The end is near...

“Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain was yellow…

Try to remember and if you remember then follow…”

- music Harvey Schmidt, lyrics Tom Jones

The Fantasticks

“I am Henry Albertson. Perhaps you recall my Hamlet?”

And so my character in The Fantasticks introduces himself to ‘El Gallo' (El-guy-o), the protagonist and narrator for this musical. Henry is an over-the-hill Shakespearean actor, who along with his companion/dresser, Mortimer provide some comic relief to this lovely and poignant story of romantic love experienced, lost, and regained.

The love interests are Matt and Luisa, teenagers who believe their adoration is ordained to be happily ever after from the very beginning. Their fathers (Huck and Bell), in an attempt to secure and cement the youngster’s love, create a fictional conflict, because they believe that if you tell a child they cannot do something – in the case telling their respective children they cannot see one another – the youngsters will do just the opposite. They do not realize it was not necessary to create an artificial dispute, because the girl and boy are already desperately in love.

In their misunderstanding, they hire the knave, El Gallo to stage an abduction of Luisa by two actors (Henry and Mortimer). These two along with El Gallo allow Matt to rescue and save Luisa. It looks like love has conquered all, but in fact, it is a charade. As the tale unfolds, Matt and Luisa both realize none of the abduction nor rescue were real – Luisa never in danger, Matt not a real hero.

In the ‘evening’ of this realization, Matt and Luisa break up. He to a world of unknown adventure, she to a fantasy enchantment with El Gallo. “Time,” as El Gallo says, teaches both of them the harsh lessons of reality.

In the end, Matt returns – broken. Luisa, betrayed by an infatuation with El Gallo – heartsick.

They now look at life and their love through the lens of reality and realize what they feel for one another is real but not the fairytale they imagined.

The team…

We have been rehearsing for several weeks under the steady creative hand of Judi, our director. She is intelligent and insightful, intimately knowing the stage after having produced, acted and directed in untold numbers of productions.

Clearly, the actors are important. They are, after all, the ones who convey the story.  But without a clear road map, there is no way for the story to be told. That begins with solid direction, proper blocking (movement to the right place on stage at the right time), and nuanced dialogue expression. Behind the scenes, Marty, the producer oversees the props people, set builders, costume designers, and makeup! And in this case, the musicians who add the lyric tapestry vital in bringing the story to life.

The work…

The amount of time it takes to get the lines is significant. Even with the minor, comedic relief characters of Henry and Mortimer, it has been mind-bending to appreciate all the things necessary to meet the bar for a good performance.

This is my third stage performance and I don’t apologize for my childish awe in watching the time and energy it takes to put talented people into a complicated production. Since this is a musical, everyone sings. Our cast has professional voice training – four of them operatic background. Mortimer and Henry have a mercifully few bars of a chorus to sing.

We will rehearse again today (Sunday), tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday and appear before a live audience Thursday evening. A four-performance set, we will also do Friday evening, and a Sunday matinee and evening show.

The aftermath…

As mentioned, I have limited exposure in theatre. I have, however, had consistent experiences in those productions. The top of the list, a richly felt affection for the whole team. The actors have a particular bond, becoming a transient family. It is not easy to express how good it feels.

That said, on the last night, we will strike (take down) the set, and all of us will go our separate ways. There is a sense of melancholy and loss with that. The band of brothers and sisters who pulled together with such vigor and support for one another will slip away, leaving a small hollowness in my heart. Working with smart, talented people is a real joy. Saying goodbye is "…such sweet sorrow…"

I may never step on the stage again, but because these experiences have been recorded in the recesses of my heart, I will be able to revisit them at will.

And so, it is:

“Goodnight, sweet prince/and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest…" Horatio, in Hamlet…

- ted

Back on the horse...

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every

opportunity. The optimist sees the

opportunity in every difficulty.”

­– Winston Churchill

I have a love and not so much love relationship with teaching.

Until the fall semester of last year, it was only love. These feelings were kindled by fond memories of the classroom, watching young minds come to appreciate the wonders and workings of the human body.

Students may not appreciate this, but for the teacher, it is the opportunity to enrich their own minds. Classroom education can create one of the great symbiotic relationships.

The afterglow, remembrances warming and softening through the lens of time and gravity led to a yearning to return to teaching. When the chance presented itself, I was delighted. In short order, my reverie was interrupted by the reality of class prep and the delivery of high volume, densely rich material.

Hmmm. That had not been part of the remembrances.

Looking forward…

The lunch was excellent, and the atmosphere could not have been better. One of the small secrets in Tucson is the Café a La C’Art in the historic Stevens house at the Tucson Museum of Art. It isn’t really a secret, but if one doesn’t frequent the Museum or work in its vicinity, it is not particularly well known.

The day was warm, with light gusty winds. A sun shading canopy covered the eight or so tables in the outside court. Birds tweeted in the fresh air as the buzz of quietly chatting folks sat nibbling their meals. Aside from the lovely atmosphere, the menu was superb. I had the Bistro Salad, a huge plate of mixed greens, goat cheese, red onions, granny smith apples, dried cranberries, spiced walnuts topped with cracked pepper and raspberry vinaigrette. It was the perfect meal for the day and the impending conversation.

My luncheon companion was the Biology Department Chair at the community college where I taught.  We have a pleasant collegial relationship and had been trying to get together for several weeks. I had sent her my assessment and impression of how I thought the fall semester had gone. Now that she had my thoughts, I wanted hers.

As an adjunct faculty, classes are assigned when there is an overflow of students wanting to take a particular class. I had not gotten a course in the winter semester. Would there be another opportunity to get into the classroom?

The fall semester…

When the reality sunk in of what it took for ‘ready, set, go,’ I have to admit I was faint of heart. There were mornings when the thought of heading to class, was overwhelming. It took Molly’s support, coming somewhat from her youthful upbringing in a military household to help me get over the hump.

“Have you got your phone, wallet, keys, and ID badge?” She asked, in a motherly matter of fact tone.

“Yes.” I would dutifully reply.

“Good. Here’s your lunch. Now go teach!”

There was no negotiation. Tough love – yes sir, that’s the ticket.

Out the door, I would go whether I felt prepared or not. It was a strange time, because, for more than forty years, I have presented workshops and untold numbers of professional presentations all over the world. And yet…and yet…some days the thought of teaching this content-rich, high volume material to a group of youngsters, seemed beyond the pale.

Oh yes, the lunch…

Alex had just returned from Switzerland and was putting together the summer and fall curricula for the department. We chatted about her trip and reviewed the thoughts I had sent to her.

“You did well,” she said. “For a first time out, it was a good job.  No complaints here.”

"So, do you think there might be another teaching opportunity?"

I was prepared for a no and had made the decision if there were not an opportunity for a course in the summer or fall, I would not teach again. Being away from the material too long would be like starting all over again. Something I was loath to do.

“As a matter of fact,” she said. “I have an eight-week hybrid physiology class I would like you to teach this summer…if you want to do it.”

“What does that mean?” I replied.

In a regular semester, a new system (e.g., hormones, heart, immunity) is taught per week. In an eight-week hybrid course, a system is covered per day. Because of the shortened time period, the material comes twice as fast. The ‘hybrid' part consists of online content that must be mastered in addition to classroom presentations. For students to get through this course, they would need to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep physiology.

What about the instructor?  I have never done any online preparation. Taking this assignment means reorganizing the material AND creating online content acting as collateral material for the course. While by now, the content is more familiar, the online part is entirely new and will need to be learned.

So, the commitment has been made, and it is a mere forty-eight-days until a group of students show-up ready to go. The teacher? Yeah, I'll be prepared when they appear. At the moment, it's not completely clear how that will happen.

For me? What an opportunity…

ted

Fire lights...

“Wood can be used to build a fire; 

only a match can bring it to life.”

— Anonymous

It has been many moons since sitting in front of a roaring fire in the early morning hours. Little is more compelling than imagination-stirring shadows, created from its flames, dancing on the walls – the snap, crackle, and pop of burning wood and slightly smoky odor adding to the aura.

When the earth has rotated away from the sun, there is magic in a darkened room illuminated by fire. This day, the fire wasn’t roaring, nor was there the smell of burning wood, that is until I closed my eyes and drifted into the secret places of my mind.

He loved to cut…

It was Monday and his day off. As long as I knew the man, this was his day of rest. In warm weather, he could often be found in a narrow-shouldered undershirt, beads of sweat dripping from his body as he cut wood. He was a complicated man who worked in a complicated and unpredictable profession.  But on his day off when he could reduce medium-sized tree trunks with his single-handle cross-cut saw and split the resulting blocks into firewood, he was in a different and simplified world. The man was my father.

In the years I knew him, he – we – lived in many places. My first recollection him was in Burnhamthorpe, Ontario where he pastored a small country church, The building had no running water so, in moments of need, a two-seater outhouse served the congregation summer and winter.

The parsonage was just across the road. The house had a fireplace.  

I am not sure 'when' the love of wood burning came to my father. He was a city man. But it is my guess ‘the where’ occurred from spending part of his summers buried in the woods, on the shore of Lake Joseph in the Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada. Mother’s people had a sizable piece of land there and a family cottage that was parsed out to family members during different weeks of the summer. Their union made those summers possible.

The cottage wasn’t large but consisted of a rustic open-raftered room separated from the kitchen by a long wooden countertop. The cooking area had hinged windows that swung inward. On warm summer days, they would be pulled open and held in place by rafter hooks allowing in cool breezes from the lake. 

On the lakeside, a veranda ran the length of the cottage. It was a great place to sit and drink in the quiet solitude of pine-scented air combined with the sound of gently lapping of water along the shoreline. 

The centerpiece of the larger room of the cottage was an open-hearth fireplace. Old wicker cushioned chairs sat in a semi-circle in front of it. I cannot remember an evening when large wood-burning fires did not warm the cottage nor mornings when they did not take away the chill of the night. 

Most evenings were spent chatting around or merely gazing at the fire until the last embers lost their color and heat. The crispness of the air and the smell of crackling wood was otherworldly. Many a love was kindled sitting before that fireplace in those wonderfully magic woods. 

Great fires weren't limited to the cottage. Wieners cooked with broken tree branches, marshmallow, marshmallow smores, and corn roasts were, for many years part of our summer holiday tradition. There are few things more energizing and soothing than an outdoor fire, cooking, singing and sharing with people you love.

As the years passed, my father built a separate cottage for our family, its centerpiece a hand-built stone fireplace. He gathered granite rocks, residue from dynamite blasting that opened roads in the region. Many a trunk load of rock was transported to the back of the cottage where, with a hammer and chisel, he fashioned each stone to be lovingly placed into that hearth.

My dad loved to cut that wood and build those fires. And because of him, in subsequent years, so did his son.

He taught me how to fell a tree safely to a specific spot.  He taught me how to cut logs into the appropriate lengths and how to ‘…let the ax do the work…' when splitting wood.  He taught me how to carry and stack the pieces when they were cut. These are simple things and seem self-evident, but when he worked, he was lost...meditative…spiritual…zen. His body worked the wood, but he was not really there. The fires were the reward, the moments of quiet meditation and rest.

I learned to love cutting wood.  But watching and listening to him, I began to understand it was never the harvesting of the tree, it was the loss of one's self in the work. The tree? Simply the vehicle.

The years passed, and in the natural evolution of time, the number of visits home diminished. We still had cottage time together, but eventually, even that slipped away. As dad aged, he no longer had the energy or strength to cut wood. At his home, parishioners brought and stacked it for him, but in the end, it became too difficult for him to even carry it to the fireplace - the grates cold and empty.

Early morning hours…

Molly and I have been married for forty years, and during that time we have never had a fireplace in any of our homes – until now. The place had a fireplace with wood burning potential but a gas line and artificial logs were in place.

Recently, we made the decision to activate the fireplace. Feeling that storing, carrying wood was more than we wanted to do, we opted for the gas and replaced the ceramic logs with a different material that better radiated heat.

A few things are missing, most notably the pleasant smell of burning wood and enchanting crackle that comes with it. But, the look of the flames and heat it throws are comforting. It is a little strange that the logs look the same when the fire is lit and when it is extinguished. But staring into the fire in a quiet, darkened room and slipping into the solitude of my mind, brings a sense of peace and continuity to my soul.

This morning, as has been the case since activating fireplace, "...I closed my eyes and drifted into the secret places of my mind..." 

This morning, I found my dad chopping wood.

-ted