JUST AN ORANGE

You may have noticed that Just an Orange has taken a summer break, despite the good intentions of Dandelion Wine, etc.  But such is life!  Never fear, I’m not abandoning this project.  In fact I think about it all the time.  I’ll be back in a few weeks with more stuff!

And that will be good.

Rituals are the backbone of life; they are what make it stand up, give it some structure; new summer tennis shoes, hanging the porch swing, pressing the dandelions for their sweet nectar.

Then there are the discoveries, the revelations, intuitions and illuminations. All those things that make life sparkle and shine. The new information that we gather to us, some of which becomes a part of our life, circling into the ritual again, strengthening us, giving us more reason and enjoyment to be alive.

And so a young boy walks into the shoe emporium and charms Mr. Sanderson, the old shop keeper; shows him, really, of the joy of living. Antelopes. Gazelles. Douglas is specializing in a quiet exuberance for life.

With the passing of Tim Russert this past Friday, I’ve been thinking a lot about exuberance for life. What I know of him is largely from hearing him on the radio or occassionally seeing him on television. But from what I can tell, Mr. Russert was a man who loved life. He loved his profession, his family, his country; his concern was for people. There was a happy enthusiasm that spilled out of him and I admire that. I regret that we will miss his contribution to the public discourse on some of the most pressing subjects of our time, particularly in this election year.

Chalk it up to my own discoveries and revelations. I want to live a life as fully as I perceive Mr. Russert lived his. Not that his ambitions and values are necessarily my own, but I admire his feeling. I know instinctively I don’t have that kind of energy, it’s just not in my nature. I am more like Douglas, quiet but aware, exploring the idea of what kind of life I want to live. I want to fill my life with rites and ceremonies that are meaningful and fulfilling, not simply patterns I fall into haphazardly. I want to be illuminated by discoveries and revelations that enrich my existence.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury; published by William Morrow, 2001 hardcover edition, pages 17-34.

photo by roberto pagini

{I’ll be posting about Dandelion Wine each week. The sections are short and undemanding and they go through to the end of summer, just like the book. This is the first week, and while it’s already Thursday, you can catch up quickly. I’d absolutely love to have you join me with your own thoughts and ideas.}

{For a Summer Reading Schedule of Dandelion Wine, please click on Literary.}

* * * * *

Of all the books about summer, I think that Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine must be the best. I read it for my sophomore English class in high school and promptly fell in love. Bradbury is at his best chronicling Douglas Spalding’s summer while weaving through little vignettes about the towns people that inhabit Doug’s life on the periphery, in the same space that all adults inhabit in every child’s life they are a part of. I love every bit of it. With faithful brother Tom at his side, Doug is the boy on the brink of growing up, which is a wonderful and terrifying place to be for anyone.

In some tribal cultures those adolescents are ignored for a time. They don’t exist, according to the tribe and are left to fend for themselves until they can prove they have managed to become adults. If we followed the same tradition in our culture I wonder how many people would still be hanging out in that no-man’s land? Too many, I suspect. Adolescence is a liminal space, a space that is really a nothing space, like a doorway; one is not in or out; one is not a child, nor are they yet an adult. It’s a tricky spot to navigate. I sometimes look back at my own adolescence completely amazed I made it through in tact.

The sequel to Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, deals more with this idea. I must say I was rather disappointed by it, as Douglas seems to lose all qualities that made him Doug in the first place. Despite what Bradbury says, that this second novel was written at the same time as the first, I don’t believe him. It lacks the magic. And while the transition from being a kid to a teenager is rough and awkward and full of pimples, I wasn’t impressed with Bradbury’s re-visit of Green Town.

But all that aside, here, now, in Green Town, Illinois, we have Doug and Tom, the Green Machine, the Happiness Machine, Col. Freeleigh, Bill Forrester and of course, one must not forget The Lonely One. And Douglas, though he is heading towards the door, is still the child whose mind is starting to navigate the world we all must inhabit for the long-run.

I was completely captivated by this interview on Fresh Air,  about a new book by  L.A. Times journalist Steve  Lopez about his friendship with a homeless schizophrenic musician named Nathaniel Ayers.

The Book is: The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.

Ben, my husband, took this picture on a visit we took to the Musee d’Orsay. Museums often abound with students of art scattered throughout, pencils or pastels in hand, sketchbooks or large drawing boards on their laps. But this was the first time I’d ever seen anyone there with their easel and paints copying someone else’s work.

Each time I come across this photograph I’m curious: who is this man? He is obviously an artist, and a very decent one at that. He’s from an older, more formal generation. He wears a blazer (what a funny word) over what is certainly a button down shirt that looks pink in my original photograph. He is wearing it to paint, with oils, I assume.

Why has he chosen to make a copy of this particular painting? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but also the best way to learn about, or become like, what one is imitating. He is still interested in learning, in perfecting his own techniques, in creating something beautiful.

I wonder, when did he start painting? Is it his life’s work? Is is something he did on the side while supporting a family with a more conventional job? Is he content with his art? Or is he rushing to fill an unrealized dream before it’s too late?

But whatever his reasons, I like that when I look at this photograph he’s there, standing before the easel, paintbrush held delicately in his right hand, placing a dot of paint carefully on the canvas, every single time.

Week 10: In class, copy from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, choosing either the head of the Delphic Sible or one of the ceiling nudes / Assignment: Self-portrait done in the Renaissance technique of their choice.*

The NYU Alumni Magazine has an article in the current issue (you’ll have to wait to read it; it’s not online yet) of a fascinating class. It’s the kind of class I would die to take –well, not actually die, because then I wouldn’t be able to participate and my family would have to cover the expense of shipping my body home from Italy and, well it’s a really cool class. I mean, Italy!

But what in Italy? The Renaissance Apprentice, a class taught by Alan Pascuzzi. The students learn how to create art with the techniques and tools available to artists back in the days of Michelangelo, etc. — such techniques “as fresco, egg tempera, and silverpoint”. Students don’t have to be any sort of artist or art scholar to participate. But the article says that the class fills up quickly. Yeah. I’d imagine so.

The article gives a brief summary of the 14 week syllabus. Skim through that after reading Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy, and you’ll be pining for acceptance into NYU and a way to get into that class and over to Florence.

I love that anyone who can get in to the class, gets in. So many great classes at Universities are limited to the students majoring in that area, which is a crying shame. I wish I could participate.

*From “The Class: Following in Michelangelo’s Footsteps” by Renee Alfuso, NYU Alumni Magazine, Spring 2008 pgs. 16-17

There is a piece of music that we played in my junior high band. I don’t know what the name of it is, but if the triumphant opening measures ever come to my mind I find myself sitting in a hard plastic chair, with a battered black music stand in front of me, flute raised to my lips, arms raised to the sides of my body holding the flute. Our teacher taps on his stand with the baton, he raises his arms and his lips form around numbers he does not say, only mouths: and one, and two, and …Suddenly the entire room is filled with the rich sound of so many instruments playing their different part. I play, then rest, my flute on my lap, counting the beats in my head, nodding to my sheet music. I play again. The band has been working hard on this piece.

We are young; around fourteen. But in that moment we are something more, and it’s thrilling. Transcending the awkward beginnings of adolescence, we experience in this band room a synergy: a power greater than the sum of its parts. Somehow we achieve what we are constantly searching for in the locker-lined halls of our school. We experience the euphoria of belonging, in the most exquisite way.

It’s a belonging that goes beyond clothes, hairstyles and one’s love of NKOTB. The room is populated with more uncool than cool. The social rules, the invisible walls that keep us wary of one another and apart — the dirty jeans and unkempt T’s of the boys, the curled snarl of over-hairsprayed bangs of the girls; the designer jeans, the right way to curl your bangs — they fall away. For a few moments the uncomfortable banter we coolly play at during lunch break, accompanied by the cruel whispers and asides that haunt the hallways of every junior high, are non-existent.

We are carried away as we follow the notes, a measure at a time. We’re too young to understand all of this; to understand the beauty of everyone knowing their part and unabashedly playing it. We only recognize this thrill of creating music. And for the time being, that seems to be enough.