Thanks. No, Really. THANKS.

I was looking for some quotes on dating and relationships for the last post, and Google helpfully popped these ads up.  As a very dear friend of mine once said, "F--- you, Google.  F---- you."  I will PIMP SLAP you, biyatch.

This Will End BADLY

"People go to casinos for the same reason they go on blind dates - hoping to hit the jackpot. But mostly, you just wind up broke or alone in a bar."  ~ Carrie Bradshaw

So.  I'm sitting on the couch reading the other evening and my iPhone dings.  Text.  Okay.  I read it, and it's an invitation to a party Friday.  Again, okay.  It will be fun.  I haven't seen some of the people who are coming for a really long time.  I love them dearly, and we're all too busy or childrened or whathaveyou to hang out much now.  Any chance to get together is not to be missed.

Here's the thing, though.

There is also supposedly a guy for whom I am apparently "destined" whose birthday is the whole reason for the festivities.  Oh holy Cheezus.  It's a roommate and an awkwardness and an appraisal.  It's a set-up.

I'm going.  I want to see my friends.  I want to eat the absolutely divine food that will be there since one of my friends is a caterer/chef who makes things that will, quite literally, make that old cliche about slapping yo' mama come true.  I do, however, have extreme doubts about whether my "destiny" is waiting to begin on Friday night.

I am just going to go and be me (whoever that is), and everybody there can take me or leave me.  It's all I know how to be.  Let's just say I am sure the evening will be pleasant, but I'm not exactly optimistic about more than that. Unless he's smart as hell and at least as tall as I am, it's sort of doomed.  I can also deeply and profoundly wish that nobody has pitched this idea of destiny about to this guy.  Quite frankly, after a long week in the classroom, I don't think I'll be able to live up to that..... Another friend, I can always use.  Somebody who is avoiding me in horror and dismay all night, not so much.

Disquieting Muse

I am dreaming of you again.  You show up…everywhere.  Inevitably the nightmares come, but just when things are at their most bizarre, I look up and you have stepped in.  Sometimes you even stop the strangeness, lay your hands on my shoulders and turn me in another direction, wave your hands in a dismissal and I wake up.  Sometimes it's just a flash of perception as I flee or fight whatever demon is on the nightly marquee, and the world of my unconscious spins on.

There are the dreams where you talk and the dreams where you are a silent part of the background.  There are the dreams in which I have no idea why you would be there at all, nothing in them relating to you in any way.  You are the perpetual dress extra, the Hitchcockian cameo that defines the genre.   It’s enough to make me wonder half-seriously if you are something from a sci-fi novel, someone who can walk in the sleeping mind of another.

It’s not uncomfortable, but it is strange.  Why would I dream you sitting in a blue and buff melamine desk, pen twiddling in your hand, occupied with whatever is in front of you but still bored?  You do not fit there.  Why would I dream of a house I’ve never seen in which you show up in the hallways and corridors just to say hello and disappear like mist in the sun?  Sometimes we actually talk; sometimes you greet me and we are swept away into other things.  When I wake up, though, I always remember that you were there, playing "Where's Waldo" with the fragments and detritus of the day.

Please understand.  It’s not that I’m not glad to see you.  It’s just that you’re becoming more and more like de Chirico’s Disquieting Muses, something that gets more and more unnerving every time it is contemplated.  You are the shadow that no angle of light should be able to cast, the thing standing just out of frame that can be sensed but not quite caught. If there is to be any face on the subconscious that drags me through the world of dreams every night, I think we would both prefer it not to be yours.

Mighty Revelations...

(a list.  and a facetious title. prepare yourself.)

• Tablets that don't work really suck.  Especially when you want one a lot.  It's a tease.  I don't like teases.  Put up or shut up and get out, sweetheart.
• It's really expensive when the pharmacy fills a scrip that was supposed to be filed instead.
• The "linen & clean air" scent of Febreeze car air freshener will knock you straight down when it's been sitting in Mississippi August heat all day.
• A six-pound, fourteen-year-old black cat can whip a seventy-eight pound, year old Pyrenees. (true fact)
• I regularly wish to be as much of a badass as my six-pound, fourteen-year-old cat.
• People still amaze me on a regular basis, both with their kindness and faith...and with their lack of both.
• American TV networks should never, ever try to reproduce successful British shows.  Except  The Office.  That one, I'll give them.
• I dream of the same weird and incredibly detailed places all the time.  They remind me of deChirico paintings and not in any kind of good way.
• People are crazy, and times are strange.  I used to care, but things have changed.
• One of the best feelings in the world is to be clean straight from a hot shower and to slip between cool, fresh sheets.
• Having a constant camera on my iPhone has made me pay more attention to the world around me.
• Just once before I die, I want to drive all the way across the country and see things, maybe with an Airstream, even.
• I do NOT want to see The Possession.  Ever.  Or The Apparition.  Or any other scary movie  dealing with demonic possession that ends in "-shun."  
• I still want that 440 V8 RoadRunner.
• The best fountain pen I own cost me about $10.  (Pelikan Pelikano Jr., for the record.)
• Sometimes nothing but cheese will do.  Interpret that however you like.
• Wearing blue sparkly polish on my toes makes me feel like dancing.
• I firmly believe my life would be better if the new seasons of Sherlock, Doctor Who, or Downton Abbey were currently rolling.
• Slipcovers hide a multitude of sins.
• Some songs demand broken speed limits.
• Every time I think about the upcoming election, all I can think of is, "This is IT?  This is ALL?  Oh CRAP, we're in trouble...."
• I really hate talking to people in the morning.  It's not that I don't love you.  It's that the evil of pre-noon doesn't deserve to be acknowledged verbally.
• There are days when I would like to wear all my favorite pieces of jewelry at once like a Gypsy queen.  
• It's not late, but I'm still going to bed.  I roll like that.

(randomness out.  love ya.)

The Fairy Tale

Although it's been a long time since I could say it is true, today I found myself believing in the Fairy  Tale again.  Maybe it's a product of my having caught the last part of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, the season 2 finale of Downton Abbey, and Pure Country all in one week.  I don't know.  Suddenly, for the first time in ages, I don't want to laugh and throw things at all the happy endings.

I am still pretty dubious about winding up with one myself, but it doesn't seem preposterous in general.  It feels good to see things positively again.  It's part of a larger trend.  I came home yesterday afternoon, and even though it was Friday after a very long week, I still had energy enough to sing along with the radio.

I'm not sure what all has made the difference, but I'm grateful for it.  I feel like myself for the first time in a long, long time.

Notes to Myself

In preparing a lesson plan, I opened an old Norton Anthology to skim it for a particular work.  As I thumbed through the pages, it became less of a search and more of a discovery.  I had an accidental encounter with myself, long, long ago.

All along the margins, carefully written with the needle-pointed black pens I preferred all through college, were annotations, questions, lecture notes, commentaries.  Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" contained terse notes on interpretations, plays on words.  Plath's acerbic "Daddy" is written almost completely up with marginalia about symbolism, biography, metaphors.

Inside the text itself are other little pieces of me at that time, a draft of a note I wrote to a professor I was going to interview and write about for a paper that became one of my all-time best was hiding in the works of Gwendolyn Brooks, an information slip about a get-together to go see Romeo and Juliet marked a segment from D.H. Lawrence.  As I rifled through the pages, the fragments of my undergraduate slipped around me, pulling me back to that time briefly even though there was not one single picture to be seen.  I remembered the hot, tatty lecture rooms of Lee Hall with their battered furniture, peeling walls, and tatty tile.  I remembered the roar of too-loud window units straining to cool us or the tick-ping-ping of a steam radiator fighting an early December chill.

I remember, too, all the other things that were going on in my life, a grandmother in the last stages of a battle with cancer, the unresolved and endless ridiculousness of my relationship (or whatever) with D., persistent questions about what was coming next in my life.  This bulky volume with its onionskin pages brings it all back, every golden gingko leaf on Engineering Row, every late-night conversation.

Sometimes the past comes rushing back in to swirl around me again, like a tide that shifted without warning. Just that quickly, the fragments I surround myself with coalesce, solidify, and that strange duality of the person I was then and the one I am now have to make peace with each other, find a way to share the space.

Second Thoughts

That last post was incredibly selfish and ill-conceived.  My whole sense of being trapped is, too.  If I am trapped, I did it to myself.  It's not fair to take this unpleasant feeling I have and say that anybody other than myself is responsible.  I need to be just.  Whatever I am or have, it's on me.

The Land of No

Monday or Tuesday, I was driving past a car lot in town when I saw a really, really gorgeous thing.  It was an old royal blue Dodge Charger ragtop convertible.  I almost pulled in right then, but it had been a long day, and I contented myself with watching it in the rearview mirror.  It started me thinking, though, about what I'd like to replace my own car with when that day finally comes.

I have always liked old things better than new, and the same ethos applies to cars.  I love an old muscle car (all of them except Corvettes and Mustangs, that is).  Cars from the 40s and 50s charm me with their graceful flow.  That love of vintage is why I have the car I have now, a throwback design to those other days.

I started talking with my Dad about that car and about another one I'd seen driving past a place on the other side of town on a regular basis.  He knows a lot about cars, having rebuilt and/or raced a lot of them in his youth.  I am just learning basic things; I still don't know as much as I'd like to on the technical end.  After talking to him, I decided I would go back and see the cars and just see what the sticker prices were like.

The blue one was gone.  Who knows if it sold just that fast or if it was only ever there to pull people in, the private property of someone on the lot.  Across town, though, I found the reddish orange one sitting as though it were waiting on me.

It's a 1969 or 1970 Plymouth RoadRunner with a 440 V8 in it.  Basically, it's the Plymouth version of the Super Bee.  It looked like, given the slightest provocation, it would kick your ass and then take off into flight.  I found it quite lovely.

There was no sticker in the window, so I still don't know if it's for sale, but getting that close to it made me want it.  Lots.  I came home and talked to my Dad some more about it, and that's when the "Noes" started.

No.  You don't need a car that fast with that much horsepower under the hood.  No.  You don't want a car with that age on it.  No.  You would be unhappy with the gas mileage.  No.  You don't want it because it needs constant tinkering which you can't afford.  No.  No.  No.

It was kindly said, and I'm not saying it's all wrong.  I fall in love with things and talk myself out of them all the time because they're not wise or not right for me right now.  So I'm not saying that the car is the issue.  It's just another symptom of a bigger thing.  What I am saying is that I am getting powerfully tired of No.

No.  You shouldn't want to go anywhere else even if this place is eating your soul.

No.  You shouldn't even talk about changing jobs because this one, although it is not paying you enough to pay all your bills, is at least a safe option.

No.  You shouldn't want to go out of the country on any kind of exchange because who will take care of your house while you're gone?

No.  Even if you applied for it and they told you you're going, isn't it somehow going to fall through and be bad?

No.  No.  No.

My life feels like an auxillary portion instead of its own legitimate entity.  I am so powerfully tired of  it always being no or you can't or their close and evil cousin, have you thought about...should you really.  It makes me feel like a fool or an infant.   I wasn't aware that I'm either.  It makes me unbearably weary and sad.

No.
No.
No.

This Land of No is killing me.

Beautiful Morning

The dogs woke me up this morning making impatient noises.  I got up, pulled my mind together from the strange dreams I was having, and I hooked Roux to a leash so we could all go outside.  Stepping outside always sort of sets the tone for the day.  Sometimes a thick blanket of hot wet air wraps around me, and I just feel ick.  Today, though, it was cool and dry, autumn in it.  It was wonderful.

I hate it when it's humid and miserable.  I don't want to be outside at all.  When it's cool and pleasant, just that little hint of a breeze rifling through the leaves, I always feel like anything is possible. I wish it was like that more often here.  I think about the climate of Brasilia, how it was pleasant even at more than 80 degrees because there was no wetness in the air.  There are days here when it's almost hard to breathe.

Everything was nearly idyllic.  This is the season where I have a million butterflies in my yard, and they and the hummingbirds were busy with the lantanas and the feeders.  The sun hadn't quite made it over the trees across the road, and everything was shady with only patches of light spotting the grass I mowed yesterday.  It felt good to be alive and outside.

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, I wish all I had to do was stay home and walk in the cool morning grass, come in and take care of things inside, that this was enough for a life.  I guess after awhile, I would get bored out of my mind, run out of things to do, start to feel claustrophobic.  It's just hard to imagine that when everything is pastoral and lovely on perfect mornings like today's.

Shooting Stars and Other Travelers

Yesterday, after a long but mostly good first week of school, my friend and I were working on lesson plans for next week when F suddenly appeared in the doorway.  I haven't seen or heard from him in quite some time.  I had assumed he was either frantically busy or that I perhaps no longer fit into his world.  It shouldn't have been a surprise that if he was going to turn up this was the season, I guess.  His orbit usually brings him near at the beginning or end of a semester.

Anyway.

By the time he arrived, I had a) missed eating real food for lunch because we'd been told something would be provided and there wasn't any left by the time the majority of us needed it, b) been fighting my school computer for two hours because it had inexplicably become almost useless, and c) tried to figure out how to get all the things we need for teaching into a tiny little non-adaptable grid so it could be submitted on time.  Needless to say, I wasn't at anything like my best.  The candy I'd eaten as a lunch substitute was trying to catch me up on sugar, but it wasn't doing a very good job.  I felt sluggish and grumpy.  I had planned to go home as soon as I could get something on paper for lesson plans, but I rarely see F, so I stayed and we talked.  He's on his great adventure, about to start a new leg of his journey.  I remember what it was like to be in a place similar (but not, of course, exactly the same) to his.

We talked a long time, as we always do, and we covered a wide variety of things.  Nothing unusual.  He asked me, as he almost always does, if I had thought of going somewhere else.  For some reason, this time, I started to ask him why.  (And F, if you read this, I guess you'll find out what was going on behind the mask....)  I told him that I am planning on going back to Brazil on a Fulbright or some other program if I can, and he made a comment that started an disquieting range of questions tumbling over each other in my head.  He reminded me that I don't have forever.

I felt several things.  First, well, quite frankly, I felt old.  And maybe I am.  I rarely feel my age, though, which may be good or bad, depending.  I felt every moment of it when he said that.  Second, I felt a little paranoid.  I know I have changed, especially in the last two years, but I wasn't aware that it was so.... visible.  Am I in such poor condition, so ragged around the edges that I need to flee?  (It's possible.  It's entirely possible.)   Finally, I felt that old discontent that is always present in my life but usually quiet wake up, shake a bit, and show its teeth.

I'm happiest when I am somewhere else.  I've known that for a long, long time.  I write better.  I feel better.  I think better.  It has been so long, though, since I have been anywhere but here.

There are things that hold me here.  Family duty.  Mortgage payments.  Health care and retirement.  Sometimes, I feel like I will never be free again.  Whenever that feeling comes on me, I feel my heart beat in my chest like a wild bird suddenly caged.  I can't stand the thought that comes with it.  I can't stand to think of retiring after 25 years and coming home to what I deeply fear will be an empty house, a life lived trying to serve others, a remnant used up and ready to be laid aside.

Somewhere along the way, you see, every life reaches a tipping point.  Things become comfortable, or at least they so entangle you that to get free of them would be harder than whatever pain they might cause.  Am I at that point?  If I don't go soon, is it possible that I won't ever be able to?  And what if I don't?  Is that wrong?  Is there no possibility of good that comes from staying?

Again, I come back to that empty house at the end of all those years.  It is a very tangible thing, almost tactile in its reality.  I know, more or less, that if I stay here I won't ever find anyone to share my life with.  I might not ever, anyway, no matter where I may go.  I'm aware of this.  Whatever bloom might have been on the rose was gone long ago.  Yet if I go, maybe that emptiness will be filled with other things even if love and companionship don't manage to be one of them.  I often think of other teachers I've known who never married, never had lives outside of their profession and what happens to them when that profession moves on without them.  It makes me more than a little sad to think of that as my fate.

I turned the matter over tonight as I was standing in a pasture full of tall grass with every star in the universe above it.  I had gone out to see the Perseids, and staring up into a perfectly clear night sky with no other distractions does have a way of making one think.   So do the little trailing flashes of light, the last hurrah of something burning itself out on its journey.  I don't know what the right thing to do is anymore.  I know what I want, but is there a point at which what you want isn't the important thing?  Does everybody always want what is good for them?  Should desire be the thing I follow?  Do you have to wake up one day and say, "This is what it is.  This is what I need to find contentment with and just lay aside the other"?

What I have is not bad by any means.  I am fortunate compared to many.  It's just that I don't feel like I used to sometimes. I feel like I'm becoming something, and I'm not sure what, just that it isn't who I was.  And that little inner beast keeps waking up....

So am I growing up or am I dying inside?  Is F right, and I need to get out?  Or do I need to be satisfied with what I have?

I wish I knew.

Freakin' Wednesdays

To give you an idea of what my day has been, I looked down at my hands as they gripped the steering wheel and had a moment of panic.  The huge amethyst cabochon had fallen out of my ring.  I was home, just about to get out of my car, and as I moved to get out, I saw the stone on the  floormat.  I don't know when exactly it decided to leap out, but at least I found it.  It would have broken my heart otherwise.

The whole day has been a massive list of the bizarre, the irritating, and the wearying.  I spent all my lunch and about a quarter of my planning period detangling the massive knot of charger cords on the laptop cart.  There's a charger cord missing quite inexplicably.  I ran out of white paper, went to my car before school to get some of what I'd just bought out of the back...and discovered that I had somehow managed to buy 8 1/2 by 14" paper, a size my printer won't run.  When I went to buy paper at Office Thing, I wanted to recycle some old ink cartridges, too.  They had burst in the bag and the blue ink leaked on my fingers and stained them.  I was so distracted and rushed this morning that I forgot to put in earrings.  Just a whole drawerful of little things, really, typically Wednesday things....

Fortunately, all of that has been somewhat offset by some good things, too.  My students so far this year seem like they're going to be really good.  I'm going to be able to get all my students school Gmail.  I used Remind101 for the first time today.  The seniors were excellent in the assembly, almost spookily so.

I'm tired now after a long day and dealing with Wednesday in general and then having to go to Office Thing after work.  Maybe the worst of Wednesday is gone.

Soapbox Time

I try to stay off my soapbox.  Sometimes, though, people just insist on shoving me until there's nowhere left to stand.  Today is one of those days.

I don't care what you believe in as long as it doesn't hurt other people.  Every person is entitled to his or her own opinion about things.  We are all (hopefully) thinking beings who take in information and make the best deductions about the world that we can based on those experiences.

What you don't have the right to do is two-fold.  First, you don't have the right to shove your beliefs down the throat of any other person.  Talk passionately about it?  Yes.  Debate over it civilly?  Absolutely.  Go further than that?  No.  Beliefs come from inside a person.  You just can't sway people to your way of thinking by force.  Second, you don't have the right to be hateful to someone who does not agree with you.  Just because somebody hasn't had the same experiences and has managed to come to a different opinion doesn't mean that you get to adopt an attitude of superiority, disdain, or condescension.

What happened to the very civilized idea of people being able to discourse even in disagreement?  When did disagreeing with someone turn them into some kind of mortal enemy?  I cannot understand how talking to someone else who holds a different opinion (again, as long as it's not hurting anybody else) is a cause for somebody to spring into violence, verbal or physical.  Are our beliefs so weak and malleable that we have to fear exposure to all others?  Shouldn't we instead welcome the chance to see another viewpoint, weigh it for its worth, and then made up our minds again when we're done?

I'm tired of every single moment I encounter the news being a stage for people being hateful to each other.  I'm tired of nobody being able to be kind.  I'm tired of the word "tolerant" being twisted to mean "anybody who agrees with MY IDEAS only" and flung around like a weapon.

Okay.  I think I've said everything I need to say.  I'm putting the soapbox up for the evening.  You can, of course, take this with a grain of salt, use it or ignore it as you choose.

Busy-ness as Usual

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday passed in an insane blur.  Despite that, I still am not ready for tomorow.  You know.  Business as usual.

I have helped to put together a course syllabus, gone to a day-long meeting about textbooks, worked on my room, rearranged my house after having my floors steam-cleaned, ordered slipcovers, bought supplies...a million little things.  I keep thinking that I am going to hit the tipping point where I can say, yes, at last, everything is done.  This keeps not happening.  There is, instead, just one more item on the list, and one more, and one more....

Last night, I had one of the "pre-school nightmares" that I suppose are obligatory for teachers everywhere.  It was distressing enough to wake me up and keep me up.  Once I get everything rolling for the year, that will stop.  I hope.

Today was another exercise in here, there, and everywhere.  I did laundry, we had Open House at the school, I had to go to Wal-Mart afterward, and then I came back here and repotted various plants that I plan to take to my classroom sooner or later.  One of them is my beautiful jade plant that has been in my classroom two years now.  It almost died after sitting in my car for too long the last day of last year.  It is still pitiful, but I am hoping that the remainder of the summer outside with some care will help it make a comeback.

Now, I am avoiding the last of the school work I need to do for tomorrow.  I found MacGuyver on Netflix, and I am watching it and pretending (not well) that tomorrow isn't coming with combat boots on....  Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, you know.

Here I Go Again...

(with all due apologies to Whitesnake.  and to you for the 80s rock reference.)

The summer is officially over in one hour.  Tomorrow is the first day of the new school year.  I can't even feel like I am going back to the same school this year for so many reasons. Everything feels different.

For one thing, so many of the faces I had come to know as the rock-steady foundation of our faculty are gone.  They retired, sought other opportunities.  There are certain of them I just cannot imagine our school without, to be honest.  While a part of me knows that institutions transform themselves or die, I am certain I will be looking for those faces like ghosts in the halls.

This summer has also been full of revolutions in my personal life:  Brazil, my uncle's death, the massive overhaul on my house, getting off the Topamax.  Huge chunks of the puzzle of my life have been pried loose, shuffled around, and the picture just doesn't look the same anymore.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  To have gone through all of that and be completely the same would be the bad thing, probably.

There's also the fact that I am nervous about this year, student-wise.  I had some of the most genuinely discouraging moments of my career last year, things that stole that feeling of "rightness" I have always had with my kids.  Sure, every year brings its own challenges, and true, the vast majority of last year's students were wonderful people whom I will deeply miss.  I need that to be understood.  I don't want it ever said that I did not like last year's class or that I put them down here.  They were a vibrant group of individuals with a distinct personality to them, and they frequently made me laugh.  In all honesty, though, there were also some things that happened that made me feel that what I do is an exercise in futility.

I've had students be confrontational with me.  I've had students get in my face or get into fights with other students.  I've had to deal with exceptionally thorny discipline issues and "battles of the wills."   All of that goes with the territory.  I never take it personally even when it is directed at me.  It's about something else almost always, and I just happen to be a handy target.  Even when it does seem to be a personality conflict, it gets dealt with and we move on.  I'm not in a popularity contest.  I'm trying to teach somebody, a whole lot of somebodies, something.  This past year is the first year ever that I can honestly say a student managed to hurt me and did it deliberately, with planning, deception, and a little song in the heart.  That's just never been a part of my reality before, and now I have to fight the urge to see a knife in every hand waiting for me to turn around so it can find a place to sink in.  I don't want to teach that way.  I don't want to live that way.  It makes everything inside my soul grey and dull.

So I came out of last year with scars, and now I'm a little worried.  How will it go this year?  I have very high hopes and am enthusiastic about it going in.  I have two new electives.  We're going to block schedule.  I am going to be integrating a class exchange with my host teacher from Brazil into my curriculum.  So far, in my very limited interactions with this year's class, I feel like the echoes of the past will just fade out, but I won't be able to tell until I actually get in the room and get everything underway.  Hopefully, the enthusiasm I have for all the wonderful things we're doing this year will carry us.

Well, it's late, and 5:00 will roll around appallingly fast.  Three days of PD preparation, and then all questions will be answered.  I am fervently hoping that all will be well and that this optimism of mine, frequently woefully uninformed and out-of-place, is right this time.

Frustrating

I'm working on stuff for the new school year, and as I'm pulling things together, the fact that so few resources exist for high school teachers when compared to lower elementary is being pounded into me once again.  If you don't believe me, check any place.  Google.  Get on Pinterest.  What you will find is a world of "cutsie" graphics and stripped-down, bright and happy language that are nearly impossible to adapt for anyone over the age of 10.

I did, in fact, do a quick search for "education" on Pinterest.  What comes up are thousands of pins, but the vast majority of them are elementary or middle school oriented. The pins for classroom organization have great stuff, but so much of it revolves around "setting up centers" for different subject areas in the elementary room, or outlines for items and procedures that do NOT exist in my universe (for example, the ever-popular discipline chart in which kids move up and down using clothespins...great if you have 30-ish students. Not quite so useful when you have more than 100....)  If you search for "high school education" on the same sight, you only get a few hundred pins, and the vast majority of them are actually the same social media usage poster pinned and repinned by teachers probably desperate to find something, anything that works for them.

High school and elementary school do not work the same way.  It is different enough that most people are licensed for K-6 or 7-12.  We are different tribes.  If you have a big meeting or conference, if you are a careful observer, you can tell the difference between the elementary folks and the high school folks.  Generally, the elementary folks will be dressed in bright garments, school shirts, or "teacher" accessories consisting of apples, rosy-cheeked stick people, crayonish drawings. They tend to move around in large groups.

High school teachers also tend to have an identifiable appearance, but I suppose it is somewhat variable.  There are the immaculately turned-out ones who are always in suit-ish garb.  There are the "rumpled professors" who look just a little bit out of place, stare at things, and wander around.  Their clothing tends to be slightly threadbare, old-fashioned, or in need of an iron.  Finally, you have the quirky ones who wear jeans and and maybe a shirt with something from their subject matter on it.  I guess you can think of them as the geek-teacher squad.  I personally am one of these.  Most high school teachers tend to move around in smaller groups or alone.

Everywhere I go, the scales tend to tip toward the bright tribe.  At conferences, the materials showcase usually is much more about those first years than it is about my students.  Sellers of school stuff tend to make the majority of it in primary colors with adornments that I can only think of as "precious."  When I go online and try to find resources, the majority of those things have something for elementary school on it, such as how to make a chart for the car riders, the bus riders, and the walkers.  (And yes, I know this is a middle school thing, too....they fall into a grey area between the other two.)

I teach seniors.  I need something interesting visually but age appropriate.  I need things that talk with adult phrases and situations instead of toys and balls and big-eyed puppies.  While it's true that I still have students who carry SpongeBob backpacks, they will look suspiciously or outright reject things that they think are "too childish" for them when it comes to instructional material.  Teens are so sensitive to being talked down to, and I think they see these things as a condescension.  They will treat with suspicion or outright disdain and refusal anything that looks too "babyish" (a word that I have actually had students, especially struggling learners, use for things).

In addition to the problem with the students' perceptions is the fit to the teachers' personalities.  Let's face it.  If you know anything about me, you already know that cutsie is not a part of my universe.  I would feel like I was trying to be something I'm not if I had a room full of "ABCs and 123s."  It does not suit me.  I think there are a lot of people it doesn't suit.

There is nothing wrong with any particular style; it just needs to be with the appropriate people.  The content that I have in my room would probably not be appropriate for elementary school.  It would not stimulate them or entertain them.  It might consist of things they haven't experienced yet or contain language that is over their heads.  I know that, and I don't pretend otherwise.  What I wish is that manufacturers of educational materials, be they of decor, resources, or just online handouts, could realize that what works in one age group might not necessarily transfer, or simply push things at us and expect the high school teachers to "adapt them."

Maybe the elementary school teachers just buy more and therefore demand more of the makers' attention.  Maybe the image of the 1950s rosy-cheeked school kid persists, everybody innocent and juvenile.  Maybe most high school teachers are not inclined to decorate or look for things online.

I don't know the cause of it, but I wish we could ALL find what we need.  I have students who are mothers themselves now, students who are working every minute they are not in school so they (and their families) can eat, students who don't have a regular home that they go back to at the end of the day.  I think you can understand how these people, who perhaps have had maturity forced upon them too soon, would not find teddy bears and quaint tiny schoolhouses to be engaging or terribly applicable to their current reality.

Oh, there are companies that do both the elementary and the high school.  Teacher's Discovery has fabulous and appropriate resources and decor for every age.  I can't say enough good things about them.  Trend, the famous poster and bulletin board company, has good posters and borders that can work for everything, but even most of their bulletin board sets are for students much younger than mine.  (I love their stuff, but if I use it, my kids are going to laugh me right out of my room or think I'm one of those teachers who lives in a fantasy world.  And I might be, but I don't live in THAT fantasy world....)  Prestwick House, too, makes great efforts at balance and has many wonderful things for high school.

What I'd love to see (and not have to MAKE), though, is a great bulletin board set of vintage images, maybe from 1930s clip art.  Or owls (since I love them so much) that aren't quite so adorable.  What I have for owl decor in my room is vintage collectibles.   Maybe somebody could do some vintage owls, too?  And as for the same kind of printable resources that ABOUND for elementary school, where do I start?

I know that this probably seems like a minor issue, but it frustrates me constantly.  I spend vast amounts of time creating things that I need when other age groups seem to be able to tap into a fountain of premade items.  While I enjoy making some things, it would be nice to have all those well-made products and options available to me.  Until that day comes, though, I will just continue doing what I have always done: improvisation, creation, and creative junking.  It has worked out okay so far....

Quietly

The week has flown away almost without my noticing the passage of the time.  Suddenly, I looked up, and Friday has come.  One would think this would indicate a period of idyllic bliss, of being so calm and content that the time flows like a smooth, broad river.  I wish that were true.  It's more like chunks of time simply fell away, were carved out, and now a finished shape is revealed.

Two days were consumed with those obligatory doctor appointments that seem to crop up now and then.  They always come in bunches, but I guess that's the best way to do it, all at once and then over with for a time.  I saw my neurologist who told me that I was doing fine off the dreaded Topamax.  For the first time in about five years, I am free. The other two days, I read, watched TV, did laundry, worked through the minutia of life.  


I should be out using the last of my summer in some spectacular way, but to be honest, nothing has sounded good.  The greatest good to me has been this quiet.  It has felt necessary and right.  I have learned to go with that when I feel it.

And yet, I know that somehow it is not exactly a good.  I feel a little tired.  I find myself frequently sad.  This isn't just R&R no matter how many little things I do.

Now, I have to get up and go to the school for awhile, work on my classroom.  There are things that need to be done while it is still peaceful, before the great rush of the new year begins.  I wonder if the rush that accompanies it will sweep away this feeling or if I will continue to move quietly along, a ghost in the shadows.

The Beauty of the Pinterest Recipe

I spent some time tonight after church talking with a lady there who is from Brazil.  She and I were comparing notes about my recent trip, and we started talking about food. She expressed how much she missed certain dishes and items from Brazil.  I know what she means.

Why is it always the food that we miss when we leave a place?  Why does what we eat become such an evocative reminder of somewhere we love?

The taste of green tea, good green, always takes me back to Japan.  It makes me think of all sorts of things...sitting and talking with friends, coming cold and tired into the train station in Nagoya and having a bowl of gold-flake matcha, having green tea soft serve ice cream at the annual pottery festival in Seto.

There are other things that take me other places.  Spicy green curry makes me think of Chiang Mai and walking up all.those.steps to get to the temple at the top, the little hotel where I stayed where I slept in mosquito netting, the market where I bought a cheap pair of flip flops and ate coconut balls off leaves, the bicycle with the broken seat I rode around Sukothai.   Oddly enough, guacamole also always makes me think of Japan where I learned to make it from a fellow teacher.  Thanksgiving dinner carries me back to my college days at State when my friends and I commandeered the Wesley Foundation kitchen and made a meal for about twenty people.

There are dishes from Brazil I want to learn to make.  Feijoada, a sort of black bean and pork stew for lack of a more accurate definition, is the first one.  I adore it, and it is linked to both my recent trip and a friend I lost track of a long time ago who introduced it to me.  Brigadero is a sweet that we were served in almost every classroom party we were given.  Tonight, after my conversation, I decided to see if I might be able to find some easy recipes for these things.

God bless Pinterest.  I think everything is there.  I did a quick search, and I found the things I was looking for.  Next week, I am going to attempt the feijoada.  I didn't get to bring home the proper stone pot, but I will substitute my crockpot instead.

I don't know if my plans for getting back to any of the places that are special in my heart will succeed.  Until such time as they do, I will keep my memories of it all alive through my photos, the assorted bits and pieces I brought back, and my kitchen.

The Hard Part

I haven't felt much like writing lately.  Or really, like doing much of anything.  No reading.  Little internet.  No cleaning.  Less contact even than usual for me with others.  It has been far easier to blank my mind with trivial TV or absolute stillness and quiet.  Finally, though, reality intruded.  Yesterday, we loaded up early and headed north to Kosciusko for the very last time.  We needed to go and clean out my uncle's room at the VA nursing home.

On the way, we were all fairly calm, cheerful even.  There was sun, something all too rare these days when you have to dash out and do everything between rain storms.  Everybody had gotten rest.  We chatted amicably in the vehicle as the miles passed.

The closer we got to Kosciusko, the more the tension built.  When we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel it like rope sliding through a slipknot, tightening everything inside me.

We were met in the lobby by the facility's social worker.  She had been working to close everything out and help us get things together on that end.  She and others in the office told us how much he'd come to mean to them in the 10 years he'd been living there.  Whether it was simply kindness or genuinely meant (the latter is what it felt like), it was appreciated.

Going down that hall toward his wing was when it really started to hit me.  I knew that he would not be there.  He was not going to be sitting in the cafeteria as he so often was when we arrived.  He was not going to be in the smoking room waiting for a cigarette break.  He was not going to be in his room waiting for them to come and get him out of his bed.  He simply wasn't going to be there at all.

We went into his room, and his stuff had already been mostly sorted and boxed by the facility staff.  We spent the next two hours deciding what to keep, how to pack it, how to get it in the van.  It was possible to turn off the mind about it to a great degree, to retreat into the movement of it.  Sometimes, though, an item would just shatter everything, a collection of his beloved baseball caps, the inexplicably vast quantity of packaged Spam in the refrigerator, a shirt with a giant Halloween pumpkin on it.

We didn't take a lot.  Most of it will be donated to whoever needs it at the facility's discretion.  The wheelchair - specially designed and the last in a long line - we left.  We left the clothing, the medical supplies.  It was good to think that maybe someone else could get use from them.

After we loaded up the few items we decided to keep, we went back inside to finish things up.  The social worker had told us that some of his closest friends there had asked to see us before we left.  One gentleman had been so sad that he wasn't eating well.  I let Mom and Dad talk with them.  I just could not have those conversations.  I sat down quiet and still on the big sofa in the lobby and waited for it all to be done.

Dad and I had been asking each other at various times, "Are you okay?  Are you going to be okay?"  Both of us, I think are good at "containment."  As I sat there on that too-soft sectional working to compress it all and keep it manageable, though, I kept thinking, "This is the last.  This is the last time I will sit on this sofa.  This is the last time I will look down that sunny corridor and the last time I will see all those flags from all the branches of military service blaze with color as I walk under them.  This is the last time I will sit here and watch this aquarium of fish.  This is the last."  And it was painful and I wanted to run because of course, none of those things were the point at all.  Not at all.

This was the only memorial, really, that we would have of him.  By his own very strong wishes, there was not to be another.  He had donated his body to medical research, and so we did not even see him after everything was done.  There was only this horrible absence.

My parents had decided that they wanted to provide for a big pizza night to be given to his friends.  They apparently used to love to order lots of pizza and have a good time talking and carrying on before he got so sick.  This way, there will be one more celebration of him.  He was always so generous with everyone, and I know that he would have been happy with this idea.

When the last of the protocol had been attended to, we set off.  We were quiet as we rolled past the huge metal sculpture they erected earlier this year to honor the Veterans, POWs, and MIAs.  The black steel soldiers stared back from their abstract eyes as we left the grounds.  We left them and the seals of the various branches behind along with the gazebo where we used to sit beside the pond and talk with him.  I cannot speak for the others, but I did not look back as we left it all behind us.  I could not.

What I Will Remember

We got a call from the VA today. My uncle had developed an arrhythmia, and they were trying to handle it. Mom told them we were coming this afternoon anyway and asked if we needed to come on then. We were told "time is of the essence" and "decisions would have to be made." We were preparing to leave and another call came saying he was gone.

Just like that. Gone.

It doesn't seem possible that life is both as tenacious and as fragile as it is. My uncle had fought so long and so hard against so many things: diabetes, a stroke, blood pressure, two amputations caused by infection and poor circulation. The list goes on and on and on. Yet he continued to fight it and deal with all those issues until just an hour ago. Then, the thing he couldn't fight came.

I don't want to remember him the way I saw him last, although in truth that is never going to leave me. I don't want to remember the dim grey light of the hospital room, the window that looked out onto the massive flag flying outside, the vast array of equipment and medicine he was hooked up to, the way he tried to wake up from the sedation because he could hear our voices. I don't want to remember the way he was struggling for every breath.

Instead, I am going somehow to perform a feat of mental deception. I will remember how he was years ago instead. I will remember his quirky sense of humor, that he liked Diet Dr. Pepper and Mexican food. I will remember that he had the same wanderlust that plagues me, went everywhere, did incredible things. I will remember that he was a nurse, a chef, an expert marksman.

I'm going to remember the uncle who used to say "flutterby" to me to make me laugh when I was just a little kid. The one who loved the Fourth of July because he loved to do fireworks in a huge display as well as set off bottlerockets as much as or maybe even more than we did. The one who took care of my Nana and my PeePaw during their illnesses.

This is the man he was before all the other began, before the long fight with his own body began. Even wheelchair-bound, this is who he remained until very recently. I choose to keep that picture with me, and as much as it is possible, I am going to try to lay the other aside. He will be much missed.

Transitional

Everything is transitional right now.

My house is transitioning into a place I'm not ashamed of.  We took two vehicles' worth of stuff from here and donated it to the Salvation Army today.  I also filled up the back of my Dad's big truck with trash that will go out on collection day tomorrow.  I think there are something like 14 bags....  This is a good transition.  It feels better every time a load of stuff leaves.

The summer is transitioning into the school year.  I took three large bags of stuff to my classroom today as part of the "cleaning out" process here at home, and I took the time to arrange my desks after the floor waxing, to put my trash cans back in place.  Then I made myself leave.  Next week, I'll need to go put in a day or two fixing things, prepping bulletin boards, putting away everything that I took today.  I got an email today for the first big PD I'm going to be a part of for the new year.

My uncle remains in the limbo of ICU.  We're waiting to hear back from the test results, waiting to know what happens next with him.

Things for me will solidify somewhat when the new year school year begins, but even there, in that place where I am most comfortable, unknown variables exist.  New co-workers.  New style.  New classes on a totally new schedule.  New textbooks.  New feeling about what I do as a whole because of the brutal stupidity of last year and also because of the wonder of Brazil.  Newly edited three-year plan which includes going back to Brazil again.

I always think that I'm getting to a place where everything is settling down, establishing patterns that will be peaceful and calm.  The truth is, I don't think this ever really happens.  Maybe it's not supposed to.  Maybe what we think of as a comfortable groove is only a deceptive rut and we have no real business being in it anyway if we want a good life.  I don't know.

More of the Same

If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is mostly on the road between here and Jackson.  My uncle is not really improving.  He remains in the VA MICU, and we don't really know when that will change.  Friday, Mom and I went over to see him.  Yesterday, it was a family trip.  When we don't go over, we call to get updates.  There is little change.  He's still on the ventilator and sedated.  

When we're not headed to Jackson, Mom and I work on my house.  It's been a full week as of today that we've been trying to get all the "big jobs" done as far as cleaning, and we're almost done now.  It's amazing how much stuff has piled up to take care of.  The two storage rooms in the back are in better shape than they probably ever have been since I have been living here.  My pantry has been cleaned out, and tremendous amounts of food from as far back as 1994 (what the actual....) have been discarded leaving only that which is usable.  My craft room has a new set of industrial metal shelves and massive organization.  My kitchen cabinets are rearranged, emptied out, and made useful.  My guest room is actually ready for guests instead of only being vacuum and luggage storage.  It's so fabulous to open a cabinet or go through a door and see order where previously there was only chaos.

There are still small pockets of clutter and jobs left to do.  It will all finish up with a massive housecleaning.  I guess it will get done about the time school starts, which, perhaps, is as it should be.  I can't tell you what a relief it is to me already to know that these messes won't be waiting for me at the end of a long day.  

It also gives me something to do instead of think of my uncle.  The busier I am, the less time I have to think about the "what ifs."  I guess I can keep finding tasks to take care of.  I don't really know what else to do.

...and Back

Crises always come when everything is calm.  I don't think they give advance warning.  I think they lurk around corners and look for the least-suspecting individual to walk by before they pounce.  One struck us today, and it certainly came in a time of clear sailing and peaceful waters.

Mom called me this morning, and I knew from the tone of her voice that whatever it was would be bad.  She has a tone that I have come to think of as "holding it together" or "carefully handling something that will go off."  At no time that I have heard her use it have things been good.

The news was about my uncle.  His health is poor anyway, and the doctors thought he was having a heart attack, that perhaps he'd been having it for hours.  They were sending him to Jackson for special care.  We loaded up and headed out for the hour-plus drive.

When we got there, it was time for the waiting game.  Hospital waiting rooms, whether they are large or small, are excruciating.  Everyone there is filled with dread, fear, grief, or pain.  No matter how cheerful or soothing the decor, there is always the sensation of the imminent disaster, the doctor who appears in the door with the expression that speaks louder than the nondescript wording.

A lot of people want to chat in the waiting room with everyone who is around, share the common burden with even the strangers near them.  I just don't.  I cannot.  I try not to be rude, but I just need to hold on, maintain.  It does not help me to share miseries.  I need to concentrate on keeping it all locked down, held in.  The conversations comparing statuses, illnesses, prognoses only serve to escalate what is usually near panic in me.

When we got to see my uncle briefly, it was horrible.  I am fairly sure he didn't even know we were there.  I hope not, anyway, because if he knew we were there, then he knew far too much of the world, far too much of his pain.

We sat and waited for a timeless time in the dim grey light of the ICU waiting room, and finally, the doctors came for us.  We were escorted to a private consultation room, and we waited to hear the news.  I hate those spaces, too, couches in which you sink too far, Kleenex everywhere because they will be needed, the doors with the blinds that protect your private moment of fear.

The news we got was mixed, but essentially he didn't have a heart attack.  He has a lung that isn't working and that put his heart under pressure.  They are going to be giving him massive medicines and treatments to try to restore his ability to breathe on his own.  While he is still in critical condition, there is hope, hope we didn't really have when we left the house this morning.

I don't know if he will recover from this, but for the moment, the panic is over.  He is being sedated as long as he is on the breathing tube, but the word "stable" has been used.  When you have been in hell, this is nothing to take lightly.

Hell

...is the ICU waiting room and no amount of coffee or semi-soft institutional furnishing will fix that.

...is seeing somebody you love suffering and not being able to do anything. Not anything.

...is all the other sorrows that all the other people around you are carrying, that sensation that hangs like a wet mist in the air wrapping around you until you cannot breathe.

...is trying to "be strong" when you are really broken.

...is here.

Organizing, Day 2

Today, we started early on "the project" of my house.  For awhile, I was focused on moving out the things that had already been sorted, loading my car, taking stuff to other storage, sacking up MORE garbage.  Then things got considerably less focused.

Somehow, we went from working on the back of the house to working on my guest room.  Three hours later, we had moved all my luggage to the back of the house, totally reorganized the closet, and reclaimed that room for its intended purpose.  It was a really good feeling to have that space clean and functional again.

Tomorrow morning, I have to get all those millions of bags of trash down to the pickup.  I also need to get what is in my car to the Salvation Army.  After that, there is probably one more day of work, and then, hopefully, this phase of the project will be done.

Then I can get back to Pinterest.  (ha)

Uncovered Objects

Today, I spent about six hours working on the cleanout of the two back rooms here at the house.  Mom came and helped me, and we dug in to the small room.  It was the worst off, and I had a new set of huge shelves to help take care of the problem.

I had to sit down and go through box after box of miscellaneous crap that had accumulated.  I found items going all the way back to my undergrad, old course catalogs, papers from grad school, and the millions of tiny objects that get swept into boxes rapidly and without thought when somebody moves.  So much of it was just stuff to throw away.  Who needs instructions for the voicemail system at my old university some 16 years after the fact?

Other items, though, made me stop and smile.  I uncovered several things I thought were lost today, things I'd made, things I'd been given.  I found old poetry, old diaries.  Resources I'd been looking for emerged.

Then there were the things that made me sad.  Much of what was there was stuff of my grandparents that has been sitting since I moved here, things I had either no time or no interest in hand sorting.  Today, I went through lots of that, and just seeing my grandmother's careful notetaking and writing in old files made me miss her.  Piles of things about me and my cousin that she'd saved to scrapbook made me smile.  I could see her clipping, copying, preparing to preserve those events for us.  Finding the copper bracelet and old road atlas that were my grandfather's brought back memories of him in his overalls, reading anything he could get his hands on, coming in at the end of the day in whatever incarnation of banged-up tan Chevy truck he happened to be driving from whichever of the pieces of land he'd been on.

There were also pictures and artifacts of people I don't see anymore, including D. and T.  I haven't even seen their faces in a long time, and unfolding a sheet of paper with a poem (that was crap) written on it and them hiding out inside was the sort of nostalgia I could do without.  I don't miss them; I just felt sort of mildly distasteful that I had ever written such drivel.  At least the drivel I write now is of a different kind...

So much of what I sorted was just junk, things I neither need nor want.  Massive amounts of it are going to the Salvation Army.  My little car is already crammed full, and there is at least one more day of work before both rooms are complete.  The trash bags are piling up.  The trash guys are probably going to boycott me when I finally get everything down to the road on pickup day.

Even though there is still a huge mess in the big room, the little room is actually quiet, clean, and useful now.  It's amazing to be able to walk in and see all my decorations and stuff for different events neatly binned and on the shelves.  It's a relief to know that if I need a giftbag and some tissue paper for a present, I can actually get to it without feats of gymnastic prowess.  I am looking forward to the end of this process when both rooms are something that I can be proud of again instead of praying nobody but the exterminator has to go in them for any reason.

And when they're done it will be time to move out into the rest of the house.  Pinterest and my own start at purging are inspiring me.  By the time I go back to school, I'd like my house to be as free of non-essential and unused items as I can get it.  It feels good to "simplify, simplify," just as good old Thoreau said.

Despite the heat and the tedium of the work, I am very satisfied with what we accomplished today.  I cooked supper for the family, and the simple peaceful action was refreshing in its way.  I hope that I feel the same tomorrow, tired but happy with the new environment I am creating for myself.

Clean It, Make It, Fix It

I opened my Cricut, the Christmas present from my parents this past year, yesterday.  O_o  I swear, cool craft things are like crack cocaine for me.  I cannot stop fiddling with it.

At first, I was just going to "try it out," make sure I could use it so when the new school year rolled around, I'd be set to do some bulletin boards.  Then I made my first little cuts.  It was so neat that next I started looking for used cartridges.  That led to the discovery of online goodies.  Next thing I knew, I was foraging for an A/B USB cable and hooking it to my computer, downloading the free design software from ProvoCraft, and updating the firmware on my Cricut.    

While I was waiting for the firmware to do its thing, I got on Pinterest and looked up Cricut projects. This search led to lots of stuff people had done with their Cricuts, websites with information and tips, and A MILLION FREAKING PRINTABLE PROJECTS.  I kept going from pin to pin thinking, "Oh, this would be so cool for departmental 'happies'," or "Wow.  I can make a bulletin board with that.

THAT led to "cool crap to do to your house" pins.  I banked benches, storage, all kinds of things I can make with my own three hands.  I just need a small old shutter, and I'll be in business.  Oh, and some magnetic letters.  And a mason jar.  And...

Somebody once said that the best thing about things like HGTV and craft websites is the feeling of accomplishment you get after you've been watching/surfing them for awhile.  Somehow, by looking at all the cool projects and bookmarking or pinning them, one begins to have a feeling of satisfaction as though the project has actually been done instead of just added to a probably-overflowing file of things that were also interesting at the time.

We all have our "someday" files, I guess, those places, electronic or real, where we stuff all that type of thing.  I know I have binders in my craft room of things, stained glass patterns pinned to the bulletin board wall, e-files abounding.  What I want, though, is to start doing them instead of just collecting them and saying, "I'll get to that when I have the time."  That's the best way never to do any of it, probably.

Tomorrow, I will leave my dreams and e-crafting and work on the major overhaul of the back part of my house.  I have to clean out some crap so I have space for many other things, including perhaps some of the ideas I have recently seen.  It will be good to move from dreaming to doing.

After the Funeral Home

I can't think of a clever title for this one.  I have no cleverness at all to share.  I went to the funeral home tonight to see the fragile remains of someone two years younger than I, somebody I went to church with, somebody I watched grow up more or less.  Forgive me if I'm not glib.  Seeing someone you've known most of your life in a box so still and pale has the tendency to steal away witticisms.

She and I were never close, but her family and my family are tied together by several things.  She was someone I knew distantly, would hear reports on occasionally over the top of a pew.  She went her way and I went mine after graduation; she moved away, married, had children, divorced.  We would see each other occasionally in church at the big holidays that bring everybody home.

Death always seems like something that only happens to another generation.  Even though I have seen it strike down so many from every possible age group, some trick of our minds keeps telling us, "Not me.  Not us.  Not now."  The reality of it is, though, that there is no "right age," no chosen generation.  That safety we wrap ourselves in to go through the days and nights is just an illusion, a necessary one perhaps, but deceptive nonetheless.

It takes so little to end our lives, no time at all and so very little to go wrong.  In her case, it was a car wreck that reached out and crushed her.  She'd fought so many things so hard for so long, but a wreck of the type she had is not a battle that anybody can win.

Her family told us today that because she was an organ donor, already over 37 people have been  helped because of parts of her that the doctors were able to harvest.  More may receive other organs.  Her liver saved a man on the transplant list.  Her heart went to someone else.  She was someone who always took care of others; even in her death, she continues to do so.

Seeing her in that box today was terrible, knowing that there are four kids who won't get to have their mother anymore, knowing that her family (of whom I think the world) won't have her there with them.  While there is a type of relief in knowing that she is out of so many of the things that caused her pain in this world and believing that she is now at rest in a better place, my worry is for those who are left behind.  Once the adrenaline and shock end, once the final parts of the ceremonies of death are concluded and the last of the covered dishes have been delivered, I worry that the grief will become unbearable.  I hope that they can cling to what they knew of her in life, what they know of the good that came from her loss, and what they know of her in eternity and find comfort.

Andy Griffith

Yesterday, my CNN news alert service sent one of its little emails to my inbox.  Frequently, these are just sports scores or a political updates about which I care very little.  When I glanced at the screen and saw the synopsis, though, I clicked on through to read again the brief message.  Andy Griffith had died.

The sadness that I felt was profound.  I have never met him; he is not of my family. We are decidedly of different generations. The only experience with him that I have ever had is, in some cases, over forty years old and in black and white.  Despite these facts, the news that he was gone was an oddly personal thing.

I grew up, like everybody else, probably, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  I didn't always like it.  It was "just on" at my grandparents' houses when I visited, and I didn't pay much attention then.  Some of it was funny, and I didn't dislike it; I was merely indifferent.

As I have grown older, though, I have come to recognize something in it that is absent in so many other shows, a genuine sense of love and respect for people that is at its foundation.  The situations Barney and the others get themselves into are the same sort of real-life absurdities that we all encounter or participate in, for the most part.  Pride gets in the way.  A mistake is made and the consequences emerge.  A misunderstanding arises because of a lack of patience or forethought. What is striking is the incredible gentleness everyone on the show has for everyone else.  Instead of telling Aunt Bea that her pickles are "kerosene," something that would crush her, Barney and Andy dump them and get her to try again.  Instead of assuming his son is lying despite a story he can't understand, Andy chooses to support Opie and check things out before issuing a punishment that he believes to be the right action at the time.  Even with Otis, a repeat offender and the town drunk, kindness and love are used.  He's treated like what he is, somebody who can't really help himself, instead of like a "criminal."

Too often, TV goes for the laugh at the cost of the character.  Even in the later shows Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did together, most specifically We Love Lucy, the comedy is laced with cruelty. All the characters in that show have devolved from what they were in the original I Love Lucy and become adversaries who spend all their time coming up with a clever insult or acidic ridicule for their wives, their husbands, their friends.  It might be humorous for a couple of episodes, but for my tastes, the more Chaucer-esque method of showing people for what they are, with affection but also with absolute truth, and recognizing that we are all ridiculous at certain moments is more entertaining than the constant put-downs and sniping that is more commonly found. After all, don't we all want this, this most basic recognition of our human dignity? 

Maybe this is why the loss of Andy Griffith yesterday was something that was so personal.  While I have no way to know how much of his public persona was actually based on his real life, from what I understand, the philosophies reflected in the show were his own.  Even if they weren't, he made a show that valued hope instead of hatefulness, and he should be honored for that.  Would that there were more who were willing to follow that legacy on and off the TV.

A Taste of Bloomington

Making mead is tough: the bee stings, the jousting, the suits of armor.  But for you, the loyal consumer of this royal beverage, it is worth the pain and suffering to deliver a mead of such great smoothness and classic honey flavor. So the next time you set out to discover new continents or to plunder a neighboring country,  provision yourself with plenty of Camelot Mead. 
~ Oliver Winery Website

When I was last in Bloomington, I bought several bottles of wine from Oliver Winery.  I had loved them when I lived in Bloomington, and at present, thanks to the screwed-up laws of the beautiful state of Mississippi, it is not possible to get their products here or have them shipped in.  As I finally got off the Topamax last week, I celebrated by opening a bottle of my favorite, Camelot Mead.  It's been waiting on me for quite awhile....

Oliver has been making this particular beverage since 1972.  I've not had mead from anywhere else, so my basis of comparison is small, but I do really love the way this tastes.  It is sweet without being cloying, and it is just better to me than most white wines.  Maybe it's the honey that does it.  I am not enough of an oenophile to know.  I would really love to be able to get it all the time, but as it stands, I'm rationing out the bottles I brought home with extreme care.

I love Oliver in general.  I love the story about it being started by one of IU's law professors as a hobby and now existing as one of the largest wineries in the eastern US.  I have never tried one of their wines that I did not like.  If you have the ability to go to Oliver or live in a state that isn't silly about its importation laws, I would suggest you try any of their wines, but most especially the Camelot Mead.  Hopefully, I will be able to get back to Bloomington (for so many reasons a happy place) and pick up some more for myself.  

Stuff and Things

I have just tried to remove 80+ pounds of large white dogness from my computer cords for about the fifteenth time today.  Chewie doesn't seem to approve of the computer or any of its attachments.  He looks up at me in sleepy bewilderment when I start trying to move him...and then he just ignores me. If I persist, he gets extremely indignant, walks away...and then is right back on top of everything less than ten minutes later.

I ordered a new lens for my Nikon, and now I'm waiting (not-so-patiently) for it to arrive.  It should give me wide-angle focus without the fisheye distortion, and I want to go out and take some pictures with it.  It's a used Nikkor 18-55, and I got a very good price on it I think.  I'm very hopeful about what it will let me do.  I'd like to go out shooting sometime soon, but I need a place to go.  It would be nice to be able to click my heels three times and be back in Brazil or somewhere similarly fabulous, but I will probably have to satisfy myself with local scenery.  Maybe it's time to go see Graceland or something...

Today was a day of laundry and reading, two things that have gone hand-in-hand for me forever it seems.  I used to take my textbooks to the laundry mat when I was in college and get massive amounts of homework done while I waited for whatever was spinning to stop spinning or fluffing to be fluffed.  Of all the household chores, I guess I like laundry the most because it's the least intrusive.  Then, too, there is the pleasant and comforting set of tactile things that comes with doing laundry, the smell of clean clothing, the warmth of a load of towels just removed from the dryer.  It's not bad.

I'm reading Skippy Dies on the recommendation of a former student.  There are moments in it that make me terribly sad for the main character, and well, for everybody in it, really.  Some of it is quite funny, but since it takes place in a school setting, a lot of it is just a little too familiar.  The characters are not caricatures; it's nothing that overt.  I guess school is school wherever you go, whether it's real or fictional, and the same types of people and situations sort of crop up in them.  I can say without question that unless there is a bright happy ending in store, I am going to have to read something totally escapist next.  And no more school as subject matter, I think, until my own real one returns.

Speaking of school, it's almost time for AP scores to be back.  I have already heard from one student.  The rest remain a mystery.  I'll just have to wait until Friday to find out.  It all seems a bit unreal this year for some reason.  I am usually sort of obsessed with the scores, but this year, while I care about them greatly and would like to see them, I just am not as worked up about it as I have been previously.  Maybe it's the way the year ended.  Maybe it's not having been to the Reading this year. I don't know.  I'm sure the reality of it will come crashing back down on me when I get the scores.

Well, my book and my washer are calling to me, so...

Brasilia's Anniversary

Brasilia's Anniversary was April 21 apparently.  This was the Google Doodle for the day, celebrating all the fantastic architecture we saw in Brasilia by Niemeyer.  He and his grandson actually MADE this doodle, so the Niemeyer experience keeps going.  Neat.

Coriolanus

I just saw the new version of Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.  I've never studied Coriolanus before, so every bit of this was new to me.  It was brutal from beginning to ending, well-adapted to a modern urban warfare setting.  I wonder what Shakespeare in his day intended us to take from it.

Coriolanus did indeed have flaws, but I am almost positive that his audience and a modern one won't necessarily read this play in the same way.  To me, there seems to be so much more fault in the people of Rome than in the tragic hero.  He dedicates his life to them, and yes, he is proud, hubris creeping its destructive tendrils in very early on.  However, in many ways, he seems not to be too proud.  Instead, he seems virtuous for refusing to "play the game" at the cost of his own integrity.  He is doomed from the moment he leaves the battlefield.  He is placed in a world of lies and manipulation, and even though according to him the world does not work this way, it grinds over him just the same.

If you haven't seen this new version, it is well worth your time.  Coriolanus doesn't get a lot of performances, and when you watch it, I think you will see why it is less frequently staged.  This version, though, gives a lot to think about after the final credits roll.  That's more than I can say for a lot of the movies I've seen....

Different

I've gone through another door lately in my life.  Things are different on the other side of it.  Maybe it's being on the "other side" of 35.  Maybe it's the international travel.  Maybe it's the freedom I found after all the bullshit at the end of last school year.  Whatever it is, some things have changed.

I bought dresses and skirts today.  It may sound like nothing, but for me, that's a huge change.  I wanted them and I intend to wear them, so instead of other things that didn't appeal to me, I bought them.  I also have shoes on the way here from Zappos.  I might not look like a total refugee this school year.

I'm cooking breakfast and making coffee in the mornings, dinner sometimes in the evening.  As if the cooking wasn't a big enough change, the coffee all by itself is a huge thing.  Just the smell of it in the morning reminds me of my Dad and my grandfathers.  In fact, I can almost see my Granddaddy sitting here in the living room with the bowl and mug he always drank his coffee in.  The echo and connection is an added pleasure to the beverage itself.

There are other things that are going to take some time to follow through with.  I just don't see things the way I did not that long ago.  It's nice.  It's a relief.  I was tired of that point of view, tired of that person.  While I'm still trying to figure out all the new corners of this space I'm currently in, it has to be better than where I was.

Too Darn Hot

I decided to go to town today since the thing with the bank has finally resolved.  As soon as I left the house, it was like being hit with a draft of air from a blast furnace.  Wet, scorching heat wrapped around me.  As I drove, I was aware that the air had a yellowish haze hanging just above the treeline, the nastiness literally made visible.

Welcome to summer in Mississippi.  I hope you packed your flip flops, your sunscreen, and lots and lots of liquids....

I checked Swackett to see how hot it was, how hot it was supposed to be, and for a short time, the GPS in it was firmly stuck on Brasilia.  I had to laugh.  I don't blame it.  The high today was 79 in Brasilia.  If I had a chance to stay in that comfortable, non-humid climate, I'd take it, too.

When Swackett finally hit a weather station near me, it registered 101 degrees.  The "feels like" temperature with the heat index is 109, though.  109.  We're not even close to August yet, which is when our weather usually gets super-stupid.  109.  Cheezus.

I dragged my stuff in the house when I got home and mixed up a jug of pink lemonade.  Just looking out the door at that shimmering golden goo that is passing itself off for atmosphere at present makes me feel hot and thirsty.  It's a good day to spend the rest of the afternoon on a couch somewhere with a fan turning above you.  Luckily, I happen to know just the right place for that.

Rings and Things

I'm sitting on the couch looking at two rings, one on each index finger.  The stone in one is clear quartz crystal.   The stone in the other is amethyst.  Each is a single large gem in a simple silver setting.  As I look at them, I see not the rings themselves but rather the places where I got them and the people who created them.  I will always see Brazil when I look at them on my hands.  It's why I bought them to start with.

The large amethyst was one of the first things I bought when I arrived.  I was walking in the Hippie Market at the base of the TV Tower in Brasilia, and I found a booth that had the most incredible gemstone jewelry.  I knew that I wanted a large piece of Brazilian amethyst, and when I saw the cabochon ring in the case, it felt exactly right.

I tried it on, and of course it was too small for me.  The jeweler and I negotiated in our respective languages for him to adjust it, and by the time I went back to the hotel for dinner, I was wearing the large dusky purple stone on my hand.  When I came back to Brasilia, my friends and I went back to the Hippy Market for one last bit of shopping before leaving the country.  I made sure to stop back by the gemstone jewelry booth while we were there.

To my happy surprise, the jeweler remembered me instantly.  I do understand that I am a little remarkable in my appearance, standing out even more when I'm abroad usually.  It still pleased me that he was happy to see me, not running away since we'd been through the whole resizing of the ring thing before.  A customer was there with him when we walked up, and as I looked through the cases, she started to speak to us in English.  She was a language teacher who liked to come down and buy things from the jeweler.  She helped us talk to each other, and I found two other pieces by him I liked, a pair of earrings and a pendant that matched my ring almost exactly in size and color.  As I was leaving, the jeweler asked me when I was coming back to Brazil.  I told him, "As soon as possible."  I meant it.  I also told him with the assistance of the teacher who was there that every time I saw the ring on my hand I would remember him and his kindness.  I meant that, too.

The other ring, the crystal one, is from Pocos de Caldas.  I bought it in the little shop downtown that was full of beautiful things from top to bottom, the mineral wealth of the region and the nation.  The girl in the shop and I found a way to communicate, she speaking Portuguese, me answering in Spanish, and she told me about each of the stones in the rings and necklaces when I asked.  Given the situation, it was a surprisingly good conversation.

When I saw the ring, I knew I wanted it.  The stone is clear as ice, and it catches light beautifully.  She brought it out of the case, and of all the things in the store, it was the only ring I tried on and had fit instantly.  I needed to go get more cash (since by this time the theft of my debit card number had occurred) to get it though.  I told her I would be back in my broken communication, and I headed for the ATM.  About 45 minutes later, after walking to the bank, calling my US bank and having an unpleasant conversation about my access to my accounts, and finally getting some money, I came back.  The ring balanced the Brasilia amethyst the remainder of the trip, and now every time I look at it, I think of Pocos, the hills, the city of clear, pure spring water, the cool and sweet air there.  The crystal quartz just fit.

Now, even though I am thousands of miles away from Brazil, I still carry it with me both metaphysically and literally.  It is as if the memories I have in some way solidified, were polished,  have been wrapped in delicate silver, and now can be seen by others, too.  I like the idea of that, actually.  These may not be pieces that fit every single person's tastes, but for me, they are a perfect memento of my journey.

Home Again

After a day of Wal-Marting and catching up on things undone here at home, I am relaxing on the couch.  I woke up with slim ankles again.  Inexplicably, despite the fact that they were swollen my entire two-week trip, all that was needed to take care of the problem seems to have been a night at home.  I don't understand my body's reaction to air travel.

Everything is unpacked and all the laundry is done.  All my purchases, what few I made, are put away.  It amused me to see that mostly this trip, I bought Havianas or necklaces made from natural materials, acai seeds, bits of murano glass, semiprecious stones.  I didn't spend a whole lot of money this trip, but somehow, I feel like I brought back worlds of wealth.

I set the tremendous crystal ball the teachers at David Compista gave us as a gift on my bedside table for the time being.  I like to look at it at night before I go to bed.  I'm trying to decide whether or not I will really take it to school.  I like the idea of having it there, but it might be safer and less hassle to have it here.

I need to be blogging over on the other space, but for tonight, I just want to do a little trivia.  I'm not up to feats of grandeur that I always feel are required with that trip blog.  Maybe tomorrow I will focus on getting it all shaped up.  I've already done most of my pictures.  I suppose there are still about 50 I need to edit, but I didn't feel up to dealing with that today.

Today, I have felt odd in my own spaces, a consequence of a big trip that changes everything, I suppose.  Brazil, even though it was only a 14-day hop, was that for me.  I haven't even sounded out all the things that are different yet.  Some of them are very small.  I have a mug of coffee sitting next to me.  I had a glass of the wine I've had since the last time I went to Bloomington with my casserole tonight.

Some of them are not.  I am constantly turning over ways I can do things related to Brazil in my classes next year.  I have a couple of ideas, and I am hoping very much that I can get them to work out.  I think I have a couple of ideas for projects for the National Honor Society, too.  I want to get started on it.

Regardless, I am still caught between two places mentally.  It's astonishing how fast I got used to Brazil, how comfortable it was.  I didn't feel that at home even in Costa Rica, and I could communicate much better in CR.  I want to learn Portuguese and go back to Brazil, spend real time there, see what it is that makes it feel so oddly familiar.

Now, I'm going to finish this cup of coffee and a book I've been working on forever.  Maybe by tomorrow it will have registered that there is not something I have to run around and do.  It still feels strange to be still and quiet.  I guess that's something else to get used to.

That Moment When

In every trip, there comes that moment when it becomes necessary to just walk away.  I had mine this afternoon.  I suppose it was about time, really.  It's almost the last day.  All the shine has worn off.  People are tired.  Perhaps they're not at their best.  I know I could use a long hot shower, some clean clothes that are not the ones I've been wearing for two weeks straight, and the sight of the people and places I love.

When the moment came, I felt everything in me rise up and declare war.  What I did was make myself quiet and still, tap my finger as a release mechanism, and wait.  And then, when the opportunity presented itself, I just got the hell out.

What good would have done to say what I was thinking?  It might have felt good at the time, but probably I would have regretted it later, if for no other reason than that it would have further soured what has been mostly a good trip more than the actions of the other individual had done.

Tomorrow, it will be gone, something ephemeral in the wind.  For now, a little solitude and a little music are powerful and necessary healers.

Things I Am Learning in Brazil

(a list)

• To let it go (whatever it is...stolen credit card, stressful year, premade plans)
• To go with God
• To be hugged
• To buy the thing when I see the thing if I want the thing at all
• To take more pictures than I possibly think I could ever want
• To drink the wine
• To try to other stuff, too
• To fold up like origami again
• To see slices of Mississippi between the leaves of banana trees
• To buy perfume
• To drink the coffee
• To feed monkeys bananas
• To buy the Havianas with the little jewels on the thongs
• To wear clothes twice (or more) and do laundry in the sink
• To be on TV.  A lot.
• To communicate in a mixture of bad Portuguese, middling Spanish, and flailing hands
• To look around and try to remember everything because I know all too soon, this is going to be over. I will still have with me all the things I have learned, though.

When Bad Things Happen

(written Friday)

Today deserves a special award. It had included having to deal with the consequences of some right red sonofabitch somewhere in North Carolina who stole my debit card number somehow (may he rot in Hell) and also an extended period of handwashing my own delicates in strong detergent and hot water in the hotel sink. As I type Adele’s voice is masking the sound of things dripping dry.

I have had SNAFUs and bank misunderstandings abroad, but I’ve never opened an email and seen, basically, “Call us. It’s all gone to hell. Kisses, Your Bank.” I thought at first it was a spam mail, and as busy as things are on this trip, I truly started to ignore it. That little niggling voice of paranoia in the back of my head, though, said, “No. Call. Even though it’s going to cost you a small fortune, at least you will have peace of mind. Call.” That was when all the wheels came off a day that was actually going pretty well….

I talked to four different departments of my own bank and a service of Visa called “Visa 911.” I gave my personal identifying information about 847 times. I ran up a phone bill that I can’t even bear to ponder out of the corners of my mind’s eye. It was a truly surreal thing to be standing in the cool airy courtyard of a school here in Pocos de Caldas while my entire financial life was on the verge of spinning into the toilet. Birds sang, a soft breeze blew continuously. Life was continuing, but I felt angry, worried, and most of all, violated by some anonymous person who felt like what was mine should be theirs just because.

It’s resolved to the point that it can be while I’m still abroad. When I return home, the next round of fun will begin. I don’t even want to think about how many things are keyed to that damn number. That’s fine, though. It will all get taken care of eventually. I am grateful to my bank for its vigilance. What I can’t get back is that feeling of utter helplessness as I was thousands of miles away from home and locked away from my money. There are not words for what I hope happens to the cause of it.

Yeah. What You Said....

I've been using a hybrid Portuglish (or Spanglese) mix to get things accomplished here in Brazil.  It's been going okay.  It hasn't been a stunning success every time.  I am picking up more and more Portuguese, catching the sound of it more quickly than I had thought I would because of its relationship to Spanish, but there have been some really ridiculous moments.

There have been endless patient people in restaurants, stores, and taxis who have helped me get what I need with my mixed and flailing language.  If you've never had this experience, you ought to put yourself on a plane most immediately and go do it.  I think nothing puts you in your appropriate place as much as spending some quality time trying to deal with the basics of life while having to work for basic communication.

I am still laughing about realizing that I told our waitress at lunch that I and my group were separated like people getting a divorce instead of using the word that means wanting separate checks.  Damn you, false cognates and near homophones.  There is, after all, a world of difference in the RIGHT word and the word that is ALMOST right.  The waitress at the place we had lunch, a sushi restaurant by the lake here in Brasilia, was fantastic.  She assumed my language command was way better than it was, but we pressed on, had lunch, paid for it, and had a good time.

Tonight, we went back to that same area by the lake for a late dinner.  We didn't go to the sushi bar, but rather to a place that serves caipirinhas with a limeade popsicle in them.  I had one and didn't finish it.  I could feel the cachaça from the first sip, and while I liked the taste, Topamax and alcohol really don't mix well.  One of the members of my group kept telling me to finish the drink, and I told him he'd have to carry me out.  I will probably try one again, but sheesh....  I think two would put me on the floor.

I need to be in bed, but I feel like reading and listening to some music.  Tomorrow, we leave Brasilia for our other city.  I am looking forward to it, but it's hard to think this time has gone so fast.  I guess it always does when you're having fun with language....