Thursday, September 29, 2022

 Thursday, September 29, 2022   

  My guests were arriving today at 5 pm. They were picking up a snack for us to share. I don't cook except for survival. Everyone knows that. No one comes to my house expecting me to cook. I do the cleanup happily.  

  While cleaning, I found my driver's license slipped between a chair cushion and the frame. Oh, dear. This was the one I just got. I had no idea why I had it out. Maybe I never put it in my wallet after it arrived in the mail. Whatever. All's well that ends well.

  As I cleaned, I listened to the 1961 movie version of Raisin in the Sun. I recognized most of the dialogue from the script. One scene was dramatized instead of merely referred to. It showed Walter Lee as a chauffeur for the rich man being treated as an object.

    Sidney Poitier in the role of Walter Lee is ironic. Walter is damaged by poverty and the limitations of his life. Walter spins big, big dreams and blunders badly. He is a child throwing temper tantrums against forces out of his control.

     Sidney Poitier was born into poverty, only he never knew it. His father was a tomato farmer living on an island off Bermuda. The family had no electricity and no running water. There were also no white people in charge. He had no idea what it meant to be demeaned or denigrated because of his skin color, economic, or educational level. When he had to move away, it was too late. His sense of human entitlement was engrained. His were not exaggerated flights of fancy. It was what he had been raised with; he was equal to everyone.

    He moved in with his brother and wife while living in Florida. Harry got a job delivering for a store. He knocked on the front door of a house. The maid told him he had to come to the back door and closed the door in his face. He knocked again. "He was there. She was there. Why not just accept the delivery?" When he got home that evening, the KKK was already there. His sister-in-law asked, "What did you do?"

  His simple sense of entitlement- or naiveite- is wild. He went to his first audition, unable to read the script. There was no arrogance in this man. He wasn't better, but neither was he worse or lower than anyone else.

    When I first saw the movie Raisin in the Sun, I was twenty years old. I had no appreciation for its depth and complexity. I just related to it as a story about a family living a restricted life through no fault of their own except that they were black. What a difference sixty years makes in my appreciation of this play.  

    I called my friend Carol, who might be coming out for Thanksgiving, to warn her that I would be toothless on one side of my mouth. I was scheduled for five extractions on  with two posts. My dentist will put a bridge on the right side of my mouth two to three months after the extractions.     Carol informed me they were working on coordinating their visit to me with a visit with their son, Sam, his girlfriend, and their sister-in-law. I believe Sam and Amy would only be here for a few days as they stopped off on their way to India. I would be happy to have them all stay here as long as they don't treat me like an unwelcome guest in my home.

     Carol and John were momentarily expecting an exchange guest from Wales. It was supposed to be a couple, but the wife was denied a visitor's visa. She had visited an Arabic country with a UN group. The US Homeland Security considered her suspicious and denied her a visa. Pretty extreme. Carol ended the call when her guest was at her door.

  I planned my session with ninth-grade K, assuming he would have seen the end of Raisin in the Sun at home or school. The teacher had them watch the 1961 version. He was much more secure in his understanding of the play, having watched the movie rather than reading it. He hadn't seen it to the end but knew enough for me to follow my plan. He knew Mama bought a small house in a white neighborhood, and a community representative came and offered to buy them out.  

  I reminded him of Mama's plant. I asked him to envision her walking into the house with the plant in hand, looking for a place to put it. I asked him what the house looked like when she first opened the door to enter. He said, "I don't know. I haven't read that part?"  "It isn't part of the play. Do you think you can only know how it looks when someone tells you?" Yes. No one knows how it looks. I will give you some information, and you form an image using it. He was paralyzed. I asked if someone yelled at him when he got things wrong. He said no. I told him how a class of kids laughed at something I said in a social studies class. The teacher came up behind me as I was leaving the room and told me I was right. After seventy years, it occurred to me that he hadn't said that to the class. He was afraid of those kids. I didn't go to a tough school. I went to a school full of rich kids, several of whom have Wiki entries.

    I shared my vision. I opened the front door and stepped right into the living area. There was no hallway. To my right, I saw an empty room with two double-hung windows on the side of the house. The floor was narrow wood planks with a somewhat worn finish. The Sun was streaming in the window. I assured him his image could be different from mine. We had nothing to compare it to. Good readers create images as they go along. If the author later gives information contradicting our image, we must change it. Suppose we have no specific information from the author. In that case, our image is good enough, even if it differs from everyone else's. It just has to stay within specific parameters. We couldn't envision a large three-story house with an elegant winding staircase. The author told us it was a small house purchased by people who didn't have much money. There are limits to what we can conjure up. This freed K. He came up with a different image than mine. As he walked in, he saw a room to the left filled with sunlight. I had seen the sunlight coming in from the right; his was from the left. The author had said nothing about which way the house was facing, or which windows had the best sunlight. Both our images were good.

  Eddie and Sergio, my guests, arrived as I was finishing up with ninth-grade K. We were running over because he came late. I showed them the house. They loved it. What's not to love? I have a great house. The common living areas are open to the outside. There are no doors to close. I am always touched by natural light and air. I absolutely love it. I couldn't imagine surviving after Mike's death if I lived anywhere else. I always feel better when I'm in nature.

    Eddie works for a movie company, finding books they can convert into movies. I mentioned all the books I had read for my sixth grade M.  He recognized all of them but not the book I was currently reading, Beyond the Bright Sea, which is one of my favorites.   I listed some of the elements of the book:

Robinson Crusoe's survival; close to it.

caring adults with an abandoned child.

Human intolerance

search for lost family ties

A crime and our heroine's role in solving it.

Historical basis for some of it.

coming of age.

Close relationship to nature.

  

The above elements are delightful, but the author's language captured my attention first. This is one to look into if anyone's into children's books.

    I started my walk late because Eddie and Sergio left closer to 6:30 than 6. I was anxious to see Lutz and wish him a good trip. He was off to Thailand the next day. From there, he is going to Myanmar. He'll be gone for a couple of months.