Last night was the awards dinner at Washburn. Four of us were honored, and there were perhaps 200 guests. I had been somewhat worried during the afternoon, since a shopping trip had been cut short by numerous trips to the nearest restroom and since, once home, a planned long, envigorating nap was cut short by several disruptions (a ringing phone, four houses' worth of barking dogs). But three Imodiums later, I put on a suit, the first time I'd worn a suit since my retirement dinner in May 2010, and Mohamed and I left for Washburn. (I could identify that date because I found notes and remarks from the dinner in the pocket of the suit.) It was also the first time in many years that I could actually button the suit around my waist, breathe normally, and not worry about potential flying-button injuries to whoever was sitting across from me.
From 6-7 there was a cash bar. The first two people I met were brothers who had graduated in the early 80s. I've run into them about once a decade ever since, and I never recognize them, which is increasingly embarrassing, especially since one of them, Dave Barry (not the columnist who is one of my idols), took five different classes from me, a record that stood for many years till I also started teaching graduate courses and one student found six classes to take. Next a reporter for the local CBS station pulled me aside for a TV interview. I didn't have time to get nervous and answered three questions without too much fumbling. (I can't say that I was looking forward to seeing myself on the 10 o'clock news, but I did watch and my interview was reduced to one low angle shot--the reporter was short--of a tall man with completely white hair (so much for the Anderson Cooper image) whom at first I didn't even recognize as myself, followed by a four- or five-second quote.)
Digression: my last TV interview involved the NBC station sending a reporter and cameraman to my office at Washburn. I was forewarned, so I'd dressed up in a suit and tie. The subject was whether I thought all the texting abbreviations and shortcuts were harming student writing. I felt at ease, and the reporter asked intelligent questions. I actually was looking forward to seeing the interview on the local news. That time, in a story that lasted perhaps 45 seconds, I got two four- or five-second quotes.
The group at the dinner comprised mainly alumni (logical enough) and administrators, and it was fun to shmooze with many people I hadn't seen much (or at all) since I retired. There was one embarrassing moment when I was trying to get the attention of the associate v-p for academic affairs. She was passing; I called her name. She didn't hear, so I reached out with my cane to tap her on the arm. Unfortunately, she had turned slightly and my aim wasn't great, so I ended up punching her in the rear end. At least, I got her attention.
The dinner was good, though I picked at my food, since I was afraid of the consequences of serious eating. And the table of eight was made up of my guests, so the company was lively. Promptly at 8, the head of the Alumni Association began handing out the awards. The nicest part was that the Association has solicited letters from colleagues and alumni who were my students, and the emcee read selected compliments from the letters. I had a little trouble with the two uneven steps to the stage (I had my cane, but there was no railing), but the presenter graciously helped me up (and later down). Although there was, as I had suspected, no large check, there was a crystal plaque, a certificate (unfortunately framed upside down, so I'll get the right-side-up version later), and best of all, the full collection of letters of appreciation that colleagues and alumni had submitted. I was (and am) extremely touched by the details, the memories, and, of course, the compliments in the letters. They are generous and very moving, and I'm extremely grateful for all the kindnesses. I gave a short speech, which drew a few laughs. By that time in the evening, I think everyone was thankful for brevity.
So last night was a lovely evening. Now I'll keep my fingers crossed that tomorrow's testing keeps the streak alive.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Previews of Coming Attractions:
Saturday evening, the Washburn Alumni Association is giving me the Col. John Ritchie award at a reception and dinner on campus. Ritchie donated the land for Washburn, which was founded as Lincoln College in 1865. The award is for "distinguished" teaching, service, etc. I came to Washburn in 1972, thinking I'd stay for a year or two before moving on. I retired 38 years later, realizing how many great opportunities Washburn had given me. I had a career that I loved with many smart and generous colleagues and with (for the most part) interested and interesting students. The poet Randall Jarrell said that if he weren't paid to teach, he would pay to teach. That's how I felt, though I never said so in public until I retired lest President Farley take me at my word. Two women whom I never met, the aptly named Sweet sisters, endowed a one-of-a-kind summer sabbatical program that allowed me to spend eight or nine summers in Paris. (As an American lit. professor, I did have to be inventive to think of reasons why I needed to spend so many summers in France.) I had four regular sabbaticals to work on research and four leaves of absence to spend years teaching and living abroad. With Virginia Pruitt, I had the unique opportunity to work with Karl Menninger, a project that eventually led to four books and a monograph and that wouldn't have been a possibility had I not been in Topeka. The award will provide a convivial occasion to share a couple of hours with friends and colleagues and to express my thanks for all that Washburn offered me. (I'll just have to fortify myself with a couple of Imodiums and a nap or two beforehand.)
Monday I return to the KU Cancer Center for the whole battery of tests. The schedule had been that I would go once a month for blood work, the hugely expensive bone-strengthening shot (now at $12,000 a shot after a price hike of $800), and a consultation with Jennifer Heins, a physician assistant; every third month, I'd also have scans, x-rays, and a consultation with the oncologist, Dr. Vanveldhuizen. The schedule was changed last time to once every six weeks, with the shot once every three months, and more limited scans (this time only a pelvic CT scan was scheduled). Since the pain in both my right leg, especially in the hip joint, and my left shoulder, where much of the scapula has been destroyed, has increased, I e-mailed Dr. Van asking whether the scans should be broader in scope. When I taught, I always prefered e-mails to calls from students. Calls led to phone tag; the students seemed to leave long, overly explanatory messages and then mumble their phone numbers at the end. Dr. Van responded promptly, and Jennifer called, so I'll have more tests on Monday than were originally scheduled. The tests aren't unpleasant, except that we have to be in KC at 7 a.m., and I can't have eaten or drunk for four hours before the tests. Before the scans, I have to drink two bottles of liquid; they used to be thick "smoothies," then they became clear liquids that were supposed to taste like lemonade. This time, the drink is supposed to be just like drinking two glasses of water. The CT scans aren't difficult: they're like MRI scans except without the lengthy time in the enclosure and the banging. After the tests, there's a two-hour wait to see Dr. Van so that he can have the results of the tests. Since he always explains things very thoroughly (painstakingly, even), the wait is usually three hours, by which time I'm tired and grumpy. Finally, I'll get the shot, and then we'll head back to Topeka. Chances are good I'll fall asleep in the car. Insha'allah, as they say, the results will be good.
Something I learned: We like both Jennifer and Dr. Van a lot. In person and in previous blogs, I had always called Jennifer, "Dr. Heins." But the last time, I noticed that everyone at the Cancer Center calls them "Dr. Van" and "Jennifer." Initially I thought this was some sort of out-dated sexism. But then I saw that she had signed a prescription with her name, followed by PA-C. I had no idea what that meant. A few minutes after googling, I had learned a lot about the title 'physician assistant' and how prevalent and important this profession is. I still feel awkward calling her Jennifer, though she is very personable. The more you know...
Saturday evening, the Washburn Alumni Association is giving me the Col. John Ritchie award at a reception and dinner on campus. Ritchie donated the land for Washburn, which was founded as Lincoln College in 1865. The award is for "distinguished" teaching, service, etc. I came to Washburn in 1972, thinking I'd stay for a year or two before moving on. I retired 38 years later, realizing how many great opportunities Washburn had given me. I had a career that I loved with many smart and generous colleagues and with (for the most part) interested and interesting students. The poet Randall Jarrell said that if he weren't paid to teach, he would pay to teach. That's how I felt, though I never said so in public until I retired lest President Farley take me at my word. Two women whom I never met, the aptly named Sweet sisters, endowed a one-of-a-kind summer sabbatical program that allowed me to spend eight or nine summers in Paris. (As an American lit. professor, I did have to be inventive to think of reasons why I needed to spend so many summers in France.) I had four regular sabbaticals to work on research and four leaves of absence to spend years teaching and living abroad. With Virginia Pruitt, I had the unique opportunity to work with Karl Menninger, a project that eventually led to four books and a monograph and that wouldn't have been a possibility had I not been in Topeka. The award will provide a convivial occasion to share a couple of hours with friends and colleagues and to express my thanks for all that Washburn offered me. (I'll just have to fortify myself with a couple of Imodiums and a nap or two beforehand.)
Monday I return to the KU Cancer Center for the whole battery of tests. The schedule had been that I would go once a month for blood work, the hugely expensive bone-strengthening shot (now at $12,000 a shot after a price hike of $800), and a consultation with Jennifer Heins, a physician assistant; every third month, I'd also have scans, x-rays, and a consultation with the oncologist, Dr. Vanveldhuizen. The schedule was changed last time to once every six weeks, with the shot once every three months, and more limited scans (this time only a pelvic CT scan was scheduled). Since the pain in both my right leg, especially in the hip joint, and my left shoulder, where much of the scapula has been destroyed, has increased, I e-mailed Dr. Van asking whether the scans should be broader in scope. When I taught, I always prefered e-mails to calls from students. Calls led to phone tag; the students seemed to leave long, overly explanatory messages and then mumble their phone numbers at the end. Dr. Van responded promptly, and Jennifer called, so I'll have more tests on Monday than were originally scheduled. The tests aren't unpleasant, except that we have to be in KC at 7 a.m., and I can't have eaten or drunk for four hours before the tests. Before the scans, I have to drink two bottles of liquid; they used to be thick "smoothies," then they became clear liquids that were supposed to taste like lemonade. This time, the drink is supposed to be just like drinking two glasses of water. The CT scans aren't difficult: they're like MRI scans except without the lengthy time in the enclosure and the banging. After the tests, there's a two-hour wait to see Dr. Van so that he can have the results of the tests. Since he always explains things very thoroughly (painstakingly, even), the wait is usually three hours, by which time I'm tired and grumpy. Finally, I'll get the shot, and then we'll head back to Topeka. Chances are good I'll fall asleep in the car. Insha'allah, as they say, the results will be good.
Something I learned: We like both Jennifer and Dr. Van a lot. In person and in previous blogs, I had always called Jennifer, "Dr. Heins." But the last time, I noticed that everyone at the Cancer Center calls them "Dr. Van" and "Jennifer." Initially I thought this was some sort of out-dated sexism. But then I saw that she had signed a prescription with her name, followed by PA-C. I had no idea what that meant. A few minutes after googling, I had learned a lot about the title 'physician assistant' and how prevalent and important this profession is. I still feel awkward calling her Jennifer, though she is very personable. The more you know...
Monday, April 23, 2012
A few random thoughts after a not-so-great weekend. After a few days of relative quiet in my G-I tract, the calm came to an end and much of the weekend was spent swallowing Imodium and staying close to home. (Had eating an entire platter of nachos been a bad idea?) And then every few hours, my mind and body crashed. Life--both weeks and days--seems to go in waves: a few hours of energy (especially in the mornings), a crash that sends me to bed, a weaker wave of energy around lunch time, a bigger crash leading to a very long nap, another wave upwards, and then, as the evening progresses, less and less strength. It's extremely frustrating and makes planning difficult--and, of course, in the back of my mind there's always the question of whether I'm sleeping more than the week or the month before, of whether the ups are less frequent and the lows more profound.
Little problems seem magnified when I have only occasional energy to deal with them. We have a 75# German shepherd mix, Kimber. Saturday morning I let her out, and when next I looked, she had one of the rabbits who live under our back deck in her mouth. A year or so ago, she eviscerated one, so I was prepared for the worst. But luckily, when I yelled "Kimber," she dropped the rabbit, which ran off. We bought a new sofa for the TV room; it arrived Friday after an inexplicable five-week wait. Although it's high and firm enough that I can abandon my Archie Bunker chair and actually stand up from it (unlike the old couch, which was so saggy I hadn't sat on it since my surgery), it's much bigger than it looked in the showroom, so now we need a new, smaller coffee table. After a couple of hours of standing in two furniture stores, one with really overeager sales clerks, all I wanted to do was get off my feet and not have to think. We ordered one online, but of course it'll take several weeks to arrive. The people who are going to re-tile our two bathrooms put off coming to start work from today till next week. The landscaper is hired, but doesn't know when he'll come. The guy who mows the lawn seems less attentive than usual. And then on Sunday, my phone stopped working, the boot screen endlessly recycling itself. Before I could go to the store, I had to take a nap. When we finally went to T-Mobile, they had to order a new phone for me; in the meantime, I'm using an old, non-"smart" phone (imagine the indignity!), and I've lost all my contact numbers. Are any of these things major? Of course not. Would they have been big deals a year ago? Nope. But now when all I want to do is plant my tuches on my new couch, have some protein- and fat-rich foods (to keep my weight up, of course), and drift off, they seem a lot more important than they should.
Adding to all this is the feeling of being dependent on others, perhaps most significantly, the consequences of almost never driving any more. I didn't drive for the first two months after surgery because when I was in the brace, I couldn't. I could barely get in a car. And then I didn't drive because my right leg wasn't very nimble, and I thought I might not be able to move it from gas pedal to brake in time. And after four or five months, I had just developed the habit of letting Mohamed do all the driving. I'm not sure, given the sudden lows, how good my reaction times would be. I still have to lift my right leg by hand into the car. How smooth would its movements be if I was driving? (The Grammar Doctor says 'was' not the subjunctive 'were' after the 'if' because it's an open possibility that I could be driving.) Both symbolically and practically, not driving often is the major example of not being in control, of being dependent. So 65 years of one self-image have been erased--or at least supplanted by an image that I don't like and a reality that I like even less.
And now it's time for my daily anti-coagulant shot. And enough time has passed since the chemo pills that I can have a Krispy Kreme or something equally nutritious. And I probably should check to make sure that there aren't any bunnies serving as Kimber's breakfast.
Little problems seem magnified when I have only occasional energy to deal with them. We have a 75# German shepherd mix, Kimber. Saturday morning I let her out, and when next I looked, she had one of the rabbits who live under our back deck in her mouth. A year or so ago, she eviscerated one, so I was prepared for the worst. But luckily, when I yelled "Kimber," she dropped the rabbit, which ran off. We bought a new sofa for the TV room; it arrived Friday after an inexplicable five-week wait. Although it's high and firm enough that I can abandon my Archie Bunker chair and actually stand up from it (unlike the old couch, which was so saggy I hadn't sat on it since my surgery), it's much bigger than it looked in the showroom, so now we need a new, smaller coffee table. After a couple of hours of standing in two furniture stores, one with really overeager sales clerks, all I wanted to do was get off my feet and not have to think. We ordered one online, but of course it'll take several weeks to arrive. The people who are going to re-tile our two bathrooms put off coming to start work from today till next week. The landscaper is hired, but doesn't know when he'll come. The guy who mows the lawn seems less attentive than usual. And then on Sunday, my phone stopped working, the boot screen endlessly recycling itself. Before I could go to the store, I had to take a nap. When we finally went to T-Mobile, they had to order a new phone for me; in the meantime, I'm using an old, non-"smart" phone (imagine the indignity!), and I've lost all my contact numbers. Are any of these things major? Of course not. Would they have been big deals a year ago? Nope. But now when all I want to do is plant my tuches on my new couch, have some protein- and fat-rich foods (to keep my weight up, of course), and drift off, they seem a lot more important than they should.
Adding to all this is the feeling of being dependent on others, perhaps most significantly, the consequences of almost never driving any more. I didn't drive for the first two months after surgery because when I was in the brace, I couldn't. I could barely get in a car. And then I didn't drive because my right leg wasn't very nimble, and I thought I might not be able to move it from gas pedal to brake in time. And after four or five months, I had just developed the habit of letting Mohamed do all the driving. I'm not sure, given the sudden lows, how good my reaction times would be. I still have to lift my right leg by hand into the car. How smooth would its movements be if I was driving? (The Grammar Doctor says 'was' not the subjunctive 'were' after the 'if' because it's an open possibility that I could be driving.) Both symbolically and practically, not driving often is the major example of not being in control, of being dependent. So 65 years of one self-image have been erased--or at least supplanted by an image that I don't like and a reality that I like even less.
And now it's time for my daily anti-coagulant shot. And enough time has passed since the chemo pills that I can have a Krispy Kreme or something equally nutritious. And I probably should check to make sure that there aren't any bunnies serving as Kimber's breakfast.
Friday, April 20, 2012
4 Things that Make Me Happy These Days..and one that doesn't.
Taking care of the one that doesn't first: I was almost done with this post, when my computer froze, and no matter what I did, I couldn't save or recover what I'd written. So this is a second, grumpy attempt.
1. Laughing (and I'm an easy laugher).
Quiz: Who recently said, "I live for laughter"?
a) Hillary Clinton b) Newt Gingrich c) Mitt Romney d) Antonin Scalia
(answer below)
Always make me laugh: Jay Leno's "Headlines" (I said I was easy), Albert Brooks, Joan Rivers, Martin Short, "Frasier" reruns.
Used to make me laugh, but doesn't any more: Chelsea Handler
Didn't use to make me laugh, but does now: Steven Colbert
Smartest comedian--Male: Jon Stewart
Smartest comedian--Female: Wanda Sykes (her long monologue on education is as intelligent and perceptive as if she'd spent her life teaching)
2. A movie and a short story. This weekend, TCM showed Rene Clement's brilliant 1951 film "Jeux Interdits" ("Forbidden Games"), which I hadn't seen in perhaps thirty years. I've been reading the anthology of the Best American Short Stories of 2011. The editor wrote that she had chosen traditional stories that emphasized plot rather than just atmosphere. After reading six or seven stories with a character suffering from anomie, staring into a gray river, and contemplating the rope in his/her closet, I was about to give up hope. And then I read Claire Keegan's "Foster," the best short story I've read in a long time. Thinking about the two works, I realized they have much in common: both focus on a young girl (Paulette is five or six in "Forbidden Games"; the narrator of "Foster" is eight or nine) who are taken from their family, live with a "foster" family before losing them too, and repeatedly cry out at the end ("Michel, Michel, Michel" and "Daddy, Daddy") leaving the reader or viewer with the same sense of loss and emptiness as the two girls.
"Forbidden Games" opens with Paulette, her parents, and her dog on a road jammed with Parisians fleeing from German bombardment and quarreling among themselves. The parents are killed, and Paulette is forced to leave them, clutching her dog, which is also dead. A woman grabs the dog away from her and flings it into a stream. Paulette wanders off to retrieve the body as the straggling procession moves on without her. She is finally taken in by a peasant family. There is no romanticization here. The family is loutish and, barely aware of the war around them, conducts endless petty fights with their only neighbors. But Paulette is befriended by their son Michel, who is perhaps 12 or 13. They bury the dog, but feel the grave needs a cross, and so begin their forbidden games: burying animals and stealing crosses for their graves. At the end, the Red Cross takes Paulette away, and when last we see her, she is lost in a mass of people at a train station, calling out desperately for Michel.
In "Foster," the young narrator is given away temporarily (it seems) by her family; her mother is about to give birth to another child, and the narrator is too young to be useful around the house. Or at least that seems to be one possible explanation; why she's given away, what the relationship of the couple who take her in to her own family is, how long she will be there--all of this is unstated. The couple she stays with is better off (this is Ireland in perhaps the 1980s) and (it seems) childless. They are kind, but generally undemonstrative. The most quoted line in the story is the foster mother's: "There are no secrets in this house, for where there are secrets, there is shame." But of course there is a secret--that the couple has had a young son who drowned in a slurry pool. Still, the drowning was an accident and hardly seems shameful. The girl knows as much happiness there as she's ever known, but at the end, she is returned to her original family, the motive for her return as vague as the motive for her being sent away. The foster father has trained her to run and to run fast, and as the car pulls away, she jumps out, runs back, leaps into her foster father's arms, and cries out "Daddy." Keegan's style is exact--spare and precise, but not minimalist. Perhaps it's too precise to replicate the consciousness of a nine-year-old, but the story is tantalizingly touching. (Keegan is Irish, but the story was first published in The New Yorker, so qualifies for the volume of American stories.)
3. Language. For several years, I had a website, the Grammar Doctor. Every month there'd be a grammar quote, a grammar question, and a grammar gaffe. Readers could submit grammar questions, which came in from all over the country (and occasionally from abroad). Finally, it got to be too much (unpaid) work, so I gave it up. Even though these were the George Bush years, I liked to take the grammar gaffe from sources that should have known better. The distinction between 'who' and 'whom' has almost (thankfully) disappeared, but people insist on using 'whomever,' most of the time incorrectly. The New York Review of Books gets it wrong at least half of the time. When Sarah Palin says three times in an interview about the potential nominee, "Whomever it is," well, it's Sarah Palin. But when the interviewer says something like, "He'll throw his support to whomever is finally chosen," I flinch. No, no, no. I know 'whomever' seems logical because of the preposition 'to' which needs an object. But the verb, 'is chosen,' has to have a subject, and that subject is 'whoever.' It's the whole noun clause, "whoever is finally chosen," that's the object of the preposition. Let's just agree to banish the word 'whomever'--at least that's my solution.
4. Lists.
Answer to quiz: c) Mitt Romney. No joke.
Taking care of the one that doesn't first: I was almost done with this post, when my computer froze, and no matter what I did, I couldn't save or recover what I'd written. So this is a second, grumpy attempt.
1. Laughing (and I'm an easy laugher).
Quiz: Who recently said, "I live for laughter"?
a) Hillary Clinton b) Newt Gingrich c) Mitt Romney d) Antonin Scalia
(answer below)
Always make me laugh: Jay Leno's "Headlines" (I said I was easy), Albert Brooks, Joan Rivers, Martin Short, "Frasier" reruns.
Used to make me laugh, but doesn't any more: Chelsea Handler
Didn't use to make me laugh, but does now: Steven Colbert
Smartest comedian--Male: Jon Stewart
Smartest comedian--Female: Wanda Sykes (her long monologue on education is as intelligent and perceptive as if she'd spent her life teaching)
2. A movie and a short story. This weekend, TCM showed Rene Clement's brilliant 1951 film "Jeux Interdits" ("Forbidden Games"), which I hadn't seen in perhaps thirty years. I've been reading the anthology of the Best American Short Stories of 2011. The editor wrote that she had chosen traditional stories that emphasized plot rather than just atmosphere. After reading six or seven stories with a character suffering from anomie, staring into a gray river, and contemplating the rope in his/her closet, I was about to give up hope. And then I read Claire Keegan's "Foster," the best short story I've read in a long time. Thinking about the two works, I realized they have much in common: both focus on a young girl (Paulette is five or six in "Forbidden Games"; the narrator of "Foster" is eight or nine) who are taken from their family, live with a "foster" family before losing them too, and repeatedly cry out at the end ("Michel, Michel, Michel" and "Daddy, Daddy") leaving the reader or viewer with the same sense of loss and emptiness as the two girls.
"Forbidden Games" opens with Paulette, her parents, and her dog on a road jammed with Parisians fleeing from German bombardment and quarreling among themselves. The parents are killed, and Paulette is forced to leave them, clutching her dog, which is also dead. A woman grabs the dog away from her and flings it into a stream. Paulette wanders off to retrieve the body as the straggling procession moves on without her. She is finally taken in by a peasant family. There is no romanticization here. The family is loutish and, barely aware of the war around them, conducts endless petty fights with their only neighbors. But Paulette is befriended by their son Michel, who is perhaps 12 or 13. They bury the dog, but feel the grave needs a cross, and so begin their forbidden games: burying animals and stealing crosses for their graves. At the end, the Red Cross takes Paulette away, and when last we see her, she is lost in a mass of people at a train station, calling out desperately for Michel.
In "Foster," the young narrator is given away temporarily (it seems) by her family; her mother is about to give birth to another child, and the narrator is too young to be useful around the house. Or at least that seems to be one possible explanation; why she's given away, what the relationship of the couple who take her in to her own family is, how long she will be there--all of this is unstated. The couple she stays with is better off (this is Ireland in perhaps the 1980s) and (it seems) childless. They are kind, but generally undemonstrative. The most quoted line in the story is the foster mother's: "There are no secrets in this house, for where there are secrets, there is shame." But of course there is a secret--that the couple has had a young son who drowned in a slurry pool. Still, the drowning was an accident and hardly seems shameful. The girl knows as much happiness there as she's ever known, but at the end, she is returned to her original family, the motive for her return as vague as the motive for her being sent away. The foster father has trained her to run and to run fast, and as the car pulls away, she jumps out, runs back, leaps into her foster father's arms, and cries out "Daddy." Keegan's style is exact--spare and precise, but not minimalist. Perhaps it's too precise to replicate the consciousness of a nine-year-old, but the story is tantalizingly touching. (Keegan is Irish, but the story was first published in The New Yorker, so qualifies for the volume of American stories.)
3. Language. For several years, I had a website, the Grammar Doctor. Every month there'd be a grammar quote, a grammar question, and a grammar gaffe. Readers could submit grammar questions, which came in from all over the country (and occasionally from abroad). Finally, it got to be too much (unpaid) work, so I gave it up. Even though these were the George Bush years, I liked to take the grammar gaffe from sources that should have known better. The distinction between 'who' and 'whom' has almost (thankfully) disappeared, but people insist on using 'whomever,' most of the time incorrectly. The New York Review of Books gets it wrong at least half of the time. When Sarah Palin says three times in an interview about the potential nominee, "Whomever it is," well, it's Sarah Palin. But when the interviewer says something like, "He'll throw his support to whomever is finally chosen," I flinch. No, no, no. I know 'whomever' seems logical because of the preposition 'to' which needs an object. But the verb, 'is chosen,' has to have a subject, and that subject is 'whoever.' It's the whole noun clause, "whoever is finally chosen," that's the object of the preposition. Let's just agree to banish the word 'whomever'--at least that's my solution.
4. Lists.
Answer to quiz: c) Mitt Romney. No joke.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Joanne, my most frequent commenter, suggested yesterday that perhaps my last blog, full of complaints, was less about complaining than about anger. But no. Along with guilt and regret, anger seems yet another gene I missed out on. Sure, my blood pressure rises every time I see Mitt Romney or Eric Cantor or Kansas's governor Brownback (just to stick with one theme), but that anger is short-lived and rather abstract. In personal relations, anger just isn't part of my nature. A shrink once suggested that it must be that I was afraid to express what I must really be feeling. It was difficult to convince him that I wasn't fearful of expressing it because I really wasn't feeling anger. I've tried it a few times: it was rather like putting on an ill-fitting costume. It wasn't natural and and seemed like playacting, and I wasn't even very good at it.
At a more philosphical level, I can't be angry either. First, there's no one to be angry with. When the four men in a boat in Stephen Crane's story "The Open Boat" realize that they are likely to drown, they are baffled and angry and want to throw bricks at the temple, but they finally realize that there are no bricks and there is no temple. There is no god, and nature is flatly indifferent, neither benign nor malign--just unconcerned and, as Crane says in a poem I mentioned earlier ("A man said to the universe / 'Sir, I exist.'"), having no sense of obligation. But I can't even get to that stage since I have nothing to be angry about. I've been very lucky. (Is that word getting tiresome?) I exist, a statistically infinitesimal probability. I've lived longer, much longer, than the vast majority of people who have ever existed. I've never known poverty or hunger. I've never worked on an assembly line or dug a ditch. I had good parents who didn't pass on anything more than garden-variety neuroses. Unlike anyone else in my family, I went to college and grad school, and had a good education and bright, funny, feisty friends. I spent 45 years in a career that I loved and that gave me unusual opportunities to live and teach in five different countries on three different continents. I've got supportive friends, good doctors, and a wonderful partner. So what's to complain? But, friends have said, you didn't deserve this (i.e., the bad thing, the cancer). If I didn't "deserve" the cancer, does that mean I didn't deserve all the good things? Except in a very limited sense (the student wrote an excellent essay; therefore, s/he deserved the A), I'm not comfortable with the word 'deserve' and what it implies. We simply don't live in a world where fairness obtains. Our tragedy is that of Aeschylus, not Aristotle.
So sometimes a complaint is only a complaint. Then again, maybe that's too simple and Joanne is onto something. I may not be disguising anger, but perhaps it's something else. When Julian Barnes wrote "There's nothing to be frightened of," the doubleness of his meaning is lost on me. I'm not afraid of nothing(ness). I'm not afraid of death. But dying--well, that's another matter; that's a real something that does frighten me. When, as the last few days, my right leg hurts and my left shoulder hurts even more, it's not that the discomfort has turned to pain (so far, I can suck it up for this level of pain). It's the fear of what is really going on and what whatever is happening bodes for the future. And that scares the shit out of me.
(As I was typing this, the "Today" show was on in the background, and a TV psychologist who specializes in anger management was asked by the interviewer, "Some people say that they never get angry. Is that possible?" You don't have to be clairvoyant to guess what her answer was. And, she continued, those who deny their anger and thus bottle it up suffer physical consequences and diseases. Damn! If only I'd yelled at a few more people, I could've avoided cancer. I guess I had it coming.)
At a more philosphical level, I can't be angry either. First, there's no one to be angry with. When the four men in a boat in Stephen Crane's story "The Open Boat" realize that they are likely to drown, they are baffled and angry and want to throw bricks at the temple, but they finally realize that there are no bricks and there is no temple. There is no god, and nature is flatly indifferent, neither benign nor malign--just unconcerned and, as Crane says in a poem I mentioned earlier ("A man said to the universe / 'Sir, I exist.'"), having no sense of obligation. But I can't even get to that stage since I have nothing to be angry about. I've been very lucky. (Is that word getting tiresome?) I exist, a statistically infinitesimal probability. I've lived longer, much longer, than the vast majority of people who have ever existed. I've never known poverty or hunger. I've never worked on an assembly line or dug a ditch. I had good parents who didn't pass on anything more than garden-variety neuroses. Unlike anyone else in my family, I went to college and grad school, and had a good education and bright, funny, feisty friends. I spent 45 years in a career that I loved and that gave me unusual opportunities to live and teach in five different countries on three different continents. I've got supportive friends, good doctors, and a wonderful partner. So what's to complain? But, friends have said, you didn't deserve this (i.e., the bad thing, the cancer). If I didn't "deserve" the cancer, does that mean I didn't deserve all the good things? Except in a very limited sense (the student wrote an excellent essay; therefore, s/he deserved the A), I'm not comfortable with the word 'deserve' and what it implies. We simply don't live in a world where fairness obtains. Our tragedy is that of Aeschylus, not Aristotle.
So sometimes a complaint is only a complaint. Then again, maybe that's too simple and Joanne is onto something. I may not be disguising anger, but perhaps it's something else. When Julian Barnes wrote "There's nothing to be frightened of," the doubleness of his meaning is lost on me. I'm not afraid of nothing(ness). I'm not afraid of death. But dying--well, that's another matter; that's a real something that does frighten me. When, as the last few days, my right leg hurts and my left shoulder hurts even more, it's not that the discomfort has turned to pain (so far, I can suck it up for this level of pain). It's the fear of what is really going on and what whatever is happening bodes for the future. And that scares the shit out of me.
(As I was typing this, the "Today" show was on in the background, and a TV psychologist who specializes in anger management was asked by the interviewer, "Some people say that they never get angry. Is that possible?" You don't have to be clairvoyant to guess what her answer was. And, she continued, those who deny their anger and thus bottle it up suffer physical consequences and diseases. Damn! If only I'd yelled at a few more people, I could've avoided cancer. I guess I had it coming.)
Saturday, April 14, 2012
So begins the second year of knowingly living with cancer. I say knowingly, since the symptoms first manifested themselves six months before the cancer diagnosis. A friend asked whether I was angry about the six months of misdiagnosis, whether it seemed like six months lost in the battle. Since the kidney cancer had by October 2010 already metastasized into the left scapula, I'm not sure what an earlier diagnosis might have changed. Maybe an extra six months of blissful ignorance wasn't entirely a bad thing. I am angry that my primary care physician, someone I thought was my friend as well as my physician, has never talked to me directly since that October when I went in for an x-ray, which found nothing. Yesterday, I received a form letter from his office saying that it was time for me to come in for some regular, but unspecified bloodwork. Doesn't he know that I get blood tests every month? I've continued to put him down as the primary physician, simply because all forms demand a name. Is he uninformed about what's going on? Or do the results of all the tests simply get stuck in my file without anyone reading them? I threw the form letter in the trash.
Another friend, who doesn't read the blog, asked how my health was compared to a year ago. On April 12, 2011, I thought I was healthy except for the irritating pain in my left shoulder, which I thought was a torn rotator cuff or maybe bursitis. Everyone who had had similar pains said that pains like those took what seemed like forever to heal, so, although I was impatient, I wasn't seriously worried. On April 13, 2012, however, I'd spent a year knowing better. I begin every morning by taking 10 or 11 pills, some of which are simply to counter the side effects of others. In the evening, there are two more to take. And then there are the "as needed" Imodium pills, which I need all too often. Mohamed begins every morning by giving me an anti-coagulant shot in my stomach. Since the whole point is thinning the blood, the area around the shot bruises, so I have an unattractive ring of greenish bruises around my stomach. (Despite having lost some weight and two notches in my belt, I still seem to have sufficient belly for there to be room for the shots. That hardly seems fair.) Medicare has paid for almost every penny of medical and hospital care, but the medications are incredibly expensive. It doesn't take long for me to move into the "catastrophic" phase of Medicare Part D, where I pay only 5% of the cost, but for the first couple of months, until I get to that stage, the bills aren't pleasant. I know that I'm lucky to have good insurance. I keep thinking of what this would be like for someone who was 64 and didn't have Medicare and for the millions who don't have insurance at all. So I feel somewhat selfish grousing during the two months when all the credit card bills are for meds rather than for something "fun," but still...
A year ago, my hair was salt and pepper; now it's white. A year ago, my right femur was bone, not titanium. I didn't limp when I walked or groan every time I stood up or carry a cane every time I left the house. I could cut my own toenails, put my socks on without further groaning, and slide into a car seat without having to lift my right leg with my hands into the car. A year ago, I could go a restaurant without scoping out the location of the bathrooms and didn't buy twelve-packs of toilet paper. I could think about travel (and even moving to Florida). A year ago, if I took a nap (I was retired after all), it was because I wanted to, not because my mind and body had shut down.
A year ago, I didn't sufficiently appreciate what great and generous friends I have and had turned the page on too many friendships. I didn't know that our medical system works as well as it does or that in a complex as, well, complex as KU Med, there were so many caring, friendly, and skilled doctors and nurses. I didn't know just how many talents Mohamed has and how much care he could give without ever, not once, complaining.
I've started the second year by complaining after saying I wouldn't. I hope I've gotten it out of my system--for a while at least.
Another friend, who doesn't read the blog, asked how my health was compared to a year ago. On April 12, 2011, I thought I was healthy except for the irritating pain in my left shoulder, which I thought was a torn rotator cuff or maybe bursitis. Everyone who had had similar pains said that pains like those took what seemed like forever to heal, so, although I was impatient, I wasn't seriously worried. On April 13, 2012, however, I'd spent a year knowing better. I begin every morning by taking 10 or 11 pills, some of which are simply to counter the side effects of others. In the evening, there are two more to take. And then there are the "as needed" Imodium pills, which I need all too often. Mohamed begins every morning by giving me an anti-coagulant shot in my stomach. Since the whole point is thinning the blood, the area around the shot bruises, so I have an unattractive ring of greenish bruises around my stomach. (Despite having lost some weight and two notches in my belt, I still seem to have sufficient belly for there to be room for the shots. That hardly seems fair.) Medicare has paid for almost every penny of medical and hospital care, but the medications are incredibly expensive. It doesn't take long for me to move into the "catastrophic" phase of Medicare Part D, where I pay only 5% of the cost, but for the first couple of months, until I get to that stage, the bills aren't pleasant. I know that I'm lucky to have good insurance. I keep thinking of what this would be like for someone who was 64 and didn't have Medicare and for the millions who don't have insurance at all. So I feel somewhat selfish grousing during the two months when all the credit card bills are for meds rather than for something "fun," but still...
A year ago, my hair was salt and pepper; now it's white. A year ago, my right femur was bone, not titanium. I didn't limp when I walked or groan every time I stood up or carry a cane every time I left the house. I could cut my own toenails, put my socks on without further groaning, and slide into a car seat without having to lift my right leg with my hands into the car. A year ago, I could go a restaurant without scoping out the location of the bathrooms and didn't buy twelve-packs of toilet paper. I could think about travel (and even moving to Florida). A year ago, if I took a nap (I was retired after all), it was because I wanted to, not because my mind and body had shut down.
A year ago, I didn't sufficiently appreciate what great and generous friends I have and had turned the page on too many friendships. I didn't know that our medical system works as well as it does or that in a complex as, well, complex as KU Med, there were so many caring, friendly, and skilled doctors and nurses. I didn't know just how many talents Mohamed has and how much care he could give without ever, not once, complaining.
I've started the second year by complaining after saying I wouldn't. I hope I've gotten it out of my system--for a while at least.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
First, I have to apologize. In the last post, I mentioned "setbacks" without explaining what or how serious they were. Several friends have expressed their concern. One was simply that my stomach problems had seemed to abate somewhat, but Saturday we went out for sushi (rice is usually good for what ails me). The dinner had finished, we had paid and were ready to leave, and then suddenly I had only a minute or so to find the restroom or endure some serious humiliation. I made it and felt relieved, so to speak. I thought everything was all right, but the moment we got into the car, the emergency struck again. Lucikly, there wasn't much traffic and Mohamed sped a little, so we got home in time for me to "run" (I don't really move all that fast these days) into the house in time. I hate the unpredictability, the potential embarrassment, and the debilitating effects of all this, and it was discouraging to think that the troubles hadn't really gone away. More disturbing was that in the course of this, I did something to my right leg, the one that had the surgery. I don't know whether I tore/sprained/strained a muscle (no, Joanne, I didn't hear a sproing!), but for the next 48 hours, my leg hurt more than at any time since the surgery. And of course I worried that I had done something more serious. The leg still hurts more than I would like, but it does seem to be getting better, so I think that the setback was temporary. Thanks for your concerns, and I'm sorry to have been so indefinite.
It's been exactly one year since a doctor told me that I had cancer--one moment at a few minutes till 11 a.m. when everything in my life changed. After I retired, I taught as an adjunct for the next year--two classes of freshman composition in the fall, one in the spring. All the books and art from my old office had been shlepped home, and I was sharing an office with Josh, an old student, now a colleague and friend. He, Mohamed, and I hung out there. I would often find myself turning to the shelves to grab a book I wanted for class, only to be reminded that the bookcases were empty. This wing of the building had once been active with classrooms and professors' offices, but it had later been turned mostly into administrative offices, so generally felt deserted. Before my class, I went up to the second floor to use the restroom. The corridor was empty. My cell phone rang, and it was the doctor who had been treating me for nearly six months for a torn rotator cuff and then bursitis. A few days before, he had said that I should have an MRI in case he had missed something, as indeed he had. He called to tell me that I had a tumor that had destroyed part of my left scapula. When I didn't react with anything but silence, he said, "You have cancer and you need to find a specialist immediately." I don't think I was any more articulate after that comment. He also asked that I keep him informed, but since he'd misdiagnosed me for so many months, I didn't really feel obligated.
In retrospect, I don't know what went through my mind. I know that I taught my class, and I think it was normal enough. And then on the way home, I told Mohamed. We had a few days of denial: the doctor hadn't done a biopsy so how could he know that the tumor was malignant? But most of the next couple of weeks consisted of confusion and frustration. I never managed to talk to my primary doctor, whom I had considered a friend as well, each time being shunted to a nurse. Finally I was referred to Dr. Templeton, an orthopedic surgeon at KU Med. At that point, the assumption was that it was bone cancer. And so, after about three weeks, I finally began the battery of tests. The last test was on a Friday afternoon. As we were leaving from the parking lot at the Med Center, the phone rang. It was Dr. Templeton's nurse saying that she had some good news: although much of the scapula itself had been destroyed, the cancer hadn't spread to the surrounding muscles and tissue. Good news was very welcome, even if it was short-lived.
Saturday morning, Dr. Templeton called me at home. Again, I was totally unprepared for and surprised by the call. She said that the last test had shown that the primary cancer was in the kidney and that it had metastasized to the femur, which needed immediate surgery, as well as the scapula and, to a lesser extent, to other bones. The only response that I remember is saying, "That's not good news." She agreed.
If everything had seemed to move in slow motion for the previous three weeks or so, events now moved extremely quickly. The surgery was scheduled for May 22, and I was quickly admitted to the hospital. The day before we left for Kansas City, Mohamed and I were standing on the back deck, and he asked me whether I was frightened. If I'm not very focused on the past, so, too, I'm not very good at thinking about the future, except in making immediate, practical decisions. (I had, for example, thought generally about leaving Topeka after retirement, but Florida had never been a consideration. And then one day, the notion of Florida popped into my mind--I have no idea why--and I had decided that was where I wanted to retire, and that was that: I was ready to move with no second thoughts.) I told Mohamed that no, I wasn't frightened. I think that if I imagined anything, I thought it would be like a hip replacement, and I'd be home in a couple of days and walking normally in a couple of months. Once at the Med Center, Dr. Templeton said that the first day, she would do an embolization. (I had to look it up). I have great faith in her as a surgeon, but she doesn't have the world's best bedside manner. "Well," she said, "we don't have to do it, but if we don't, chances are you'll never get up from the operating table." So the first day was the embolization, the second was the surgery. There were nine days in the hospital and seven weeks in the extremely constricting abduction brace. It's probably good that I couldn't foresee the future, or I would have been really scared. But that week events happened so quickly that I thought only about what was happening day-by-day (or hour-by-hour). Even if I'd had the inclination, I had neither the energy nor the vision to think beyond the present.
So has passed the first year of knowingly living with cancer. I just have to keep saying to myself, cancer, shmancer, abi gesund. And I have to be thankful for all the love and affection that surrounds me.
It's been exactly one year since a doctor told me that I had cancer--one moment at a few minutes till 11 a.m. when everything in my life changed. After I retired, I taught as an adjunct for the next year--two classes of freshman composition in the fall, one in the spring. All the books and art from my old office had been shlepped home, and I was sharing an office with Josh, an old student, now a colleague and friend. He, Mohamed, and I hung out there. I would often find myself turning to the shelves to grab a book I wanted for class, only to be reminded that the bookcases were empty. This wing of the building had once been active with classrooms and professors' offices, but it had later been turned mostly into administrative offices, so generally felt deserted. Before my class, I went up to the second floor to use the restroom. The corridor was empty. My cell phone rang, and it was the doctor who had been treating me for nearly six months for a torn rotator cuff and then bursitis. A few days before, he had said that I should have an MRI in case he had missed something, as indeed he had. He called to tell me that I had a tumor that had destroyed part of my left scapula. When I didn't react with anything but silence, he said, "You have cancer and you need to find a specialist immediately." I don't think I was any more articulate after that comment. He also asked that I keep him informed, but since he'd misdiagnosed me for so many months, I didn't really feel obligated.
In retrospect, I don't know what went through my mind. I know that I taught my class, and I think it was normal enough. And then on the way home, I told Mohamed. We had a few days of denial: the doctor hadn't done a biopsy so how could he know that the tumor was malignant? But most of the next couple of weeks consisted of confusion and frustration. I never managed to talk to my primary doctor, whom I had considered a friend as well, each time being shunted to a nurse. Finally I was referred to Dr. Templeton, an orthopedic surgeon at KU Med. At that point, the assumption was that it was bone cancer. And so, after about three weeks, I finally began the battery of tests. The last test was on a Friday afternoon. As we were leaving from the parking lot at the Med Center, the phone rang. It was Dr. Templeton's nurse saying that she had some good news: although much of the scapula itself had been destroyed, the cancer hadn't spread to the surrounding muscles and tissue. Good news was very welcome, even if it was short-lived.
Saturday morning, Dr. Templeton called me at home. Again, I was totally unprepared for and surprised by the call. She said that the last test had shown that the primary cancer was in the kidney and that it had metastasized to the femur, which needed immediate surgery, as well as the scapula and, to a lesser extent, to other bones. The only response that I remember is saying, "That's not good news." She agreed.
If everything had seemed to move in slow motion for the previous three weeks or so, events now moved extremely quickly. The surgery was scheduled for May 22, and I was quickly admitted to the hospital. The day before we left for Kansas City, Mohamed and I were standing on the back deck, and he asked me whether I was frightened. If I'm not very focused on the past, so, too, I'm not very good at thinking about the future, except in making immediate, practical decisions. (I had, for example, thought generally about leaving Topeka after retirement, but Florida had never been a consideration. And then one day, the notion of Florida popped into my mind--I have no idea why--and I had decided that was where I wanted to retire, and that was that: I was ready to move with no second thoughts.) I told Mohamed that no, I wasn't frightened. I think that if I imagined anything, I thought it would be like a hip replacement, and I'd be home in a couple of days and walking normally in a couple of months. Once at the Med Center, Dr. Templeton said that the first day, she would do an embolization. (I had to look it up). I have great faith in her as a surgeon, but she doesn't have the world's best bedside manner. "Well," she said, "we don't have to do it, but if we don't, chances are you'll never get up from the operating table." So the first day was the embolization, the second was the surgery. There were nine days in the hospital and seven weeks in the extremely constricting abduction brace. It's probably good that I couldn't foresee the future, or I would have been really scared. But that week events happened so quickly that I thought only about what was happening day-by-day (or hour-by-hour). Even if I'd had the inclination, I had neither the energy nor the vision to think beyond the present.
So has passed the first year of knowingly living with cancer. I just have to keep saying to myself, cancer, shmancer, abi gesund. And I have to be thankful for all the love and affection that surrounds me.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
A gentle reader informed me last week that April is not only National Poetry Month, but also National Distracted Driver Awareness Month, or NDDAM, as we all know it for shirt--er, for short. It's difficult to type while driving home from McDonald's and eating messy, syrup-covered pancakes. I guess I shouldn't be doing all three at once--two out of three perhaps. The more you know...
I had a couple of setbacks last night, and I had planned on spending this post complaining. But, one, it's spring, the moon is full, Passover has begun, it's Easter (both Christmas and Easter celebrations come from pagan traditions, but, in English at least, Christians didn't even bother to change the name, so I guess it's ok for an atheist to take note of the holiday), and two, I wrote once that "I can't complain" and several times that I shouldn't complain, so it seems rather ungenerous to spend today complaining.
Another reader, having read the post about things not to say to someone living with cancer, asked what I thought people should say. Other than the egregious remarks I mentioned, I don't think there are any pre- or proscriptions. As after someone dies, we all are uncertain about what to say to those left behind; I think we have to assume that no one really knows what to say, that our friends are well-intentioned, and that they will probably stumble a bit. It is perhaps easier for someone who is religious: "I hope your faith will be a comfort to you" is something that atheists can't say. "I know you're not religious, but I am and will be praying for you" is a nice thought and stronger than what we atheists can come up with, something like "I'm sending good thoughts (or vibes or something vague) your way."
The one response that I find baffling is from those who say nothing, especially those who are close enough so that I assume they do know. I have to assume that they simply find it too awkward and think that not saying anything is the most tactful way and/or safest reaction. But even if I assume that, somewhere in the back of my mind it feels as if a very important reality of my life is being ignored and that if I bring up some detail related to the cancer, it's as if I'm focusing on the disease and forcing it into the conversation. So I guess my response to the question is that any comment (well, almost any comment) is for me better than none.
I had a couple of setbacks last night, and I had planned on spending this post complaining. But, one, it's spring, the moon is full, Passover has begun, it's Easter (both Christmas and Easter celebrations come from pagan traditions, but, in English at least, Christians didn't even bother to change the name, so I guess it's ok for an atheist to take note of the holiday), and two, I wrote once that "I can't complain" and several times that I shouldn't complain, so it seems rather ungenerous to spend today complaining.
Another reader, having read the post about things not to say to someone living with cancer, asked what I thought people should say. Other than the egregious remarks I mentioned, I don't think there are any pre- or proscriptions. As after someone dies, we all are uncertain about what to say to those left behind; I think we have to assume that no one really knows what to say, that our friends are well-intentioned, and that they will probably stumble a bit. It is perhaps easier for someone who is religious: "I hope your faith will be a comfort to you" is something that atheists can't say. "I know you're not religious, but I am and will be praying for you" is a nice thought and stronger than what we atheists can come up with, something like "I'm sending good thoughts (or vibes or something vague) your way."
The one response that I find baffling is from those who say nothing, especially those who are close enough so that I assume they do know. I have to assume that they simply find it too awkward and think that not saying anything is the most tactful way and/or safest reaction. But even if I assume that, somewhere in the back of my mind it feels as if a very important reality of my life is being ignored and that if I bring up some detail related to the cancer, it's as if I'm focusing on the disease and forcing it into the conversation. So I guess my response to the question is that any comment (well, almost any comment) is for me better than none.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
April is national poetry month, so a memory and a poem about poetry. I'm not sure who designated April to celebrate poetry; whoever it was obviously preferred Chaucer to Eliot. (I used to have a cartoon on my office door called "Beavis and Butthead Meet T.S. Eliot." Beavis (I think) was bent over a piece of paper, brow furrowed, writing, "April sucks." I had a couple of other literary cartoons: one showed Hester Prynne wearing her scarlet letter on a backwards baseball cap. Another showed Hester meeting a woman who was wearing a scarlet A+. But I digress from my digression.)
The memory: many years ago, I had a friend from France who came for a six-month visit. Michel was an artsy, Bohemian type (i.e., he never held a job) who was in a photography phase. I had an idea for a coffee table book after I had realized how many wonderful American poems there were about animals--fish, flesh, and fowl. I selected 100 of these poems, and we decided we'd pair them with photos of the animals that Michel would take. I wanted to use the title of Denise Levertov's beautiful poem "Come into Animal Presence" as the title of the book. Although you can't copyright titles, so we didn't need her permission, I wrote her and got her approval. We went to zoos in several states, taking photos. It was amazing how often we were allowed in the animal enclosures. The most memorable experience (and best photo), however, came at a farm north of Topeka, where a woman rehabilitated injured animals for the Fish and Game Commission. I wasn't prepared for what we encountered: running loose and living in a surreal peaceable kingdom were a bobcat (it wandered in and out of the house), a coyote, a deer, a raccoon, and other animals. Unbidden, the raccoon climbed up my pant leg and shirt and sat on my shoulder. It was thrilling, though I couldn't quite relax and let go of the feeling that the raccoon might decide to Van Gogh me.
One of the poems I had selected was Robinson Jeffers' "Hurt Hawks," a poem about the narrator's reaction to putting down, giving the "lead gift" of a bullet to a wounded hawk that could no longer fly free. In a cage on the farm was a magnficent hawk which had flown into a car windshield and had a wing severed. In the photo he stares at the viewer, full on, and one is struck and held by his gaze. The hawk fills the frame, but it is the eyes that hold our own. It's only, I think, later that the viewer notices that there is a gash and the hawk's wing is missing. The photo and poem made a perfect pairing.
Unfortunately, it was the only professional quality photo we got. And there is just too much incredibly detailed and beautiful nature photography for our efforts to measure up.
There are, of course, lots of poems about poetry--what it is and what it does. One of my favorites is "Juggler" by Richard Wilbur:
The memory: many years ago, I had a friend from France who came for a six-month visit. Michel was an artsy, Bohemian type (i.e., he never held a job) who was in a photography phase. I had an idea for a coffee table book after I had realized how many wonderful American poems there were about animals--fish, flesh, and fowl. I selected 100 of these poems, and we decided we'd pair them with photos of the animals that Michel would take. I wanted to use the title of Denise Levertov's beautiful poem "Come into Animal Presence" as the title of the book. Although you can't copyright titles, so we didn't need her permission, I wrote her and got her approval. We went to zoos in several states, taking photos. It was amazing how often we were allowed in the animal enclosures. The most memorable experience (and best photo), however, came at a farm north of Topeka, where a woman rehabilitated injured animals for the Fish and Game Commission. I wasn't prepared for what we encountered: running loose and living in a surreal peaceable kingdom were a bobcat (it wandered in and out of the house), a coyote, a deer, a raccoon, and other animals. Unbidden, the raccoon climbed up my pant leg and shirt and sat on my shoulder. It was thrilling, though I couldn't quite relax and let go of the feeling that the raccoon might decide to Van Gogh me.
One of the poems I had selected was Robinson Jeffers' "Hurt Hawks," a poem about the narrator's reaction to putting down, giving the "lead gift" of a bullet to a wounded hawk that could no longer fly free. In a cage on the farm was a magnficent hawk which had flown into a car windshield and had a wing severed. In the photo he stares at the viewer, full on, and one is struck and held by his gaze. The hawk fills the frame, but it is the eyes that hold our own. It's only, I think, later that the viewer notices that there is a gash and the hawk's wing is missing. The photo and poem made a perfect pairing.
Unfortunately, it was the only professional quality photo we got. And there is just too much incredibly detailed and beautiful nature photography for our efforts to measure up.
There are, of course, lots of poems about poetry--what it is and what it does. One of my favorites is "Juggler" by Richard Wilbur:
A ball will bounce; but less and less. It's not
A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.
Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls
So in our hearts from brilliance,
Settles and is forgot.
It takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls
To shake our gravity up. Whee, in the air
The balls roll around, wheel on his wheeling hands,
Learning the ways of lightness, alter to spheres
Grazing his finger ends,
Cling to their courses there,
Swinging a small heaven about his ears.
But a heaven is easier made of nothing at all
Than the earth regained, and still and sole within
The spin of worlds, with a gesture sure and noble
He reels that heaven in,
Landing it ball by ball,
And trades it all for a broom, a plate, a table.
Oh, on his toe the table is turning, the broom's
Balancing up on his nose, and the plate whirls
On the tip of the broom! Damn, what a show, we cry:
The boys stamp, and the girls
Shriek, and the drum booms
And all come down, and he bows and says good-bye.
If the juggler is tired now, if the broom stands
In the dust again, if the table starts to drop
Through the daily dark again, and though the plate
Lies flat on the table top,
For him we batter our hands
Who has won for once over the world's weight.
A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience.
Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls
So in our hearts from brilliance,
Settles and is forgot.
It takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls
To shake our gravity up. Whee, in the air
The balls roll around, wheel on his wheeling hands,
Learning the ways of lightness, alter to spheres
Grazing his finger ends,
Cling to their courses there,
Swinging a small heaven about his ears.
But a heaven is easier made of nothing at all
Than the earth regained, and still and sole within
The spin of worlds, with a gesture sure and noble
He reels that heaven in,
Landing it ball by ball,
And trades it all for a broom, a plate, a table.
Oh, on his toe the table is turning, the broom's
Balancing up on his nose, and the plate whirls
On the tip of the broom! Damn, what a show, we cry:
The boys stamp, and the girls
Shriek, and the drum booms
And all come down, and he bows and says good-bye.
If the juggler is tired now, if the broom stands
In the dust again, if the table starts to drop
Through the daily dark again, and though the plate
Lies flat on the table top,
For him we batter our hands
Who has won for once over the world's weight.
What a perfect last line! All but 'over' a one-syllable word, five syllables alliterating, and no way to read the line quickly. In the last post, I mentioned Frost's poem "For Once, Then, Something." The 'for once' for Frost, the subject of epiphany, was nothing but a pebble, the poet's cynical comment on our search for wisdom. Wilbur is much more optimistic; his 'for once' a true, if brief, moment of celebration. Whee! Happy Poetry Month!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Along with guilt, regret is another emotion I seem to lack. (Hum along: Edith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien.") It's not that I haven't made (more than?) my share of stupid decisions, often costly (in all senses) ones. It's partly that I tend not to focus on the past--not that I don't have 60+ years of wonderful memories that I often revisit, but I lived them once. I don't live them again. I don't revisit them as a tourist exactly, but more as if they were a storehouse, a source of stories that I can retell for effect (humorous, impressive, shocking). And I know that the stories are often constructs that have hardened into narratives that have taken on their own lives. I don't feel regret too because it's a useless emotion; no amount of regret will change the past. There's a third reason as well. In the American lit. survey class, I always taught Henry James, much to the irritation of most of the students. (I always liked the comment on James that he "chewed more than he bit off.") We usually read "The Beast in the Jungle," a story of the unlived life--a story in Henry James's late, difficult style in which nothing happens (that's the point of the story, but small consolation to the students), with a protagonist, the ironically named John Marcher, who doesn't even saunter anywhere, who sees himself as being "supremely unselfish," all the while thinking only of himself, and who is thus extremely unlikable. I always wanted also to teach what I saw as a companion story, "The Jolly Corner" (I refrained and spared the students.) In that story, the protagonist returns to his abandoned house in New York after having spent his adult life in Europe. There he encounters a ghost that haunts and frightens him. He keeps returning to the house, and each time the ghost confronts him. What he realizes at the end is that the monstrous ghost is not an other, but rather what and who he would have become.
It seems to me that when most of us think "if only, I'd..." or "had I but known, I would've..." what we imagine is someone who is like what we are today, just happier or richer or more successful. In "The Jolly Corner," what the protagonist realizes is that he would have become someone very different. I'm happy with who I am and with my life, so having regrets, wishing I'd done things differently implies that I'd like to be someone different.
A more biting critique of looking back occurs in Frost's "The Road Not Taken," a poem everybody "knows." It's so entered our consciousness that it was the subject of a trivia question at a sports bar here where I had lunch last week. The poem is commonly reduced to something like a high school gradutation speech: you're at a crossroads, be courageous and choose your own path, etc. But surely Frost wasn't as banal as that. He says explicitly in lines 9 and 10 that "the passing there / Had worn them [the paths] really about the same." So the speaker hasn't really made such a bold choice. But the key is the last stanza:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less regarded by,
And that has made all the difference.
It's a portrait of a self-dramatizing speaker: he tells his narrative with a melodramatic sigh. Ages and ages hence? We don't get ages and ages. And then his dramatic pause after the first "I" and its repetition. The reader can sense the self-pity in the catch in his voice. And what is this important "difference"? We know from such Frost poems as "Neither Out Far nor In Deep" and "For Once, Then, Something" what Frost thinks about human powers of discernment, and it's not flattering.
So I hope to avoid regrets, self-dramatization, tremolos (Piaf's word), and sighs in the blog while guarding the decades of great memories.
It seems to me that when most of us think "if only, I'd..." or "had I but known, I would've..." what we imagine is someone who is like what we are today, just happier or richer or more successful. In "The Jolly Corner," what the protagonist realizes is that he would have become someone very different. I'm happy with who I am and with my life, so having regrets, wishing I'd done things differently implies that I'd like to be someone different.
A more biting critique of looking back occurs in Frost's "The Road Not Taken," a poem everybody "knows." It's so entered our consciousness that it was the subject of a trivia question at a sports bar here where I had lunch last week. The poem is commonly reduced to something like a high school gradutation speech: you're at a crossroads, be courageous and choose your own path, etc. But surely Frost wasn't as banal as that. He says explicitly in lines 9 and 10 that "the passing there / Had worn them [the paths] really about the same." So the speaker hasn't really made such a bold choice. But the key is the last stanza:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less regarded by,
And that has made all the difference.
It's a portrait of a self-dramatizing speaker: he tells his narrative with a melodramatic sigh. Ages and ages hence? We don't get ages and ages. And then his dramatic pause after the first "I" and its repetition. The reader can sense the self-pity in the catch in his voice. And what is this important "difference"? We know from such Frost poems as "Neither Out Far nor In Deep" and "For Once, Then, Something" what Frost thinks about human powers of discernment, and it's not flattering.
So I hope to avoid regrets, self-dramatization, tremolos (Piaf's word), and sighs in the blog while guarding the decades of great memories.
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