I Open My Fertile Fields for You to Cultivate.
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Irony, Inwardness and Other Self-Centered Thoughts.

All of this stems from a dictionary definition of the word "irony." You know what it means, don't you? Some, like our friend Alanis Morissette, may say that they do, but this is arguable. You can guess that the reason why a 7th grade English teacher might look up the word IRONIC is probably obvious, but the real reason I did, you would not guess. So let's start at the beginning.

In the beginning of my teaching career this year, before there were students, there were last years' artworks left in the halls. Yes, ancilliary cleaning crews strip, wax, and polish the floors each summer, but nonetheless, a paper mache mermaid sat awaiting me on the floor in an empty hallway this past August, days before any students had arrived. I picked said beauty up from the floor, and rested her fishy form on the window sill outside the art room. She remains there to this day, and this day is the day I stuck a post-it note on her lap that reads:
"How am I Ironic?"
Well, it should be obvious to the artist who created her, and anybody familiar with paper mache, that she is an incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs. Nobody expects a mermaid constructed out of materials that quickly dissolve in saltwater, thus the irony. But, we'll see who, if anybody notices this. You, gentle reader, are miles, even time-zones away, and can chortle to yourself about the dry mermaid who sits silently with an unanswered question atop her lap: "How am I Ironic?"
We'll see if anybody answers, or notices, even.

Yes, but in looking to see if she truly is Ironic, I noticed some notes from Ed Said's book Beginnings on a scrap of paper that I found in my dictionary, marking the page before Irony. The notes read:

"A beginning represents a discontinuity with what precedes it. It opens fertile fields to be cultivated by others, allowing for the formation of subsequent texts. There must be the desire, will and freedom to reverse oneself, to accept the risk of rupture and discontinuity; for whether one looks to see where and when he began, or whether he looks in order to begin now, he cannot continue as he is. It is very difficult to begin with a wholly new fresh start." - Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention & Method p. 34

Indeed, this is the genius behind ingenius ideas: They make a wholly new and fresh start. Genius is related to genes, and Genesis, the root word meaning (my note/idea, not Said's).

"So borrowed from reality, and selected by necessity or need are then employed though the act of creation to make a new world or idea. These elements are thus refashioned or transformed." - Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention & Method p. 34
We have been reading Cosmogonies, Origin Stories, or Creation Stories, and I can't help but find something... cosmically ironic (?) about the discovery of notes from Said's Beginnings on the same day I left a note from my beginning, and felt a little 'ruptured' and 'discontinuous.' I suppose I should set down my wine glass and return to grading essays. I hope that Sunday I can paddle out on the water in Rhode Island and get some surf. I despeerately need it.