I wrote this remembrance on the occasion of my dear friend and teacher, Irving Schwartz's retirement (1993) and has become part of a trilogy of pieces about him. I'll be posting the other two in the future.
This piece marks the renaissance of my own writing. It came at a time when I was emerging from a particular wilderness and discovering new components of my own self. Written more than 25 years ago, it marks a blind leap into a realization that a huge part of who I am is encapsulated in one word: Writer. My genuine voice began to appear in all its depth and nuance as I wrote about Irving.
Rereading it now, I'm struck by how relevant and fresh it remains.
Since then, I have travelled along many varied paths and roads; at times even crossing oceans (real and metaphorical). It's as much about Irving as it is about me, both then and now.
How Irving Taught Me to Row
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet, iii 79–80
I wanted to serve in the Coast Guard. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I was thirteen years old and my parents had recently divorced. And, given the level of sophistication a small town in western Massachusetts could provide, that was about the limit of my aspirations. That was about to change, however. Irving Schwartz was about to enter my life.
In those days, I spent a lot of time running circles in my backyard (five times around to the half mile). I knew that it helped me to relax and improve my self-esteem. In retrospect, it also helped me escape the intense pain and confusion I was feeling during that difficult time. But that running was to become much more than a physical release to me. It became a sustaining and prevailing metaphor for my life—it became a symbol of my own personal Odyssey. And, running was the first thing Irving and I had in common—both in a physical and in a philosophical sense. Yet, I'm not certain I would have been able to realize and develop the philosophical without the impetus and enlightenment Irving stimulated within me.
The first time I really remember meeting Irving was in Mom's apartment in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. My brothers and I still lived with Dad in our old house conveniently located across the backyard. It was summer and one of those typically humid and warm New England summer days that can be truly glorious if you know how to go about approaching them. It was time for dinner and if you know my Mom and Irving, it's no simple or brief affair. Dinner was not simply eating (though that certainly was the culminating achievement of the event), it was the preparation, the drinking, the noshing, the engaging conversation, and the humor. All of this, of course, peppered with intermittent kvetching.
I remember Irving sitting at the table while my Mom was bustling about the kitchen in her usual manner. No doubt, he was most likely chopping something, perhaps tomatoes for a great tomato salad he makes—perfectly refreshing on a hot day. And I remember being intrigued and stricken by this man: a man with more hair (with the exception of the top of his head) than any I had previously encountered. An impressive handlebar mustache. A short sleeve Brooks Brothers cotton dress shirt—almost his "uniform" in those days. Little did I know it was soon to become a part my own uniform. Yet, what struck me most was not of a physical nature at all. I would have the most engaging conversations with Irving. I remember him being fascinated by my running. He was a runner too and talked of a ten-mile race (an almost unheard of distance, at least, at that time, for me) he had run. He talked of the marathon with such awe and wonderment that he inspired me to later run the distance.
The conversation turned to school, my academic interests, and my plans. I told him of the Coast Guard. And as best as I can remember, his reaction was, more or less, "That's it? That's all?" But Irving wasn't being deprecating or disparaging. His response really was an opening in an alpine mist that revealed to me incredible and heretofore unknown mountains. His tone was encouraging and enlightening. And over time, he helped me find the obscured but myriad approaches to those mountains. He knew where many of those routes were and was able to guide me on some. But more importantly, what Irving really gave to me were the tools of route-finding. Because ultimately, I still have many paths to traverse on which Irving has never trodden. I need to find the way for myself. And Irving was a seminal impetus in teaching me the world of those valuable route-finding tools.
Over the years, my relationship with Irving continued to grow. Here was an adult—intelligent, educated, and sophisticated, yet humble—who was truly my friend. He treated and challenged me as an equal, not as a mere child, the son of the woman who was to become his long time companion. It would have been easy for Irving to play the surrogate father role. But, at least with me, he was much beyond that—and for that I am eternally grateful to him. To this day, when I describe my relationship with Irving to others, he is first and foremost my friend.
For a long time, I think I really wanted to be just like Irving. I wanted to be a professional academic and in some ways continued to pursue this path until not all that long ago. The funny thing, I've come to realize, is that a professional academic isn't what Irving really ever was. And it took an arduous journey for me to realize that professional academia is not necessarily always dedicated to the pursuit of the meaning and significance of humanitas (something I discovered during a frustrating year of post-graduate study). I knew that Irving too had been burned by academia. But I somehow thought that this must have been some kind of a freak accident; I would prove differently. Such hubris.
In the end, I've come to realize that being a lover of humanitas doesn't mean one necessarily has to accomplish this in an academic setting (though it is distinctly possible—it just wasn't in my own situation). It doesn't matter what you do or where you do it, really. What matters is the means by which you approach the various aspects of life—and by which you strive to enhance and broaden your understanding of the world. It means being a generalist, something which Irving has often called himself and something which I have taken to calling myself as well. It comes back to something I noted previously: it's not so much about knowing which route is the absolute correct one. This is because there is really no one route suitable to all. What's important, is knowing what are the proper tools and methods for determining the correct route. Once those become comprehensible to you, the possibility of myriad "correct" routes become apparent.
So, after all, I have become like Irving, even though we're quite different. This reminds me of a somewhat odd passage from the Odyssey. During his journey, Odysseus received a prophesy that once he did return home, he should take an oar and travel inland. When he encountered a people who did not know what he was carrying, he should plant the oar in the ground and teach those people about the meaning of the oar. Before a person can even begin to help others grow, she's got to get home herself—she must achieve a certain level of growth and maturity. It is then that she can teach others—but only about the process and means of growing (signified by the labor of the oar, rowing)—she can’t tell them specifically how to get home. That is something they need to discover for themselves. Irving has helped teach me the meaning of the oar and I hope I too am able to do the same for others.
I believe that a teacher is successful even if, after a lifetime of failure, he or she makes a difference for and gets through to only a single student. Irving has made a difference in my life and I'll never forget that. Part of me has internalized aspects of Irving and those aspects can never diminish, for, for better or worse, they'll be passed on to those who I come to influence. It's a uniquely human form of immortality—we are what our parents were; and our children will be what we are. While our physical being is mortal, under the best circumstances our collective personality extends through the generations. What is of importance is what we most unequivocally have in the here and now: life.
Irving is no longer a predominant part of my life. That's not a bad thing, though it would be nice if we lived closer. I've moved on to scope out my own routes and begin to climb my own peaks. But I'll never forget the foundations that sustain me in the place I now stand, and for that I'm profoundly thankful.
This is my view of Irving. It's not anyone else's. I know some see him in a very different light—and may not even be able to view him from my perspective. But this is my experience of Irving and I do know others share in it as well.
Soon, I'll travel to Boston with my daughter Hannah to visit my Mom and Irving (he's "Grandpa Irving" to Hannah). And I know we'll all convene together in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Perhaps we'll even have tomato salad.
Eric Larson
Palo Alto, California
September 9, 1993
[I subsequently changed my last name to O'Rafferty as part of another journey; that's a tale for another day.]
Comments