Friday, September 26, 2008

"Wheels of a Dream"

I remember seeing Les Miserables in 1988 for the first time and proclaiming, “this is the best musical I will see in my whole lifetime!” Never let be said I lack drama in my perspectives on things! So if Les Miz is indeed the best I have seen (and I saw it a subsequent 17 times over the next 15 years—by the way, the last time I saw it, just into the 21st century, the Broadway production had become so tired—oh well…) in my Top 10 musicals would also be the 1998 show Ragtime. Ragtime is based on the grand E.L. Doctorow novel of the same name, a sweeping historical epic about the trials and tribulations at the turn of the 20th century—politically, socially, culturally, and musically. I taught the novel six times in a Hackley course on the 20th century and it just got richer and richer with each autumn reading. The score of the Broadway show is one of the best I know, and it would be with me on a desert island (or just in the desert—it is in the other room right here in the Jordanian desert!) For a number of years I took my students to see the Broadway show, and more often than not, while they thrilled to the theatrical presentation, they confessed they enjoyed the book even more. Warms a teacher’s heart…

While many a number in the show features dozens of singing actors swelling the stage, there is a beautiful moment between just two of the most compelling characters, Coalhouse and Sarah, alone on stage. They have their little baby boy out for a picnic, and these two characters celebrate their love, their son—and their brand-new car. The excitement is palpable as these two confess how nervous and excited they are for their future, their dreams, and it is all embodied in the intoxicating splendor of that new car. Coalhouse and Sarah are black, and in the world following the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, times are not easy for a black couple. But Coalhouse and Sarah think otherwise, and they sing about their future in the stirring anthem, “Wheels of a Dream”:

Yes, the wheels are turning for us, girl.
And the times are starting to roll.
Any man can get where he wants to
If he's got some fire in his soul.
We'll see justice, Sarah,
And plenty of men
Who will stand up
And give us our due.
Oh, Sarah, it's more that promises.
Sarah, it must be true.
A country that let's a man like me
Own a car, raise a child, build a life with you...

Beyond that road,
Beyond this lifetime
That car full of hope
Will always gleam!
With the promise of happiness
And the freedom he'll live to know.
He'll travel with head held high,
Just as far as his heart can go.
And he will ride—
Our son will ride—
On the wheels of a dream.


If you have never heard the song, seen the show, read the book—add that to your list of important things to accomplish this autumn. Seriously.

Well, it may not be as momentous as Coalhouse and Sarah felt, but this week, I had my own wheels of a dream moment: I got a car.

I got a car! In Jordan! I have a car now!

KA is leasing some cars for faculty, and I was on the list, and my car came in. Last year I might have gotten a car, but I just didn’t know—what about the maintenance (my father really cannot come here just for tune-ups and check-ups) and the language and the roads, and how long am I gonna stay? So last year I did just fine dealing with the KA shuttle service or taxis or bumming rides, almost proud of my semi-monastic life here on campus. But then you stop and think—why not get a car? So I put my name on the list.

So the car came on Wednesday evening—a silver Ford Focus (I had no say in either the make or the color—I had only pleaded that I needed an automatic car—I haven’t tried to drive a stick shift since France in 1992 and let’s just say—I am inept about certain things in this world. I can face that fact.) Here is the car—looking strangely like my first car as an adult—the white Ford Escort my parents gave me at college graduation. Ha! I had a lot more hair then in the mid-to-late 1980s, but in a not-so-bad way I weigh about the same. I digress…

Where should be the first place I drive? I mean—this is momentous—I am humming about the wheels and the dream—gotta go somewhere exciting. I drove to Amman to join a singing group and attend my first rehearsal. This was prefect. One of the things I missed most last year was not singing in a group, but I never managed to get there. Now I could go and take care of another thing I wanted in securing an even higher quality of life. The group is conducted by Shireen, a gifted musician who also teaches at KA. They are preparing for a Christmas concert. It was a beautiful night of freedom and excitement. It brought back that night way back in 1980 (big gulp!) at Doris’ “Sweet 16” party when I just gotten my license a few hours before. I drove people around the block all evening, and then couldn’t help just driving friends around, swimming in a friend’s pool, and feeling just like Coalhouse with all the promises of what that car, and driving, would hold.

Wednesday I asked some students for help in naming my car. I said to a group, “Well, you know Miss Tessa named her car ‘Freeda’ because the car gives her freedom to come and go. What should I name my car?” One of the boys, one of those great boys named Hashem smiled and said, “Why not Ishtar??!” The group laughed—Hashem had been paying attention in class, and suggested the name of a Babylonian goddess—the goddess of sexual desire. Oh my. They do listen sometimes, don’t they?

In Doctorow’s story of Coalhouse and Sarah, life does not end up as spectacularly as they envisioned on that picnic with the new car, and life shredded their dreams. It not only makes for good drama, but is the stuff of life too.

Yesterday we got word at school about a new teaching couple, Miss Mary and Mr. Clayton who will be getting on a plane tomorrow bound for the United States. In the last two weeks it seems cancer has taken firm hold in Miss Mary’s body, and they must return immediately home to oncologists in Connecticut. Mr. Clayton wanted to explain to the whole school about the situation and thank the students for what they have meant in the last month to them.

Mary and Clayton are old, old friends of the headmaster and his wife (indeed Clayton and Eric were classmates at Deerfield in the 1950s) and had looked forward with such a spirit of adventure about moving to KA and joining our teaching ranks this year. They came last March and enjoyed every second of their visit. They visited my colleague Fatina’s class and told me, “Hey—she is blanking amazing!” [Mary actually said those words—I didn’t censor or bleep anything.] They couldn’t wait to come and join our teaching Heaven here. Mary had vanquished breast cancer and her stateside doctors insured her all was good to go in moving to Jordan. In fact—when I returned five weeks ago, the first people I saw on campus were Mary and Clayton—waving to me, welcoming me, excited about the promises of KA.

So it was with a deep sadness that Clayton announced their immediate exodus from what they hoped was a Promised Land. I’m not sure if I have ever felt such silence in our auditorium as our students listened to Clayton explain this sudden change. What a shock and sadness as the pins dropped. On the way out a particular student asked me if he could go and visit her. I didn’t know—but I said he could send an email. He said an email wasn’t enough—he needed to tell her what it had meant to know her this month. Now this is a young man who had hitherto in the 13 months I have known him exhibited little emotion, no tenderness, and scant interest in things around him (or so I perceived). But he needed to tell Miss Mary how she had touched his spirit.

Yesterday I went a couple times to their apartment, with people who felt a little nervous to go alone. I went with one dear colleague who had gotten students, faculty and staff to sign cards and t-shirts for them to read. I stole a peek at the card and read with great interest a young man’s profound comment about adversity and challenges in life. Again, twice in the same day, this was from another adolescent from whom I would never have expected such sentiment. I’ll tell you—those kids will get you every time! As my colleague and I left she said, “it’s so hard for me to deal with sickness and death.” I sighed and said, “You know, I can handle the sickness and possible death part—I’ve had training for that. But the part that gets me is a teacher being stopped before his or her time. That just gets me.”

Mary and Clayton are indeed that wonderful breed of life-long teachers—it is their passion, it is their life’s work. Clayton had a copy of The New York Times one day, and he was pointing out by-lines, casually name-dropping, “That’s one of mine, and that’s one of mine, and there’s another.” What pride and what devotion.

As the wheels of their airplane pull up tomorrow, I will be thinking of that exquisite poignance in those “wheels of a dream”—such battered promises and happinesses for Mary and Clayton, as it was for Coalhouse and Sarah.

As good as Ragtime is, I turn to the psalmist for the best comfort. As he writes in Psalm 33:

We wait in hope for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
In Him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust His holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.

1 comment:

powellsa74 said...

You are so poetic John! Thank you for sharing it!