More: nymphs and satyrs

Then she also mentioned the other gorgeous language teacher, saying she and I should talk, as she's also a big traveler, trying to go to Australia or somewhere like that, and has been everywhere else. So I'll have to talk to her. But what about all these people who never travel anywhere at all? Inviting Ms Speed to visit the campus, especially the art gallery where they have a good exhibit of Lois Maillou Jones right now; but when she does won't she also see how few of her kids will ever get to experience this mind-expanding education she respects so much? and I wonder if that won't be even worse to see than the other side of it you're confronted with in the dining hall and all the custodians--race, class, and all this: mind, dream, which is bereft and curtailed by those strictures and divisions.

And as I write this listening for a change to music at the same time, present neither here nor in the kitchen or the quiet lobby of the auditorium with those black men and women, not in the school with the black boys and girls, but far away in Brazil or the Caribbean Sea swaying to the Starman song off the Life Aquatic by Seu Jorge, appropriating along with the producers his talent and soul for the benefit of my own--but not actually going anywhere. And this is the same as anyone might do--listen to a, read a, talk about a, dream about a--song, book, idea, place. I need to talk to the teacher; and I need to talk more to Ms Speed. There is that--to have access to each other, to really talk, read, listen, what have you.

And there was that time talking to the dude at the coffee shop about God, but so many other times he plays the buffoon. As we all do, in our own way. I think he does because he thinks we expect it--white people, students--and in fact part of what it was that started that conversation was his seeming sad and real for a change, and I asked him if he was feeling down, but he lit up, and said, no, just tired, but not down, because how good is God, or however he said it, this is where he ended up, the goodness of God and his happiness. But I did not relent so fast, but asked if he had always believed, and never sometimes doubted. But I think he said no, and meant it, though he must have answered more slowly. So the sadness or fatigue or whatever it was that made me try to sympathize and really understand him, at least briefly, was the same as a moment of stillness and reflection that reminded or woke him up to his faith, and placed it back into movement, but that in turn, once going, could not have led me to sympathize with him, unless I already knew the start of the motion--which now I feel like I see a little way into and do--or, on the other hand, if I were in a less pensive, more bright and rejoicing mood myself, kindled by his smiles and remarks, and it weren't the other way, too.

But none of this is so evident to me, as is a kind of pretend-jocularity affected by both him and the students in their interactions at the counter, which amounts really to a substitute and a barrier to this real thing, and I don't know how else to say it simply than that, going back to that old shorthand of 'artificial' and 'genuine,' 'superficial' and 'sincere,' 'external' and 'internal,' which seems in a way right, but so bound up with the most natural prejudice of them all, our being inside our individual souls looking out from that perspective onto everything else, and, sure, then we'll set ourselves off and mark ourselves out in every way we can. But as Chesterton is fond of saying, the label 'artificial' is only a misleading one, papering over all sorts of fully natural drives and insecurities, hiding them with something false but right in line with our lived situation, false from the standpoint of such moments when we do see through all this and stake out a value for such moments over all the rest, and for this way of seeing over what usually happens instead, and the nearest words at hand for that, then, are 'fake' and 'artificial.'

But this does point at a real difficulty, and a real danger. Lately I've been feeling both of them quite keenly. The difficulty comes down to just this, that even here, in the express pursuit of truth and the good life, and indeed it seems attracted by that same thing that attracted me, are still people so manifestly unfit for the open-hearted search, for asking questions and listening, but so content with shamming and hamming with our man in the coffee shop, or toadying up to any tutor they can get within range of.

The sibyl of Annapolis Middle

Ms Speed is that, speedy, yet never in a rush. To sub for her this morning, then for some of the other teachers in and out, is to see the salient needs of the the school today. How the spanish teacher was already there downstairs in the auditorium helping with rehearsal for the Alice in Wonderland show, wearing the same orange t-shirt as all the kids performing. Then she came and told me all the parts of the class, but had nothing written down. Then getting the walkie talkie and hanging out a couple hours, first watching the open rehearsal, then in the principals' office overhearing snatches of their meetings and official radio correspondence.

  And this is when Ms Speed, there in the hall, was back, saying something about books and art and Christ, and was it Herman Hesse the person she was talking to had said? Then there she was, going on about ring things, for her 11th grade godson had is ceremony that morning--what it means that fewer people are getting them, and to turn it in or out, this way or that, 12 people together and the 13th the other way which locks it somehow--did she say that?--but everything she says or doesn't passes across her face like clouds flying, and scraps of windy day, her glance over here, over there, always vaguely upward, her hair and face shining, her eyes laughing, thinking.

As I was reading the Ethics, she shared what she was reading--the book on teaching with poverty in mind all the teachers have, her notes on epigenetics--what gets ingrained by generations of circumstances, what thus can indeed be changed the same way; and the importance of being there with a teacher dealing with some tough kid, so they know they're not going crazy, or something--not even doing anything sometimes, intervention with a time-out, but just being present in the room, supporting in that way. And her steps for the next few months, to know a couple things about each teacher and staff member in the building--with that she brought out her cards, which she's used with kids and grown-ups for years, and they looked it, like all the cards from Granny's board games, and I picked one on family, muttering something about marriage not applying to me yet. Tell about a happy family that you know, ok, the first thing that comes to mind: the family by the park, a big one, and all the kids like the parents going to St John's, how I first heard about this place, and why I'm here, and traveling maybe my dream, as she was talking about that.

Teaching being a calling for her, as at the church, where for some it might only be a job--still, she has one of those, too, at Pennie's, but she'll quit once her social security kicks in in this her 66th year, and have time for more, and more to give to church and school. What kind of thing is school, then, a job or a calling, a paycheck or a life? And the best teachers, are they the ambitious educated young, or the elders who know the realities of their students' lives, and bawling them out and kicking them out into the hall, or talking to them and giving them words of advice, shouting them into line or building them into all kinds of truth for which discipline is only a structure? Her gestures for talking about different possible lives she tries to inspire or connect to the kids with--the people who go to Hawaii because they love to surf, and every day after work they go surfing, or move to Utah to live, so they can ride mountain and dirt bikes (at first I thought her pose looked more like skiing, but then I saw it--her, they were all her, in a helmet and visor, zooming down the dirt hill and through the woods, and in a bathing suit surfing the clearest ocean wave).

What a wonderful woman, at least as cool as Mr Eppeldauer back home. And to talk about dreams in those terms, as they both do, at once realistic and deeply personally imagined, a kind of retirement active through as much of a lifetime as possible, and physical activities emblematic of properly soul-felt happinesses--this seems in line with the best American thinking, and as such is apt to capture the attention of young Americans across all bounds with sneaky philosophy--not detached from but fulfilling life.