Song— “Kathy’s Song” by Simon and Garfunkel (1966)

The older I get, the more I love simplicity and need simplicity. This is a song where sincerity and simplicity carry all of the weight. It’s a beautiful, moving meditation. One of its themes is the limits of language, which is something I come back to again and again in my teaching, but it’s also just a heartfelt expression of longing. 

The singer is Paul Simon. He’s missing a woman he’s separated from and meditating on her role in his life or the role that her love played.

It describes a rainy day, and it’s nothing but a voice and a guitar. The sound of the guitar is like the sound of rain. You have this unified experience of longing expressed with great simplicity and beauty. That’s why I love it.

 

Book— “Behind the Attic Wall” by Sylvia Cassedy (1983)

I read this as a young adult, and I reread it a couple years ago. It’s one of those books that has stuck with me throughout my life. It’s about an orphan girl, and there are elements of Goth, satire, and comedy. But most of all, it’s about how she matures and becomes stronger in her sense of herself through the life of the imagination. Everyone around her is trying to nourish her body and take care of her physical needs. That’s important, but it really makes you think about the relationship between the life of matter and life of spirit and how important that life of spirit is. 

It’s a really impressive and moving book. It did what a great book does. It creates a whole world that wraps around you, envelops you, and captures your own imagination. It’s a book that really appeals to the reader’s imagination but also speaks about why we need imagination. 

Movie— “Spirited Away” by Hayao Miyazaki (2001)

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, so he’s like the Japanese Walt Disney. It’s a quirky movie which I love. It’s about the life of the imagination. It’s about a girl who’s moving to a new town, and along the way, she has her parents stop for a break in the car. Her parents get sidetracked, and she gets swept away into this other world that is ruled by an evil witch — and at the center of this world is a bathhouse where vegetables come for spa treatment.

The girl ends up working as a servant in this bathhouse for vegetables. She’s befriended by a boy who had a spell cast on him by the witch, and he’s lost in this world too. Through their friendship, they help each other and save each other. 

It’s about the redemptive power of love and friendship. It’s not romantic. It’s about how this little girl, with her courage and her willingness to help, can accomplish great things.