The hardest school: a fantasy

For many years, I had a fantasy.

It all started because I used to be a really good student, back when I was in school. (Yeah, I know: people who brag about their student achievements forty years later are pathetic. Well I'm probably still pathetic, but I'm not bragging. Just explaining.)

Anyway, for years I fantasized about enrolling in a school that was really hard—so hard that even if I tried my absolute damnedest, I could only barely scrape by with a C-.

The point of the fantasy was what happened next. It was one of those montage scenes you see in movies, where the underdog is preparing for the Big Event, and we're shown in a matter of minutes a grueling training regimen that must span weeks or months. And I meant it as a challenge to myself, or perhaps a question: Could I do it? Could I enroll in a school where my natural gifts left me in the middle of the pack (or lower!), and then by grit and determination fight my way to the top? Could I survive even such a school as this fantasy academy, and still graduate summa cum laude? 

Or—the other alternative—were all my celebrated achievements no more than the accidental result of gifts I had done nothing to earn, so that if I had to depend on my own effort and hard work I would fail?

Lilith

By John Collier - Own work, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=207924

Can you handle one more? Here is another of Marie's early poems. Unlike the last two (here and here) it doesn't really advance the story any. But I like the image; and the more I think about it, the more I like it. Doubtless this just means I'm a lecherous old coot, but—what the hell? I'll take it.     

Lilith

Actually, it was I

who ate the fruit;

Eve’s sin

was in watching

and wanting to.

And it’s true

I steal children

But only girls;

And I don’t eat them

in the sense

that is supposed.

Roads not taken

Gosh, while I'm posting old poems from Marie (like this one), here's one she wrote during our first vacation together, back in the summer of 2016. (That was the vacation that I describe here.) She wrote it there, but she was too shy to show it to me at the time; so she emailed it to me after we had both returned to our respective homes.

The story behind the poem is that she had been lamenting that things turned out the way they did for us, in the sense that our first attempts at romance failed so badly. Also, neither of us did anything academic after our promising undergraduate careers, and wasn't that a waste? (Marie and I were both selected for ΦΒΚ, for example. So was Wife, for that matter. Sheesh!) I replied that nothing is pre-ordained, and that while maybe things might have gone better than they did, they also could have gone a hell of a lot worse. Here and there, over time, I discussed some of the options that we might have taken, and didn't. On the plus side, there was always the fantasy that we might have married and wound up both teaching at the same school somewhere. On the other hand, we each contemplated suicide when we were young, because we each (independently) felt trapped by our lives and despaired of anything ever getting better. So there were always lots of possibilities, and our job is to make the best of whatever we've landed ourselves in.

She mulled this, and then turned it into a poem, as follows.

In the same vein, please note also another poem that she wrote here: Hosea's Blog: It never happened (hoseasblog.blogspot.com).  

Back-story on Marie, year 1½

I posted the basics of this story back in late 2015, or thereabouts: see here, here, and here. But there is always more to tell in any story, isn't there? Recently Marie was looking through some of her old poems from back when we were in school together, and she found one she had written then but never showed me. It was about how she perceived all the failed, abortive conversations we had, where she would try to talk about how she was feeling, and looked for me to acknowledge her in some way ... and meanwhile I was strangling on my own inability to discuss anything emotional. (I've talked about some of that difficulty here, and here, and here.)

Anyway, when she sent me this I was struck by how well, how accurately, and with what economy and precision it summed up so many months of our conversations. Also, I think she meant the last line to sound despairing; but looking back from forty years later, I am struck by how prescient she was ... and in a good way!  

The Thief (a poem)

This was inspired by my discussion with Marie. But it goes in a direction all its own. 

 

The Thief 

When she was young, the girl went to a soothsayer, 

Watched as the grandmother laid out her cards. 

"This is your destiny, Seven of Daggers, 

You'll profit from treachery, subterfuge, theft." 

The girl joined the Crypteia, stealing to feed herself; 

Pillaging with the boys, binding her breasts; 

Bathing alone in the freezing-cold Eurotas; 

Never undressing and hiding her sex. 

Then she enrolled in a college for cutpurses, 

Studied from masters the Art of the Steal, 

Learned to abscond with whole civilizations 

And thieving from those who had stolen before. 

_____ 

One day she sat herself down for a reckoning, 

"Is this what I want for the rest of my life?" 

Turning away from her thieving and hiding, 

She made a new life herself, planting and growing things. 

But still in the back of her mind she heard echoing, 

Words that the soothsayer spoke long ago: 

"This is your destiny, Seven of Daggers, 

You'll profit from treachery, subterfuge, theft." 

And truly, the growing things brought her no profits, 

But left her to scratch out a living in sweat. 

She had the respect of her friends and herself too.

But mere self-respect doesn't pay any bills.

Marie and the Seven of Swords

Sometime last week Marie did a daily Tarot reading and she told me the seven of Swords showed up. We discussed her reading briefly and I expressed a little puzzlement at the card. It was in her Self position. Did she feel sneaky or deceptive?

She replied by sending me the following email:

Seven of swords....

It's actually one of the cards with special resonance for me; I got it a LOT when I was first reading/having readings done, back in college.  I even wrote a poem about the card; I never talked about that with you.  

I spent some time seeing if I could find the poem, but failed.  As I recall, I never completed it; it petered off.  I have recreated the first bit, but pretty sure there was a little more than I remember and not sure if this is accurate.  Anyhow, here it is:

Stealing Knives (originally ca. 1981/82)

Stealing knives

and will they slash my wrists?

Stealing knives

and will they cut my hands?

No opinions

I'm flying home from a week visiting Marie, and I heard an announcement at one airport: "This airport uses facial recognition software. Please remove your mask and look straight into the camera. If you prefer not to use this software, please speak to a gate agent ahead of time."

Am I crazy that this worries me? It's not like the use of facial recognition software has been entirely benign everywhere else that it has been introduced. (*cough* China! *cough*) There's an argument that I have nothing to worry about, so long as I do nothing wrong; but to assume that no innocuous actions will ever be reclassified as "wrong" is to assume a level of virtue and probity in every single one of our elected and appointed officials which seems ... I don't know ... maybe "optimistic" is the gentlest word to express what I mean.

Also I wonder if this is the wave of the future? Will it become universal? I suppose I could always stop traveling by air if I don't want to deal with it. That sure sounds practical.

Of course my defense in cases like this is never to do anything overtly non-compliant, and to rely on being boring. Not only do I try to avoid doing anything non-compliant, but I try to avoid doing anything that calls attention to myself at all. And I never express opinions.