An impasse, it seemed. Yet when I met next with Viig (mentioned a post or so ago), the door was wide open. I had just what he wanted. Added benefit: I explored something that I hadn't thought of before.
Why had I not understood? He'd told me but I hadn't believed it was anything worth teaching. No, the point was no great revelation, and certainly not all that he needs, but it was something that actually got me thinking: there may be more here than expected. Maybe, not just an arbitrary individual fact or instance of usage, but a tiny system driven by a logic of performance, and that I can happily teach. (As I write, the wheel motifs in Wim Wenders' Far Away, So Close, just watched, are resonant in me.)
Clearly I hadn't listened openly enough. Every honest concern is driven by the forces that come from interesting places. I shouldn't have been so afraid of boredom, and not so ready to find echoes of the past in what I encounter. Every minute I'm supplementing the past and creating it new.
I can see that as I teach I'm telling myself a story about myself. In a sense it's part of the lesson. If, in an encounter, one party isn't interested in that story, I have to pick some other one, or pause, wait, wait, until I learn a new story that's interesting to both. (Again: Far Away and Otto Sander spinning like a watch gear in his elastic band trapeze.)
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