Ragged and Jagged Memory

I don’t trust memories.  Especially now that I’ve reached, officially, senior citizen-hood.  And as my recent unsuccessful bout with the study of Latin confirms, my memory ain’t what it used to be.  But then memory seldom was what it used to be, even when I was younger. 

My brother Ken and I have swapped stories about growing up.  And the tales are wildly different.  In many cases I have no recollection of the events he relates, and he looks with surprise at the tales I tell.  Were we both really there?  And then I remember my mother telling stories about our youth.  Most of the time, I looked at her with perplexity: that didn’t happen, Mom; or, that’s not the way it happened.  But she was as convinced of the truth of her memories as I was of the truth of mine.

The brain is not a computer, easily rebooted.  It is a filter, one which sorts, retains, and loses whatever it chooses, mostly without one’s input (to continue the computer analogy).  Computers are, in fact, way more reliable and can actually be rebooted.  The brain, not so much.  I suppose with years of counseling with a psychologist, one can dredge up something forgotten or misremembered, but for most of us that’s not an option.

And I’m not entirely sure that such a mental reboot would even be something to value.  Generally, I like my memories, and if I unconsciously censored them over the years, then there’s probably a reason for it.  I may not know what that reason is, but that doesn’t mean the censoring is a bad thing; it probably means just the opposite: something is best forgotten.

Which is not to say the aging brain doesn’t cause problems.  I have gotten especially bad with names.  I’ll be discussing authors with someone, as I used to do with my students, and say something like, “That reminds me of one of my favorite poets, . . . uh . . .”  And it’s not there.  It may be Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman, poets I know well, but the name is not ready to hand; it’s there, I can sense it, it’s on, as they say, the tip of my tongue, but I can’t pull it into consciousness.  That’s frustrating and on occasion embarrassing.  And I used to panic when it happened: can Alzheimer’s be far behind?  But a little research convinced me it’s a normal part of aging, and I now just laugh about it.  As I once heard, if you forget where your keys are, not to worry; if you forget what your keys are for, then you worry.

I’ll end with a favorite poem by Billy Collins (yea, I remembered the author!), the brilliantly funny and poignant “Forgetfulness”:

The name of the author is the first to go


followed obediently by the title, the plot,


the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel


which suddenly becomes one you have never read,


never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor


decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,


to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye


and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,


and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,


the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,


it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,


not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river


whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,


well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those


who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night


to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.

No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted


out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Cervus lux in lucerna.

Sometimes I think I am suffering from insanity.  Maybe it’s dementia?  Whatever it is, in a moment of madness that I fear will haunt me the next ten weeks, I signed up for a Latin class.  It was offered through the same branch of the University of Chicago as the Great Books program I’m just finishing up, so I thought what the hell.  I took two years in high school.  Surely some of that will come back?

Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  Nihilo.  Other than the vaguely familiar terms such as “dative case” and “ablative case” nothing remains.  And only the terms remain; there’s nothing anywhere in my scrambled brain about what they mean, how they are used, and just what the heck to do with them.

I found that out yesterday in the first class.  I had worked hours--and I’m not exaggerating--to make flash cards for vocabulary and major concepts such as declensions, conjugations, and word order, and I labored over translations trying to get everything exactly right.  I wasn’t even close in some cases, and in others I had the wrong declension or conjugation and had something being done to someone when he or she should have been being done to.  Or something like that.  Two and a half hours of class and I was totally befuddled.  I had misunderstood several key concepts (there’s a “second conjugation”?) and once we started class the vocabulary left for parts unknown.  It was not a good day.

But I’m sticking it out.  I’m going back and rereading the early parts, sorting out all those cases and declensions and whatnot and, in two weeks when I return to class, maybe I’ll have a firmer grasp.  And yes, I have to miss next week’s class (it only meets once a week) for a family wedding (don’t get me started on that!) which is not going to help me with Latin one little bit.

Fortunately, I keep my liquor cabinet stocked.  Oh, and don’t bother going to Google Translate; the title above means “Deer in the headlights,” or, actually, lamplight, since the Romans didn’t have cars.  At least I pretty sure about that.

[Update: I gave the Latin class up.  I had high hopes.  But I just couldn’t manage to retain vocabulary--nor syntax nor inflections nor much of anything else.  Although I drilled (for vocabulary, I made flash cards) over and over, I would find that I couldn’t remember translations of words from chapter 1, even though I was working on chapter 6.  And all the declensions and conjugations never organized themselves in my brain with anything resembling coherence.  I was disappointed, but I did recognize that I was working way too hard for far too little reward.  Even after some much appreciated encouragement from Michaelangelo, the instructor, I just couldn’t justify continuing.  And he’s one of the best teachers in the program, one I’ve had several times in the past; I regretted my failure for fear that he would see it as a failure on his part.  It wasn’t.  I take all the blame for biting off way more than I could mentally chew.  I suppose ancient Greek is out . . .  ]

Thoreau: “I might have loved him, had I loved him less. . . .”

As an English teacher, retired, I am often asked who I thought was the greatest author.  Or who was my favorite.  The first is a bit tricky; after all, I haven’t read all the great works out there so I was hardly in a position to make such a judgment.  The second one was easy: Henry David Thoreau.  I used to reread Walden once or twice a year, and I’ve taught it several times.  But since I retired and moved to Chicago, I haven’t touched it.  Perhaps it’s living in a big city?  I once imagined that I would retire and live in a small place deep in the woods somewhere, reading and meditating and communing with Nature.  That didn’t work out, nor, at least as I see myself now, would I have liked it; I’m a big city boy at heart.

What brought all this to mind is a novel I’m reading: Thoreau in Love, by John Schuyler Bishop.  The premise of the novel is that Henry heads off to Staten Island to tutor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s brother’s children for six months, which is fact.  Thoreau, an inveterate journal keeper, must have kept a record of his time in New York, but some 200+ pages of his journal during this time have been torn out and lost to us, perhaps by Thoreau but more probably by someone after Thoreau died, perhaps acting as censor.  The novel posits what Henry did during his time in New York: among other things is his trying to come to terms with being attracted to men; in fact, in the novel, he is having an affair with a young sailor he meets on the clipper taking him to New York.

Is there any chance that Thoreau was gay (keeping in mind that the term wasn’t used then and even the concept of “being gay” would hardly have been conceivable)?  Thoreau is generally thought of as being almost asexual.  He was described by his friends as such.  He seems to have been rather a bluenose.  Certainly he never married, and when he proposed to Ellen Sewall, and was turned down, he seemed more relieved than anything.  But the great Thoreau scholar Walter Harding believed there was a very real possibility that Thoreau was, indeed, gay.  While he didn’t include that viewpoint in his biography of Thoreau, The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography, he later wrote an article for The Journal of Homosexuality* arguing just such a case.  Harding points out that in Thoreau’s journals, probably his most important writing, there are many references to men and masculine physical attractiveness--and few about women.  One example: “A man may be young, athletic, active, beautiful.  Then, too, his thoughts will be like his person.  They will wander in a living and beautiful world.”  At one point he describes a young man as a “brawny New Hampshire man . . . bareheaded . . . and in shirt and trousers only, a rude Apollo of a man, coming down from that ‘vast uplandish country’ to the main; . . . with flaxen hair and vigorous, weather-bleached countenance.”  What’s especially interesting about this, aside from the obvious gay undertone, is the use of “vast uplandish country,” a direct quote from Christopher Marlowe’s “Hero and Leander” in a passage talking about the beauty of Hippolytus--a man.  Finally, Harding points to Thoreau’s most famous poem, “Sympathy,” written about a young student of his, Edmund Sewall, younger brother of Ellen.  A link to the poem is provided below; it’s hard not to see this as a love poem.  Since reading Harding’s essay many years ago, I’ve always believed that Thoreau was indeed gay--in a time when such feelings could hardly be acknowledged.  That speculation has influenced my reading of Thoreau ever since.

Thoreau in Love is a good novel.  It’s plausible and well-written.  If you have any interest in Thoreau at all, I would encourage you to read it.  I would especially encourage you to read Harding’s biography also.  And if you can find a copy of the article by Harding, read that too; it’s a convincing argument.

Now, time to reread some Thoreau.  I’ll start with my favorite essay, “Life Without Principle,” and then dive back into the crystalline prose and lucid, relevant ideas of Walden.  But first, Thoreau’s poem to Edmund, “Sympathy”**.
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* Harding, Walter.  “Thoreau’s Sexuality.” Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 21(3), 1991.
**  Thoreau’s poem “Sympathy”: http://www.thoreau-online.org/sympathy.html

The Good, the Bad, and the So-So

In one of my first years as a teacher, I was in front of the class railing against “bad” literature; as an example, I used the ubiquitous Harlequin Romances, so beloved of the young girls in the class.  That was a mistake.  One of the young women asked me if I had actually read a Harlequin Romance.  Even as a young teacher I knew that lying to students never worked, so I had to confess, sheepishly, that I hadn’t.  She handed me one and told me to read it.  I had no choice.  I did attempt to read it, and it was even worse that I thought it might be, and I gave up after about 30 pages.  But I decided right then and there that I would no longer refer to books or authors as “bad.”  No matter how awful I thought a book to be, someone (sometimes lots of someones) liked the book, and I would only end up insulting them.  My opinions certainly had no effect on the book.

I can’t say I have stuck to that promise completely.  I’m sure I have stood in front of students and  made pronouncements about the lack of quality of Stephen King, a writer I have never been able to get through; and then there’s Anne Rice: impenetrable stuff--to me.  But clearly there are many people, including some I highly respect, who love King and Rice.  Go figure.

What brought this to mind was my recent reading of The Killing Floor, the first Jack Reacher novel by Lee Childs.  At first it was mildly interesting as the characters were developed, along with plot and setting.  But it didn’t take long before I realized I knew exactly where this novel was going; I could have outlined the entire plot after reading the first chapters.  The prose lay like cold noodles in front of me.  The Jack Reacher at the end of the novel is exactly the same as he was at the beginning.  I finished the novel, although I only scanned the last few chapters.  What made this stand out so much for me was the next book I picked up: Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene.  The difference was evident within the first few pages: Greene’s prose can only be described as luminous, his characters vivid and unexpectedly eccentric, his mastery of detail was exquisite, the settings unique, and the plot unpredictable.  And the main character, Henry Pulling, is noticeably changed by the end of the novel: “I have escaped,” he says, meaning his whole previous life is behind him as he moves on into uncharted territory.  Reading Greene was like standing in the mountains on a sunny day, feeling a cool breeze and hearing the tumbling of a nearby stream--after standing in the dry and vacant desert of the previous book.  The experience was liberating.

There’s no way one can classify literature as good or bad or so-so without making someone unhappy.  And I can be rather a snob about the whole process--on the grounds that teaching literature for 26 years gives me some insight.  So I will continue to make judgments based on my years of reading and learning and studying works of literature.  You are welcome to disagree with me.  I sometimes disagree with myself: I hated Pride and Prejudice when I read it as an undergrad, but rereading it a few months ago I found it brilliant.

In the final analysis literary judgment is subjective and, while I have my opinions, I have to accept that others, including others whom I respect, have differing views.  I fall back on my 65 or so years of reading, but I understand everyone won’t agree with me.  I can live with that.

"The Undiscovered Country"

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”  ~Mark Twain

Once I turned 70, I noticed that I watched the news with a slightly different take; when there is news that some well-known person has died, I always note the birth date and age.  While I don’t actually keep score, it feels like I give a plus mark to anyone who lived longer than 70, and a minus mark to those who didn’t make it that long.  I don’t consider this ghoulish or depressing, but simply a reckoning for my own chances or odds for a long life.

I’m not afraid of death since I simply believe I will cease to exist.  But there is no doubt that I’m not ready for death: I have much more to do, and since this is my one shot at living, I want to enjoy every possible moment.  It’s the finality of death that makes living so precious and wonderful.  Philosophers have pondered the “existential void” of the finality of death; some have despaired.  For me that void is all the more reason to savor what time we have here.

The photo above is one I took in Paris at Père Lachaise Cemetery; it’s a pretty grand place, filled with the tombs of many famous people.  It would be tempting to want to be buried in such a place.  But I’m not a great author or musician, so we’ll leave the few places left there for the famous.  My ashes will go elsewhere.  For a long time I just planned on having them scattered (a euphemism for being dumped!) in Stillhouse Hollow Lake by whoever lives longer than I, followed by a beer poured in after me; and then everyone jumps in for a swim.  But lately I have given some thought to having my ashes interred at the Texas State Veteran’s Cemetery.  I’m not sure why that is, other than the cemetery is right down the road from my brother’s house and he’ll have to think about me every time he drives past.  But maybe at least a part of it is that desire to endure past death, and there will be my name, my military branch, and the fact that I’m a Vietnam veteran.  For as long as the cemetery lasts.

But even that kind of memory, or durability, won’t last forever.  I will eventually join that great mass of men and women who roll “around in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.”   I hope, when death does come, I will be able to approach it as another poet put it, and be like “one who wraps the drapery of his couch / About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

Moving on . . .

According to Albert Einstein, “Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving.”  Apparently, I’ve taken this to heart.  I’m 70 years old and by my count I have moved 33 times; that is, I have only lived in each house/home for an average of 2 1/2 years.  According to Einstein I must be truly balanced.  Frankly, all that moving suggests quite the opposite.

I’ve lived in some places longer than others, of course; 2 1/2 years is an average.  I lived on the farm as a kid for 14 years, the longest location (my first three years were spent in Oklahoma City).  I left the farm to begin my moving around at age 17 as I headed to my first ill-fated attempt at college.  Before moving to Chicago I lived near Killeen, Texas, for nine years.  That’s the second longest.  The shortest, as near as I can remember, was when I moved to Oklahoma City from eastern Oklahoma and after about three months I headed to San Diego.  I wasn’t sure how to count my time in the Navy, since I virtually traveled around the world--on a ship; I settled for listing my shore assignments and counting my ship assignment as one location.

The reasons for moving are manifold: jobs, escaping jobs, lovers, the excitement of new places, and once to be near my mother as she got older and needed me more and more.  The only common denominator I can find is a general and ongoing discontent.

The thing about all this moving about is that I have never really felt that I belonged anywhere.  Even as a kid I was totally focused on getting away from the farm--and the small town nearby and the unpleasantness of most of my elementary and high school experience.  I lived in Texas four different times: twice in Dallas, once in Houston, and then in Killeen, and yet I never felt like a Texan.  Nor did I feel like an Okie either, even though I lived in that state the longest.  California likewise.  And I’ve been in Chicago almost six years, and while I love the city and moving here was one of the best moves I’ve ever made--and I have no plans to move again--I don’t feel like a Chicagoan either; I feel like an import.  No place that I’ve ever lived have I felt like I was a total and complete “fit.” 

I’m running out of time in my life.  I don’t envision any more moves, and maybe with a little more time I’ll settle into being a Chicagoan; but I’m not holding out much hope.  Why this lifelong discontent with my place of residence?  I haven’t a clue.  Maybe in another blog I’ll explore that some; but I’m already uncomfortable just thinking about it.  Maybe I’ll just concentrate on the “balance” part and leave the actual motivation alone.

"School's Out for Summer!"

Okay, technically, my school is not out forever; I have one term to make up which I expect to do this summer.  But my four years spent studying classic literature and philosophy have been a remarkable journey, and I’ve loved almost every moment.

I’m taking about my four years in the Basic Program for Liberal Education for Adults.  What a singularly silly name: it sounds like a remedial program.  But it’s part of the University of Chicago’s Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.  Add those two together and that’s a mouthful.  What it is is simply a four year program for studying the Great Books.

Great Books is capitalized, as it was a compilation of important western literature and philosophy developed out of the University of Chicago in the early 20th century by, among other, Jacques Barzun and Mortimer J. Adler.  I first ran across it when my grandmother subscribed, for me mostly, to the Great Books from Harvard University arriving regularly in 51 green volumes (I have no idea where she ran across this subscription but I am grateful).  I had them for years, but now they are gone.

The program consists of three terms for each of the four years.  There are no exams nor papers to write.  There is simply a group of interested people led by a professor in the program.  The student body is varied; in my class there were three lawyers, two retired, two public school teachers, me and a retired librarian, a retired nurse with a PhD, a semi-retired priest, and a retired, although only around 50, air traffic controller, among others.  It was as varied a group of people as one could pull together.  There were Liberals, moderates, and Conservatives, religionists and pagans.

The curriculum is set by the department.  There's a link at the bottom where you can get all the information about the program including a complete reading list.  But I want to mention a few works I’ve studied and my reactions to them.

The works probably wouldn’t surprise anyone, although some are better known than others.  Sometimes the authors are well-known but the selection of the work is not what one might expect.  For example Nietzsche is on the list, but we didn’t read Thus Spake Zarathustra; rather, we read his Genealogy of Morals.  Other works are totally expected:  Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hobbes Leviathan, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid.  One term rotates a work of literature each year, reading either War and Peace, Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Tom Jones, or, the year I went through, Middlemarch.  We read six dialogues of Plato, but that’s hardly a surprise (The Symposium was my favorite).

Some of the works I had read before, some I had even taught.  A few I had read before and either didn’t remember or didn’t like them originally: Pride and Prejudice, for example, was a book I hated when I read it as an undergrad over 40 years ago; this time I loved it.  Some works came easy; some I struggled with; I never really got my mind around Aristotle (except his Poetics, which I read in college and later taught); his Nicomachean Ethics is mostly a blur.

If I had to pick a favorite it would Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War.  But going back to Dante’s Inferno was a delight; and I was reintroduced to the amazing essays of Montaigne (about which I wrote an earlier blog).  The least favorite would probably be Aquinas and Pascal and the aforementioned Aristotle.  But I intend to revisit Aristotle to wrestle with him again.

I’ll miss my friends in the program and the regularity of the process.  Fortunately, the Basic Program offers a wide range of alumni courses, which I plan on taking as long as my mind--and my knee--holds out.

It has been voyage of great discovery, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone through this.  And my reward?  A certificate to hang on the wall. And an extraordinary introduction to some of the great minds of human history.
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Web site for the Basic Program:  https://grahamschool.uchicago.edu/content/about-basic-program