January: In and Out, Back and Forward, Endings and Beginnings

January. Thanks to the collision of Percy Jackson (as in The Lightning Thief), Xena (as in "Warrior Princess") and social studies (as in the 6th grade curriculum on the Ancient World) with my daughter's imagination, January's relationship to the Roman god Janus is one of our current topics of conversation.

Janus: the Roman god of doorways and gates, beginnings and endings, and decisions. He was quite popular back in the day and his distinctive head (with two faces, one looking back, one looking forward) appears frequently on ancient coins and carvings. In our time, he also shows up in the name of a door manufacturer and a family of mutual funds.

Doors, decisions, financial questions, endings and beginnings are such January things. Doors open to welcome company, closed against biting winds. Year-end tax issues, charitable contributions, decisions on the benefits package from an employer, New Year's resolutions.

And another year older, both ourselves and the ones we love.

I did some looking back this fall. I asked my mother about a specific group of pictures taken by my father's parents on a trip to his home town in Georgia. She brought out what she had.

I didn't find the pictures I was looking for. I found something I needed: pictures of smiles. Smiles I was not around to witness, was to young to notice or had forgotten in the more recent years when they were thin on the ground.

I found a picture of my grandfather taken in the early days of his life with my grandmother. They must have been traveling, for a car features prominently in the background. A boyish joy radiates from the sepia image, even though he was 31 when they married. By the time I knew him, he was imposing and sometimes stern in the way of grandparents born in the first decade of the 20th century. It was hard to imagine him being young, being something other than the upright head of the family I remember from childhood, or the quiet gentleman courteously stepping aside for his rushing children and grandchildren as the world changed and his mind began to fail him. But there it was, in that picture.

I found pictures of my grandfather's beloved baby sister. She never married but lived quite a life. Pictures of friends - oh, I wish I knew how to be the friend she was. Photographs from trips to England and Italy, and to visit us. I had known how much fun she was to be with, but had been was too young to notice the beauty and confidence of a woman who had gone after what she wanted. I noticed it now because old age stole the confidence and left her with only depression and memories of depression. This sad person was the one at the top of my memory stack. It was good to be set straight.

And I found a picture of my grandmother, the woman who made by grandfather grin like a boy. She was a loving grandmother, but not the warm and fuzzy type. The box of toys she kept for us was very small and unimaginative (to my mind). She had high expectations and was hard to please. I remembered proper, grandmotherly smiles, not laughter. But my mother had snapped a picture that told a different story. There she is, at the head of the children's table one Christmas, beaming at us and laughing with us over something extremely funny.

It is a crying shame that the evils of the present can work back and eat at the love and joy that used to be. It's not that there was no pain or heartbreak, because there was. Even (maybe especially) humans that love each other can do horrible things to one another. But to remember only the bad isn't healthy.

My heart is lighter now. Looking back gave me these smiling faces to replace the weary, even blank shadows of later photographs. I have my family back in a way I never thought possible. And I have perspective that sends me forward in peace.

Healthy heart. Moving forward. Peace. January.

*****

Check out my blog at http://steppingbacklookingcloser.blogspot.com/ to leave a comment or find past columns.

(Cleveland Post, January 5, 2012)

 

Signs and Wonders

(Cleveland Post December 15, 2011)

The children - literate, middle class, mostly elementary age - gathered around the teacher. The teacher held up a poster with a symbol on it and said, "I bet you all can tell me what this is."

The symbol was a circle, line down the middle with two additional lines sprouting symmetrically from the center in the direction (roughly) of five and seven o'clock. It looks enough like a bird's foot to give credence to one of it's names I had been taught as a child.

With the satisfaction of people who know what they are talking about, the children shouted out in unison "The hippie sign!"

All the grown-ups laughed.

It was, of course, the peace sign.

Peace signs do not leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. Nonetheless, I was fascinated by their response. These children have grown up during a war, live in a time when the peace sign is a fashion statement, particularly on girl's clothes. How could they not know its proper name?

Maybe they did know it and forgot it. Maybe they didn't know. Whatever the reason, the symbol showed up enough to need a name. Maybe they used context clues to give it their own label: the hippie sign.

In reading, context clues are an example of what teachers call a reading strategy. When you encounter a word you don't recognize, look at the words around it to see what they can tell you. It can take you far, but isn't perfect. I remember trying to make 'menstruation' into 'administration' in fifth grade.

The reaction of these children made me wonder: what other symbols have they labeled using context clues?

Do the Stars and Stripes, red, white and blue make them think of "Liberty and justice for all" or the July 4th cookout display at the grocery store? Does Santa Claus make them think of sharing a joyous Christmas morning with their families or of how much loot they expect to rack up? Is the swastika a Nazi symbol or a German symbol and do they know the difference?

What comes to mind when they see religious symbols?

The children are not entirely wrong in labeling the peace sign "The hippie sign." Their answer is a reminder that nothing is obvious to eyes that haven't been taught to see.

It is up to us to teach them to see. For one thing, symbols often give meaning to the things surrounding them, rather than taking meaning from them. A cross on the steeple of a white clapboard church states the building has been set aside for Christian purposes, not that only white clapboard buildings with steeples are churches.

For another, the nature of symbols is such that there is nothing to keep their meaning from changing over time or at the hands of different groups. The hooked cross was used in positive ways by a broad range of cultures before the Nazis adopted it and we came to know it as a swastika. Do our children know there are multiple meanings? Do they know which meanings we ascribe to, which ones we reject?

Ultimately, it comes down to teaching our children about our symbols before someone else does it for us. Peace signs were defined for me by someone who held them and their bearers in contempt. Over time, I met people whom I respected who also aligned themselves with with the peace movement. My perspective enlarged and shifted to the point I was as disgusted seeing peace signs reduced to the "in" fashion accessory as I had been when crosses went through the same craze. Respect, not affection.

The holidays are full of "Look! See! Wow!" moments with children. They are also full of symbols. Take advantage of these teachable moments. Talk with your children, find out what they think they see. Laugh. Read stories together. Sing songs. Learn. Love.