Referencing distraction, and in fact gratuitously repeating the word, makes little difference. Like a rainstorm falling at just the right angle to make itself look gratuitous, my own approach this evening bears almost no resemblance to what I may have meant to write when I sat down.
The act of teaching was the thing that kept me from this. I do not mean in-class teaching, that would be too easy and painfully exaggerated. No, I mean the other kind, that which comes only to the forefront when someone close to me needs something.
In this case, the persons in question are my wife and daughter. The former, having recently returned to her studies after around twenty years away from them, needs more than anything a lot of support and an ear to listen. She also needed someone to help reorganize the home office space and move various large, oak tables for a garage sale that ended in a lot of donated tables. The latter just needs to be asked lots of questions, reminded of how "forte e capaz" she is, and of course tickled with a dizzying frequency. Both, like me, are busy-bodies, always needing some sort of project to keep the mind active.
Instructing 18-in-class hours per week this summer has borne itself into a rather exhausting prospect, one which has left me drained and on many an evening and with very little creativity left over. Yet (and in the spirit of keeping you distracted while I get away with teaching something) I have still been able to write a few poems such as this one:
Old Sugar:
By the time
the sofa
Was in
place we realized
That the
walls needed a
Fresh coat
of white
Where the
brick had
Been lain,
crevasses
Between
them with grey
Mortar,
mold and bright
Reflections
we’d
Dreamt of
back in
2006 when
we thought
In a year
we’d buy easy
A dozen
drywall slats
To cover up
the brick,
Now that we
haven’t
Done even
that nor I
Had thought
a couch
Would end
up in the
Office
where I could
Possibly
nap or write
Hopeless to
stop. Now
While
everyone sleeps
The place
has realized
Its fragile
and balmy night.
25 / V /
2014, midnight
It actually is not such a bad set of verses (if I do say so myself), referring mostly to what I had meant to say in the paragraphs above. It also encompasses the essence of true teaching (again, not instruction or facilitation, that's for my university students). To whom we may assign the title of "professor" in this case is still up for grabs. In which direction your spirit may wish to wane this evening is as well.
