Living in a Hieroglyphic World

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In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs….

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

This novel is full of quotable lines, of relatable truths that I have been tumbling about in my brain and heart. Being the word nerd that I am, I decided to look at the meaning of hieroglyph before sharing my thoughts. From dictionary.com: pertaining to a pictographic script, particularly that of the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented. The central character, Newland Archer, seems to already have an inkling of the unreality in his own world of 1870s New York society, but he also realizes the safety in this structured, hieroglyphic world. He wants to believe himself broader and freer-thinking than his friends are, but he realizes that he is equally tied to the external expectations of his social strata. The unexpected entrance of an outlying member of this same circle, one who does not fit the form, opens his eyes wider.

In the fall of 2002, I went back to school to earn my bachelor’s degree. More than the degree, I was yearning for a way to break free from my own hieroglyphic world. I had always been drawn to literature, especially to stories and characters that had something real to offer me other than a good plot. That semester, I took Western Classics II. Our first novel was The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. Another novel we read was The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. I go back now and read my annotations and know that each of these stories gave me insight to the inauthentic life I so wanted to break free from. In each of these stories there are characters caught in lives that are perfunctory – going through the motions – and in which, it is assumed, they are “happy”.

Most of us crave order to some extent. We want to feel safe and to know, at least some of the time, what to expect. We tend to find some comfort in having the same people around us even when their company can be hard or even hurtful. For all of us there are seasons of tedious routine. When, though, is it time to look beyond these created or evolved conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented or the arbitrary signs? I believe that what is real can still be found if we open our eyes and hearts, if we allow ourselves to be aware, if we are willing to face the fear of truth. Each of us must decide to what extent we allow the structures in our life to become hieroglyphic. At this point in my life I crave what is real and vibrant, even if it is a bit scary.

Some related quotes from The Age of Innocence:

“Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind of people who only ask one to pretend!:”

“It’s you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d ceased to see them.”

“…but sometimes life is difficult . . . perplexing . . .”

Learning in Calm and in Storm

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Have you ever read a book that seemed to have been placed before your eyes at just the right time? Several times this has happened to me. Sometimes I have picked up a book I have read before and wanted to re- read for a particular reason only to find that there were new messages for me in its story or from its characters. I had never read any book by Willa Cather but came across a single line from The Song of the Lark when looking for something else. That one line was enough for me to decide to read the whole:

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

I am learning this fresh everyday it seems. While Thea is referring specifically to music – what we learn in our practice time versus what we learn in the midst of performance – there is truth in this thought that is universal. We are so quick to wish the hard times away – the really tough days – the hurts – the challenges, but I continuously remind myself [and sometimes that is wicked hard] to not do so for several reasons. For one thing, we only get each day once and only get so many days in life. Each one should be lived as fully and vibrantly as possible, even the “storm” days – and even those days when we wonder what else could possibly go wrong. I have experienced through the years that some of what I have learned about myself during the hardest times enriches me even more than what I learn during the calm times. For another, when we get caught thinking how shitty our life may seem to be at the moment, we forget to celebrate the beauty in the lives of others around us and we forget to see the beauty that exists in our own lives.

Some of us find it just as difficult – if not more so – to allow our minds to learn in times of calm. To set aside the emotions of the chaos that is life, to leave behind our speakers and ear buds, to postpone the longing for company – can allow our brains and hearts to make essential connections, to shift perspective and see new possibilities, to find order. I am thinking now about all the time I have spent practicing scales on my horn – sometimes moving back and forth between only two notes. When those two notes live beside each other in a phrase, that quiet time makes all the difference to the music. Life is so like that. I make time to head out on hiking trails where I can look at and listen to the world and somehow find answers to or strength to face life’s challenges.

Most days are somewhere in between or a mix of calm and storm. There is plenty to learn in those days as well.

Each day matters, whatever it holds.

 

 

The Most Important Things

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The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

“The Body” from Different Seasons by Stephen King

If this is the first time you have read this passage, or even if it is not, go back and read it again before you hear my thoughts.

I have often said that time is the most precious gift we can give because this is what I have believed. I still do believe shared time is a valuable gift — whether the time is shared with someone or on behalf of someone. Having read this passage many times over the past almost six months and having experienced some of the picture they paint in my mind and heart, I wonder if  these ‘things’, these landmarks to the treasure kept in our secret heart, are more even precious than time. The thing is, time — unhurried time — is fundamental to sharing these things. When shared with the right person, enveloped in the presence of deep trust, even finding the right words for the most tender thoughts is not absolutely necessary because they see and hear beyond the words to the real essence.

Sometimes these most important things are shared without any words at all but through the eyes and through touch. Just one of the great beauties of eyes is how directly and how poignantly they can express our very deepest thoughts and feelings to another’s eyes in the span of a moment. Eyes locked open even the deepest treasures. Beautiful even if surprising at times.

A gift is not a gift until it is given and received. Treasure is not really treasure as long as it stays hidden, only when shared.

 

 

Waiting vs. Facing the Dragon

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…so Harry reentered the tent, which somehow looked quite different now: friendly and welcoming. He thought back to how he’d felt while dodging the Horntail, and compared it to the long wait before he’d walked out to face it. . . .  There was no comparison; the wait had been immeasurably worse.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

Do you remember the first time you read the Harry Potter books? Each held for me a few particular passages or lines or essential themes that caught my attention even on the first read. The theme of Friendship in Sorcerer’s Stone [and that continues throughout the entire HP narrative] is one: “But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.” Mountain trolls come in all forms in real life. I have had the joy of collectively taking one on this year and in the process have collectively forged a unique and beautiful friendship.

I read Goblet of Fire for the first time I had to stop after reading the passage referenced above. I felt keenly Harry’s inner torture as he waited in the tent – hearing the crowd, hearing Bagman’s commentary, but mostly his imaginings of what would happen, how it would be, when he faced the Horntail. Dragons also come in all forms throughout our lives. Sometimes, like Harry, we have no choice in when we must head into the arena to face them.

In my life, there have been several times when I have only had to wait on myself to make the call to head out and face a dragon I have been ignoring. An extended season of prolonged waiting is draining at every level: emotional, mental, physical. I know I am not alone in ignoring dragons for long stretches, hoping they might simply go away. Generally, though, they continue to make their ongoing presence known from time to time. Our reasons for waiting are as legion as types of dragons. Over the past few weeks, this picture of Harry reflecting on the Wait vs. Facing-the-Dragon comparison has popped into my mind. Timely.

Like a Kaleidoscope

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“I call that ambiguity,” I said. “Riddles, puzzles, double meanings, lost possibilities, the dark side to the light, the light side to the darkness, different perspectives on the same things. Nothing in this whole world has only one side to it. Everything is like a kaleidoscope. That’s what I’m trying to capture in my art. That’s what I mean by ambiguity.”

~ The Gift of Asher Lev  by Chaim Potok

Everything is the same and everything is different.  This thought from artist Asher Lev foreshadows for me the words to his father, quoted above, in an exchange that occurs later in the story. How often have I thought a very similar thought, even if with different words to it? How often do I look at the picture of my life and wonder at how the pieces have shifted around to change the collective image – sometimes drastically. I am tempted to share context from the story as I generally do, but I feel this truth does not need context from the work of fiction from which it is pulled. It is a universal truth given poignant depth by Potok.

In a sealed kaleidoscope, the tiny colorful multi-faceted shards and chips of colorful glass that tumble about each other as the end is turned stay the same in that they are locked in. Yet with each turn, their positions change – the perspective shifts – the image created by the mirrors within is new though all of the pieces are, in essence, the same. Everything is the same and everything is different.

Our lives are not sealed kaleidoscopes. They are left open to the coming and the leaving of the “pieces” that make up the picture of our life. The variety of people we share facets of our life with, our personal and shared experiences, and memories of events and of emotions are ever changing. The impact of each relationship remains, however, as its own tiny (or large) shard. The happenings of each day bring shifts small and large in our perspective – sometimes in ways thoroughly unexpected. There are times when the picture we “see” appears to be all we long for, and we strive to capture and hold onto it as tightly as we can. Each new sunrise, though, brings even a tiny rearrangement in the picture – a light shines where we did not see light before, and because of that light a shadow falls elsewhere. This chiaroscuro, or contrast of light and dark, can change how we see the world like nothing else can. …the dark side to the light, the light side to the darkness, different perspectives on the same things.

At times we need to intentionally cause a shift to happen, to turn the end of the kaleidoscope – or even shake it, hard. We may not know for sure which pieces will stay and which will be gone or be able to anticipate exactly how the remaining pieces will be rearranged, but we know it’s time to make a turn. Riddles, puzzles, double meanings, lost possibilities….

Even during life seasons when so much in our world seems to be the same from day to day, tiny shifts and unnoticed turnings bring changes we may be only subconsciously aware of. That’s what I mean by ambiguity.

We live shared lives; our kaleidoscopes are interconnected, especially with those we love. Seeing things differently from even those we feel closest to can be painful at times, but it can also be beautiful when we open ourselves up to hear the difference in their perspective or experience. Two people standing side by side looking at the same flower, the same painting, the same car, the same situation will have slightly different perspectives not only because of sight line but because of all the prior life experiences that create the filter through which they are looking. Even though we sometimes see only one side, the person beside us is likely seeing others. There can be great beauty in this ambiguity. Nothing in this whole world has only one side to it. Everything is like a kaleidoscope.

Seeing With My Heart

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“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

What I’m looking at is only a shell. What’s most important is invisible . . .

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”

~ The Little Prince by Norton Juster

I neither have nor think I need many words to express my thoughts on these lines from The Little Prince that express one of de Saint-Exupéry’s central themes. The fox shared a priceless truth in the secret he told the little prince.

What happens when I bypass the external, when I close my eyes and begin to look and to see with my heart? Beauty happens. And I believe that I begin to honestly see myself with my own heart and in turn allow others to see me with their hearts. There is a mutual vulnerability in this seeing and being seen.

What You Will Do

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As the cheering continued, Rhyme leaned forward and touched Milo gently on the arm. “They’re shouting for you,” she said with a smile. “But I could never have done it,” he objected, “without everyone else’s help.” “That may be true,” said Reason gravely, “but you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.”

~ The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

To any who read these thoughts but who have not yet read Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, please go do so. Now. It is not just for children. I promise. I think I first read Tollbooth when I was in fifth grade. While several scenes stayed in my mind through the years, I never read it again until I borrowed it from the friend of one of my nieces, and the timing could not have been any better. It is fiction filled with truths. In the passage quoted above, our young hero Milo is being celebrated for his lead in rescuing the princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air – a quest requiring an impossible journey through the Mountains of Ignorance. Wisely, the princesses brothers, King Azaz and the Mathemagician did not disclose to Milo the impossibility of his mission until it was completed (a passage containing another truth I shall write about).

While all of this happens in the most fantastic of fantasies, this is true: “…what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.” I have several tasks ahead of me right now that I often feel I cannot do. How often do we give the excuse I can’t when what we really should say  is either I won’t or I don’t want to? Sometimes we say I can’t when what we mean is I’m afraid. We see the barriers and the challenges and feel overwhelmed. Even difficult journeys are taken on one step at a time, and barriers only need to be faced one at a time. If we can be like Milo, open to friendship and assistance from unexpected people (or dogs or bugs) in our lives, we will not be alone in facing them.

Broken World

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“Now I stand on the knoll before the grave of Jacob Kahn, the cypress tall against the blue morning sky and the wind warm on my face. It is the only sense left me, I hear him say. There are colors in the wind, Asher Lev. Find your demons again and return to your work. Colors wait for you in the wind. Things were too comfortable for you. An artist needs a broken world in order to have pieces to shape into art. Isn’t that right, Asher Lev? Comfort is death to art.”

~ The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

This passage struck me with an unforgettable and indelible impact the very first time I read it. To appreciate the whole, one must read the book – but only after reading the one that precedes it: My Name is Asher Lev. Asher here is visiting the grave of his teacher/mentor/friend, the artist Jacob Kahn. More poignantly, Asher is visiting with all that Jacob taught him – the messages he planted and nurtured within him through years of painting side by side – listening to Jacob’s voice embedded within his heart.

When I was in elementary school, my classmates and I were one day given the assignment of writing about and illustrating what we wanted to be – what job we wanted to have – when we grew up. My picture is still vividly clear in my mind’s photo stream. I drew myself at an easel, paintbrush in hand, beret on my head, being an Artist. When I went to college the first time, after some deep breakage in my world, I was an art major for two semesters. Only now do I look back at the works I created and see and feel that I was shaping some of the broken pieces into art – trying to express thoughts I had no words for.

For many years, I covered up what was most broken in my world. I my mind, I would often create pictures of how I felt. So many of us have been conditioned to hide the truth of brokenness even from ourselves. We live in a comparative world where we either want others to think our broken pieces are more jagged than theirs – or inversely, we do not want others to think we see our broken pieces as being nearly as numerous or sharp as theirs. I remember the first time a friend said to me, “We all have shit. We don’t have to compare it.” When we live “safe”, how much creativity do we miss out on? In the passage above, Asher had been living safe – closing the doors on the reality of his heritage and of his own past.

All of that said, I have long believed that there is more of Beauty in each day than Ugly – more good than not good – more to smile at than not smile at. I do not want to ignore either.

I am not now what most people would label an Artist. The only other thing I ever wanted to be was a Musician, as in playing music for a living. I never wanted to be a Teacher of any sort. Today, I believe the label is not the deal. I am a person first – I am also a Teacher, a Musician, and an Artist – along with many other roles. Much of my artwork right now takes place in band rooms (or random classrooms or cafeterias), a setting I never drew a picture (either on paper or in my mind) of myself working in. I have been given the privilege of teaching some students whose lives are far more broken than any child’s life should be – and I get to make music with them. I have seen children come in angry or sad and leave class with a smile.

Before class: “Do I have to come to band today?”

Me: “Yes, you get to come to band today! Let’s play – just trust me, you’ll feel better after we play for a while.”

After class: “You’re right, I do feel better. Why is that?”

Me: “Because making music together is magic.”

I believe that for now, this is one way I shape the pieces of my broken world into works of art. I have been given a gift in how I connect with children who seem different in every way from me, whose childhoods could not be more different from my own. The smiles on my students’ faces and the joyful feelings in their hearts will never hang in a gallery. This does not make them any less real or any less beautiful.

Houses in Your Heart

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“Maybe there aren’t any such things as good friends or bad friends – maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they’re always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that’s what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”

~ It by Stephen King

I have never read a novel or short story by Stephen King. Ever. It is unlikely that I ever will because that level of horror and darkness would trigger my imagination in unpleasant ways (understatement). That said, he has imbedded within his writing truths that I find beautiful. I am thankful for a friend who shares these gems with me including this one. I did find a synopsis of the novel so that I could understand the context of this quote, at least a bit. No, I will never read the full book. Ever.

At different points in my life, I have thought about what friendship is, about what a friend is – and what a friend is not. This image of “people who build their houses in your heart” is beautiful to me. So, I am imagining what kinds of houses these might be because not all friendships are the same. In my own life, there are some who because of life pathways have merely pitched a tent in my heart for a time. A few of these friends have left an imprint on my heart that will forever be part of who I am. A piece of the tent will always be with me. I am pretty sure we all have had a few tents pitched in their hearts.

Others build more permanent structures, cabins perhaps [I really like cabins], but may merge into and out of our day-to-day lives. These are the friends whom we might not see for a year or more yet that lapse in time does not diminish the bond whatsoever. I am thinking of the cabins that surround many of Michigan’s lakes, cabins I visited as a child. They sit empty for much of the year, but are opened up to life and laughter and shared moments every summer.

Other people have real and permanent homes with solid foundations in our hearts – cozy houses with fireplaces and comfy chairs, yards and trees and flowers, with back doors we know are always open for us. We may or may not see these friends everyday, but we know they are always there, and they know we are always there too.

For any of these houses to be built in our hearts, we must have our hearts open. Many of us go through seasons when we want to put up a “No Lots Available” sign, and we can do this on our faces without realizing it. In opening our hearts to people, to friendship, there is a vulnerability that can be scary, especially when we have been hurt. It can also be deeply humbling when we find a person’s house just seems to appear without warning, a house and a friend we cannot imagine was ever not in the neighborhood of our heart.

 

 

Memories… “like photographic slides”

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“The sky is black and studded with stars. I feel the sand of the beach beneath my shoes and think of the summers in Provincetown with Jacob Kahn. How memory accordions time and places disparate moments next to one another like photographic slides on a tray!”

~ The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

Memories…they do slip into our minds and line up beside each other, sometimes in a jumble. Often they are triggered out of the blue when one of our senses is sparked as happens for Asher Lev in the passage above as he feels the sand under his feet. One memory tends to beget other memories, connected in ways only the synapses of our brain seems to know. Sometimes the images of our memories are a jumble, but other times there is a theme that makes itself known. March will always be a month that plays in my memory slide shows of me and my dad.

Here I am sitting beside my daddy at Dunkin’ Donuts wearing a navy blue coat. This would have been one of our “early days” – so a Tuesday or Thursday – when he had to take me to nursery school a little early. I am eating my favorite (at the time) powdered sugar cake donut, and Daddy has that funny “dunkin'” donut with the little nub of a handle so he can dunk it in his coffee. (Do they even still make those?) That dusty sugar loved to fall onto my coat…and Dad would lovingly brush it off.

In this picture, I am with all of the neighborhood kids and my dad in the intersection of Calhoun and Grove Streets in Mishawaka, Indiana – best place in the whole world for a pick-up kickball game! [Or softball with plastic ball and that big red bat.] Our corner was home plate, and Dad was always the pitcher. Oh, how my friends loved to be with my dad. He was probably the “busiest” dad any of us had, yet he gave us the gift of his time – as well as instructing us on how to precisely time the planting of one foot so the other foot could connect with the ball just so….

Here we have a hodgepodge of fishing memories… With Grandpa Bill in a little lake in Liberty, Indiana, fishing for bluegill … on the shore of little Oly Lake (I truly do not know how to spell that) in Illinois working to reel in a snarky bullhead … learning how to get the worm onto the hook without hooking my finger … on “Monkey Island” fishing just to fish, maybe pulling up a tiny little sunfish … on a bigger lake in Illinois learning to use a casting rod (so different from the cane pole I still prefer) so we could catch bass … digging for worms in our little garden … stopping at the funny little bait shop being both grossed out and fascinated by all the wiggly things to put on hooks.

Memories can bring simultaneous smiles and tears….just as music does for me (as it is doing even as I type). Our stories are made of all our memories, the ones that hide deep within as well as those that are stored always near the surface, the hardest ones as well as those most precious. All of them shape who we are both individually as well as who we are in the context of our relationships. The sharing of memories, whether through music or words or other arts or even just by being who we are, is to me a precious gift.