Winter feels like it is on the way on this cold April 30th morning in Johannesburg. Even after wandering through this place for three years, I still can recalibrate my seasons and months to the Southern Hemisphere. It feels like October as I watch the eaves fall and I should be resting a bit after the rush to begin another academic year. Instead, I am sitting in shorts on the porch, knowing that at 6,000 feet above sea level, the cold air will soon warm and getting myself ready to finish off the first term at University.
This morning I took the dogs to the park so that Muffin could run and work out some of the prodigious energy, which seems to define that little cock-a-poo. I have taken to these walks of late so that Muffin can work out her energy and Candy can get a change of scenery. Even though she just trots along next to me, Candy too is winded at the end of the walk showing her advanced age.
While walking I have been listening to Cissy Spacek read "To Kill a Mockingbird". What a wonderful pairing of text and reader. Her mellifluous voice wraps around the memories of young Scout enriching the text with a nuance which captures the enthusiasm of a seven year old who is living in the house of a very wise man.
I don't remember when this book was assigned to me in school, but it surely was at some point. Looking back on it, I can feel sadness that it like practically every other book assigned in high school remained unread on my shelf. Victimizing myself with my mind for aural and visual detail allowing me to always get by when I needed to write about the books we were reading. Between the movies I watched and my ability to recall what was discussed in class, I was always able to write cogently and coherently about the unread texts. I used to think that it was enough to get the grade, remaining oblivious to the joy which most of the books would have brought to me. I was too content to sit and watch yet another re-run of Dick Van Dyke or Star Trek.
Its not that I never read anything, I did sometimes read the texts, but not that often. I couldn't get away with not reading the novels for French class, but that had to do with both Elaine Lecius's superb teaching and because I was both learning the language and the texts as we went. When did I come to know the difference between getting good grades and getting an education? Just as in To Kill a Mockingbird, the veracity of the memoirist is less important in the details than in the story, so the point in time is not important.
Wandering through these particular years of my life, far away from the rich life of friends, family and work that was inspiring and at times all-consuming, I find myself learning a great deal about myself. While not always welcome, the lessons learned are not a bad way to pass through your 50th year plus or minus a few years.
Growing up in my family and peer group, I was always ready to serve as audience, confessor, confident or sidekick. Much easier to be the one needed than the one expressing needs which may, or may not, have been met. These patterns of behavior, learned young, are proving to be quite challenging as I reside here. I spend so much time alone at work and alone at other times. More than I can ever remember having in my life and more than I thought I would ever have desired. And yet there are times when I search out for even more time alone. A surprising and also satisfying turn in my life.
This morning I listened as Harper Lee began to introduce the storyline which tips the balance in young Scout's life and provides the reader with the opportunity to see how all of the other details selected by Lee form the patchwork of her lesson.
Atticus ruminates with his brother about the futility of defending the black man whom he is defending. Knowing that the outcome of the trial has already been foretold in the closed mindedness of the town. And he is preparing Scout for the lessons that this ordeal of faith will teach him, her, her brother, the townspeople ready to learn it, and all of us reading the book. He speaks in the "still small voice" similar to that which Elijah heard in the cave as God spoke to him.
That voice is a little easier to hear in the silences that populate my life these days. Not always welcome, but often something important to learn.
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