The Conversation

                                           You can observe a lot by just watchin'.
                                                      - Yogi Berra
    

Yesterday my friend Paula and I were rueing the loss of this and that - - and then we began to rue the type of personality (I am one of these) who perpetually mourns the loss of (whatever it may be) - - telephones affixed to walls; real letters having been written in real time; progress, as in my case, of the sad type as that which what has happened to the farm land of Silverdale; Kindles  and Nooks in place of books; people getting together to sing whether they can sing well or not - - you get the drift.  That kind of loss.
 
     And then Paula said, "Yes, I was in the restroom the other day with a woman who was complaining about how much  the country of Italy has changed and how it will keep on changing and how our grandchildren will never know the wonder of 'the real Italy', when actually, none of us will ever know that particular wonder - - and I turned to her and I said, 'You know, many things narrow down and others go on to become extinct, and all we can really do is teach our grandchildren how to notice or appreciate."

And I thought: wow. 

How true is that?

I suppose it doesn't really matter whether one reads Anna Karenina in book form or Nook form as long as all the words are there.  It certainly doesn't matter what type of telephone there is.  We can, all of us can, still write letters.  No matter what anyone says, time really does remain the same.  It's just our point of view about it, it's just the choices we make inside it, that edge us into thinking there no such thing as time enough anymore.  I still sing, no matter where I am and there's nothing much I can do about what other people do except to cheer them on when they open their mouths and make melodious sounds, and the farm lands of Silverdale? Well, that's another story that has, at least in my case, become a story in at least one or more of my own published stories.

There is a Greaves (I am a Greaves) road, small though it may be; there is still a Clear Creek; there is even a small (quite) group of people dedicated to helping newcomers pronounce the Silverdale area's names correctly. Myhre Road is pronounced MIRE road.  For instance.  Yes, we are that particular.

But enough of that, that's not what Paula was talking about, nor is it what I want to write about.  I want to write about the "real deal" of teaching children how to notice, how to appreciate, how to have zest and endurance and enthusiasms.

I would guess that the future will be very, very different than the past.  Technology says so and technology has a very big mouth. It eats things up.  And it has very big hands.  It makes things up.  And what we deem wonderful now may not even be around in forty or fifty years. Or less.  Or more.  But grieving that is like grieving the Motel T.  Or the blimp.  Or real telephone operators or elevator men or making real mincemeat pies or  being served meals on most airplane flights.

Gone, gone, gone. Dear Allan Ginsberg once wrote a poem out of only that one word. Gone.

But there is still plenty to notice, still plenty to appreciate, still plenty to write about and sing about and be enthused about.

When, as a little girl, I became bored (which wasn't often) I would go to my father, say "Daddy, I'm bored," and he would say, "Then go out into the driveway, pick up twenty white rocks and bring them back to me at once."

He would always say that. I knew he would. I knew what came next, too.  Here's what:

Having picked up twenty white rocks I would run back to him and show him the twenty white rocks, usually bundled up in a scarf or carried in a paper bag.  "Now," he would say, acknowledging the rocks," take these rocks and put each rock exactly where you found it."
 
Of course, I couldn't. But I tried.

If he never did anything else for me, that was plenty.  Talk about teaching a kid how to notice. Talk about teaching a kid how to do something with practically nothing. Because lots of times that's what you start with - -  practically nothing. And lots of times that's what you end with. You just need to claim the event, the activity, the moment - - as your's.  It doesn't matter how other people see it, it's how you  see it.

Marcel Proust wrote, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." 

Well, this is nothing new, but it's been gnawing at my brain.  It isn't flying children to foreign countries that educates them, at least not necessarily.   It is examining the goings-on of a leaf, held in your palm, season after season. You must hold it, bring it to your nose, put it to your tongue, read about it in a book, look it up on the computer if you must (I know, I know, I'm a fogey) - - you must claim it, to know it. You must have, as Henry James said, "The zest to see what there is to be seen."

It needn't cost a penny.

All it takes is you.  And your's.