Graduation

Becoming Human Again

What is graduation?

I don’t mean this in a practical sense. I’m asking a question of the soul.

Here’s what I think it is: bluebirds on chocolate brown fenceposts, gray with eternity. The non-hierarchical leader of the pack. A breeze worth a million dreams. Chemistry in the moment.

It’s been ten years of teaching in forests and canyons. TEN YEARS. Graduation is now a few weeks away. I feel it like the call of a distant canyon, reverberating in the air and thrumming in my chest. Coming. Coming. Boom. Coming. Quiet. Boom. Can you hear it? I feel alive in small moments like these, a smallness that looms large.

Every year I’ve referred to our final gathering as graduation, but this is the big one. The forever one. We’ll be in a sweet little courtyard at a local art museum, tables, chairs, friends and family from near and far. Cottonwoods above, history under our feet.

Boom. Smoke. The drone of a thousand pheromones. Sunlight on water. The movement soft, the senses open. A dappled pattern of leaves in a modest wind. Look! There! It wasn’t…! Who are we now? Sound. Can I cross this current of language into a loss of memory?

The best part of graduation is, like many good things in life, something we stumbled upon. It’s the acknowledgement of each of the kids. I find it to be a ceremony in every sense of the word – a calling in of the language of moment into a special sort of focus that bleeds into the time both before and after. How do you speak of such things? I merely experience it.

The trick, in my estimation, is the hard-won certainty of not-knowing. No preparation. No speeches. No BS. An acknowledgement that reaches beyond what I could have said or thought in advance. Nothing memorized. Nothing rote about the moment at all, because it’s perfectly fresh.

Have you tested these waters? Have you ever arrived at a moment, absolutely unprepared, then asked yourself, with true sincerity, to take full stock of a person’s lovely qualities then and there? Your wife, or sister? A father. A neighbor. A friend. A child. I find it breathtaking and deeply meaningful.

There’s something to good plans, good speeches. Everything in its time and place. But even when set about with integrity, plans often have a taste of falseness. It is easy to pretend, to think and say something that we don’t fully mean. Because it sounded nice. Because it made somebody feel good. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that (I do it all the time), but there is something very alive and delicious in the expression unprepared, where the wind and the bluebirds have a chance to reverberate into the entirety of what is being communicated.

This, then, is my final gift. My preparation is watching creeks rise and noticing the cool smell of Spring. Too, it is sitting on carpets and feeling the musty grit wedged between the tiny filaments, an eternal and elemental grace that people often call plastic. We sometimes speak of these things as if they’ve done something wrong, or have inherent non-value. The way we look at litter as if it is…litter. It’s not. It’s just exactly what it is, paper, ancient hydrocarbons, shapes, colors. The dislike isn’t a part of a cup at all. It’s something that lives in humans.

Smack of the hands. Clap! A sudden and loud shift – CAN. YOU. RIGht. Now. noticE. The wonder. and glory…?

I’m trying.

The way one individual is exactly who they are, treasures and flops and all the old discarded unspoken. To authentically and in the moment witness the beauty of what a child is.n’t.

I’m being playful, because I’m in a pleasant mood. It’s a lifelong achievement for me, to stand before this moment with my kids and not know with a smile. For me, it helps at times to speak in obscurity. It’s not intended to mislead or confuse. Rather, for me, from the inside at least, it helps me forget the mundane certainty of my own language and history and instead recall the subtle and unknown glance of lasting truth. Or, if it’s not lasting truth, it’s a truth that stands apart from common sense and grammar. Something uncommon and true: you.

I can’t wiggle my way into this comprehension without some amount of beautiful nonsense. I have to throw images and synesthetic puzzles at my brain and organs faster than I can cognate them. It induces something like a trance, something slippery, like walking for several miles of thick, buttery mud. I can no longer rely on the normal inner ear of balance. The meaning of what I’m saying or hearing decouples, just slightly, from the old habit, like learning to balance on falling.

What is the old habit? Knowing what things are. Because they’re not. They never are. Nothing, not a single sensation or observation, or person, or historical moment has ever been what someone said or thought it was. It was always, and in every moment, more than that. Far more than that. This is not the same as denying the validity of expression. It’s recognizing that words and ideas are kernels of entireties, and with the water of kindness and quietude, they sometimes sprout into new organs of understanding.

Thus, unprepared speeches. Meeting the moment with grace and credulity at a rapid enough clip that there’s no time to lie. This is dangerous territory, very dangerous territory. If you don’t know the joy of the person standing before you, your student, your husband, your neighbor, if they are already wrong in your heart, you are likely to embarrass yourself by telling the truth. You won’t have time to correct the terrible words tumbling out of your mouth. You will be exposed for the vampire that you are.

Prepared speeches mitigate this. Unprepared ones expose you to the world for all the sensuality and judgement you contain.

I’m enjoying this. It makes a lot of sense to me, but I believe that a lot of people will roll their eyes or struggle to grasp what I’m trying to say. It’s difficult terrain. Moments like these pair well with presence, physical presence, because there’s something to read beyond the text. The tone, the delivery, the posture.

This is what I can give to the kids. They know how to read truth in my body like few others. They know the swift turn of humor and seriousness, the play acting and admiration upon which my meaning rides. What I’ve treasured so much over the years with these wonderful people is the chance to be real. It is a gift we have given to each other, and no one can take that away. No BS. No prepared statements to hide behind.

The curriculum for life is that we’re here, right now. We might say ‘no masks,’ but no matter what we say it will be wrong. The essence of the practice isn’t the nonsense or disclarity, it’s the authentic internal commitment to see with eyes that know the beauty of others.

Have you wrestled with this daemon?

If my eyes and ears are full of displeasure, then I will speak of certainty and displeasure. If my eyes and heart are full of wonder, then I will speak innocent rhymes that reach beyond truth and fill one’s ears with nonsense and wonder. A drunk magician in love. Truly, this is my life’s work. It is by far the greatest gift I have to pass on.

There are many scores and aptitudes, jobs well met or poorly done. There is hunger, pain, and fear. Do I have the eyes of critique in me, a certain knowing, or am I dumb enough to speak with authentic trust?

I will fight to my dying breath to see each and every one of you as precious creatures. I do this for myself as much as anyone else. I also make mistakes, get dirty, and have to pick myself back up. And apologize. Then take another step. Apologize again. And then maybe again. Because we are worthy of this respect. I’d like to see all of us doing this more, taking it seriously, because it is serious work. The world is overripe with criticism and taking sides. When I get overwhelmed by it all, I find a certain solace in obscurity. Foolishness. Lack of knowing. It helps me see the light in other creatures, people, myself.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying, but whatever it is – I find myself touched by it. There is something here that I don’t know, and that’s what makes it lovely to me and even vitally important. The not-knowing, a momentary glance at something I’m not quite sure I’ve seen. But whether I did or not, it evoked something in me, something lovely, rare, and real. May we all have this in ourselves. May you throw the clothes away from what I’ve shared and take the kernel into your own heart, and feel it beating. Elk in the forest. Scent in the air. Dew on the grass beneath a not quite full moon. Cold hands. Wet clothing.

This is what graduation is for me, a celebration of what a child and a person is in life. Because no matter what I touch or see or speak, whatever you are, dear creature – you are always more than that. I would like my speech, my loving gift to you, to be a taste, a mere taste, of the grandeur and size that you comprehend in this life. You are never what is spoken of you.

You are uncoupled from language, whether critique or praise. None of them are you. And the obscurity of that statement, and the way we slip around in mud in dirty shoes – it may make us look foolish. We’ve come unprepared. On purpose. You will have to wrestle with that for the rest of your life. But it’s a gift I wish to share with you, because it may be a language, a moment’s daft unknown, the very thing that saves your heart and soul from time to time. You are. You never were that.

I see you. And I commit to the sincere struggle to remain not knowing who you are, to see you with loving and open eyes. There’s wind in the branches, a soft temperature in the air. I hand you nothing. I hand you everything. Our time together has ended. Good journey. Now go.