Maybe (Maybe Not) Read Free Page A

great cycle of decay and return of which all living things are part. An organic solution with cosmic overtones. But a bird-watching friend told us the plant was toxic to waterfowl. Those pretty red leaves are poisonous.
    One year I left a poinsetta outside in the falling snow. It looked so nice out there—and an easy way to go. If it couldn’t handle the cold, so be it. We still had it in March.
    We’ve finally settled on an unspoken plan where one unannounced day in January I will surreptitiously pick up the poinsetta as I’m going out the door. I carry the poinsetta off to my office, where it will live for a while until it dies. The janitor tosses it out. And that’s that. Easy.
    Well, not quite.
    In truth, in my secret life, I am of two minds on this subject.
    As in many cases, something that may be trivial may also be important.
    Part of me thinks I should be on the side of anything so beautiful that hangs on to life without much help from me. It brings vibrancy to winter’s gloom. And will outlive me with only an occasional watering. I should hold poinsettas in esteem and have them planted on my grave.
    And another side of me says to hold back on the heavy thinking. These things are dispensable holiday decorations. No metaphorical anthropomorphic thinking need apply. A poinsetta is a potted plant, not a paradigm of existence…When its usefulness is served, it goes to the dump. Come on.
    It was looking droopy when I came in this morning.
    So. I watered it.
    Not a lot. I don’t want to encourage the thing too much.
    Maybe it will expire over the weekend. Maybe not.

T hat ambivalence over the fate of a poinsetta is typical of the way I often think. Despite the apparent ability to make decisions and get on with my business, the inside of my head is kaleidoscopic—every time I shake it, there seems to be a new picture. A distant relative reports that the motto written on our family crest is “
Soyez ferme
”—“be firm.” That’s a laugh. For me, in my secret life, the real motto is
“Forsan, non forsan
.” Maybe, maybe not.
    I once began a list of the contradictory notions I hold:
    Look before you leap.
He who hesitates is lost.

Two heads are better than one.
If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Better safe than sorry.

Out of sight, out of mind.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

You can’t tell a book by its cover.
Clothes make the man.

Many hands make light work.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
It’s never too late to learn.

Never sweat the small stuff.
God is in the details.
    And so on. The list goes on forever. Once I got so caught up in this kind of thinking that I wore two buttons on my smock when I was teaching art. One said, “Trust me, I’m a teacher.” The other replied, “Question Authority.”
    The Viennese have a word for the ability to carry on the business of daily life despite the bipolarities.
Fortwursteln
—a term that means getting by for long periods on little sausages and small potatoes. The word is also a reference to Hans Wurst, the male clown of Punch-and-Judy shows, whose specialty is confusion and the avoidance of big decisions.
Fortwursteln
refersto the ability to cope and muddle on—to function between maybe and maybe not.
    I think about this dichotomy when I visit a special place in our nation’s capital. At the west end of Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., screened from the street by a grove of elm and holly trees, there sits a memorial statue. A portrayal in bronze of Albert Einstein.
    Twenty-one feet tall, seated on a three-step bench of white granite, Einstein is depicted here in comfort—dressed in a baggy sweater, wrinkled corduroy trousers, and sandals, his hair in its familiar disarray. His face reflects a combination of wisdom, tranquillity, and wonder. Here is the epitome of a man at ease with the long, large view of existence.
    Appropriately enough, a model