This happy breed of men, this little world!

No, patient reader, I do not speak of England; I speak of her Bard. I have realized today how much I miss Shakespeare being the axis mundi of my day. Today, the trailer for Richard II is released on Facebook, and more out of habit than genuine curiosity, I clicked it open. I cannot express the flood that overwhelms me! I have missed the absolute perfection of phrase, the underlying lyricism that flows through and balances those words, the well-loved, well-remembered cadences that do not require closed captions, the list goes on.

There was a time when I used to do  A Midsummer Night's Dream with students, in days of yore, when I taught Literature survey courses. I no longer do that, but when I did, I feared that my enthusiasm and excitement at the primary text would be misconstrued as an affectation or, worse, snobbery. So I'd like to take this space to establish that there is nothing snobbish about Shakespeare; there never was. He is the easiest to meet and own; the very humanism and poetry ensure this. If we learn to babble poems, lyrics, and rhymes before we can consciously string words in deliberate, coherent syntax, then nothing is easier than meeting Shakespeare. The best part of doing the Bard was how smoothly the students connected with him. What a joy that was!

Of course, my Literature courses now are more than wonderful, and they feed another starving part of me. I would never give them up at any cost (were I allowed to tally costs). And then again, doing Shakespeare can be a personal thing, an acquaintance that can be renewed as I sit here, away from students and classrooms. In fact, I would even argue for the value in meeting Shakespeare when one is not distracted by the concerns of the happy breed of men, this little world.

Before my child got too busy with her school work, I remember doing a lot of Shakespeare with her. We used to own quite a collection of plays, especially our favorite productions; we used to spend weekends, days, evenings, indulging in dream realities of Twelfth Night, arguing over which Shylock we preferred, delighting in Beatrice and Benedick's rapier exchanges, succumbing to helpless hilarity at the Rude Mechanicals' Pyramus & Thisbe, cursing out Petrucchio, and sighing at Juliet's hormone-driven decisions. Now that my child is at college, hours away, I haven't indulged in one of those sessions; it seems silly, like cooking for just oneself. What's more, our collection has burned with the house, so it also feels like an unnecessary plucking of a healing scab, which might do more harm in the long run.

However, today, I am also thinking of my father, with whom I associate my first memory of Shakespeare. I think of all the losses that my particular flesh has been heir to, and I realize that I owe the Bard much more than an association with people I miss. If it hadn't been for The Tempest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, I would never have dared to walk upon these golden sands when I first moved here. If it hadn't been for Richard III, King Lear and Hamlet, I could not have survived any of my losses. If it hadn't been for Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, I would never have learned of the comfort that comes with losing and regaining oneself. My understanding of a large part of European history I owe to the History plays.

This morning, my good friend and I attended a training session for literacy tutors, a volunteering opportunity we are considering. It shocks me that in spite of being in school, such a large percentage of children find reading a serious challenge. I am all the more grateful to the star (that twinkled, and under that was I born) for affording me this privilege and awareness of the magic that words can weave, so that the brief candle of my life is no walking shadow.

I am grateful for the Bard, whose words help me rise from a poor player that struts and frets her hour and let me stride this  narrow world like a Colossus. This post is a shout out to Shakespeare (please forgive the alliteration). So long lives this, and this gives life to thee!
 

To Explore Brave New Worlds: A Boston Weekend

Vacationing is most effective when it doesn't just offer an escape from the debilitating regularity of a routine, but goes beyond to open a window to a completely new reality. I do not mean an alternate reality, like a visit to the land of What If; I mean a world that has gone on inexorably, crossing unimaginable horizons and thresholds, one that redefines our very reality. My trip to Boston did that for me: it showed me a brave new world, so that even the railroad tracks in the middle of the street looked incredibly cool instead of impractical.

I spent a couple of days getting to know all about Paul Revere and Beacon Hill. But then, across one of the bridges, lay the cobblestones to another time, more Star Trek than Revolution. I walked past places that were as exotic and improbable as any that the Starship Enterprise could boast knowing; I walked past 100 Technology Square, with MIT buildings owning all horizons all around; Microsoft proclaimed its newest generations on a live billboard in Kendall Square; next to a crepe place, a large window advertised the map of the human genome; across the street were the MIT center for cancer research and center for brain research. Really, I felt like I was perched on the edge of human civilisation. My worries about the cats' feeding times, my child's dorm bill, and the price of gas seemed embarrassingly trivial, even outdated.

There are some cities that just call to me to own them, invite me to explore their labyrinthine alleys, discover new worlds in their roofs and skylines, and through it all, a river runs, lending a touch of the archetypal, cities that, for lack of a better descriptor, simply sing to me. I can barely resist this song, and the fusion that Boston is, with its stately architectures that dream of London and Florence, with the red vein of Freedom Trail that runs through it, with the little ducks all in a row, it hums with a heady aria. People who know me often mistake me for a history buff, but I can barely aspire to be one. My personal touchstones for European history are based on the most unreliable of all historical sources, Shakespeare, Malory, Gildas! So it would be safer to say that I am passionate about and attracted to the drama of human experience that history promises, rather than to a commitment to keeping a chronological string of events untangled in my head. So it was with Boston, which spoke hauntingly of Paule Revere's lanterns, and in the same breath, claimed Leonard Nimoy as its own.

In Cambridge, we passed by this really beautiful local college. There was snow on the ground and the sky looked like a desert with tree skeletons scratching at its cold, grey expanse. But students skipped and strode purposefully and all but danced the extremely serious nature of their excitement at returning to their Alma Mater after a winter fortnight away. This local institution proclaimed its universal appeal with an insignia that summed up its mission in a word, Veritas. Here, as I witnessed the active pursuit of ancient truths, I inhaled and knew the thin, cold air that stratifies the very pinnacle of the highest achievements of our species, from the mundane concerns of lay visitors, awarded a glimpse of the busyness of the business of being human.

I return humbled and enriched to my blue-gold skies and lands of eternal summer, back to my trivial routine. My hope is that this entry shall remind me of this sweet air that I had once breathed, sauntering around in one of the Coops, buying a fridge magnet in exchange of a promise to these cobblestones of many future tramplings.