The Wizard of Oz

The door

/ Fran Haley / 27 Comments

Door

 

Once upon a very long time ago, I walked with my grandmother down the dusty dirt road of her coastal North Carolina home place. The road was little more than a path lined by deep ditches and cattailed canals. Frogs plop-plopped from masses of lily pads into the murky water as we passed by. Beyond the ditch banks rose the woods, so thick and dark on both sides that crickets sang all day, thinking it was forever night. The sun beat down on everything, yet a breeze seemed always to be sighing, shhh ssshhhhh ssssssshhhhhh, in the dark, leafy depths of the forest. Early in my childhood, I understood that the forest is a living thing.

The old houses, however, spoke of dying. In various stages of falling down, the homes of Grandma’s neighbors spoke of times past, of living and loving over and done. The long-abandoned, dilapidated houses should have haunted me and perhaps they did, in a way. I wasn’t scared. I wanted to know about the people, what they were like, what their stories were.

Grandma knew them all. The people, the stories. That day we when stopped at the fork of the dirt road, I pointed to the lone sepia-toned house nestled in the crook and asked, “Who lived here?”

“The Rosses,” she said, launching into their history, which I didn’t hear because all I could think was I want to see inside.

“Grandma, can we go in?” I blurted.

To my surprise, she hesitated. I was pretty sure she’d just say no.

“They’ve all been gone for so long,” she said, almost to herself, staring ahead. I knew she wasn’t seeing the sad little frame leaning slightly to one side or the brown weatherboard siding. She was seeing it as it once was. The people that once were.

“We’ll go to the door and peep in, but that’s all,” she finally decided. “It’s not safe to go inside.”

So up the rickety steps we went, and, with the scrape of soft wood against soft wood, Grandma pushed open the door.

An overpowering musty, mildewy smell.

I coughed, blinked.

Stairs. Windows. A bit of old curtain, still hanging. Floorboards, some curving up at the ends, and . . .

“Letters! Look, Grandma!”

Before she could stop me, I was in the foyer, bending over a stack of dingy envelopes at the base of the staircase.

Someone had addressed the envelopes with elegant penmanship, in ink faded to the same sepia shade as the house itself. The envelopes looked to have been ivory or cream once. Now tinged and mottled brown, some still contained letters while other envelopes were empty, their creased handwritten contents scattered throughout the layers underneath.

I grabbed one and began to read: “My Dearest— oh, Grandma! Love letters!”

Grandma’s hand on my own stopped me.

“These aren’t meant for us to read,” she said. “These folks may be long gone, but this is their business, their story. Not ours.”

I put the letters down and followed her out of that silent, colorless setting back into the bright, hot sun.

That’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Across the years, I’ve remembered those letters, wondered who exactly wrote them to whom, and why they were left like that in the abandoned house. Why Grandma chose to let them be, when the people are dead and past caring. Stories that are now lost to living memory, that will never be known.

Oh, to go back in . . . !

But even as I wish that, a movie scene comes to mind. Another old, sepia house with another girl. If you watch The Wizard of Oz closely, you can see exactly when the Technicolor kicks in on Dorothy’s back just she goes to open the door to a world nearly too fantastic to believe.

So, for me, the image of an aged farmhouse door forever invokes story. It’s first an invitation to examine one’s own framework, the living, loving, and breathings written on one’s own heart. The going in. And then the going out to collide with vibrant colors of everything beyond oneself, to absorb, to get a sense of infinite contours so far above and beyond what we can fully see and grasp. Endless discoveries, always, whether going in or out.

I might as well say the old wooden door is why I write.

*******

Today the door opens on the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, a post a day in the month of March. 

New

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

New

The new year sparks contemplation of the word new.  

So the year is new, but what else? Monday still follows Sunday, January still follows December. The days roll into each other without any notable variance. Today looks almost exactly like yesterday; it’s still winter, still below freezing, and my dogs still do not want to stay outside more than the necessary few minutes. The holidays are ending and work is resuming, as they always do. None of this is new.

As I sought to apply new to something today—since the usual and very regular passing of time really should not count—I got the mental image of the word new on a dictionary page. This led me to do something paradoxical: I moved a chair over to one of my bookcases, pulled down a heavy volume, blew off the dust (alas!), and snapped the above photo of the definition in The New Century Dictionary. 

I say paradoxical because that dictionary, despite its title, is hardly new. It was published in 1952. The original copyright is 1927.

The dictionary and the definition are old indeed. I know there are better, far more concise definitions of new in online dictionaries now.

Why, then, turn to something so old to examine the meaning of new?

Well, first of all, I needed an image for this post and that’s the one that came to mind.

And I love old books, old things in general. Any vintage artifact holds great appeal to me, mostly because of the invisible layers of story wrapped around it. I never tire of stories of long ago. I am endlessly fascinated by how people survived and how resourceful they were, often with so little.

In fact, resourceful was nearly my chosen word for 2018, because of this definition on Dictionary.com:

able to deal skillfully and promptly with new situations, difficulties, etc.

And this one, at LearnersDictionary.com:

able to deal well with new or difficult situations and to find solutions to problems.

Resourceful seemed well-suited to my role as educator, instructional coach, and for life as a whole, really.

Then I realized that the thing that stood out to me in both of these definitions of the worthy word resourceful, aside from its emphasis on excellent problem-solving, is that one word, new. Coping with new and difficult situations.

Suddenly resourceful, for all its allure, was overshadowed. Do you remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy explained the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West? “Please sir, we’ve done what you told us. We brought you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. We melted her!” To which the Wizard replies (one of my favorite lines): “Oh, you liquidated her, eh? Very resourceful!” But remember Dorothy’s intent: When she threw that bucket of water on the Witch she was saving the Scarecrow, who was on fire. She didn’t mean to melt the Witch, or even think Hmmm, what would happen if I doused the Witch with water?

Resourceful, yes—in saving the Scarecrow. Dorothy’s use of the water was intentional. It implies thinking and quick action to solve a problem. Resourceful in her mission of getting rid of the Witch? No. That was a stroke of amazing luck.

I really wanted to write this post about being resourceful for my fellow educators who often work with so little, in adverse situations, to encourage all of us to be more mindful, intentional, and creative with what we have to reach intended outcomes, when it occurred to me that something else is needed before any of this can happen.

Something different from anything preceding, something only lately or now seen,  encountered, experienced, or used for the first time . . .

Something new, in the face of the same old same old.

If you look back at the photo for this post, you’ll see the morning light spilling across the old dictionary page, illuminating the word new.

And that’s exactly what is needed. Not new things or resources themselves, but light. Seeing things, situations, people in a new light.

My wish for students is that they see their learning in a new light, with excitement, with inspiration. For that to occur, their teachers, my colleagues and I, must see our work with new excitement and inspiration, pushing past layers of compliance, of going through the motions, of saying We can’t, because . . . .

Think of variations of new: renew, anew. Newness is generated. It is created. It starts with really seeing, then taking a step, even just one, out of the comfort zone, to see what will happen, what might actually change. For the better.

Whoever you are, whatever you do, new starts within you and moves outward. One ray of light, one spark at a time . . . keep it up, and there’s no telling how far the light will travel, and how much more will become new. We can’t change people (ever tried?). We can’t always change situations. Some old things will remain, and sometimes that’s good, for every new thing that comes along isn’t. But we can have new perspective, new vision, new vigor, new approaches. All of these are within our own power. A true and valuable new is both possible and attainable, if we aspire to it. If we dare.

That is my prayer for this new year, that we make it truly new.