MindSpinner

My son has a stomach virus which necessitated a doctor’s appointment this morning. In the parking lot at the doctor’s office, I saw a student I taught last year. She had just been thrown out of her house. Seems mother had started sleeping with daughter’s boyfriend, and daughter caught the two of them together in bed this morning. A scene ensued. (Imagine that.) The police were called. Amber (not her real name) presented her mother’s coke pipe to the police, packed up her own stuff, and left to stay with a friend. She guessed that her mother might be in jail. She said her mother was losing it, was keeping her 8-year-old sister out until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on school nights, and didn’t care about anything. She explained, “I can come or go anytime I want. I can leave at 2:00 a.m., and my mother doesn’t care. My friends tell me they wish they had the freedom I have, but I don’t want freedom. Teenagers think they want freedom, but they don’t want freedom; they want structure. I want my mother to tell me what time to get home. I want to get grounded when I deserve it. At least then I’d know she cared. She doesn’t care anything about me, so I’m finished with her.”

Before we said goodbye, I gave Amber my number and said, “If you need me, call. Call me anyway to let me know how you are doing.” If she does need help or support, I hope she will call. She’s a smart enough girl; she wants to be a nurse and is already taking a nursing class at the vocational school. She deserves, like every other kid, a fair shot and a parent who acts like a parent.

Amber’s spontaneous assessment of what constitutes parental love reminds me of why I persevere with my own two teenagers when teenagers can be, at times, anything but easy, especially for a parent without a partner. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who designs secure network systems explained to me how he builds redundancy into the systems he oversees such that those systems continue to operate even if part of the network is down. Users never know the difference, though he and others are busy behind the scenes addressing the problem. This is, of course, a wise and widely utilized practice where network failures are unacceptable. Single parenting isn’t like this. There’s no redundancy, no village to help raise a child, no second parent to fall back on when the logistics of being one instead of two don’t work or when there’s too much to do or when one is tired or feeling uncertain or even temporarily defeated. Next time I’m lamenting the challenge, I’m going to come back to this post and read Amber’s words all over again. No doubt she has no idea she gave me an especially relevant gift today, though I would wish that her wisdom had not come at this price.

Our good Republican governor is at it again. He heralds as one of his goals raising teacher salaries such that they will be on par with those paid by surrounding states. In a letter to teachers across the Commonwealth today, he notes that he proposes taking the first step this year by raising teacher salaries 2%. This is not a typo.

~ My fuel costs are up sharply from last year.
~ My heating bills are up by 64% this winter, even though the weather has been unnaturally warm.
~ Food costs more. My kid’s psychiatrist costs more. Everything costs more.

So the governor figures surrounding states will propose raises of less than 2% just so our state can catch up?

The Atlantic Ideas Tour offers the text of a speech given by John F. Kennedy at Amherst just weeks before his assassination. In this excerpt, Kennedy reflects on the role of the artist in society:

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, “a lover’s quarrel with the world.” In pursuing his perceptions of reality he must often sail against the currents of his time…

If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, make them aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential.

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him…

If you lived alone in a cardboard box in a zoo where you were visited only by hands that feed you, what would you do with a fellow living creature dropped into your box? This is the question Aochan faced, and Aochan answered most wisely, befriending the newcomer Gohan, apparently for life. Perhaps this would not be remarkable were Aochan not a rat snake and Gohan not a dwarf hamster, but, as Bette Midler sings, “You gotta have friends.” See the two posed for a buddy picture.

These days, we must look for wisdom where it may be found.

There was a day a while back when there was no school. The closing wasn’t a matter of snow or ice or tornadoes or floods. Instead there was a power outtage that affected several communities, including the little town where I teach and the school itself.

Today I learned why the power was out. Somebody threw a raccoon into a transformer.