Afterword: Post 1: Diagnosis

So the story is finished and yet it is not complete. You’ll want to know how I came to write this blog, for one thing. I’ve been referring to the closing of the school, and you’ll want to know how and why that happened, too, and maybe you’ll have noticed that I’m a member of the Six but have not explained how or why.

In short, I’ve brought my story up to a happy ending in February of 2010, but not up to the spring of 2012, when I made my first disjointed attempts at blog-writing (and started giving you equally disjointed hints as to the state of our community now), and some pretty heavy things must have gone on during the gap. You want to know what.

Fair enough.

I’m curious as to how much you’ve guessed? I haven’t meant to drop hints, but as I suspect you’ve noticed I am not the most disciplined or organized of writers, and I’ve let a few things slip. For example, I have not been able to bring myself to lie and refer to Charlie in the present tense.

Yes, one of the things that happened during those missing two-and-a-quarter years was the illness and death of my teacher—I still don’t like writing those words, especially not since some of you may not have realized and so for you, and for me when I wrote to you, he was alive until fifteen seconds ago. I suppose I could have waited, at let it be a surprise for you at its proper place in the narrative, but honestly you would not have been waiting very long because his diagnosis was almost the first piece of school-related news I received after earning my Ring, and his diagnosis was terminal from the start. The only doubt was how long that termination would take and how it would go.

Of course, here is where Charlie would grump (and here is where the part of Charlie that he gave to me does grump) that life is a sexually transmitted terminal condition, and that the only real uncertainty is always how long we have and what we will do in the time we get.

The other events I have to relate are related to that one, but not directly triggered by it, and I’ll get to them in their turn.

In a way, of course, Charlie’s death was a predictable part of the story, whether I slipped up and dropped hints or not, simply because of how I’ve chosen to structure the tail. Charlie always referred to the art of storytelling—and story composition—as “sectioning reality.” He was referring to conic sections, a group of two-dimensional figures that can be derived by slicing a cone: a slice perpendicular to the cone’s long axis yields a circle; a slice slightly off the perpendicular yields an ellipse, or, if it intersects the flat bottom of the cone, a hyperbola; a slice parallel to the long axis yields a parabola; and a slice along the long axis yields a triangle. Such different shapes, and they are all true two-dimensional approximations of the same three-dimensional shape. Similarly, since a story must also be a radical simplification of reality, multiple seemingly incompatible stories can all be derived from the same real events and yet all be true (doesn’t mean all stories are true, though; you can’t derive a square from a cone without lying). And I’ve chosen to section these particular events largely as a story about a teacher, and these are almost always elegiac in the end.

I mean stories about teachers from the viewpoint of the student. The natural and expected-if-not-universal of these is that the teacher dies, the same way that the natural and expected end of a romance is happily-ever-after. Why is this? I thought, for a while, that it was because only when a teacher dies do former students get moony enough to want to write an idealized account of the person. After getting to know Charlie, I guessed that maybe teachers usually object to being put on pedestals and so forth, and that students therefore can’t get away of much in the way of tributes until the teacher is safely out of the way. But neither explanation applies to people like Yoda, who are figments of their author’s imagination from the start.

I think now, rather, that the answer depends on a curious fact; at what point can you tell that the teacher has succeeded? At the point when the student no longer needs him or her. And how better can you prove, as a storyteller, that the point has been reached but to say that the teacher is no longer available, has died?

Except, I still feel like I need Charlie, and here I am without him—except for the grumpy, intelligent, and sarcastic voice in my head. That I appear able to keep.

As I mentioned before, I’m not going to tell these final stories journal style, as though reporting on the events o the week as they happened. Most of them played out far too slowly, with weeks going by between major plot points, and some of them played out far too fast, or overlapped in time with others. Then, too, I was not living on campus during those months and years, so there were long stretches of time when I had no clear idea what was happening at school at all.

So I’m going to try a more novelistic structure, where each section covers the time period that it must, short or long, on order to deliver a narrative or thematic unit (oh, god, I’m talking like an English textbook….). I don’t know how many posts this is going to take, but I’m hoping for eight and a nice congruence with the structure of the rest of the blog.

Here goes.

So, June and I moved out about a week after I earned my ring. We moved into a three-bedroom apartment carved out of the back of an old farmhouse. The owner lives in the front half and there’s a nice yard, which we agreed to henceforth take care of in exchange for a very good deal on the rent. It’s within biking distance—albeit a very long biking distance—of campus, some basic shopping, and the landscaping company Charlie used to own and where I still work (had I said before that he used to own it? He did—the friend of his who has owned it the whole time I’ve been around was his business partner). June can carpool to work.

We had to buy bikes, of course, since we can’t use the campus bikes all the time anymore, and we decided to buy a car, too. Cars are hard to avoid. We learned to eat from the store. We had utility payments. What all did to our carbon footprints I hated to think. I let my boss, the landscaper, know that I’d be available for a full fifty hours a week in the season, rather than my traditional twenty, and I pursued work as a writing coach for high school and college students, and so I prepared to earn my way in the world.

I made no attempt to find work as a paid ally at school because while I had demonstrated that I could be a useful employee there, so had lots of other people, and we couldn’t all be employees. I planned to wait for an actual opening, and I made my peace with the fact that one might never come. I believed myself to be competent, but not superlative, so I figured I’d just always be beaten out by the competition.

Months went by in which I rarely visited campus and I interacted with the people who lived there almost as rarely. I may have been trying to establish myself emotionally as well as physically without them, but the school is no insular, so different from everything else, that it can be difficult to get across without a determined effort of will. I saw Allen, Kit, and Steve occasionally—I was pleased to hear that Steve was making steady progress towards ring—but Charlie does not really socialize. I exchanged a few short emails with him only. I planned to return for sabbats, but for one reason or another I didn’t, not even for Lammas, so I didn’t get to find out what the masters do in the Mansion on that day (though I have since experienced it, and will tell you). Life went on and started to feel normal. June and I talked about maybe starting a family.

And then….

On a beautiful fall day in early October, Charlie texted me. He’d only recently gotten a cell phone, holding out even after all the other Masters had them, but I’d heard that lately he’d taken to using the technology to issue edicts. From what I’d gathered, this one was typical;

Come to campus today. Ch.

The “Ch” was a signature. After a lifetime of writing letters, Charlie could not help signing his texts.

I had planned to spend the day doing yard work, but there was no arguing; Charlie had turned his cell phone off. I had no idea what Charlie wanted or how long I’d be gone, but I keep a “bag for anywhere” packed for adventure or emergency, so I just wrote a note for my wife, changed into my uniform, and went—driving, not biking, as the day was far advanced by then.

When I found Charlie he was digging in the front bed, kneeling on a foam pad to save his knees and his uniform pants. He was in almost exactly the same place and position as he had been when I first asked to help him garden, over ten years before, a coincidence that struck me, for some reason, as eerie. He looked old. Of course, Charlie had a right to look old; he was almost seventy-three, but I had never thought of him that way before. Was it only the juxtaposition of the present with memory, or had he really aged a decade or more in the months since I had seen him last? I put the thought from me as he stood to greet me and dusted off his knees.

“Walk with me, Daniel,” he said, with no preamble. So we walked, strolled casually out onto the Flat Field towards the Edge of the World, and he politely asked me about my wife, my parents, and my writing. I answered as briefly as I could, as I knew he had not asked me there to make small-talk. When we reached the Edge, he finally got to the point.

“Daniel, I’m dying,” he said, and the bottom dropped out of my mind.

His voice was businesslike, unsentimental, and I just looked at him. He took my looking as a question, and answered me.

“I have pancreatic cancer. Stage four. My doctors think I have about three, maybe six months to live, with treatment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fighting this, but I don’t think I’m going to win. Everybody has to die of something, and I think this one may be mine.”

I said nothing, and again he continued as though responding to me.

“I need you to take my spring classes. You don’t have to take all of them, there are other people I can ask, and if I can I’ll help you. Rick is taking over groundskeeping, and you can help each other. But I want you to take over as many as you can. I can’t think of anyone more qualified.”

I could not speak. My mind was a mess of competing emotions such that I could not express any of them. I just looked at him. It was such a beautiful day, that day, and he looked so at home in it, his face nearly expressionless, he short, gray hair somewhat mussed by the breeze, his eyes—and I had never noticed this before—the same color blue as the sky behind him. He was so incontrovertibly alive. I could not help it; I hugged him.

It was the only time we ever embraced, and he was stiff, at first, then hugged me back warmly. His body felt too thin—still strong in a muscular sense, but already bony to the point of frailty. His hair smelled like fresh fall leaves. When we disengaged he looked guarded for a moment, searching my eyes, perhaps, for traces of pity. He patted my arm, then turned to walk back to the mansion. We spoke of ordinary things, how many chicks the phoebes in the car port had fledged that year, which of the migratory birds had already left, and so forth. It was gossip to him. It was current events. Charlie did not watch TV, and I had learned he no longer read newspapers. I couldn’t tell if he had taken my hug as an answer to his request, or if he had simply assumed I would do as he told me—I always had. as his student. Maybe he just knew I was in no position to think. When we got back to the beds he excused himself.

“I may be dying, but I still have things I need to do. And you need to go meditate, or whatever it is you do these days.”

I took my leave as though the day were still ordinary, and walked back to my car. But I did not get in. My bag for anywhere was in the back seat. I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be, except where I was. I called my wife, relieved to get her voicemail so I didn’t have to deal with her response to my news just yet. Then I grabbed my bag and headed to the office to ask Sharon for the loan of an extra cloak for warmth. When I told her to tell Charlie I’d take his classes, all of them, she merely thanked me and said we’d make arrangements right after Brigid—but her eyes filled with tears. Then I left, headed uphill to my spot among the trees, my need for it itself a tribute to my teacher.

Mastery Year 3: Part 8: Post 6: The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End

Well, as promised, the schedule for the graduating candidates for the next few days has been released. They gave it to Raven G., and she gave it to the rest of us and explained what's going on. It's not the first information we got on the subject, either. We'd all heard--from Raven--back around Yule to be back on campus the week before Brigid. We also got our fingers measured for our rings then. Charlie was right: mind games are for novices.

The five of us who hope to receive our rings, Ebony, Veery, Raven G., Eddie, and I, have to each interview for jobs as masters. Passing the interview is a necessary step--the necessary step--to earning a ring, and it means we're qualified for a permanent position here, should one open up. It means we're masters. We knew all that before, of course. What we learned this week was that the interviews would be today and tomorrow. Usually the decision is made in the interview, by the interviewing committee, although they say they reserve the right to delay making a decision--they'll let us know, at the latest, tomorrow night.

Raven even had some advice for us--to come to the interview ready to make the case for our being hired, with any necessary documentation in hand, since we'd be expected to begin with a presentation, not simply given given questions to answer. There would be no black-out bags, no surprises, and no tricks. But, as Charlie warned me at Samhain, the interviews would be quite real. None of us had ever heard of anyone making it to the interview but not getting a ring, but Raven had been told to tell us that it Could happen.

My interview was this morning, one of the first two on the schedule.

Since I had to go over to Chapel Hall right after breakfast, I got all my things together before going downstairs for the day. June was sitting in bed, still in her pajamas, as I put on my uniform with exaggerated care. I wanted everything to be perfect, as though a crooked cowl or an improperly tied belt might be enough to make me bomb the interview and waste everything I'd done.

I took a long, ragged breath.

"Daniel?" June asked.

"I don't know that I want to do this," I told her. "I'm not sure I believe that I can or that I should. I don't feel like a master."

"You'll have to make up your mind," June told me.

"Yes," I said, but I didn't want to move. The truth is I didn't want to leave. I felt like I was dressing for my own funeral.

"Daniel, do you ever feel like shit?" my wife asked me. I turned to look at her, surprised and a little confused.

"Yes, I guess so."

"Are you ever actually shit? As in feces?"

"No."

"Well, then, seems to me your feelings have nothing to do with it. Not feeling like a master has nothing to do with your being one. Now, do you want that ring or not?"

I thought about it. I wanted to be sure.

"Yes."

"Then go."

So I went.

I left my room with the nerved-up confidence of a Man on a Mission, but I still had breakfast to get through, which took forever, especially as I arrived a little early for it. The Great Hall is unadorned, now, the austere lack-of-decoration that is the "look" of Brigid around here. The room was clean and very bright, with sun reflecting off the new snow outside and shining in at the windows, and with people starting to come back from the winter break, the place was crowded and noisy. I had nothing to say to anyone, though I made eye contact with Veery, who would interview at the same time as I but with a different committee. She wasn't talking, either, but she looked more cheerful than I felt.

Finally, the Time Arrived. I hefted my bag of documentation and headed over to Chapel Hall. The interview was in one of the offices on the ground floor there--the Chapel itself is on the second floor. I found my committee waiting for me: Charlie, Allen, Sharon, and Karen. They saw me poke my head in and beckoned me and greeted me warmly.

"I guess that's one question I forgot to ask," I said, taking my seat.

"Oh?" said Sharon.

"For my project getting to know the school. How do you decide who's on these committees?"

"I was wondering if you'd ask," said Allen, merrily.

"Don't worry; we won't dock you for the oversight," said Charlie.

"We're those who know you best and those who know you least," explained Sharon.

"That last would be me," put in Karen. It's true I've hardly had a a conversation with her the whole time I've been here.

"Hi, Karen," I said, a little embarrassed, and she waved her fingers at me in a girlish way.

Sharon cleared her throat.

"OK, I've got everything all prepared and planned out," I said, "except the beginning. How do I start?"

That made them laugh.

"Begin anywhere," Charlie said, "and proceed. Where you start is where the beginning is."

"Why are you here?" Allen offered as a hint.

"Well," I started, "I'm here because I want to earn my ring and I am, as far as I can tell, ready. And I'm here because I arrived ten years ago. I arrived because I wanted to learn to engage more deeply and more meaningfully with life, because I wanted community, and because I wanted wonder. And I got those things. Now, I'm in a position to help other people get those things. So, um, I'm here."

It was an awkward version of the speech I'd thought up earlier. It made the others smile a little. They've all been here, done this. I took a deep breath and I continued.

I explained the general course of my studies, starting with my novitiate--speaking mostly to Karen, who might genuinely not know my history--including how and why I'd chosen Charlie, how I've changed over the course of my studies, what I did during my Absence, what assignments Charlie has given me since I've been back, and what classes and workshops I've taught, noting those I've developed myself or with Rick.

I handed out copies of the syllabi and course plans for my various workshops and classes and the proposal I'd submitted to start offering tutoring in writing and in algebra and statistics. I also handed out copies of reviews I've gotten from students for the work, and records of how many students had signed up to work with me. I handed over copies of the testimonial I'd thought to have Steve write about my work with him, together with a report I'd written up about his progress when I turned his education back over to Charlie. I verbally summarized what I saw as my potential strengths as a master and what areas of school function I might be able to take on, if called to do so. I said I thought I might be able to take on landscaping, though I acknowledged Raven or Rick would be a better choice.

"I could be a good craft-master," I said, "but my craft would primarily be writing."

And I handed over a copy of my book of poems, a copy of the literary journal I'd co-edited in grad school, and testimonials from students I had tutored. I also handed over a copy my report on how the school runs, explained that project, and made a few comments on what I'd learned from it and how I thought the school might possibly be improved--and changes I thought we should be on the look-out to avoid.

"Not that none of you know this stuff," I acknowledged. "The point is I noticed."

I talked on in a semi-organized and well-documented way in my properly-straightened and correctly-belted uniform for about twenty minutes, and then I kind of sputtered to a halt.

"I guess the only other thing I didn't plan out was the ending," I said. "Everything I've thought of sounds cheese, vote Daniel TODAY kind of thing." I blushed. They all laughed.

Then they asked me a few questions. Karen asked the most. Unlike the interview at the end of my novitiate--which was partially a pretext for my ritual kidnapping--they didn't have me tell them things they obviously already knew. The point was not to tell them what I had done and learned but why what I had done and learned qualified me to teach. They had asked for documentation not in order to make me prove myself, but simply because even Charlie and Allen had forgotten or not known relevant parts of my history and wanted to be able to look things up easily. My bringing my records were a courtesy to them, a way of making it easier for them to help me.

I think we were there about another twenty minutes, asking and answering and clarifying, passing papers and books back and forth, before Charlie looked up over his reading glasses and said "well? Do we need to discuss this privately?"

"I don't," replied Allen. "I've wanted him on board for years, now. What do you think, Karen? Are we being biased?"

"Not as far as I can tell," she said. "Neither of you are the type. And I've never heard anything negative about him."

"It might help to consider," ventured Sharon, "what else we would want to see from him? If he's not ready yet, what could he do to get ready?"

I held my breath.

"You always say that," grumbled Charlie.

"Always when it seems helpful," acknowledged Sharon.

"Well, I can't think of anything," said Allen. "He's done everything, or close, anyway."

"If we don't give it to him now," said Charlie, "he's just going to keep doing more of what he's been doing. My thinking is he should be a master while he's doing it."

My heart leaped a little, and Charlie glanced at me and smiled a little, as if he knew. Maybe he did.

"Karen?" asked Sharon.

"I'm good," she said.

"Well, then," said Sharon, who seemed to be in charge, "I believe we are in agreement. And the committee of the whole left us no concerns, so we are empowered in his case...."

"Congratulations," said Charlie and shook my hand.

I felt like whooping for joy, but instead I said nothing at all. I felt completely muddled up. We all stood up, and Sharon reminded me of the time to meet for the pre-commencement ceremony. I'm at liberty until then, apparently. I felt hollow and full at once.

I left, but the others didn't follow me. I don't know why. Maybe I'll ask? Asking why seems to be something I do, now.

Out in the hallway, I met Kit, who had been on Veery's committee, which had apparently finished up a little before mine. She looked like she had been waiting for me.

"Well?" she asked.

I stammered, vaguely.

"I know," she said. "When I passed mine I felt like weeping."

Master Year 3: Part 1: Post 4: Another Rough Week

Note; the events described here happened on a Tuesday, not a Monday.-D.

For the second time in as many weeks, crisis has erupted on campus, though at least this time nobody is dead (last week, in case you missed it, Eddie’s dog became vicious and had to be shot).

I was walking upstairs to shower after my early-morning walk when Greg poked his head out of the Meditation Hall, saw me, and said “get Allen.” His voice was calm, quiet, and full of such urgency that I ran to to office to ask Sharon if Allen had arrived yet. She said he had not, so I ran outside and up the fire escape so I could get a good view of campus—there are two driveways, and I didn’t know which one he would use, and if I picked the wrong one and he went by me, he’d be much harder to find.

Never mind that Sharon would know when he arrived—Sharon knows things by means the rest of us do not have at our disposal.

There he was, a movement in yellow coming in the front gate, just visible through the trees. I ran down again and met him.

“Greg needs you!” I said.

Allen stopped his bike.

“Oh? Why?”

“I haven’t a clue. But it’s urgent and it’s in the Meditation Hall.”

“OK,” he said, and sped away.

I walked slowly back to the Mansion, back in through the office, and I was going to continue on up the stairs but I stopped at the now-closed door to the Meditation Hall, desperately curious. Obviously, whatever had happened was none of my business. I continued upstairs.

At breakfast, Allen seemed to be missing. Afterwards, Greg had an announcement. Greg’s announcements are seldom good news, perhaps because he delivers bad news well, calmly and with grave authority. This one was bad news.

“Ryan has a health problem which has necessitated his leaving campus this morning. Most likely, he will withdraw from our program. He will be welcome to visit, however, and when he is stabilized enough to receive well-wishers he will let us know.” A low hum of shock and curiosity swelled, and Greg held up his hand. “I am not at liberty to give details about his condition,” he said. “It will be easier on all of us, including Ryan, if you all refrain from speculation and gossip. Sometimes we just don’t know, and wish we did.”

I know Ryan slightly, though we haven’t talked, much. He’s a yearling in his mid-thirties, interested in a mix of Buddhism and New Age spirituality, and he has this odd serenity to him—I had forgotten that he also went through phases of seeming irritable or fidgetty every few days. I had not forgotten, though, the events of the early morning, and I had a fair idea of what sort of health crisis Raven had—what kind could require running to fetch a psychologist? What I didn’t know was why.

I lingered, on my way out, near Greg, who was also lingering, talking to Ollie near the door of the Dining Hall. I wouldn’t look at him, because I had not made up my mind whether I wanted to talk to him. Arguably, I should not, and yet I lingered.

“Ask or do not ask,” Greg said at last from behind me. “Attempting to do both at once is seldom effective.” He spoke with some humor, but when I turned to face him I saw that he looked tired, even old. Ollie had gone.

“I don’t want to invade his privacy,” I said.

“But you have special knowledge,” he replied. “You know more than you’re supposed to, and now there’s no one I can talk about it with.”

“That’s true.”

“And, curiously, I’m in the same situation. I am allowed to share information with the other masters, but I am unaccustomed to talking with any except Charlie and Allen, and both are indesposed.”

“I noticed that Allen has left.”

“Actually, Allen is still on campus, as is Ryan, at least in a technical, as opposed to a social sense. We’re still trying to find a bed.”

“In a mental hospital,” I said, in a low voice.

“Yes.”

I waited. Greg had never confided in me before, and I wasn’t sure he was really about to do it now, though he clearly wanted to, but the longer I’ve been here the more even the masters have seemed to appreciate my witness. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s that I have become a naturalist of my own species, and there is something about a gaze that is both interested and dispassionate that comforts. I don’t know. But one by one they are gradually coming to treat me as more of a peer.

I waited.

Greg walked out of the Dining Hall, and a turn of his head indicated I should follow. The morning had dawned gray and thick—it snowed last night—but a rising wind had swept away the clouds and the day had gone bright and sunny, though very cold. Greg paused in his walking, closed his eyes, and appeared to inhale the sunshine before walking on again.

“Ryan’s ill health is not exactly my fault, though it’s hard not to see it that way,” he said at last.

“Oh?”

“Ryan is suffering from a form of psychosis triggered by meditation.”

“Ah.”

“Yes.”

“If meditation makes people crazy,” I ventured, “then why aren’t all of us psychotic here?”

“Because it’s not common. I’ve seen it before, but only in advanced students. Minor psychological disturbance, such as emotional deadening and a dulling of the senses, is a normal part of intensive meditative practice, and it’s usually temporary. The student can either pull back or, with guidance, push on and come out the other side. Alchemy candidates sometimes develop what looks like full-blown psychosis, but that, too, is part of the process. I know how to guide students through it. But Ryan lacks the background to make use of this state—and I lack the background to get him out of it.”

“How is he different?” I asked. “What went wrong?”

“Some people are vulnerable,” Greg acknowledged. “Meditation alters brain function—that is its point. Not all brains can be safely altered. Ryan elevated his risk by spending far longer in meditation than I suggested. I knew he sometimes attended the afternoon make-up session, but I didn’t know he also meditated on his own. This past week, he began spending as much as three hours a day in meditation. Today he broke. This morning I noticed something ‘off’ about him, so I asked him to stay after. I very quickly realized he has become completely irrational. He has begun the process of ego-death without prior preparation. It’s making him delusional.”

Ego-death sounded bad, though I didn’t know what it meant. I wanted to ask why Greg hadn’t warned us, why I’d never heard of any risk associated with meditation at all, but I wasn’t sure of my role, whether it was OK to ask that sort of question of a master reluctantly seeking catharthis.

“What will happen to him now?” I asked, instead.

“He will likely receive anti-psychotic drugs in a hospital setting until he stabilizes,” Greg said. “After that? I’m not sure. There’s very little clinical research on meditation psychosis, and it’s not something meditation teachers usually talk about with each other. Perhaps we should. He will likely not be the same again.”

We had reached the other side of the Central Field, near the turn-off to Chapel Hall, as if we were headed to class, except that building is closed until after Ostar, and classes are still being held in the Mansion.

I thought about how Charlie pushed Rick to survive outside in the snow, how Allen allowed Ebony to experiment with cannabis so she could see….This with meditation is a somewhat different issue, since Greg wasn’t doing anything outside of the normal guidelines of his profession, but I’d thought before of how some of the masters confront the possibility of a student getting hurt in their care. The idea had seemed very abstract to me then, but now Greg’s gone and done it—he’s lost a student.

I had no idea what to say, so I just hugged him.

Eddie is doing well, by the way, at least in a physical sense, and expected to recover completely from his various injuries. He is still rather bandanged up, and since he can’t walk on a broken foot and can’t use crutches with a sprained wrist and a chewed-up arm, he’s in a wheel-chair for a few weeks. The Mansion isn’t remotely wheel-chair accessible, so he’s living with Charlie’s sister for a while. The thought is that if anyone can keep him from folding in on himself out of guilt for his dog, she can.

He calls a few of us every day, and I am one of the ones he calls.

Mastery Year 2: Part 8: Post 5: Writing

Like pretty much else, I usually write structureless poetry. I never really thought about it. I'd read poetry that rhymed and poetry that didn't, and I was under the impression that the former was old-fashioned and simplistic, so I wrote the latter.

I suppose my idea that poetry ought to be free-form was related to my assumption that poetry couldn't be edited. Maybe it was that a poem should be spontaneous, unfiltered, unconstrained by conventions of punctuation, grammar, structure in general, just pure, unfiltered expression. But, like I said, I never thought about it.

Charlie said "Bah!"

Fortunately, he didn't have to say it to me. I attended a workshop he taught on structured poetry back in October, and someone else asserted that poetry should be pure expression. After saying "Bah!" he asserted that the closest thing humans have to pure expression is the cry of an infant, and if we "wanted to say anything more articulate than a fart of emotion, we've got to learn how to communicate."

And we had a long discussion about the difference between expression and communication, and later segued into the definition of poetry. In that workshop, we also briefly covered the history of poetry and the development of its different forms, and then explored several different historically popular structures. We read poems--mostly Charlie read them, very much performed them, his contention being that most people didn't understand poetry because they'd never heard it read well--and practiced writing them.

An idea emerged, for me, anyway, that far from being free of structure, poetry is actually more about structure than prose it--that the structurelessness of the poetry I was familiar with was actually a structure of its own, an active, communicative presence, not the freedom and absence I'd assumed.

Anyway, I got interested in the subject, and after the workshop was over I did some further readings on the subject, both reading about poetry and exploring the works of various poets, from Shakespeare to Edna St. Vincent Millay. I briefly flirted with the idea of making a major study of it, but after about a week and a half my motivation petered out and I moved on to other things.

Except after that, while continuing with my assignment to write and edit poems about my spot in the words, I started trying out structured poetry. I invented a couple of forms myself, playing around with rhyme and meter schemes and earning question marks all over my paper from Charlie, and I tried out half a dozen other forms, with varying degrees of success.

Eventually I found myself writing a lot of sonnets. I like them, they're short, but not too short, and they have a certain elegance.

About a month ago, I got the idea of making this poetry collection I'm supposed to be making a collection of sonnets. I'm interested in the idea that the same poem--the same creative impulse and idea, I mean--could be poured into different forms. I thought of writing the same poem over and over in multiple forms, but I haven't actually gotten myself organized enough to do that. What I have done, over the past few weeks, is to start re-writing some of my existing poems as sonnets.

I haven't told Charlie, yet. He's not really available at the moment, and I'm a little worried that I won't be able to stick with it, and I don't want to disappoint him if I don't. I'm also a little afraid that he'll laugh at me, but if he laughs, he laughs, I can deal with it.

Anyway, I kind of like the challenge.

Meanwhile, I've been interviewing novices who are ready to graduate--as part of my plan to learn more about the school  so I can earn my ring--and preparing for the school year. I intend to get serious about demonstrating my ability to add something to the academic mix, here, by teaching workshops that have a clear relationship to both student interest and the required subjects. To that end, I've been working with Sharon to develop class plans and to get on the schedule prominently.

Today she made an interesting suggestion; why don't I teach a couple of talks and seminars on writing, to put myself in a position to offer tutoring and editing to students later in the year?

Alright, why don't I?

Mastery Year 2: Part 8: Post 3: Getting Back to Charlie

So, I have an answer.

To the question of what more I have to do to become a master, I mean. The key ended up being what Ollie said, about whether I'd like to see someone like me hired--and the thing is, I wouldn't, not yet. I may have made the personal transformation necessary to be one of the Six, but I'm not in a position to take responsibility for helping to run the school, because I don't really know how the school runs. I don't really have a sense yet of how I could bring my unique skills and knowledge-base--I do know I have unique skills by now!--to the school in a way that might fit in with what everyone else is doing here.

But what I don't know, I can find out.

So, first I made a list of things I want to learn this year:

• What is the operational structure of the school? Who does what?
• What are the day-to-day operations of each "department"?
• What is the school's legal and financial status?
• What happens in an emergency?
• What is the history of the school?
• Who is actually in charge of making various "mysterious" events happen?
• What is the decision-making process? How is organizational policy set?
• What classes (as opposed to workshops, etc.) could I teach, other than Charlie's?
• What areas of mastery could I teach, and how would I teach them?
• What do people other than me find useful in a master?
• What areas of school function could I direct?

Then I made a list of tasks I want to complete over the year that should teach me the things I need to know:

• Interview each member of the Masters' Group and all of the regular allies about what they do.
• Interview Greg, and one or more of the original Six, if I can find any, about the school history. Supplement with interviews of the others.
• Interview each member of the Candidates' Group, especially those getting their rings this Brigid, about their process of gaining mastery and their relationships with their masters.
• Write up class descriptions and syllabi for one or more full classes I could teach and write up any necessary preparation plans--then execute the plans.
• Interview a selection of novices about what they like and don't like about their masters and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the school as a whole.
• Ask various community members of all categories what they see as needing to change or improve in the school, and what they see as important to remain the same.
• Document all of the above--write a report.

I did as Sharon whether any such reports already exist, though I suspect I'd get more out of writing one than by reading it, but she said there isn't. I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged that apparently nobody's ever sought mastery this way before.

Anyway, I turned in all of it to Charlie, through Sharon, and now I'm waiting to hear back. I'm sitting in the Great Hall, alone, watching the weak, winter sunlight shine off the decorations of the Yule tree and off the crusted, patchy snow outside. More snow is predicted for tonight, and the Great Hall smells of snow and, faintly, of the iron of the woodstove, which overheated earlier and is cooling now, ticking slowly as it goes. And I'm thinking why was all this so difficult? Why did it take me the better part of a month to do this, even after I spoke with Ollie and developed a good idea of what I needed to do?

I could say I was distracted and preoccupied by the holidays, but really there wasn't much for me to do to make the holidays happen. I've been less preoccupied, less busy, over the past month than I normally am by daily life.

The truth is that the reason I don't know all of this stuff already is that I've been fairly passive in my engagement with the community. I've done what I've been told, I've met expectations, and that's about it. A certain passivity is not only accepted but actually encouraged in the students, I've learned, because it keeps them from asking too many questions and makes maintaining the air of mystery (which has educational value) much easier. It's not like I've been doing anything wrong. But it's time to give up passivity now, to take responsibility for making this place work--to grow up, in other words.

And I don't entirely want to.

Mastery Year 1: Part 4: Post 6: Identification

Rather unexpectedly, I have a new teacher--June. I've been doing a lot of workshops and things with the novices, and now I've started doing programs for the campers, too. They do farm work in the morning and then, after lunch, can choose among a variety of activities, from archery and arts and crafts, to natural history and science activities, and even free, unsupervised play. The natural history and science part is me--or, partly me, anyway. Only, I've never had training in programming for children before. So June is training me.

The advantage to this is we get to spend more time together, but I admit it's pretty weird, changing roles like this.

I like how I get a new crop of kids every week. That means I can try the same workshops over and over again, analyzing my performance and fixing my perspective--with the help of June and Sharon. I'm teaching tracking, plant identification, map and compass, fire construction, and Leave No Trace. I also do programs where I dissect owl pellets, talk about bones and skeletal anatomy, and another talk about feathers. I'm thinking of doing Dissect a Groundhog, though that's going to have to be demonstration only, for safety reasons. And I'm not sure how I want to explain Charlie hunting groundhogs to these kids. About half my programs are my idea, but for the others I'm using outlines developed by other people in previous years. Most of these things are short, and each week I'm getting better and better at them.

Meanwhile, I continue teaching Charlie what I learned in grad school. We've finished my first year, now, and are on to my second. He still wants me to at least try to teach everything from grad school in my workshops, too, but of course a lot of it doesn't really work that well. I'm glad for the exercise it's educational, and there are surprises, but a lot of my rad school material just doesn't translate well. The students here aren't interested, and I get very low attendance. But a few people do show up, and they know why I'm doing this so they don't hold it against me. They give me very useful feedback, and then I use the dregs of those workshops to put together things that really do work for this audience. And my attendance for those is pretty good.

And every day I'm writing. Now I'm editing, too. And my poems are getting better. I mean, my poems are getting better through editing, which I hadn't thought was possible for poetry, but here I am, doing it. And I also mean that my first drafts are improving. My thoughts, I guess, are getting clearer and more focused, and I'm getting a better grasp of what I want to do when I sit down to wite. My soul is indeed clarifying, I guess.

So I'm doing well, everything is going along ok, I'm succeeding at everything I try, and I should be thrilled.

And yet I have this feeling. It's tight and hot and dark. It'd distracting, but it also keeps me focused. It's persistent. It's growing, I think. I remember what Allen taught me about naming my feelings based on my bodily sensations and spontaneous thoughts.

This feeling is called anger.

Mastery Year 1: Part 1: Post 1: Brigid

With this post, I am returning to weekly (not twice-weekly) posting, and to the perspective of myself in the past--except I am now writing as though it were 2007. As this post begins, it is February, and I am 26 years old. I have a newly-minted master's degree in conservation biology, and I am engaged to be married. I have returned to the school whose name I never give for my green ring. -D.

I can hardly believe I am back here. I can hardly believe I was ever away. There is something more real about this campus and these people than any other place I have ever known. For the three years I've been gone, it has always been before my eyes, somehow, as if everything else were a veil of illusion or a dream. Now the dream has been stripped away and I am here again.

June and I came on campus together mid-day on February first, ready to enroll, me as a candidate for mastery, she as a new student. I still can't quite believe that part, either--that she's enrolling in college all over again for my sake. It's no great sacrifice on her part--I agree she'll probably be a one-hit wonder, she already plans to pay her tuition and fees by donating her car and by working, as I did, and it will be good for her career and for her as a person. Coming to this school was unquestionably one of the two best decisions I've ever made. But she can't know all of that, yet. She can't know how this place will transform her until it actually starts to happen. She's here for me, and the enormity of that trust and commitment...it's just a much bigger thing than I really know how to deal with.

The best decision I ever made was that night, back at grad school, when I turned around coming out of that building and found June there.

Absence does not apply to communications with Sharon in her official capacity. I had told her that I was coming back and I had arranged the details of what passes for application and acceptance here with her back in November, just as soon as I got my degree. In other words, I knew, more or less, what I was doing this time.

June and I drove up, parked the car behind the Mansion with the others, grabbed our bags, walked into the office through the front door, and June rather dramatically handed over the keys to the car. She was donating it, committing herself to she knew not what, and doing it without reservation. We signed some papers, and I handed over a very large check from my parents--the balance of my college fund. It should cover whatever fees might apply to me that I can't work off while I'm here.

"Welcome,"Sharon said, smiling her old inscrutable smile. She hadn't changed at all.

"Are uniforms still in the side office?" I asked.

"Yup. June, you can stash your stuff in there, too, for now. Daniel, you have your old room."

"I can't room with Daniel?" June asked.

"You can do whatever you like," said Sharon, still smiling, "but you won't get everything you can out of this place if you insulate yourself from newness."

"I've heard of you," June said.

"I'd be surprised if you hadn't," Sharon replied.

We went and selected our uniforms, June's in white, with a black cloak, me all in brown, except for the white cloth belt. We changed up in my room (nobody said I can't have visitors!). It felt good to be dressed properly again, though odd to look down and see myself in brown, almost like a master.

We had arrived about two hours later than we'd wanted to (we ran into traffic on the way, plus we'd gotten a late start), and by the time we came downstairs again, dusk had fallen. We went outside to walk around a bit. I know it's been warm here lately, and the snow has gone patchy and kind of lumpy and vague-looking, but it's cold now. The air smelled cold and froze my nostrils a bit, as air in February should. I bet the snow has a crust on top, though I haven't tried walking on it, yet. The patches, I noticed, too, were quite thick. I've been far enough away of late that I don't know what the weather's been like, here, and I spent some time puzzling over how the snow could be of such uneven depth--wind, perhaps?

I could see other people moving to and fro in the dim distance, and there had been a steady trickle of new students coming into the Office while we were there, but I did not see anyone else I knew until we almost literally bumped into Allen and Kit in the snowy dimness. Oddly, they were in almost exactly the same place where I'd bumped into Allen the last time I really spoke to him, a few days before my graduation. But he'd been in a snow suit then, and they both wore uniforms now, layered with two cloaks against the weather.

Both of them hugged me warmly, one after the other, then greeted June, whom they remembered from her visit last year. We all chatted briefly, and they teased me by congratulating June on landing such a fine catch--they knew I'd blush and fidget and I did. The last time I had seen them, they had literally vanished in front of my eyes, like fog evaporating, like a spell breaking. That was three years ago, in another world, another life. And here they were, chatting with my fiancee in a friendly, prosaic way, like ordinary people, on an ordinary day. I wanted to pinch myself, pinch them, to make sure they were real.

Kit caught me staring and smiled. I think I blushed again, embarrassed. Allen noticed our exchange,  looked at me searchingly for a moment, and grinned.

"You'd started to think you'd imagined us, didn't you?" he said.
"Welcome back to Avalon," Kit told me.

June and I made our way to the Chapel, and found our seats. It was very strange to sit there in that familiar scene and not know anyone, and strange, too, to think of how much I know about this place that June doesn't. Part of that is by design, for I am in on some of the secrets that will be used to direct her education. I knew, for example, the mechanism by which dorms are assigned and that, for the first time that I knew of, the mechanism had been altered to ensure she would not be in my dorm. Part of my job would be to keep her from "clinging to the familiar," as Sharon put it, and yet to keep her from seeing the mechanism until it had had a chance to work.

A bell struck, high and clear, and struck again and again, dulling reason and brightening the mind. The room was cold and dim and honey-colored in the candle light and smelled of wool and snow and floor soap and beeswax, the sights and scents and sounds of tradition. I turned in my chair to see the masters processing in, fourteen hooded figures in brown, each bearing a single, unlit candle. I picked them out by shape and height; the tall, thin one was Greg, the slightly less tall one must be Joy--or maybe Sarah. Kit and Karen are indistinguishable from a distance, in poor light with their hoods up. Charlie, short and square, is unmistakable, and I was glad to spot him. I'd developed a strange paranoia that he had died while I was away. And some figures were indeed missing--where was Joe, my former boss on the janitorial team? Where was Chuck, the maintenance head? Could I just not make them out, or were they gone?

When they took their seats on stage, surrounded by candles, I saw that, yes, Joe and Chuck were not there. Neither was Malachi or Security Joe. And the non-teaching group had shrunk by two--fourteen masters processed in, but two of them peeled off and took their places by the side of the stage, ready to hand out diplomas. Only two new people, a man and a woman, sat with the non-teaching masters. I didn't recognize either of them.

Things change, of course.

Joy served as master of ceremonies and so she must be head of the masters' group now. The new yearlings, including June, introduced themselves and, without knowing it, sorted themselves into dorms. Then we, the new mastery students, stood up to introduce ourselves. We were scattered throughout the audience, and I hadn't seen any of the others before we sat down. I had known that Ollie and Rick were planning to return this year, but I didn't know for sure, and there were a lot of other people eligible to return whom I hadn't spoken to recently.

When we stood up, I saw Ebony standing a row or two over from me. I wanted to wave, but of course I didn't. When I said my name in introduction, I saw her startle, and tilt her head, as though to hear me better. I grinned.

When I sat back down, June asked me who I had seen.

"My ex-girlfriend," I told her. There was no time for further explanation, though. The ceremony was continuing.

The graduating novices filed across the stage speaking, as I knew but June did not, for the first time in three days. I recognized a few of them, but just barely. The new masters, two of them, received their rings and took their seats with the others. The ceremony concluded, and the masters recessed to the ringing of a small, hypnotic bell.

We adjourned to the first of the various receptions and parties of the night--the one at the back of the Chapel, where we milled around and chatted and ate dilly beans and dried fruit and the new yearlings each received their own cup.

"This place is weird," June said, holding her new cup in her hands as though she didn't know what it was for.
"Yeah, well, so are you," I told her, which isn't true. Or isn't especially true, anyway. I said it to lighten the mood because I was so afraid she wouldn't like the place that made me. But she didn't contradict me.
"Now I understand why we get along," she said, instead.

Year 4: Part 8: Post 1: Endings

Usually these stories depict events that happened close to the same date that I post them and one week's story is set about a week after the previous one. This month I'm doing something different. Today's post is set in the second week of January. --D.

I got back on campus about a week ago. It's good to be back, but I really don't know why I'm here.There was a meeting of the graduating class--most of us, anyway--yesterday, and we were supposed to be here for that, but I don't know why it wasn't scheduled later in the month. The masters aren't even back yet, except for Greg, who led the meeting, and it's really not his thing. At the meeting. he talked vaguely about events and responsibilities we need to be here for, but he wouldn't explain what they are, and at the moment there doesn't seem to be anything to do.

Not that I'm not busy--I'm applying for caretaking jobs for the summer and working on my grad school application (both of which seem incredibly complicated after the elegant simplicity of how they do things here) and I'm training for the Appalachian Trail. I'm now hiking ten to fifteen miles a day, mostly in circles, in the woods behind the school, with a pack on my back. None of it is for school, but it is important, and I couldn't do it as well at my parents' house. And there are some of us doing school work, running around, dealing with last-minute paperwork problems, settling up fees and debts and resolving issues with lost records or misplaced credits...I never appreciated before that in January Sharon (and Malachi, who handles money) has her hands full with graduating students as well as the new prospective students, who are wandering around looking amazed and confused as per normal.

But why am I here, why am I on campus? Why have they clearly arranged for us to be here, and then given us nothing particular to do?

I know why I'm here--it's to do something I'm not supposed to know about. And I don't know about it. I don't know what it is or when it will happen, only that something is. I don't intend to try to find out, as I have no desire to ruin the surprise.

In the meantime, the campus is covered with snow. It snowed, remember, back on Yule, only an inch or two. That melted the following day, but then late in the afternoon on Christmas it snowed again, a good eight inches, and while we've had some melting since, it's never all melted, and we've had several more snowfalls. At the moment, there are about six inches on the ground in most places, not counting the drifts, with a bit of a crust on top, so you can't make very good snowballs with it. When I hike my way through our hills, I break through the crust, crunch, crunch, crunch, as though I am exploring a magical world made of sugar, a sweet world of snow. I have not had to use snowshoes, yet, the snow has not been deep enough, but I hope that changes, soon. We're supposed to get more snow tonight, and I want to get some practice in.

Since I've been back, I have not had any more "encounters" with Joanna. How does it sound to say it that way? Writing it, I wonder...it seems euphemistic. Charlie would say not to hide from the world with euphemism. Kit would say not to treat sexuality as a thing that must be hidden. Not that I've actually spoken with either of them about my sex-life. But "had sex" sounds clinical, impersonal, and despite my initial worries on the subject, that's not how it ever felt with Joanna...and regardless of what you want to call it, we have not done it since before the holiday.

I had wanted to. I hadn't expected it to be over, yet, but after I got back--she was back already, as she doesn't celebrate Christmas--I found myself avoiding her. And I think she was avoiding me. Finally, yesterday, circumstance brought us together unavoidably as we both found ourselves waiting in line for the toilet in the Great Hall after breakfast. The awkwardness of standing next to each other even for just a minute or two was impossible to ignore, so after we'd each used the facilities, we sat down at the polished table in the Bird Room to talk.

"You don't want to spend time with me," she stated. It was not an accusation.
"No," I told her with some reluctance. "But I don't know why not."

She smiled at me, warmly and knowingly.

"Try this," she suggested. "What happens, if we do get together?"
"We have sex," I said, promptly. "It's kind of the thing we do."
"So, do you want to?"
"Yes," I told her, again without hesitation. "But, I don't know, I think I want more than that. I feel...I don't know. I don't know how to describe it."
"You romantic," she told me, as though she were teasing me for something embarrassing. I happen to think being a romantic is a good thing. I frowned.

"You haven't been trying to hang out with me, either," I retorted, trying to reclaim some of my dignity with her. But she just giggled, like I'd caught her at something. I've always found her impossible.

Then she grew semi-serious again.

"I think it's time," she said. "To get out or to get deeper in. This thing has run its course."
"Get deeper in?" I asked.
"That 'more' you wanted. Do you want that, a relationship, with me?"

I said nothing. I couldn't understand why she was making it entirely about what I wanted, as though I were a therapy patient or something. I knew perfectly well she didn't want to be in a romantic relationship with me. There were so many things I wanted to say that none of them made it out of my mouth.

"Then I think this thing has run its course," she repeated. She took my hand, for a moment. Her skin was cool and smooth. "This isn't a break-up," she told me. "That's the advantage of not going out, we don't have to break up."

But it felt like a break-up to me.

I wanted to say, what occurred to me to say, was "So we don't get to have sex anymore?" But Joanna would have laughed at me. I hate when she does that. And it would have sounded as though the sex were all I cared about, when it isn't, or shouldn't be, except that that's what all this was supposed to be about, wasn't it? Just sex, with no strings attached? I never wanted to date Joanna, I just got tongue-tied in her presence because she's goddam beautiful, and because she always invades me just slightly. She keeps me off balance, just slightly, all the time. Of course I wanted her, but only on the surface. I would have been crazy to want anything else. And it was on the surface that she offered herself, so I said yes...and somehow I ended up with all kinds of strings attached to a woman who obviously never liked me to begin with. Except sexually, she was never nice to me.

But the sex...I hadn't expected that to end so abruptly, to go from having a lover to not having one in a conversation around a dining room table. But then, how else do such things ever end? And how that felt...I can't explain it, I can't name the feeling, the way Allen taught me to do, not precisely. The best I can do is say it's like being cut off, walled up, sealed in...I am suddenly alone in a way I wasn't before.

I walk around campus, watching the janitorial and maintenance teams working to prepare for the influx of new students, watching the yearlings going to meditation, meeting in their therapy groups, finishing up their assignments from over the break, and watching the new, prospective students wandering around, confused and amazed. It all looks so normal, so reassuringly ordinary.

The number of things that are simply over for me right now is heavy on my mind.

Year 4: Part 7: Post 7: Telling Sharon

We decorated the Great Hall a few days ago, and we helped the Dining Hall staff do the Dining Hall last night. It’s not so much a change as an addition—we added evergreen garlands and candles and bowls of oranges and chocolates and of course the tree with its ivory ribbons and strings of red beads, the orange and gold-colored glass balls like magical fruit and the flock of blown-glass birds, all almost literally on top of the twined vines and dried flowers, the squashes and gourds and corn-stalks of Samhain.

And we did the Great Hall overnight in secret so that in the yearlings woke and found the place readied for Yule in secret, as if by elves.

I love that part.

I’ve also been making other preparations myself, and not just for the holidays.

Almost a week ago, now, Sharon handed me a letter addressed to me that had not come through the mail. She offered not a word of explanation, so I opened it quickly, in her presence, opening that if the contents made no sense she might possibly answer questions then.

It was from Rick,

Hey Daniel, how fast can you walk? I got a job for the summer with a logging company—it starts in June. If you still want to hike the Appalachian Trail with me, we’ll have to leave the week you graduate. If we go fast, we can make it. I talked to your parents and they can outfit you for Christmas/graduation presents. I gave them a list. I’ll take care of everything, I just need to know whether you’re interested. Tell Sharon.

“But he’s in Absence,” I protested.

“Yes, and I have the authority to make an exception—and I made one,” said Sharon, smiling. “The function of Absence is to keep people in the school from supporting or influencing those outside, not the other way around. And it’s certainly not intended to prevent you from making plans for when you graduate. You can tell Rick yes or no. No more.”

“Tell him yes,” I said, on impulse. But I have discovered that my impulses, at least certain kinds of impulses, are good.

I have spent the past week ordering books on the Appalachian Trail and on long-distance hiking and winter backpacking from the library. I’m still not entirely sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but it’s starting to look interesting.

But now I had a new problem, one I needed Charlie’s help to solve. Only Charlie had vanished again after we decorated for Yule. I knew he was still on campus because I found the occasional bare footprint in the snow (his ongoing joke that nobody except me seems to even notice), and anyway, where else would he be? This is his home and more than his home. He’d be here. But he was invisible. I thought about asking Greg to carry a message to him, since Greg still eats breakfast with us and still leads zazen for the yearlings every morning, but that seemed like cheating, somehow. If Charlie had gone invisible, then I had to earn my right to his help by seeing him.

And yesterday I finally did.

He was walking up the Great Hall stairs one evening, just as if that were an ordinary thing for him to do. No one else was in the Great Hall, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on any of the lights. I was sitting by the fire, just thinking about things, in its light alone, when I heard him on the stair.

“Charlie!” I said, quietly, but he turned. The light was on in the second-floor landing and his eyes must have been adjusted to it already, because when he looked towards me he obviously couldn’t find me. I waved. “Do you have a minute? I have cookies.”

He came over and settled on the couch next to me.

“Bribery is unnecessary,” he told me, taking a cookie, “but it does help. What do you need?”

“I’m doing the Appalachian Trail in February with Rick,” I told him. “Is it ok if I train—hike and camp—in the Conservatory woods?” Remember, much of the woods behind our campus is Conservatory land that we’re not allowed on except for educational purposes or to do work there.

“Yeah, of course. But you’re doing the whole Trail in February? You must be extremely fast.”

He was joking, of course.

“No, we’re starting in February.”

“Don’t get too cold. Anything else?”

“I’m not sure. Are you in a hurry?”

He shrugged.

“It’s pretty, here," he said. "You’ve got a good spot.”

“Sit and enjoy it for a bit. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You are someone, Daniel,” he told me. “You have already told yourself.”

I had mixed reaction to that. On the one hand, being reminded by Charlie that I am somebody felt good. On the other hand, he seemed to be implying that I count as one of the people he’ trying to avoid right now. Nevertheless, he sat there with me for a while.

“Rick has a summer job,” I said, after a while. “Do you think I can get one, too? I’ll be on the Trail during the hiring season.”

“Yeah, sure. Start looking now.”

“Any suggestions?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Pretty much anything, but I’d rather do something that kind of extends what I’ve been doing here somehow. I thought of trying to go work with Rick, in logging, but….”

“You like trees too much for that.”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“I wouldn’t think logging would be your thing. How about caretaking?”

“What, like looking after old people?”

“No, no…well, you can if you want to, but I mean looking after a campsite or something. In the backcountry, something you have to hike in to. You’re more than qualified.”

“Yeah? Who hires for that?”

And he named half a dozen different agencies and commented that he had once worked for the last one.

“As a caretaker?”

“No, trail crew. But it’s the same department. Caretakers do trailwork, too. I might know some of the people still there.”

“Yeah? Can you write me a reference?”

“Write yourself a reference. I’ll sign it. Give it to Sharon.”

And he got up and disappeared into the dark.