{"id":20500,"date":"2018-08-10T10:50:59","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20500"},"modified":"2018-08-10T11:00:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T15:00:33","slug":"lessons-for-relearning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/lessons-for-relearning\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons for Relearning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Down\/Up,” by John E. Simpson (posted here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this new page<\/a> here at <\/em>RAMH).]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap. I took the cat and tossed it out the door. Ten seconds later it was back on my lap. We got into a sort of dance, this cat and I… I tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened. But the cat kept returning. I was getting more and more irritated, more and more annoyed with the persistence of the cat. Finally, after about a half-hour of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender. There was nothing else to do. There was no way to block off the door. I sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap. But I did not do anything. I just let go. Thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out. So, you see, our teachers come in many forms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joseph Goldstein [source: <\/em>numerous places around the Web, here<\/a><\/em> among others])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (first stanza):<\/p>\n

Moments of Grace<\/strong><\/p>\n

I dream through a wordless, familiar place.
\nThe small boat of the day sails into morning,
\npast the postman with his modest haul, the full trees
\nwhich sound like the sea, leaving my hands free
\nto remember. Moments of grace. Like this.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shaken by first love and kissing a wall. Of course.
\nThe dried ink on the palms then ran suddenly wet,
\na glistening blue name in each fist. I sit now
\nin a kind of sly trance, hoping I will not feel me
\nbreathing too close across time. A face to the name. Gone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The chimes of mothers calling in children
\nat dusk. Yes<\/em>. It seems we live in those staggering years
\nonly to haunt them; the vanishing scents
\nand colours of infinite hours like a melting balloon
\nin earlier hands. The boredom since.<\/p>\n

Memory’s caged bird won’t fly. These days
\nwe are adjectives, nouns. In moments of grace
\nwe were verbs, the secret of poems, talented.
\nA thin skin lies on the language. We stare
\ndeep in the eyes of strangers, look for the doing words.<\/p>\n

Now I smell you peeling an orange in the other room.
\nNow I take off my watch, let a minute unravel
\nin my hands, listen and look as I do so,
\nand mild loss opens my lips like No<\/em>.
\nPassing, you kiss the back of my neck. A blessing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Carol Ann Duffy [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter\u2019s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I\u2019d suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Frederick Buechner [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Posthumous<\/strong><\/p>\n

Would it surprise you to learn
\nthat years beyond your longest winter
\nyou still get letters from your bank, your old
\nphilanthropies, cold flakes drifting
\nthrough the mail-slot with your name?
\nThough it’s been a long time since your face
\ninterrupted the light in my door-frame,
\nand the last tremblings of your voice
\nhave drained from my telephone wire,
\nfrom the lists of the likely, your name
\nis not missing. It circles in the shadow-world
\nof the machines, a wind-blown ghost. For generosity
\nwill be exalted, and good credit
\noutlasts death. Caribbean cruises, recipes,
\nlow-interest loans. For you who asked
\nso much of life, who lived acutely
\neven in duress, the brimming world
\nawaits your signature. Cancer and heart disease
\nare still counting on you for a cure.
\nB’nai Brith numbers you among the blessed.
\nThey miss you. They want you back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jean Nordhaus [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Down\/Up,” by John E. Simpson (posted here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this new page here at RAMH).] From whiskey river: In India, I was living in a little hut, about six feet by seven feet. It had a canvas flap instead of a door. I was sitting on my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"When you didn't quite get it right the first time around...: 'Lessons for Relearning'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,4701,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[1344,1504,4778,4779,4780,4781,4782],"class_list":{"0":"post-20500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-my-photography","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-surprise","14":"tag-frederick-buechner","15":"tag-jean-nordhaus","16":"tag-carol-anne-duffy","17":"tag-joseph-goldstein","18":"tag-learning-from-the-everyday","19":"tag-sources-of-mystery","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5kE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20500"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20517,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500\/revisions\/20517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}