Rick Benjamin, my mentor, beloved friend, and current poet laureate of Rhode Island, gets everything he wants. But that's because what he wants is to circulate the wisdom that words, and maybe words alone, can carry. His preferred medium is poetry, which calls words back to their sharpened purpose. In the everyday, words are such common currency that we can easily waste them or use them cheaply (ever done that?)-- the way we can waste our breath, or even waste our lives, given to us so freely. Wise words beckon us, AGAIN, to pay attention to what we are really saying, being, doing. I am on this topic now because there is so much WANTING bound up with the college application process: the schools we want to attend or want our children to attend, the status or recognition we want (very much) to gain or not to lose-- and the want to be Wanted. The process can be overwhelming and leave little room for breathing, for common sense, or for just plain joy in what is. On New Years Day, a day that can be auspicious or a Big Headache or both, Rick and I chewed over ideas for his monthly column for the Providence Journal (which you can and should read regularly here)-- something about change, what else? The poem "Oceans" I have long cherished popped up as fitting-- do we get what we expect? Do we even know what we already have? Are we closed or opened to change? o c e a n s I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing … Silence … Waves … —Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life? ~Juan Ramon Jimenez, trans. by Robert Bly This simple poem teaches me at every rereading. If you want to get everything you want, it's easy enough: adjust your wants. Jimenez, perhaps not even meaning to, teaches us to feel and listen and be brave enough to notice that we may already be standing in the new life, the next "great Continue Reading …
Teachers
Meet Tim, Our Creative Web Designer
Meet Timothy, our web designer and collaborator, student and (yes) teacher. Meet Timothy: our savvy website designer, Creative Lead at Iron Bound Designs, and participant in Essay Intensive Summer 2013 Workshop. Freshly accepted into RIT, his first choice school, Timothy can also be found levitating (with his laptop). Today, Tim is our featured student (on the blog screen)--not only the awesome invisible force who makes our online presence possible, presentable, professional and...teen-tastic. We love Tim. E.I: What’s your favorite word? Tim: Schadenfreude [He spells it out.] E.I.: When did you learn the word—and how to spell it correctly? Tim: My music teacher—formerly an airline steward! One of his things was vocab in music class. How that makes sense is unknown. E.I.: Why do you love the word? What does it mean? Tim: It sounds nice. Unbastardized German: Taking pleasure in someone else’s pain. Continue Reading …
Because I Myself Was Still Eating Sugar
A mother brought her young son to Mahatma Gandhi. Please, Gandhiji, she begged. My son eats so much sugar. I cannot get him to stop. Please, tell my son to stop eating sugar. Gandhi nodded. The truly wise ones usually take a substantial pause before responding to go within for a reality check. Then he said: OK, come back in a month. And that was a solution? Because you have to listen to what you’re told when you ask Gandhi for advice, or so I imagine—it’s not like asking a question on a forum on Yahoo groups—the mother left with her son, a bit baffled. One month later she dragged him back in. There was powdered sugar on the boy’s chin, frosting on the sleeve of his shirt, and chocolate stain near his belly button. Clearly her techniques were ineffective—the boy was wearing his rebuff as a military decoration. She stood the boy in front of Gandhi’s chair. Gandhiji, she said, desperately. I brought my son back, just like you told me to. Please tell him to stop eating so much sugar. Continue Reading …
6 Life Lessons You Can Learn From Your Smartphone
Admit it: you think your smartphone is awesome. Maybe you’re even a little intimidated by it, or have a small crush on it--two ways we often feel about our best teachers. You may feel a sense of deflation when obliged to shut it off or stow it away. Continue Reading …