Apologies to Mrs. West

When I was a senior in high school, I worked a semester as a teacher’s aide. For one class period each day I helped one of my favorite teachers grade papers and do administrative stuff.

Sounds harmless enough, right? Well, you’d think so. But nowadays some of what I did as a teacher’s aide would get me thrown out of school.

Mrs. West, the teacher I assisted, was a terrific woman and an entertaining instructor. She sponsored our drama program and did a great job teaching English. A few years earlier, she’d helped me come out of my shell through involvement in drama. (I helped run the lights on “The Sound of Music,” and had a lead acting role in “The Taming of the Shrew” – and mercifully I will never again inflict my acting upon an audience.)

As her assistant, I had access to her gradebook. One day, a friend who had that class asked me to mark in the gradebook that she’d turned in her assignment, even though she hadn’t. I said I would, and I did.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. Soon a friend of my friend made a similar request, and as in the shampoo commercial, they told two friends, and so on and so on. Pretty soon I had about a dozen people routinely asking me to doctor the gradebook.

I did it. I guess I thought it made me popular or cool or likeable. I didn’t really see the difference between being liked and being used.

Even worse, pretty soon I was drunk on my own power – I adjusted grades for a few kids who weren’t even in the period I assisted. (Mostly guys I thought were cute, including one or two I’d never even spoken to.)

As far as I know, Mrs. West never caught on to my deception. I raised a few people a full letter grade in her class, I’m sure.

The whole episode is so embarrassing to think about now. And thank God I was never caught or punished. I didn’t think of it as very serious at the time, but I might have never graduated!

(Photo: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, July 2009)

Amelia Earhart

I read an article yesterday about researchers who plan to visit a deserted speck of an island in the Pacific to search for DNA remnants of Amelia Earhart.

It made me wonder at the appeal of the Earhart mystery. She disappeared with her navigator on July 2, 1937, ten days before my mother was born. Now, more than 70 years later, we’re still looking for her. What other missing-persons case has been so enduring?

Part of the allure probably has to do with the South Pacific, a vast expanse of tiny coral atolls amid endless miles of water. We all get a little giddy thinking about that part of the world, with Polynesian beauties a la Gaugin and swaying coconut palms. But to Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan – had they successfully crash-landed somewhere – it would hardly have been a vacation paradise. Probably more like a recipe for starvation.

Earhart herself is a pretty interesting character -- an early feminist icon. While other missing persons of more recent vintage, like Jimmy Hoffa or D.B. Cooper, also captivate the public imagination, they’re tainted by a whiff of crime or scandal. Earhart has none of that baggage. She was a heroic woman who failed at a heroic task.

Now a group of researchers are going to Nikumaroro Island, once known as Gardner Island, to look for Earhart’s DNA. This despite the fact that Earhart is thought by some to have crashed nearer an entirely different uninhabited atoll, Howland Island, hundreds of miles away.

I'd love to see them succeed. But then we'd be deprived of a good mystery that's occupied us for decades -- and we do love a good mystery, don't we?

(Photo: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, July 2009)

Weekend in Pictures

Here are a few random pictures from my weekend. I already wrote about my activities, so let’s call this the supplementary illustrated account.

Above are Dave with Ernie and Ruby at the dog park in East Brunswick. I call this photo the “Port-a-Potty Picnic.” We picked up some stuff from a deli near his house and went to the park, which proved to be a little more bare and sun-baked than we’d imagined. The dogs ran around for a while but eventually wound up lying in the shade beneath our bench, panting -- that was our cue to leave.


Here’s a photo of Ernie and Ruby, both boxers, in Dave’s apartment. I love this pic. They’re both rescue dogs so their ages are uncertain, but they’re probably getting up around 10 years old. I’m not sure what they were so intrigued with outside.


And here is an apple tart Dave made. What an artiste!

Five Words

My blog pal Barbara recently did a writing exercise in which a friend gave her five words to use in some kind of composition. Other than that, there were no real guidelines. I asked Barbara to do the same for me, and she gave me three sets of five words to choose from:

1. graffiti walking hidden green heat

2. writing editor capture surprise recognition

3. tricky relationship embarrassing love compromise

Instead of choosing, I decided to write something for each quintet. So last night I sat down and created a poem from each set. Here goes, for better or worse.

1.
Heat is walking up the wall, along a track of sun
Hidden in its obviousness.
Voluptuous graffiti curves
Morph and shimmer, each line
Gaining new meaning in the light.
Every perspective scrawls a new message
On the leaf-green walls
Of my living heart.

2.
The editor yearns for invention:
Writing someone else’s story
With someone else’s words
Leaves him oddly speechless.
It’s no surprise to him, this recognition
Of the bland potato life
Of a desk jockey.
He goes for coffee
But the coffee is secondary
To a precious capture
Of outdoor air.

3.
People think love is tricky.
I find it exceptionally easy:
Yin and yang
Courtship and relationship.
Each compromise seems
Sweet as a gift;
Each personal failing,
Otherwise embarrassing,
A breath of intimacy.

(Photo: Municipal building in lower Manhattan, July 2009)

Jersey Graffiti

Back in the city this morning with my poor, neglected cat, who cooled her paws by herself this weekend while I was at Dave’s. Funny thing is, she doesn’t particularly seem to mind. Cats are the most low-maintenance pets EVER. (She’ll have me around nearly all this week to compensate.)

Dave and I had a great time this weekend, exploring New Brunswick and environs. We even went out to find some graffiti, and I gotta give Dave kudos for indulging me on this, because not everyone is into my little street-art obsession.

Several times we’d passed a bridge in town that was COVERED with graffiti, and on Saturday Dave pulled over and waited in the car while I scrambled down a steep embankment to shoot up at the bridge from the shores of the river beneath.


He also took me to find a building I’d spied earlier near the train tracks with some great pieces on it. I had to trespass a bit to get to it, so Dave hung back with the dogs -- no reason ALL of us need to get arrested! (We also discovered that bringing dogs along on a graffiti hunt can be a bit tricky logistically, because a certain amount of freedom and agility for climbing and exploration is required.)




Yesterday we lounged around Dave's house and watched “Maurice,” the Merchant-Ivory movie adapted from E.M. Forster’s novel. I saw it in the theater when it came out in the late 1980s. Paging all Hugh Grant fans: This is one of his earliest appearances, and he’s more authentic, I think, than the bland dashing-yet-bumbling charmer he became in his later films.

Lazy Saturday

I'm at Dave's this weekend, hanging out with him and his dogs, Ernie and Ruby. We had dinner last night with my friend Bill in New Brunswick, and this afternoon we're heading over to the local dog park. I think we'll get some take-out for dinner and Dave plans to make an apple tart for dessert.

I love days like this, with no really urgent tasks and lots of leisure time. I guess this is more the kind of practice I'm looking for, rather than the retreat I wrote about in my last entry -- being aware of the beauty and perfection of a lazy Saturday with Dave and the dogs, with a walk to CVS to buy milk, with sunshine and the dog park..

By the way, I appreciate everyone's comments on that entry. I think Lorianne particularly hit the nail on the head when she questioned the tendency to think of practice in competitive terms, and pointed out that Zen is about practicing with what's there. I did write my teacher and tell her I planned to bow out of the retreat. She didn't argue the point -- just reminded me to keep practicing!

(Photo: E. 29th Street, July 2009)

Retreating

I am scheduled to go on retreat again this summer, for one week in August. As usual, it will be a silent retreat, with ceremonial meals in small portions and lots of meditating. Early to rise, early to bed, no air conditioning and all that.

Longtime readers will remember that I usually approach these retreats with some trepidation. They're long and hard and uncomfortable. Despite the images that the words "Zen Retreat" may conjure up, thanks to our misunderstanding culture, they are not the equivalent of a spa getaway.

So this year, I'm struggling with a question: Should I go?

Part of me thinks I should. I've already paid for it, for one thing, and I have no doubt it would help my practice. It's not entirely unpleasant -- the walks in the hills around our retreat center are wonderful and I enjoy the scenery and most of the people.

But I never enjoy the retreat itself. I'm always so relieved when it's over. And this year, my heart just isn't in it.

Zen is supposed to be about facing yourself, really experiencing what's going on in your life and in the moment, and not deluding yourself with everyday distractions. But I must admit I suspect that some people hide in practice, using it to avoid questions and issues in their own lives, in direct opposition to its purpose. Perhaps I suspect that of myself.

I'm not jettisoning my practice entirely -- that's not what I'm saying. But I want a less intensive practice than a weeklong retreat will offer. If that makes me a lightweight, so be it. I'd rather walk the streets of New York City and visit Dave and my friends and experience my life in all its richness, without giving up a week to sit on a cushion.

I have long wrestled with the amount of time involved in Zen practice. In recent weeks and months I haven't even been able to get to the Zendo -- partly because I've been busy, but also, truth be told, because I've been in a period of silent rebellion.

I've been facing a lot of questions about what my practice should be. (I'm not really supposed to discuss this with anyone but my teacher, but here goes.) For one thing, I've been working on koans, which are Zen riddles that are meant to lead to greater enlightenment. I just HATE them. I don't really have much aptitude for the teachings of the old Zen masters, and I dread being pressed into service during liturgy. It's the sitting I enjoy, and that only in limited quantities.

Of course, "enjoyment" isn't really the point. Zen is not about doing what you enjoy. But why shouldn't I spend my valuable and finite time on this planet doing what I enjoy, as long as it's not harmful to me or others?

I understand that devoting time to the practice is the essence of practice -- the need to remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of daily life. But here's the thing: I like the hustle and bustle. I'm enjoying my life. I don't think I'm woefully deluded or in need of balance and equanimity. I'm pretty balanced already.

I think I'm going to write my teacher and tell her I don't intend to come up this summer. I'll continue to go to the Zendo and practice here in the city, and try to find a comfort zone that allows me to maintain my practice while devoting more time to just living, pursuing my hobbies, friendships and relationship.

I'm not a monk. I don't want to be a monk.

Does that make sense?

(Photo: E. 29th Street, July 2009)