Esto Vir

Cal called to tell us that he was accepted into the Dominicans. He will start his novitiate this summer. I feel a sense of completeness - a long road that has reached its end. A new road lies ahead. You know they must walk it alone. You are also on the road, but it is their road, not yours.

Here's the start.

It's the end of a long night of poker, cigarettes, and beer. 23 or 24 years ago. I'm alone with Uncle C, known to the world as Fr. Damian Fandal, teacher, interim President of U. Dallas, Provincial of the Central Province, TV personality. As usual, he'd separated all of us from the stray nickels and dimes we'd laid in wager. He'd also humored me with his argument about why women shouldn't be priest. "Of course" he says "you are a heretic, but that's okay." In response I say to him something inane and then told him, "Uncle C, since you can't acknowledge your own children," we both laugh at the absurdity of the statement, "I think we'll name our first son after you." When I told her, Mo laughed and said, yes, it was a great idea. And so Callery got his name, and, I guess, his calling.

Uncle C died too young, but I do feel that a small part of his spirt will live on with his namesake who has accepted the same challenge in life.

National Portait Gallery

I had an hour to kill and was still in museum mode. Mo and Sam were well out of museum mode, in fact, they are rarely in museum mode, so I decided to take the hour before we met Meg and Cal for dinner and visit the National Portrait Gallery. Unlike the other Smithsonian's that close at 5:00, the Portrait Gallery closes at 7:00. An hour is not a very long time to visit a new museum, so I went right to the Info. Desk and asked what I should visit. They were very helpful and suggested a portrait exhibit that was closing the next week and the Presidential Portrait Gallery. Both were wonderful - I could have spent much more time. I am generally not drawn to portraits, but the Presidential portraits were compelling. With each painting there was a brief biography with some key fact about the man, not just history. It again reminded me of the importance of story telling in art. Yes, the painting exists as an object of beauty in itself, but a story, or history, can make the piece come alive for the viewer in a completely different way.

One thing did strike me in viewing the Presidential Portraits - the art of portrait painting had declined. The masters are of the past, not the present - at least in painting. I suspect photography is where the art of portrait had now gone. Don't get me wrong, the recent portraits were compelling, but they were not the same as the older portraits. In some ways they were more flat. In the older portraits, you could see the joy or pain in the eyes of the man. I think it was the eyes that I focus on - the windows to the soul - and some did show the wear and tear of power. I saw the decline sometime around Grant. The only recent painting I stayed with one the abstract portrait of Kennedy. Ifs form did reflect the man and the time - a jumble of unclarity and the sense of something unfinished.

Unfortunately, the Museum was closing and as I walked out I passed numerous rooms that teased me and drew me to them. Oh well, next time I'll have to allot more time to the NPG.

Embrace

Smiles in the silence
Beautiful flowers bloom wide
Embrace our father

Smiling

They, mostly, are smiling. Warm smiles. Shy smiles. Look into the camera and smile. The smiles make it all the more poignant. They were 20, and 21, and 22, so young that they could be my child. There was one young woman, 20, caught reading, a smile about to spread on her face. Her name was Jennifer Marie Parcells. 20 and brave. She, no, they, could have been the future of the world, but their smiles will only shine in the brief silence of the roll call of the dead at the end of the NewsHour. We tell our children,"waste not, want not" and yet we waste the lives of so many, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but everywhere in our history.

For years, I read about Viet Nam and wondered how it could have happened. Now we see history repeat itself, even when we followed Santayana's advice and desperately tried to examine our history in the hopes of not repeating it - for nought. Perhaps, it is simply fate and Vonnegut was right - "so it goes"...and smile for the camera

Snow Day

They came in anticipating the news - snow. There is a palpable excitement for what students feel is a stolen day. No where to go and a clean coverlet of white to disguise the scars of the urban landscape. Ahhh - Halo till their eyes fall plop,plop out of their heads. Some teachers are equally as excited. I must admit that I like snow days, but not too many since they eat into the clear, sunny days of June. I would also prefer a day mid-way between Winter and Spring Breaks. For now, hours before the winter deluge, (hyperbole, I know, but its been a bad snow year) I'll try to keep a level head and hope for a delay.

The Historian

I went to the library and got a book on tape. I hadn't listened to a book for a long time because Sam and I, while commuting to school and back, have been listening to sports stations or Colin (until Sam can't take it anymore). I thought I'd listen when he's not in the car. I picked the The Historian without knowing anything about it but just remembering that someone said it was great. Sam moans when he gets into the car and it is on - I forgot to turn it off. In order to act like I'm really in charge, I tell him to be quiet, I want to listen for a little while. Eureka - he gets hooked. The book is a page turner about vampires, but is well written with many fine turns of phrase and images. Now I can't listen to it without him in the car.

I love it. It's so important to find that thread of connection with your children, who you love so much that even you can't understand it. The two of us look forward to getting in the car and listening - together. It connects and joins us in a common endeavor. I love that he loves the story and the words and the images. That excitement resonates in his voice when he talks about the book with me.

Each day is a treasure. A small jewel to set aside in my box of memories. He turns 16 this weekend and that means he'll be driving and the eventual loss of our joint commute. Yea, being his chauffeur is a pain, but it's also painful to think of its ending.

The smile

It was a silly pun, a bad joke, but she smiled. I realize that she'd never actually smiled at me or one of my comments. She'd always snarled or ignored me. I guess it didn't help that I kept tossing her from class and exiling her to a quiet room next to my classroom. She struggled in class because she can't read well, or write for that matter. I think that classroom anger is more of a result of fear of failure than anything else. For those of us who love the classroom and easily fit into the standard societal mode, it is hard for us to understand these students. As a result, we butt heads and when authority is challenged, especially the thin shred of teacher authority, the reaction tends to be an overreaction. This is what happened with me and this student. For several reasons, one being she would not come to my class for a few weeks, a middle ground was found and I was able to help her. She is no longer in my class and now, without the oppressive performance expectations hanging over our heads, she is free to be human and kind, as I am. Today she smiled for the first time, and I can smile for the first time in a long time as well.

Me and Humbaba

Time flies. It's hard to believe how long its been since I blogged. Of course, I'm blogging on two class blogs so I'm fulfilling part of my need to write in those venues. However, its fun to have this break and see how frustrated I was when I last blogged. A lot has changed. We started a new semester and the problem girls have been out of the POD. It is truly amazing how quiet and calm the POD has become with the simple absence of two people. I really like my new classes. I start the day off with an honors class and its great to work with receptive minds. We started reading Gilgamesh two days ago. Now, Gilgamesh is my favorite epic, but I'm usually an interested audience of one. Yesterday, we were reading aloud and I was comparing the text to sections of Genesis. When I was done with the comparison, I decided to stop reading aloud and was going to summarize the rest of the tablet. They were outraged - they wanted to read the whole tablet, aloud and in class. I was stunned with happiness. Today I made the error of telling them that Humbaba would be killed and several of them were audibly upset - they were so into the tale that they were outraged I would give away a key fact before we read it. This is going to be fun.

I spoke to Adam yesterday, and they are interested in continuing our talks. I'm interested and it looks better than I had hoped.