More Musings on Learning
In two vignettes
Aloha, welcome back to my memoir, my memoir in essays, my essays based on memoir, my ramblings I share in hope of finding something new for you - and of course for myself because thatʻs what the best writing does. Reveals what the writer did not know until she wrote it. I figure I must be in a period where I need to do a lot of learning, because the topic I keep coming back to is teachers and learners.
Vignette #1. A Tale of Two Avocados
My avocado tree turns out to have two fruits after all.
Let me say that differently.
When I moved onto this property almost four years ago, I inherited trees. Windbreaks of ironwood and an enormous banyan threatening to eat the neighborʻs home and my equipment barn and a 60ʻ tall white bird of paradise and a money tree planted too close to the lanai. All of those had to come down. The trees in the macadamia nut orchard turned out to be mainly in poor condition, but I have taken my time learning, observing (remember about patient neutral observation, taking time to kilo?), asking the land what it wants, worrying about the Countyʻs changing rules for agricultural dedication for property tax purposes, planning to submit for funding under a cool silvaculture program, only to learn those USDA funds had been pulled. The plan for the macadamia nut trees is still evolving.
Back to the avocado trees. There are three of them.
The avocado tree along my driveway is loaded with fruit. One of the two avocado trees along the east boundary of my property is loaded with fruit. The other, just a dozen feet away from this boundary tree, blossomed but did not seem to pollinate. Every day I would glance at it quickly as part of my morning circumambulation, but in my excitement over the obvious dozens of tiny orbs like round green Christmas ornaments hung all over the other two trees, I gave it the merest glance and moved on.
Last week the magic day arrived. I got up on a ladder to pick the first ripening, full size avocados of the season. Returning the ladder to the barn, I happened to look up as I walked under the second tree - and was stopped in my tracks by an avocado as large as the ones I had just harvested, hanging from the supposedly barren tree! I climbed up closer, and found a second one ripening. Only two. But those two avocado matter.
I apologized, out loud, to the tree for not paying close attention. It has continued to bother me more than my blindness to the gifts of an avocado tree should. And then I remembered the subtitle of last weekʻs essay: anyone and everything can be your teacher. As soon as I opened to the possibility I had something to learn, the analogy, the questions I needed to ask myself became clear.
Where else do I pay attention to the showy extrovert displaying their fruits in embarrassing abundance, oblivious to the equally delicious offering that grew quietly without drawing attention to itself? Am I also missing the gifts of my introverted friends? Do I see them, do they know I see them? Have I been forgetting to honor the gifts of my friends who are dear and deep in my heart and affections, but less frequent correspondents than others? Do they know I value our relationship, that the mere thought of them can nurture me still? Are those relationships in need of some attention, a few words, some fertilizer applied to the roots?
I could simply ask.
Vignette #2. A Tale of Two Eyes and a Brain
The events of September 11, 20011 were and are a source of learning and growth for me. Certainly my reflections and meaning-making from that day. Even more so over the months of what some of us call “Nine-Twelve” - the experience of serving the recovery effort by keeping St Paulʻs Chapel open as a place of physical care and spiritual healing for the following nine months.
What I want to share here today is a vignette from the very first night I spent supervising volunteers at St Paulʻs, the Little Chapel That Stood.2 I was only a consultant to Trinity Church - Wall Street, not an employee. But most senior executives and even some priests were reluctant to return to the traumatic scene. So it was decided I close enough and reliable enough to sub in.
My friend, father figure, mentor (technically my client in my consulting role), the Rev. Fred Burnham had been one of the first to join the effort, and would show me the ropes over a 12-hour, 6 pm to 6 am shift. This was only the second week after the attack. The National Guard had cordoned off lower Manhattan. Fred had a badge - and the authority of his priestʻs collar - to get us through. We took a subway as far as we could, then walked crosstown.
The Chapel was filled with figures in dusty uniforms and overalls, moving quietly and speaking in hushed tones. I grabbed an apron from the Chapel kitchen. In those early days, the closed restaurants of lower Manhattan were cooking up the contents of their walk in refrigerators and bringing trays of food to us to serve to the workers. Blankets and teddy bears had been donated, and after dinner we arranged them on the pews so workers could nap. Drops for stinging eyes were in high demand, along with first aid supplies to tend to minor cuts and burns.
Around 1 am, Fred handed me a hard hat. His eyes sparkled even though his words were solemn. “I am taking you out to the Pile,” he said. “The authorities are starting to organize things and pretty soon we will not have access. Thatʻs appropriate for safety. But right now it is also a Holy Place, and I want you to experience its holiness.”
We walked out the courtyard gate and towards the glowing pile of debris. This was a neighborhood I knew intimately, having worked on Wall Street starting in 1983. My nerves calmed immediately. The scene was oddly familiar in another way. Despite the PTSD-inducing peculiar smell of fire still burning deep within the debris, the strong lights shining down from tall poles and the groans and whining of huge equipment moving metal reminded me of the many mining sites I had visited as a student and later as a banker financing projects. I felt at home.
Fred guided me around a corner. I saw a familiar building and the next instant I didnʻt. Literally.
For a split second my brain filled in what it expected my eyes to see before registering what the optic nerve was actually transmitting. Not a memory - I literally “saw” something that was not there, quicker than thought or visual stimuli could modify that image.
It happened twice.
As a metaphor that lesson stays with me, comes up for me over and over again. I know it is not just personal. It happens to me, because it happens to humans. We miss what is "right in front of our faces” because our assumptions, expectations, our relational laziness or neglect, and sometimes our willful or fearful refusal to pay attention, have us seeing what used to be there, rather than what is there in the moment.
I realize how efficient it is to stop having to think about each move, to be able to drive from my home to the horseʻs pasture without having to consciously give myself instructions step by step - place hands on the wheel at 10 and 2, take the right hand off to put the car in gear, check the mirrors for safety, gently depress the gas pedal, steer as the driveway curves. I do all that without thinking and then I just cruise, enjoying the epic view, singing along with the tune on the radio, not needing to be explicitly observant to respond to every turn along the long and windy3 Kohala Mountain Road.
It would be exhausting to have to be totally conscious of everything in every moment. Paying needless attention to the mundane would keep me from so many moments of exhilaration, from swelling love and quiet joy.
But today I wonder how much I miss when I forget to challenge myself as an observer and automatic interpreter of the familiar. Where in my life am I right this moment on auto-pilot and missing what is actually in front of me?
Besides the two avocados, I mean.
I reflected on my experience on that day here.
I also wrote about it in this essay.
Love this! Such a good reminder ❤️