Clowny's Convocation

I had a mother's urge to tuck my baby boy into bed with a little extra comfort, so I looked around his room in search of a logical and safe option. Next to his crib was a clown toy that my mom had given us before Calvin was born. He had an embroidered face (no buttons to choke on) and a fabric body, and if you pulled on his legs a sweet little music box played, "You are my sunshine..." I started the music and tucked the clown into Calvin's curled arm. He wiggled his legs and cooed. An important friendship had begun.

Of course Clowny went everywhere. He rode the zoo train, went camping, visited the hospital when Calvin suffered a serious croup cough. A favorite old snapshot shows Clowny peeking out next to our sleeping toddler in the REI backpack that my husband shouldered down many coastal trails. A misplaced Clowny at nap time created a serious crisis. After getting tumbled and tossed too many times, the music box eventually broke. Clowny's subsequent "lobotomy" allowed him to go into the washing machine, which whitened his grimy terrycloth face but never eradicated the homey smell that was, of course, his most critical feature.

Clowny was lost and found too many times to count, most notably by a curb in Los Angeles after a day at Disneyland. But Clowny did eventually lose himself for good--again in Los Angeles--somewhere between the hotel and the Jeep, we presumed. Our five-year-old wore his sorrow courageously and sobbed himself to sleep until the loss lessened. A parade of other toys became companions as needed.  

I missed Clowny, too. He represented a link to my boy's babyhood, a simple way that I'd been able to offer comfort when life hurt or felt scary. His cheerful song perfectly echoed my motherly feelings: "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you..." I treasure a portrait of the big-headed Clowny that Calvin crayoned in preschool--one of the most carefully rendered art pieces my very verbal child ever made.

So I listened in wide-eyed amazement as "Clowny" matriculated into the keynote address at Willamette University's opening convocation August 22 in Salem, Ore. Here we were, saying good-bye to our son--and, symbolically, to his boyhood--and the renowned author and cartoonist Lynda Barry started talking about this stuffed creature called "Mr. Banana."  Some friends, it seems, had tried to disown their child's tattered beloved while on vacation--only to discover that Mr. Banana was way too important to toss. The smelly, awkward, everywhere-toted toy represented so many things: Safety. Home. Love. Comfort. Sweet Dreams...an endless list. A hotel concierge had saved those parents from a world of pain by preserving Mr. Banana and returning him into the right little hands. If only a similar soul had returned our Clowny to us 13 years ago! After Convocation, we reassured Calvin that Clowny's demise had NOT been by design.

Barry's speech at Willamette met me at every turn. Now an artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Barry, 58, has spent decades studying objects and images that are much greater than their parts because of our perceptions and our interactions with them. She offered fascinating insight about the role of imagery in healthcare, a topic close to my yoga teachings. For example, she described a doctor who helped an amputee "unclench" his missing fist by seeing his healthy hand open up in a mirror-lined box. The reflection helped him perceive his phantom hand opening, and the pain and associated anxiety that had caused years of trouble dissolved. This story immediately worked its way into my yoga classes, where we've spent the summer discussing mind-body links to healing and how we can feel better by perceiving ourselves in a more relaxed state. We all have something to unclench!

Me with author and cartoonist Lynda Barry

Of course I felt a little knotted up at my baby boy's college convocation, and Barry continued to touch my tender mommy emotions with her speech. A graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., the Seattle native gathered her points up around the subject of entering college with a curious spirit and enthusiasm for a lifetime of learning. Listen for the questions that could inspire a career, she advised, noting that her own scholarship began with the question, "What is an image?" from a respected professor. Then the comic added, "Don't forget to floss. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you have gingivitis." (I relished telling Barry at the book signing later that I had that very morning bought my son a multi-pack of dental floss!) With a bright smile, she said to the 500 new students before her. "Don't forget to monkey around!" And, she encouraged, "Make time to sleep. You need to sleep to keep your mind sharp." All the moms in the crowd nodded approval, including me. And there I was, back on thoughts of Clowny. Of course I hadn't tucked my son into bed for years, but still I'd been there to know when he was sleeping or studying or worried or excited....

Before we waved goodbye we helped Calvin set up his dorm room. We bought a rug, filled bins with tea, Emergen-C packs and protein powder. I delighted to know that Willamette's cafeterias are filled with organic produce from its own local farm. I made his bed with the college-length linens I'd ordered from the online store. I tucked as much comfort into those corners as I could. I plumped his pillows.

As we pulled away from campus, headed to the Oregon Coast for some end-of-summer surf, I grinned at the mysterious, mind-blowing end to Lynda Barry's speech, which seemed uncannily directed at us. Eyes twinkling, she closed her mouth and began to sing like a goofy ventriloquist: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you...."

Good bye, Clowny. And good luck, Calvin.

A post script about Willamette's past and present:

Convocation included a drum group from the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Indian Nation. The drum beats were beautiful, haunting and a marvelous reminder to honor history with honesty and humility and to move forward with integrity.

Willamette University was founded by a Methodist whose original mission was misguided in a manner typical to his generation of white evangelists. Jason Lee started a school to "educate and civilize" Indian children of the area, which had been farmed and hunted sustainably for thousands of years before white settlers brought diseases that decimated the tribal communities. Like many others of its kind, the school quickly failed and Lee (a distant relative of mine) sought an alternate use for the property. His Indian Manual Labor Training School was sold in 1844 to the Oregon Institute, which developed a school for children of missionaries and settlers. That Institute evolved into Willamette University.

Knowing that my father's ancestors had married into the Lee family, which had ties to my parents' tiny home town in southern Kansas, I read this history in my shiny Parent Handbook with extra curiosity. I had to chuckle at the honesty with which the booklet explains that Jason Lee and his followers at some point after 1844 "determined to use Feb. 1, 1842, as the founding date for Willamette University" (making it the oldest university west of the Mississippi River).

I recently read James W. Loewen's remarkable book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about dubious history taught by high school textbooks that leave out unpleasant details about racism, Indian genocide and U.S. imperialism in order to downplay ugly pieces of our past and reassure patriots that our allegiance has always been well placed. (If you haven't already done so, please read this important book.) During Convocation I was enmeshed in Loewen's chapter about our country's 300-plus years of war between white immigrants and Native Americans, so my ears were perked for how Willamette (named for the river that the Indians named) would handle this tender topic at opening convocation. I was hopeful that the school might honor its history without dumbing it down just to keep things comfortable. The drum corps felt respectful, and a Grand Ronde chief offered a "Welcome to the Land" speech after an extraordinarily non-denominational Invocation by the University Chaplain. The chief choked with emotion as he spoke about his ancestors' land, and I'm pretty sure I remember him using the word "stolen," though he kept to passive voice. The outdoor tent hummed with tension for a few moments before the chief smiled and welcomed the students, expressing gratitude that this sacred land now houses a place for enlightenment and higher learning. I felt a balance between honesty and friendliness that seemed appropriate and forward-gazing.

Oddly, the vice president for academic affairs had just introduced the University President, Stephen E. Thorsett, as a proponent for healthier relationships with local tribes when the outdoor tent's power source blew. Hmmm. It felt like a nice, 5-minute pause to consider that promise.

Positioned directly across the street from the Oregon capitol, Willamette houses a premier law school and has educated many government officials and leaders. An archway on campus is engraved with the words, "Education brings national security." I hope so. I hope that true learning, based in fact and careful analysis, will lead our country toward more intelligent use of its land and resources so that we can secure clean food and water for everyone--for a long, long time. I hope that our leaders, with well-informed ideas about how to live companionably on a shared planet, can create policies that lead to more peace and less war. I hope that enlightened conversation about our human likenesses and differences can lead to more friendship and less animosity.

Calvin plans to study political science and law. I'm so grateful that Willamette has welcomed him. I know he has the intelligence and the passion to improve the world he lives in. And I'm hopeful that the book he might write one day would be "Truth My Teachers Told Me."