Giving Thanks

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
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Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
I began teaching in 1966 and continued until 2009. In those 43 years of academia, I performed on stage almost every day and gave speeches at least once or twice per class. I began as a top down teacher – I had all the knowledge, and I shared it with the individuals in the class room who had oh-so-much-less knowledge than me.

One morning, later in my career, I looked at myself when I was shaving. I looked deep into my own eyes and asked myself the vital question – “What are you teaching?” I looked at myself, razor in had. My mind was as blank as the look on my face, covered as it was with shaving soap. Then I awoke to a new world – I was not teaching a subject, I was teaching people, real, live human beings who were searching for knowledge, real knowledge, not just book knowledge.

Up until that point I had looked upon teaching in the same way as most of my colleagues did, filling empty heads with knowledge. As one of my old professors, in my first university back in the UK, once told us, after a senate house lunch swilled down with expensive sherry – “Knowledge is that which passes from my notes to your notes without ever passing through anybody’s head.”

That was the day I got down off the stage. I stopped giving speeches – aka lectures – and I asked the people in my class what they wanted to know. The answers surprised me. That was the day I began my teaching career, my real career, teaching people to become better learners, self-teachers, and hence better people. I stopped teaching my subject, and started teaching my students. I taught them how to teach themselves, how to assess the teaching material they were using, how to express themselves verbally and in writing, how to think critically for themselves, how to question everything, including me.

In short, I no longer taught them. I introduced them to Chaos Theory, how to teach themselves, how to assess their own work, how to develop the skills necessary for life-long learning, and how to love the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake and for their own self-development.

The day I made that decision, I left the stage, retired as an actor and a speech maker, and became a teacher, a real, live teacher, of real, live human beings. It was one of the best days of my life. When I meet my former students, I realize that the stones I cast that day are still rippling round the universal pond of knowledge. Long may those ripples continue to enrich the world of teaching and learning.

My Knapsack

My Knapsack

Throughout my childhood,
I carried a knapsack on my back.
Into it I stuffed my darkest secrets.
Along with all my dirty washing
they filled every cranny and nook.

Words of hate, carved into my life-slate,
shuffled and cut, but unchanged,
unchangeable, remained engraved
on the tombstone I took from above
 the hole I dug to bury the casket
in which I hid the shards of my heart.

On a rainy day, when push came
to shove, I left my childhood home
to wander the world, alone, on my own.

I walked to the station, boarded a train
and never went back home again.

At journey’s end, I left my knapsack
and its contents in the luggage rack.
I never want to see them again.

Comment:
“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile.” My maternal grandfather used to sing me this song from WWI. “While you’ve a Lucifer to light you fag, smile, boys, that’s the style.” I wonder how many people now remember what a Lucifer is, let alone a ‘fag’, in that sense of the word. It has, of course, morphed into many other meanings, some of them not necessarily pleasant. I remember my grandfather, standing in the kitchen, before the coal fire, and saying “I remember when Wills’ Woodbines were a penny a packet.” Wills’ is still with us, but may not be for much longer. I can’t remember when I last saw a Woodbine. I certainly never smoked one, in fact, I never ever smoked at all. But as for that kit bag aka knapsack aka backpack aka rucksack, well, put all your troubles in it, tie them up tight, and take it somewhere safe where you can leave it and forget about it, and then start life again. “Good-bye old friend, I am on the mend. And that’s the end.”

As for the painting, by my good friend Moo, that shows The Fall – Pre-Lapsarian / Post-Lapsarian – when all the devils, demons, and black angels were tumbled out of Paradise and abandoned to the depths below, where, alas, they still roam. So, if you meet any of them along the way, shove them in that old kit bag and get rid of them too. You’ll feel much better afterwards.

The Banks of the Seine

Banks of the Seine

Gnawing at the carcass of an old song,
my mind, a mindless dog, chasing its tail,
turning in circles, snapping at the fragment
of its own flesh, flag-flourished before it,
tournons, tournons, tournons toujours,
as Apollinaire phrased it, on a day
when I went dogless, walking on a mind-leash
before the Parisian bouquinistes who sold,
along the banks of the Seine, such tempting
merchandise, and me, hands in pockets,
penniless, tempted beyond measure,
by words, set out on pages, wondrous,
pages that, hands free, I turned, and turned,
plucking words, here and there, like a sparrow,
or a pigeon, picks at the crumbs thrown away
by pitying tramps, kings, fallen from chariots,
as Eluard wrote, and me, a pauper among riches,
an Oliver Twist, rising from my trance, hands out,
pleading, “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

Comment:
This is a fusion / confusion, if you like, of The Kingston Trio’s song – The Seine – with a quote each from Guillaume Apollinaire – Alcools – and Paul Eluard – Il ne m’est Paris que d’Elsa, and Francisco de Quevedo’s – El Buscon – and a tip of the old chapeau nouveau to R. S. Thomas and Charles Dickens. Fools rush in, I am afraid, where angels fear to tread. Go on. Rush right in. Sort it all out. I double-dog dare you – and thank you for that one, Jude.

Dark

Dark

The lights went out suddenly,
leaving me in the dark.
A cloudy night, not a spark
of starlight to light my way.

My search for candles was slow.
I found them, struck matches,
and sat at the table watching
light catch and flames glow.

A war baby – bombs, blackout
curtains, diminished light, all
are present in my DNA, and yet,
I fear the dark above all.

Like a moth, or a high plane
caught in a searchlight,
I struggle to escape from twin
siren calls: fire and light.

I sat and waited for power
to return. An hour, two hours,
three, four. Then I couldn’t wait
any more. I climbed the steep,
wood hill that led to bed.

At the top of the stairs
a plea for light filled my head
and a plea for the return
of light formed the focus
for long-forgotten prayers.

Comment:
We lost power for 15 hours a couple of weeks ago. One moment we were sitting there, after supper, ruminating quietly, with the lights on. The next, we were sitting in the dark. We found a flashlight – light but no warmth. Then moved on to candles. Candles need matches. When the ingredients were ready, we struck the matches to light the candles. These were the first three we lit.

We are so lucky. Sure, it was an awkward night. But it was only fifteen hours. We talked about the homeless, their poverty, often in the middle of such wealth, the poor who have homes, but who cannot afford to light them or heat them, the innocent victims in war zones, powerless in every sense of the word, deprived of light, heat, water, plumbing, sanitation. Our prayers that night included them as well – all of them.

The Seeker

The Seeker

Weaver of words, I wander my weary way
across a field of snow, careful as I go
not to slip and fall into the depths that wait below.

I know them of old, those man-trap mine-shafts
where darkness dwells, hand in hand with despair.
I know only too well the weight of coal dust,
fine and thin, polluting lungs with unfiltered air.

How long will I have the courage and strength
to survive so deep beneath the surface
and to explore those depths at greater length?

Who would now, willingly, plunge, or dig
and delve so deep into the mines underground?
Ony the searcher, the seeker who knows that
in dark pits wondrous gems can still be found.

Comment:
I don’t really know why, but my thoughts are now appearing (more or less) in rhyme and often in sonnets. Well, Milton Acorn’s Jack Pine Sonnets, straggly and wild, like the Jack Pines of Canada’s East Coast. Sometimes I think that this is a new format for me. And then I realize it’s where I started so long ago – a rhyming poet. “In my beginning is my end.” I have indeed returned to my roots. But now they are Jack Pine roots, well settled here in this wonderful Maritime Province of New Brunswick, amid Jack Pine, rock, and winter snow.

On Writing Poetry

On Writing Poetry

I sit here writing poetry
and, head in hands, I cry
at all the things I’ve left unsaid,
and then I wonder why
I wasted so much time on things
that perished before my eye.

Outside the night is dark and cold
and shadows flit and filter by.
I know that I am growing old,
that soon my story will be told,
and when it ends, I’ll die.

I know that death is not the end,
yet I do not want to die.
I want to paint the autumn trees,
the clouds that float on high,
with evening lights that stain the sky.

But rhyming is not all I do.
I’ often write in prose, with words
that wound and sow dark seeds
that root and flourish, grow like weeds,
and nourish other people’s needs.

Alas, I know not what I do,
nor yet what I have done,
nor when, nor where, the seeds
were sown, nor if they aided anyone
to turn away from the dark inside
and walk in the light of the sun.

Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).

Daily writing prompt
Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).
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Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).

I began by checking the meaning of item and found the following – an individual article or unit, especially one that is part of a list, collection, or set. Then I started to think about the meaning of meaning. Is an education an item? Is it an individual unit? Can it be considered part of a list, collection, or set? Let’s put it this way – I started school when I was four years old. I continued until I was 18. Along the way I collected many items of knowledge and many certificates to prove it. Then I went to Paris for a year to perfect my French – now that was an expensive adventure, I can assure you of that. Next came Santander, Spain, for a whole summer, to do for my Spanish what Paris had done for my French. I guess I didn’t really pay for these items, as my parents did, though I helped a little, with odd jobs here and there.

These adventures were followed by 3 years of undergraduate studies. They were covered in part by my local government authority, for which I am eternally grateful, also by my parents, and then I too assisted, again with odd jobs and summer work. Next came graduate school, at the University of Toronto. This was financed by my earnings as a Teaching Assistant and then a Teaching Fellow. My beloved and I got married in Canada, and she found work and also assisted with graduate school and the general cost of living. Assisted? She carried me along when the work load grew too heavy.

Then there was a Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship that helped finance two more years of study in Santander, Spain, where I completed manuscript research at the Biblioteca Menendez y Pelayo. This was followed by my first job, as a lecturer, at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. I taught full-time while completing my doctorate, but my education did not stop there.

I pursued coaching certificates with the National Coaching Certification Program of Canada and soon related coaching methods to in-class teaching methods. This revolutionized my teaching. As did a Certificate in Multi-Media Studies (at UNB), followed by courses in Digital Film and Video. Then came a Teaching Certificate from IATHE – the Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education (based in Ottawa, but no longer extant). My Certification process was topped off by a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College, Toronto.

All of these degrees and certificates cost money. All contributed to the list of items that go together to form my education. But a personal education, in the meaning I give to the word, goes way beyond an accumulation of certificates. It is a life -long process of growth, personal development, and understanding, of reaching out to other human beings and helping them to create their own lives and their own paths to life-long learning.

Has this been expensive? You bet it has. But its worth is priceless compared to remaining static and enmired in a past knowledge that never develops and never grows, as sometimes – I might even write ‘often’ – happens when learning stops with the acquisition of the Ph.D.

When asked what I teach, my reply is always the same – “People, real, live people.” And that is something that I continue to do whenever and wherever I can. “To know the cost of everything and the value of nothing” – I scarcely remember – nor do I care to know – what cost I paid for each step along a road along which I am still travelling. But I do know and totally appreciate the value of the continuing education that I working so hard to buy.

Candles

Candles

Candle-light

Three candles burn at my table.
Outside,
the night wind howls like a dog
and scratches its pelt on my roof.

The wind has torn
branches from the trees
and polished the evening frost
until it sparkles
like eighteenth century silver.

A moth circles and sizzles
in a sacrifice of flame.

I keep my vigil at night’s altar
and place a wrinkled palm
into the candle’s liquid flame.

Put out a candle, put out a child.
Who would put out a dog
on a night like this?

Outside,
playing tag between dark trees,
the wind runs wild.

What historical event fascinates you the most?

Daily writing prompt
What historical event fascinates you the most?
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What historical event fascinates you the most?

First, let us define ‘historical’. Here’s what I found – (1) of or concerning history. (2) concerning past events. (3) The historical background to such studies. (4) Belonging to the past, not the present. (5) Famous historical figures.

Now let us think of the number of times we hear on the TV sports shows that such and such an event is making history “right before our eyes”. Wow! In a boxing match, almost ever punch thrown is “an historical event”. Ditto rugby – with every try scored, every penalty missed, and every tackle made. Ditto soccer, basketball, baseball, athletics. So, from the battery of past events that adorn my life, I am being asked to choose “which historical event fascinates me most”. Double wow.

My answer – the day of my birth, about which I know absolutely nothing. Or, to be more specific, the actual action of being born, about which I know even less. So, how do I study the historical background, when no eye witnesses are left alive to assist me? More important, nobody in my family wanted to talk about such an important – for me at any rate – event.

I do have some factual memories – tales told to me later. I was born at exactly 8:00 pm. I know this because my parents’ dog had been left at a neighbor’s house while my home-birth was taking place. As the clock struck eight, Paddy, the dog, jumped straight through their window, and ran up the road towards the house that was now to be our house, barking. “Ah,” said our wise neighbor, “there goes the dog. That means the baby’s been born.”

That is one version of the tale. My own version is the squawking of the stork who carried me, a sudden screech as he dropped me, a slow descent from a bright blue sky, a tumble down the chimney into the fireplace. And there I was. All covered in soot and ashes. I needed washing, of course. But baby, just look at me now. [See self-portrait above – Face in a Mirror].

My maternal grandfather swore that I had not been born at all, but found under a gooseberry bush. That would account for the green tinges in the painting. Apparently, all babies in South Wales were found under gooseberry bushes at that time. Unless they were delivered by the milkman.

And there’s many a tale about merry milkmen for, as they say in Wales, “It’s a wise man who knows his own father.” And I guess that is also a hysterical historical event about which I know nothing. But perhaps that’s why when the milkman who delivered the morning milk used to say “Good morning, son” when I met him at the the doorstep.

Come to think of it, the mailman also used to call me “Son” when he delivered the mail. Hmmmm – so did the butcher, the baker, and the candle-stick maker. Oh dear, so many historical events to choose from.

What are you most proud of in your life?

Daily writing prompt
What are you most proud of in your life?
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What are you most proud of in your life?

The young lady in the photograph above. We met, at a boarding school dance, in England, when we were both seventeen years old. We have been together ever since. Why am I so proud of her? Let me count the ways.

When she discovered my love of Spain and the Spanish language, she took time out from her own career in order to learn Spanish. When I asked her why she was learning the language, she replied ‘because if I am going to be with you, I want to share your life, and that means loving the things you love.’ We became engaged in Santander, Spain, on her 21st birthday. Then, the following year, when I received an offer to study and teach at the University of Toronto, she promised me that if I called her, she would come out and join me.

I called her as a Thanksgiving Gift from my Canadian family. She packed up her clothes and her career, bought a wedding dress, and travelled to Toronto that December. We got married on Christmas Eve. We had very little money. We didn’t have a wedding photographer. Nor did we have a honeymoon. I guess we never needed one. We had just enough money put by to last us until the end of January. So, First week of the New Year, she set out in search of a job. A qualified Diagnostic Radiographer, she was hired by the Doctor’s Hospital in Toronto, and she financed my graduate studies for the next three years.

Our next adventure was a Canada Council (as it was back then) Doctoral Fellowship that took us back to Spain where I completed the research for my thesis at the local library, with its trove of manuscript documents. We returned to Canada after two years, and took up residence in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where we still live. Her adventurous life led her to a certificate in accountancy, taken via a correspondence course. Then, she presented me with our daughter. We bought an American Cocker Spaniel and she started showing and grooming dogs, becoming Show Secretary of the Fredericton Kennel Club. She trained and groomed two Canadian Champions, an ASCOB (Willy) and a Parti-color (Smudge).

Our daughter decided she wanted to be a gymnast. Parents were requested to ‘get involved’ with the local club and my beloved became a gymnastics judge. She rose in the gym circles and became first provincial judging chairperson and then a nationally qualified judge, officiating at the National Gymnastics Championships and also at the Jeux du Canada Games.

She travelled with me to Oaxaca, Mexico, and fell in love with the Pre-Colombian Mexican Codices that we found there in abundance. She studied them carefully and then taught me all about them. I, in my turn, introduced them to my own students. When I took my first Multi-Media Courses at the University of New Brunswick, she followed them with me. The result was two-fold – our first web page which she built with with HTML, no templates in those early days, followed by our online Quevedo Bibliography. This, about ten years later, morphed into the online searchable data base that she built with the assistance of the technicians at the Digital Library in Harriet Irving Library.

Now, we are growing old together – such sweet sorrow. this Christmas we will celebrate 57 years of marriage. And yes, my beloved is still my most valuable Christmas present – and the person of whom I am most proud. I remember the old Worthington beer advertisement. “Behind every good man, there’s a good woman.” The cartoon shows a lady carrying a bottle of Worthington.

My beloved has stood behind me all my life. She has carried for me, not a bottle of Worthington, but the burden of assisting, helping, encouraging, supporting, carrying the load when it became too heavy for me. She has been a silent partner in so many ways, but one without whom I would be nothing.