Julia Alvarez

You know, the Mrs. Lawrence way of looking.

And what's this business about moving over the threshold would be dangerous?

Come on.

Right.

Well, I mean, in some ways, as we just mentioned, she wrote the poem, this lovely little gem of a poem.

And so we feel like, oh, no, Judy, you did not fail.

Don't for a moment believe that.

But also we know in that nuance and clear, accurate way that she's taught us in this poem to look at things that we all fail.

I mean, we all go over a threshold or not the right way or we're given a responsibility and we look the other way or not the way the person wanted us to look.

I mean, we all, this is going to happen everywhere.

Yeah.

And maybe the thing that's heavy duty is, does it have to be really a failure or just ups?

But she sees it with that heaviness of that moment.

Or maybe the way we carry those voices with us that we don't even want there.

She hears that voice whenever things aren't going well.

She hasn't gotten the St.

Mrs. Lawrence out of her head yet.

even though she's gotten out of the classroom, you know?

Yeah, and I think she's letting the accuracy of her details and, of course, her word choice be what propels the full richness of that moment to us rather than setting it up and framing it by this thing that's obeying me.

She's staying with that world.