“Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
—Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957), Greek novelist and philosopher, best known for ZorbatheGreek.
Whenever I think of Labor Day—not just today, the official day of celebration, but at any time of the year—I hear Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing.”
In spirit, it remains one of the most comprehensive and inclusive celebrations of labor I know. Whitman exalts the varied carols of America: mechanics, carpenters, boatmen, masons, shoemakers, wood-cutters, mothers, wives, girls, fellows—
“Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else.”
Even though Whitman’s intent was to celebrate all labor, I’ve often wished he had stretched his litany further: to nurses and caregivers, to social workers and librarians, to the quiet hands who stock shelves at dawn or clean buildings long after everyone else has gone home. So many vital songs go unsung. And yet, by inference, perhaps he did include them—since he was singing America itself, and since his deepest wish was to be the poet of Democracy, the poet of the people, all people.
I especially wish–maybe with a touch of occupational selfishness–that he had included educators—those whose labor shapes every other voice in the chorus. Educators labor not with saw or chisel, but with patience, persistence, and vision—tools just as demanding as Whitman’s mechanics and masons. Their labor is not confined to the classroom or the clock. For many—certainly for me—it was twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I went to bed thinking about my students and woke up thinking about them again. Lessons, endless papers, worries, hopes—and encouragement, too—followed me everywhere. Teaching was never a job; it was a calling that claimed my whole self. Like countless other educators, I gave my students my all—and then more.
Educators also give second chances, ignite new beginnings, and shape futures that might otherwise have been lost.
A day never passes that I don’t think about one or more of the bridge builders who taught me—my third-grade teacher who handed me Robert Frost’s poems and lit a lifelong love of language, or my high school biology teacher who welcomed us to his desk day after day, giving us not just knowledge but his time, his presence, himself. My college and university professors, too, showed me that education was not a finish line but a lifelong pursuit. Their labor was quiet, personal, and lasting.
I know this firsthand. I walked the bridge that educators built for me, and in time I became a builder myself—pouring my own labor into students, carrying them forward just as others once carried me.
And when I needed a bridge of my own, the Virginia Community College System gave me not just one opportunity, but two. In 1998 after I left the Library of Congress, it opened the door for me to finally live my childhood dream of teaching English. And years later, through the Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship Program, it offered me something even rarer—a second chance to complete research I had set aside nearly forty years earlier. That truth has reshaped how I see education itself. It’s not only about beginnings. It’s also about returnings. Sometimes, opportunity does knock twice. The Virginia Community College System gave me mine.
It gave me that second chance with Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina. What began as a graduate paper in 1973—sparked by the encouragement of mentors like Calhoun Winton and J. A. Leo Lemay—has at last found its full voice. The forgotten essays of colonial Charleston have their rightful place in American literary tradition, and I have had the rare privilege of finishing the work I once left behind.
That’s why I dedicated Unmasking The Humourist to the Virginia Community College System and its educators:
―For the Virginia Community College System― ─────────────── Dedicated to transforming lives and expanding possibilities throughout its 23 colleges, proving that education is not just about learning, but about unlocking potential, shaping futures, and ensuring that no great idea goes unfinished.
And because words alone weren’t enough, I decided to act on that dedication. I have never forgotten the benefactors—sometimes unseen, sometimes unknown—who helped carry me across my own bridge: from a coal camp childhood to a college classroom, to a professor’s life I once only dreamed of. Their quiet generosity made my journey possible.
All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to The Virginia Foundation for Community College Education
On this Labor Day, I hear Whitman’s chorus again. It grows stronger, more complete, when we hear the steady song of educators—singing what belongs to them, and to none else. Their song is the bridge that carries not just students, but all of us, forward.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), Nobel Prize-winning poet and one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century. His major works explore spiritual desolation, renewal, and the search for meaning.
Once upon a time, in a previous life long, long ago, I started a side hustle. It lasted several years and could have lasted longer. But here’s the thing. It did so well that I had to choose between it and my federal career. It was impossible to live in both worlds. I had to choose one or the other. I chose my federal career.
But linger with me for a second, and let me tell you about something I learned when Potomac Research Organization (PRO) was my hustle. Simply put, I did research, mainly using the Library of Congress and the National Archives. One area that brought lots of clients my way, sometimes high-paying ones, was finding people.
I had a solid track record for locating lost heirs, sometimes in cemetery plots. But that was okay: I still found them and took pride in knowing that my sleuthing had paid off even though previous efforts by others–often licensed private investigators–had failed. I attributed my success then–and even now, looking back–to something anecdotal perhaps, but it always proved true. Most people never go too far away from home. Most people stay near their roots, usually within 300 miles or so.
Over and over again, I’d say:
“Tell me where the person was born, and I’ll find the heirs.”
I always did.
Once, I found someone far closer: within a half mile of where my search began. My client was a DC businessman who was adopted at birth. He was looking for his mother. I do not need to bore you with all the details, nor would I even if I could remember them all. Jack–not his real name, but he has to have one–didn’t have a lot of information, but he had enough that I decided to take his case.
● Date of Birth: August 1943. ● Place of Birth: DC. ● Mother’s Maiden Name: Jones (fictitious, just like my client’s first name). ● Mother’s Place of Birth: Iowa.
I started by exploring published cemetery records across the entire state of Iowa. I lucked out. I found one with lots of people who had the same last name as Jack’s mother. Then, I consulted telephone directories and found a possible relative.
I passed the number along to Jack. When he called, he discovered that the woman who answered the phone was his aunt. She put him in touch with his mother, who was living in DC, less than a half mile from where Jack had lived his entire life. You don’t need the subsequent details, but you do need to know that the story had a happy ending. Jack and his mother reconnected, and the last I heard, they were still having clandestine monthly lunches. I always wondered whether Jack eventually found a place in the new life and new family that his mother had carved for herself after he was born. Realistically, I doubt it. Geographically, he and his mother were never more than half a mile apart. Spiritually, however, he had one leg in his familiar adoptive world and the other in his newly discovered birth world. I suppose, though, that Jack was at home, as much as he could ever be, as much as any of us can ever be.
Jack’s truth is true for all of us. The homing instinct is a strong one, and most people, in one way or another, end up going back home. Some people, though, return to their roots only to discover they’re no longer at the place they once knew as home. I’m thinking about people whose education (or social mobility) lifts them into a new world but leaves them hanging between two realities–their roots on one side and their new opportunities on the other. They don’t feel fully at home in either place.
In fact, there’s even a bit of academic writing about it, especially around first-generationcollegestudents, upwardsocialmobility, and immigrantexperiences. Sociologists and memoirists alike talk about the tension:
● Feeling “too educated” or “different” when they go back home.
● Feeling “not polished enough” or “out of step” among the educated elite.
● Constantly negotiating a kind of invisible gap between the two.
Not too surprisingly, there’s a term for people like me: straddlers. I had never heard the term until a student in one of my Creative Writing classes did her book report on Alfred Lubrano’s Limbo: Blue-CollarRoots, White-CollarDreams (2005). Lubrano shows how chasing the American Dream can leave you straddling two worlds—where you’re too educated to go back home, but you never feel quite refined enough for the boardroom. Through his own story and others, he reminds us that success doesn’t always come with a map or a welcome mat.
My student–an Ohio straddler–grew teary-eyed as she gave her report, leaving me teary-eyed, too–a West Virginia straddler, the first in my family to go to college. I could relate. Being a straddler is like living in a kind of cultural no-man’s-land—never entirely belonging again to the old world that spurred you on and never quite accepted by the new world where you landed. It’s a lonely, often bittersweet place.
Ironically, the straddlers I know–mostly community college professors like me–don’t talk about the dilemma that much unless we’re part of a panel or symposium exploring the challenges of first-generation college students. Even then, we focus on the power of education to transform.
In fact, it just occurred to me that until this post, I’ve never talked much about being a straddler either. Even now, it snuck up on me and took me by surprise.
But for writers, being somewhere between two worlds and not feeling really at home in either is perfect material.
One comes to mind immediately: American writer Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. She grew up as the daughter of a dry goods merchant/housewright and then became an overnight literary success equal in popularity to Mark Twain. Yet despite her literary status, while living in Randolph, Massachusetts–the boot factory town where she was born–she wrote to a friend:
“I have survived another Boston luncheon. I’m not literary enough for Boston, but I’m awfully afraid I’ve got to go to a dinner there.” (Kate Upson Clark, before August 1892, Letter 105, The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Edited with Biographical and Critical Introductions by Brent L. Kendrick, 1985)
Or what about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Winter Dreams”? It’s a perfect case study of what it’s like being a straddler. Dexter Green earns the success he dreamed of, but the world he craves still sees him as an outsider. Some doors open, but never all the way.
Even the characters we celebrate—and the writers who created them—know what it means to stand on a shifting patch of ground. You might have a seat at the table, but you can still feel the worn wood of your own kitchen chair in your bones. You might build your fortune and earn your degrees, but somewhere deep down, you remember being the boy who was the caddy at the golf course.
Poets know that truth, too. Robert Frost hints at this quiet but universal dislocation in “The Star-Splitter.” In the poem, Brad McLaughlin grows weary of hugger-mugger farming, burns his house down, and takes the insurance proceeds to buy himself a telescope so that he can explore our place in the universe. Brad spends the rest of his life as a straddler, one leg on his rocky farm and the other somewhere out there between and betwixt the stars:
We’ve looked and looked, but after all where are we? Do we know any better where we are, And how it stands between the night tonight And a man with a smoky lantern chimney? How different from the way it ever stood?
We search, we climb, and we study the stars, but we never completely leave the farm fields where we took our first steps.
Maybe it comes down to nothing more than this. Being human means learning to live with one foot planted deep in the soil of home, and the other reaching, straining, yearning toward something larger—something luminous—just out of reach.
The tension that I’m writing about here and that we all experience whenever we stretch across two worlds—literal or metaphorical—is not a modern invention. It has ancient roots, reaching deep into the earliest reflections on what it means to be human. Across cultures and centuries, writers and thinkers have wrestled with the same essential dilemma that’s central to human existence—the inherent conflict between the flesh and the spirit. Are we ruled by appetite or guided by aspiration? Are we creatures of earth or beings reaching for the divine?
Even an ancient Egyptian text, The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba (c. 2000 BCE), captures the longing to escape the burdens of mortal life. A weary speaker pleads for release, saying:
“Death is to me today like the smell of myrrh.”
Centuries later, the Greek philosopher Plato echoed a similar weariness with bodily existence. In Phaedo (360 BCE), he writes:
“The body is a source of endless trouble to us … it fills us with loves, desires, fears, all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense.”
This longing was not confined to Egyptian prayers or Greek philosophy. In early Christian thought, the tension was just as fierce. The Apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, draws the battle lines plainly:
“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.” (5:17-21)
Clearly, across time and tradition, the yearning to transcend the physical and grasp something eternal has been a defining part of the human story.
Maybe, at the end of the day, it comes down to nothing more than this. It’s not about the Apostle Paul or Plato or the Egyptians. It’s not about Brad or Dexter or Freeman. It’s not about my student or me. It’s not even about Jack.
Maybe, at the end of the day, it’s about all of us.
Maybe we’re all travelers looking for a place to call home, a place to land, sighing a sigh of relief as we say, “I made it.”
Maybe we’re all straddlers caught between two worlds, peering back over our shoulders even as we gaze toward the stars.
We are all different expressions of one reality, different songs of one singer, different dances of one dancer.
–Swami Satchidananda (1914–2002; pioneering spiritual teacher who emphasized the unity of all religions and the interconnectedness of humanity, best known for founding Integral Yoga and promoting peace, love, and harmony globally.)
“Every cloud has a silver lining” is such a cliché that I’m appalled that I’m using it, no less at the beginning of my post. But I am. In a minute, you’ll understand why. For now, though, bear with me while I find out when the cliché was first used. Don’t run off! I’ll be right back after I consult my good friend, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
When I tell you what I found, you’ll be glad that you stayed. The expression started out as a truly original thought:
“Was I deceiv’d, or did a sable cloud Turne forth her silver lining on the night?”
That’s downright beautiful! Who gets the credit? John Milton. He used the phrase in Comus, his 1634 masque in which a virtuous Lady, lost in a magical forest, resists the temptations of the sorcerer Comus, the son of the wine god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe. With a combo like that, do I need to say more? Well, yes, I do, and I will. The “silver lining” in Lady’s dark cloud was the triumph of her chastity and inner strength over vice and deception. There. That says it all.
It took an understandably long, long time before Milton’s original thought veered off in the direction of becoming a cliché, thereby losing its impact. Let’s face it: most people would be challenged to remember Milton’s line, and if they did, they’d probably stumble over sable, perhaps not knowing that it means black or dark.
But don’t worry. Over time, the expression morphed into something more memorable and more understandable. More than two hundred years later, a variation appeared in Samuel Smiles’ Character (1871):
“While we see the cloud, let us not shut our eyes to the silver lining.”
Smiles was well-known for his self-help books, enshrining the basic Victorian values associated with the “gospel of work.”
Things started to speed up in the next decade, when an even more memorable version appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, or the Town of Tutipu (1885):
“Don’t let’s be down-hearted! There’s a silver lining to every cloud.”
That comedic opera went on to become one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre. Little wonder that the line became overused and stale.
And there we have it: the birth of a cliché, with a small amount of its genealogical baggage tossed in for free. How’s that for good news?
Since the rest of this post is free, too, you’re getting a double dose of good news today. Who knows. With luck, maybe you’ll get even more. I hope so.
As for your humble bearer of all this free good news, apparently, I’ve been spreading it for a lifetime. My mother always boasted that I was born smiling, and I’ve kept right on smiling for nearly 77 years. I can’t help myself. Optimism is one of my core values. I guess you might say that I’m hardwired for seeing silver linings. There you have it: my personal good news and my rationale for opening this post with a cliché.
I wish that I could take full credit for seeing life as positively as I do. But I can’t. I have to acknowledge my mother. I have no doubt that while she was carrying me in her womb, she was conjuring up all the positive attributes that she wanted her sixth child to possess, and I’m sure that in addition to her conjurations, she was casting equally powerful spells on me and others by singing Gospels and by reading, praying, and preaching the Bible.
It took me a few years before I could sing the songs, pray the prayers, or read the Bible–the vessels carrying the Good News that was at the core of my Judeo-Christian upbringing.
But that was not a problem for me. Reading was not required for me to find my own good news, here, there, everywhere–outdoors.
I found as much delight in whispering to the buzzing honeybee cupped in my hand as I did chasing with wild abandon the heifer on the run through the coal camp, as confident that it would let me lead it home as I was certain that the honeybee would not sting the hand that proffered love.
I found as much joy lying in the grass blowing dandelion seeds into the sun as I did racing between the pitter patter of raindrops or as I did in dancing off to the end of the rainbow, coal bucket in hand so that I could bring back home all the gold nuggets awaiting my arrival.
I found as much miracle in green beans poking their fragile-coated selves through the hardness of blackened coal-camp earth as I did in the sticky white pinkness of the Mountain Laurel outside our kitchen door, stretching toward blue, over the top of the house.
And when someone reached up to the top of the Hoosier kitchen cabinet and turned off the horizontally ribbed, off-white Philco radio, I found myself believing that whatever song was playing would keep right on playing when someone else turned it back on, and if it didn’t, I believed beyond any shadow of a doubt that an even more beautiful melody would lift me up.
I found that the child in me awakened every morning, always delighted and excited to be part of a brand-new day, every second of every day. I had no idea what the day would bring, but I was eager for it to start ticking, knowing that I would find joy in its unfolding.
It should come as no surprise that everyone called me Little Mr. Sunshine. The good news that I found all around me stamped its imprimatur of a joyful smile upon my countenance.
It should come as even less of a surprise that when I learned to read and entered into a fuller understanding of the world around me, I was pulled as if by gravity itself to Robert Frost’s poetry and his profound connections between nature and humanity. In those early years of studying Frost, it did not matter that I did not see his darker side, personally or poetically. All that mattered was that his poetry spoke to my heart and made me believe–no, know–that I was part of the universal scheme of things. I’m thinking of poems like “Birches” and the speaker’s desire to escape the complexities of adult life and return to nature’s purity. Or “Mowing,” in which the speaker meditates on the act of mowing a field, focusing on the simple, rhythmic, and satisfying–almost sacred–connection between human labor and the natural world. And I can’t leave out his “Tree at My Window” and its compelling opening stanza:
Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.
I could relate. I never wanted the curtain drawn between me and the outer world, and, for that matter, I never felt that it could be drawn because I saw the outer world and my inner world as one and the same.
I could relate even more when I discovered Walt Whitman who saw mankind as an integral and interconnected part of nature, celebrating the unity between the human spirit and the natural world, where every individual is both a unique expression of life and a vital element in the eternal, cosmic cycle. I could blindly open Whitman’s Song of Myself, letting my hand fall on any page that I might open, hoping to find validation and the positive connection between man and the cosmos–my source for the good news–confident that I would find it. Right now, I’m thinking of Section 6, where Whitman uses the leaf of grass as a symbol of the individual and the continuity of life:
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
The leaf of grass becomes a metaphor for the cycle of life, the interconnectedness of all living things, and the mysteries of existence. Whitman reflects on how the grass can represent everything from the handkerchief of God to the graves of the dead, expressing his belief in the unity of nature and humanity.
The notion that all living things share an interconnectedness clutches my heart and shakes my soul in jubilant celebration. I am one with all. All is one with me. I’m not certain that the news gets any better. But it does. Let me explain.
When I started reading the Bible–one of the major books in the world declaring the Good News–I saw multiple ways of looking at it. Without a doubt, I understood that many Christians focus on the Good News as God’s plan to save humanity through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, offering forgiveness of sins and eternal life to those who believe. I also understood that others emphasize the coming of the Kingdom of God, where Jesus’ teachings bring transformation in how we live, treat others, and build just communities. Some understand the Gospel as a message of unconditional love, grace, and acceptance, where God’s love is freely given to all, regardless of merit. For some, the Good News is also a message of personal renewal and transformation, where individuals are invited to grow spiritually, morally, and in relationship with God. For others, the Gospel is about challenging social injustices and bringing peace, equality, and care for the marginalized, aligning with Jesus’ teachings on compassion and service.
It can, of course, be all those things. At the same time, a leaning toward one in no way excludes or minimizes the others. But for me personally, central to the spirit of the Good News is the belief that better times are coming. That doesn’t surprise me at all. This belief goes hand-in-hand with my conviction that every cloud has a silver lining. The idea that better times are ahead—whether today, tomorrow, or forever and a day—is a powerful way for me to stay hopeful and to embrace the positive transformations happening in my life. It’s uplifting for me to frame my life and life in general that way, because it keeps the focus on growth and renewal.
This is where the news starts getting better. The spirit of the Good News, as I see it—focused on personal transformation, hope, and the belief that better times are coming—resonates in other major world religions. While the specifics differ, many religions share themes of renewal, hope, and the potential for positive change.
Judeo-Christian beliefs are rich in Jewish thought and teachings with its strong emphasis on hope, justice, and the idea of tikkun olam (repairing the world). Jewish teachings often stress that despite the suffering or hardships experienced, there’s always hope for better times, often through collective effort and living according to the Torah’s ethical principles.
Emerging after Judaism and Christianity is Islam, with hope and transformation expressed through the belief in God’s mercy and guidance. Muslims believe that turning toward God, following the teachings of the Quran, and striving to live a just and righteous life bring both inner peace and divine rewards. The idea of continuous improvement (through repentance and good deeds) mirrors the personal transformation that I see in the Good News.
Another ancient world religion, Hinduism, also emphasizes personal growth through karma (the law of action) and dharma (righteous living). The belief in reincarnation offers a hopeful outlook that the soul evolves over lifetimes, learning and growing until it achieves moksha (liberation).
Closely related is Buddhism, in which the concept of transformation is central. The Four Noble Truths recognize the existence of suffering, but the Eightfold Path provides a way to overcome it, leading to enlightenment and freedom from suffering (nirvana). There’s a strong focus on personal growth and cultivating a positive mindset through mindfulness and right action.
In the same spirit, Taoism focuses on harmony with the Tao (the Way), advocating for living in balance with the natural order of the universe. The Taoist view of life’s constant flow and transformation aligns with a hopeful perspective, trusting in the natural unfolding of life and the possibility for renewal and peace.
Indigenous Spiritual Traditions agree with some truths to be found in these other paths of wisdom as I see them. Although indigenous belief systems are more localized, generally, they share a reverence for nature, for spirits, and for the interconnectedness of all life.
Search the foundational books and the oral traditions of all these world religions–the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tripotaka, the Sutras, the Tao Te Ching, and the Zhuangzi--and you will discover that they are all deeply rooted in optimism, interconnectedness, and the power of personal growth. The wisdom of the world is that life is a web of connections–between nature, people, and the universe itself–moving outward in positive transformations.
I find comfort in knowing that the fire in me is in all, burning away the old in me, clearing space for new beginnings and transformation.
I find comfort in knowing that the rain that washes me washes all, rejuvenating, cleansing, nourishing, and purifying.
I find comfort in knowing that the wind that sweeps my face sweeps all, and elusive and unpredictable thought it might be, it blows in change, freedom, inspiration, and transformation.
I find comfort in knowing that the earth that anchors me anchors all, giving stability, permanence, and a connection to nature.
I find comfort in knowing that the life forces that live in me area are alive in everyone.
I find comfort in knowing that the life forces that surround in me are alive in all living things.
This is the Good News: in every faith, in every life, in every cloud, and in every clearing, there’s a silver lining. And that silver lining is universal. It’s hope. It’s renewal. It’s transformation. It’s better times ahead—for all of us. Together, one.
—Nelson Mandela (1918-2013; prominent anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, advocating for peace, reconciliation, and social justice.)
Imagine an early June morning on a West-facing mountaintop in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. With the temperature just a mark above the 55% humidity, it’s perfect for being on a deck, high in the air, nearly high enough to reach up and touch white clouds and blue sky.
On the deck is a man closer to eighty than to seventy, with a faded burgundy baseball cap shielding his balding head and spectacled face, gray ponytail curling out the adjustment loop in back, dark blue polo, tan shorts, and clogs showing the tops of colorful Bombas.
The man could be sitting on one of the Adirondack glider chairs, moving effortlessly back and forth, or he could be reclining on the chaise lounge, sipping slowly on a cup of steaming coffee.
But he’s doing neither. Instead, he’s kneeling on the weathered deck, leaning forward with a putty knife in hand, scraping and lifting layer upon layer of paint, teasing away at the past.
He’s playing Gospel music, and the songs are trumpeting through the open doors, breaking the morning quiet. A black dog measures the deck’s length and width over and over again, stares through the railings, looks down the gravel road to see who might be going out or coming back in, and from time to time comes over and kisses the man first on one cheek and then on the other, as if to reassure him that all is well on the mountain and that he is not alone.
I know these details. I know them all and more because I’m the man on the mountain, lost in a deep reverie.
As I scrape away the old paint, I can’t help but ponder the bigger picture. I find myself musing over mankind’s place in the universe.
I don’t mean that to sound pompous, though I suppose that it does. Actually, musingover mankind’splace intheuniverse is an overstatement. I mean, it’s not as if I go around all the time contemplating questions such as:
● Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? ● What would it mean if we found alien life? ● Could we communicate with alien beings? ● What ethical responsibilities do we have toward alien life?
Pondering and answering such profound questions is better left to astrobiologists, astronomers, philosophers, scientists, theologians, and stargazers.
However, make no mistake. From time to time, I do think about our human desire to connect and belong. I would hope that finding extraterrestrial life would encourage us humans to rethink our (in)significance in the greater scheme of things. I would hope that it would deepen our sense of spiritual connection and ethical duty to all forms of life. I would hope that it would make us feel less alone and more united in the universe.
But when I think about the possibility that we might be alone in the universe–and being alone strikes me as being nearly impossible–it never frightens me. I’m far more sobered by what the speaker feels in Robert Frost’s “Desert Places”:
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars–on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.
Myowndesertplaces. In those four words, Frost captures the self-consciousness and the alienation that most of us–some more than others–experience at some point in our lives.
To be certain, I can relate, especially as a gay guy born in the Bible-Belt in the late 1940s, growing up there in the 1950s and 1960s, knowing all too well my own desert places. I imagine that most gay guys of my era knew their own desert places, too.
In those days, I never heard the word homosexual. Instead, I heard queer, always brandished or whispered with disgust and derision. Being gay was something no one talked about, and I certainly wouldn’t have brought it up with my family or my friends or my teachers. Besides, all of them–teachers, friends, family–often told me that I was different. I took it to mean that everyone knew that I was gay and simply chose not to discuss it.
But here’s the thing. I saw being different as being special. Actually, I thought that I was superspecial. I felt that way not because I was gay but rather because I was ahumanbeing, filled with potential, waiting to be fulfilled.
Nonetheless, it still carried with it the feeling of being an outsider. It carried with it the feeling of notfittingin. I felt that way through grade school, through high school, and even through college. In fact, I was convinced that I was the only gay guy in the universe, although I felt confident that surely other gay guys existed somewhere. I simply didn’t know where.
As a result, those years found me doing my best to fit into a society that had not made a place at the table for a gay guy like me.
Actually, society had made a place for gays like me, especially in the South. Being queer was widely viewed as immoral and contrary to religious teachings, particularly within Christian denominations that had significant influence in the region. Being queer was heavily stigmatized and carried with it ostracism, harassment, and violence. Being queer was not seen in media, politics, or public life. The invisibility reinforced negative stereotypes and perpetuated ignorance and fear. Being queer came with prevalent sodomy laws, which criminalized sexual acts between individuals of the same sex. Those found in violation faced fines, imprisonment, and a damaged social reputation.
I often wondered what would happen if those who saw me as different suddenly saw me as queer? Would one word turn special into rejected? Condemned? Marginalized? I daresay that my behavior sometimes mirrored Paul in Willa Cather’s famous story “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament”:
…always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something.
These feelings of isolation and disconnection led me to develop my own strategies for fitting in. I managed to navigate my own fears within the framework of that environment. I had my own strategies, not the least of which was an intense focus on academic achievements.
I excelled in various competitions and consistently maintained a top academic standing. Everyone in my community saw that I was headed toward success. I became an active member of key clubs and organizations in my schools, often holding leadership positions.
Those strategies paid off. I managed to fit in, in my own way. I was accepted. I was the model son. I was the modelbrother. I was the model friend. I was the model student. I was best dressed. I was teen of the year. I was most likely to succeed.
I did something else, too. I decided that I would just be me. Gay. Who else could I be? I was a gay guy. I never tried to pass as a heterosexual, nor did I lead a double life, carefully curating my behavior and associations depending on the social context. I recognize that many had to do so for their own reasons, but for me, it was important to maintain my authentic self and stand for what I believed, even though I stood alone. I was proud of who I was, of who I had been, and of who I was becoming.
I did something else, too. I cultivated a fierce resolve and determination to not let others feel the isolation that I sometimes felt. Whenever I saw someone struggling to find their place–whenever I saw an underdog for whatever reason–I made it a point to befriend them, to let them know they weren’t alone, and to let them know that they had found a safe space with me.
When I started my professional career and afterward pursued graduate studies, I moved away from my rural roots to urban areas that were more liberal and accepting. Nonetheless, I kept my resolve to create inclusive and welcoming environments wherever I happened to be. It became a guiding principle in my life, shaping my interactions with everyone. In my federal career, I was known for my appreciation of diversity and for my insistence on inclusivity. Those values carried over into my career as a community college professor where I always made it clear that my classes provided a safe, caring, and nurturing environment where students could share their views and celebrate their authentic identity.
Perhaps more important than anything else, I always included Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” in all of my classes, and I always made a point of reading aloud and emphasizing what I consider to be one of the most empowering and liberating paragraphs in literature:
O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. […] I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. […] If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.
As I look back and share what I experienced, I am not pointing the finger of blame. I grew up in a time and place when social norms were different. The society I knew in the 1950s and 1960s had its own set of rules, shaped by cultural, religious, and social influences that were pervasive and powerful. It was a world where being different often meant being misunderstood, and where silence was often the safest response to anything outside the norm. My parents, my friends, my teachers—they were all products of their time, doing their best within the confines of the world they knew. They provided me with love and support in the ways they understood, and for that, I am profoundly grateful.
Although they were silent about my sexuality, they were supportive of me in countless other ways. They celebrated my achievements, encouraged my interests, and stood by me through my successes and failures. Their silence on my being gay was not a rejection but a reflection of the times. They showed their care through actions and support, even if they did not have the language or the understanding to address every part of who I was. Their love was a constant in my life, a foundation that helped me become the person I am today.
Things have changed a lot. I celebrate those advances. The progress we have made in terms of acceptance and equality has been remarkable. These changes eventually allowed me to be fulfilled in an openly gay relationship. When I met my late partner, we knew at once that we were soulmates. We said our vows, exchanged rings, and went on living our lives together, openly rather than in silence, as all people should be allowed to do. Our relationship was a testament to the strides society has made, allowing us to live authentically without fear or shame.
At the same time, I am aware that much remains to be achieved for all of us who might be marginalized. It’s critical that adults—especially educators—do everything in our power to foster a spirit of inclusion and to provide safe spaces so that everyone realizes they are not alone. We don’t have to embrace everyone, but we do need to accept everyone. We must continue to work towards a world where everyone, regardless of their background, identity, or circumstances, feels valued and included. The silent ones, those who feel they have no place, need our attention and our compassion. It is our duty to ensure that no one feels the isolation that I once did. It is our duty to let everyone know that they have a seat at humanity’s table.
And that brings me back to the man on the mountain, lost in reverie, scraping and lifting layer upon layer of paint, teasing away at the past, and musing about mankind’s place in the universe. The past is a great teacher, but it is not a place to live. The present moment is all that we have, and it is in this present moment that I find my solace, my meaning, and my connection to all of humanity. I am not alone. We are not alone. And in the vastness of the universe, that is a comforting thought.
My story is just one example of how struggles can be outweighed by resilience and acceptance. It is a testament to the power of love, support, and the human spirit’s ability to adapt and thrive.
If my message reaches only one person, my heart will be fulfilled knowing that the message was a touchstone, perhaps to be paid forward. If my message reaches many, my soul will be fulfilled in the belief that many can touch more.
We have come a long way, but our journey towards true inclusion and acceptance has a longer way to go. That’s why I believe it’s crucial that we continue to work towards creating a world where everyone feels seen, heard, and accepted.
Let’s muster up our full measure of strength, resolve, and determination to make sure that no one ever feels alone.
“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the delight of life, which they are thenceforth to rule.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881; Scottish essayist, historian, and social commentator, known for his influential writings on history, society, and culture, especially his essays “Sartor Resartus” and “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.”)
Shhhhh. Quiet, please. I need to talk. I’ve gone and gotten myself into a mell of a hess this time. Here I am writing about “silence” simply because I took the time to look at my draft posts, and I came across one rather stupidly titled “Silence.”
“Say what?” I screamed before turning my Smartphone face down on my bed to hide the odious text that I was reading on the screen. Screaming was perfect because it broke the silence. Well, you’d scream, too, if you detested silence as much as I do. It grates on my ears. I suffer noise far more readily than I suffer silence.
So here I lie in bed, working on a post whose essence I deplore. But write the damned post I must because I have started it, and I will finish it, ever mindful of what my parents told me over and over again, never giving me a moment’s silence:
If a job is once begun, Never leave until it’s done. Be its labor, great or small, Do it well or not at all.
Well, I don’t know how well I’ll do it, but I will do my best to write my way out of this mess. Don’t worry. This will be a fast read: I, who knows nothing about silence, will be forced to speed things up when I start gathering my thoughts about silence because I have so few thoughts about the subject. You’ll reach the end sooner than you expect. When you do, listen carefully. I might burst forth with the Hallelujah Chorus. If I do, join me and we can make a joyful noise together.
Fortunately, I had captured enough notes that I recall what prompted me to start the idiotic draft in the first place.
My electricity went out. Unexpectedly. Silence washed over the afternoon soundscape of my domestic sanctuary. My refrigerator, the unsung hero of my kitchen, stopped serenading me with its constant hum. My ceiling fans ceased their purring and hushed their constant chatter about my secrets. My bedroom air conditioner no longer piped its melodious duet of “whoosh and hush.”
I wasn’t using my dishwasher, but if I had been, it would have stopped belting out its “splish-splash” just as I would have stopped chiming in with “I’m taking a bath,” both as if to wash away my culinary blues. I wasn’t using my washer and dryer either. But if I had been, they would have paused their spinning, tumbling symphony of cleanliness. As for my television, I have one that’s never on, but I can still faintly remember the mysterious hum of its digital dreams.
By now, you surely understand the sudden and imminent danger that surrounded me: all of my usual household sounds had been silenced.
All, thank God, save one. In the very moment of my most silent despair and in the hushed stillness of my living room, my grandfather clock came to life as the hour hand gracefully settled upon the number two. With a solemn, almost reverent demeanor, it stirred the silence with a deep, resonant chime. I had been rescued. The God of Noise had heard my silent prayer.
I sat there wondering how long I’d have to put up with this sorry state of near silence. I didn’t have to wonder long because it was 95 degrees outside, and my house was becoming unbearably hot inside. I decided to go outside and sit by my Koi Pond.
As I was walking out, I automatically turned off my kitchen lights. Silly me. I had forgotten that they weren’t on. Still, I could hear the tune of the see-saw switch. I’ll bet you didn’t know that light switches make noise. I didn’t either until Charlie Pluth released his “Light Switch.”If you don’t know that song, get to know it. As you listen, lean in and be super quiet. You’ll hear light switches being turned on and off. It’s awesome, so much so that Pluth documented the sounds on TikTok. Check it out for yourself and hear what I’m talking about.
After I turned off the lights that weren’t on, I stepped the few steps that I had to step to get from my kitchen to my Koi Pond. There I sat, poised in the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker, forever contemplating silence. I started thinking about how I could make the best of a bad situation even though it was a double-whammy combo of record-setting temps and deafening silence.
No problem. I decided that I would just sit there and think about everything that I had ever read or heard about silence. Immediately, I started crooning a poor rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”
Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence
[…]
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you” But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence
I loved that song as a 1960’s young idealist. It reminded me of the consequences of remaining silent and complacent in the face of social issues. Despite my lackluster vocal talents, I sounded far better than I expected, and even if I didn’t, my singing broke the silence.
“What about silence in literature?”
“Excellent question. I was worried that no one would ask.”
I can think of many examples, and since you asked, I will share a few. For novels, I’ll start with Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Silence is personified by Captain Ahab’s obsession with the enigmatic white whale, and his monomaniacal pursuit of it creates an atmosphere of foreboding silence as the crew hesitates to speak openly about their fears.
Then we have one of my all-time favorite novels: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. I read it in high school. I had never heard the F-word. In my youthful innocence, I was surprised at encountering such explicit language in print. I didn’t hear the word, of course, since I was reading silently, but I still put my fingers in my ears so that I wouldn’t hear myself just in case I started reading out loud. Then I dog-eared that page for future ready reference. But I digress. Here’s my point. Poor Holden Caulfield’s inner silence is a prominent theme in the novel, as he often feels misunderstood and unable to express his emotions.
As you might expect, I thought of a third novel, too, while contemplating silence. It’s One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Silence in this magical realist masterpiece often signifies the unspeakable, as generations of the Buendía family grapple with their own secrets and tragedies, unable or unwilling to communicate their true feelings.
More novels came to mind, but for now, several plays are waiting in the wings, ready to make their grand entrance. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot enters first. I read that play in college. One passage often takes center stage in my mind, just as much now as it did then when I equated silence with existential waiting:
VLADIMIR: “What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come—”
Another play, also from my college days, remains a favorite today. Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night and its exploration of the haunting silence that follows years of conversation in the Tyrone family:
MARY: “You can’t imagine, can you, what that silence can mean after all these years of having someone talk to you every day and then suddenly stop, and yet that silence, still saying something but what you don’t know yet—”
For the third act, Lillian Hellman’s Children’s Hour came to mind. Silence is a central theme in the play as it grapples with the consequences of a malicious lie that silences the lives and reputations of the accused:
MARTHA: “I do not like the silence. I will go on talking until you answer me.”
More plays bubbled up in my mind, but those three will suffice, thereby allowing me to briefly mention one short story that yelled riotously for attention.
It’s not Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,”with Bartleby’s repetitive “I would prefer not to” showcasing the power of passive resistance and the silence of non-conformity. It could have been “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. The entire story screams of the eerie and unusual quietness of the townsfolk before the annual lottery. But it’s not.
Instead, it’s a story by Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” The story’s climax, where the Misfit and the Grandmother engage in a fateful conversation in the woods, marks an ominous final silence.
As for the last literary genre embracing silence–poetry–I immediately thought of Amherst’s recluse, Emily Dickinson, and her famous quatrain etched in my mind forever. It seemed especially poignant, as I grappled with having been plunged unexpectedly into silence:
Silence is all we dread. There’s Ransom in a Voice – But Silence is Infinity. Himself have not a face.
Needless to say, I can’t have a poetic reverie about silence without including a poem by Robert Frost. The one that popped into my head, first, is so appropriate for my home in the woods. It’s his “The Sound of Trees.” Listen as he teases in the first few lines:
I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place?
[…]
They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay.
The third poem that spoke to me in my silence was by Kay Ryan, one of the most powerful voices in today’s contemporary poetic soundscape. Her poem “Shark’s Teeth” suits me well because of the interplay between silence and noise that it explores.
Everything contains some silence. Noise gets its zest from the small shark’s-tooth- shaped fragments of rest angled in it. An hour of city holds maybe a minute of these remnants of a time when silence reigned, compact and dangerous as a shark. Sometimes a bit of a tail or fin can still be sensed in parks.
The poem suggests that noise, in its relentless and pervasive presence, has taken over and devoured silence, leaving only small, sharp remnants. The poem evokes terror, not in a literal sense but rather in the metaphorical notion that silence, once a prevailing and powerful force, has been reduced to fragments and is now as elusive, scarce, and sharp as shark’s teeth.
Ironically, as I sat in the stillness of a torridly hot afternoon contemplating various literary nuances of silence, a single drop of water fell from the lower most rock of the Koi Pond waterfalls that had stopped cascading. It landed with a delicate and shimmering grace, creating a mesmerizing ripple on the pond’s still surface. The concentric circles expanded, radiating outward like echoes, breaking the silence, and bringing me out of my reverie.
In that instant, I realized that I had tapped into a powerful and personal paradox. I found myself both repelled and intrigued by the multi-faceted nature of silence.
Silence may grate on my ears, but I came to realize that it can be a space for reflection, contemplation, and understanding. Just as a great poem or short story or play or novel holds within it the power of silence, so, too, does our everyday existence. Maybe–just maybe–it is in the pauses between our words, the stillness before our actions, and the quiet moments of our introspection that we can truly have glimpses into the essence of life.
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!
Robert Burns (1759-1796; considered to be the National Poet of Scotland; from his “To a Mouse”)
Without a doubt, you’re familiar with the poetic lines, “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go astray,” even if you don’t know that Robert Burns penned them.
The lines express a universal truth. Yet, many people have trouble accepting it. Or, maybe, they simply have trouble admitting it when their meticulous plans go awry, sometimes dreadfully so.
Down through the years, it’s happened to me so often that I can accept the poem’s truth readily. More important, I don’t mind admitting it when my best-laid plans flop.
My recent trip to Vermont is a perfect example. I planned it way back in March, just as soon as I knew that my edition of Green Mountain Stories would be launched in Burlington on May 25 and again in Brattleboro on May 30.
I decided that it could also be a much-needed vay-kay for me and my dog Ruby.
But let me ask you this. Have you ever gone on a 10-day road trip with your furry, four-legged best friend, alone with no other person traveling with you?
If so, you know already what I had to learn the hard way: it’s not really your road trip. It’s your dog’s. As I made my careful plans, it became obvious to me that everything was being built around Ruby’s needs:
● How far could she ride in a day?
● Would the hotel mid-way up and mid-way back accept a dog?
● Would the VRBO home rental in Burlington accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?
● Would the VRBO home rental in Brattleboro accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?
Those were my big concerns. I won’t bother you with the small ones because just a few days before my trip, my best-laid plans fell apart.
It became clear to me, to Ruby, and to our veterinarian that she would be happier staying at a pet spa rather than staying stressed out for such a long trip.
By then, it was too late to change any of my lodging arrangements. The cancellation windows had closed.
● Yeah. It would have been great to stay in swanky downtown hotels and walk to restaurants and nightspots.
● Yeah. It would have been great to fly to Vermont. Or, maybe, drive to DC’s Union Station and journey by Amtrak.
But those options were never part of my Rubyesque best-laid plans. Now it was too late. Fine. I knew that the book launches would go well. As for the rest of the road trip without Ruby, I was determined to make the most of the situation.
At that point, I had no great expectations. None. But that was okay, too. Sometimes life gets better when we expect less. And so it came to be on this trip. My serendipitous encounters took me far greater distances than the distance I would travel. Let me share a few with you.
By the time that I reached Hazelton, PA–three hours or so from my home in Edinburg, VA, driving North on I-81–it was as if I had stepped back into early Spring. The forest canopy was see-through thin, and the leaves were so small, so new, so filled with promise that I immediately started reciting to myself, aloud, for no one else was around to hear, Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
I love that poem on so many levels, not the least of which is knowing how much effort Frost put into revising it. It didn’t spring into existence as the exquisite 8-line octave that we know. The revision history of the poem–even my sketchy recollection of it–fascinates me because Frost maintained that he did not revise his poems a lot. Here’s how he put it:
A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and having carried the poet with it (“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Collected Poems, 1939).
Frost might disagree, but it seems to me that he worried “Nothing Gold Can Stay” into existence. Let me explain. It started out as three octaves, for a total of 24 lines. More important, the original title was “Nothing Golden Stays.” Well, hello. Duh! Of course, nothing golden stays. Golden is a characteristic. It’s not the real thing.
But after four or five needed revisions, Frost distilled 24 poetic lines into the 8 that we enjoy today, and he changed golden to gold, knowing fully well that if nothing gold can stay we had all damned well better sit up and take notice, especially considering that even Eden sank to grief.
I could go on and on about this poem, but if I do, I’ll not be able to share other parts of my road trip that exceeded expectations. I had better put the pedal to the metal.
Wow! Two asphalt-hours are in my rear-view mirror, I didn’t get a speeding ticket, and I’ve reached my trip’s mid-way destination, headed north: a hotel in Johnson City, NY.
Approaching the city, I was thrilled beyond expectations to see a sign: HOME OF DAVID SEDARIS. Sedaris is one of my favorite writers, yet I had no idea that he was from Johnson City. Imagine that! And here I was sleeping … right in his … home … town. That’s almost downright sultry.
I’ve known Sedaris–not personally but rather as a humorist, comedian, and author–for decades, going all the way back to 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay “Santaland Diaries.” I have always appreciated and enjoyed his self-deprecating humor, his candor about growing up gay in middle-class America in the late Sixties and the early Seventies, and his open-and-oft-written-about commitment to his long-time partner Hugh Hamrick. Hamrick has a few things to say about their relationship, too: “Hugh Hamrick—David Sedaris’ Boyfriend—Finally Tells His Side of Their Story.”
After I got settled in my Johnson City hotel room, I decided that I’d spend the evening in bed with Sedaris. (Re-reading some of his essays on my all-time favorites list.)
It was a “wild night, wild night.“ (Of reading.) I awakened the next morning refreshed and ready to continue my journey.
Not long after leaving Johnson City, I saw signs announcing that I was in New York State’s Southern Tier. I’m not sure why, but I always chuckle when I see those Southern Tier signs. But my laughter subsided as I started seeing birch trees everywhere, as far as I could see. And I immediately thought of Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches,” but since I have written extensively about that poem already in my “A Swinger of Birches,” I will say no more about the poem here except to quote its opening lines:
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
An hour or so later, I started seeing signs for Cooperstown, NY. It goes without saying that I fully expected to see a sign: HOME OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. I had every right to have that expectation since the town was named after the Cooper family, since Cooper was America’s first novelist to earn his living as a writer, and since Cooperstown and the surrounding frontier served as the backdrop for The Pioneers, the first of five novels in his Leatherstocking Tales.
I did not see the sign that I had expected. Instead, I saw signs announcing Cooperstown as Home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s too bad that Cooper’s hometown doesn’t consider him to be a Major League player.
An hour or so later, I approached Saratoga Springs, NY. I was ecstatic. Saratoga Springs. The setting for most of the action in Sherwood Anderson’s famous rite-of-passage short story “I Want to Know Why.”
But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seen us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed and cried but Pop didn’t say much. I told everything we done except one thing. I did and saw that alone. That’s what I’m writing about. It got me upset. I think about it at night. Here it is.
How’s that. The unnamed fifteen-year-old narrator goes back home and tells his parents everything that happened in Saratoga except for the one thing that he “did and saw alone.”
What he doesn’t tell his parents is the passion and love that he feels for Jerry Tilford, a horse trainer. What he doesn’t tell his parents is what he saw Tilford doing in a farmhouse with a “bad woman.” What he doesn’t tell his parents is how he felt about Tilford when he saw what he saw:
Then, all of a sudden, I began to hate that man. I wanted to scream and rush into the room and kill him. I never had such a feeling before. I was mad clean through and I cried and my fists were doubled up so my finger nails cut my hands.
The story ends the next spring with the narrator, nearly sixteen, still wanting to know why Jerry Tilford did what he did. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life being upset by his feelings and by Jerry’s actions. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life wondering why things didn’t work out as he hoped they would work out.
It’s one of the most haunting stories about coming-of-age, sexual desire, and rejection that you can ever hope to read. Anderson deals with the topic far more overtly in his story “The Man Who Became a Woman.” After you read that story, you simply must read Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). It’s an overlooked classic in American literature.
Two hours or so later, I reached my first book-launch destination: Burlington, VT. I am embarrassed to say that even though I love Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream, I had no idea that Burlington has been its home since 1978 when they started dishing it out. Today, it’s still their home, with 282 million pints of deliciousness churned annually.
After Burlington, I headed south to Brattleboro for a second launch of Green Mountain Stories. Obviously, I need not remind you that Mary E. Wilkins Freeman–the author of Green Mountain Stories–launched her career in Brattleboro.
What else can I share about Brattleboro that might exceed your expectations?
Royall Tyler, America’s first playwright whose The Contrast(1787) still enjoys theatrical productions, moved to Brattleboro in 1801 and is buried there in Prospect Hill Cemetery.
Then, of course, we have Rudyard Kipling, English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist, known for being the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1907). What most folks don’t know is that he married Caroline Balestier of Brattleboro in 1892, moved there–initially living in Bliss Cottage where he wrote The Jungle Book(1894)–and then built Naulakha, which is on the Landmark Trust USA. What even fewer people know is that Freeman met Kipling in the Spring of 1892, on one of her return visits to Brattleboro. Later, she wrote to a friend:
The spell of Ruddy’s eyes have faded away, but my heart still clings to the coupe driver. (Letter 111 to Evelyn Sawyer Severance, The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, ed. with Biographical/Critical Introductions by Brent L. Kendrick. Scarecrow, 1985.)
And what almost no one knows is that Saul Bellow–acclaimed Canadian-American Nobel Laureate in Literature and author of such noteworthy novels as Dangling Man (1944), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Seize the Day (1956), and Henderson the Rain King (1959)–lived in Brattleboro for the last 26 years of his life and is buried there in the Shir He Harim Jewish Cemetery section of Morningside Cemetery.
The morning after my Brattleboro book launch, I started the long drive back home. I intended it to be a straight shot on interstates. Somehow–accidentally, I should add–my Gladiator’s Navigation System was programmed to AVOID HIGHWAYS. And I was programmed to DON’T THINK. I just kept right on going down one country back road after another, paying them nary no mind whatsoever. After all, I was getting an up-close-and-personal view of Vermont’s Green Mountains.
The next thing I knew, I was approaching Ulster, NY, with signs announcing HEADLESS HORSEMAN HAYRIDES AND HAUNTED HOUSES. Oh. My. God. How the hell did I end up in the Lower Catskills where folks still scare themselves with Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820).
Suffice it to say, I had given myself my own fright. Immediately, I adjusted my Navigation System, got back on my intended route, settled in to Cruise Control, and clicked my boots together three times, saying “There’s no place like home.”
Before I knew it, I had picked up Ruby from the pet spa. As I drove back up my mountain road, I shared with her brief highlights of my road trip beyond expectations. But as soon as I saw our house, I stopped my storytelling and shouted:
Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.
Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956; English sculptor, Photographer, and environmentalist.)
Call me weird if you want. But I love weather. All kinds of weather. Hot. Cold. Rainy. Dry. Foggy. Sunny. Overcast.
Call me weird again, if you want. But I love all kinds of storms, too. Thunderstorms. Lightning storms. Hailstorms. Windstorms Snowstorms. When a storm is headed my way, I get hyped up and worked up, simply anticipating the maybeness and the mightiness. The storm’s arrival–assuming that it actually arrives–always brings an intense level of energy, inner and outer, that thrills me.
I love surprises, too. Yep. I’m betting that you guessed it. Surprise storms thrill me most, especially surprise snowstorms. Ask my family. Ask my friends. Ask my neighbors. Ask my former colleagues. I’m a snow freak. I get turned on by snow, but not those puny dustings of just a few inches. Take it up to six or seven or eight, and then we’re talking. Take it up to nine or more and my wild side comes alive, especially if it’s a surprise. OMG! Life is grand. Once, while living right here on my mountain, I had the hellacious thrill of being stranded in a surprise 40-inch snowfall in the middle of March. Actually, it was closer to 50 inches. The more that I think about it, though, I am convinced that it was 54 inches.
My West Virginia kin contemplated calling the National Guard to rescue me. (Hmm. That might have been fun.) But a local contractor bulldozed me to freedom first. The snowbanks were so tall that they didn’t melt until June. Now that’s a surprise storm that I will always remember. Perhaps I will write about it one day. But not today.
For today, I’m just wondering how many, if any, surprise snowstorms we will have this winter. I remember more than a few down through the years, but right now I’m thinking about two surprise snowstorms that were real and a third surprise storm–an ice storm–that the power of poetry made come alive for me, so much so that it seems as real now as it did then.
All three are memorable, profoundly so, though for different reasons.
All three took place when I was a kid growing up in the coalfields of Southern West Virginia where snowstorms were plentiful.
The earliest that lingers in my mind was when I was really young. I’m guessing that it was the winter of 1951, when I would have been four. My mother had to get something from the church that she pastored, hardly more than a stone’s throw below our home. She had no sooner walked out the door than she rushed back in, smiling all radiant like:
“Let’s put your coat and hat on so that you can see the snow. It’s in color!”
We hurried out behind the house, taking her usual shortcut path to the church. I could see my mother’s tracks in the snow where she had walked minutes earlier. But everything was white. All white.
“Where’s the colored snow? I don’t see any.”
“Come on. You’ll see. We’re almost there.”
We continued on the path, meandering down and around a knoll. On the gentle downslope, we narrowed our way between two large, weather-worn boulders.
We stopped there. My mother turned toward the boulders, exclaiming in triumphant joy:
“Look! Look at all the colors!”
I looked, and I was amazed. Vast patches of colored snow covered the boulders. Reds. Greens. Blues. Browns. Some of the flakes were colored as they fell from the sky. Other flakes turned color when they touched the boulders.
Years later I learned that the boulders were probably covered with types of algae that caused the white snow to change color. The snow that came falling down in color was caused by pollutants, no doubt from the coal camp where we lived. The science, though, never eroded the beauty of that snowfall. I had never seen colored snow before, and I have never seen colored snow since. It is as if my mother and I shared a magical moment never to be witnessed again.
The second surprise snow came when I was older. I’m guessing that it was 1961 when I was a high-school freshman. It fell in October. Green leaves, still on the trees, had not even thought of turning red or gold.
The wet, heavy snow started during the night. A significant amount had fallen by the time my dad got up for work. Not one to be daunted easily, he set out in the early pre-daylight hours, trudging through the deep snow, determined to catch his ride to the coal mines. I can still see the flicker of his carbide lantern as it swayed beneath the towering oak tree where he always stood, waiting for his ride to work. I can still see him standing there, the carbide lantern swaying. I can still see the snow falling, piling up higher and higher. I can still see what seemed to be forever.
And, then, forever turned into daylight. My dad’s ride didn’t show up because the snow was too deep. My dad slogged his way back home.
The door had hardly closed when we could hear him in the kitchen rattling pots and pans as he started making biscuits, frying country ham, and cracking eggs, whistling and singing in his untrained country way. Looking back, I understand his carefree merriment. He would have been 59 that year and that day was probably his first coal-miner’s snow day ever. If he had others, he never mentioned them. I know for a fact that he never had another work snow day afterwards.
That snowfall was more than 25 inches. Branches fell. Trees crashed. But what lingers most for me is the magical snow-day breakfast that my dad prepared–one that we all shared, never to be spread again.
The next surprise storm–the one that I experienced through the power of poetry–came in 1955, betwixt and between the other two.
I was in the third grade and my teacher, Marie Massie, introduced me–just me, not the entire class–to Robert Frost. She pulled me aside one day and gave me a mimeographed copy of his poem “Birches.”
“I think you’ll like this poem. Let me know.”
I fell in love with the poem and told her so. She gave me more: Frost’s essay “The Figure a Poem Makes.”
Looking back, I cannot help but wonder why. Why did she give me, a third grader, a poem with such profound meanings? Why did she proceed to give me, a third grader, an essay, profounder still?
I’d like to think that it was because she knew that she was dealing with an unusual intelligence. But I know better. She wasn’t.
Of course, “Birches” spoke to every fiber of my being. I, the child, who loved storms. I, the child, who loved surprises. I, the child, who played alone. All that it took was a description of birch trees in winter:
[ … ] Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
I had never seen a birch tree nor had I ever seen an ice storm. But I had seen colored snow, and in my mind’s eye I could easily imagine what the sky–heaven’s inner dome–would look like if it froze and fell around the forest trees where I played with great abandon.
More, though, I became one with the boy mentioned in the poem:
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do.
Indeed, I often climbed saplings near our home, learning quickly how far up the tree to shimmy before thrusting my feet outward into the air, letting the tree dip me down to the ground and lift me back up again, heavenward, to repeat by dipping me down to the ground on the other side and lifting me back up again, heavenward. Over and over and over. Earth. Heaven. Earth.
But as the poem teaches us, trees are never bent forever when a boy swings them. They always right themselves. But that’s not the case when the forces of nature–ice storms–bend trees:
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves
The key phrase, of course, is “they never right themselves.” The damage brought on by Nature is irreparable
As an eight-year-old, I am confident that I did not pick up on the sobering seriousness of that caution, even after I continued reading and came across the lines:
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth a while
And then come back to it and begin over.
Looking back, I cannot help but wonder whether my third-grade teacher had experienced being weary of considerations, wishing to get away from earth for a while.
Looking back, I cannot help but wonder whether my third-grade teacher was giving me a caution that I, too, would have days when I would be weary of considerations and would wish to get away from earth for a while.
Maybe she was doing both. To live is to grow weary from time to time. To live is to wish to get away from earth for a while. To be human is to suffer.
But, maybe, while she was hoping to impress upon me those life-lessons, she was hoping still more that I would latch on to, hold on to, and believe in the next few lines:
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
Of course, we all want to get away from earth from time to time, but, at the same time, we all want to come back to earth. We don’t want our getaway to be our final exit.
But there’s something in those lines that makes the occasional skeptic in me laugh. Is earth the right place for love, especially considering all of the cruelties that we inflict on ourselves, on humankind, and on Planet Earth, our home? If we come down on the side that Earth is not always the right place for love, then all of us–collectively and individually–need to look for ways that we might–collectively and individually–make Earth the right place for love, for all, forever.
I suspect that Frost wants to nudge readers toward those more serious reflections.
For today–and today only–I’ll put aside the poet’s nudge.
For today, I’ll put aside my sometimes-skeptical self.
For today, it’s enough for me to recall my mother’s love as she shared with me the magic of colored snow.
For today, it’s enough for me to recall my father’s love when a sudden snowstorm gave him the only snow day of his work life, and he chose to make a magical breakfast.
For today, it’s enough for me to recall the teacher who gifted me with my love of poetry.
For today, it’s enough for me to recall my own childhood days when I, too, was an innocent swinger of birches.
Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, and filling an emptiness we didn’t ever know we had.
–Thom Jones (1945-2016; American writer, primarily of short stories)
What can I say about the dogs in my life? Well, for starters, I’ve had quite a few. Now, stop it already. I’m not talking about those dogs. I’m talking about real dogs, the four-legged ones. You know. Our pets. Our best friends. Our confidantes.
The first dog in my life was Brownie. All that I remember about him–tapping into nothing more than my own memory–is his curly brown hair and his wonderfully large, black, wet nose. I was hardly more than a toddler, and he was my mother’s dog. Anything else that I might know about Brownie, I learned from my mother. Dog memories run deep. My mother saw Brownie through.
My dad brought the next dog into my life. Spotty was a coal-mine foundling. All mine. He had the spotted coat of a brown-and-white Beagle, but his stocky frame, unusually large ears, large paws, and short-but-wavy hair barked Collie. Spotty lived outdoors and slept in a doghouse that my dad and I built, outfitted with a bed that my mother made. Since I was a grade-schooler, he spent more time with my mother than with me. He followed her around all day, especially when she was outdoors, hanging laundry on the clothesline. My mother taught Spotty to sing, and she enjoyed mimicking his operatic accomplishments. I never heard Spotty sing, but I learned that love is not diminished when shared. My mother saw Spotty through.
My next dog, Lassie, leaped into my life right out of the popular television series Lassie. Both Lassies were Collies. Somewhere I have a Polaroid of me, summer-sun-bleached hair, holding my prize-winning sunflower. Lassie was surely nearby, but she’s not in the photo. I discovered quickly after one short season that she would be far happier running the wide open farm fields that became her new home. Sometimes love means letting go. I wonder who saw Lassie through.
After that summer of 1959, I didn’t have another dog in my life for many, many years. Actually, I was a graduate student, and the name Brecca caught my fancy as I studied Beowulf. I decided to buy myself a dog associated with water and swimming. A Saddleback English Springer Spaniel seemed perfect. Brecca was my first pedigree dog, and he was the first dog in my life to live with me indoors. Brecca watched over me through thousands of hours of graduate work–the endless cycle: Reading. Research. Writing. Repeat.–and never grew weary. When I completed my doctoral work and returned to DC, I was the winter caregiver for my mom and dad for a decade. Brecca followed my dad up and down the hall as he walked to regain strength after a stroke left him partially paralyzed. And when my niece/goddaughter, Janet, came along, Brecca followed her as she crawled all around the house and up and down the stairs, always positioning himself to ensure her safety. When his ear cancer proved untreatable after a first surgery, he would patiently lie on his side as I applied homeopathic compresses. His follower-trust triumphed to the end. I saw Brecca through.
Sparky–a Dalmatian–came next, followed by Maggie–a Blue Tick Coonhound. Grief can be sudden as I came to learn and as the speaker in Robert Frost’s “One More Brevity” had learned long before:
I was to taste in little the grief That comes of dogs’ lives being so brief, Only a fraction of ours at most.
My family veterinarian saw Sparky through.
I saw Maggie through.
After those two doors closed, Hazel entered through an open one. My late partner, Allen, and I decided to adopt a dog. Since we both worked and were away from home during the day, we planned to adopt two dogs so that they would be company for one another.
As we started the adoption process, “Must play well with other dogs” topped our list of requirements. The animal shelter assured us that Hazel loved other dogs, so we brought her home. She was a mature, nine-months-old puppy. She was house trained within a week. She jogged right past her chewing stage. She never jumped up on chairs, sofas, or beds. She was well behaved, even off leash. Then came the day when she ventured to a neighbor’s house and started a fight with a dog twice her size.
At that point, we knew that we would not adopt another dog to keep Hazel company. She adjusted beautifully to our mountain home and to our professional schedules. We found ourselves molding our lives around hers, taking more and more vacations at dog-friendly VRBO destinations. Though calm and serene, Hazel always looked like the reddish blonde Husky-Lab puppy that we first fell in love with. She played the part flawlessly right up until the night of her last day. Allen and I saw Hazel through.
We both knew that we would bring another dog into our life. But we were both quiet. For some reason–inexplicable to me, even now–I wanted Allen to take the lead in finding our new best friend, so I waited for him to initiate the conversation. When he did, he agreed to do the solo search, even agreeing to my single stipulation: no black dog. He understood why after I explained that one of my sisters had a black dog that died tragically.
After a week or two, Allen came home and gave me his angelic, twinkly-eyed smile.
“I’ve found the perfect puppy for us!”
“What kind?”
“I’m not sure. She’s a mix, about seven months old, and she’s been spayed.”
“Photo?”
“No. But I met her today. You’ll really like her.”
As I found out, “Perfect Puppy” belonged to one of the hospital surgeons with whom Allen worked. Allen had arranged a visit for both of us the next afternoon.
When Dr. Stevens opened the door to greet us, a black puppy–yes, black, all black except for a small, white brushstroke on her chest that an artist might have forgotten to color over–made her escape and raced down the walkway. I sat down on the stoop and watched. The puppy turned, saw me sitting there, and came charging back–a whirlwind of short-haired, shiny waves–and sat down, smack dab on my feet.
The black puppy won my heart then and there.
I beamed Allen my widest smile. “She’s going home with us.”
We worked out the details with Dr. Stevens. Allen wanted to bring our new best friend home in his Toyota Tacoma. I headed on home in my Jeep.
When they arrived, I was sitting in my reading chair in the living room. As if she knew exactly where to find me, the black puppy ran to where I was and sat down, smack dab on my feet, just as she had done at Dr. Stevens.
Allen sat across from us on the sofa, and the three of us stayed in position for the next several hours.
Finally, Allen got up. Without invitation, the black puppy jumped on the dark brown, leather sofa and put her head on a ruby-colored throw. The color contrast was striking, and, in an instant, I knew.
“Husband, I’ve got a name for our puppy.”
“Yeah? What do you have in mind?”
“Ruby.”
He came back into the living room, looked at her, then at the throw, and, finally, at the sofa. He knew, too. Ruby became our Valentine’s Day gift, one to the other, each to the other two.
Ruby has the general build and gentleness of a Labrador Retriever; the face and solo-bonding bent of a Boxer, and the strong-willed temperament of a Beagle.
Whatever she is–and she’s all of those things and more–she’s the perfect dog that Allen sized her up to be when she was just a perfect puppy.
From the start, she knew how to show each of us equal love. She was always with Allen while he sipped his morning coffee and perused his various digital newspapers. She was always with me while I pondered evening academics online. She was always with both of us when we watched Star Trek or, her favorite, the Great British Bake Off. When Allen and I cooked, she always watched from the dining room door where she stayed until we finished our meal and Allen put his last bite in her dish. When we gardened, she ran back and forth between the two of us.
To Allen, the joy of feeding Ruby. To me, the joy of having Ruby smack dab on top of my feet whenever I sat down, or, as time went on, on my lap. To me, the joy of brushing her.
I usually brushed her in my office after finishing my evening academics, the two of us sprawled out on an Oriental rug. As I brushed, she would give me knowing looks from a far-off, far-away land. Invariably I felt the need to talk with her.
“I don’t know who you are, Ruby, but I know that you are an old, old soul come back to see me through. Who are you?”
Ruby never seemed to mind my one-sided conversation. In fact, she seemed to nod in knowing affirmation. And I became more and more convinced of what I felt from the start. How can it be that I don’t know who she is? And, yet, I have known her. And, yet, I know her.
The three of us continued our daily routines and rituals from February 14, 2018–when Ruby entered our lives–until January 28, 2021, when Allen lost his life, after a short, three-month, lung-cancer battle. I saw Allen through.
The rituals and routines, though not the same, go on and on and on. Ruby still likes to sit on the deck of an afternoon around 4:00, fully confident that once more she will see her other “daddy” driving up our mountain road in his Toyota Tacoma. Some days, I wait and watch with her.
What the three of us once did together, Ruby and I now do as the inseparable Dynamic Duo that we have become. She is always at my side, always by my feet, always within earshot. Listening. Watching. Waiting.
I hope that the rest of our journey–Ruby’s and mine–lasts for a long, long time. With every passing day, I am more and more convinced: Ruby is an old, old soul come back to see me through to the other side.
Whenever I teach a literature course, I tell my students that aside from celebrating their achievements as they master the course content, I have one special hope for each of them. I want them to find one writer who will be their friend. One writer who will never unfriend them as other friends sometimes do. One writer who will be with them through all the storms of life, for a lifetime. A writer who will be a forever-friend.
What I have in mind is similar to the handful of real-life, forever-friends whom we might have, if we are lucky. It’s never many. At least it has never been many for me. I have perhaps one handful of such friends. All right. Perhaps two handfuls who are in the friends-forever category. With us, we’ve shared so many past experiences that even if we have not seen one another in years, when we reconnect, we pick up magically on the same conversation that we were having when we last met, and we do so without missing a beat. Friends. Forever-friends.
Writers can be our forever-friends, too, with an added bonus. We can have lots and lots of them. As we read more and more, we discover more and more writers who might end up as our friends. We like them. We like what they have to say to us. We like how they inspire us. We like how they make us believe. We like how they make us feel…unalone. We like how they heal our…brokenness. Before long, we want to hang out with them. We can. Whenever we want. For as long as we want.
The great thing about writers who are our forever-friends is that when they pop up unannounced and uninvited, it’s never a problem. We don’t have to clean for them. We don’t have to cook for them. And we don’t have to clear our calendars for them. They can tag along with us just as we are. And they will do just that if we let them.
All that we have to do is be attentive, smile when they arrive, and even smile when they leave, knowing that they will come back to visit us again and again and again.
Their arrival coincides with something that we are experiencing that makes us think of something else. It’s the power of association. Robert Frost captures it best:
“All thought is a feat of association; having what’s in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn’t know you knew.”
That’s the beauty of having writers who are forever-friends. Their arrival is based exclusively on what’s right in front of you or something that you’re thinking about. Something that you almost didn’t know you knew.
No doubt, you have your own writers who are your forever-friends, just as I do.
Obviously, I don’t know about yours, but mine visit me multiple times throughout the day, every day without fail. I never know which writers will visit or when. But I go forth daily, confident of being strengthened and girded up by their company.
For example, Walt Whitman shook his silvery locks right in front of me as I was writing this post. I was thinking about the fact that only a snippet of a writer’s work comes to my mind during an association, while all the other details of the work are seemingly long forgotten. Instantly, the lines from Whitman’s “Once I Pass’d through a Popular City” flashed across my mind:
“Day by day and night by night we were together—all else has long been forgotten by me…”
Here’s another example.
When I met with my Creative Writing class for the first time this semester, I had a slap-stick time promoting this blog. It was nothing more than nonsensical banter aimed at entertaining my students, but they picked up on it.
Not long after I managed to restore myself to a modicum of seriousness, one student raised her hand as if to ask a serious question.
“Professor Kendrick, did you say that you have a blog?”
I started laughing, as did the rest of the class.
A little later on, her hand went up again. I was on to her by then, but I was having far too much fun, so I acknowledged her.
“Professor Kendrick, did you give us the name of your blog?”
(When our laughter died down, my forever-friend Edward Albee paid me a momentary visit. He has chummed me since the 1960s when I was in college and he was a controversial Broadway playwright.)
“Very funny! You know, Caitlin, my hell-bent banter to promote my blog to a brand-new group of students, reminds me of the first line from Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story.”
In the play, Jerry approaches Peter, a total stranger, sitting on a bench in Central Park.
I’ve been to the zoo. [PETER doesn’t notice.] I said, I’ve been to the zoo. MISTER, I’VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!
I was thrilled by Albee’s visit, especially since I was able to share it with my class. He came as he did and when he did because of my dogged determination to tell my students–a group of strangers, if you will–all about my blog. In the process, I remembered Jerry’s insistence on telling Peter, a total stranger, that he had been to the zoo.
My students got it. They saw the association with great clarity.
On another occasion, something similar happened at the start of the same class.
As I drove on campus. I was aware–painfully so–that the grassy, undeveloped acreage all around the college was being gobbled up by townhouses.
At the start of class, one of my students shared the same observation.
In that nanosecond, former United States Poet Laureate Phillip Levine appeared. Immediately, I walked to my teacher station, googled his poem “A Story” and flashed it on the screen for students to see as I read it aloud.
It captures perfectly what my students and I had witnessed with pain that morning.
Levine chronicles the life and death of the woods that once surrounded us and ends with a chilling doomsday prophecy:
where are the woods? They had to have been
because the continent was clothed in trees.
We all read that in school and knew it to be true.
Yet all we see are houses, rows and rows
of houses as far as sight, and where sight vanishes
into nothing, into the new world no one has seen,
there has to be more than dust, wind-borne particles
of burning earth, the earth we lost, and nothing else.
And right now as I typed the above quotation, Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell popped into my head, chanting a few lines from her “Big Yellow Taxi”:
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
My writers–my forever-friends–visit me far more in my alone times than they do when I am teaching or, for that matter, when I am socializing.
Maybe they appear then because they know that in my alone times friends can add a richness to any moment, even ordinary ones.
Ordinary moments like weed whacking. Somehow, I end up doing that chore on Sunday instead of going to church. That’s no big deal to me. I consider myself Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR). Emily Dickinson must be SBNR, too, because she is always with me on my Sunday morns. Her “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church” overpowers the Stihl noise through all the stanzas, rising triumphantly in the final one:
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.
Or sometimes it’s as simple as visitorial moments that occur when reading emails from regular friends who aren’t writers. Recently, a friend who is my age wrote that his hands had grown old. I sensed his sadness and immediately thought of a poem about aging by former United States Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz: “Touch Me.” It includes the poignant lines:
What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire. The longing for the dance stirs in the buried life.
One season only, and it’s done.
[…]
Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.
And then I immediately thought of Ben Speer singing “Time Has Made a Change in Me.” The title alone was touchstone sufficient. And that led me to W. S. Merwin reading his “Yesterday” with the ever-chilling line:
oh I say feeling again the cold of my father’s hand the last time
It’s amazing: the rich literary company that embraced me, all because of one single solitary email sent my way!
Sometimes, though, my forever-friends arrive as I try to make sense of all that’s going on in our world. The ongoing COVID pandemic. The invasion of Ukraine. Recent SCOTUS decisions. The January 6 Hearings. Global Warming. Poverty. Food scarcity. Gender inequality. Homophobia. Transphobia. Growing humanitarian conflicts and crises. The 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on America.
Need I go on? Sadly, I could. Gladly, I won’t. It’s far too sobering.
But in those dark moments when I find myself spiritually staggering under the weight of it all, I take strength from William Faulkner’s Nobel Acceptance Speech, delivered in 1950 when the world was staggering under the burden of the Cold War:
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? […] I decline to accept the end of man. […] I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
Maybe, just maybe, the need to have writers who are our forever-friends, boils down to nothing more than this. They come regardless of what we are facing. They reassure us that goodness and mercy shall prevail. They remind us to grapple with our soul, to grapple with our spirit.
They come, as Robert Browning came to me just this second, to calm us and anchor us in the full and steadfast belief that despite all the injustices, all the wrongdoings, all the travail, and all the sorrows,
I love words. In fact, I’m a word enthusiast. No, actually, I’m a word aficionado. I like the way words look, the way they sound, and the way they require me to rearrange and reposition my tongue and lips and teeth! I like the “mouth feel.”
I love euphonious words, especially: supine, scissors, fantabulous, panacea, disambiguate, luscious, discombobulate, scintilla, tremulous, orbicular, woebegone, sonorous, ethereal, pop, holler, britches, entwine, hullabaloo, phantasmagorical, serendipity, slew, velvety, liminal, dusk, ever, and even meniscus.
I love euphonious phrases, too: thread the needle, rev the engine, a touch ticklish, doplar sonar, sweet and sour, bad’s the best, or one of my own creation–recalled from a dream that I once dreamt–blue-pigeon-feather happy.
However, all of my favorite melodious phrases and words pale in comparison to the phrase considered by many linguists (who study phonaesthetics and know all about the properties of sound) to be the most beautiful word in the English language: cellar door! I was flabbergasted when I made that discovery, but matters of sound are so momentous and so weighty that lengthy debates surround them. For example, many people attribute the coinage of cellar door to fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien who used it in his 1955 speech “English and Welsh.” But as American lexicographer Grant Barrett established in his February 11, 2010, New York Times article aptly titled, “Cellar Door,” we must give credit to Shakespearean scholar Cyrus Lauron Hooper who used cellar door in his 1903 novel Gee-Boy.
Sometimes one of these little beauties gets stuck inside my head and manifests a fierce determination not to go away. For example, the melodious word ricochet has been bouncing around in there for an epoch at least—perhaps even longer—and it’s not alone. It’s flourishing there as part of an entire phrase—an entire stanza, actually—from “The Lanyard,” a poem by Billy Collins, former United States Poet Laureate:
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
Mind you: I don’t mind the fact that the stanza from the poem and the word ricochet won’t go away. I love poetry just as much as I love melodious words and phrases. And who doesn’t love Billy Collins?
And it’s easy to understand why this particular stanza from Billy Collins’ poem would linger in my mind. Like the speaker in his poem—presumably Collins himself—I, too, have been ricocheting slowly off the walls of my home library, moving from my cluttered desk with my personal computer (where I carry out my home-style professorial responsibilities) to my even more cluttered farm table with my considerably smaller tablet (where I fulfill whatever it is that I achieve when I write—whatever writing is—and where I first began this blog on November 26, 2012.
And continuing to compare myself to the speaker in Collins’ “The Lanyard” so that I might perhaps stop the word ricochet from ricocheting around in my head, I, too, am moving from my professorial computer to my writerly tablet, from stacks of papers on the former to stacks of books and two envelopes on the latter.
And it is on the two envelopes that my eyes fall even as I type this post. It is on the two envelopes that my eyes have been falling for several years. And it is on the two envelopes that my eyes will forever fall until I muster courage to open them.
My blog followers will perhaps remember those two envelopes, first mentioned in my December 31, 2014, post:
I have in my possession copies of critical Alexander Gordon manuscripts obtained from libraries in Scotland and England. Although I have had the packages for several months, I have not opened them yet because I know that the contents will take my Humourist research to new heights, and I have had neither time nor nerve to make the journey.
However, January 2015 will place me exactly where I need to be in terms of time and nerve to open the packages, review the manuscripts, and share my findings with you, right here in this blog.
So, there! Now you know! Those two envelopes are still on my desk waiting to be opened. I cannot claim that I have not had time, for I have had time aplenty. And I cannot claim that I have not had nerve to open the envelopes because I remain confident that the contents will take my Humourist research to new heights and higher ground.
In reality, I have no more time now than before, and I have no more nerve now than before. But what I do have now is the knowledge that now is the right time to write. Simply put, I have created the space, and I have allowed myself to enter. (Thank you, Natalie Goldberg, for reminding me:
…we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice (Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within).
So I am ricocheting slowly off the walls of my library for three reasons and three reasons only.
Ricochet Reason One. I have been away from my blog for so long that the resulting space is galatic, a perfect home for the word ricochet. And as I type, I cannot help but wonder: Is it really the word ricochet that is bouncing off vacuum space? Or is it really guilt? Perhaps both, but, now—on this momentary reflection—I suspect the latter. And that’s perfectly fine because my guilt makes me perfectly American, or, as Ezra Pound said about Robert Frost, “vurry Amur’k’n” (Dear Editor: A History of Poetry in Letters, edited by Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young).
Just by writing what I have written here, I have given rest to reason one. What a blessed relief.
Ricochet Reason Two. I cannot help but wonder about my followers—my blog followers. At one point, they numbered well over 100, and the blog had more than 5,000 visits from people in exactly 100 countries. Not bad for a blog dedicated to the challenges of research, specifically—for now, at least—to the challenge of identifying the author of a group of noteworthy and heretofore pseudonymous Colonial American essays.
Are any of the faithful still with me? I wonder.
And if I post, will they read what I have to say? Will anyone? And if no one reads, will I have written anything at all, really?
It is very much the same as the proverbial old question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Philosophers have long argued that sound, colour, taste, smell and touch are all secondary qualities which exist only in our minds. We have no basis for our common-sense assumption that these secondary qualities reflect or represent reality as it really is. So, if we interpret the word ‘sound’ to mean a human experience rather than a physical phenomenon, then when there is nobody around there is a sense in which the falling tree makes no sound at all. […] Without a measuring device to record it, there is a sense in which the recognisable properties of quantum particles such as electrons do not exist, just as the falling tree makes no sound at all. (Jim Baggett, Quantum Theory: If a Tree Falls in the Forest …).
Followers, be my measure. If you are out there, measure me with comment.
And if you are not yet following, follow. (I am reminded of the Iowa corn farmer in Field of Dreams and the voice that he heard telling him to build a baseball diamond, “If you build it, he will come.” The farmer built it, and they came. Perhaps in my rebuilding, my followers will come. If you do, measure me with your comments, too.)
Just by writing what I have written here, I have given rest to reason two as well. Again, what a blessed relief.
Ricochet Reason Three. Of the two envelopes waiting to be opened—those two parcels that will take my Humourist research to new heights—which shall I open first? The one from Scotland measuring 14 x 10/16 inches and weighing a hefty 17.21 ounces? (Is bigger better?) Or the one from England, measuring 6 x 3/4 inches and weighing a nearly weightless 1.16 ounce? (Do good things really come in small packages?)
To give rest to reason three—and be thrice blessed—I must open both envelopes.
Perhaps what I face is like picking petals off a daisy: “I love him. I love him not.” However, in this instance, both envelopes are equally good and the last petal will be an affirmation.
Or, maybe, a more apt comparison would be to Frank Stockton’s famous American short story “The Lady, or the Tiger?” published in The Centurymagazine in November 1882. In the story, a young man must choose between two doors. Behind one, a beautiful lady. Behind the other, an awful, relentless tiger.
Stockton leaves his readers with an open ending:
And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door,—the lady, or the tiger?
For me, both doors—both envelopes, if you will—are equally good and both will be auspicious and bodacious.
Unlike Stockton, however, I will be straightforward and honest. I will let you know what I find not only in the first envelope but also in the second. In fact, I will chronicle each and every detail as I open the envelopes and as I discover the joys that await me.
This I promise: in next week’s post, I will write all, right here.
The Wired Researcher 