September 27, 2015

Dream of a kind of safari which includes jungles (an inhabitant of one of which was an arrowhead-headed lizard that spoke Italian to me) and a war-zone, where the soldiers stopped and put in special bullets, that went very slowly, so you could get the sensation of bullets coming right toward you with plenty of time to get out of the way.

September 26, 2015

Sang for J’s funeral at All Souls in the morning, for the wedding of two men I didn’t know at First Congregational in the afternoon. Two landmarks in life’s journey. I feel privileged, looking back on it. Much baking, much cramming of lines. The student who got hysterical in my class transferred, as I think she should, though staying with me would have been the greater lesson and the greater triumph. Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd in London is interested in seeing the whole of In the Country of the Young, following on the excerpt I send them. After my little joy dance I tamp it down, realizing how many barriers yet lie ahead. Invent lime drop cookies, having stared for about a week at the juice of eight limes in the fridge. You can make only so many gin and tonics. Make fudge for the first time. Start looking over Young to find it a sea of typos; they were generous in wanting to see more.  Days ahead without one empty space, one deep breath. I must have wanted it--

September 25, 2015

 In the trances of the storm hummingbirds came to my feeders, looking so small against the storm clouds and the glowering line of trees.
   
Bought a wheelbarrow. All my plants were in before the rain. Bless. Bless. Bless.
   
Look across the street and see Will has shrouded 62 in fences. I turn away, saying to myself “A broken heart is too theatrical. Besides, nobody is watching.”
   
Told not to come to Humanities meetings, as my input is not wanted. The fury is tamped down considerably by the shrug.
   
Discover that gout has made all my dress shoes unwearable. Scamper to Steinmart to get a cheap pair that will get me, at least, to the wedding tomorrow.
   
Orgy of baking.
   
Exhausted almost to staggering. Can’t judge exactly why.

September 24, 2015

Before dawn: me running on the elliptical at the Racquet Club, studying lines.
   
Two giant cartons of plants on the porch in the morning. Got them into the ground, anticipating rain. Shade-loving hydrangeas, ferns. Transplanted the meadow rue, that seemed unhappy where it was.
   
Begin a flurry of baking for the Bryants’ reception.
   
Getting ready to drive to Waynesville with the kids, when I realize I’m sick to my stomach and can’t stand up without leaning against a wall. Vertigo, I self-diagnose. Will phones and said, “Do you realize you left your car door open?” I did not. Call and beg out of rehearsal. Things improve through the evening, both the nausea and the vertigo gradually subsiding.
   
I walk out onto the porch and the rain falls, a perfect, root-delighting downpour. I bless the gods, finally.

September 23, 2015

Woke in the wee hours with a a turbulent mind and a sour stomach. Did get back to sleep, dreaming then of a play where Act II was a giant blue pool in which there were dozens of tiny seals, and you got to enter the water and play with the seals.
   
Useless rehearsal way out in the mountains. Who knows why?
   
Faced with a phenomenon in class of two students (both women) who are belligerent without apparent cause, and whose “questions” are meant to challenge and delay rather than clarify or enlarge. This has been rare in my career, and each time I have not understood it. First, I have no idea what I do to provoke it. Second, I wonder what possible profit can come out of it for the belligerents. They look foolish every time (perhaps they think they can win the wit skirmish, but they never do); the class resents them and I detest them. I detest them for wasting time and marring the shapely artifact that a class hour can be. One is an aging high school mean girl who is used to causing disruptions by playing games on the computer and then loudly lamenting that she has not understood what went on while she was doing so. This must have worked for her in the past. The other is a hard-favored lesbian who thinks there’s some sort of power realignment when you say, “So, you see how X, Y and Z–“ and she can pipe up at the end,”I don’t see that,” never a question (I learned after many moments of patient reiteration) but always a groundless contradiction. Her motives are rather clearer. She hates me because I am a man and an authority figure. She believes she is storming the walls of the patriarchy, her weapon mule-like contradiction. I should suggest the siege might go better if she were, ever, right. Maybe this is what woke me at 3. If so, they have a little victory.
   
Throb in the toe, which I resent because I have been good about eating nothing, let alone what might offend the gout.
   
Sky threatening rain. I hope it carries out its threat.    

Cantaria’s “Fascinating Rhythm” this morning’s ear worm.
   
The day can but improve.

September 22, 2015

Another explosion in Humanities. Discussing the Taoist ko’an, “He who feels punctured must have been a bubble,” I aver that Lao Tse implies that we will not be disquieted by external things if we are whole and certain within ourselves, that to take offense is the signal that something is uncertain within ourselves, that the “offender” has merely–sometimes accidentally-found the point at which we are a bubble. My native American activist recites her well-rehearsed litany of white misunderstandings of native peoples and then says she is forced and expected to correct these mistakes when others make them. I say that I agree absolutely, but Lao Tse would pity her for being at the mercy of external forces. She bursts into tears, gathers up her things, dramatically leaves the room. I murmur, “Thus proving the point” as she disappears. It’s surprisingly difficult in a university to show people who are having emotional reactions that they are having emotional reactions. One’s own prejudice is pure reason. After I spent five minutes explaining why we would not be having class on Thursday, the girl who was most vehement in her condemnation of my exam came up and said, “I will not be in class on Thursday. It’s Yom Kippur.”

“I just now cancelled the Thursday class.”

 Dumbfounded, “You did??????”

 Kid behind her, sharing my incredulity, “He just spent the last five minutes explaining that.”

 She had, almost incredibly, again been surfing the Internet during class. But WHY did I do so badly on this terrible exam?

Getting tired of this. What are they teaching them in high school? So far as I can see, to blame everyone but themselves for their own failings; not to bother with the concepts of dedication or concentration; that the least effort must be taken as sufficient, that lack of application must not be noted for the following ten pseudo-psychological reasons----. How do they justify these things in their own hearts? Maybe they don’t even bother to think about them. Bring me my bow of burning gold-----

September 21, 2015

    One cyclamen blooming pink; one toad lily blooming purple and gold. The humanities students who did badly on their exam blame me. “Was there anything on the test that we hadn’t discussed in class?” says I. “No,” they answer grudgingly, but somehow that didn’t end the matter. I write to them:

*

    I want to thank you for your candor about the exam and my testing policies. It was both helpful and revealing. In the future I will do my best to ease test anxiety, but you must help in this by telling me what you don’t understand, so that it may be more fully illuminated. I don’t know what you’re not getting unless you tell me.
    Some other points: Several of you ask what you can do to do better in class, and my primary impulse is to suggest concentration– two of the 8-fold path we’ve just studied, right concentration and right mindfulness. Right? I know that you come from a culture (high school) which teaches to the test, but in college we don’t do that. I will tell you about some things I will not test you on. I will never test and have never tested you on something I have not prepared you for. It’s up to you to concentrate just a little bit. Going over and over your notes in a mood of frustration and resentment the night before the exam is not concentrating. My theory is that you shouldn’t study at all beyond a glance-over of your notes, if you have listened with concentration in class. It’s up to you to pick out the mainline from the diversions, which you can do if you actually pay attention. You have room in your head for near infinities of data and impressions, and if you let distraction or anxiety (monkey mind) derail this wonderful talent, I don’t know what I can, or should, do about it. Know ten things, assuming I am going to ask about five. Concentrate. Really. Put down the I-phone. Turn off the TV. Really.
    Some of you who were most indignant in class today play games on your computer or check messages in class. Did you think I don’t know it? Now, an adult is master of his own time, so I don’t scold you for doing this, but I’m amazed that it doesn’t occur to you that this interferes with comprehension of the class materials. I am here to give you as much information and wisdom as I can, and not really so much to help you take a test. The class is my job; the exams are yours. I am not here to make charts or lists or guides to make up for your not having paid attention.
    Some of you have so little historical background and are genuinely grasping for context. You have my utmost sympathy, and, again, if you’re not getting something. ASK. I don’t know what you don’t know unless you ask. I don’t know what to enlarge upon unless somebody asks.
    Many of you have found outside sources (Google) profitable. I urge this on everybody. If a name floats incomprehensibly on your note page, Google it and remind yourself of what it meant.
    Some of you find lectures (“aural learning”) taxing. One of the things we do in college is learn new skills, and one new skill it would be profitable to learn is how to listen to a lecture. Another is how to study. It is not incumbent on a professor to try to compensate for the lack of these skills, but on the student to obtain them. On the other hand, I will be happy to suggest written sources for what I’ve said in class, to address the needs of people who consider themselves to be “visual learners”
    I myself am a visual rather than an aural learner. When I went to college I taught myself how to listen to a lecture. You can too.
    “Professor, why did I do so badly on this exam?” The final answer is, “Because you didn’t know the answers.”  It has little to do with the kind of questions I asked or the arrangement of the ink on the pages or whatever, but with the fact that you didn’t know the answers. I admit that I’m baffled by this, because I told you the answers; the reading and supplemental materials told you the answers, and few people in class ever question a concept or a detail so that I suspect it was not clearly enough explained. Some people did know the answers and did beautifully. Maybe you who are disappointed should buddy up with those who are not and learn from their approach.
    Tomorrow and Wednesday in class we will study the Dao. One of the Dao ko’ans I particularly like is, “The archer who misses the mark does not blame his bow.”  When I screw up (and at that I’ve had plenty of practice) I look to myself to find out why. I have almost never had to inquire further. Lao Tze would smile sadly at the notion that I am somehow at fault for your have performed disappointingly on an exam. No, we’re not Lao Tze, but we can shorten the path to success if , failing, we look to our own behavior, habits, and beliefs first, before launching our tirades of blame.


*

    The humanities students who did well arrayed on my side. They’re the ones who confirmed my suspicion of in-class web surfing.
    Came home and planted two roses that had arrived in the mail.  Studied my lines. Back to school now to meet my playwrights.