Frank Finley Blakely

No one could believe in the myth of America like my grandfather. Having become an adult in the mid 1920′s, Frank Finley Blakely Jr. was born into a legacy of military men who passed down their material fortunes to each new generation in the forms of land and business ownership. By the time my grandfather and his brother, Brown, came of age, the Great Depression had eaten into the family stores. Their father was tight with money before the financial crisis, and during it, the purse strings resembled a knot. Like most others, my grandfather took any and every job he could find just out of high school: Kraft salesman, third shift Kerns bakery boy, messenger. Eventually, he went to college, served in World War II, was an engineer on the Manhattan Project, and worked most of his life for the Atomic Energy Commission.

Hard work, determination, perseverance, love of God, and loyalty to America gave my grandfather purpose along with passion for his wife and daughters, and football. To suppose any other combination of values would make a person happy never occurred to him; therefore, he did not understand any one who questioned his formula. But he delighted in hearing me express my very different ideas even though he disagreed with my views. As a matter of fact, he took every opportunity to engage me in discussions that highlighted our differences of opinion. It was customary in my family to talk politics at the dinner table, and rarely a meal passed without the liberal women of the family triumphing over my conservative grandfather if not through logic through food. He could argue aggressively if needed, but I think he quite enjoyed having women fuss a little at him.

I never attacked my grandfather’s ideas: I loved and respected him too much. But there  were times I had great difficulty holding back my disdain for some of the people he chose to champion and defend. His support for who and what I found abhorrent ranged from the innocuous Chrysler K-Car to Ollie North. It was actually more difficult for me to understand why he traded he beloved Olds 98 for the bland mid-sized K-Car than it was to figure his defense of a public servant turned felon. Even the automobile’s name made  my grandfather nauseous, but he believed in America and that meant helping to bail out the sinking Chrysler corporation of the early 1980′s. Forget personal pleasure; Lee Iacocca was more important. My grandfather hated that car. I never understood my grandfather’s faithfulness to so much that was corrupt. Nixon, Vietnam, Ollie North, a mushroom cloud. Because there he was, rocking me, feeding me, holding me, singing to me, believing in me, his little girl who would grow up to oppose almost everything he honestly thought was moral and good, when no one else would.

Beauty and the Beast

Anticipating a new term of teaching literature to undergraduates is always fraught with ambivalence. I dislike a priori judgments, so I try to avoid hypocrisy by imagining a classroom full of students who at the very least have open minds to the possibilities of fiction, drama, and poetry instead of assuming the course roster will be overwhelming composed of hostile individuals. But no matter how stellar the group, there is a more than good chance that they will not understand why it is so important to love the written word: Its transformative power.

By transformative power I mean literature’s ability to make what is ugly, awful, and agonizing, beautiful. Of course, this ability to change the bitter into beauty is not limited to language; visual art, music, dance, and film have the same opportunity for an ordering of elements in the service of saving an experience from its destructive power. One such specific work of art that is never far from my attention is Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona. I first saw the film when I was 20, and I raved about it because as a member of an undergraduate “bohemian” crowd, I was expected to praise any Bergman work. My chief problem with Persona was the lack of exposition; I desperately needed to be told why, to be grounded in the known. Although I did not understand nor appreciate the film for the masterpiece it is, I did absorb it and over the years, its images have become reference points for my interpretations of the world.

At various times in my life, I have watched the film and deliberately attempted to resist imposing any narrative on it that Bergman did not already supply. And I have invited the film to haunt me with its often disturbing images of its two female protagonists who are  written and directed by Bergman and portrayed by Liv Ullmann and BiBi Anderson with unapologetic authenticity. It hurts to watch the women reveal their vulnerabilities, their destructive impulses, their confusions, their truths. At times, the viewer feels almost ashamed to be present in the intimacy that develops between Alma and Elizabeth. Yet, too, all of the elements that make up the film are deftly executed to produce beauty. The minimalist setting, the static camera forcing us to focus on the character’s faces, the silences, the acting, and editing invite us to regard the experience as we would a newly blossoming rose.

For me, Persona guides the viewer through the heart’s experience of self and the individual’s repulsion with the masks that must be worn in order to survive reality. Early in the film, Elizabeth’s psychiatrist tells the silent Elizabeth that she understands why Elizabeth has become mute: She wants to be sincere, to not play a role. Elizabeth longs to merge the inner and the outer. Having rejected suicide as a solution, she has decided to remain verbally silent. This is the idea that has persistently claimed me over my life, comforted me in those moments when I feel most alien to myself. And the beauty of the film is to thank.

 

The Devil in Paula Deen

The First Amendment is beautiful. Granted, creating a law allowing people to speak their minds unimpeded often produces painful conflict, but the consequences of silencing folks are well documented. There are times, however, when I do yearn for the open mic to be unplugged. Last week, my favorite Southern cook Paula Deen was raked over the coals sans butter for her sins against food and humanity. It seems as if everyone needs to chime in on the matter, and they have, in the main, not been kind. China Millman of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opines that Deen “learns a hard lesson.” In Tucson Citizen, Larry Cox cries, “Shame on Paula Deen.” Fox News reckons it’s the Yankees fueling the assault on diva Deen, trying to reopen the wounds of the Civil War.

I figure all the hoo hah will die off in a week or two as soon as one of the Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential election provokes some new mischief or a Hollywood star drunkenly stumbles out of a limo at the Oscars. What bothers me about the relentless finger pointing at Paula Deen is that her critics consider her a kind of diet despot as if none of us is capable of exerting self control over our eating habits. Sure, Paula Deen is an influential model on how to cook and eat, but so were Julia Child, Martha Stewart, and from my childhood in Appalachia, Southern cooking legend Mary Starr. Mary’s recipes regularly call for “more salt and pepper than you think will be enough,” “extra real butter,” and “a heaping spoon of Crisco.”

My grandfather ate “Southern” for 85 years and was never sick a day of his life until complications from prostate cancer took his life. Grease and butter are primary ingredients in my diet because I like them. Just before he died, my grandfather called me one day and said, “Honey, will you bring me some Krystal hamburgers? Your grandmother is about to kill me with this oatmeal every day.” I couldn’t help but get tickled, but he almost cried. Of course, I rushed over to him with a greasy bag of those little steamed squares of burger, onions, and mustard. As we sat together eating, he looked at me and said, “An appetite is a luxury. Always enjoy your food.” What else is life but to enjoy?

Gooey Butter Cake

From Recipe courtesy Paula Deen and Random House Publishing

Cake:

1 18 1/4-ounce package yellow cake mix
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 16-ounce box poDirections

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer.  Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.  Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter and beat together. 

Next, add the powdered sugar and mix well.  Spread over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes.  Make sure not to over bake as the center should be a little gooey.

Clearing Space

The past two days have been hectic. Moves are generally stressful events; there is a sense of displacement, maybe some disorientation. And then there is the body’s involvement to consider.  Because I’m on a tight budget, I have to supply most of the labor, so I’m physically tired. But moving excites me because I adore possibility and seeing the world with a fresh perspective. My new space is smaller, and its windows provide a view of the treetops and the hills. I feel as if I’m living in a treehouse,which was a childhood fantasy. And I like nesting; a home is something one creates, and one should feel he or she belongs in the space. Home is a reflection of one’s identity. And too, I believe in the energies of spaces, so even inanimate objects belong to specific locations. As of tonight, I have essentials in place except for my books, which have yet to cross the threshold.

Moving in small bits over a period of a week gives me time to sort, to leave what is unecessary behind. I like feeling new. I like my everyday living simplified because it clears the space I need to the indulge my passions: Writing, reading, playing musical instruments, and riding my horse. So, with each object I bring into my new space, I ask myself, “How important is this to you? How much of my time do I really want to devote to maintaining material things?” When my grandfather reached his late seventies, he began to pare down his material possessions. I asked him why, for instance, he gave away his VCR, his Oldsmobile, his University of Tennessee season football tickets. He told me he was only going to keep possessions such as his tools and his hand-built trailer that allowed him to express his creativity. He told me it made him feel free. He was tired of worrying and fretting over so much of what defines the middle class, and he wanted time to garden, walk, and think.  We both loved nothing more than weeding and planting together, most of the time not talking at all. This is when I felt closest to my grandfather.  We occupied a space together sharing a passion while maintaining our own boundaries.

Recently, my mother died, and I anticipated sorting her belongings. Like her mother, my mother kept ticket stubs from movies and plays, matchbook covers from restaurants and hotels, and programs from sporting events and church services. When I began the process, I quickly found that not only would I have to make decisions about my mother’s things, but my grandmother’s, grandfather’s, and great grandparents’ possessions, too. My mother had stored generations worth of garments, letters, and school year books. Essentially, I was responsible for the remainders of five lives.

Making choices about these personal belongings was difficult: Picture after picture of people I didn’t know, report cards, and newspaper clippings. What to keep and why became my preoccupation. But I knew I needed my own space, a space not dominated by others’ lives.

Overdue

Tonight, I’m sleeping in a new room. Still. Warm. Quiet. I tell my mother I miss her, that I’m sorry she had to die, that I’m sorry I could not save her, that I tried my best to love her, that grief is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to feel. I tell my mother goodnight. Goodnight.

Whitman’s “Cavalry Crossing a Ford”

Only in the past five or so years have I become a fan of Walt Whitman’s poetry. I’ve never disliked his work, but I also never could generate an enthusiasm for it either. I suspect that the primary reason I have mostly avoided Whitman is because of an influential teacher; my undergraduate days were hijacked by militant feminists (that’s another story).  It’s also probably the case that long poems, meaning anything over 40 lines, make me anxious; I’m looking for the emotional knock-out punch of the lyric. I admire those poets who are able to sustain a lengthy piece, who are able to avoid what I see as the minefields capable of destroying the poem.

When I took up Whitman a few years ago, I did so as a service to my literature students. I reasoned that they certainly did need to read a little of such an important poet. I also reasoned that like their teacher, any poem over one page in length would send them screaming. So, I decided to use some of Whitman’s shorter lyrics, arguably more accomplished poems such as “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” “Cavalry Crossing a Ford,” and “A Noiseless Patient Spider.”  As I was reading, I fell in love with “Cavalry Crossing a Ford.” In my reading of the poem, it is stylistically so atypical of Whitman: seven lines rather than seven pages, solely concrete imagery rather than philosophical statement, and most conspicuously, the absence of the expansive and perhaps narcissistic first person.

But in thinking about sharing the poem with the class, I began to doubt my students’ willingness or ability to recognize the brilliance of the poem. In a survey course, I don’t have time to provide so much of the historical and cultural context I believe is necessary for students to begin an appreciation for literature. And too, my personal aesthetic prohibits the use of such context in judging the merit of a poem. It took me a good five years into my teaching career to give up expecting my students to understand that there is craft involved in writing poetry. Nothing makes me angrier than students flat-out denying that the writing of anything good takes skill, especially poetry. A poem is how I feel. A poem is what my therapist told me to write to express my feelings.

I have two fantasies of teaching “Cavalry Crossing a Ford.” One fantasy is reality based while the other is perhaps delusional. Based on previous experience, I see myself reading the poem to the class, trying to curb my enthusiasm so I don’t freak out the students too much, and then asking for a volunteer to read the poem. After considerable silence, I offer to read the poem again and do. Then I ask questions. I always begin with what turns out to be the most difficult question: Did you like the poem? Why or why not? Then I proceed to the easier ones: Is the poem an open or closed form? Are there images in the poem? Is this a narrative poem? Finally, I ask students to explain how the form of the poem might reflect the subject of the poem. If there is silence, I squeeze my pen until the veins in my hand are ready to burst in order to ask, “What is the theme of the poem?” As the word theme crosses my lips, I generally have the urge to stab the palm of my hand with the pen that is in my death grip. When students hear theme, their ears do prick up a bit at the familiarity of the word. Silence.

“Cavalry Crossing a Ford” is not a difficult poem. My preferred fantasy of teaching the poem has students listening to the music of the poem: The hard “c” sounds in “Hark to the musical clank”; the long “i” sounds of “silvery river”; the alliteration of “flags flutter”; the lines lengths that linger. I want them to see the vivid images, the “arms flash in the sun”; “the splashing horses”; “the brown-faced men.” I want them to respond to the repeated imperative “Behold.” I want them to see the beauty of this scene before they see the beauty of a moment during a gruesome war, which is one of the things Whitman says to us in the poem.

One of the things I more than appreciate about Whitman’s shorter poems is his ability to share his vision, the paradox of being individual and communal simultaneously. Like ambivalence, the mind simply can’t live with paradox for long, and “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” delicately balances the two ways of being even in the last two lines of the poem where the single colors “Scarlet, and blue, and snowy white” form the many “guidon flags.”

Cavalry Crossing a Ford

Walt Whitman

A line in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands;
They take a serpentine course–their arms flash in the sun–Hark to the musical clank;
Behold the silvery river–in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink;
Behold the brown-faced men–each group, each person, a picture—the negligent rest on the saddles;
Some emerge on the opposite bank–others are just entering the ford– while,
Scarlet, and blue, and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind.

Tired

On Tuesday next week, winter term begins. My college operates on the quarter system, ten week courses, with day classes in two-hour blocks. For some reason,people often think the shorter term is easier to manage. Regardless of quarter or semester, after having taught at the post secondary level for fifteen years, I still find myself exhausted after each class I lead. Something in me simply cannot settle for two hours of lecture or leaving students to write in class without feedback during the process. I question, I move around the room, and I refuse to allow laziness into the session. It takes an incredible amount of energy to teach.

Writing is an equally demanding activity, not just emotionally, but intellectually as well. In the main, my antagonist tends to be the craft; I count agonizing over word choices and syntax as two of my favorite things, but many times I do start to pull my hair out when the decisions on pace and phrasing are like the children who throw tantrums in the grocery store. Tonight, my issue is with feeling — too much feeling. Writing my post yesterday on Dennis Martin consumed me, and the fear it conjured in me, the sadness, the anger simply will not abate.

What this means for me is that I will have to write a poem to free myself from some of the agony I feel. It’s difficult to admit that so much of these feelings are for myself, the part of myself that feels lost and vulnerable right now. I ask myself if it’s ethical to use someone else’s tragedy however well-intentioned. I don’t answer the question. I have to get it out.