Return to Normal

Well, I just put the suitcases away.

The suitcases I used for spring break, I mean. Never mind that I arrived in Jordan just about 11 days ago this minute, I always linger a little in unpacking and putting the suitcases away since that definitely signals an end to the break! The suitcases were in the middle of the floor of the second bedroom here in the KA apartment. There were several suitcases involved. There is the big dark green one, capable of being filled easily and weighing 50 pounds easily (the weight limit before they charge you on the airlines,) and then the All Ohio Youth Choir duffel bag that I won in 2008 at an All Ohio Youth Choir reunion (I pretty much win any contest now of the game “Who came the farthest?????!”). That one is great, of course, because it can be folded up to practically nothing on the way over, and then filled to about 38 pounds on the way back. Then there is the nice rollaway carry-on bag that fits a laptop and a surprising amount of stuff, be it books, or cheese or Girl Scout cookies. That’s another 30 pounds easily for the plane. You notice that the weight part matters here. No, I don’t really need clothes to be in the suitcases either direction—I have enough clothes on both sides of the Atlantic. But I do bring a considerable amount of groceries (like 50 pounds!) and new books and things! Anyway, I got the suitcases away finally.

You know, the other day a young colleague asked me where I had gone for spring break. I smiled, and said, “I went home.” The colleague looked at me with a mixture of regret and pity and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask.”

Okay. Yes, many colleagues went on glamorous trips in our 11 day spring break—they went to India, or Thailand, or Africa, or Spain, or France, or England, or Turkey—and they had—wait for it—an a-maaaaaaaaa-zing time. Good for them! For the fifth spring break in a row, I went to my two homes, my New York home and my Cincinnati home! And how interesting that the colleague felt the need to apologize for asking me and finding out I went home. What did that mean? Okay, I get it. They thought I missed out on an exciting trip abroad, discovering a secret beach in Thailand, or an obscure town in India, etc. But I rebounded to the colleague, “Oh, I wanted to go home—I like to return to my normal life when I am on a break. Besides, I have been to really exciting places around the world. I actually find it strangely glamorous to go home to that normal life.”

I am not sure she really believed me! I have talked about how fun it is to return to the US and my two homes before in blog entries. I have talked about how much I love returning to the New York world of walking around Manhattan, eating at my favorite places (and even ordering the very same thing every time at Saigon Grill, Tom’s Diner, Patsy’s Pizza, and Ivy’s Chinese) going to theater every night, going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as often as possible. I thrill to the return to the Cincinnati food haunts, seeing the New York A-list, the Cincinnati A-list—it is practically the same break every single time! I love it! It’s my normal!!!!! But I am experiencing a different understanding of that impulse for “normal” right now as I look at the suitcases high above the closet waiting for their trip back down to my level on June 20.

Hmmmm….I was in Cincinnati talking with a friend about our summer plans (yes, there would be a healthy amount of time in both homes again) and I commented, “Well, you know my family is going to Disney World again.” I am pretty sure I said that with a dollop of world-weary disdain and maybe even irritation. Maybe even an eye roll. You see, my sister loves planning the Disney World trips and we have had more than our fair share of trips to Orlando (to be exact, I went in the 3rd grade, and then 30 years later again, returning over and over in the last decade, in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and now gearing up for 2012. It’s more than the Olympics!) My sister loves going there. My sister loves going there. (I know I said it twice.) She loves our family going there. My sister loves the luxury of the Polynesian resort. She even knows what room she wants us to stay in. She will have the entire trip planned out, and we will be doing many of the same things again—uh-oh… Whoa! It’s fine for me to yearn for a return to my normal and not for my lovely, wonderful, sister???? I better take back that eye-roll…okay, I withdraw the dollop of disdain and irritation.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mind going to the Happiest Place on Earth. (I mind going in the summer actually, because of the humidity, but whatcha gonna do?????) I guess I mind that my sister isn’t dreaming up a new (!) daring (!) totally unpredictable (!) obscure (!) unknown (!) trip that we hadn’t done before.

Let’s get a little historical perspective. In the 1920 U.S. presidential election, the Democrats pledged that the United States should embark into the brand-new League of Nations and take a huge risk on this new chapter of world history. The Republicans offered Warren Harding, a candidate who looked like he would have fit right into the world-view 20 years earlier. He pledged that a vote for him was a vote for the “Return to Normalcy.” Harding won handily.

We like a normal. Nobody’s normal is quite the same as anybody else’s normal, of course. But I reveled in my normal over the spring break. I reveled in seeing Anne Siviglia and Kate Lamper and Harrison Unger in New York and Sylvia Weber in Cincinnati. I reveled in that familiar perfect taste of the lunch special at Ivy’s and the arugula salad at Patsy’s and the Skyline and Graeter’s and LaRosa’s of Cincinnati. I wouldn’t dream of ordering something new!! Not when my normal is so good! My sister feels the same way about Disney World—she understands every contour of the trip, every challenge, every wrinkle and she works it out to be a perfectly timed, well-oiled machine of morning racing around, afternoon relaxing and evening buffets and light shows. She knows it like a trouper in a long-running, exquisite Broadway show knows her stuff. And I should be more supportive of her normal. After all, I got my normal. Why shouldn’t she get hers? I am retracting my comments about the trip before. She will come home from Orlando, put the suitcases away, and have the same sense of satisfaction and perfection about her normal as I did about mine.

Well, one of the facets of my normal in New York is of course seeing theater. Wonderful Christy belongs to this service to which we joined years ago when you can see non-sold-out shows for $4.50. Stop and smell the roses about that one! Revel in the cheapness! So on my Saturday we did a normal thing for us—we saw two shows!! A two-show day is blissfully normal. We didn’t really plan carefully what we would see, we just took advantage of the phenomenal $4.50 deal. But let’s take a moment to juxtapose our two shows from that Saturday. At the matinee, we saw a new play (from 2011) in previews, The Lyons, and then in the evening we saw a production of a 1918 Eugene O’Neill drama, Beyond the Horizon, the play that won him his first Pulitzer, some 90-odd years ago. Hmmmm….here is another fun thing for us that is normal. We look at our oddly-planned, collage-like day, and usually some fine insight emerges from what we juxtapose. Both plays are about families—dysfunctional families (don’t they make much more fun plays???). Both plays deal with the stuff of dysfunctional families, like loss, betrayal, disappointment, and the banality of our existence. The contemporary, 2011 play is an out-and-out comedy, however, and the 1918 play is, well, a conventional tragedy. But the plays are virtually the same structure. Interestingly, we realized that today we might actually laugh, gasping at the same time, about family tragedies and the stupefying nature of what is “normal” in a family.

The contemporary play was more thrilling. Oh, they’re just awful people, those Lyons. They’re whiny, denigrating, vicious, self-centered, recriminatory — the sort of blood kin who can’t cling to one another without drawing blood. The kind that might be fun to watch on a reality show going to Disney World. And believe it or not, they’re a family that you would really, really want to spend time with. Honestly. They are hilarious as they kick the ego out of one another. But as we looked at them close — no, closer — uh, oh, we’re likely to find an intimate mirror of our own frightened self. As I said before, compared with the O’Neill heavy drama, with The Lyons, there’s often a gasp within the chuckle. Playwright Nicky Silver’s characters crack wise not out of loving, familiar irritation but from a forlorn awareness that there’s no lonelier place to be than in the bosom of your own family, even — no, especially — in times of crisis. A shade of existential emptiness and anger hangs over even the jolliest exchange in this play, the first act of which is set in a hospital room, where Ben Lyons is ungraciously dying of cancer, while Rita (Linda Lavin of 1970s sitcom Alice fame), his wife, looks forward to life in his absence. Seated at the deathbed of her rancorous, obscenity-spewing husband, Rita ladles out sweet-and-sour reassurance. “I’m dying, Rita,” Ben says. Rita answers: “I know, Dear. Try to look on the positive side.”

Given that scenario, you might be tempted to think of Mr. Silver as the strange progeny of a coupling between Neil Simon and Eugene O’Neill!

Enter the children, God bless them. Those would be Curtis and Lisa, bearing potted plants and heaping doses of blame for the parents they believe destroyed them. Bickering, sniping and betraying each other’s secrets, Curtis and Lisa are glowering evidence that a death in the family doesn’t automatically bring out the best in people.

As we thought about the two plays, thought about our own families, we were so grateful for my return to my “New York Normal.” I had come home. I spent time in my two homes! So happy! Home, for Playwright Mr. Silver, is only a myth we invent to reassure and torture ourselves. Is that normal??? The Lyons, which is ultimately not without an endearing gleam of hope, suggests that once you accept that chilly reality, that normal, you just might be able to make a life for yourself.

Oh, I love my normal!!

Postcard from Belgium

A coupla weeks ago I was in Belgium for about a week. And a coupla weeks from now I will be in Cincinnati.

And in between those two trips I taught (and will teach) a coupla classes and accomplish a coupla things.

Busy, busy Spring!

I went to Brussels, Belgium with a group of 14 students, delegates to a satellite version of the Harvard Model Congress. This was the first time of the dozen times or so I have chaperoned students to the Harvard Model Congress that it wasn’t actually near Harvard. But we chose the satellite conference of the congress for a coupla reasons—namely, less far to travel, less airfare to pay, and fewer school days missed. The timing of the model congress was perfect—we left the day winter term exams ended and only missed a coupla school days, and days at the beginning of the new term to boot. A nice chance for a late winter trip to Brussels, Belgium.

The last time I was in Brussels, Belgium—well, it was an exciting evening of parades and triumph. I remember clearly being in the Grand Place in Brussels on May 8, 1985. What a thrilling evening to be there. Do you, dear reader, know why it was so exciting that evening? No, my presence alone in this very international-and-diplomatic city does not inspire parades and joy and happy tears. Thank you for even thinking that! But that night was the 40th anniversary of V-E Day, and I was nearing the end of my semester abroad in Austria, and traveling to a few cities before flying home to the United States. I split that V-E anniversary between two cities actually, to get the full effect of the anniversary of the end of the European front of World War II. I spent the morning in Aachen, Germany, attended a prayer vigil in the Cathedral, and witnessed a somber gathering of tearful Germans there as they meditated on the loss and legacy of that war. Then I hopped a train, and within a very short time was in Brussels, and that moment of glory in the Grand Place that evening. I went from the losing side of the war, to the victorious side of the war in about an hour train ride, and I remember dancing, parades, tears of happiness and joy in the Grand Place that evening.

As I recall the last time I was in Brussels, I feel a little like the character of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard as she recalls the last time she saw some friends of the movie business. She says, as I recall, something like, “The last time I saw him was a very gay evening—everyone was dancing and happy. Lindbergh had just landed!” Desmond says this about 23 years after the event in her memory. Oh my—I am recalling an event even farther back in the recesses of my memory! Anyway, I feel a little like Norma Desmond as I recall my last time in Brussels. I just hope I am not as mad…

So I went to Belgium three times in the 1980s, and then I haven’t been back since the summer of 1987 on the big European trip with Karen and Sharon. My goodness…nearly 25 years since my trip as a first-year teacher and quasi-adult! I liked Belgium fine all three visits, I just somehow never got back there in all the years of traveling…good to have a group of students to take and re-acquaint myself with Belgium.

So our flight leaves Amman at 1:30 a.m.—the good part, I guess of such an early, early departure is that we landed in Brussels by 9:00 a.m. and were at the hotel by about 10:00. Of course they weren’t ready for us, but we could drop the bags and figure out Brussels. We had almost 48 hours to play in Belgium before the congress began!

That first hour in a new city is always confusing and maddening. When we got to the train station from the quick train ride from the airport, we didn’t know which door of the 12 choices might be the one for our hotel. I knew what station to go to and I knew the address of the hotel, but not much else. Of course, after a little asking, staring at maps (guess what? Our hotel street didn’t make it on the map!) and wandering in a bit of a circle (I prefer to think we walked in a heart shape!) we found the hotel. Great! The best mnemonic device of finding the hotel is locating the Sex Shop near the northwest exit from the train station! I always believe traveling with students means educating them about maps, directions and context. We needed to learn some context about Brussels, then practice walking around, not being tied to my leash, maybe getting lost, and getting it all figured out.

We walked the half hour to the Grand Place—stopping for our first samples of pastries and Belgian frites along the way—and then I regaled them of stories of the last time I was in Brussels. Judging from the looks on a few faces, they probably did think I was as mad as Norma Desmond, and certainly as old! The Grand Place still is a great spot—the heart of the old town (going back a thousand years) and any time of day the chocolate salons, tea shops, flower markets, and endless people watching is fun. I lectured them briefly on some history of Belgium, the beauty of these late medieval guild halls in front of them, how that became the source of wealth for these trade-hungry Flemish, and how they staved off Louis XIV (just barely) in 1695. I talked to them about King Leopold in the 1880s and 1890s and the enormous wealth he brought to Belgium from his personal property of the Congo. Then I set them loose for two hours—their first bit of independence. They may like me fine, but let’s be honest, teen-agers want to be on their own and experience things without an adult.

They all showed up on time—I had emphasized the point of punctuality for traveling with me. I thanked them for their punctuality and said that that was the one point I would hammer home on the trip. “Everything else takes care of itself if you are on time,” I told them. “If you are on time it means you have planned well, thought of others, thought of me, not gotten into too much trouble, and will be given more and more independence. Think about it—being on time will take care of everything!” This group figured that out and made me proud. Group travel can be excruciating in the “I’m not going to be on time if no one else is”—department.

I began the sampling of Belgian chocolates—one must make sure one buys the creamiest chocolates for your gifts, so one must try from many, many purveyors! That evening we went to a suburb of Brussels where we met a group of strangers for dinner. One of my students, the marvelous young man named Divij, had befriended a group of Belgians on a Model United Nations trip to China (I do travel in some swell circles, don’t I??). Divij had written to the advisor of the group, and she put together a group of Belgian teens for our group to meet and enjoy a dinner. It was a great evening—two groups of teen-agers, second language English speakers all, talking about world events, teen events, school events and Belgium. Lovely!

The next day we went on our obligatory tour of the art museum. Every model congress I have students go on a tour of an art museum, you know, to culture ‘em up. I had never been to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, but I had planned a tour from the on-line stuff available. I wanted them to feast their eyes on some beautiful Northern European Renaissance art. Oh, the exquisite work of Van der Weyden, and Memling and Bruegel and Rubens. Then some nice Dutch work and the Frenchie Jacques Louis David. One of my goals on these model congress art tour trips is to get a coupla more students interested in art history to take the course. Somehow it is addictive.

That afternoon I gave some more free time but also took a group to Antwerp. Less than an hour train trip away was this city, once in 1500 the richest city in Europe given that its stock exchange and port filled with ships from the New World docked in Antwerp. What a great city! I had never been to Antwerp, but hope it doesn’t take me 25 years to get back. The train station itself is an art work—one of those great and glorious Beaux-Arts buildings from the 1890s with heart-stopping arches and sumptuous columns. It was going to be a good afternoon.

Much of tourist-y Antwerp is serviced by a pedestrians-only shopping zone, past statues of native sons Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens. The buildings are ornate, from the Baroque Age and then during the Art Nouveau 1890s age. Like most European cities, Antwerp is a mixture of cities, art, great snacking, promenades, and eccentric history. We learned a little eccentric history—like the name of the town—about a man who defied a giant, severed said giant’s hand and threw said severed hand into the river. “hand werpen,” which means, “to throw a hand,” evolved into Antwerp. After that little knowledge, we noticed severed hand images all over town.

In the next few days the congress began, students began 12-hour days debating issues, writing bills, and role playing a specific U.S. representative. It was different, certainly, than the congress in Boston. For one, it is smaller. About 550 students attended the Belgian conference, whereas about 1800 attend the one in Boston. But it was also mostly “foreign” students, i.e. foreign to the USA, acting as the representatives. Some of them did not quite understand the workings of US government, and some Greek students kept pressing the point that the US government should bail out Greece. But as always, it is great to mix our students with other students.

I hopped a train to Ghent, another town made terrifically wealthy at one time (from the medieval textile trade) and full of ornate guild houses and grand churches. I did update my facebook status that evening to say I had had a bratwurst as big as my arm that day in Ghent. How could it not be a good day???? Ghent was wonderful—more real than idyllic Bruges which I would re-visit the following day, and home to one of the great altarpieces of all time (by Jan Van Eyck). I stood there studying it for awhile, so happy in this town of picturesque embankments and finely decorated gables.

The trip was good—good food and art and chocolate and punctual students. I found a museum about the history of Belgium that was thrilling to visit—I left obsessed about the history of Belgium. You know I love being obsessed.

I left Belgium with happy memories of a trip with excellent students, and memories of my first visit when I was their age, the V-E day celebration night in 1985, and the last time in Belgium in stunning jewel-like Bruges with friend-for-life Sharon in 1987.

The only downside? Well, the student who sat next to me for the two flights back to Jordan had a cold, and happened to sneeze on me…and then again…and then again, for about five good sneezes. You know how you can feel the germs seeping in?? Well, I came back to a bad cold—the kind of cold where you say, “Why do I want to get out of bed???” and then a tooth ache set in (I think un-related.)

Oh well, we can outlive the germs and the aches and pains. I probably didn’t feel those aches and pains when I was last in Belgium, way back in my youth in the 80s.

No Drop-Out

Last night I received news from my sister that I had been expecting for the last month—news of the death of Edna Duebber, a dear family friend. Recently my sister had visited Edna in the nursing center of her retirement home and Edna’s sister looked quizzically at her and said, “Now how did you know Edna?” It is a little hard to explain, and certainly provides evidence of how a friendship can take root and thrive. You see, Edna kind of dropped into our lives about 20 years ago and quickly became a fixture in family celebrations. As I remember the story, Edna had had a nodding acquaintanceship with my mother at Frisch’s, one of my mother’s watering holes (or coffee-ing holes, to be more exact). But my mother was never really one for a nodding acquaintanceship when one could sit down and inquire about the other’s life. So my mother found out that Edna was a widow, a rather lonely widow after the death of her beloved Walt. My mother wrote Edna a letter, and somehow from that letter spawned an admiration and gratitude from Edna for my mother. My mother invited Edna over to her table, no doubt the A-list table at Frisch’s, and then Edna just kind of dropped into our family.

At that time we all became acquainted with Edna we had, in the last few years, lost the grandmothers in our family, and it became such a wonderful treat for Edna to invite our family over for a meal, or a birthday, in that grand grand-motherly tradition. Oh, we loved going over to her lovely home with the immaculate yard and the groaning table filled with mouth-watering dishes. In short order, we discovered that Edna loved to cook for people, and our family, growing now to include new member Steve, obliged Edna, since we loved to eat, especially her dinners!

But Edna became more than just a purveyor of mashed potatoes and roasted meats and beautiful pies—she became the kind of family friend you call when there is sadness and crisis. Edna became a fixture at hospitals and retirement homes. Edna maintained her home she had shared with Walt for over 50 years, but she had a heart for people suffering and wanted to take them flowers, cards, or meals.

As time went on, each of us in the family spent personal and communal time with Edna. We learned much about her life. In so many ways, Edna is the embodiment of the American Dream of the second half of the 20th century. Not just the tract house in the suburbs, but the ups and downs of suburban and family life, rebounding from the grim 1930s Depression, celebrating the expansion of American cities, the unbridled prosperity of the 1950s, a working woman in the 1970s. I loved talking to Edna about her life—and she eagerly filled us in. She told us of the desperate times of the 1930s, all the daughters in the family having to work to help the family survive the Depression. She confided to me more than once, “You know I had to drop out of school in the 1930s to help support the family. But I never dropped out of life!” I can see that characteristic flash in her eyes as she spoke about her life, her good health, her zeal for living. Even when she described the family chicken-plucking business, every story had her sounding like a Rosie the Riveter!

Edna was born in 1917. I loved thinking about that and that she was born in the same year as John F. Kennedy as well Leonard Bernstein. When she married Walt in 1939 they couldn’t decide where to go on their honeymoon. She wanted a big trip, and they debated going east to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, in New York, but instead the newlyweds opted for a cross-country trip out west instead. She loved recounting those exciting days on the honeymoon trip—“We tried to see the world Johnny! There we were—two young kids—seeing the West.” And like with almost every story she told, she relived the enthusiasm and energy of her youth with style.

Over the years Edna became a fixture at family dinners, church solos, dance and piano recitals, funerals, anything where she could join our family and act as the surrogate grandmother. At one point she visited my grandfather in the nursing home of a retirement village (the very one where she would exit the stage of life) several times a week, offering companionship and friendship. Edna practically kept Hallmark in business in the years we have known her—I have a collection of cards ranging from Easter to birthdays to just hello cards. Edna never faltered in the holiday greeting department.

As with any member of a family, we may have taken Edna for granted from time to time. Some days she was just too perky, or it was out of your way to drive over and pick up another pie…I mean think about it—not bad indictments on a life if the perkiness/spunk factor is so high, or you may not have room in the refrigerator for another pie!

Edna was always dressed as if her day included a party. Her favorite shade was purple, and she had enough variations on lavenders and violets to beat any champion clothes horse. Edna cleaned her house as if she were the matron in a 1950s sit-com, and I caught her mowing her grass in a lavender outfit complete with pearls! Finally, around age 90 she let a son or grandson mow her grass for her.

For over a decade Edna joined my father for the breakfast ritual at the diner. Four days a week, they spent breakfast together in the company of the other breakfast bunch. The men may be discussing politics or sports, and Edna was usually in on another discussion, but no matter, everything got solved by the time the fourth cup of coffee was downed.

When Emma and Jack were born, in 1998 and 2002, respectively, Edna couldn’t have been happier to be in their lives. She loved making cakes, for showers and birthdays, and she could keep up with whatever theme each child desired for the birthday extravaganza. On Halloween, it was to Edna’s street that they trooped for the rite of trick or treating, and Edna was always excited to buy another present.

Edna bought a portable pool for her perfect back yard, and so there are many pictures of the children enjoying a summer swim in Edna’s back yard. Edna would create a luncheon, “no trouble at all,” and we would sit in the shade of her perfect backyard and relish those seemingly mundane summer treats. One of my favorite memories is watching Edna play softball with Jack—when she was 90—throwing the ball to Jack, and excitedly cheering his batting.

Eventually arthritis took a hold of Edna and her dinners ceased. Well, not exactly. She may not have been able to make the whole meal, but she would bring in LaRosa’s or City Barbecue—anything for a chance to invite us over and celebrate something. But I will always cherish my favorite meal of hers, those succulent Autumn Harvest Pork Chops. These would be the pork chops of your dreams…

So today as I think about the blessings I have known, I count our friendship with Edna as a distinct pleasure. She loved to go out to lunch, out shopping, anything to be out and about in the world. Only in the last year was she slowed down when her sons decided it was time she should give up the car.

As I said, it was not just the good times when Edna showed up. Edna was there when someone was in the hospital, or when we worried about the next turn in life. She was there with a hug, actually a ferocious hug, and a smile, sometime a little gloom and doom thought, but mostly there to help smooth over the bumps in life. Then there would come the laugh. Edna had a laugh that was like a giant tickle. Even in her 90s you could hear the school-girl coquettish laugh that drifted back to the 1920s and 30s.

A month ago I called my sister from Boston and lo and behold she was visiting Edna at that moment. I had seen Edna, of course, while home at Christmas, but had worried about her since she had suddenly gone from her vibrant self to a woman more like what we think of nonagenarians. I got to talk to Edna, and the astonishment in her voice that we got to talk again, and I could remind her of the loving moments we had shared in our 20-year friendship. “I’ll see you in heaven, Johnny,” she said as we said good-bye.

Edna held on longer than her family expected—I don’t think they know about her “grit,” her stamina and her ability to weather almost anything—but last night when I got the call, I sighed for the loss of a dear friend. Of course, I know, not many get into our 95th year on earth, so that is itself astonishing. Edna never became cynical—more than once in the last year, if we went out, she would exclaim, “This was the best day of my life!” How wonderful that she could have so many “best days” to warm her heart.

What’s left when all is said and done about a life? About a friendship? What is the legacy?

I guess with Edna it is the exclamation of joy about life. Whether she was greeting you in LaRosa’s with her characteristic, “What a surprise to see you people here!” (“Really Edna? We have been meeting you here for Sunday lunch for years,” we might have said…) or the waving adieu at the door of her pristine home, or the applause at the children playing the piano, or the proffering of a gift of her favorite fancy Fawn candy, or the thrill at hearing my voice on the phone from the Middle East, it was just a re-iteration and re-invigoration of how, indeed, Edna never “dropped out of life.”

Smorgasbord Abs

Apologia

What is that foreign language? An apologia? What is that, an apology? Yes, even for those of you with no Latin will recognize in the sonorous term apologia something that looks remarkably like our word, apology, and we all know what that is.

Or do we?

If you go to dictionary.com you will find that a meaning of the word is: an explanation offered to a person affected by one’s action that no offense was intended. It is certainly in this sense that we understand the remark attributed to the Duke of Wellington, “Never apologize—never explain.” And the slimy Charles I of England once said, “To apologize is to lay the foundations for a future offense.” Was that before he was sentenced to be executed??? And one last quotation is from American writer and entrepreneur Elbert Hubbard, who advised, “Never explain: your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyhow.”

Well, funnily enough, none of those is how I am using the word apology today, on this cold and snowy day in Jordan. The oldest use of apologia was a formal argument to speak in defense of anything that may cause dissatisfaction. It is more explanation than excuse. It does not ask for pardon but rather seeks to offer light to those who may need it but may not want it. That is what an apologia is, and one who makes such an argument is known as an apologist. Both Paul and Augustine were apologists.

There is certainly a risk in embracing so ancient a term with such an ambiguous contemporary resonance to it. Easily, one thinks of hapless presidential press secretaries, usually called names like “shameless apologists” for a morally bankrupt administration, and it doesn’t take a degree in linguistics to recognize that apologists, in the evolution of the species, became savvy public relations experts and spin doctors. So, by beginning the blog entry calling oneself an apologist is to risk confusion and court disaster.

Why the apologia?

Well, I missed February.

As recently as 12 hours ago I received an email from a lifelong friend wondering where the blog entries are. “Why in 2012 has there been only one blog entry?” opined lovely Dawn, and then last week my sister told me of dear friend Sylvia proclaiming me a “slacker” in terms of the blog. Recently a student asked me when I was going to get back to the blog. (I didn’t know he was a reader of the blog!) And then not too many days ago our head, the great John Austin, asked me if I still wrote blog entries. I said, “You know I have only done one entry for 2012! By this time in 2008 I had had 14 entries!” JA laughed and said, “Good! That means I am keeping you busy!”

So, yes, I missed February, and I missed writing blog entries. As you can see, I still have something to say, and can spend an entire page of text not even explaining my absence, but defining a word! So, I am back, and want to catch you up as to how John Austin has kept me busy!

On February 1st I boarded a plane with a delightful and smart colleague named Lilli. We were Boston-bound to join John at two job fairs in the Boston area over the next 9 days. That should have provided ample time to write blog entries, sketch out the characters we met, weigh in on the recruitment psychology, discuss Boston politics and football (don’t forget—I was there during the Superbowl). Somehow I also thought I would read 5-6 books, maybe brush up on Spanish or French, prepare professional development lectures, exercise every day in the hotel gym and eat bacon every day.

Guess which of those things was the only one checked off on the grand To Do List. Hmmm….I remember coming back from the Bangkok job fair in mid-January not having exercised during that job fair. It was a pretty weak gym in the hotel, and there wasn’t much free time for walks about Bangkok. And they had free sandwiches and candy throughout the day. And a breakfast buffet. So I came back from that job fair determined to go to the gym every day. AND I DID. I hasten to add that sentence before your holier-than-thou smirks broaden too widely. So for 17 days in a row I went faithfully to the gym. Now, some of that was reading lecture notes on the exercise bike, but you certainly couldn’t call that slothful! So, as I geared up for the Boston job fairs, I determined—every day I will go to the gym. I did make it one time—I checked out the gym, noted that it was pretty nice and then somehow never returned.

Each day, I guess due to the jet lag, I arose about 4:00 AM (without the aid of an alarm clock, of course). It turns out that John and Lilli, in their respective rooms, also had arisen by 4:00. None of us ever called each other in the vain hope that the other(s) might be sleeping in before we met officially at 7:00 for the breakfast buffet to discuss that day’s strategies for recruiting and interviews. My 17-day-straight gym regimen faded away and I joked to someone that my washboard abs were turning into smorgasbord abs. At least I kept a light-hearted look at my softening physique!

But at 4:00 AM there were emails to answer. Remember that Jordan is 7 hours ahead, so by 4:00 AM school had been in session for 3 hours at least and people always have something to squawk and crow about. So there were emails, the American daily newspaper, the great coffee machine in the room, resumes to read and organize, and the glorious sunrise over the back bay of Boston to enjoy. Who has time to go to the gym and maintain washboard abs between 4:00 and 7:00??????

Lilli and John and I would meet over breakfast and strategize, or check our appointments for the day. All in all, we interviewed 67 people during that trip to Boston, a few more than once, but that is at least 67 half hour interviews. It was actually fun since John and Lilli are fun and smart and make for great company. But that is a lot of togetherness time! We generally interviewed until 6:00 PM (sometime forgetting lunch, well just twice—you don’t make that mistake more than twice!) and then John would have evening plans with donors or board members, Lilli would unwind and shop for her sons, and I would visit with Boston friends. Since we all collapsed, again in our respective rooms, about 9:00 PM, I asked all the Boston friends to come down to Copley Square so I wouldn’t waste time traveling (or risk falling asleep and ending up either in Providence or Maine on a train). So each night was a great treat for a couple of hours. I visited with college friends Jill and Susan, dinner with Anne’s daughter Judy and her family spending the year in Cambridge, dinner with KA former student Ghassan, dinner with former colleague Peter Greer, and an evening with members of the greater group of the Denison Singers. Good meals—pizza, fish, Asian noodles, burgers—and great conversation. Then collapse about 9:00…I didn’t make plans for Superbowl Sunday because I figured I would not make the duration of the game. I watched faithfully (remember I am a sports nut) and then some time in the second half I dozed off, happily secure that Boston was a ahead. I woke up during the news to find they had lost and Boston police were trying to keep down any violence in the city in the aftermath. Oh well.

Copley Square is a great place to be even if you have only a few hours free a day. Of course there is the skybridge, or whatever they call it, skywalk thing that takes you to this enormous mall with book stores (!!) and fun restaurants. But across the street is the main branch of the Boston Public Library. John and I took in a tour one evening there, and it was an enthusiastic docent, eager to tell you about the scandals of the building in the late 19th century as the building opened and people had such disdain for the classical style and the murals inside. It is a gorgeous building and the tour made it even more exciting. Then at the end of the square is the Old South Church, a church I have wandered into for years, ever since coming to Boston for the Harvard model congresses. I decided to go one late afternoon and see if the senior minister was in. I had read her sermons on-line and always marveled at her beautiful and elegant sermons. She was in, and we went and enjoyed tea. I asked her about the church. She asked me about Jordan. I thanked her for her sermons and wondered if she knew how far away someone read them and appreciated her meditations. We enjoyed the new friendship in the café of the Public Library. Ahhh… very nice…

So what else has kept me busy? I have been leading a new sub-committee on evaluation and appraisal, creating, from scratch a new system for evaluation and appraisal. So that has taken time. Then there has been the Office of Student Life cracking open a cheating ring (and by the way, students came forward to inform with disgust the cheating and purchasing of work going on) and the fall-out and discussions about that, the book orders, and, well, as John said, he has kept me busy.

But I have missed the blog. I didn’t mean to go nearly five weeks—all the other stuff just kept going and got in the way! But I am back to the gym for the cardio/reading time and so it is imperative to get back to the blog. There are always things to share, such as the work of some students in art history as they break through the B barrier into the realm of A’s, or the ones who refuse to sharpen their writing skills, and so the divide between the soaring and the soar-less yawns wider and wider. And there are the Oscars to discuss and the campaign. Oh, there are things to share!

Right now the boarders are outside enjoying the first campus-wide snowball fight since the winter of 2008. The picture is from Jordan, sent, from sir, with love.

The ground running

It has been four weeks since I sat down to write a blog entry. It has been a busy, busy, busy entry to 2012. I have hit the ground running!

Four weeks ago I moved on to New York for that phase of my winter vacation, and I hit the ground running there. I got off the plane, zipped over to the subway, dropped off my bags on the upper west side, and immediately then went out for dinner with old Hackley friends. I hit the ground running! Throughout that week, I visited and schmoozed and ate and shivered and reveled. I got on a plane a week after I arrived, headed for Bangkok for a recruiting job fair for new teachers at KA. I got off the plane (after 23 hours of travel), took a limo (I actually just thought it was a taxi!) checked into the Sheraton, showered, and within an hour or so, I had the first interview of that week. I hit the ground running! After six days in Bangkok and many, many interviews (as well as some great street food in an alley at a place run by “Mama San,”) I got on a plane in the middle of the night, heading back to Amman. I landed at 10:15 and with the customs and baggage claim, rushed back to campus, took a quick shower, and made it for my 11:30 class. Yes, you get the theme of this blog entry, of the month of January, 2012 (and if you could see my fingers racing over the keys, even the speed at which I am blogging right now!) I hit the ground running!

Oh, there have been so many things I wanted to write about. I wanted to write a postcard from Bangkok, I wanted to muse about the death of Vaclac Havel, and I wanted to look back 150 years to what was going on in the Civil War in January, 1862, the first winter of the war. I wanted to write about the year ahead; I wanted to muse a little more about the year we left behind. But, so far, there have been no blog entries in 2012. There has been so much to report—the four days I got to spend with former student Abdullah in New York, visits with A-list friends Kate and Harrison, great interviews in Bangkok, the idiocy of Edihat airlines and how they charged me an unbelievable amount for a carry-on bag, the visit by my friend Christy to KA in Jordan again, how wonderful my classes have been going with my seniors and my art history students. I wanted to explain about this detailed, long work I am doing with a sub-committee on faculty evaluation and appraisal.

But no—none of those blog entries have materialized. I have—wait for it—hit the ground running and kept running this month.

I might have begun with a more peaceful look into the new year—something like this:The only safe thing to say about the future is that, borrowing from Mort Sahl, it lies ahead. After that, we are all on our own.

Or another thought I had was to provide you with a postcard of my week in New York, where serendipity is always my curator. I might have begun that entry like this: I look around the city and see intentional, and unintentional, works of art. I enjoy the becalmed rooms of galleries as well as the extensions of the art in the teeming metropolis. New York is simply the greatest “ready-made” art work in the world.

But instead, let me not just run run run for a couple of minutes. Let me slow the pacing of my typing down. Let me think about something other than the concatenations of my schedule. Let me be a little more playful. I need to read a little poetry, a little playful piece by Wallace Stevens, called, “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.”

Anyway, in my desire to slow down a little, I was reminded of the peculiar, bongo-playing, Nobel-laureate physicist named Richard Feynman. As a young faculty member at Cornell, Feynman was in the cafeteria when a student tossed a dinner plate into the air. As the plate spun, it also wobbled. Because of the university insignia stamped on the plate, Feynman could see that the spinning and wobbling motions were not quite in sync. He knew, hmmmm, that the two types of rotation must be related.

After an enormous amount of hard work, Feynman discovered the underlying mathematical ratio. He then proudly showed his calculations to the head of his department, who asked, “What’s the importance of that?” Feynman replied, “It doesn’t have any importance. I don’t care whether a thing has importance. Isn’t it fun?” It later turned out that these calculations became part of Feynman’s revolutionary work in nuclear physics.

Well, we all do a great deal of running. Perhaps each of us has hit the ground in 2012 running. But I wanted to remind us that we should also not forget to play. Why can’t our happiness, humanity and hope be tied up in the idea of intellectual inventiveness and curiosity? Many ideas across history are products of playfulness, imagination and risk taking.

I just wanted to take a pause in the running and remind us of the joys of play. Of risk taking and imaginative fun. Who knows what discoveries we might make in the year that lies ahead!

Really, where would you keep a partridge in a pear tree???

Just as Joseph and Mary travelled to their ancestors’ hometown long ago, two weeks ago I made the journey to the emotional, social and spiritual home that has shaped and nurtured my identity. My expectation was the same as every trip to Cincinnati: for joyful reunion and a renewal of the bonds of love.

But this season is of course more than just my return to America, it is a return to that story of Jesus’ birth, a return to the story where we re-discover how deeply God loves humankind—so much so that God took on human flesh to join the human family, to make a home with humankind.

When I come home each December—and I have never missed a December homecoming—there is no ambivalence on my part. While there are no angels or shepherds waiting for me at the Greater Cincinnati airport, it is one big YES on my part to reconnect with missed family and foods. It is the promise of those family and foods which generates such excitement on my part. And I look forward to it for months. When I left in August, I knew that I would be home four months and two days after I left for the fall term in Jordan. I know that officially the season of Advent is four weeks long, but for me, it really is kind of a four-month long anticipation of the joyful reunion. My mother was born exactly four weeks before Christmas day, and so for her, and therefore for the rest of us, the prospect, the anticipation, the excitement, the probity of Advent mattered deeply.

In Christian theology, to live in Advent’s hope is to live in eager anticipation of this homecoming where God arrives to give a living, in-person confirmation to the promises of forgiveness and life, reconciliation and peace. Getting Christmas right is that appreciation of God’s spinning of divinity into human form, to stand in awe of the presence of God.

It is not always as easy as we think—it is not just the anticipation of the easy times, of the triumphs. There is a gritty story here too—like Herod’s rage, treacherous crowds, foolish followers and a dangerous road to Jerusalem. To give into Advent fully, the anticipation of what will come, is to risk being taken into the hands of strangers and carried to unknown destinations.

Advent is about paying attention, being alert through the chaos and marching down that unknown road. Exciting and exhausting.

Do you find Christmas exhausting? I know many people do—especially those with small children, what with the parties and programs and dresses and shopping and hopes—it is a little like going into battle. There is a certain amount of chaos involved in the season.

I guess, I remember my own mother and her reaction to the exhaustion and chaos of Christmas. My mother, perfectionist that she was, aside from the exhaustion, she had an uncanny ability to stand back and get a better perspective on the chaos around her. Maybe it was just in her name, but she would reflect on Mary, the original Mary, at such times. I can almost hear her saying, “Mary certainly experienced chaos and exhaustion too, you know.” Indeed! That Mary rode a donkey while nine months pregnant; without a hotels.com reservation, she and Joseph had to bed down in a stable/cave. There she gave birth in front of a bunch of cows. Then she was visited by strangers both low and high-born after Jesus’ birth announcement was broadcast across the sky. What would we do if we answered the door and found the herders, or the foreign dignitaries smelling of incense??? I am sure Mary was unnerved by all these strange things going on. I wonder what she thought of the unfolding of this divine plan???

But Mary kept her calm—somehow she was able to keep peace, a cool head, amid all the chaos. I remember a moment from my childhood, probably circa 1973 when my sister was to read the Christmas story during the lighting of the advent candle, and our mother coached Elizabeth to read the story with all the wonder and awe she could muster. There, almost forgotten sometimes, at the end of the story, was one of my mother’s favorite lines in the Christmas story: “Mary treasured all…and pondered them in her heart.” Yes, in the middle of the craziness, she reflected on the miracle that had just occurred. There is a quietness to the story that I love, and all these years later, my mother’s guidance still affects me. In the midst of chaos and exhaustion, we need to treasure and ponder.

This year Elizabeth and I sang in our church on Christmas Eve—just as we have done every year for 38 years. We sang a song, “The Cradle of Bethlehem,” for the first time since 2002 when we last had a baby in a cradle, and it put me in my mind of baby Jack, 9 years ago, and the wonder of the amazing little being who came to grace the earth. How Mary must have felt as she cradled her baby and realized her world had changed forever. Think of the peace Mary must have felt.

As we leave the Christmas season behind, perhaps a bit more weary, I would remind us of the excitement and importance of Advent. I would argue that we should operate as if it were always Advent. I mean, we never really arrive where we think we will, or once we do, we learn that in fact, we’re not finished with the journey at all. There is always something to come, there is always a way for us to go further and continue to evolve and grow. We should never just be “waiting”—as we wait and anticipate the unfolding, we should treasure and ponder the evolution of it all.

Lights, please!

Have you ever encountered someone who didn’t know the Christmas story?

This year at KA I am in charge of a small choir and during December we worked on several Christmas songs. (I asked the Muslim students whether it was appropriate or not for them—I didn’t know for sure. They had no problems.) The students weren’t particularly interested in the traditional Christmas carols—they didn’t know them so had no affection for the beauties of 19th century British expressions of Christmas joys. But a little obscure piece, “And Love Was Born,” just enchanted them to no end. This is a piece from the late 1970s and I believe I did it in Studio Choir at West High, but it isn’t a very complex piece so I am not sure. Anyway, the students loved this piece. One student groused that he couldn’t find a performance of the piece on Youtube. Anyway, as we worked on some of the musical subtleties, a young man asked, “What actually happened in Bethlehem?” I felt a little like Linus in the TV classic chestnut of “Charlie Brown” (except I refrained from asking for “lights, please!” as Linus does!) as I told the story to those in my little group who didn’t actually know what transpired in our neighborhood over 2,000 years ago.

I found myself saying to them “Of all the characters in the Christmas story, the ones we need to keep our eyes on, indeed, come to think of it, the ones most like us, are those Magi, those Wise Men.”

When I posit that those Wise Men are the ones most like us, I am not suggesting that we are either so regal or wise, but let’s consider some of the other characters in this story. Let’s take Mary, the young Palestinian teen minding her own business when an angel of the Lord comes and addresses her: “Hail, Mary!” Like that’s going to happen to us. Consider this: the shepherds are out in their fields watching their flocks by night, when an Angel of the Lord appears to them…speaks to them…and suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appears, praising God. Like that’s going to happen to us.

And on and on—but those Magi—we need to watch them. These are the travelers, the ones who undertake a great and arduous journey. Last week I packed a suitcase, hopped two planes, and via Paris, travelled the 10,000 or so miles from Jordan to Cincinnati. Not really arduous at all, and in under 24 hours I made it from my apartment back to my family homestead. But let’s muse about those journeys 2,000 years ago. Let’s imagine the conversations back home when those magi have agreed to undertake this great trip. “Honey,” says one, “Me and the guys, we’re following a star. Not sure where or what it will lead to. We’ll be away—for months, maybe longer.” Of course, I am just joking a little here. For the magi it was no mere whim, their undertaking. They didn’t embark upon this adventure without careful thought and good reason. They did their best to explain themselves and their reasons to their families. They extracted themselves from various commitments. They planned the route and agreed how to finance it. Journeys of this sort are expensive—the costs of travel, with inns and meals, not to mention a loss of income from being away from work. I guess they worked. (Come to think of it, this sounded a lot like my thought process as I pondered this whole Jordan thing in 2007.)

They probably spent considerable time on what to take, what gifts to bring, and anticipated the exchanges of cultures and rituals and languages they would encounter.
The long awaited day arrived for them. Those magi hugged their loved ones and said their good-byes, not quite sure when they would return. There are tears, second thoughts, probably pleas to stay. Finally, they are on their way—on their adventure. As they spent time together on this adventure they began to learn each others’ moods, rhythms and fears. They learn the sound of each others’ laughter. And they probably needed to ask for directions. You know that since these are wise men they were probably not inclined to ask for directions.

The star gets the magi all the way to Jerusalem, but then it goes on the fritz. It is in Jerusalem that they have to ask for directions. “Where,” they ask, “is the child who has been born King of the Jews? For we have observed his star rising, and have come to pay him homage.” This is the moment their adventure really starts. It starts when their accents give them away; when they reveal themselves strangers in a strange land; when they first disclose to others the purpose of their quest; when they admit they don’t know which way to turn; when they are forced to entrust themselves to the good will of complete strangers (some of whom turn out to be possessed of ill will); when they find out that the mere mention of Jesus causes shifts in power, threatens principalities, begs for a re-ordering of the structures that discriminate. Now, they are on their way.

I guess I have thought about these guys this week when I realized they would have been traveling right around where KA is, my home and work in Jordan, not far from Jerusalem. I think about them when I think of the journey that I have taken since January, 2007 when I decided to follow this quest to help start this school here.

So as I look out at those plains to the west of our school—there in those hills where David once shepherded, I reside in the very land where those magi traveled and risked and followed their star. Yep, those guys, those exotic, adventurous, risk-taking, intrepid kings or astrologers, or whoever they were—they are the ones to watch.

We all have journeys, some longer, or farther afield, but we all have journeys in relationships, or new jobs, or simply the life of faith is a life of adventure. I think you will know you are on the right road, that you are getting close to wherever, when it gets thrilling, tense and intense, important, scary, edgy, absorbing and fantastic.

Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the journey…