Actually, this is a helpful caution, but not for the reason you might think.
When I was thirteen, I burned my cornea with a curling iron. (No, I wasn’t trying to curl my eyelashes.) I was attempting that 70s flip thing, always striving toward Farrah or whoever created that look (and thereby dominated our dawning awareness of having to look a certain way). I curled the hair near my face, and then opened the hot flipper thingy (controlled by what is apparently called something like a “curl release button”). My eyes open, waiting for Farrah to magically emerge, the hot flipper thingy touched my cornea. I went to school, and my eye began to throb, so I guess someone called my mom, and we went to the eye doctor, who put some ointment in my eye. I remember it was winter, and how the sunshine reflected from the snow, that blinding brightness. (My cornea healed; my vision was soon fine, etc.)
The funny thing (to me) was that when I saw this caution note in the curling iron I bought last week to trick myself out for a 70s-themed adult prom, I thought, “hmm…how many people seeing this notice have actually burned their eyes with curling irons?”
I’m not sure how to end this blog post; I have nothing profound to say except maybe that vanity can be dangerous. And the human body can heal.
I got an email from my daughter’s teacher last night. My daughter is in first grade at the Antioch School, which, according to the school’s website, “is the oldest democratic school in the country.” Her teacher, Christine Lipari-Althaus, often sends emails with reminders and information about school happenings. In this message, she was reminding parents that today children would cross the field next to the school to go for the weekly swim at Antioch College. Christine reminded us to make sure our children had extra clothing, because,
“Children often find a way of locating the only mud puddle in Yellow Springs on our walk to the pool.”
Beautiful. Later in the message, she described an all-school meeting where the children worked out together the rules for jumping off the front of the tunnel that was built last year. Christine described the plan:
“We will jump one at a time, making certain that the ground is clear (no children emerging from the tunnel or cycling on the cycle path). It was also agreed that “no stunts” were permitted and that it is safest, and expected that everyone lands on their feet.”
What I love about these particulars: they describe a childhood that’s too rare today. I often think about the importance of protecting childhood. But by this I don’t mean keeping the child away from the mud puddle, or not allowing the child to jump in a place where they might get hurt. Just the opposite. By having extra clothes when they find the one mud puddle in town, and collaborating on how to jump safely in community, children are given resources that will serve them well forever.
But in reflecting on some of the work of my students, I wrote this in a narrative evaluation about gaining a deeper understanding of what it is to write and be a writer. I thought it was worth posting here:
It’s crucial to realize that if a piece of writing doesn’t come out perfect (and rarely does it come out perfect), it can always be improved. Knowing this (and living it) is much more important than any sort of inherent talent or inspiration. Doing the work is really the only thing a writer can control.
Last weekend, I was in a roomful of people remembering George Romansic. (If you don’t know who George was, you can read something about his work here and elsewhere on the internet.) Some of his people spoke that night, some played music, some just smiled, hugged, and wept. If I had spoken, here’s what I might have said.
I last visited George, who was my favorite DJ, in early January 2015. He would live a few more weeks; by then he was badly affected by the glioblastoma that killed him, but when I got there on New Year’s Eve, his George-ness was still quite evident. We hung out. As usual, in his living room, the music playing was vast and diverse and wonderful. George wasn’t up to DJing, so his son John Lewis was doing the work. George smiled when he told me John Lewis had been taking requests, finding just what his dad needed to hear from the freakishly-extensive music library. The music was good, no, not just good but delicious, like the best cafe latte (not Italian, not Starbucks, but a real Seattle coffee, like you’d find at Caffe Fiore or Cafe Lladro, anytime, but if you’re really lucky, when you were hanging out with George). At some point during the visit, John Lewis played some of his own music from his laptop, delicious too; it sounded really really really good. The child is of his father, and of his mother, but also of himself. The light in George’s face when he said his son was DJing was one of the truest things I have ever seen, that love. I see, anyone nearby who’s looking can see how George lives on in his children, John Lewis and Maddie, can see how the glorious light in these beloved grown children keeps the source of their father alive. I am grateful for this.
Now, I recall the room at George’s wake, brimming with creative people who knew and loved George. I want Maddie and John Lewis to remember that room too, and to know how many people (in the room, and elsewhere, everywhere) have their backs. (Maddie and John Lewis, we’ve got your backs. Joanie, yours, too.)
The other thing I might have said then or want to say now is that a couple months before I visited George, when I heard how really serious things were turning with his health, I happened to be reading Lynda Barry’s incomparable One! Hundred! Demons! (which I wrote about here.) I got to the part where she writes:
The groove is so mysterious. We’re born with it and we lose it and the world seems to split apart before our eyes into stupid and cool. When we get it back, the world unifies around us, and both stupid and cool fall away. I am grateful to those who are keepers of the groove. The babies and the grandmas who hang on to it and help us remember when we forget that any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all. —Lynda Barry, One! Hundred! Demons!
And I realized that if I know one person who is a keeper of the groove, along with the babies and grandmas, it is George. Literally, in his many musical breathings in this life, in the boxes of CDs he knew so well, and in a more magical and ineffable way. George kept the groove in his pocket, in the way he would always pick us up at the airport, in the light behind his glasses, in the beat of his kind and gargantuan heart.
Rebecca Kuder 