The Road Less Traveled

 Disclaimer:  If you already hate Shakespeare, this blog may not concern you.

I think I have just stumbled onto the same frustration many people face when reading a Shakespeare play.  No, it’s not the language.  I get that.  Believe it or not, I have been exposed to so much Shakespearean language over the past ten years that I have come to understand it and thus to love it.  But, actually, my frustration does have something to do with the language.  Let me explain.

I am torn, as the alternative title to this blog suggests, by my love of Shakespeare’s language and the almost ridiculous situations in which he places his characters.  I’ve started reading “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”  An old college professor of mine would ask one of the most intelligent questions I have ever heard:  Why?

Anyone who knows me well is aware that my taste in literature changes faster than the weather.  It is the reason why I take forever to finish a novel, because my ADHD will kick in, I’ll become interested in something else, and I’ll start reading that instead.

So my recent “reinterest” in Shakespeare lead me to reading one play I had not been exposed to, hence “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”  It begins well, two best friends Proteus and Valentine, arguing over love.  Proteus is smitten by young Julia, and Valentine ridicules him and love:  “Love is your master, for he masters you, and he that is yoked by a fool methinks should not be chronicled for wise.”

Then some other stuff happens, Valentine goes off to work for a duke, Proteus stays behind because he loves Julia too much.  But… gasp… Proteus’ father makes him go to work for the duke, as well.  So, before he leaves, he exchanges vows (and rings) with Julia, swears his undying love and wishing a curse upon every second he does not think about her:  “And when that hour o’erslips me in the day wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake, the next ensuing hour some foul mischance torment me for my love’s forgetfulness.”

The fun stuff starts (note sarcasm) when Proteus arrives at the duke’s “royal court” and learns that his friend Valentine has recently fallen in love with the fair Sylvia.  And guess what…? Proteus falls in love with her, as well, at first sight.  So, right after his meeting her, he begins to devise a plot to forget about Julia, have Valentine banished from the duke’s court, and live happily ever after with Sylvia.  Therefore proving that even in the romantic world of Shakespeare, men are pigs, yes we are, destined to a life of infidelity and woe.

Come on.  I really want to love this play, I truly do.  It has some of the most eloquently written lines I have read in any Shakespeare play.  “What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?  What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?  Unless it be to think that she is by and feed upon the shadow of perfection except I be by Silvia in the night, there is no music in the nightingale; unless I look on Silvia in the day, there is no day for me to look upon; she is my essence, and I leave to be, if I be not by her fair influence foster’d, illumined, cherish’d, kept alive.”  But man, what a horrible situation he has these characters in.

I have not finished the play (but, oh, I will) but apparently it gets worse.  I’ve heard that Proteus tries to force his love upon Sylvia (yes, that means what you think it means) and Valentine catches him.  It gets better.  Proteus apologizes, and Valentine decides to give Sylvia to him as a token of their renewed friendship.

Wow.

So where is the juxtaposition?  I love Shakespeare so much that I am going to subject myself to the torture of such a horrible situation in order to venture into a world of his I have not yet experienced.  How can you not resist such lines as “Is she kind as she is fair?  For beauty lives with kindness.  Love doth to her eyes repair, to help him of his blindness, and, being helped, inhabits there.”  That’s powerful stuff.  I hate Shakespeare, yet I love him, yet I hate him.  I’m so confused.

Just wish me luck.  I’m off to read Act 3.

Until later– “There’s no turning back not that you open up to your mind.”

I just stumbled onto something that makes me proud.  As of about thirty minutes ago, Google’s #1 search trend was a French phrase, “faut souffrir pour etre belle,” which translates to something like “You have to suffer to be beautiful.”

Why am I proud of this?  It proves that the quest for knowledge among Internet junkies is not limited to “Grand Theft Auto IV” or “Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards Results.”

Where did I get the crazy idea to check the Google search trends?  Most of my television time during Spring Break has been spent watching a channel called Current.  It is made up mostly of pods, short videos that are between 3-7 minutes long, perfect for ADHD viewers like me.  That’s not the best part.  Most of the pods are Viewer Created Content.  Their web site, current.com, presents assignments that their viewers/visitors can use as ideas for pods and then send them in.  The best are voted on by viewers/visitors and then hopefully chosen by current to be aired on the channel.  That’s still not the best part.  They pay.

I think I’m actually going to try this.  There are a few of the assignments that I think I could do, with my little Flip and my high tech Windows Movie Maker.  Seriously, though, I think things are looking up.  Most of the pods are about world issues and current events.

Hope things are looking up for you, also.

Want to tap into some forgotten part of yourself? I’ve perfected this more than I should be proud of. I have even managed to break myself down into tears trying this out. Heed this warning, though: Trying any of the following might just put you on an emotional roller-coaster that is undeniably out of your control.

1. Listen to a song from your past: This is more successful if you choose a song from a very significant time in your life and if you haven’t heard the song for a long time. The other day, I heard “Freshman” by the Verve Pipe and I was transported to trying to scrunch into the back seat of a Chevy Cavalier with three friends on our way to the mall. Most of those faces are strangers to me now but hearing this song brought all of them flowing back. “For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise…We’ve tried to wash our hands of all of this. We never talk of our lack in relationships and how we’re guilt stricken sobbin’ with our heads on the floor. We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip…” Man, that was some good stuff.

2. Watch a movie: This is also more effective if you haven’t seen the film for a while and if you once watched it with someone close to you. I rummaged through my VHS tapes and found my copies of Casino and Goodfellas. Once again, memories of propping my feet up on the arm of my friend’s basement couch with the rest of the group sprawled out on the floor, in lounge chairs, staying up until 4 a.m. for our Mobster Movie Marathon. Other films of this famous insomnia inducer included Godfather I and II (we cursed III), Scarface, and Heat.

3. Read one of your favorite children’s books: This is a sad one. This summer, one of my fellow CWVWP participants taught a grammar lesson in which she passed out copies of Amelia Bedelia books to us. I spotted the one I wanted right away. Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping. Just seeing that book brought a wave of memories that nearly sent me out of the room in tears. And I had to fight them back again as I read the book aloud. My grandfather took me to the Cross Lanes library when I was about five or six and this was one of the books I chose. He read it to me in his gruff smoker’s voice, his country accent adding to the humor. Six years later, he died of a stroke on Christmas Eve. Seeing that book… man… it was like looking right into his face again. Moments like that can sweep you off of your feet before you know it.

So, that’s my adventure into the old vault. Heed my warning, though. Objects in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear.

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”

A nice cup of tea can cure a lot of ills. It’s been a stressful week already, and it’s only Wednesday. Once again, I rushed out of the house this morning and forgot to take the trash to the curb. I usually judge my days based on how many things I forget in the morning. That was number one. By eight a.m., that number had risen to three. So naturally, I didn’t have a very positive outlook for the rest of the day.

Boy was I wrong. I met one of the Harlem Globetrotters today and proved to my students that I can almost make a half court shot. He gave a very inspirational message that reinforced what I have been trying to teach many of them, that it’s not what you do for yourself that matters but what you do for others.

Then, with enthusiasm I hadn’t felt for some time, I talked to my students about our new board work idea in which we use the acronym JAMS to get started right at the beginning of class. This idea was met with a little resistance, worried I was suddenly becoming another strict teacher who would never let them speak (apparently a luxury they don’t often get in their classes). “I promise you,” I said, “that only the first five to ten minutes of class is going to change. Everything else will be as usual. You’ll get to write and share your writing with each other, as always.” They all seemed happy to oblige and I am looking forward to watching them rise to the expectations.

Night school went great, as well. I have encouraged them to start student accounts on edublogs and many of them have taken off on their own and already posted several entries. I am so proud of them that I could burst.

So now, here I sit with my proud cup of white tea (which my wife swears is better than green, more antioxidants or something) relaxed after a great day with my students, and I’m feeling like I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”

I hate onions.  I know this is odd because they’re in just about everything.  I remember my mother cooking foods that needed onion and my stepfather shouting, “Put a buncha onions in it.”  Mom would wink at me and only sprinkle in a few.

On the other hand, I love ramps.  For those of you who are not up on Appalachian culture, ramps are a special type of wild leek and they taste something like a cross between onions and garlic.  They grow just like wild onions with tall green stalks above ground and round white bulbs below ground.  When you cook with them, the whole house radiates from the stink.  I know a lot of people who will never even try ramps because of their strong aroma.

But oh my gosh, when my mother would fry potatoes and chop up little bits of ramp into the pan, I would savor that smell.  It would last long after dinner was over, but we didn’t care.  I would bite into those potatoes with surprising enthusiasm. 

 My grandfather loved to cook pinto beans with ramps.  Pinto beans were always a childhood favorite of mine, but I remember turning down a bowl while visiting a friend because I could see chunks of onion floating on top.  But, mmm, when I saw my grandfather chopping those familiar bits of green into a huge pot on pinto beans, my mouth would drip with hunger.

I remember spending some time with my father in Ohio and talking to other kids in the neighborhood about ramps.  “Like boat ramps?” one kid asked.  This, I found out later, was very common.

That evening, my father drove me to the northern panhandle and we hiked up a small hill just beside the road.  A few times I kept peering down the hill at the flashing hazard lights on my father’s truck.  But when he said, “There we go,” I turned my attention to a small cluster of dark green stalks and smiled.

The next morning, we ate an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, and fried potatoes with… you guessed it… ramps.

Thus the mystery of my hatred for onions but my love of ramps.  Never have been able to figure it out.  Maybe this is a message to anyone who hates onions:  Try ramps.

Here’s a link to a wikipedia article about ramps.  It even says that they are “especially popular in the cuisine of the US state of West Virginia.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_leek

Until later– There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.

Last week, I handed out the edublogs manual to my night school English class.  This is a class of 30+ students who have failed a semester or more of English and need to make up the credit.  Simply put, it is mostly a group of intelligent and talented students who just either hate English (especially reading and writing) or don’t care for school work.

I was not surprised, however, when a good number of them expressed interest in signing up for blogs.  I plan to use them as a place for students to post their writing, comment about what they are currently reading, and just write whatever is on their mind.

We’ll see how this goes.  I already have two students who have responded to my entries.  Now I have the great pleasure of responding to theirs.

Until later — There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.

When I was a kid, I used to sit on my tiny front porch step and wait to see if my father would keep his promise and come to take me to his house for the weekend.  At his every invitation, I would pack my clothes, bolt for the front door, and wait for his car to come puttering down the street, past the rows of identical suburban duplexes and come to a halt in front of ours.

Sometimes I would wait and wait and wait until the phone rang and it would be my father, apologizing but cancelling our weekend plans.  The excuses were always different but similar: plans to go hunting, plans to go hunting with a friend, plans to go out of town to hunt with a friend.

But when the next phone call came, I would pack my clothes again and wait on the step for his car.  There were times that he would not let me down and I would kiss my mom, run and toss my bag into the back seat of his car, and ride with enthusiasm to his home for the weekend.

I loved my father, regardless of his let-downs, because I knew there would be days when he would be there, grinning with anticipation of the weekend.  Even though he often put his own plans and desires before mine, I knew he was glad to see me when he could.  Over the years, when we were together, he shared the best and worst parts of himself with me: his temper and his tenderness; his selfishness and his sympathy; his anger and his amusement; his contempt and his contentment.

And now, I’m clinging again to a promise.  My father has said that he plans to return to West Virginia, promises to visit often, to spend time with me and his grandchildren.  I am that young boy again, sitting on my front step, waiting.  And you know what?  I’m just as excited now as I was each time I waited on that step, patiently and enthusiastically.

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”

A few months ago, when Paul, a missionary friend of mine, was visiting my students to talk about Haiti, I wrote this:

 ”I keep making promises to myself that I’m not sure I can cash in on.  I want to travel out of the country not to vacation, but to make a difference.  I think I’ve been cursed with my father’s wandering spirit but my grandfather’s generous heart.  I promised Jennifer that our first trip out of the country would be together, but I don’t know how she would feel about travelling to a country that is dangerous or poor in order to help those in need.  I would want to bring the girls along, to teach them about other cultures and the importance of giving.”

I found this picture that just intensified these feelings.  It was taken in 1994 by Kevin Carter.  The caption says it all:

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I would even have the strength to handle seeing such a situation.  But it’s good to know that I would want to help, if I could.

I know, I’m being crazy-emotional again.

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you’ve opened up to your mind.”

Those who have been friends with me for a while know that I have a passion for wolves.  My house is decorated with framed posters and paintings of gray wolves, ceramic figurines of wolves, resting in the snow or stretching their necks in a silent howl.

It used to be an obsession.  I even had wolf slippers that howl when you pinch their ears.  Now, it is just a deep love.  When I was a young teenager, I had a dream where I was hiking at night and got lost.  After stumbling through thicket, I had given up hope.  The trail I was on opened to a circular clearing and standing in the center was a wolf with snow white fur.  “Lost your way?”  His voice sounded like mine.  “Come on, it’s out this way.”  He led me away from the clearing and back into the woods.  After that, the dream was disrupted by my alarm clock.  This changed my love of wolves from a simple liking to a great respect and appreciation.

Native Americans studied and revered the wolf as a guide for behaviors like honoring family, hunting with grace and pride, and surviving in difficult conditions.  After my dream, this is how I also looked at the wolf, as a guide, a symbol of sorts.  My totem.

I know I’m just as tired of saying this as you are of reading it…  It’s been a long time since my last entry.  I discovered a lot over the holiday, about myself, about my grandmother, about Alzheimer’s.  I found myself spending some of my Christmas money on others (my wife and my grandfather), an act that used to be the equivalent of chopping off one of my hands.  But I think I’m finally growing up to the point that I give without much thought, especially to people closest to me.

I used to whine about not having anything (as far as possessions go) to connect me with my grandfather, no handed-down pocket knife or toolbox, nothing.  This Christmas, however, I bought him a pair of slippers that looked like moccasins and while I was at it I bought myself a pair.  I felt like a child, smiling over how cool it was to have the same pair of shoes as my grandfather.  I also bought him a thick shirt that can be worn as a jacket.  I didn’t get one of those for myself, but I bought it because I knew he would love it.

As for my grandmother, I watched her become nervous and confused on Christmas Eve as she tried to recognize the faces of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren while they opened presents, munched on ham and meatballs, and kissed her goodbye.  She finally became so nervous that my aunt opened a package with a baby doll in it and handed the doll to her.  “In hospitals and nursing homes, they give these to alzheimer’s patients all the time to calm them down,” she said.  It amazed me to see how quickly my grandmother relaxed as she rocked the baby doll and even showed it off to us.

Christmas Day, I returned to my grandparents to take another shirt to my grandfather.  Gramma was is good spirits and as I was leaving she asked, “Do you have school today?”

“No, Gramma, we’re on break,” I answered.

“Oh.  Well do you want to spend the night?”  I hesitated because the question caught me off guard.  She had not asked me that since I was about ten years old.  Later, at home, as I sat upstairs alone, I thought about her question and could not stop my tears.  Gramma had recognized me, but in her mind I was a little boy again, the young school boy I used to be, coming over during Christmas break to spend the night and eat ice cream or play with my new toys.

A part of me is still that little boy.  I’m tempted, now, to take her up on her offer, to come over and stay for a week or so in the summer, or even just a couple nights.  I miss that wandering, curious little boy who used to find comfort in morning cartoons and a big bowl of cocoa puffs, mixed with cheerios, rice krispies, and raisin bran.  I miss eating Grandpa’s cakes that stretched just a little beyond the recipe.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just emotional, but there is a quote in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle from one of the characters that says, “We all missed a lot.  We’d all do well to start over again, preferably with kindergarten.”

Until later– “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”