Floating Upstream: nuggets, 05/04/12: dante, gillian welch, et al.

Recently, I reconnected with one of my teachers from graduate school, a man who helped me read Dante better and who deepened my understanding of the European middle ages. He also, incidentally, introduced me to the music of Gillian Welch, whose soul and sound I have grown to appreciate fully only in the last few months. The brief email exchange reminded me of a past that now seems long ago, when my days consisted of nothing more or less important than reading books, running trails, and those three things.

San Pedro Valley Park, Pacifica

Unwittingly, because of his dedication to a particular approach to literature, this same teacher, along with a couple of others, helped strengthen my determination to leave academe and to redirect my energy away from research and towards the education of younger students. That vexed decision, which remains a topic of tortured conversation with some of my nearest and dearest, is a story I'd like my kids to be able to view in its full complexity some day.

I'm thinking about all this tonight not because I've finally come around to believing that a grand apology is due to all those who put faith and money in my bright academic future (you'd have to wait for that a long time, RBH), but because the email exchange with my former teacher brought into relief a couple of important things.

I had many teachers in high school, college, and grad school, but the ones I remember fondly and with whom I'd travel miles to have a drink had a shell of humanity that enveloped their intellectual curiosity and defined both their appreciation of literature and their approach to life. They taught Dante, Gillian Welch, and themselves, all in one, and they didn't seem embarrassed to make frequent treks across the rickety bridge from books to life. Or at least so it seemed to some of us.

Frontierland Playground, Pacifica

First important thing: regardless of the specific subject, a good teacher of literature teaches the human connection. It's possible--and desirable--to learn about Gillian Welch in a class on medieval poetics, and it's possible to learn the lesson about Gillian Welch long after the class on medieval poetics has concluded.

misting sprinklers at Frontierland; perfect on a hot day

In what was possibly an unconscious attempt to recover some of that past when reading Dante seemed of the utmost importance, and with the blessing of a child asleep before 7 pm yesterday, I went for a sunset run along the Baylands. I got there just as the sun seemed poised to dip below the horizon, and I left in near complete darkness. In between, I saw dozens of flocks of every manner of feathered creature, turned off Gillian Welch in order to listen to the birds' urgent night-time calls, and even spotted a jackrabbit as it skittered across my dusty path.

creek at Shoup Park; nearly desiccated after a very dry winter

I know I've said it before, but it never ceases to amaze me that this kind of beauty exists only five minutes from where we live. While I've run there a good few times post-kids, I had not in a long time run far enough to spot jackrabbits, which inhabit the distant reaches of the trail and which I used to see routinely during my pre-kid days. You bet your minimalist running shoes that this gave me a mild feeling of empowerment and satisfaction.

Second important thing: with good books and good human connections, the past has a way of finding its place in the present by transforming the texture and quality of otherwise forgettable small moments. It's not nostalgia but sweet and savory remembrance.

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Stuff They Say

We subscribe to the school of thought that kids should get maximum exposure to our bodies--and theirs-- before self-consciousness sets in. Raya frequently accompanies us in the bathroom and just as frequently inspects her brother's boy apparatus, if he allows her to. Rado texted me at work recently with the following: "By the way, this morning, when Neva [our nanny] got there, I went to the kitchen to make the milk, and heard Raya telling her, Hey, Neva, I poked inside my dad's belly button this morning. It had some crud in there!"

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Sava: Mommy, do you know why I was crying this morning, when you didn't know that I was crying?
No, honey. I didn't know you were crying. Why were you crying?
Because I had this idea that some day tati might retire from being my dad.
Who gave you that idea?
I don't know...I thought of dedi Joni leaving some time ago, and then I thought that maybe some day tati would leave, too.

We then had an extended discussion of how his grandparents will always be his grandparents, even if they come and go, and how we are always going to be his parents, even if some day he wishes that we weren't, to which he avowed tearfully...But I will not ever want you to not be my parents!
I'm writing this down here, so he'd have a record of it in about a dozen years.

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Raya is really into making verbal jokes right now. She'll recite books and change words around to elicit laughter, sing familiar songs with silly made-up rhymes, etc.

For a while back there, we spelled out words so that she wouldn't know what we were talking about and get overly excited about whatever. Like "pool," for instance. The kids had their first trip to the pool on an 80-degree day two weekends ago, but the water was reportedly still very cold. Raya still talks about going to the pool, but now her determination to go is not quite so dead serious as it was before that trip. The other day, just looking to say something, she exclaimed:
I want to go to the P-O-O-FREEZING-L!!
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She has two standard greetings for strangers these days. The first one, solicited or not:
I'm two-and-a-half! Soon I'll be three and then I'll be four!

The second one, never solicited:
Do you want to see how I jump high?

Then when strangers oblige smilingly and watch her jump:
Now do you want to see how I jump higher?
And she jumps again.
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Following in the footsteps of her brother, who is known to have self-corrected in the past when he mistakenly said "Me and so-and-so . . ." to "So-and-so and I . . .," Raya pays meticulous attention to what is said and how it's said. Just a few days ago, a conversation between her and me that since then has occurred several times:
Raya, can you please lie down here so I can change your diaper?
Mommy, Neva says "lay," not "lie"!
Well [thinking how not to say something that then might offend Neva when she hears it broadcast from Raya], I say "lie." "Lie" is what we say.
But no, Neva says "lay"!

Well, I am not letting this one pass. People's misuse of "lie" and "lay" drives me batty.
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Today when we picked up Sava, Raya told the teacher who opened the car door that she was still in her pajamas, to which the teacher replied that she wished she were in pajamas, too. When we came home and started talking about it all, Raya said,
That would be funny...if Mrs. C had been in her pjs!

underpants over everything

Past perfect tense, people.
The kid is thirty months old and using past perfect better than most teenagers I've come across. Yes, in my nerd mind I noted that the sentence would have been perfect if she had said, "That would have been funny . . . if Mrs. Chronis had been in her pjs," but I remain quite satisfied with the sophisticated use of the past perfect. Mommy's little grammarian.
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Some thematic photography that requires minimal annotation in this post.
1. Swings

Seale Park, Palo Alto

Especially swings with breathtaking background.

Frontierland Playground, Pacifica

2. A boy and his NASA hat.

Looking ever the thoughtful pilgrim.

3. A girl and her "tata."

With "tata" blowing a kiss to "mama," minutes before she fell between the top and the bench on that picnic table, smacking the back of her head with a force (and a sound) that left me shaking for the rest of the afternoon.

She survived just fine and recovered momentarily.

4. A boy who loves making and flying paper airplanes. Seriously, we've had to institute a rule that there cannot be more than six paper airplanes in our living room at any one time, which he says is a rule he wishes "didn't exist."

His enthusiasm is genuinely contagious.

5. A girl taking her dolls everywhere

still convinced that they "drink milkie" from the bellybutton,

and nursing them every chance she gets;

insisting on pushing the stroller "by myself!", too.

6. One of two spectacular playgrounds we visited recently, both nestled near or inside "nature parks." The Frontierland playground in Pacifica, featured in a few photos above, and the playground at Robertson Regional Park just outside Oakland, below. Both well worth a day trip.