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The rites of spring begin anew
Apr. 3rd, 2008 08:02 pm
And you are there!
John Robertson, who was the best columnist who ever covered the Blue Jays, started the beginning-of-spring-training columns that led off both his books of collected columns (for the 1983 and 1984 seasons, the first two seasons the Jays were good) with those two sentences. "The rites of spring begin anew. And you are there!" And then he would describe the scene in the clubhouse in Dunedin, Florida. Every fall when I go back to school, I think: "The rites of fall begin anew. And you are there!" Well, it's spring, finally, unequivocally, and more or less irrevocably, here in Toronto. The last day of most classes at York. The rites of spring begin anew, and who knows what is and is not ending.
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 7. High today: 9.
I got my second present that I have ever gotten from a student today. The first one gave me something from his culture, a cartoon book about Buddhism; the second one has given me something, apparently, from what she takes my culture to be--not that she's wrong, or far off. It has a picture of Jesus on it. I have hung it on the wall.
Last year, I learned that that I can teach; this year, I learned that I can be good at it. So, this is progress. I've been thinking about writing a textbook for this human nature course--I think I'll do it, if I find out I'm getting the course again next year. I may not get anything next year. Not a thing. Who knows. You know, last fall, when I said that somebody had done maybe the worst thing that anybody had ever done to me? That was about another course at another university. If I'd actually gotten to teach that course, I'd be on strike now. Again.
(I've been thinking, with the possibility--I was about to say threat, like the television always say--of a public transit strike looming (like the television always says) that I would like for a survey to be done of Torontonians to see how often they believe the public transit workers go on strike. How many TTC strikes have there been in the last, say, ten years? I bet the average answer would be around three or four. In fact there has been one TTC strike in the last ten years. It was a wildcat strike, and it lasted less than a full day.)
This afternoon, on the subway home, I was talking with a guy I've known since I started at York about the history of the International Socialists. Imagine that. I told him that I had learned--and he did not know this, which was surprising, because he has been (but is no longer, I learned today) a member of an International Socialist splinter group--just last week that the International Socialists in Canada formed from some of the remnants of The Waffle after it was kicked out of the NDP in the early '70s. Imagine that.
It has been a long time since I have had a year--for me, as for google, the rhythm of life is the rhythm of the school year--this good. (I was lately thinking how grad school is a humiliation, and that though this is obvious when you are a grad student it is still a humiliation in subtle ways that you can't comprehend until it's over, and that I seem to be emerging from this humiliation. I'm listening to classical music again. You wouldn't think that has anything to do with it, but like I say, it's subtle. It's not all bad, either. Humility is good in due measure. But it's better to be strong and humble than to be humiliated into weakness.) I think to myself frequently, lately: I have almost everything that has ever been really important to me. (That guy who gave the social-psych talk the other day said on some tangent that he was raised Catholic and that he thinks there's a certain genius in the practice of saying grace before meals--it's a reminder, three times a day, that your life is actually pretty good. (Grace-saying, incidentally, is one of those things of religion that I have wished I could reclaim somehow, as a thrice-daily reminder that there but for the grace of something that is not you there would be naught at all.)) It's just a matter of keeping it going....
I keep meaning to say this: you think that life is about getting past one thing and another, moving forward, progress, victory here and on to the next. But it's not about moving forward; it's about deepening. Not staying in the same place, but going away and coming back, starting again from the same place, deeper and deeper.
John Robertson, who was the best columnist who ever covered the Blue Jays, started the beginning-of-spring-training columns that led off both his books of collected columns (for the 1983 and 1984 seasons, the first two seasons the Jays were good) with those two sentences. "The rites of spring begin anew. And you are there!" And then he would describe the scene in the clubhouse in Dunedin, Florida. Every fall when I go back to school, I think: "The rites of fall begin anew. And you are there!" Well, it's spring, finally, unequivocally, and more or less irrevocably, here in Toronto. The last day of most classes at York. The rites of spring begin anew, and who knows what is and is not ending.
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 7. High today: 9.
I got my second present that I have ever gotten from a student today. The first one gave me something from his culture, a cartoon book about Buddhism; the second one has given me something, apparently, from what she takes my culture to be--not that she's wrong, or far off. It has a picture of Jesus on it. I have hung it on the wall.
Last year, I learned that that I can teach; this year, I learned that I can be good at it. So, this is progress. I've been thinking about writing a textbook for this human nature course--I think I'll do it, if I find out I'm getting the course again next year. I may not get anything next year. Not a thing. Who knows. You know, last fall, when I said that somebody had done maybe the worst thing that anybody had ever done to me? That was about another course at another university. If I'd actually gotten to teach that course, I'd be on strike now. Again.
(I've been thinking, with the possibility--I was about to say threat, like the television always say--of a public transit strike looming (like the television always says) that I would like for a survey to be done of Torontonians to see how often they believe the public transit workers go on strike. How many TTC strikes have there been in the last, say, ten years? I bet the average answer would be around three or four. In fact there has been one TTC strike in the last ten years. It was a wildcat strike, and it lasted less than a full day.)
This afternoon, on the subway home, I was talking with a guy I've known since I started at York about the history of the International Socialists. Imagine that. I told him that I had learned--and he did not know this, which was surprising, because he has been (but is no longer, I learned today) a member of an International Socialist splinter group--just last week that the International Socialists in Canada formed from some of the remnants of The Waffle after it was kicked out of the NDP in the early '70s. Imagine that.
It has been a long time since I have had a year--for me, as for google, the rhythm of life is the rhythm of the school year--this good. (I was lately thinking how grad school is a humiliation, and that though this is obvious when you are a grad student it is still a humiliation in subtle ways that you can't comprehend until it's over, and that I seem to be emerging from this humiliation. I'm listening to classical music again. You wouldn't think that has anything to do with it, but like I say, it's subtle. It's not all bad, either. Humility is good in due measure. But it's better to be strong and humble than to be humiliated into weakness.) I think to myself frequently, lately: I have almost everything that has ever been really important to me. (That guy who gave the social-psych talk the other day said on some tangent that he was raised Catholic and that he thinks there's a certain genius in the practice of saying grace before meals--it's a reminder, three times a day, that your life is actually pretty good. (Grace-saying, incidentally, is one of those things of religion that I have wished I could reclaim somehow, as a thrice-daily reminder that there but for the grace of something that is not you there would be naught at all.)) It's just a matter of keeping it going....
I keep meaning to say this: you think that life is about getting past one thing and another, moving forward, progress, victory here and on to the next. But it's not about moving forward; it's about deepening. Not staying in the same place, but going away and coming back, starting again from the same place, deeper and deeper.
