There's a line in You've Got Mail where Tom Hanks is excited about the fall and says he wishes he could send Meg Ryan a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. It's the way they smell. I'm with him.
I do love my summers off (today I slept in, wrote while lying in bed, read some New Yorker, bought the most amazing veggies from Chino farms- the white raspberries are phenomenal-, played tennis, had lemonade, fresh corn on the cob, and an heirloom tomato with good goat cheese and a rich vinegarette and now I can write late into the night with only the sounds of my fingers typing and an occasional plane flying overhead.) I am very blessed, but I can't wait to get back to work.
I miss my captive audience. I miss the way they will find exactly the insight I need in life in some poem I've handed them. I miss writing new vocab words on the board and drawing little hearts next to the verbs (I do have a crush on great verbs). I miss after school chats when a few will stick around and talk to me about their boyfriends or life dreams. I don't give advice on the boyfriends, but I love the rush of strategizing how to stand out to a good school and helping them take a vague dream and nailing down the steps to getting there. I miss coaching a willing student to becoming a better writer. I miss watching my kids' faces when they get back their DWA scores and seeing how well they've done. I miss going to a place where I can hand someone a piece of candy and a compliment and have it make their day.
I'm admitting my nerdiness, I know, but man I love my job! I want my freshly sharpened pencils. I want to dive so deeply into meaningful work that I don't have the luxury of much self-centered thinking. I want to go back to the place that reminds me each day that I have to strive to live up to the ideals I spout out or I'll never be taken seriously by people I love who need to take me seriously.
Well, enough of my excitement...I've always gotten too excited about things...I stayed up all night Christmas Eve every year(sometimes even jumping up and down on my bed with enthusiasm) until I was 21. I just thought I'd put some happy karma into the world while getting out some of my passionate impatience.
PS... It's been a while since I've had a chance to share a poem I like with anyone so here's one I absolutely love by Anne Sexton. I always think of it on late nights when I can't tear myself from my computer and I wonder why I can't be content with leaving work at work and then going off and spending my life just sorta hangin' out. I can't even just do teaching; I have to push myself to write, write better, etc. It's a trait I actually kind of like about myself, but after reading the poet's bio, I hate to admit the author... Anne Sexton was one totally messed up woman (never read the bios for writers you like if this sort of thing taints the writing for you. writers are notoriously messed up and poets are the worst.) If you finish reading the poem, I'll give you the dirt on her at the end. It's really gross and juicy.
The Ambition Bird
So it has come to this
insomnia at 3:15 A.M.,
the clock tolling its engine
like a frog following
a sundial yet having an electric
seizure at the quarter hour.
The business of words keeps me awake.
I am drinking cocoa,
that warm brown mama.
I would like a simple life
yet all night I am laying
poems away in a long box.
It is my immortality box,
my lay-away plan,
my coffin.
All night dark wings
flopping in my heart.
Each an ambition bird.
The bird wants to be dropped
from a high place like Tallahatchie Bridge.
He wants to light a kitchen match
and immolate himself.
He wants to fly into the hand of Michelangelo
anc dome out painted on a ceiling.
He wants to pierce the hornet's nest
and come out with a long godhead.
He wants to take bread and wine
and bring forth a man happily floating in the Caribbean.
He wants to be pressed out like a key
so he can unlock the Magi.
He wants to take leave among strangers
passing out bits of his heart like hors d'oeuvres.
He wants to die changing his clothes
and bolt for the sun like a diamond.
He wants, I want.
Dear God, wouldn't it be
good enough to just drink cocoa?
I must get a new bird
and a new immortality box.
There is folly enough inside this one.
***Messed up and juicy dirt on Anne Sexton: She was a fashion model, admitted to an incestuous relationship with her daughter (EEEEWWWW), and like so many other poets, she killed herself.
Have a nice day, and if you get a chance, smell a freshly sharpened pencil.
15 comments:
This is a beautiful post. It is rare to find someone who loves their job (ps - I love my job) and who expresses it in such a warm way.
Thank you for sharing.
I am glad that you are doing well, we all have our moments.
The world needs more teachers like you Lori! It's so nice to hear you get so excited about feeding the minds of today's youth! What an awesome responsibility that is and I know you strive to do the very best for them. You are wonderful and I miss you! Good luck with your new school year, and enjoy! :D
I knew i liked you for a reason.
I like to think most(if not all) people are kind of messed up. Makes me feel like i fit in.
and hey, as for writers and poets being totally messed up, at least we're productive about it.
justification at its finest.
Glad to hear you still love your job. Finding a career you like is hard, finding one you love is laughing in the face of universal improbability.
That 'juicy' part at the bottom...just can't get past it.
still reeling from the 'juicy part'
I think i'll be slightly disturbed for the rest of the day.
yep. really really really gross.
Your post contains the five magic qualities of a great teacher:
#1: You're passionately immersed in the subject you teach and the act of teaching. It's not a job; it's woven into the basic fabric of your being.
#2: You engage students as human beings, with caring and compassion; not as numbers, as fragments of a class average, as children who are beneath you and must obey you.
#3: You talked about learning from your students.
#4: You used the words 'love' and 'coach'.
#5: You give out candy.
Really, the first four are all you need, but #5 is a nice bonus!
As for the poem and the biographical note (which I wasn't aware of -- yikes!), I guess it's a reminder that, in moral terms, one should separate the art from the artist. At least that's what I tell myself whenever I'm driving around in the Nissan, humming and bopping to "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and "Rock with You". :)
Also a strange coincidence that on the floor beside the chair I'm sitting in as I type this are two volumes of poetry I'm currently going through -- Al Purdy's "rooms for rent in the outer planets", and...The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton.
Free-kee...
I'm curious. What does it mean to "separate the art from the artist"?
I hear that a lot, and still don't quite understand it.
Separating the art from the artist basically means that you look at a piece of art as something that can be enjoyed and interpreted without reading in anything about the author's life, the historical period they lived in, their gender, etc. The finished piece of art stands on its own, has its own 'life', in a sense, and can be looked at as a thing that's complete in and of itself -- something that doesn't rely on outside knowledge (of the author's life, etc) to be understood and appreciated.
It's highly valuable to see a work of art in its context -- its historical context, the context of the author's life and history. This can enliven and enrich your understanding of the piece of art in many ways. At the same time, it can be very dangerous and misleading to read everything an artist creates as somehow autobiographical. A part of the artist is always in their work, but one can never really tell how little or how much.
Separating the art from the artist also has a moral dimension. Just because I've learned something disturbing about an artist, doesn't mean I must then condemn their work or stop enjoying it. So when I find out about elements of Michael Jackson's personal life that I find strange or immoral, doesn't mean I throw his CDs in the river. Likewise with Anne Sexton and her poetry.
Hope that's helpful!
Another question.
Can one fully understand a work of art without knowing something about the artist?
I don't think that any great piece of literature or art can be fully understood. If it is truly great, then it mirrors life and is infinitely complex. One cannot fully understand life. I don't believe that one may ever fully understand art.
I agree. Meaning is never complete; any text/work of art is like a sea of infinite depth. It can never be static or fixed, because meaning changes as time moves forward, as we change.
I constantly tell my students that when they're reading something, they're actually reading themselves. Their responses to characters and situations, the details that stick out to them always say something about who they are. And can a person ever totally know themselves? I would say no. And so it is with works of art.
I think 'total understanding' can be a goal of reading, but a goal that's set knowing you'll never totally get there. What you gain along the way, however, will be of immense value.
Ok, fair enough.
So infinite complexity makes great art. Great art imitates life, thus the infinite complexity.
Is great art divine? Do you think (using "you" lightly) that great art comes from without, and the artist is merely a channel who has all their signals lined up right and at the right moment?
I don't think there's a definitive answer to that one; your answer will be dictated by your spiritual beliefs.
Many artists will describe experiences where they feel like 'channels', that something is coming to them so naturally it feels as though it's coming from outside. Personally, I think that sensation comes from the opposite -- from finding things inside of yourself that you forgot were there, that lie beyond the reach of surface memory and thought. You push your brain to push the pen, and then at a certain point the pen starts to push the brain; that cycle gets you deeper and deeper into what you're doing. Then it can feel like it's beyond you, that it's going in directions you aren't controlling or anticipating, but really it's just your brain working and making more and more connections as it goes.
So my view of it is pretty unromantic and nonspiritual, I guess, because I see inspiration and creativity in scientific terms. Creativity and intelligence are the words we use to describe the brain making connections between things; they can be traced down to the chemical processes of the brain. That means everybody is creative and can learn to tap into that creativity effectively.
See, I have a bit of a conundrum. I think a lot of things. I feel i should decide on feeling one way or the other about something, but sometimes (as in this case) i think too many things and have too many questions to decide how i feel definitively. Every assertion is met with a question ad infinitum.
I don't think art comes from without. Not some divine inspiration. But i think some artists experience it that way, and so, for them, it is. perception versus reality. Regardless of whether it's from without or not, this inspiration defintaley passes through the artist like a lens, and the art is colored by it, there is always some part of the artist visible in it.
I also don't separate the artist from the art (except perhaps in the moral sense that i don't think that art condones any action or behavior, nor does the appreciating of it.) I think that experiencing art for itself is valid, but i feel one gains something by knowing the creator. The art doesn't lose value if the veiwer doesn't know the creator necessarily, but i think something is gained in knowing.
I wasn't looking for definitive answers, just answers.
I posted a similar question on a bulletin on MySpace, to see who would bite and enter a discussion about the nature of art and inspiration and some people went so far as to turn to a spiritual discussion on the balance of creation and destruction within "human nature".
thank you for being so candid.
I love your blog, L.
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