The Shoveler

After misfortune and a snow storm, I go out to shovel. Snow ten inches deep. Wet as a load of laundry spun out wrong, dripping, making a mess. The driveway is wide, walled on either side. I throw shovels of the stuff high as I can. Too much slides back down. I keep going. Snow keeps falling. Trees weep with it. A branch breaks, falls into the street. I am envious. An hour I work on that driveway. One square foot after another. No pushing this snow. Pick it up and throw, one after another and another. I clear down to the road where ten inches wait for plows that won’t come for hours. Maybe not today. There’s a point to shoveling, I tell myself. I say it again and again. I begin clearing the sidewalk. Slowly. My back is sore. I’ve taken off my coat. The gloves feel too warm. The shovel feels too heavy. The world is heavy. I clear down to the neighbor’s and keep going. Remember the story of a guy swimming through swimming pools back home. He never gets there. Or maybe he does, but there’s no home. I plot a winter version. A man shovels sidewalks down to the corner. He keeps going. Snow continues to fall. Morning becomes afternoon and evening. He thinks he’ll someday come to an end. But on the map, the cleared path leads due North. 

Rick Bass, Oil Notes

I've written already about this book that I will re-read often over the next few years. The writing is so beautiful. Rather than take another passage apart or try to convey what the book is like, here's a passage without comment beyond this: it is the best, most poetic prose I have read in five years. Rick Bass's writing makes me almost insane with envy. Time to get to work catching up. 

This is from pages 168-169 of the trade paperback edition. 

This farm is meant for me. I was watching a pine cone at the end of a branch this morning, and with no wind it fell. Just dropped, and bounced. I did not go over to pick it up; I was frightened to touch it or look at it. There was no telling what it could mean. I went and put on my tennis shoes and ran through the field and down through the woods until I was sweaty and breathing hard. I came out on a gravel road, and sad down, and panted. A white dog from someone’s farm came trotting up. I petted him. Then I walked out to the main road, came back around to my house the long way, and things seemed better. I took a bath in the big old claw-footed tub I have and shaved and combed my hair and drove into Terry and bought a can of Gatorade and two bananas. 
    Still, I did not stare too long at anything on a tree, anywhere, for quite some time; I averted my glances as if it were a question of modesty. 

*   *   *

I am fascinated with leaves these days. It is fall, and they are turning nicely this year. They give the trees, plum and pear and apple and oak, hickory, cottonwood, elm and willow, what seems to be the most tempting of messages. I want to stare, I fell there’s something I’m missing that’s right in front of my face, but also if I stare too long and still fail to see it, the leaves will give up on me and stop trying to show me. So I watch out of the corners of my eyes. I feel very humbled. 
    Winter will come. I’ll build fires over at Elizabeth’s mother’s house. I’ll forget the leaves for another year. We will make spiced tea and popcorn. Trees should be trees, and people, people. I don’t know why some people get sad in the fall, even while claiming paradoxically that it is their favorite time of year. 
    I should have put the pinecone in a mayonnaise jar and screwed the lid on and kept it next to my bed, or on the dashboard of my truck, for magic. 
    I was frightened. 
    There is a territoriality, a distance, that sets us apart from each other, and I do now know if that is good or bad. I don’t know whether to hold on or let go. I don’t think any of us ever knows, right up until the last moment. 

--Rick Bass, Oil Notes (168-169)
 

Magic In The Schools

Yesterday, Jane, a colleague, worked with Frank from my class. He's odd. Jane says he's defiant. I think of him as mostly silent. Even when he speaks, which is rare, it's a mumble as if he wasn't spoken to as a baby, toddler, or even spoken now that he is in high school. He wears headphones constantly and often puts his head down on the desk refusing to engage. She sees defiance; I see habit and training. 

Frank was in my class, head down, and I asked him to go to the office if he needed to sleep. I said it gently, explaining I couldn't have him sleep in class. Mostly I wanted him to go see Jane. He didn't say much as he left, but there was body language: stiff back, sideways look, the way he pushed out of his chair. I was supposed to react, but I'm old enough to know there's no fight to win there.

Jane came in a bit later saying Frank was in her office. I nodded, happy he had gotten to the right place. She said, he's upset and doesn't like you. I don't blame him? Have you met me? I suggested I take a minute and talk with him. Jane thought it was too soon, he was too worked up. Okay, I said, wanting her to feel I trust her judgment. 

Jane apologized. I'm sorry, she said. For what? I asked. I'm working to stop her apologizing, but it's not going well. I'm sure she's sorry about that too. She said, I'm sorry I haven't fixed Frank. Fixed him? I asked. That's asking too much. He's in school and that's a start. Fixes, I told her, are a bad goal to shoot for. She apologized again. Sigh.  

Later she came back and I asked if I could tell Frank why I asked him to leave and show that it's not a disciplinary action. She agreed. I went in and sat in a chair lower than his so I wasn't threatening. I kept my voice light, matter-of-fact, explaining why I asked him to go and that I was happy he had come to the office. I told him, I can't make you do anything. What you do is your choice. 

I say this to a lot of students. It's simple honesty. I can't make them do anything, so I ask. I could threaten, but that doesn't work out well. It's always your choice, I told Frank. He nodded, surprised as every kid is when we talk about this. Honesty seems a crazy thing in school. I thanked him and went back to class. Frank was calm and nodded. 

It hasn't happened yet, but Jane will say I worked magic she doesn't understand. She often says this. I'll say, there is no magic. There's a theory and practice I've tested and modified for years. Frank was, according to Jane, defiant, so I chose to be absolutely pliant and give him nothing to defy. I was honest. I didn't want or demand anything from him. I gave. 

School admins and managers are big on outcomes. What's the result of this lesson, this talk, this whatever? I don't hold much with that. Learning is slow, non-linear. My intended outcome was to talk, listen, and demonstrate I'm no threat. I wanted Frank to feel some kindness and honesty. I didn't need anything from him. 

I'm no magician. I follow my theory where it leads because it has served me well. Science not magic. Jane doesn't have the same theory and expects other outcomes immediately. Because of her assumptions, I seem to do magic while she apologizes for getting bad results. 

I may have to find some magic to work on her. 

Tuning Out

Yesterday I turned on the television and flipped through the channels. Infomercials, cable company complaining that a distributor raised rates, old reruns. I landed on CNN where the anchor was talking about arming teachers and outlining both sides of the argument. I groaned. Then a senator talked about how he's pleased to be invited to the White House to discuss gun policy after the Florida high school slaughter. I turned the television off wondering why I even try television news. 

The problems are these: 

1. There aren't two sides to the idea of arming teachers
2. Acting pleased to discuss problems with this administration is a lie or the height of foolishness. 

Arming teachers isn't serious policy. It is meant to distract. Arming teachers won't keep anyone safer and almost guarantees more bullets will fly. Think just a moment and apply logic to this. The next steps are to arm teachers with automatic weapons and to armor kindergartners in bulletproof vests. It's frighteningly laughable but the likely end of arming teachers. 

Arming teachers is aimed and loaded to protect gun manufacturers and the right to bear any arm anywhere. The other intent is to distract from the fact that being awash in guns, our nation is awash in our own blood. 

As for that senator's pleasure, he's going to an unhinged White House. It is the house of Twitter and when was the last reasoned and enlightening discussion on Twitter? It is no place for debate and neither is this White House. Twitter is dominated by name-calling and bullying. Note the Twitter feed of the White House's chief occupant. It is a sewer pipe. 

Which leads to why I've turned off television and radio news: they report government by tweet as something reasonable. I used to listen to NPR all the time, but they insist on covering his every tweet and boast. I've gone to print media where I can bypass tweet-talk and false equivalencies. Those really bother me. 

Listen for a moment. The Earth is not flat. There is no debate. Flat-Earth arguments are unworthy of equal time because they've been proven false. There are no two sides to the shape of the Earth. Such notions do not deserve equal time. 

Arming teachers is about as reasonable as believing in a flat Earth. 

The CNN anchor went out of his way to seem fair and balanced about arming teachers rather than calling out propaganda for what it is. That's not news or good journalism.

The Senator who acted as though he will be dealing with a fair-minded and reasonable group in the White House isn't being honest. What he thinks he's doing, I don't know.  

None of this is good for our nation. Ignoring facts, giving time to distractions, and respecting ideas that do not stand up to rigorous examination is likely to end in the deaths of more school children. 

I would like to hope for better from us.