Hairhopper, Q. Cassetti, 2012, pen and inkIt’s been a while. Sorry for my radio silence. But, I am back and ready to chat it up with all of my lovelies. Its after five and I am gazing at a lavender sky that is migrating to pink, gold and salmon. It feels like a lovely almost spring evening with the treat of the mild weather and and light after five. Its a quiet night here at Two Camp with Robbie doing the late night shift at the Museum and Prince Alex Cassetti, singing and dancing his way through “Once Upon a Mattress” as his momma’s little glittering star. I am back from a very invigorating Farmers Market Meeting…where we got into the small points—and got some real work done.
We are back from the trip to Landmark College and Hampshire. Landmark, to be quite blunt, was a disappointment. We all really wanted to have Landmark really rise to our expectations, but were all so saddened to discover that Landmark might be a bit like sending Alex to Siberia with no one as a friend, and no ability to be engaged as a musician and all round people person. We had an interview. Alex had an interview and then we were convinced to have another tour. Our charge to our amiable tourguide, to show us students…lots of students. We saw students…maybe 25 or 30 of them— none of them who were engaged, edgy or excited about anything. We were all trying to piece together a life for Alex with studies at Landmark, jazz studies at the Vermont Jazz Center (in Brattleboro) and a job off campus at the Putney Coop. Unfortunately, even with all this embellishment—we still couldnt see how it all could work to Alex’s benefit.
It would be education without friends, without passion. So, the next day, we focused on passion with help to make the passion ignite. Alex interviewed happily at Hampshire— thrilled at the custom tailored interview where he could gab on about music theory and the like with a lovely third year student. We took the afternoon to see Smith College’s art, music and drama department facilities (thrilling)—and spend time projecting out what that picture could be. What kind of help do they provide the students with learning differences. We hung out with Kitty and her Mod mates…and got some ground level insights into LD, into special help, into personal advocacy and got some interesting stories and great names of people to call, questions to ask. We are going to get moving on Kurtzweil 3000 so that Alex is familiar with this tool. We are going to maybe do a bridge program at Landmark to get him familiar with tools without having the semester committment. We will put his name in the hat for other schools. We are going to drive from the position of passion with skills being secondary…and lean on the things that make our boy happy and challenged. This is the richer slice…and richer rewards for him. Mildly put, its been quite a few days to get to this simple conclusion. All of us are feeling as if we were drawn through a keyhole backwards. Yikes.
Pursue passion. That is a reason to draw breath and live a full life, passion and engagement. We all can get something to pursue for money, a job, a life…but those moments at the dark, velvety late hour of the night when we wake should have a channel where passions can be stirred and anticipated versus focusing on the commonplace of checkbooks and taxes, musts and shoulds versus brilliance and beautiful. Life for Alex needs to unfold and challenge versus lockdown and to some degree, punish. We are all poised to make that chapter happen in the energetic, positive way he deserves. The path is not clear, but we are on it…and now we join together to see how it evolves.