Reader’s Response to “The Joy of Simple Gestures”

First: a confession: I am Lina Ezrahi’s paternal grandmother. I am also a (retired) professor of literature. It is in the second category that I respond to the lovely essay entitled “The Joy of Simple Gestures” (July 11, 2022). In this essay, Lina asked Noah Gelber, dancer, choreographer, book illustrator and singer, what advice he would give to his “adolescent self”? I’ve given that question some thought and decided to share with your readers my response based on some of my own experiences and hard-won wisdom.

First: the lessons learned through negative examples that scarred my adolescence but ultimately succeeded in making me stronger. My “career” as a pianist was abruptly cut short by the horrified look on my high school piano teacher’s face when I told him I would like to continue playing in college.

But it was the notorious Miss M. at my high school in Highland Park, Illinois, who did her best to spoil the love of English literature for me—and, I suspect, for generations of impressionable teenagers. I think I became a professor of literature to counterbalance the Miss M’s of the world.

There were of course also inspiring figures who nurtured our adolescent interests and cravings for storytelling. For me there was Mr. Burkart in 5th grade, who read scary stories around a roaring fire in our small schoolhouse in Highland Park, Illinois. And most memorable of all, there was the town librarian, Miss Boyé, who always knew what I should read next when I returned last week’s armful of books.

As professor of literature for over fifty years, I taught university students whose hunger for literature—for poetry and storytelling and theatre—hadn’t been quashed by highminded high school teachers. If I come back in another incarnation, I would like to be a teacher of high school English, to help nourish those tender buds that bloom in teenage hearts.  So here’s what I would tell my adolescent self: pursue your passions, no matter how the world responds to you. Of course, if you receive encouragement, and believe that it is deserved, that’s great. But if you don’t? If you play an instrument well enough not to become a great concertmaster but to have access to music for the rest of your life, don’t let an authoritative teacher kill it for you. The same is true of love of theatre, art, literature, dance, anything that you can master adequately to satisfy your curiosity and hunger for beauty.

Draw, dance, play, write to your heart’s content--as if no one were watching you.

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi