Madeline deserves praise!

The Parent Challenge

what a challenge a parent takes on

when they take off the gift wrapping

and open the box of a child,

all those many pieces,

and any instruction manual

doesn't seem to fit the actual pieces in your hand,

love often gives you the work-around,

our niece visits with her four children,

aged five to fourteen,

the oldest a boy, the other three girls,

we are amazed at the mother,

a short order cook taking care

of each variation of "the usual,"

enforcing rules that chafe the ego-centric first take,

demanding the larger view over zero-sum competition,

maintaining a sense of humor and of grace,

even when the situation shouts for anger,

my wife and I are in awe

of the wonder that is birthing in the kids,

of the wonder of the mother midwifing it all.

by Henry H. Walker

7/29/24

York Phelps, a tribute

 York Phelps

York was a gift to the world:

a gift to me as an early engaging student in my classes,

as the totally-involved father of an advisee,

as a friend,

York's soft-spoken poise and gentle humor

belied how hard he had to work in this challenging world,

most institutions did not draw him to them,

though Carolina Friends School did,

for its sense of rightness paralleled his own,

he worked hard on relationships,

he worked hard on taking his calling with sound systems

to surround him and others with the music they lived,

yet also to generate income for him,

his work on movies thrilled him even more: 

he helped find the right locations to tell the story

of The Last of the Mohicans,

and worked on the right lighting 

for Tequila Sunrise, Bull Durham, and The Handmaid's Tale, 

his children centered him,

those three extraordinary young people

who know the world needs changing

and are working hard to do their part in that positive changing,

York so like both of his parents:

the unflappable bemusement of his father Jake,

the infectious bubbling forth of his mother, Peggy,

she who advised me to wait till my children were 20,

for that which you thought was not taking in your parenting, 

takes hold,

my wife Joan gave York his first job at age 15,

as he helped her wrangle pre-schoolers,

I remember that being with him in his car on advisee trips to the Smokies,

was sought after by my advisees,

York has left us, and we are lesser for that loss,

what I remember and celebrate about him:

there was a deep sense of rightness about York,

a sureness to how he knew and expressed himself,

despite all the doubts and worries that could beset him,

when I call up a memory of him right now,

a smile involuntarily transforms his face, his eyes twinkle,

and he holds me in the warm sureness of his self,

he finds the world charming, so it is,

and his loving joy holds it all together.

by Henry H. Walker,

with love, 7/28/24

in praise of the gatekeeper

 Transformative

on the transformative level in a school,
it doesn’t matter how nice a teacher is,
how knowledgeable a teacher is,
how many degrees a teacher has,
it does matter the relationship a teacher has to the subject,
the relationship a teacher has to the student,

I was always buoyed up when a student
found value in a subject, a discipline, they didn’t value before,
when they found a competence within
they didn’t know they had,
I am still saddened by a comment a student made decades ago:
after a year of American history with me,
she announced she had decided
she really didn’t like history after all,

every subject is a door
that can open into wonder and joyous discovery,
or not,
at best a teacher is a gate-keeper
who can open both subject and student to discovery,
to asking a question and pursuing an answer,
it’s all like a “spark bird,”
an intensity of a particular experience
that reorients one’s insides
so that one lives a love of birds,

a stellar student tell me of a favorite high school biology teacher,
describing her with words like “genuine,”
“almost childlike in her enthusiasm,”
“excited,” “passionate,”
a teacher who made the subject understandable,
who found ways to contextualize it all
and fit the subject into the real world,
a teacher who knew the work needed,
who required the work done,
who made sure the work got the extra time it needed,
who enabled the student to find their way forward,
and who was fulfilled when the student swam on their own,

her former student graduated college with honors
and is still excited about subject and his steps forward
after his first year in graduate school,

how wonderful that he knew a high school gatekeeper
who helped him know the way forward,
and how to walk it.

by Henry H. Walker
7/4/24

into our corners!

 

 What divides us?

could it be that the pandemic
has emotionally hijacked us back toward tribalism?

a bear got into our cabin the day before
we came back up to the Smokies,
my grandchild would soon be inside that cabin,
even though I know and love bears dearly,
I chose the safety of my grandson over the life of the bear,
when push comes to shove,
I retreat to protecting my blood,

the pandemic threw us back into simpler units for a time:
parent and child, just the partner, a lot of being alone,
for the other could bring contagion ,

the handshake superseded, disavowed,
let alone the hug,
no trust of the touch of another,
for that contact might make us sick,
space, a final frontier not to be crossed,

so no wonder we deny the stranger,
even the other ideas, the trust that we are a larger self,

we humans herd ourselves,
and the pandemic shocked us
back toward only trusting the familiar,
how easy it has been for the body politic to fragment,
we fear the germ, whether the literal one
or the idea that challenges us,

damn the pandemic,
and damn the fear of the other.

by Henry H. Walker
7/2/24