Almost a week ago, I was crossing Atlantic Avenue and my knee went squish and started hurting like mad. Once I had safely reached the curb, I looked and it was about the size of my head and taking my weight in a very grudging manner which suggested that it would give up at any moment. I sat for awhile and then went to get pastries which is what I was doing crossing Atlantic Avenue in the first place. I bought pastries at a strange pastry shop, mourning the week long vacation of Patsy's which has many advantages: it's on the way to work, they never ask me to make difficult choices, and everything is unbelievably good. Limping back to work an hour late, the pastries were pretty good, but strangely had lemon in curd in ALL of them. Except the eclairs. Which were awful.
The Big Bad Bean, upon learning of my knee troubles, gave me stinky stuff to rub on it until we both had time at the same time for him to look at it. This did not happen until Friday when he started giving me joint fatigue pills. I have to say that the pills are a huge improvement over the JF wine but are still rather nasty and have this terrible habit of making me very alert and energized and then dropping me on my butt 4-7 hours later. I have stopped taking them now that my knee has mysteriously stopped being a problem. Since I stopped, my feet hurt all the time. I wonder what that's about?
As for John Holt, he blew my mind again today. "Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons' experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value."
It is resonating with two recent occurrences. First, on the way down to Deirdre's wedding, I asked the Big Bad Bean to read Michel Foucault's
Hermeneutics of the Subject to me. He didn't even finish the first half of the first lecture and I'm still reeling. Care of self, the pursuit of soul-development, being central to any effort of value and all effort being valueless without it. Second, was a recent visit the Bumble Bean and I paid to a Teacher friend. She was so completely into teacher mode that she left no room for him to reach her: the communication allowed was her to him, no feedback from him was allowed. No input from him was valued without her valuing it for him. In an hour and half, the Bumble went from a happy, exuberant explorer, to actively dis-trusting her to finally dis-liking her and requesting to leave her presence. That's pretty strong for the Bumble Bean. He generally has a pretty high tolerance for other people and the things they do.
Anywhoo, the String Bean arrives tonight and his bed is not made. I must dig up some pillows and linens.
