Love Medicine

Well, school is out and I just returned from the Independent School Experiential Education Network (ISEEN) conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I feel fortunate to have met so many educators from around the United States, as well as teachers from Canada and South Africa. Professional development helps me connect with the inspiration and passion I felt as a student about learning, which is what I strive to help students feel every day. This blog is the direct result of my fellowship with the Southern California Writing Project (SCWriP) which encourages educators to see themselves as writers and researchers. Action research was also the focus of the last class I took to earn my Master's in Teaching at Portland State University. This blog documents these three things: my development and growth as a teacher; my own practice of reading and writing; and the connection between the former and the latter: How do reading and writing make me a better teacher? Ever since I started teaching, I've kept a teaching journal to record the good days and the bad days. I do this so I can avoid past mistakes and continue effective practices. I have to say, one part of keeping an effective teaching journal has to do with re-reading it every now and then. So I may post some entries from that journal over the summer and reflect on them as I consider how I want to improve next year. Speaking of next year, I will no longer be teaching British Literature, and instead be teaching World Literature. I am excited about this change and also nervous, as it is a new curriculum that I have not taught before. I'm starting to read a few things over this summer in preparation for that class, including The Kite Runner, Oedipus Rex, Siddhartha, The Life of Pi, and The God of Small Things. Some of these are choices for the summer reading assignment and some are books we will read during the school year.

Before getting into my reading for this summer or reflecting on how the school year went, I want to finish appreciating the books I read last summer. Here is a remarkable passage from a pivotal point in the plot of Love Medicine by Lousie Erdrich. This novel immerses readers in the lives of several Native American families between the years of 1934 and 1983. Different characters narrate chapters set in a non-chronological order. For example, the first group of chapters takes place in 1981, and the next group of chapters takes place in 1934. This chapter, "Love Medicine" (same title as the novel), is narrated by Lipsha Morrisey, who is also the protagonist of Erdrich's story, "The Bingo Van." Lipsha is something of a healer. He was born with these powers, but occasionally struggles to use them. At this point in "Love Medicine", Lipha's grandfather has just choked and died on a turkey heart which Lipsha and his grandmother have tried unsuccessfully to sneak into his food. The turkey heart was supposed to cause Lipsha's grandfather to fall in love (again) with Lipsha's grandmother but Lipsha was not able to convince the priest or nuns to bless the turkey hearts:

     "Grandma got back into the room and I saw her stumble. And then she went down too. It was like a house you can't hardly believe has stood so long, through years of record weather, suddenly goes down in the worst yet. It makes sense is what I'm saying, but you still can't hardly believe it. You think a person you know has got through death and illness and being broke and living on commodity rice will get through anything. Then they fold and you see how fragile were the stones that underpinned them. You see how instantly the ground can shift you thought was solid. You see the stop signs and the yellow dividing markers of roads you had traveled and all the instructions you had played according to vanish. You see how all the everyday things you counted on was just a dream you had been having by which you run your whole life. She had been over me, like a sheer overhang of rock dividing Lipsha Morrisey from outer space. And now she went underneath. It was as though the banks gave way on the shores of Matchimanito, and where Grandpa's passing was just the bobber swallowed under by his biggest thought, her fall was the house and the rock under it sliding after it, sending half the lake splashing up to the clouds.
     Where there was nothing.
     You play them games never knowing what you see. When I fell into a dream alongside both of them I saw that the dominions I had defended myself from anciently was but delusions of the screen. Blips of light. And I was scot-free now, whistling through space." (251-2)

The existential crisis, the feeling that one is hurtling through space on an unknown voyage, frequently follows the death of a loved one. Having lost my mother five years ago, I know what this is like. I do not relate to Lipsha's image of his grandmother as "a person you know has got through death and illness..." because my mother was sick before she passed, but I do relate to, "how instantly the ground can shift you thought was solid." Maybe this even goes back to my own first realization of my mortality when I had a brain aneurysm in 2001 and just survived by luck. Life is pure chance. We think we are in control but control is an illusion. The rules all vanish when we have this insight. Everything seems petty and meaningless compared to the reality that all beings are mortal and will one day die. And love is the antidote to death. So what does it mean that Lipsha's grandfather dies when he is given love medicine? That is one of the questions at the heart of this book. What does love do to us? Does love heal us or curse us? Does it do both?

Appended 10:15 AM 6/27/2018:

I didn't promote this post at first because it seems more "personal" than "professional" and I want to be sensitive to my family members. However, I am struck by how closely love and death are intertwined. I remember looking for wedding poems when I was getting married. All the love poems I was finding were ultimately about death as much as they were about love. Perhaps this is because love is the force that holds us close to each other as we gradually or quickly move towards that inevitable, final separation. Love is the knowledge that our lifetimes are just a passing phase. Love is the attraction to and desire for life. I think that is what Bjork means when she sings, "All is full of love."

Lastly, I want to add a note about Erdrich's diction when she writes as Lipshaw. She really uses a specific syntax when speaking as Lipsha ("You play them games...") which is what some linguists might call "marked speech" indicating a lower socio-economic status. This reinforced by his reference to "living on commodity rice..." Finally, the use of the second person, the word "you" helps the reader connect with this passage. I don't think it would be as powerful without inviting the reader to inhabit Lipsha's perspective so directly.

What do you think? Have you read Love Medicine or any other books by Lousie Erdrich? Are you inspired to read her now?