Ever more frequently I find myself
at my sister's and brother in law's house on fire island.
The house is on the dunes on the ocean, which right now is boiling and moiling
with a steady, concentrated, distinterested anger.
I come here because it is peaceful -
peace for my mind foremost.
I read, I write, I play boggle with my sister.
My brother-in-law is a guitar man, a thinking man, who loves
playing his music.
By trade, he's a carpenter.
Even as I sit here, writing away, he's at work on the house.
He is busy strengthening the windows and deck facing the relentless ocean, the side bearing the brunt of weather. Winter is coming, its storms along with it.
His work is a pain-staking process.
Measuring, cutting, planing, smoothing, painting, attaching
- all to shore up the house, well, actually, more than that -
To make it stronger.
Not just for it to survive,
but for it to THRIVE.
He works basically alone.
My sister provides moral support, sustenance, the occasional sandwich -
and of course hours on the phone to make sure he has the tools and supplies he requires -
To his one man show.
He could let others do this job of his.
But he knows that nobody is better qualified,
and nobody is more invested.
And so he works
Steadily,
Persistently,
Patiently.
His work is an analogue of my own in CAGSE.
Our tools are different,
But our purposes are the same.
To make the house stronger.
To help it become all it can be.
I want our students to do the same with their minds.
To learn how to make themselves stronger.
How to harness their own power.
To use what they were born with to their utmost.
So we pay attention to detail, never losing sight of how that detail, that part, fits into, and in with, the whole.
Only thus does the whole become greater than the sum of its parts.
My brother-in-law understands that well.
It is a lesson to build on.
And upon.
drg