the father, world without end --
in turn to fight his father, comme il faut,

will fight against his father as he must,
always, the one who loves his father most.

by Clement Long

Long's poem can be found on pp 116 - 17,
in Patterns of Poetry: An Encyclopedia of Forms
by Miller Williams


Our Third Floor Landing, like a drawing by Escher!

P.S.
Even Harry Potter says,
"It felt most strange to stand here in the silence and know
that he was about to leave the house for the last time. . . .
It gave him an odd, empty feeling to remember those times;
it was like remembering a younger brother whom he had lost."
~ J. K. Rowling ~
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 44
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, August 14, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com