Day 188

The Meadow experience.

Firstly:  The woman who was the child in the story yesterday, never held her friend to blame.  She hated the other girls, she never hated her friend, who was not a part of it in her head.  And she has wondered and worried all day if she had hurt this friend by her words, and hopes that she hasn't.  The experience was revisited by her as an example, because of a hurtful experience she has just had, a similar rejection experience, because people don't really become nicer with age, cruelty has no age limits. 

Such a strange thing has happened.  My very first International Baccalaureate (IB) student graduated two years ago, and I still teach his brother.  They are great kids, artistic and stable, one an introvert, the other the extrovert, and they really like each other, which is unusual for boys.  They can't remember ever fighting.   They have always believed that they are Canadians, but their parents were arrested as Russian spies a few days ago!  I have had quite a lot of interaction with the mother, and I was quite fond of her.  She always made it a point to come in when she fetched the kids, to have a little friendly chat, as we had a connection while she was on my jury when we chose work for the very first art exposition, and she even took me out to lunch with her son once he had completed his IB exam.  I am sad for the younger son in particular, as he still has two years of high school left.

Such a strange thing to do, to lead a double life.  In Grahamstown in 1986, there was a double agent named Olivia who had us all fooled.  She was one of the most left of the "lefties", had sexual affairs with both black and white activists, and was good friends with several prominent anti-government people.  How do they do it?  How do you look out at the world with your two-faced eyes, look your 'friend' in the eye, and not confess everything?  If the eyes are mirrors to the soul, how did she draw curtains over them?

And these spies in Cambridge, how did they lie so utterly to their own children?  To live my life with integrity is of the utmost importance, to teach my children by example.  How do you do this when you are living a lie?

Today at the library (the best library in the world), I took back a whole bag of books I had had for a while, as I have not been able to get there for the past two weeks.  I had received a list of outstanding books from the librarian last week and handed them all in today, all but one.  The chief librarian is on vacation, so the retired librarian was on duty.

So I approach the counter to check out my new books, and she discovers that there's a note suspending my library privileges until ALL the books are back.  She is more crestfallen than I am!  She reckons that the chief librarian must have received nasty letters or phone calls from the other libraries from where my books came, and this is why she had made this note in my file.  I tell her not to worry, it's fine, but she says, "I can always put them on your son's card," with a big smile, which is what she does.

I love that kind of bending of the rules!  After all, she has known me for 5 years now, knows I am a good person, knows my sons, we have a shared love of reading, and only one book is missing, probably at school, so it WILL come back.  It made me feel good, made me feel worthwhile, it was an honour she bestowed on me.

So again it is late and I am using one of my drawings from last week, made on the very first day of the course, my first male model. 

In Campagny (continued)
And then the huge animal turned away, a large rounded back, a small tail unworthy of such a grandiose creature, down a seemingly invisible path, gracefully, with deliberate movements, and swayed off out of sight. 
Luca breathed more easily as Beeze returned to her perch on his head.
"You have no forest elephants?" she asked him, "in your time?"
"No," and he shuddered, "Why are they so big?"
"Well, that is like asking, Why do parrots lay eggs?" she replied.  "They just do.  And elephants just are. Big.  Are there no animals left in your time?"
"Oh yes, there are big cats, like tigers and leopards, who are taught to attack, all the Raidars have them.  And there are little cats, which some people like to keep, and there are dogs..." and he shuddered again.
"Are there no wild animals left?"
"Wild means to live free, no?  Then no, there are no wild animals, except for insects."
"And birds?"
"Yes, there are 7 different types where I live, and there are parrots who live in cages, kept with people.  And there are even some who don't."
It was Beeze's turn to shudder at the thought of parrots in cages.
"Is it a bad place, where you live?"
"Yes."
And after a couple of thoughts floated up out of their heads, took a good look at one another before disappearing above the trees, they went on through the darkening forest, onward towards First Town.