The Little Door

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Carriage House in University City, West Philadelphia
Here is the Little Door
Lift up the latch; O lift!
We need not wander more,
but enter with our gift . . . "
~ Chesterton

"Strive to enter through
the narrow door:
for many, I tell you,
will try to enter
and will not be able."
~ Luke 13: 22

[L: The Cutest Playhouse
in all of Philadelphia!]


There are numerous symbolic doors in literature: opening, closing, revolving, inviting, forbidding, remaining locked forever. As I read on a poster once, "There are as many doors as there are desires." Here are four of the most meaningful doors that I have come across in my reading:

1. In Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird,
a door representing one's own humanity:

"We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in the rooms you've already been in. Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer's job is to see what's behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words -- not just any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

"You can't do this without discovering your own true voice, and you can't find your true voice and peer behind the door and report honestly and clearly to us if your parents are reading over your shoulder. They are probably the ones who told you not to open that door in the first place. . . .

"'Why, though?' my students ask, staring at me intently. 'Why are we supposed to open all these doors? Why are we supposed to tell the truth in our own voice?'

. . . And it's wonderful to watch someone finally open that forbidden door that has kept him or her away. What gets exposed is not people's baseness but their humanity. It turns out that the truth, or reality, is our home" (198 - 200).

2. In Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "Bluebeard,"
a door representing privacy:

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see…. Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

Lamott's words give me courage when my self - editor starts taking over. Her metaphor reminds the writer that keeping a lock on the door does not guarantee safety. Any more than opening it wide insures disaster. In fact, opening up may well put you in less danger, not more. So go ahead and grant yourself the freedom of self - acceptance. However, as Millay warns, just don't go bashing down doors that aren't yours to open. That's not the path to authenticity or humanity.

3. In Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law,"
a door representing the Law:

"Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. . . . the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but . . . he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for waiting for days and years."

Nearing the end of his life, the man asks the gatekeeper, "so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” And the gatekeeper answers: “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” Can it be true? Following the parable, a discussion of its meaning takes place between K and a priest. The priest points out that perhaps the Door Before the Law can never be shut, and he reminds K that when the man "sits down on the stool by the side the door and stays there for the rest of his life, he does it of his own free will."

Of course my sympathy always lies with the Man Before the Law, never with the bossy, small-minded gatekeeper. Yet I can't shake my mixed feelings about the man's predicament. Yes, the Law can be contrary; we all know that. But how can he allow himself to sit so quietly, never growing impatient at the waiting, the impotence, the lack of useful information? Why doesn't his reach exceed his grasp? It should.

4. In E. B. White's essay, "The Door,"
a door representing (in)sanity:

"First they would teach you the prayers and the Psalms, and that would be the right door(the one with the circle) and the long sweet words with the holy sound, and that would be the one to jump at to get where the food was. Then one day you jumped and it didn't give way, so that all you got was the bump on the nose, and the first bewilderment, the first young bewilderment. . . .

"You wouldn't want me, standing here, to tell you, would you, about my friend the poet (deceased) who said, 'My heart has followed all my days something I cannot name'? (It had the circle on it.) And like many poets, although few so beloved, he is gone. It killed him, the jumping. First, of course, there were the preliminary bouts, the convulsions, and the calm and the willingness.

"I remember the door with the picture of the girl on it (only it was spring), her arms outstretched in loveliness, her dress (it was the one with the circle on it) uncaught, beginning the slow, clear, blinding cascade-and I guess we would all like to try that door again, for it seemed like the way and for a while it was the way, the door would open and you would go through winged and exalted (like any rat) and the food would be there, the way the Professor had it arranged, everything O.K., and you had chosen the right door for the world was young. The time they changed that door on me, my nose bled for a hundred hours--how do you like that, Madam? Or would you prefer to show me further through this so strange house, or you could take my name and send it to me, for although my heart has followed all my days something I cannot name, I am tired of the jumping and I do not know which way to go, Madam, and I am not even sure that I am not tired beyond the endurance of man (rat, if you will) and have taken leave of sanity. What are you following these days, old friend, after your recovery from the last bump? What is the name, or is it something you cannot name?"

If you have a moment, to read the entire essay, you'll find an eerily broken-hearted description of the disjunction between perception and reality. I have kept it in my folder of favorites for many years, something to reread periodically as I follow my own heart's quest for something I cannot name. As radio / telvision personality Clifton Fadiman summed it up, "E. B. White [better known as the author of Charlotte's Web] never again wrote anything like 'The Door.' Nobody has done so."

To conclude, I'll tag on a couple of German vocabulary words whose connection you will appreciate: the first, weltschmerz, particularly in relation to E. B. White's essay of pain and distortion; the second, torschlusspanik, to Kafka's Man Before the Law whose doomed life illustrates the very concept:

weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) noun meaning world-pain or world weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state.

torschlusspanik (TOR - schluss - panic) noun describing the door-shutting panic experienced at the thought that a door between oneself and life's opportunities is closing forever.

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How to Keep on Hoping

"Girl With Red Balloon: There is Always Hope"
By contemporary British graffiti artist, Banksy.]

" . . . in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart."
~Louise Bogan, 1897 - 1970
Poet Laureate of the United States, 1945-46
When my heart is aching for the world's lost heart, I turn to novels, essays, and poetry. If you are feeling sick at heart, one writer you can count on to repair some of the damage is Barbara Kingsolver. Never shamefaced, Kingsolver is a consistent advocate of common sense and social justice. Embedded within the narrative of her novel, Animal Dreams, are a number of letters written to the main character, Codi Noline, from her sister Hallie who has involved herself with life - risking work in Nicaragua. Codi, conflicted and searching for meaning in her life back home, wonders how it is that her sister is "not afraid of loving and losing," how she retains her composure and determination, always moving forward with certainty. Hallie writes back:

"What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive. You keep your eyes open, you see this damned-to-hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, 'What life can I live that will let me breathe in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?' . . .the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides" (Animal Dreams, 224, 299).

Hallie's metaphor of being on the road and knowing how to drive reminds me of the E. L. Doctorow passage that Anne Lamott quotes in Bird by Bird: " 'writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you are going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you" (Bird by Bird, 18). Life can work that way too.

Even more compelling than the driving metaphor is Hallie's description of running down the hallway of hope, touching the walls on both sides. I can almost remember that sensation from childhood, the rush that came from stretching my arms out to touch both sides of a narrow corridor at the same time. Likewise, I recall the intoxicating sensation of running outside, trailing my fingers along the borders on either side of an overgrown path or between two rows of tall vegetables in the garden. The current summer movie, The Last Airbender includes a similar scene, filmed from overhead so that the audience can see Aang, the little Child Avatar running between two hedgerows, arms outstretched, fingertips spread wide.

Hallie's simple hope for the world -- elementary kindness -- resembles the wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: "Please -- a little less love, and a little more common decency" (from the Prologue of his novel Slapstick). I guess calling it common decency is just an ironic play on words, since experience teaches us that it is one of the most uncommon sentiments available, despite being so necessary to peace and order. All we have to do is glance around -- international strife, national crisis, local incivility, anywhere at all -- to see how right Matthew Arnold was when he wrote in 1864 that "the general practice of the world" reposes not on common decency or common sense but on very inadequate ideas:

"The mass of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its vortex . . . But it is only by remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any service; and it is only by the greatest sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last convincing even the practical man of his sincerity, that he can escape misunderstandings which perpetually threaten him" (Matthew Arnold, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time").

It's helpful to remind ourselves that the world often seems crazy and inadequate because -- guess what? -- it is crazy and inadequate at certain times, in certain places. Speaking of inadequate ideas, too bad Arnold has to sound so classist and masculine, but what can we do at this point, aside from overlooking his gender exclusivity: "mankind," "himself," and so on? Perhaps he knew not what he did. It does seem that he's trying to say the same thing as Louise Bogan (above) about giving the world back its lost heart, about upgrading to "adequate," about leaving everything that we touch somehow better than the way we found it. We have to keep trying to do that, to stay collected and sincere, to stay within that small circle of seeing things as they are if at all possible, to keep running down the hallway touching the walls on both sides.

So how to keep hoping? How to figure out what to hope for? How to keep from selling out to the general churlishness?

Send answers soon!

Art Appreciation Sketch: Perspective Down the Hallway

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Butterfly Collection

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My only sketch, profile of heaven is a large blue sky,
larger than the biggest I have seen in June --
and in it are my friends -- all of them -- every one them."
~ Emily Dickinson ~
[small original acrylic painted by friend Dot Menard, in 1977]
"Hey, Summertime!" What is it about butterflies? We can't seem to resist chasing, catching, collecting, displaying, even planting flowers especially to attract them. A number of butterfly images still linger in my mind from childhood, particularly the mid - 60s Coca Cola song and television ad in which a carefree girl swings on a rope way out over the edge of a creek:

"Birds and bees and all the flowers and trees,
Fishes on the line,
Girls and guys and yellow butterflies
Saying 'Hello summertime.'
Ice-cold Coke on the back of my throat
Saying "Hello summertime.
Hey summertime, hey summertime
You and me and summertime
It's the Real Thing." (emphasis added)

Okay, that was television, but there are recollections from books as well, such as the magical luna moths that appear in both Then There Were Five (follow-up to The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright) and A Girl of the Limberlost (Hoosier classic by Gene Stratton-Porter). More recently, Up From Jericho Tel (by award winning novelist E. L. Konigsburg) contains not only a ceremonial burial for a stricken luna moth -- "Fly. Fluttter. Falter. Fall" -- but also the secret password: "Papillon!"

And speaking of Papillon! who could forget this little poem:

"Non. That means no.
Oui. That means yes.
And papillon. That means butterfly.
Oui, non, Papillon -- a very pretty rhyme."

from The Witch Family
by Eleanor Estes (1906 - 1988)
American Children's Author
Newbery Medalist & Honor Recipient

(In addition to the butterfly poem, The Witch Family also features the amazingly literate bumblebee: Malachi the Spelling Bee, a very impressive character indeed!)

A few years later into my collection came Butterflies Are Free, a 1972 film (based on a 1969 play of the same title by American playwright Leonard Gershe, 1922 - 2002). The movie stars Goldie Hawn as Jill, and Edward Albert (son of Eddie from Green Acres fame) as Don. I didn't go to many movies back in those days, but this one I did see at the cinema in 1973. I also saw the play performed live at a St. Louis dinner theatre in 1975, with Angela Cartwright (from Make Room for Daddy & Lost in Space) cast as the female lead. Goldie Hawn, so charming, would be a hard act for anyone, even Angela, to follow, but still I remember both versions favorably.

The title derives from Jill's favorite quotation: "I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies." When she claims that these words are from Mark Twain, Don politely points out that, in fact, Skimpole is not a Twain character but a Dickens character, from the novel Bleak House. Silly Jill; she's such an airhead!

Running through my mind along with the Coca Cola song is the tune that Don sings to Jill (music & lyrics by American musical theatre composer Stephen Schwartz, b. 1948):

"I knew the day you met me
I could love you if you let me
Though you touched my check
And said how easy you'd forget me
You said Butterflies Are Free
And so are we."



















Additional items in my Butterfly Collection include
1. the fanciful pictures above and below
by author and illustrator Cooper Edens, known for his whimsical artistry (see Green Tiger Press / Laughing Elephant)

2. this 1969 favorite from John Denver:

Catch Another Butterfly
Do you remember days not so very long ago
When the world was run by people twice your size?
And the days were full of laughter
And the nights were full of stars
And when you grew tired you could close your eyes

Yes the stars were there for wishing
And the wind was there for kites
And the morning sun was there for rise and shine
And even if the sniffles kept you
Home from school in bed
You couldn't hardly stay there after nine

And I wonder if the smell of morning's faded
What happened to the robin's song
That sparkled in the sky?
Where's all the water gone
That tumbled down a stream?
Will I ever catch another butterfly?

Do you remember campouts right in your own backyard?
Wondering how airplanes could fly
And the hours spent just playin'
With a funny rock you found
With crystal specks as blue as all the sky

And I wonder if the smell of morning's faded
What happened to the robin's song
That sparkled in the sky?
Where's all the water gone
That tumbled down a stream?
Will I ever catch another butterfly?

Now I watch my son, he's playin' with his toys
He's happy, I give him all I can
But I can't help feelin'
Just a little tingly inside
When I hear him say he wants to be a man

And I wonder if the smell of morning's faded
What happened to the robin's song
That sparkled in the sky?
Where's all the water gone
That tumbled down a stream?
Will I ever catch another butterfly?
Will I ever catch another butterfly?

lyrics & music by John Denver (1943 – 1997)
born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.
American singer - songwriter
Poet Laureate of Colorado, 1977



















3. this #5 hit from 1966:

Elusive Butterfly
You might wake up some mornin'
To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind
And if you're quick enough to rise
You'll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow
Out on the new horizon
You may see the floating motion of a distant pair of wings
And if the sleep has left your ears
You might hear footsteps running through an open meadow

Don't be concerned, it will not harm you
It's only me pursuing somethin' I'm not sure of
Across my dreams with nets of wonder
I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love

You might have heard my footsteps
Echo softly in the distance through the canyons of your mind
I might have even called your name
As I ran searching after something to believe in
You might have seen me runnin'
Through the long-abandoned ruins of the dreams you left behind
If you remember something there
That glided past you followed close by heavy breathin'

Don't be concerned, it will not harm you
It's only me pursuing somethin' I'm not sure of
Across my dreams with nets of wonder
I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love

lyrics & music by Bob Lind (b. 1942)
born Robert Neale Lind
American singer - songwriter

4. and to conclude, another brief
poem by Emily Dickinson:

The Butterfly upon the Sky,
That doesn't know its Name
And hasn't any tax to pay
And hasn't any Home
Is just as high as you and I,
And higher, I believe,
So soar away and never sigh
And that's the way to grieve --

*************************
5. Oui, non, Papillon!


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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

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Wise Fool

"Who is it that can tell me who I am?" ~King Lear

Favorite Museum:
The Lady Lever Art Gallery
Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England
Gerry and Ben at the Lady Lever, Ten Years Ago
The names alone are enough to take one's breath away: Cordelia's Portion, Lady Lever, Port Sunlight! Port Sunlight is one of the most charming towns in all of England, a nearly perfect early twentieth century model village. Its premier feature is the jewel - like Lady Lever Gallery, which contains an amazingly extensive collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings, including Ford Madox Brown's tableau of the tragedy of King Lear, entitled: Cordelia's Portion. When touring the gallery, I like to save this painting until last and stand before it in awe for awhile, marveling at the understated intensity of Lear's sadly fractured family and needlessly divided kingdom.

Favorite Painting:
Cordelia's Portion (c. 1866)
by Ford Madox Brown (1821 - 1893)
English painter of moral and historical subjects
loosely connected to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
To the left are the malevolent sisters, Goneril & Regan, staring each other down; and kneeling at their feet, the Dukes of Cornwall & Albany, Lear's corrupt sons-in-law. To the right, are the fickle Duke of Burgandy; dear Cordelia, Pure of Heart, whose "love's more richer than her tongue," and the loyal King of France. In the center is King Lear, dejected, misguided; and at his feet, the Map of the Kingdom, divided. In this painting, the Fool is only a minor character. You can see his blue hood if you look closely behind the dark - haired sister.

However, in numerous other depictions of Lear's tragic demise, the Fool is a major player. Likewise, the Fool is central to the action of Shakespeare's play. Referring to himself as "Lear's shadow," Lear's Fool is a character of wisdom, loyalty, and comprehension, who grasps the mixed motivations of all the other characters. In this next painting, the artist dramatically captures the Fool's ability to mirror Lear’s flawed judgment:

King Lear and the Fool in the Storm (c. 1851)
by William Dyce (1806 - 1864)
distinguished Scottish artist
advocate of public art education
No study of the Fool would be complete without the following poem that my father shared with me when I was in high school. I wish I knew more of the story behind his giving it to me: when did he first learn it, did someone pass it on to him or where did he come across it -- in a book or a magazine or a class? My only reference now is the typed copy that has been stored in one of my high school notebooks since graduation. In turn, I passed this poem on to my son Ben during his junior high years at St. Peter's School, Philadelphia, where the students were required to memorize and recite a poem every month. Ben and Sam became quite adept at managing increasingly long works, and I often urged them to choose from among my old favorites. Ben won first place for this one:

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done, the king
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool.
His pleading voice arose: "O, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool,
The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,
Be merciful to me a fool!

"Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O, Lord we stay;
Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end'
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept --
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say --
Who knows how grandly it had rung?

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders -- oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou O, Lord,
Be merciful to me a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The king, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

by Edward Rowland Sill, 1841 - 1887
American Poet

Court Jester, by Dan Rosenbluth
"They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore."

For more on the significance of foolishness,
see my recent blog post on the Quotidian Kit:
"What Shall He Tell That Son":

"Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools."

~Carl Sandburg

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Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, June 28, 2010

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Love In The Open Hand

MAKE THAT A TREE HOUSE
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS!

"Is love rice in a jar, no need to give back an egg?"
I really liked The Joy Luck Club; then I liked The Kitchen God's Wife even more; and The Hundred Secret Senses even more than that. Good Better Best. (The Bonesetter's Daughter, not so much; but that's okay.) In all these novels, Amy Tan has created so many moments of pure magic, you might find it difficult to choose a favorite, but for me it's easy: Chapter 12 in The Hundred Secret Senses: "The Best Time To Eat Duck Eggs."

In this chapter, Kwan tells Libby about the thousand-year duck eggs, buried years before in her previous life as Miss Moo, when she shared an understated romance with the peddler, Zeng who provided her with empty canning jars for storing the lime-cured eggs. Each week they exchange these tokens: a jar for Miss Moo and an egg for Zeng, until times get hard and food of any kind, including eggs, has become scarce. Even though Miss Moo no longer has any pickled eggs to share, kindly Zeng proffers the jar, this time not empty but filled with rice to see her through the lean stretch. She is overwhelmed by his generosity: "So heavy with feelings! Was this love? Is love rice in a jar, no need to give back an egg?" (181).

To answer Kwan's question: Yes! That's love, pure and simple, no strings attached, no angle, no need to give back an egg. Love in the open hand, wishing to help, wishing not to hurt. The same love described by Edna St. Vincent Millay in her tender sonnet:

Sonnet XI
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:



"Down in
the meadow
where the
cowslips grow"

by Kate Greenaway
(1846 - 1901)
English children's
book illustrator





Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have!—And these are all for you."
~from the sonnet sequence Fatal Interview
A few months ago, when I mentioned this sonnet on my daily blog, I knew that it deserved another, longer look. Millay is undoubtedly one of the the most-mentioned writers in my literary discussions, and always one of my top choices for desert island reading. I know you're supposed to say The Bible or Shakespeare, but I'd be more inclined to pack the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

What I admire about "Sonnet XI" is its innocence and optimism, a poem to read when you fear that what you have to offer, the things that you hold out are not being accepted, not even when you say, "these are all for you." And what are those things? Not diamond rings so much as thoughts, ideas, values, dreams, favorite poems, past experiences, rice in a jar, cowslips in a hat -- all the things that add to up to your own particular way of being in the world. How sad the thought of offering honest companionship and getting the message, "Oh, no, you should be a different way than what you are."

This sonnet says that you deserve someone who offers you "Love in the open hand / no thing but that." However lovely the gifts and delightful the tokens, they should always be offered freely out of tenderness and a desire for your company -- just the way you are -- never as a way to control or "improve." And better yet, when you offer your affection and your deepest hopes and dreams, "ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt," they should be accepted freely -- not scrutinized or analyzed or held up against the light or laughed at or brushed aside or put on hold. Kwan's story says to avoid the selfish lovers who give "only enough to take back what they wanted from me" (181). Not all are as trustworthy and pure of heart as dear Mr. Zeng.

Take care of your heart.

Knowing, as I'm sure you do by now, that one of the imperatives for this blog is a poem for every poem, here are a few others to go along with Millay's sonnet.

First, this song by Donovan:

Turquoise
Your smile - beams like sunlight - on a gull's wing
and the leaves - dance and play - after you
Take my hand - and hold it - as you would a flower
take care with my heart - oh darling - she's made of glass

Your eyes - feel like silence - resting on me
and the birds - cease to sing - when you rise
Ride easy - your fairy stallion - you have mounted
take care how you fly - my precious - you might fall down

In the pastel skies - the sunset - I have wandered
with my eyes and ears and heart - strained to the full
I know I tasted the essence - in the few days
take care who you love - my precious - he might not know

words and music by Donovan Leitch (b. 1946)
British singer, songwriter, guitarist

sung by Joan Baez (b. 1941)
American folk singer, songwriter, activist.

Second, this childhood reverie:

I Shall Come Back
I shall be coming back to you
From seas, rivers, sunny meadows,
Glens that hold secrets:
I shall come back with my hands full
Of light and flowers....
I shall bring back things I have picked up,
Traveling this road or the other,
Things found by the sea or in the pinewood.
There will be a pine-cone in my pocket,
Grains of pink sand between my fingers.
I shall tell you of a golden pheasant’s
Feather....
Will you know me?

composed at age 10 - 12, by Hilda Conkling (1910 - 86)
American child poet

And third, this long poem:

THE PICNIC (click on poem to enlarge text for reading)
John Logan (1923 - 87)
American poet and teacher

The Picnic
It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring.
Ruth was third on my list of seven girls
But the first two were gone (Betty) or else
Had someone (Ellen had accepted Doug).
Indian Gully the last day of school;
Girls make the lunches for the boys too.
I wrote a note to Ruth in algebra class
Day before the test. She smiled, and nodded.
We left the cars and walked through the young corn
The shoots green as paint and the leaves like tongues
Trembling. Beyond the fence where we stood
Some wild strawberry flowered by an elm tree
And Jack in the pulpit was olive ripe.
A blackbird fled as I crossed, and showed
A spot of gold or red under its quick wing.
I held the wire for Ruth and watched the whip
Of her long, striped skirt as she followed.
Three freckles blossomed on her thin, white back
Underneath the loop where the blouse buttoned.
We went for our lunch away from the rest,
Stretched in the new grass, our heads close
Over unknown things wrapped up in wax papers.
Ruth tried for the same, I forget what it was,
And our hands were together. She laughed,
And a breeze caught the edge of her little
Collar and the edge of her brown close hair
That touched my cheek. I turned my face in-
to the gentle fall. I saw how sweet it smelled.
She didn’t move her head or take her hand.
I felt a soft caving in my stomach
As at the top of the highest slide,
When I had been a child, but was not afraid,
And did not know why my eyes moved with wet
As I brushed her cheek with my lips and brushed
Her lips with my own lips. She said to me
Jack, Jack, different than I had ever heard,
Because she wasn’t calling me, I think,
Or telling me. She used my name to
Talk in another way I wanted to know.
She laughed again and then she took her hand;
I gave her what we both had touched; can’t
Remember what it was, and we ate the lunch.
Afterward we walked in the small, cool creek
Our shoes off, her skirt hitched, and she smiling,
My pants rolled, and then we climbed up the high
Side of Indian Gully and looked
Where we had been, our hands together again.
It was then some bright thing came in my eyes,
Starting at the back of them and flowing
Suddenly through my head and down my arms
And stomach and my bare legs that seemed not
To stop in feet, not to feel the red earth
Of the Gully, as though we hung in a
Touch of birds. There was a word in my throat
With the feeling and I said, It’s beautiful.
Yes, she said, and I felt the sound and word
In my hand join the sound and word in hers
As in one name said, or in one cupped hand.
We put back on our shoes and socks and we
Sat in the grass awhile, crosslegged, under
A blowing tree, not saying anything.
And Ruth played with shells she found in the creek,
As I watched. Her small wrist which was so sweet
To me turned by her breast and the shells dropped
Green, white, blue, easily into her lap,
Passing light through themselves. She gave the pale
Shells to me, and got up and touched her hips
With her light hands, and we walked down slowly
To play the school games with the others.

I discovered "The Picnic" my Senior year in high school, in the anthology I have mentioned a few times before: Some Haystacks Don't Even Have Any Needle. I suppose it is the "apples in her skirt" in Millay's poem that brings to mind "the long, striped skirt" worn by the girl Ruth in Logan's poem, and "the loop where the blouse buttoned." Ruth is the poet's date for the school picnic; and although he admits that she was only "third on my list of seven girls," he is pleased to spend the day with her and finds himself falling in love for the very first time:

We went for our lunch away from the rest,
Stretched in the new grass, our heads close . . .
And our hands were together. She laughed,
And a breeze caught the edge of her little
Collar and the edge of her brown, loose hair . . .
I felt a soft caving in my stomach
As at the top of the highest slide
When I had been a child, but was not afraid . . .

Similar to the "cowslips in a hat," described in Millay's sonnet, Logan portrays Ruth sifting sea shells and offering them as a souvenir of the special day:

And Ruth played with some shells from the creek,
As I watched. Her small wrist which was so sweet
To me turned by her breast and the shells dropped
Green, white, blue, easily into her lap,
Passing light through themselves. She gave the pale
Shells to me, and got up and touched her hips
With her light hands, and we walked down slowly
To play the school games with the others.















Hanging Out in the Tree House Before the Prom


COME BACK FOR
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, June 14, 2010

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

Play With This!

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Take the scenic route: St. Peter's Way
A Pedestrian Friendly Greenway in the Middle of a Busy City
Looking for the perfect childhood?
You can almost find it here,
on this beautiful street in Philadelphia

*************************
"Wow . . . When did this happen?
You're like a little gnome to me now."


You may have seen this picture
last month, when I devoted my
book blog to
"Catching Up On Anne Lamott."
Here it is one more time,
a current photo of my sons
towering over with me,
captioned with Sam Lamott's
sweet "little gnome" remark.




And this long ago picture:
[Porch at left can be
found on street above]
Back When They
Were the Gnomes.

Not forgetting, of course,
that back when they were
the Gnomes, I was the Ogre!


Actually, I kind of had forgotten that, but was reminded of it the other day when looking through a collection of Anna Quindlen's Newsweek columns. In one of her many essays on child rearing, she says that "Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay." Looks like this is going to be one of those essays! I was touched by Quindlen's truthfulness about trying to be the perfect parent, and accidentally focusing on all the wrong things:

"Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the 'Remember-When-Mom-Did' Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?"(Anna Quindlen, "Raising Children," Newsweek, March 2006).

I showed this to Ben and Sam and had them read it, so that they could see some things from my angle. They still love to punish me for not letting them watch the movie Billy Elliot when it first came out and for the time when I refused to play hide & seek with them at bedtime, and for the time when I got mad and took all their toys off the shelf and threw them into a big pile on the bed, shouting "play with this; play with this; play with this" -- after they had complained to me that they had nothing to play with. These are the embarrassing things they said they'd make me include if I ever decided to write an essay about the parenting errors I made during their childhood. Well, now I've confessed voluntarily, so no one has to make me. Ha! (See also: "Perfect Parent? Not!")

Rereading Quindlen's essay makes me feel less like an ogre or a hopelessly flawed parenting figure and more just like a normal ol' mom out there learning by trial and error. It allows me to forgive myself a little bit, just like when I read Anne Lamott. Because -- guess what? You can't promise to be perfect; and you're not really an ogre, after all.

Her example of driving off without the food at McDonald's reminded me of something that the boys don't even remember. Sam wasn't born yet; Ben was just six months old, and I had taken him with me to pick up a package at the post office. The obvious thing to do was make a request for re-delivery to the house, especially since it was a large package (full of gifts and toys that my sister had sent from Germany). But I suppose to make the trip worthwhile, I was determined to complete the task myself.

Somehow or other -- I don't even remember how -- I managed to get the big box and Baby Ben back out to the car, tuck Ben properly into his car seat, put the car in reverse: crunch! What? It was the package, still sitting on the parking lot behind the car! Luckily this small-scale collision caused no damage to the Christmas presents, and no one saw me do such a stupid thing! But now you know, and obviously I haven't forgotten. Even now, every time I pull into that post office parking lot, I am reminded of those days when getting the child in and out of the car, and getting myself in and out of the building seemed like such a mission accomplished that I completely overlooked my reason for being there in the first place. Well, raising children does require focus! And, indeed, the baby is more important than the toys! So maybe I wasn't too far off track, just not fully functioning.

Quindlen's essay closes with the heartwarming prospect of our kids growing up into our favorite human beings:

"Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't . . . I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.

"And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

"That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were." (Quindlen, "Raising Children")


Here are a few related ideas about "quality time"
from some of my favorite writers:

Peggy Jones and Pam Young (aka The Slob Sisters): "I had never agreed with the idea that it was 'quality time' that was important when raising children. I think it's quantity time that counts. A child can't be expected to concentrate all the important things he or see feels and thinks into some arbitrary hour or day that a parent designates as 'quality time.' . . . In the end, the person who is there all the time is the one who gives quality time" (Get Your Act Together, 133 - 34).

Al Franken: "Quantity time is quality time. My dad never took me horseback riding. We never went white-water rafting. He never gave me the seven-thousand-dollar fully functional scale model of a Ferrari that I coveted when I was twelve. But he did spend time with me. Not necessarily quality time, but quantity time, hours and hours and hours of nonproductive, aimless quantity time.

"What did we do with this quantity time? Mainly, we watched television, hours and hours and hours of television. My fondest memories of childhood are of sitting on the couch watching comedians on TV with my parents. . ."

Funny Franken goes on the describe his father's laughing fits, pipe-smoking habit, and eventual death of lung cancer at age eighty-five, concluding that "it was this quantity time spent with my father, laughing and coughing up phlegm, that inspired me in choosing my life's' work: making people laugh and raising money for the American Lung Association" (Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness, xiv - xv).

Barbara Ehrenreich: "Forget 'quality time.' I tried it once on May 15, 1978. I know because it is still penciled into my 1978 appointment book. 'Kids,' I announced, 'I have forty-five minutes. Let's have some quality time!' They looked at me dully in the manner of rural retirees confronting a visitor from the Census Bureau. Finally, one of them said, in a soothing tone, 'Sure, Mom, but could it be after Gilligan's Island?'

" . . . The only thing that works is low-quality time: time in which you -- and they -- are ostensibly doing something else . . . "

Ehrenreich's essay draws to a conclusion with this amusing yet truthful advice: "Do not be afraid they will turn on you, someday, for being a lousy parent. They will turn on you. They will also turn on the full-time parents, the cookie-making parents, the Little League parents, and the all-sacrificing parents. If you are at work every day when they get home from school, they will turn on you, eventually, for being a selfish, neglectful careerist. If you are at home every day, eagerly awaiting their return, they will turn on you for being a useless, unproductive layabout. This is all part of the normal process of 'individuation,' in which one adult ego must be trampled into the dust in order for one fully formed teenage ego to emerge. Accept it."

Like Quindlen, Ehrenreich points out that one day, just on the other side of those teenage ego years, our children will relate to us as adults. They may start out as Little Gnomes, but that doesn't last long. As children they are just smaller versions of that bigger person who is soon to come. "Your job is to help them . . . get on with being that larger person, and in a form that you might like to know."

All Ehrenreich passages are from
the essay "Stop Ironing the Diapers,"
found in her book The Worst Years of Our Lives
(see pp 146 - 48)

STAY TUNED FOR
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, May 28th

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

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