John Calvin sat here
One drawback of a peripatetic life is that your career takes a hit. How much living time have I squandered worrying who I’d be and what I’d be doing by now if only I’d stayed in one place long enough to let some professional grass grow under my toes. … My trick for avoiding that perilous mental slough in the absence of external markers of professional success — like a title, seniority or respectable salary (alas) – all those things which might boost one out of bed and off to the workplace in the deep dark dead of winter – is to remind myself that with all this moving around, I’ve had more than my fair share of cool jobs.
I once spent a few months doing research in an 18th century mansion on the Quai Voltaire at the foot of the Pont du Carousel – the bridge that links the Left Bank of the Seine to the central courtyard of the Louvre on the Right Bank.
Left to my own devices, I went in early every day just to sit at a gigantic oak desk and stare out the window at the palace of the kings and watch the life along the riverbank. It was so quiet inside that you could hear the booksellers unlocking their wooden boxes before the tourists arrived.
Another place I worked in Paris — a school on the butte Montmartre — had a door in the gymnasium which led to a small church built on the site where St. Denis was beheaded in the third century; rumor had it that somewhere in that chapel was a door which led to a staircase and the entry into not just the ancient crypt of the martyred saint but secret tunnels which had sheltered the Communards of Paris
In New York in the 90’s I found myself one summer temping on the testosterone infused high-risk trading floor of an investment bank (which has since met its demise) where I saw first-hand what workplaces are like when money is the only bourne.
In Dublin, my morning commute was a 45- minute sunrise walk up the beach – from whence evolved a world-class beach glass collection.
My resourceful, fun-loving, and endlessly generous colleagues in Havana taught me the fine art of making do. From them I learned how counting every one of your blessings and savoring each bright hopeful day of ice-cream and dancing can give you courage to face bleaker times of injustice, empty cupboards and floods.
In Strasbourg
These days I teach world literature and textual analysis to a small group of bilingual students in a venerable high school. John Calvin taught here from 1539-1541. The dates are engraved on the plaque over his chair, which is enshrined in the middle of the main staircase. The plaque reads simply: “Calvin’s chair”. I think it should say “John Calvin sat here.” Like those “George Washington slept here” plaques I remember seeing on historic houses in the Eastern U.S.A.
The students — mostly Europeans used to very old things — treat the chair as part of the furniture. (If they were allowed to sit on it, there might be gum under the seat). For myself, I have been known to grumble about how the school bureaucracy hasn’t evolved much in the last 500 years, but when it comes down to it, the presence of that chair adds a certain je ne sais quoi to my daily grind.
And then there’s the cabinets of curiosities, or Wunderkammers that line the hallways of the main building. These glass 19th century display cabinets filled with all manner of dusty scientific wonders like fossils, taxidermy, a pickled crocodile foetus, scales, beakers, instruments, charts, sketches, clay pots from some archeological dig, are a huge draw on the two days a year that the school opens its doors to the public for the journées du patrimoine (Historic monuments days…). Even though the wunderkammers are recent reconstructions, they add a fantastically creepy museum-ish charm to the hallways. I’ve never seen a single student give them a second glance.
If the ambiance and décor is not enough of a lure, there is always the food. Here in France a decent lunch at a fair price at your workplace is sacrosanct.
How I love the cafeteria, where teachers have the privilege of cutting the line. Homemade French fries and fish, soup, 2 kinds of salad, fruit cheese, dessert and an espresso for 3.50 euros. Vive la France.
Some winter Monday mornings pedaling my bike through the frigid fog a full hour before any hope of daylight, the prospect of that yummy warm midday meal is just too far away…On these mornings, there’s this bakery …just over the bridge, on the last turn before school. I lean my bike against the plate glass window and pop inside for a croissant to save for the coffee break. Vive la France
By far the best thing about my job now, accoutrements aside, is what I actually get to do every day: read lots and lots of books and hash out Big Ideas with smart kids who are only just beginning to grapple with them. This never, ever gets dull, as long as the books are good. And there are so many good books! Well, OK, it’s not Dead Poet’s Society. Moments of brilliant connection alternate with eye-rolls and heads on desks. Now that they know the word, many of my students have perfected a sardonic sneer. Who can blame them?
If anyone has a right to be cynical, it’s these kids, for their generation inherits our spoiled planet. They have already learned enough to know for certain that our current course leads to doom and yet they look on, powerless and aghast with disillusionment as their elders burn through their legacy in a blind frenzy of avarice.
They will not yet be 25 years old when civilization blows past the dreaded 1.5 degree warming target.
They will not have yet reached midlife by 2050 – the date at which so many predictive models end in a chaotic unknown like the terra incognita, the terrifying boundaries on a medieval map…here there be dragons.
They carry the awareness that they may be witness to the end of history.
What can I offer them? In the face of this colossal injustice Poetry seems a ridiculous remedy. I soldier on anyway: “Here, read this. What do you think?”; “Knowledge is power”; “Words can be a shield and a sword…”
We practice writing speeches.