Saturday, February 23, 2008

i love saturdays!


definitely the best day of the week (provided the previous Friday night found me sufficiently well-behaved).

there seems to be time for everything: cleaning house, calling friends and family, losing at scrabble, painting for a long while, pulling some weeds, trying a new cooking experiment, getting in a rainy day walk, listening to the entire white album, time for sorting bills and ... etc.

Saturdays were even better in the snow. But this gloom and imminent weather suit me just fine.

oh. looks like I also have time to post my long-time mentor's show announcement since I seem to be going visual on the nonblog this month.

Friday, February 22, 2008

our shadow





We Grow Accustomed to the Dark


We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight.

Emily Dickinson

Thursday, February 21, 2008

should I leave it?

the candle for the Unknown Andy?

Maybe it doesn't matter which it is: my sister, my student, or the student with the exact same name as my student who went to the exact same college as my student who did in fact die this morning after the four-student car wreck, after two days of being brain dead, me -devastated all the while for the loss of Andy Hoover who had been just right there!!. Impossible to be in a coma now. Impossible to be dead soon....! And all this emotion I had in trying to understand how life could be snatched away like that from MY student, when it was from another Andy Hoover, who I'm sure I would have cared about as I do, inevitably for every student I work with for any bit of time.

Guess we're all just Andy's in the end; fragile and vulnerable as little twigs and cared for much more and by more than we'd ever suspect.

And of course, I remember dear Tristan. Nothing can ever make that brutal, senseless murder, that loss of such a funny, quirky love a person make any sense. Maybe I'll just let the picture below burn in his memory. It must have been five years now. Four? Perhaps to this day, certainly this time of year. How I loved that kid! How it killed me to hear of his impossible death. I still remember his drawing of the water fountain he drew as he confided his feelings about no longer being a boy - one brief week before he got punched in the head over nothing. There was a treasure. Dead at 19 was it? 20? Never to leave boyhood, really.

One upshot of all this though has been to underscore for me how lucky I am to teach, to meet all these individuals and try to find and foster their peculiarities and insights. To be impressed by them, and taught by them, to see, everyday, how utterly unique each person is. No less true for the seemingly unremarkable, or reticent, or the testy even. All irreplaceable, heart-breaking to lose.

So, is the below a prayer answered?
It could seem like it, for me and the others who worked with Andy Hoover2.
Certainly not for all.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

a prayer for another Andy


Andrew Hoover - dear student.

please don't die.
you deserve a miracle.