"Sweeter as the years go by," Blind Willie Johnson sang -- "Jesus' love is sweeter, sweeter as the years go by."

I'm also told that the Buddha said lies are sweet at first and bitter later, while the truth is bitter at first and sweet later.

I used to be modest. I also used to be false-modest.

When I stopped lying to myself, I stopped being both modest and false-modest; the wine of sincerity, as some have called it, also tastes sweeter as the years go by.

Why am I sharing this?

Because I'm as touched, reading what follows about the Me that Was, as I would be if it had been written about any other young man I met now, and saw such beautiful gifts in, and saw suffering and tortured in the prison of his mind, captor and captive alike.

The pity, compassion, clarity, and unconditional love of those who wrote these words touches my heart. 

I've never thought about that phrase -- touches my heart.

But I feel it now -- when the scales of your heart fall off and its tenderness lies exposed to the world, even a gentle touch -- what can I say? It's the caress of a soft finger on the string of a setaar.

I had a history teacher in high school. What can I say? She wasn't that smart -- not dumb, just not -- next-level.

But you know what?

She was pretty (which I liked), but more importantly -- she had a good heart, a pure heart. So, I trusted her. In those days, I didn't really trust anyone, so that's saying a lot.

I'm looking at this paper here, wondering what it is; I think it was a form she filled out for me to submit with college applications -- a review, so to speak.

Wanna see what she wrote?

Jian is an independent and mature young man. He possesses genius-like potential for intellectual growth. He is extremely gifted. The most beautiful aspect about Jian, however, is that despite his knowing of his superior intellectual ability, he carries himself modestly. He is organized, respectful, artistic, gentle, warm, and extremely funny. He will excel at any higher institution.

Aw, shucks.

I mean, no shit.

I mean -- ah, shit. haha

I said she wasn't that smart; I'm not so sure, actually. I think she was a Real Human, and she saw things exactly as they were. So may we all.

Another teacher from that era -- well, dare I say he was even more perceptive?

There, I just said it.

Incisive, too -- in the sense of cutting into, as of the heart of the matter.

A surgeon is a healer, and to heal he cuts and draws blood; resolve that contradiction, why dontcha, if contradiction it is.

Here's what he said. Can you tell? He taught English.

With words I will try to limn an accurate picture of Jian Lotfi, a student in my AP English 11 class at Watkins Mill High School last year. It is my misfortune not to teach Jian again this year; it was also my decision not to recommend him for AP 12, despite his being one of the five most brilliant persons I have ever taught in my 260-odd years in a high school classroom.

The simple matter is easy to state: Jian did not write essays. Not to write essays tends to affect one's grade adversely when over half of the grade is determined by writing essays.

Why Jian Lotfi did not write essays is very difficult to understand, and I am still not sure I do understand. I have seen his creative writing, since I afforded the class numerous opportunities -- emulations of writers' styles; varying modalities of situational irony and parody to capture the contrasting tones and ideologies of Ben Franklin's Age of Reason, and Bierce's Naturalism; several approaches to autobiography. Jian is a peerless creative writer, a writer with a gift of expression and a delightfully quirky humor.

Expository writing is, unfortunately, another matter. On our numerous in-class essays, usually done to practice for the AP Exam, he did quite well, although it is true that until November he would freeze under the pressure, being unable to write more than several sentences in the time constraint given. By April, his responses were of sufficient length, and suitably astute. Yet on the many occasions -- at least six times per marking term -- when an outside essay was required, Jian rarely complied. Rarely. Drove me to distraction. I tried cajoling, casualness, reassurance, sternness, a whole arsenal of those pedagogical counseling tools. I tried forcing him to stay after with me to write essays in my room: moderate success, but watching him (discreetly, of course) torture himself was sad. I am at a loss to explain this phenomenon.

In every other possible criterion, Jian Lotfi is off the top of the chart. He reads voraciously and with complete understanding; he absorbs everything we discussed and everything I tossed at his class, no matter how esoteric, Julian Jaynes' metaphier and paraphrand notwithstanding. He is respectful, quiet, receptive, hard-working, thorough -- in everything save one thing.

My hope is that Jian will outgrow this difficulty. My greater hope is that a challenging university will look past the blemish and see the overall person. For the school lucky enough to accept him, I have no doubt that he will enrich it far more than it, him.

05 April 2022



P.S. You know, as I read this again before actually posting it, it struck me that... more cynical readers might say that first review sounds pretty "self-congratulatory," as if, perhaps, it were also a work of autobiography. For their sake, and to add a little color to this text, here's a picture I took of that review, of course blacking out the teacher's name.