thank-you card,” she
whispered in my ear. “Emily Post would approve of that.”
I tried to ignore the way my heart raced at the
thought of calling Demetrio, hearing his voice again, maybe even
seeing him again. There was no reason to be nervous, I reasoned. It
must have been that I associated him with the crash, and all the
drama of it. Maybe, I reasoned, it was like when you’re kidnapped
and end up falling for you captor just because you’re dependent
upon him for your survival the way a baby is dependent upon its
mother. By that logic, we all loved our parents only because they
were our original captors. Made sense.
Yazzie carried on. “The story of St. Anthony’s
temptation has been a ripe subject for artists and writers for a
long time. The basic story, for those of us who are not familiar
with it, is that St. Anthony the Great made a lonely trip through
the Egyptian desert, where he was tempted by many sinful things but
through sheer will power and conscience, was able to transcend
them. This idea that fallible human beings are able to rise above
their own banal nature, to aspire to greater things and greater
beauty in spite of their cravings, lusts, desires and wants, is an
enduring theme.
“You see this same mythology play out in works by
painter Salvador Dali, composer Paul Hindemith, Michelangelo. The
famous French author Gustave Flaubert -”
“Ooh! Gussie Flubber,” whispered Kelsey, who thought
calling Flaubert by this name was high comedy.
Yazzie continue, “...who many of you will be reading
and discussing this year or next, wrote a novel about the
temptation of St. Anthony, and it is said to be his best work, a
book that took him his entire life to complete.
“It’s all there - the seven deadly sins, martyrdom,
god, science, lust, death, monsters. And transcendence through
self-denial and moral self-control. Incredible transcendence,
through self-imposed isolation. Human beings have an unquenchable
thirst for hope in the face of despair, for the faith that no
matter how bad things get, there will always be a way to pull
ourselves back toward the good, the just, and the right.”
Yazzie paused now, as she often did, and hummed a
few notes of a melody that only she knew. She had explained to us
that this was her way of connecting with her spirit guides on a
higher plane. We’d grown used to it, and simply waited for her to
flutter back to earth and resume her professorial duties.
Yazzie stared dreamily at the painting in silence
for a moment, then carried on.
“As dreary and frightening as this Bosch is at first
glance, it is ultimately a work of a man I believe had great hope
for people, and for our ability to rise above greed, avarice, sin.
It is an optimistic painting. Now, let’s hear what you think. I
always love hearing your thoughts. This is a great group, with
curious minds. Starting with the left panel, and the lower left
corner. We see something hatching from an egg. What might this
mean?”
And so the discussion with the class began.
Thirty-five minutes later the bell rang. Kelsey and I were about to
leave when Yazzie called me back.
“Yes?” I asked, standing at the side of her desk.
Kelsey waited for me in the hall.
Yazzie burrowed through a desk drawer, and tugged
out a yellowed, half-torn sheet of paper with pale photocopied text
on it. Most of her notes looked like this. She handed it to me.
“Before I forget, I wanted you to read this when you
have a moment. I would suggest you read it soon. Today. But I know
how you girls are with your time. It’s busy.”
I looked at the paper. It was a Cochiti Indian myth.
Yazzie was forever handing me things like this, myths from the 19
Indian Pueblos of the Rio Grande River valley in New Mexico, and I
had long ago stopped reading them too carefully because most of
them didn’t make any kind of sense to me.
“Thanks,” I said politely.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began,
for no apparent reason, “that if you believe
whispered in my ear. “Emily Post would approve of that.”
I tried to ignore the way my heart raced at the
thought of calling Demetrio, hearing his voice again, maybe even
seeing him again. There was no reason to be nervous, I reasoned. It
must have been that I associated him with the crash, and all the
drama of it. Maybe, I reasoned, it was like when you’re kidnapped
and end up falling for you captor just because you’re dependent
upon him for your survival the way a baby is dependent upon its
mother. By that logic, we all loved our parents only because they
were our original captors. Made sense.
Yazzie carried on. “The story of St. Anthony’s
temptation has been a ripe subject for artists and writers for a
long time. The basic story, for those of us who are not familiar
with it, is that St. Anthony the Great made a lonely trip through
the Egyptian desert, where he was tempted by many sinful things but
through sheer will power and conscience, was able to transcend
them. This idea that fallible human beings are able to rise above
their own banal nature, to aspire to greater things and greater
beauty in spite of their cravings, lusts, desires and wants, is an
enduring theme.
“You see this same mythology play out in works by
painter Salvador Dali, composer Paul Hindemith, Michelangelo. The
famous French author Gustave Flaubert -”
“Ooh! Gussie Flubber,” whispered Kelsey, who thought
calling Flaubert by this name was high comedy.
Yazzie continue, “...who many of you will be reading
and discussing this year or next, wrote a novel about the
temptation of St. Anthony, and it is said to be his best work, a
book that took him his entire life to complete.
“It’s all there - the seven deadly sins, martyrdom,
god, science, lust, death, monsters. And transcendence through
self-denial and moral self-control. Incredible transcendence,
through self-imposed isolation. Human beings have an unquenchable
thirst for hope in the face of despair, for the faith that no
matter how bad things get, there will always be a way to pull
ourselves back toward the good, the just, and the right.”
Yazzie paused now, as she often did, and hummed a
few notes of a melody that only she knew. She had explained to us
that this was her way of connecting with her spirit guides on a
higher plane. We’d grown used to it, and simply waited for her to
flutter back to earth and resume her professorial duties.
Yazzie stared dreamily at the painting in silence
for a moment, then carried on.
“As dreary and frightening as this Bosch is at first
glance, it is ultimately a work of a man I believe had great hope
for people, and for our ability to rise above greed, avarice, sin.
It is an optimistic painting. Now, let’s hear what you think. I
always love hearing your thoughts. This is a great group, with
curious minds. Starting with the left panel, and the lower left
corner. We see something hatching from an egg. What might this
mean?”
And so the discussion with the class began.
Thirty-five minutes later the bell rang. Kelsey and I were about to
leave when Yazzie called me back.
“Yes?” I asked, standing at the side of her desk.
Kelsey waited for me in the hall.
Yazzie burrowed through a desk drawer, and tugged
out a yellowed, half-torn sheet of paper with pale photocopied text
on it. Most of her notes looked like this. She handed it to me.
“Before I forget, I wanted you to read this when you
have a moment. I would suggest you read it soon. Today. But I know
how you girls are with your time. It’s busy.”
I looked at the paper. It was a Cochiti Indian myth.
Yazzie was forever handing me things like this, myths from the 19
Indian Pueblos of the Rio Grande River valley in New Mexico, and I
had long ago stopped reading them too carefully because most of
them didn’t make any kind of sense to me.
“Thanks,” I said politely.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began,
for no apparent reason, “that if you believe
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