One of my favorite children’s books of all time is Leo Lionni’s Frederick. In this story, a group of mice work together to prepare for the winter. Most of the mice are busy gathering “corn and nuts and wheat and straw.” The mice, we are told, work all day. But not Frederick. Frederick moves at a much slower pace. The mice are understandably perturbed and ask him, “Why don’t you work?”
Frederick says, “I do work.” He goes on to explain, “I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days.”
The story goes on in much the same way, with Frederick continuing to explain that it may not look like he is working, but that he is busy gathering things like colors and words.
Now, if you’re the other mice, tired and sweating and muscles aching, this can’t go over so well with you. Gathering the sun? Gathering colors? Gathering words? That’s what you’re doing? Yeah. Okay, Frederick. Thanks. Remind us how those colors taste when you’re eating the food that we got for you.
I mean, everybody knows that guy, right? The one who seems to not be doing much, who lets others do the heavy-lifting. In the college courses I teach, I usually refrain from assigning high-stakes points to any kind of group work because I want to spare my students the frustration of having to drag along a Frederick.
Except here’s the thing. Frederick is not the slacker he appears to be. He is just using his gifts in a different way. He really is harnessing the sun.
Frederick, you see, is an artist.
In a productivity-driven mouse society like his, Frederick’s gifts may seem less apparent. Less useful. But they are real just the same. And Leo Lionni, in this wonderful tale, tells us that they matter.
I have been thinking about Frederick a lot these past few days as my family and I engage in what Michael Stipe dubbed “Q.S.Q.” (quasi-self-quarantining). Like many others, I have been sustained, in these uncertain and scary times, in part by the sense of community I have had online with friends and family. And, while online and checking Facebook, I have been heartened by the efforts of our artists and the entertainers.
To be clear, I know there are so many people out there who are real heroes, who are putting themselves in genuine danger every day, sacrificing, potentially, their own health and well-being to help others and to keep our society going. The health care workers, first and foremost. The first responders. There are also the heroes—usually getting paid a minimum wage salary—still showing up for work at grocery stores and gas stations so that our society can function, quarantines and all.
For those of us trying to stay home and to stay calm, trying to, well, not freak out at the unprecedented, almost apocalyptic nature of it all, the artists and entertainers are providing a service that, while, perhaps not heroic, has certainly proven invaluable, too.
If you are on social media, you will see it everywhere—artists like The Indigo Girls , Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, and Michael Stipe posting and sharing free mini-concerts from home or making footage of live shows available. Vulture shared a list of many of these online shows yesterday: https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/all-musicians-streaming-live-concerts.html
Museums like the Guggenheim and the National Gallery are offering free virtual tours https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours. Access to some Broadway shows and plays has been around a while now, but its access is certainly welcome, too. https://www.playbill.com/article/15-broadway-plays-and-musicals-you-can-watch-on-stage-from-home Having cancelled its performances through March, the Metropolitan Opera is planning to livestream some performances, too. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janelevere/2020/03/14/responding-to-coronavirus-closures-metropolitan-opera-and-92y-livestream-performances-free-starting-tonight/#5c8ded28194b
Yesterday, Jimmy Fallon posted an “at home” of the Tonight Show, filmed by his wife, at his house, featuring his dog Gary and his daughter. https://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/the-tonight-show-at-home-edition-the-first-one/4134367
And it all helps. It really does. It helps so much.
In the book Frederick, winter comes, and the days become almost unbearable. The mice, nestled into their hideout among some stones, are running out of food. It’s dark, it’s cold, and they are stuck in a small confined place together. How are they going to manage to survive until spring in conditions like this? And then it happens.
One of the mice says, “What about your supplies, Frederick?”
So, Frederick climbs upon a rock, and he speaks. He tells them about the sun, and they feel its warmth. He tells them about colors, and they can see the colors. He recites a poem he has written about the coming of spring, and, suddenly, the other mice, too, believe that spring will come.
And for just a little bit, when they need it most, they are sustained.