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I know this may sound like a crabby post, but it's not - really. Aug 2, 2006 I posted a poem "You Were There" written about a dear friend 25 years ago. Another friend found it and submitted it for publishing a couple of years later - it was printed. The friend who found it didn't 'get' it. It said something completely different to her, and probably to everyone who read it in the magazine, than my heart was saying about my friend. My point was he cared enough to look beyond the surface and get to know me enough to understand. He was there. Even though eventually we saw each other only occasionally, it was like we were never separated each time we got together. He wasn't my lover. He wasn't a threat to my children or marriage; he was my friend. Time has ended our interaction, but inside, he still is there.
Let's say sometimes I don't communicate well. There are a few people who 'get' me; there are many more that say 'cool' and obviously have no clue what I was talking about. That in itself really isn’t a problem to me. I’m satisfied when a poem or piece of artwork speaks to someone in a personal way even if they don’t see what I really meant to convey. I’m sure there are many times when I see a wonderful meaning that does not remotely go with what a person thought as they were writing. I think the interplay of ideas is important, not the single vision. Yet there are times when I want or expect to be understood. No explanation, no discourse on what and why, just understood.
I have a friend who is a past English teacher. But more than that, he is a kindred spirit. He thinks deeply and has great insight. So last week I sent him an unfinished manuscript. It’s a lengthy story in poetic form with a basis in personality studies.
It was begun as an attempt to mentally right a wrong perpetrated by an ill thought activity during an otherwise innocuous waste of time known as teacher inservice. The leader had us test to establish our personality types then divided us into groups and had us vote one personality type “off the island.” This was supposed to help us see how badly we needed each other regardless of personality conflicts. I was the spokes person for my group and this activity made one of my dear friends so mad at me we barely spoke the rest of my last year in public education. Everyone was mad at everyone. Gee, that really united us!
I’ve been writing it for some time and am ready for the climax and the clincher. So I sent it to my friend to see what he would make of it and how he would see the characters, etc. I knew that he might draw his own conclusions because he is a deep thinker. I was prepared for that. I wasn’t the least prepared for what I got.
“I really enjoyed reading “. . . .” You have a great imagination! You bring real personality out of these likable beasts. Your narrative flows with an engaging momentum. . . . . . . . . I’m not sure how to advise you about what to do with this ballad. Have you considered illustrating it? As an . . . experienced English teacher, I had to make some suggestions for punctuation and in a few cases word choice or spelling. Good Work.”
Sigh.
The picture is of my iris garden. I moved my irises into three terraces this spring. Yea! they bloomed!
