Am I Dreaming?

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thinking of the philosopher who did "not know
whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly,
or whether he is now a butterfly, dreaming he is a man."
Zhūangzi (Chinese Philosopher, c. 369 BC – c. 286 BC)
A few weeks ago, I was so mesmerized -- as were many others -- by an inspiring philosophical post from my facebook friend Anna that I decided to record it here, along with a few additional connections of dreams and butterflies and reflective reality. On the way to school, her little daughter Clara had asked her, "Mom, am I dreaming? Am I awake? How can I ever tell if I am really awake?"

A variety of clever responses followed:

She's a philosopher!

A post - modern existentialist!

Definite Descartes moment. Proud.

I think I am; therefore, I think I am.

Very impressive! How did you reply?

I said she was having a Descartes moment. She said "what?" And then I didn't say anything else bc my younger kid started scooting off down the street. Seems appropriate enough.

All in good time . . .

Put The Matrix in!

There's actually ways to test if you're in a dream . . .

I prefer to let her wonder . . . AHAHAHHA! Maybe that's not nice.

What you didn't pinch her?

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: -- do I wake or sleep?
~ Keats (English Romantic Poet, 1795 - 1921)
Not only did Clara's question remind me of Zhūangzi's parable of the butterfly and Keats' "Ode to a Nightengale," but I also suddenly remembered this mysterious prose poem tucked away in my autumnal saved files. Has the narrator dreamed up the entire conflicted relationship? Was she in his dream? Was he in hers?

Free
I was always thinking about her even when I wasn’t thinking. Days went by when I did little else. She had left me one night as a complete surprise. I didn’t know where she went. I didn’t know if she was ever coming back. I searched her dresser and closet for any clues. There wasn’t anything there, nothing. No lotions or creams in the bathroom. She had really cleaned out. I thought back on our years together. They seemed happy to me. Summers on the beach, winters in the mountains skiing. What more could she want? We had friends, dinner parties. I walked around thinking, maybe she didn’t love me all that time. I felt so alone without her. I hated dinners alone, I hated going to bed without her. I thought she might at least call, so I was never very far from the phone. Weeks went by, months. It was strange how time flew by when you had nothing to remember it by. My friends never mentioned her. Why can’t they say something? I thought. I remembered every tiny gesture of her hand, every smile, every grimace. Birthdays, anniversaries — I never forgot. But then something strange started to happen. I started doubting every memory. Even her face began to fade. The trip to Majorca, was it something I read in a book? The jolly dinner parties, were they a dream? I didn’t trust anything any longer. I searched the house for any trace of her. Nothing. I started asking my friends if they remembered anything about her. They looked at me as if I were crazy. I sat at home and began to cheer up. What if none of this happened? I thought. What if there was nothing to be sad about?

~ James Tate (American Poet, b 1943)

Floor Mosaics, here and above,
at the Wynn / Encore, Las Vegas

And lastly, this dreamy poem which my son Ben was asked to respond to several years ago on a college entrance essay. The prospective students were given the poem without the last line and asked to imagine how the poet might conclude his reverie:

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

~ James Wright (American Poet, 1927 - 80)

P.S.
MORE CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

Shortly after posting the above essay, I came across the following passages.
Two in two days! What's the odds?

1. Rereading an old favorite
on Monday, September 29th:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
by Dai Sijie (Chinese–French Author & Filmmaker, b 1954)

"At this Luo broke away and started running, faster and faster, in a desperate headlong flight down the steep mountain in pursuit of the Little Seamstress. I went after him, taking a short cut across the rocks. The scene was like one of the bad dreams that had been troubling me lately, with the Little Seamstress losing her footing and falling into the void, and with Luo and me chasing after her, slithering down perpendicular cliffs without a thought of the risk to ourselves. For a moment I lost track of whether I was running in my dream or in reality, or whether I was dreaming as I ran" (193 - 94).

2. Starting a new favorite
on Tuesday, September 30th:
The Friendly Persuasion
by Jessamyn West (American Novelist, 1902 - 84)

"They rode into Vernon [Indiana] together . . . two rawboned farm boys . . . and saw it the way a man who thinks he has been dreaming wakes and sees the landscape of his dream lying all about him, the disaster real, hard and unmelting as sunlight -- and dreaming the only means of escape" (74).

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, October 14th

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

Safe Home

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Peaceable Kingdom
by American Artist, Edward Hicks, 1780 – 1849
As an illustration for the Badger's elaborate creation theory, I picked this painting of the animal kingdom for the diversification it portrays: the bull's magnificent horns, the lion's impressive mane, the camouflaged leopards with their designer spots, the powerful bear down in the corner, kissing the cow with the curly horns; and the many other sleek coats, massive paws, half - hidden claws or tapered noses. Some of the best - known fictional explanations for these varied and unique natural properties can be found in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. My preference, however, is the rationale provided by the wise Badger whom Merlin enlists to teach young Arthur (aka "Wart") about human nature:

from Chapter 21 (pp 191 - 93)
in The Once and Future King
by T. H. White, 1906 - 64
"When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before Him, and saw that they were good.

"Perhaps I ought to explain," added the badger, lowering his papers nervously and looking at the Wart over the top of them, "that all embryos look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born --- and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a cameleopard or a man, when you are an embryo you look just like a peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:

"The embryos stood in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God addressed them:

"He said: 'Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you want to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in later life. For instance, at this moment you cannot dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a corkindrill or a sabre-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.'

"All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole body for blotting paper, and one of the toads who lived in the drouthy antipodes decided simply to be a water bottle.

"The asking and granting took up two long days --- they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember --- and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.

" 'Well, Our little man,' said God. 'You have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. What can We do for you?'

" 'Please God,' said the embryo, 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenceless embryo all my life, doing my best to make a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and the other materials which You have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will try to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly, I will put together a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silly in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my very best to think it over carefully, and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find favour with Yourselves.'

" 'Well done,' exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. 'Here, all you embryos, come here with your beaks and whatnots to look upon Our first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools. You will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all the others will be embryos before your might. Eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrows and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, but partly hopeful. Run along then, and do your best. And listen, Man, before you go....'

" 'Well,' asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.

" 'We were only going to say,' said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. 'Well, We were just going to say, God bless you.' " [emphasis added]

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

On last year's annual walk through the British Pine Forest,
we stumbled upon this little lean - to, or as Ben entitled this photo:
"Summer Home" ~ May 2013
The following passage echoes the Badger's lesson that, from beginning to end, humans retain the form of defenseless embryos -- "a naked tool all your life . . . an embryo till they bury you" -- like the innocent children included amongst the animals in Hicks painting, as well as the settlers and natives off to the left, meeting together to discuss the possibility of sharing the land in peace. Even at the height of our adult strength and power, we remain "weak, slow, clawless," no fur, no fangs, forever in need of shelter, in search of a home:

from Chapter 2, "House and Home" (p 29)
in Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World
by Scott Russell Sanders
[see previous excerpt from Hunting for Hope]
The word house derives from an Indo-European root meaning to cover or conceal. I hear in that etymology furtive, queasy undertones. Conceal from what? From storms? beasts? enemies? from the eye of God?

Home comes from a different root meaning 'the place where one lies.' That sounds less fearful to me. A weak, slow, clawless animal, without fur or fangs, can risk lying down and closing its eyes only where it feels utterly secure. Since the universe is going to kill us, in the short run or the long, no wonder we crave a place to lie in safety, a place to conceive our young and raise them, a place to shut our eyes without shivering or dread." [emphasis added]
*************************
American philosopher Susanne K. Langer makes a similar point about the human need for signs, symbols, language, and expression. When the embryos chose their big brains over physical might, they steered us toward imagination and communication.

from paragraphs 13 & 14
of "Language and Thought"
by Susanne K. Langer, 1895 - 1985
When we are faced with a strange or difficult situation, we cannot react directly as other creatures do, with flight, aggression, or any such simple instinctive pattern. Our whole reaction depends on how we manage to conceive the situation -- whether we see it as a disaster, a challenge, a fulfillment of doom, or a fiat of the Divine Will. In words or dreamlike images, in artistic or religious or even in cynical form, we must construe the events of life. . . .

Conception is a necessary and elementary process . . . of human culture -- of intelligence and morality, folly and superstition, ritual, language, and the arts -- all the phenomena that set us apart from, and above, the rest of the animal kingdom.
*************************
In his typically amusing way, Andreas suggests a process similar to that of the embryos choosing their gifts:

from StoryPeople
by Brian Andreas

Porcupine
A few said they’d be horses. Most said they’d be some sort of cat.
My friend said she’d like to come back as a porcupine.
I don’t like crowds, she said.

*************************
Arthur C. Clarke -- along with T. H. White and Scott Russell Sanders -- observes that, compared to many others creatures, humans are neither strong nor fast:

"We humans govern the future
not because we're the fastest or strongest
creature but because we're the most intelligent.
When we share the planet with creatures
more intelligent than we are,
they will steer the future."

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008
British Science Fiction Writer
(and the first person that Wernher von Braun
wanted to meet upon leaving Germany)

Dawn or Doom: This Week at Purdue University

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, September 28th

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

Commonplace Book

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"It smells good here," she said.
It did. It had the indefinable smell of a perfectly - kept,
well - loved American home; the smell found nowhere else on earth.
A smell of cleanliness and polish and Ivory soap and potted plants
and baking bread -- the sweet warm smell of simplicity and abundance.
. . . everything in the room felt kind and gentle and safe."

~ Marcia Davenport ~
from The Valley of Decision, 407
[More on my Book Blog]

Regular as clockwork, yet another Fall Semester has arrived, with all the excitement and promise of course descriptions and syllabi! Risking repetition, I thought the beginning of the academic year (see previous post also!) would be the right time for a review of my fortnightly initiative. The following outline is drawn from several previous posts -- Mission Statement, The Second Page, Pastiche -- and was prepared as a presentation for the American Literature Club of West Lafayette, Indiana, where my dear friend Elizabeth offered me the opportunity to share my work with the club members at their annual spring dinner meeting.

Naturally, I began with a special thanks to Elizabeth for her constant support in our various shared endeavors such as music, parenting, exercising, and -- our focus of the evening -- reading, writing, and blogging. To narrow the topic, Elizabeth asked me to please answer the question for well - read audience, with varying degrees of computer savviness: "What is a Literary Blog?"

To define simply, a blog is a personal website or web page -- technically a WEB LOG (thus the shortened "BLOG") on which an individual can record opinions, proverbs, poems, letters, essays, movie reviews or book reports -- along with photographs and helpful links to other sites. Adding new material or updates on a regularly basis is called blogging: Web Logging!

It is a digital journal or Commonplace Book that will be unique to whatever its keeper finds of interest, e.g., the clean metallic lines of the graceful leaves above (photographed earlier this summer at the at the Wynn / Encore in Las Vegas) and Marcia Davenport's blissful description of early twentieth - century homemaking. How are these apparently random items related? The blogger gets to impose the pattern! That's the beauty of blogging! All you need to do is choose your topic, decide how you want to organize your material, master a few simple functions on the keyboard, and hit "publish."

Five years ago, as I was getting the blog underway, my friend Eve -- also a writer and a teacher of writing -- asked me if I had a Dream Job in mind for my Inner Scholar. Indeed I did! [Litterateur & Dilettante]

Always present in my mind whenever churning out an insight or two to share with a kindred spirit such as Eve, was the question, now how can I make that my work for the day? Because it feels so good, like an accomplishment. You know that old cliche that you know you're a writer if you just have to write every day? Well for me that doesn't mean I'm driven to lock myself in my room writing a novel, or stay up all night writing poetry; instead, it's more about articulating the daily worries and outrages and obsessions, then lining them up with the poems and stories and essays that will bring a little order to the chaos.

If I can take an hour or so to press beyond blathering, to organize all that angst and nonsense, channel all that anxiety into the written word, search out the literary parallels, send it out to an audience who "knows" (in manner of Carson McCullers), then I arise from my computer and say to myself, "Whew, that was a good morning's work," though I'm the first to admit that it's also play. The work of writing -- the discipline of daily expression, the task of scratching it all out, the quest of tracking down an old nearly forgotten poem or recovering a stray thought that's perfect for the moment before it gets away, the struggle with meaning, the satisfaction of connecting -- can feel so necessary yet also vaguely, if not blatantly, like a selfish indulgence, an undeserved luxury.

I wanted to create a space where the threads of art and life intertwine until a pattern emerges from the chaos; to generate some literary analysis -- scholarly yet painless -- about how literature fits into every hour of every day; to share and interpret what I have recorded and remembered over the years; to include a running update of my current reading; and to explain how it all fits together with the little things that actually happen in real life throughout the course of any given day -- in manner of Mrs. Dalloway.

To accomplish these quasi - para - academic goals, I designed three blogs:

a Book List -- which I update once a month with a brief description of what I've been reading recently

a Quotidian blog -- which I update -- not daily, but every other day or so with seasonal snippets, light verse, photographs of my cats, whatever comes to mind

and -- the page you're reading now -- my Fortnightly Literary Blog of Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony:

I have to thank my husband Gerry for the "Fortnightly" suggestion. He pointed out that readers would need to know how often to expect a new post. Not only did a two - week interval seem reasonable, but the term "Fortnightly" which I no doubt learned from reading English novels in my girlhood -- would lend a British flair to the literary enterprise.

Next, I chose as my watchword Goethe’s suggestion that

“One ought, every day at least,
to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture,
and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.”
Whenever my readers open The Fortnightly on their computer screens, I wish for them to encounter each item on Goethe's list:

a little song -- and amazingly, thanks to you-tube, I can include not just all of my favorite lyrics but also links for listening;

a good poem -- this would be my forum for sharing selections from all the wonderful poetry that I have been reading and collecting in notebooks for the past few decades;

a fine picture -- my favorite hobby has always been combining quotations and pictures into handmade posters, greeting cards, and scrapbooks for family and friends. On my blog, I could pursue this hobby, using my own photography or other beautiful photos and artwork found on the internet;

and last but not least -- a few reasonable words.

Goethe makes it sound so simple, I thought I'd give it a try, tying songs and poems together with just the right visuals and, hopefully, a few worthy observations of my own on the theme of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony.

Connection: I wanted, if possible, to create a place of connections, in the spirit of E. M. Forster, who implores us in "Howards End" to connect: "Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect . . . ." I want to capture all the unexpected connections that amaze and surprise and suggest a pattern.

Coincidence: For me, nothing tops those moments when Life offers its own theme to a strand of apparently accidental events, and everything hangs together for a moment in such an uncanny way that you'd swear it was all planned out somehow! Those are the literary connections and coincidences that I am always on the lookout for, not that they require much tracking down, since they usually find me before I find them.

For example, I pulled together one of my earliest blog posts one morning back in 2009 when I came downstairs just in time to hear my son Sam saying: "It's my lucky rock; Mom gave it to me." Turns out, my husband was asking about the shiny rock that he had just seen Sam pick up from his desk and drop into his pocket. I was touched by Sam's belief in lucky rocks and by his sentiment of hanging on to a talisman from his crazy old mom. It was, however, no more than a fleeting morning moment -- yes, sweeter than most but still fleet -- until it suddenly took on a life of it's own.

Sam left for school and Gerry for work. I sat down to review my friend Jan's latest batch of short stories. I had read them earlier and was just collecting my thoughts to comment, when suddenly, my eyes fell on the title, "Pocket." How had I missed this entry, pocketed as it was, right there in between "Heart" & "Fable," which I had read several days ago? Can you imagine my astonishment when just a few lines into the story, the heroine exclaims: "Not even a lucky rock"?

A lucky rock? Like Sam's! What's the odds?

Sometimes, life is so full of coincidences that I think my head will split open trying to take them all in! It's enough to make me believe in the whole Universe at once! Here I was, sitting alone, reading a story about the very object my loved ones had been discussing a mere thirty minutes earlier. And not just any object, but a lucky, magic object, "something to keep forever." And now I know why I had previously overlooked "Pocket," -- because Fate was saving it up for me, a lucky story to read on a lucky Friday! Because, to quote Jan, we all need stories -- "clear, round, and easy to carry" -- in our hearts.

************
Back in college when I worked on the literary magazine, I was known as the editor with "a poem for every poem" because no matter what I read, I was always reminded of something else -- kind of like that "Scooby-Doo" episode -- if you remember the old cartoon -- when Daphne asks Velma -- the girl with glasses, the bookish one: "Do you have a book for every occasion?" And Velma answers, "Actually, yes." A poem for every poem, and a book for every book!

Along the same lines, just a few weeks ago, a couple of old friends shared the following funny, complete with sentiments such as

"Was there an old song written for every occasion?"
"Yes! I think there was!"
Or as my sister Di expressed it:
"Life is a musical!"

A poem for every poem . . . a song for every song.
Haha -- but true!
In addition to Connection and Coincidence, I wanted the blog to include my favorite passage from Yeats' poem "A Prayer For My Daughter." Naturally, he wants so many things for her, but chiefly a heart full of "radical innocence" and a life
"Rooted in one dear perpetual place . . . a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious."

"How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree."
From childhood -- perhaps impressed upon me when I first read The Little Red Story Book -- at any rate, certainly long before I ever read Yeats -- one of my goals was to organize the kind of home described in his poem, where order would triumph over chaos and no holiday would ever go unremarked: accustomed and ceremonious, familiar yet celebratory.

Thus the line from "A Prayer For My Daughter" has become the perpetual caption for the opening picture of every Fortnightly Blog Post. I hope that in some way (though not always in the same way) these photographs and illustrations will portray "a house where all's accustomed, ceremonious." Sometimes it's my own house (or former houses), other times, a cathedral, a log cabin, a playground, sites of historical interest or fame, a neighborhood mural, a village mosaic, a medieval tapestry.

In the early days of my blog, my older brother, who like me, studied English in college, asked me, "Do you have an encyclopedic memory of poems or a really good search engine? You seem to always find one that fits the occasion. Cool trick. Guess I shoulda paid more attention in one of those literature classes that I seem to have forgotten."

A funny question. But luckily, the answer is Yes, I have both -- the memory and the search engine! On the serious side of constructive criticism, he suggested: "You are a true master in linking nuggets of wisdom, wit, and rational thought, but I see so little of the inner Kit. Or perhaps, I just haven't been reading enough of your blogs."

I really liked his comment about my nugget - linking skills, because it's true -- some entries are just a quotation linked with picture, but it's always a good match, one that no one else would have thought of, or even found (because I'm the careful reader, that's the objective of my blogging). I took his words to heart and trust that, as he read further, he encountered to a greater extent my inner voice -- which I'm sure is there! -- in addition to the voices of so many writers whose work I admire.

My creative writing teacher in college once wrote in the margin of my paper: "What's at stake here?" I have never forgotten that comment and think that my brother may be asking a similar question. What I took away from his advice was the need to take more personal risk, go out on a limb, bare more of my soul, embarrass myself a little bit, move beyond "So what?" And, yes, I have tried to test these limits (see for example "Never Fear").

The blog is a good place to experiment and push the envelope. In the meantime, I strive to deserve the great faith that my friend Jes, who teaches in Boston, has placed in this enterprise: "How courageous of you to insist on beauty and thoughtfulness every day in this, the 21st century! What a brave blogger you are!"

I see now that Goethe (1749 – 1832) was asking his 18th & 19th Century audience to search for the same: beauty and thoughtfulness -- in a song, a poem, a picture, a few reasonable words.

Flower Gardens, Carosel, and Wall Art (above)
at the Wynn / Encore, Las Vegas

In closing,
many thanks to my supportive friends and readers
for their ultra - kind observations:
Nancy T.: "Sing! Thanks for all the blogs -- photos, poems, book titles. Some days you are my own only source or mental stimulation. May you keep on singing!"

Pat F.: "I just want you to know that your blog today was one of the most touching and meaningful ever! Actually, I have read it several times, and listened to the music. The first time through, I was absolutely in tears! It realllllly touched me on so many levels. Thanks for being a friend and such a talented writer. . . . Thank you for this beautiful article today. It really touched me!"

Barbara T.: "this is amazing. I learn so much from you and marvel at the beauty of the paintings, photographs, memorabilia and WORDS that you share. Thank you. Barbara T."

Tim Th.: "Thanks, Kitti for your unending eloquent endeavor; it is a reading pleasure I enjoy!"

Len O.: "Your collections of objects and archives of documents and photographs make you the FB Smithsonian. I am always struck by the high quality of your nature and celestial photographs (assuming you are not funded by NASA), as well as the archives of photos and objects you have from your life (including your friends)."

And in reply: "I am honored to serve in the capacity of facebook archivist! Would that I were funded by NASA! I just use a little Canon PowerShot recommended by my niece Sara & my friend Natasha. Len, thanks again for your kind words, especially about my friends. As Shakespeare / Bolingbroke says: "I count myself in nothing else so happy / As in a soul remembering my good friends" -- including you & everyone else on this post!"

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, September 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Course descriptions and syllabi!
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

Handed My Own Life

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
University of Glasgow Coat of Arms

VIA ~ VERITAS ~ VITA
WAY ~ TRUTH ~ LIFE
MENTORS ~ HEROES ~ FRIENDS
[Thanks to Peter Bunder & Good Shepherd for this photo & caption]
Back to school already! The calendar year is nearly two thirds gone, yet in semester - speak the year is just beginning! After a few decades on the academic calendar, it becomes hard to measure time in any other way. I began my Freshman year at Northeast Missouri State in the fall of 1975, finishing four years later with a B.A. in English, one of the mere fifty - two Bachelor of Arts candidates listed on the last page of the graduation program (Spring 1979). My educational goals were not shared by many of my peers (most of whose names were listed among the many hundreds preceding the B.A.'s). While I did not elect to obtain the then popular Bachelor of Science in Education, I somehow or other ended up teaching for a number of years and was imprinted by numerous examples of what it meant to be an educator.

The closest I've come to a mission field was teaching at the Community College of Philadelphia. I taught a class for students who were trying to qualify for Freshman English -- so pre-freshman English. A few had not graduated from high school, but they had special admission status as returning students. A few were traditional students (age 18 or so) who had just not been served well by the Philadelphia public school system. Most were returning students, African American women about my age (late 30s at the time) and many were grandmothers! They were always surprised to learn that I was the mother of toddlers, at my age. I was impressed by the commitment they brought to their course work, and their determination to improve the level of their writing skills. Their dedication was inspiring, and many times they seemed to surprise themselves and each other with the success of their achievements. My last semester there, Spring 1998, I participated in a departmental evaluation, in an attempt to reveal something of how these small successes were accomplished.

Always my goal was to reveal to the students their own capacity for intelligent thought, as mine was revealed to me. In An American Childhood, Annie Dillard vividly describes her initiation into the world of natural science, her early discovery, years before college, "that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself." I love her scenario of revelation, though the indifference of her privileged parents fills me with some misgiving:

“Mother . . . gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and Father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down [to check out her biology experiment in the basement]. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself. I had essentially been handed my own life” (148 - 49, emphasis added).

In Homegrown Democrat, Garrison Keillor writes of his education in very similar terms, describing himself as an undergraduate "with no money to speak of and no clear plan for the future but . . . teachers who engage him with gravity and fervor and that's enough. That was the true spirit of the university, the spirit of the professors who loved their work. That was the heart and soul of the place . . . ." He enumerates half a dozen of his most inspirational professors, concluding with a visit to the library where "that Niagara of scholarship holds you in its sway, the deluge and glory of learning, and you begin to see where work and play become one. And imagine working at something you love. And that was how the University of Minnesota gave me life" (94 - 96, emphasis added).

Several times during my undergraduate years, I too was "essentially handed my own life," not just in the English courses which catered to my "private passion" but once in a science class where we learned that "Much knowledge is gained in pursuit of even elusive goals," and once again in music appreciation where the professor explained that "we don't know what we like -- we like what we know" and then proceeded to teach us just how much there was in the world to know and like and love. Not only did I obtain personal attention when necessary, but upon one memorable occasion during my Freshman year when I arrived at an office door at the same time as a classmate, the instructor soon had us tutoring each other. My questions were answered by a peer whose questions in turn I was able to answer! Thus, even in uncertainty, my own competence was reinforced. I learned that I was capable of intelligent thought and that I could impart as well as absorb information. This was an invaluable discovery, which stood me in good stead as an educator. Though it was not always easy, I aimed for a similar transference of accountability during my years as a classroom teacher.

As for my private passion, one of my most rewarding undergraduate challenges was to work as an editor of the student literary magazine, learning to test and question my own critical thinking skills in ways which continue to influence and inform every writing task I undertake. I knew when I arrived at Northeast that I wanted to major in English; and when I took Modern British Fiction, I knew what, one day, my field of specialization would be. Never before had I read such wonderful novels or worked on such exciting assignments! From a handful of professors, I encountered generous and enthusiastic encouragement, and was challenged by their faith in my work and by the valuable information which they choose to share.

Regardless of one's private passion, the public study of language and literature should yield a certain breadth of vision when it comes to solving problems, analyzing common or repeated themes, and dealing with human conflict in a humane way. To portray the inevitable links between existence and language, to create an environment of personal actualization in which a whole and steady vision might be realized, to repair the learned disjunction between speaker and utterance, to not be fooled by wordcraft or lazy thinking -- those were some of my goals as a teacher of English. Particularly in teaching composition it seems important, perhaps it is even a mission to show students how to be responsible to language, to own it, and to overcome indifference.

I pointed out to them the significance of their own authority in what Stanley Fish calls the "interpretive community" and the relevance of their own contributions to the discursive enterprise referred to by Robert Maynard Hutchins as the Great Conversation and the Civilization of the Dialogue:

"How, then, can higher education escape dogmatism, narrowness, the invasion of academic freedom, and failure in its proper intellectual task and still do its duty by morals and religion? A possible answer lies in the Great Conversation. The Great Conversation began with the Greeks, the Hebrews, the Hindus, and the Chinese and has continued to the present day. It is a conversation that deals, perhaps more extensively than it deals with anything else, with morals and religion. The questions of the nature and existence of God, the nature and destiny of humanity, and the organization and purpose of human society are the recurring themes of the Great Conversation.

"There may be many ways in which a college or university can continue the Great Conversation, but it would seem offhand that one of the best ways is through the reading and discussion by all the students of the books in which the Great Conversation has been carried on by the greatest writers and thinkers who have taken part in it. I emphasize discussion because of the contributions that this method makes to the moral and intellectual habits we desire; and I emphasize reading and discussion by all the students and faculty because in this way the formation of a community can be advanced. To continue and enrich the Great Conversation is the object of higher education.

"The Civilization of the Dialogue is the only civilization worth having and the only civilization in which the whole world can unite. It is, therefore, the only civilization we can hope for, because the world must unite or be blown to bits. The Civilization of the Dialogue requires communication. It requires a common language and a common stock of ideas. It assumes that everyone has reason and that everyone can use it. It preserves to all their independent judgment and, since it does so, it deprives any individual or any group of the privilege of forcing their judgment upon any other individual or any other group. The Civilization of the Dialogue is the negation of force. We have reached the point, in any event, when force cannot unite the world; it can merely destroy it. Through continuing and enriching the Great Conversation, higher education not only does its duty by morals and religion; it not performs its proper intellectual task; it also supports and symbolizes the highest hopes and the highest aspirations of humanity."

Robert Maynard Hutchins
from Morals, Religion, and Higher Education
In keeping with this focus on dialogue, I stressed the need to adhere to certain objective principles (use of the apostrophe, for example, or the conjugation of verbs!) not merely for the sake of following rules, but so that the students' contributions to the dialogue might be taken seriously; so that they do not undermine their own authority as readers, writers, and speakers; and so that they may learn to make the best use of that "tight economy of energy" which for Mina P. Shaughnessy characterized the transfer of meaning via the written or spoken word. In the developmental courses which I taught, I hoped for my students to discover that expressing themselves verbally went hand in hand with reading and expressing themselves in writing; and I tried to impress upon them that most human endeavor, education in particular, is a verbal undertaking. I urged them to think of each essay as "a try," an attempt to tackle one more problem and eliminate it before confronting another.

Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction contains a structural analysis of the curriculum in which he warns students that literary studies "are a question of the signifier, not of the signified. Those employed to teach you this form of discourse will remember whether or not you were able to speak it proficiently long after they have forgotten what you said." Despite the appeal of Eagleton's analogy, I always was, in fact, keenly interested in what my students had to say; and I continually reminded them that it is for this very reason -- the significance of their message -- that their mode of signification is so important. Myself a student of the message as well as the medium, I have to admire "that rare educator," described by Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings "who was in love with information . . . [and desired] to make sure that some of the things she knew would find repositories so that they could be shared again" (209). If, as Angelou suspected, such an impulse was not motivated solely by a love for the students themselves, then certainly it derives from a sincere conviction that they proceed with awareness, as cognizant as possible of their role in creating and naming the world which surrounds them -- a way to give them life, to hand them their own lives!

Henricus de Alemannia Lecturing his Students
from Laurentius de Voltolina, 1350s

For more on higher / liberal education, see
my previous post: "Back to School: A Scent of Knowledge"
and this vintage video: Bryn Mawr College

************************
PS
For a bit of academic humor you might want to try
33 Teachers Who Got The Last Laugh,
or Your Teachers Were Funnier Than You All Along,
which I found to be very entertaining in a Breakfast Club kind of way!
In fact, it reminds me of another movie Class in which the English instructor is handing back papers with a negative remark for each one. When he gets to the last one, his comment is "This one offended ALL my sensibilities." It's been 30 years since I saw this movie -- (warning: it's a stupid movie; so this is not a recommendation) -- but I never forgot that one funny line!

That's the thing about being a student or a teacher: it always seems to involve grading! Reminiscing about these good and bad movies reminded my brother Bruce and me of our best grading stories.

Bruce wrote to say, "I once got a paper back with the international traffic symbol for "No" -- the circle with the slash through it -- covering most of the first page. In one of the few spaces not covered by the circle was the word "NO!" in big red letters. The rest of the pages just had big red Xs from corner to corner. The test was a final that I was required to take, but it wouldn't affect my grade. I only had to get something like a 40% on the final to get an A. So, I just went in and wrote drivel . . . didn't even study. The professor called me into his office and told me something like this: 'I know basically all you have to do is spell your name correctly on this test to get enough points for an A, but you ARE going to take this final.' He gave me an incomplete and I had to go take the finals when we got back from Christmas."

The prize correction / comment, which I still enjoy for it's sheer uselessness: "Revise for smoothness." This is the one and only comment that one of my dissertation readers put on the top of my 300 - page rough draft, without one single mark anywhere throughout the entire document (did he even read it? I think not). Now, whenever Gerry and I hear any piece of totally useless advice, we just say, "Revise for smoothness" (or sometimes "Go Over").

My advisor Leonard Orr (one of the inspiring professors invoked above) gave me some useful advise: He said to wait a couple of days, change a couple of words around, re-submit the paper, and say, "I revised for smoothness." Worked like a charm!

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

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

The Front Porch of My Life

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Illustration for May Day from A Time to Keep
by throw - back American illustrator and writer
Tasha Tudor (1915 - 2008)
After eight weeks of travelogues (Berlin, Philadelphia, Hanover, Paris), here is a change of pace. Where is one of the best places to spend a good deal of the summer? Why, Out on the Porch, of course! So many happy memories of sitting in the rocking chairs at dusk; swinging -- sometimes precariously -- on the porch swing, playing in the miniature sandbox, building a fort or setting up a dollhouse, preparing the garden vegetables, waiting for the mailman, hoping for a friend to drop by or running over to someone else's porch and ringing the doorbell, perusing poems about front porches, reading -- maybe even writing! -- the great American novel. Cliches?

The Drama Critic Warns of Cliches
1
"When the curtain opens
on a front porch," says the critic,
"I walk out," meaning
I suppose those ubiquitous
rocking-chairs, an old grand-
ma or pa, the usual cataclysm
of ho-hum raw emotion,
plenitude of gnats, fireflies, and
wisteria at dusk.
Let me not omit
from this banned semiology
of porches, my own front porch
on the Maryland corner
of First and Anson, almost blotted out
by a scrim of rhododendrons
fanged with pink blooms. . . .

2
"Even worse," the critic continues,
"someone's mother always has cancer." It's true,
my mother does have cancer;
it's a cliche, a convention, you can hardly
blame her. Probably
I have cancer too, almost certainly;
perhaps it has already leaked down,
down to my two daughters, killing
each other so innocently there on the porch.
Perhaps the clear scrim of blood
is already transformed, the understudies
already warmed up
and taking over. . . .
. . . Surely
this is my front porch for life.

by Evan Zimroth (b 1943)
contemporary American novelist, poet, professor

Detail from The Old Checkered House, 1944
by renowned and unique American folk artist
Grandma ~ Anna Mary Robertson ~ Moses (1860 - 1861)

"All this was before the big supermarkets
and shopping centers and affluent subdivisions
with no sidewalks and the monster highways
and the innocence lost.
It was even before there was television,
and people would not close their doors and shut
their curtains to watch the quiz games or the comedy
hours or the talk shows where everybody talks at once.
We would sit out on our front porches in the hot,
serene nights and say hello to everyone who walked by."

from My Dog Skip (p 6 - 7)
by endearing American author and pet - lover
Willie Morris (1934 - 1999)
***********************************

A few of my odd little front porches:
1979

1980

1981

1990

1994

2001

2011

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, August 14th

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

Travelogue 4: Paris

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My Father
[sung by Judy Collins]

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

We lived in Ohio then
He worked in the mines
On his dreams like boats
We knew we'd sail in time

All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne
Marrying their grownup dreams
The lilacs and the man

I stayed behind, the youngest still
Only danced alone
The colors of my father's dreams
Faded without a sound

And I live in Paris now
My children dance and dream
Hearing the words of a miner's life
In words they've never seen

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
Set in my father's eyes again

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
Set in my father's eyes again

words and music by Judy Collins (b 1939)

Storybook Edition, illustrated by Jane Dyer

I can never hear Judy Collins sing this song without also recalling the poem "As Children Together" by Carolyn Forché (b 1950). As I wrote last year, the closing lines tell you all you need to know. They tell you that going to Paris can change your life:
If you read this poem, write to me.
I have been to Paris since we parted.
[To hear a recitation, to order The Country Between Us, to learn more.]
When I visited Paris in 2002, my friend Vickie -- the best personal
travelling consultant that a girl could ever hope for! -- sent me a suggestion list that I carried with me every where I went!

Victoria Amador in 2001, at the grave of Colette, in Pere Lachaise

Gerry had been making occasional trips to Fontainebleau but had not been inside the city for twenty years; and I had never been before, so it was an exciting time for us. We couldn't do everything but did as much as we could. I accompanied Gerry to a couple of the conference events, particularly the opening night dinner at Versailles -- so opulent, with a harpist, and a fingernail moon hanging in the sky above the formal gardens. Now why didn't I remember to take my camera? Gerry spoke at the 7am Technology Breakfast, which was well attended, considering the early hour (and the lateness of the previous evening at Versailles). Each night, we stayed awake until 1am, when, from our hotel window, we could see the spot light go out on the Eiffel Tour. Now why isn't it lit up all night; wouldn't that be the American way?

In between official commitments, we walked along des Champs Elysees -- no shopping but did have french onion soup, salad Nicoise, and some sidewalk cafe novelty drinks: The Diablo for Gerry and the Kir Royale pour moi; also drank a lot of Perrier ($4 per bottle) and splashed out for some ice cream at Berthillion ($4 per scoop). Inflated prices? No! Non - tax - deductible contributions to the preservation of Paris? Yes! Living in downtown Philly taught me to be tolerant of the tourist trade as a steady source of revenue for keeping cities vibrant. I appreciated all the happy visitors riding in the horse - drawn carriages along Pine Street, right past my front door, keeping Philadelphia alive and well; after all, because of them the surrounding streets were always clean!

We went to see le tour Eiffel but declined to stand in the very long line for a ride upward. Same with Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and the Musee D'Orsay -- next time! It seemed that since we were there for such a short time, it was not worth waiting hours for any one attraction. Instead, we just took in whatever we could by strolling the lovely grounds, a great tourist activity in which to indulge without young children who may not yet consider aimlessly walking around any city to be a pleasurable vacation activity. However, it's what Gerry and I enjoy most, in London as well as Paris. Also on our strolling - but - not - stopping list were areas like the Place Vendome, Palais Royal, l'arc de Triomphe, Tuileries, and Centre Pompidou.

We got to Louvre at 9am before the crowds and spent hours in there on Saturday, admiring Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, and so on and so forth. To read on the plane, I took along Girl With a Pearl Earring and Girl in Hyacinth Blue, in light of which, I had hoped to see Vermeer's Lace Maker while in the Louvre, but that wing was closed. Worse luck. I thought of Ben and Sam in the basement of the Louvre which was excavated in 1985 to reveal the foundations and the moat of the old (12th C) Louvre Fortress. There is also an incredibly detailed scale model of the Louvre Castle (as seen in the Duc de Berry's "Tres Riches Heures," October):

In search of lunch, we passed a couple of interesting looking Irish Pubs: The James Joyce (near out hotel) and Kitty O'Shea's (near Place Vendome). We considered Harry's Bar but in the end decided on Cafe Le Sarah Bernhardt before taking the Metro out to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. On the way out we used the Pere Lachaise Metro stop, which was fine; but on the way back we used the Gambetta stop and found that to be a really charming area. At the cemetery, we paid our respects to Colette, Heloise & Abelard, Proust, and, of course, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde:

It was all very romantic and restful. We wandered along the Seine, and Gerry bought a Van Gogh knock-off from a street vendor, his birthday present to himself. Pretty cool to have your birthday in Paris; for proof, see date on above photo! My birthday present, a week early, was a bottle of L'Air du Temps that I have used sparingly over the years. Although Paris is often listed with all the world destination cities -- London, New York, Rome, Tokyo, etc. -- I certainly did not find it to be an in - your - face bustling metropolis. Not that I've ever been to Rome or Tokyo, but I do know what it's like trying to make your way down the sidewalks in London or New York, and even Philadelphia on a busy day. Paris was nothing like that. A few crowded Metro rides, but otherwise, incredibly calm and mellow. We had a wonderful time. The flights were tiresome, but we suffered only minimal jet lag on the way over and none at all coming home. Now why haven't we been back? My L'Air du Temps is nearly finished . . . then we absolutely must return for more!

For daily updates on contemporary Paris,
check out these fun pages
where my friend Rozena C writes & translates:
Messy Nessy Chic & My Little Paris

~~ HAPPY BASTILLE DAY! ~~

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, July 28th

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