Chaim Potok

My Choice: Fortunate over Unfortunate

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, Danny hits a softball right at Reuven’s face. The ball breaks Reuven’s glasses, and the shards lodge in and scratch his eye – sending Reuven to the hospital. The friendship that develops between these two Jewish teens from very different backgrounds (Danny is Hasidic, Reuven a liberal Orthodox) following Danny’s visits to Reuven in the hospital is beyond beautiful. It grows into a relationship that is essential for both of them. There are so many beautiful layers in this story, just as in any of Potok’s stories. (Read the book.) Keep the beauty of this friendship in mind as you read the passage I’ve been thinking of quite a bit lately:

When Reuven’s doctor suggest he get out of bed to walk around a bit, he stands for a time at a window just watching the people walking around outside. His father comes to visit him later:

“You will not be able to read for about ten days. He told me he will know by then about the scar tissue.”

“I’ll be happy to be out of this hospital,” I said. “I walked around a little today and saw the people on the street outside.”

My father looked at me and didn’t say anything.

“I wish I was outside now,” I said. “I envy them being able to walk around like that. They don’t know how lucky they are.”

“No one knows he is fortunate until he becomes unfortunate,” my father said quietly. “That is the way the world is.”

Reuven did not realize the fortune of his sight in both eyes until the sight in one was lost for a time. The people walking outside the hospital, likewise, had no reason to realize their fortune. I did not quite realize the fortune – the gift – that simply walking was until I had an injury that kept it from me. In fact, what spurred this post was a thought on my drive home this evening…. “I want and need to go for a walk this evening — the weather is perfect, and the time outside in the world is just what I need. …. I can’t walk.” I immediately thought of this passage.

The thing is, as I thought about it and reread it, I realized that the opposite is equally true — and far more profound in my life right now than the inconvenience of temporarily not being able to walk easily or to run. The circumstance that nearly took Reuven’s vision in one eye gave him the gift of a priceless friendship. Reuven may not have realized the gift his sight was until it was lost for a time. He also did not realize how unfortunate he was in his lack of a friendship such as developed with Danny until he experienced it. While he only had one eye to see with, he began to see the essential far more clearly.

Treasures come into our lives when we least expect them, even in the midst of the most unlikely of circumstances.

This is a post that begs for edits….I’ve written this very fast as I felt compelled to get my thoughts written out even if in a rough form.

Like a Kaleidoscope

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

“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.

Broken World

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

“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.

Memories… “like photographic slides”

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

“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.