Gratitude in Waiting

Each semester, I have my students make lists of important people in their lives: “Think of your role models,” I say. “Who is in your life to guide you, someone you would want to be like – for better or for worse, for fun or for serious; who supports your being in school by encouraging you to do your homework and stay on track?” It doesn’t take long for them to come up with a good-sized list of people in their lives: parents, siblings, friends, relatives, neighbors, former teachers, even the occasional “famous” person. I normally sit and write with my students; although, this is one particular exercise I’ve skipped the past couple of years. I’d like to say I don’t know why, or, for no particular reason, but I wouldn’t be telling the whole truth in that. Maybe, for a while I didn’t know why, but this last semester, when I sat to actually try and write my own list, I came face to face with the reason why. The one person I had always considered one of my greatest role models, one of my supporters, someone I could always turn to in good and bad, is no longer that person for me. How it came about – a much longer story than I care to tell, complex with many boring layers that played themselves out over long periods of time. It could just be that old adage, “people change.” But I don’t think it was even that. I’m pretty sure we are both as much the same as we ever have been, just some things came to light that I hadn’t seen before, and once I did, I made the decision that it was not healthy relationship to maintain. It can be a tough relationship break, but even tougher when that person is your own sister.

She was the first born, followed by four younger brothers – all my big brothers. Then came three more girls, me in the middle of them (that makes me seven of eight, if you’re counting it out). I grew up thinking my big sister – (the eldest one, not the one just before me – she was my older sister, but I don’t think I ever referred to her as my “big sister” – although the one younger than me was always my “little sister”) – my big sister was the coolest person I knew. I adored everything about her, and aside from the occasional tensions, can’t remember a time when she ever would have made me spit-raving angry, like I would have been at my little sister (for the dumbest things – like wearing my clothes – you know, girl stuff…). But, because of the age difference between us – nine years, I think, she was out of the house quite early on. She married (another story) and moved into a trailer park. She didn’t go to college and worked waitressing at a diner downtown. She may have had other jobs, but I don’t recall.

Once gone from the home, my attentions turned to my other siblings. I had always paid attention to them anyway, but now more than ever as I began to search for the kind of comfort in adults that children will seek. My four older brothers. This is what I began to realize as I sat with my students and attempted to write my list of important people: My four older brothers. They were the ones that were there with me during my later growing-up years. They were the ones there during all the teen angst and rebellion. They were the ones whose behavior I was watching most carefully as I, too, began to age and need direction in my life. I began to follow them.

The two oldest brothers both went to Michigan Tech to study engineering. I remember the long drive to Houghton during the winter months to visit them, how I wrote letters to my oldest brother telling him how much I missed him and wanted him to come home. He was the one who rode his bike long distances on a whim, and once across state lines to visit a girlfriend (and my father had to retrieve him - not such a good idea to ride through Gary, Indiana). Is it any wonder I became a long-distance cyclist? And the fact that the second youngest brother was a runner – any wonder that I also became a distance runner?

The third brother also went to school, in art, then went on to graduate from an art institute. Of all things, he was my inspiration for becoming a nude model when I later went to college. He had said that models are often difficult to find, but that they are integral to an art student’s education. So I sat, often times teeth chattering, in the drafty drawing rooms in the basement of the university while a dozen students scratched at paper with charcoal. More than this, I also developed a great appreciation for the arts and support the efforts of art students at every opportunity, always with my brother in mind.

And the fourth brother, the one closest to me, I would have to say he had some of the greatest impact in my life. In so many ways, I wanted to be just like him. I switched from playing the violin after middle school to the bass in high school. He was also a bass player. He paved several roads for me in this – giving music lessons, so I gave music lessons; playing with the professional symphony, so too did I. He went on to university, and I followed to that very same university. He studied psychology, and I made it my minor.

College was never a question for me. It wasn’t pushed in my family as I know it is in so many of my students – their parents telling them they WILL go to college, no questions asked. If I had chosen not to attend college, I don’t think there would have been a protest on the part of my parents. In fact, once, I remember my mother telling me that my father hadn’t expected the girls in the family to go to college. His expectation was that we get married and have children. Just as well this wasn’t pushed as equally as college wasn’t. But, knowing that, I have to look back and say that it was my brothers who were my greatest role models. I also have to throw in here and give credit to my older sister (not my big), because she even started attending college classes early, either while she was still in high school or she graduated early and started college, I’m not exactly sure. I just know she was there before her time, and that was a huge encouragement to me as well.

Not only was college not a question, continued college was as well. I would attend two years at the local community college – just as all my brothers and older sister had – and then I would go on to university – just as they all had (or were planning to do). And so I did, as did we all. Seven of us in the family college graduates, some with post graduate degrees.

So now, looking back over the years, and taking new stock in my role models, I wonder what my life would have been like had those four boys not been born there. What if only one had? What if they were all younger brothers? When I consider what the answers to those questions might be, I know for a fact I was very fortunate to have them in my life. I have never before thought to give them this kind of credit, this kind of grateful consideration. As so often seems to happen in our lives, it takes what we perceive as a negative experience to make us realize and appreciate the positives we had not seen before. Of course, we still wish the negative hadn’t happened, but without it, so much more gratitude is left to wait.

This Fall

Cool orange afternoons swirl into
cold grey evenings that come earlier
each day

Dry rustling leaves blow loose
some piled in yards and at curbs
sweeper takes all but a few ragged clumps

Pull doors shut against gusts of wind
plastic ripples at the windows
loose gutter taps against the siding

This fall leads to winter
white and crisp as death should be
we tuck ourselves away

Normal is What You Make It

Normality. The way each one of us chooses to live our life. That's what's normal. "I just want things to go back to normal…" I hear people say after some kind of a stressful time or crisis. When I worked at the battered women's shelter, I would hear that, and I would say, "No such thing as normal anymore. You need a new normal now." The whole point was to get them to change what they were accepting as normal – being abused – and find a different way of living that didn't include getting yelled at or being beaten in cycles. But many of them did go back to it, because that's what was normal for them. That's what they knew and were comfortable living with. Changes the definition of comfortable a bit, doesn't it? But as has been said time and again, we are creatures of habit.

My husband and I took the dog for a walk the other night around the neighborhood. It was garbage day eve, and I was looking for old broom or mop handles to use in an art project. I found one, and he ended up carrying it as we wound through the city streets. It was a nice, end-of-summer evening. People were out enjoying one of the remaining warm nights of the year, cooking out, kids playing in the streets, families out on bikes. It was nice. Pleasant. Until, as we approached a house on a corner, we overheard a young scraggly-haired blonde woman sitting out on a back step yelling at a thin young man standing on the sidewalk. I'm not exactly sure what she said, but I caught: "…this fucking family…you think you know…fucking…I don’t care…" The man turned and stormed away, followed by another young woman, who may have just been plump, but to me looked early-pregnant plump. A child, maybe six or seven years old with matching scraggly blonde hair, stood in front of Cussing Girl, looking up at her as the rant issued forth. Cussing Girl, I noticed as we got closer, was also talking with someone on a cordless phone.

We kept walking, not breaking our pace, and approached just as the young man turned and walked off. The little blonde-headed girl came and stood at the sidewalk's edge as we passed. I glanced at Cussing Girl. She was a teenager, at most. No doubt somewhere in that 14-to-16-year range. Her voice was one of terse complaint as she continued talking into the phone. Little Blondie looked up at me as we passed, smiled and said, "Hi." I smiled and said hello back to her. She looked happily at the dog, and seemed suddenly oblivious to the angry actions surrounding her. She could, because this is what was normal for her. And not yet being directly involved in the action (though there is no doubt that someday it will be her playing the Cussing Girl role), she could tune it out.

In the few steps it took us to pass Cussing Girl on stoop, Angry Young Man, not more than three or four heated strides in front of us, turned on his heels and began to walk back. Apparently, he wasn't done. He passed just beside me and the dog. Oblivious to us. His jaw set tightly, his eyes drilled on his target. He wore thick, black-rimmed glasses that matched his black, bowl-cut hair. (Were either of those really in style anymore? His normal, not mine.) I could see the muscle in his tawny body twitch with tense, violent suppression as he went back for round two (or was it maybe even three or four or ad nauseam?). I don't know what went on back there, because I didn't turn around to look.

Ahead of us, at the corner, stood Plump(Pregnant) Woman. She had short blonde hair. I thought for a moment about the relationship between them all – maybe the blondes were all sisters? Maybe Angry Young Man was a brother of Cussing Girl? Or the boyfriend of Plump(Pregnant) Woman? I let the thoughts quickly pass as I let go of wanting to care. Mind you, I had my beating a short time back from the neighbor girl chasing the dog (See "On a Cool Evening with the Windows Open"), and I was learning to not get involved, from the inside right on out. Plump(Pregnant) Woman looked at our dog, then to me as we approached her.

"What kind of dog is that?" she chirped with a smile.

Are you serious? I thought. Angry Young Man is going after Cussing Girl with Little Blondie standing right there watching the whole thing (not to mention the several children playing out in the yard across the street), and you can totally ignore that and cheerfully strike up a conversation with strangers walking past?

Normal. All that was surrounding her in that moment was her normal life. Not my normal. Her normal. I didn't need to make it mine.

I smile at her. "He's a mutt."

"Ohhh, he's so cute," she adds as we keep walking by.

I still don't look back, even when we turn the corner and I could easily just shift my gaze a bit to the side. And I'm proud of myself for not getting involved in other people's normal and thinking that their normal has to match my normal in any way. Although, I guess I do get involved by not getting involved, and I play my own role in the scene of their normal life: Woman with Dog who says hello; Man with Yellow Stick.

On a Cool Evening with the Windows Open

“God damn it fucking Lola!” I hear out my window and look to see a young blonde girl running barefoot down the middle of the street. I don’t know who or what Lola is.

I see the young girl disappear between two houses, then a small, grayish dog shoots out from the between them and begins running back toward our house. I recognize it as the neighbor’s dog from two doors down.

The dog runs back toward the house where another girl’s voice is calling it in a more playful, fun tone. The dog slows. The blonde girl runs faster, screams, “Fucking dog!” The dog starts to run away from her. (She doesn’t understand the dog thinks she’s playing, and will continue to run as long as it’s chased; the dog is being a dog, while the human thinks the dog should be a human. Who’s the dumb one in this scenario?)

There is a dark-haired girl to whom the dog has run, the one calling the dog in a nice way. She scoops the dog up and holds it in her arms. The blonde girl screams down the street, “Beat the fucking shit out of that dog’s ass!”

I’m sickened at hearing that. I panic for the welfare of the dog, and feel like I have to say something, anything to try to intervene. “That’s not the right response for a dog that comes back to you,” I say out the window.

“Fuck that shit! Fucking beat that stupid dog!” the girl screams.

“Or for the neighborhood to hear,” I say as I see another neighbor’s two young children standing out on the sidewalk, hearing all of this.

“Shut the fuck up!” she screams at me as she passes by. She grabs the dog from the dark-haired girl and stomps up the porch and into the house, out of sight.

I don’t know if the dog got beat or not, but I sure felt like the rest of us did.

Age Isn't Even a Number

Growing up, I’m not sure I ever really grasped the concept of age. It still escapes me at times. Most of the time, really. I just don’t think about it. How old am I? Sometimes I forget. No, I mean I honestly forget. I have to try to do the math (ouch) of the current year minus the year I was born to get the number, and then try to remember if I’ve had my birthday already this year or not. Of course, my older-than-me husband doesn’t seem to mind that I can’t remember how old he is, or how much older than me he is... It just doesn’t matter to me.

My friend Sarah once said something about how cool it was that we were friends because I was well over ten years older than her, but she never felt like I looked down on her or treated her as younger and less knowing than me. She was right. I never thought about her being younger. In fact, there were many times I went to her for advice and counsel on life matters.

What matters to me more than a number is how a person acts. And how a person acts is generally a reflection of how they feel inside, about themselves, about where they see themselves in life. I shock a lot of people when they find out my age (when I can remember it to tell them, or when I get carded for buying alcohol, which I take as a compliment!). But partly that’s due to how I consider myself mentally. I am terminally 19. Not for any particular reason. It’s a number that has just stuck with me. If I really think back on it, maybe it was a great year for me. A year of freedom, independence, coming into my twenties, whatever. It’s just a number that stuck in my head all these years, and I just live with it there. Maybe when I get even older, that number will shift, but it’s been there for a while now. People who think of age as their burden in life as they get older will, in fact, be burdened by themselves as they age.

Recently, as much as I don’t think about my age as a number, I have been feeling my age and recognizing myself as aging in memories that come to me as I go about my day. They are memories of my mother, who is still living. I am the seventh of eight children, and my mother didn’t have her first child until she was 20, and then we were all born fairly close together. So, you can imagine that by the time I was, oh, say eight, she had to be at least in her thirties, and had already gone through raising several and would have been brooding over several at the time. But, I never thought of her as a number, as an age. She was always just Mom.

I remember once she commented on my muscles, telling me what great shape I was in. I said she was, too, and she laughed. She pushed her finger into my thigh and said, “That’s muscle.” Then she pushed her finger into her own thigh, and I saw the pocketed ripples of cellulite as she said, “This is Jiffy cake!” Mind you, she was and still is in great shape for a woman birthing and raising eight children, she was just aging. (As my doctor sister says, and she would know – “Every woman, no matter how thin, gets cellulite when she gets old.”) These days, I’m not so active. I can still run and bike and swim, just not intensely. And when I look at myself in the mirror while I’m getting dressed, I see the layer of ripply cellulite on my thighs and butt. “Jiffy cake,” I tell myself, poking at it.

We live near enough to the lake that we could go to the beach and go swimming several times a week in the summer, if we wanted. But we don’t. Even when we do go to the beach, it’s to hunt rocks and not just lay out, soak up the sun or swim. I think I may have swum in the lakes once or twice last summer. And this is what I remember about my mother. She would take us kids to the beach and we would swim our little hearts out. We would go to the beach just about every day, as it was only about a mile from the house. And she might come in the water, and she might not. Sometimes she just stayed on the beach. Once all the kids were gone, and I asked her about going to the beach, she said she tries to get down there a few times each summer, on a walk or bike ride. It’s just not that big of a deal when you’re older, and I realize that now. It’s not that I don’t want to go, or wouldn’t go to the beach. I just don’t think about it so much. If I do go, swimming isn’t any big deal. I can do without it. I understand now what I didn’t when I was younger, that my mother was just at an age where she had lived it, done it, and it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t know that I really cared or thought much of her behavior then, it’s just that now, I look back and go, “Oh, I get it. This is how Mom must have felt.” It’s just another way I realize that my mother is her own person, just as I am, and having these memories of her being that person, recognizing how she was her own person, I can accept what it is I’m now feeling as my own person.

I look at my hands. They are filled with crackly lines and age spots are beginning to emerge. I remember sitting at the kitchen table one night with my mother, pushing at the skin on the back of her hand, pinching it and watching it slowly go back. I couldn’t do the same with my young, tight flesh and she tried it, laughing at the difference in our skin. “My hands are like Grandma’s,” she said. “Farmer’s hands.” “No,” I said, “not like Grandma’s.” I couldn’t see it in her hands, but she could. And now, as I look at my hands, I realize they look like hers did that night at the kitchen table. I push the skin up in folds, I pinch it and watch it slowly drop back around my tendons. The last time I saw Mom, I looked at her hands. She was right. They do look like Grandma’s, as will mine someday.

“Time only moves forward.” It’s a comforting thing I tell myself when I am having a hard time with something. It helps me focus on knowing whatever it is that’s bugging me is only temporary, that it will end in some way, shape or form. Aging is just time moving forward. It only can. I wouldn’t want to go back in my life for anything. No matter the good, the bad, the losses. Nothing can be regained in this life. Certainly not time, nor youth. No laments. No regrets. I watch my mother carefully when I am with her. I watch her smile, I listen to her laughter. I watch the way she moves and carries herself. She’s shrinking, now, just as I remember her mother doing. Her bones settling in, she’s getting more compact. I see in her what I know I will be someday, and I’m okay with that. I have no idea how old she is right now, but I know someday I’ll be there, and by then, she won’t be here anymore. But, in a way, she will be. In my smile. In my laugh. In the way I move and carry myself. And I’ll know how old I am when I remember her. I’ll know I’m “there,” right where she had been before me.

Mr. Too-Cool is All That and Then Some

Out walking the dog the other night, I stopped at a corner and watched as a sleek, black corvette with its top down came to a stop across from me. I saw some guy in driver's seat, dark sunglasses obscuring his gaze from me, and decided rather than to cross in front of his leering gaze, I would turn and walk down the sidewalk. He turned the corner very slowly and came following up behind me. "Great," I thought, "Mr.Too-Cool has got to be sure everyone in the neighborhood sees him in his fancy-pants car..." I didn't turn my head as he went by, until a flash of movement caught my eye: two little, pale fleshy arms shot up out of the passenger's seat, childish hands wide open in the minimal wind that passed overhead. The driver looked down at his tow-headed passenger and both laughed aloud. Silly me...

More than that, as the car continued on its slow path up the street and very cautiously around the corner, I was reminded of the many times I was taken along "for a ride" by my older brothers and sisters when they go their new cars - or new used cars, anyway. I remember being the one in the passenger seat, my hands out the window catching air - it seems it was always summer when new cars came into the family. I remember being taken out on back roads and brothers driving way faster than I'm sure Mom and Dad would have liked to have known about, but at the same time, they must have known about. Isn't this every new teenage car owner's rite of passage?

One road in particular and one ride I will never forget (until I'm at least 50...) was when my brother Brian had his orange Chevy Nova - had to be in the 70s - with its version of mag wheels on the back. We went down a road we called "Rollercoaster Road," and at speeds somewhere around seventy-ish, I'm pretty sure we caught some air more than once. What a blast it was to sit in the back seat of that car and go up and down, up and down, the rock'n'roll blaring out the speakers, the wind whipping my hair around my face, dusk settling into the woods around us, my stomach queezy and tingling from the repeated drop in gravity, and just how cool it was to be hanging out with my brothers who talked by yelling at one another and laughed open mouthed in the front seat. I felt safe and free, wild and daring in that moment, and I felt so much like I belonged. So much like I was someone, alive and in the moment. Now a memory long etched in my feelings of joy and comfort.

I watched that Corvette turn the corner and out of sight, and I thought of the guy driving the car and nodded with an appreciative smile: He really is Mr. Too-Cool.

Along but not Belonging

I spent the last weekend at a women’s drum camp in Ontario. Oh, wait, that’s womyn’s not women’s. It was three days and two nights of drumming and dance workshops with women drummers and dancers. I have been wanting to attend something like this for some time now. Lori Fifthian, who is actually from the Ann Arbor area, is nearly famous for the work she does with drum circles. She makes her living by going out and conducting drum circles for groups of people as a way to help them connect, build team skills, etc. I sat in on two sessions with her, and she is all that and more! I also sat in on drum sessions to learn about new drums I have never tried before, including the frame drum and tambourine drum, and I went to a two-hour African dance session where I sweat more than I have in the last two years and had fun at the same time (I do remember sweating that much when I was loading and unloading the moving van, but that was NOT fun, or at least, not as much fun).

I went to this drum camp because I want to facilitate more drum circles here in my town. I want to open up some community activities that involve drumming, and maybe work more with groups like Lori does, only I just want to do it as a volunteer with non-profit and human services kinds of organizations. I thought that by going to a camp like this, I would learn more about running different kinds of circles and get ideas from other facilitators. This is exactly what happened, so I got what I wanted out of it. Only, it was kind of a strange weekend, at least for me. Not necessarily bad strange, but a kind of I-can’t-quite-place-this strange. Here’s what happened.

I went by myself. No big deal. Not like my husband could go with me (although he did offer to go and stay in a nearby motel and I could commute each day…). But, several times throughout the weekend, when I told people I was there alone, they seemed a bit shocked. “Oh, that’s cool!” or “Good for you.” I guess I didn’t realize I was making a kind of independence stand or statement of any kind, but it seems that’s how they took it. And everyone else did seem to be there with someone else. They came as couples or in groups. If they came alone, what I noticed was they had been there before and knew facilitators, organizers, other attendees. They called one antoher by name, said the, “Do you remember when…” and “Wasn’t it two years ago when…” lines to one another. They were “in” with each other. And me, I was “out.”

Now, mind you, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I knew I was going by myself, and I have no problem with that. I felt totally comfortable from the moment I got there until the moment I left. I never once felt awkward in any space I occupied the whole time (okay, well, at night it was a bit awkward sleeping in a dorm room with women who snore louder than my husband, and I’d wished I’d remembered earplugs…). But, the entire weekend, I didn’t really try to connect with anyone. I did introduce myself a couple of times to women who were there, who I sat next to, stood next to, drummed with, etc., but I never really shared space with the same women twice. No one went out of their way to invite me into their groups of friends, or called me by name when they saw me. I sat alone when I ate every meal, and only a couple times did a group come in and join me, but did not include me in any of their conversation. Once, a woman came up to me in the afternoon and sat with me for lunch. We had just been in the African dance class together, and, quite frankly, I was starving after the workout and just wanted to feed my face so didn’t care that I was alone. But, it was nice of her to join me. We had some fun conversation, laughed, talked politics (she’s from Canada), and discussed the camp and drumming. Then we went our separate ways, and I didn’t see her again the rest of the weekend.

I should mention that, in total, there were probably not more than 100 women at this camp. The workshops were set up such that we went to whatever we wanted, and workshops usually had about 15 – 20 people in them, so it’s not as though you wouldn’t run into each other at times.

I spent time after meals walking the grounds, which were beautiful. One-hundred and five acres of woodlands bordered by farms on either side, and Lake Huron on the west. It was marshy all along the lakeshore, so there was no “going to the lake.” Instead, I walked the entry road to the camp, which was thickly wooded on either side. Nearest the main road, I could hear goats bleating at the farm next door. It was very peaceful. I also picked the group cabin a ways from the main camp as my home because it had indoor bathrooms rather than having to chuck across some field to a shared bathroom, so I spent time walking that road back and forth.

I also spent time writing, which can be a pretty good alone activity. So I also set myself up to being alone. And I was okay with it, although I wondered why it was happening this way at the same time. Was I causing all of the aloneness? Was I creating the disconnect? Was I being shut out? I came to the conclusion that all were true.

One thought that kept running through my head was that if these were academics, we would have more to talk about with one another. I would be having much more conversation, much more connection. And I realized that’s really “my group” of people with whom I feel the most comfortable in making connections. My god, I never thought I’d say that, but there it is. Like I said, it’s not that I felt uncomfortable. I felt totally fine being there. I just didn’t make any deeper connections. And partly, yes, I think I was being shut out. I came alone, I didn’t know anyone, and there was a certain level of clique-iness going on. If I came alone, I stayed alone, that seemed to be the way it went there. I noticed that even small groups that came together pretty much just stayed together the whole weekend. There wasn’t a whole ‘lotta mingling going on, so I have to think it’s just sort of the way it goes there. When we sat in drum circles, we were close, connected and shared. When we were out of those circles, we were our own people in our own social groups or single worlds. And so it was okay.

In hindsight, I am thinking, too, that maybe somewhere along the line, I came to this point in my life where I don’t have to belong to the group with which I am involved. I have believed that I could always get along with just about anybody, and my past experiences tells me that’s true, from working with battered women in the shelter to working with men in a prison, from working hard labor with migrant workers on a farm to being a part of the 8-5 daily grind of the corporate cycle. I know I can get along, but I have learned that I don’t have to belong. I do not have to take on the full identity of the group or of the faction. I can still be who I am, be fully comfortable and aware of that, and maintain that while still interacting with and being a part of that which surrounds me.

I don’t plan on going back to that drum camp. It was good and fun and all, but I didn’t connect with it in such a way that I would feel I would benefit from going again. I’m glad that some women do, and that for them it is a much greater and deeper experience. It’s there for them. Instead, I'll look for something other than that for myself. A new experience where I can see if I belong, or perhaps go back to something tried and true where I know for sure I do.

Michigan vs. Oregon Rain

It’s raining today for the fifth day in a row. It’s an Oregon rain. Non-stop. No sunrise. No sunset. The sky will lighten to show it is day, but otherwise remains an evenly spread wet concrete grey. No heavily saturated clouds powering down on us, threatening, then jostling into their positions to rain. Pouring dumping buckets of basement flooding rain. That’s what we’re used to in Michigan. Not this. Not this static, every-waking-moment-with-no-break-in-the-sky-for-the-sun-to-beam-through-momentarily-giving-us-hope-and-a-sense-of-humanity-again rain.

Michigan people walk with umbrellas to shield themselves from this, if they go out to walk at all. In Oregon, umbrellas were rare. Rain was just a part of daily life for six months. People adapted. Why give up your left or right hand, or both on a windy day, for six months every time you step outside? But in Michigan, we haven’t adapted to that yet. We still give up a hand to our umbrellas, to walk beneath our own roofing with no gutter system, which would only clog with leaf debris and fail anyway. More than this, we have not yet learned to commune with the rain in the same way as Oregonians who live in the damp sweatshirts and jeans and call it cozy all the same.

No, in Michigan we still try to separate ourselves from the rain at every opportunity, the umbrella our remaining stronghold. Keep it off of me. It’s not enough to wear a rain coat, but keep it at least twelve inches away from touching me. And we like this view from inside our umbrella space. Perhaps it has something more to do with our living where it snows for as many months as it rains in Oregon. We sit inside our cozy warm homes and look out onto the snow. We do not commune with it. We shovel it, plow it, salt and sand it, pack and shape it for entertainment, and some of us wear devices and fuel up motorized technology that allows us to control it, to command it as we ride over it (and sometimes snow refuses to be commanded, as my first high school sweetheart must have realized at a final moment when he was buried and died in an avalanche while skiing in Utah).

Rain is only unfrozen snow, yet we cannot figure out how to command and control it (note earlier comments on failing gutters and wet basement), so we remain separated from it. We refuse to commune with it, and instead stay indoors, or when we go out, refuse to embrace it by filling our hands with umbrellas.

There is a lull in the water slapping against the windows. A break in the waterfall that formed at the place where the gutter is clogged. I hear birds chirping, singing their instinctive morning calls as they no doubt flutter and shake the moisture from their feathers and attempt to fluff themselves dry in the 100% humidity. A lull where, though drops do not fall from the sky, they continue to drip from roofs and eaves and leaves on trees. Where puddles driven through splash onto sidewalks. And the air can do nothing but hang thick with moisture. No rain from the sky, but to walk in it now feels like swimming, and where my hair sucks in the damp and tightens into ringlets at my neck, I feel I should grow gills. Soon, if this rain will not cease. Soon, if the sun should not shine. Soon, if it wasn’t for Oregon where the people have no gills.

Coffee Grounds

When the coffee is gone
the romance is over
all that is left
are grounds for divorce.

Young Authors

Today my husband and I volunteered to help staff book sale tables for Young Authors day at the college. This is an annual event that brings in about 20 children's and young adult authors, and hundreds of young kids, from adolescent to pre-teen, who have been selected by their teachers to come for the day. It might be a whole class of kids, or just a select group. The commonality among them is that they are all young readers and writers, all interested in reading and many of them knowing the authors that were brought in to speak that day.

I was utterly amazed as I stood in the college gymnasium as a seemingly endless stream of young people came filing in and made their way around the book-table-lined edge of the room. Each of them was gaze bound to the books stacked on the tables, excitedly running up to certain sections and grabbing up copies of the books, ooohhing and aaahhing at the hardcover editions of the paperbacks they either owned or could only afford. I listened in fascination as they turned to one another and launched into explaining why they loved this book or that book, how many times they had read it, and how many of that same author's books they had already read.

It was the simple move of one child that momentarily stunned me. It was a young girl, maybe 10 years old, who picked up a book, looked at the cover, then turned it over and stood, reading the entire back cover of the book before slowly flipping the pages and looking at the text on the pages. How utterly not worth even noticing such a gesture may seem, but what struck me was it was the sequence of an accomplished reader. How did this child learn to look at that cover, become interested, and know to turn it over and read the back to learn more? How did she then know to flip through the pages, and what, really, was she even looking for? Nothing in particular, as any reader who has done the same a thousand times can tell you, except that we look for a kind of "feel" to the book as we do so. How could she, at such a young age, have already become so discretionary about her reading? Was I like that at that age? I can't remember, but I'd like to think, given all the time I spent at the public library, all the books ordered from Scholastic, and all the summer reading clubs, that I would have been something like that.

And maybe that's why I was so struck by the image. Perhaps it was me I saw standing there; a me I have been so long removed from I had forgotten that's where I'd come from. But to see her there, I found a connection so deep in my memory that I was momentarily stilled by the impact of its having risen to the surface.

Later that morning, a young boy came up to me, paperback in hand, and asked me how he could tell if it was a first edition. Already a young collector. I opened the first pages and showed him the imprint page, then found a hardcover of the same book and showed him the difference, explaining how hardcover come out first and are the official first edition, then the paperbacks come out, but that those also go through editions, and he was holding the first edition paperback. Knowing, like most of the kids there, that he wasn't going to be able to afford the hardcover, he seemed pleased to have a first edition paperback.

The morning buzzed on, the gym filled with little bodies, occasional big bodies interacting with them, keeping them orderly, sharing in their excitement for books. I realized that these were a "select" group of kids, no doubt on their best behavior to be there at all, but still, there was such an incredible difference between that gym packed with hundreds of young people and how it feels when it is filled with adult bodies. These kids were such much nicer and quieter and more polite than any such large group of adults I had ever been around at a book event. They were there, not boasting about their own writing, their own accomplishments in publishing, or pushing something they wanted published, but they were there to see and to share in the secret, imaginative world their favorite authors had created for them. They were gentle with the books, kind to one another as they moved in hoards from table to table, waiting politely to be able to get in and pick up a copy of a book, and excitedly talking about wanting to chip in together to buy a copy for their teacher. They just took up a lot less space than adults, in so many ways, and in that moment, I felt such gratitude for this time in their lives. This smaller time.

Awww, Squirrel

Over the weekend, I had the misfortune to come face to face with a common city occurance - a squirrel that had been hit by a car, not dead yet! (Monty Python style), but still able to crawl around and attempt to climb a tree. Clearly, its back was busted up, but it was still able to "hump" around (literally, that's the movement), its back feet splayed out behind its chubby midsection.

This was on Friday. I called the vet, and they gave me a number to call, a woman who helps hurt wild animals. She called a while later, told me to catch it and take it to animal control and they would either try to save it or put it out of its misery.

After I got her call, I tried to find Squirrel, but it was gone. Casey found it across the street, and we went after it, me with a towel and thick leather gloves, and him with a box and lid. The damn squirrel had enough gumption to get up a spruce where we couldn't get in to grab it. I considered it well enough to stay away on its own and left it for the time being. Throughout they day, I kept an eye out for it, but it never reappeared.

Saturday went by with no Squirrel. Saturday night, I went to walk the dog, and there was Squirrel, hanging out by our house again, near a tree, but not able to run up it. I turned around and went back home. Casey helped me capture him, and I called the woman again about what to do with him. Animal control was closed, and all I got was her answering machine. I gave Squirrel some almonds and pumpkin seeds and water and left him in the box.

Sunday came, and Squirrel was still alive. It'd eaten some of the nuts, and the water was all gone (spilled, no doubt), and it was chucking up a storm at me when I opened the box, so it seemed alright, though not moving much. I left it in the box, in the garage where it would be quiet and not disturbed.

Sunday night, the wildlife lady called. I told her about the squirrel, and she said to take it to animal control in the morning. I said I would, saying it was better off in the box, even if it was going to die, than out on the street where kids and cats and cars might bother it. Still, I worried about it as I fell asleep.

The next morning, it was dead. No chucking. No shifting around in the box. The nuts that were there were still there. The water, untouched. I drove it out to animal control anyway, not able to bear just tossing it in the garbage. Just seemed like it was the better thing to do, even if animal control just tossed it in their garbage. At least I felt like I had done what I could, and should.

Summers Off - Yeah, Right

I finished reading papers and figuring grades on Friday. By noon. Grades aren't due until Tuesday at 2:00, and I'm waiting until the last minute to submit them just in case one of my students doesn't like what they see on the online grade posting. That and one last paper just came in yesterday, so I'll have to sit and read it and figure one more grade. That was an okay late paper. One of my students starting having seizures during the semester and couldn't drive to classes anymore. What can you do? I figured out a way to have him complete the class via e-mail. It's the only class he'll be able to finish. Not to complain about colleagues, but I'm disheartened that more of his instructors couldn't have worked something out with him. He's a brilliant young man and has been responsible about doing everything I asked of him. Maybe online will be the way he needs to go from now on.

Since Friday, what have I done?

Cleaned the house bottom to top.
Laundry.
Went running every morning.
Went for a walk every night.
Yoga every day.
Read the paper front to back.
Completed two crossword puzzles.
Went grocery shopping for 2 hours.
Went to the Goodwill 75% off sale and got a huge bag of clothes for $7.
Went to burger day at the River Rock and played Yatzee with my husband.
Slept in (until 7:30!) and took naps two days in a row.
Cooked. No, I mean actually put more than three ingredients together, not including spices, which account for at least another three, and came up with something that did not look like anything I started with and with no picture on a box it could match. That kind of cooking.
Sat and watched a movie start to finish.
Two hours of yardwork.
Blogged.

I know this might all seem a bit mundane, but it really is everything I can't do during the regular school year, and why people who say teachers have it easy will never truly understand just how much we don't get done in our own lives so that we can focus on others. I love my job, but I love my own life too, and I love having summers "off" just so I can have my life for a little while, even if it's all just crammed into three months out of each year. And not even, as I look at my schedule and see this school likes us to attend meetings after the semester, so this week and next week and the week after, I have meetings to attend. And I did sign on for a seven-week spring class. All the same, I know there will be at least one solid month in there where I won't have any scheduled commitments to school. And that's when I begin to prepare for next year!

Alphabet Skin

Oh, the Things They Say...

It never fails, no matter how much I try to vary my teaching schedule, slow one class down, speed another class up, it seems like first papers of the semester all come in at exactly the same time. Four classes, 80 students, 80 papers to read over a weekend. From Thursday night until - well, until I'm done, I do nothing more than sit, read, eat, bathroom break, walk around a bit, repeat until done. Luckily, this only seems to happen for the first paper, but, all the same, I hit a point in the reading where I feel as though I have stepped into the Twilight Zone and am living in the lines and lives of my students. It's a strange, eerie feeling, when I lift my head from reading and wonder where my reality lay amid my vision. A quick phone call home to my husband helps to ground me, or, as happens once in a while, a line from a student paper that makes me laugh out loud. I always swear I'm going to start a notebook of funny things my students write, I jot them down on scrap paper and then they get lost. So, before I forget, here's a couple that got me laughing out loud in the library.

"I turned the page and couldn't believe what I was seeing. A menashatwa."

(Okay, so here, I'm pronouncing the word: men-nah-sha-twa, thinking it's some kind of Native Amerian Indian terminology for something...)

"One man and two women."

(Oh! menage a trois!)

LOL

The next one:

"When I got to work [at the nursing home], I started my shift by passing ice."

(Ow! Ow! Ow!)

So, it's not all drudgery. A few light moments like this, and then tactfully finding a way to correct the writer as to the spelling or correct grammatical usage. Back to work, passing comments.

No, I really mean that one.

Best-laid Plans

As I headed out for my morning run, I met up with my neighbor, Mary, also a runner. We stopped for a moment to chat, commiserating on the weather, our ailments of the week, and discussing upcoming races. “There’s still time to register for the run on Saturday,” she tells me. “I’m sure if you sent it in today, they’d still take it as early.”

“Oh, no,” I replied. “I don’t do early registration.”

“Ah, you’re more of an impulse kind of person…”

“No. No I’m not. Not at all.”

No, when I first began racing, and I mean really racing, not just doing a run here and there for fun when it was in my own backyard, I would plan my entire summer (or season – The Season) around my race schedule. As the sport publications came rolling in, I would be checking out the schedules in the back, logging onto race web sites, using search engines to find more obscure races. I would plan which race to do when, how it would compliment the races to come, and how to work in training to build for each successive challenge. Impulse? No way.

Any other plans I had for summer had to fit around this schedule. If friends asked me to join them for a festival or concert or other summer fun activity, I first had to consult The Schedule. I could never be out past 9:00pm, as I needed my sleep to be up and training by 5:30am. Vacations were actually planned in accordance with races. If we went anywhere new it was because there was a race. Of course the great thing with triathlons is the need for water and long expanses of roadway, so most of the places we ventured to were really quite beautiful, near lakes, oceans, forests, mountains. Some of the sprints allowed for visits to cities, where not as much space is required, such as the Danskin Tri in Seattle.

And in keeping with all of this careful planning, I was a master of pre-registration. I had a system for always making the cut-off date, marking on the calendar the day I needed to send my payment for the race coordinators to receive it on time, or to make the postmark date. For series races, I had the fax number programmed in the speed dial of my fax at work, which I would dutifully follow-up each time with a phone call to be sure they received my fax. Impulse? No, now I think we’re bordering on neurotic.

So, what happened? When did this all change to “I don’t do early registration”? The year I planned to do “it”—the big one, an Ironman.

I was ready. I had raced for three years, completing two half Ironmans with qualifying times. I’d had one bad year in there where I suffered knee injuries, but had tacked a successful year on top of it to erase its memory. I was ready. I scoured the races, there now being so many more choices for the Ironman-length. I found one close to home that hadn’t closed for registration yet, but requiring some travel and accommodation plans. Oh goodie, a vacation!

I read all the preliminary information, studied the course maps, read participant comments on list serves and group pages. I was psyched. To better set myself for the challenge and to assure my place, I pre-registered for the race well in advance. I told people I was going to do it, talking it up with close friends and colleagues to gain their support and encouragement for my efforts. I was doing everything the pros advise to “get yourself into the race.” And then the t-shirt came – with the race logo on the front and the letters boldly emblazoned on the back “IN TRAINING.” I was so proud. My training soared. I was peaked both mentally and physically. I was doing everything right.

Then, two months before the race – you can guess this, right? – injury. A pinched disk in my upper back, between the shoulder blades. Every time I turned my head, the dagger twisted in my back. When I ran it wasn’t bad, but when I stopped and put my arms down, fireworks shot through my spine. I lost feeling and motor control in my right arm on several occasions. Swimming was out of the questions. Biking was the only activity that didn’t cause pain.

Well, three doctor visits later, I’m in PT for the remainder of summer, The Season. My psyche is Swiss cheese, my ego is crushed, and I’m all but on the verge of diving into the black hole of depression. I know The Race is out of the question. It has become an impossibility. Unreachable. Unattainable.

I look back over the race info. I can still ask for a refund, at least $150. I hammer out a letter and send it e-mail. A week later, no response. I call the number and leave two messages. No response. I send one more e-mail. This time, a response, telling me to send a letter through traditional post. I do so, and receive a response that my request has come too late to receive a refund (One week too late – do I argue this with them? No.), but they will carry over my registration for next year.

I put the letter away in a box of race memorabilia. I go to PT twice a week for three months until I just can’t stand to go anymore. Going to PT reminds me that I am an injured person, not whole, not able to compete. I have to tell friends, family, colleagues of my injury and inability to compete. Their disappointment for me only adds to my misery.

My recovery is slow. It’s not until March the following year that I even consider the upcoming season. It’s then I decide I will never again pre-register for a race again. Yeah, it costs more (and can you please tell me why it costs so much more sometimes? Really, is it $20 more worth of work to register a person the day of instead of the day before?), but I’m already out $150 on pre-registering, so I figure I’ll late register until the extra cost matches that, then reassess my approach.

I can remember an old racing pal of mine, Frank, who I would see stroll in the morning of a race and fill out the forms. He was a veteran, having seeing the Big Island numerous times, always pulling a first for his age group in local venues. Back then, I just couldn’t understand how he could wait until the last minute to register, someone as experienced as him should have it all planned out, right? Now I know, as do many other seasoned racers, that you don’t know what’s going to happen from race to race. It can’t be that neatly planned every time, as much as you may want it to be. I suppose it only takes one injury, one incident to remind us that we’re human. We can’t always count on making life plans based on the health and well-being of our bodies, or at least we have to expect there will be times when those best-laid plans will fall through, especially when we continue to push our bodies to extremes and beyond limits. That’s just what athletes do, but then we have to be willing to pay – literally.

This is the lesson I have learned. And what have I to show for it? Well, a $150 t-shirt for starters.

Nail Biter

I don't bite my nails.

My husband yells at me to stop biting my nails. I don’t bite my nails. My nails are just bad. They are weak and chip easily when I go swimming and grab the edge of the pool. They get banged up and break because I’m not careful with them when I do things like clean the house or garden in the yard. I really don’t garden much. But I also don’t bite my nails. I bite my cuticles. They split and tear easily, and so I bite them away. I grab the loose piece of skin in my teeth and try to nip it back flush, but it doesn’t always work. It sticks up. It gets snagged on things, like fabrics, and I can feel it rubbing up against my other fingers. Sometimes its hurts because it keeps getting bumped and pulled back even more, so biting it away helps it feel better. Unless biting it away makes it feel worse. This happens when I tear the skin back away from the nail. I pull it too far down into the finger. Then it quickly turns bright pink and bleeds.

I keep band-aids everywhere. In my desk at school, in my book bag, in my purse, at least four boxes of them right now in the house. Sometimes I go through three or four band-aids per finger each day. I hate it when they get wet, and I wash my hands regularly throughout the day. Maybe a bit irregularly. Often. I don’t like to touch things other people touch or may have touched with their hands. Unclean hands. Hands I don't know where they have been. I don't like to touch other people, doorknobs, food, anything. If I do, I wash my hands as soon as I can.

I lie to people when they look at my bandaged fingers and ask what happened. I say I burned myself. My friend Angela is a nurse. She said, “The pads are on the wrong side.”

“What?” I asked.

“The pads on the band-aids. If you burned yourself, they would be on the other side. On your finger tips. They’re not. They’re on your finger nails.”

Leave it to a nurse to notice this.

“I have bad cuticles,” I tell her, deciding, of all people in my life, she would understand. “They rip easily, and sometimes I pick at them.” Truth. “I’m trying to get myself to leave them alone.” Lie.

“Oh,” she nods.

It’s not just little bites and bits of skin that I pull away. I pick and pull and nip and shred at my fingers regularly, sometimes tearing away layers of skin in fleshy sheets. I played the upright bass for over twenty years, so some of my finger pads tend to callous up, then shed anyway, so some of it just happens; I can’t do anything about it. Like on my index fingers. The skin there will regularly slough off and pull away easily.

Once, while driving through town, I saw an old woman fall off her bike. She didn’t really fall so much as she had sort of almost stopped, lost her balance and tipped over. She was wearing carpi pants, leaving her ankles exposed. As she landed on someone’s grassy lawn, the bike came crashing down on top of her, the pedal slamming into her ankle and pulling backward as the momentum continued rolling its wheels away from her. The edge of the pedal, a kind of serrated edge to help the foot stay on, caught her skin and I watched as it pulled a layer of flesh back and away from her thinly muscled bone. She was old. I don’t know how old, but she had grey hair and spindly limbs with wrinkly skin. Her skin, the pedal just pulled it back like tissue paper. She had a horrified look on her face. I was only just driving by, but it all happened so quickly that I saw it. I don’t know if skin getting pulled away like that heals or not when you’re that old. It must still heal, it just must take a while longer.

That’s how my skin comes off my fingers. In sheets that I pull away with my teeth. It comes off pale, sometimes white, sometimes translucent. I shed. Sometimes it bleeds, sometimes the skin needed to come off, was ready to come off, so there is no blood. Not hardly even pink beneath it.

Last night, in the bar, I’d had maybe a bit much to drink. I was picking at my index finger on the left hand with my right hand, but fingers don’t always do it. So I chewed on it. I got some skin to come away. A small piece. I picked at it some more. I grabbed a small flap of skin in my teeth and pulled it away. It hurt, but I was buzzed, so I wasn’t feeling much to make me stop. I wouldn’t have stopped anyway, even if I hadn’t been drunk. I feel the pain and know it’s only going to hurt more, but I can’t make myself stop, because I would be left with a flap of skin just hanging there. I continued to pull. The place where the top flesh was being pulled away from the tender flesh beneath it tingled down my fingertip, following the transient line of separation. A large flap of skin came away, peeling all the way down the front of my finger, down the full length of the pad to the borderline of the first digit, then it ripped away completely. I sat there with the large piece of flesh in my mouth.

It was near the end of the night. I was alone at the table. JodiAnn had left, Shawn was in the bathroom, and Casey just wasn’t paying attention this time, or he would have yelled at me. I held the skin between my front top and bottom teeth. I ground my teeth back and forth, but the piece was too thick for me to break through it. Normally I could sit and nibble down bits of skin, cut them up between my teeth over and over again until they became a fine kind of fleshy gravel, then I would spit it out. Sometimes. Sometimes I don’t spit it out. Sometimes, I’m a cannibal. I couldn’t break this piece up into smaller pieces.

I looked at my finger. I had a bright red spot where the skin had been. It was the shape of Lake Michigan, my normal, unscathed flesh on the left, Wisconsin, and on the right, Michigan, with Ohio and Indiana down below the digit border. It wasn’t bleeding, but it hurt. I blew on it. It felt cold in the air, as though I were touching ice. The lines of my fingerprint went below that top layer (or was it two or three I had pulled away?); they looked like plump, juicy cells in a slice of fresh, ruby red grapefruit. I put my finger in my mouth. My tongue felt like sandpaper against the raw pad and it stung like a new burn when exposed to air.

The ball game ended. Our beers were empty, except for JodiAnn’s. She left some. Casey stood up to leave, and I took the hunk of flesh out of my mouth. It was a prize piece, that’s for sure, but I had to leave it behind. I dropped it on the floor and put on my coat. I had to hold my finger out straight and not use it. Like the hands in the Michelangelo painting, only I didn’t want to touch another person. I didn’t want to touch anything.

Counseling the Next Generation

South Dakota just passed one of the most stringent anti-abortion laws in this nation's history since Roe v. Wade, and is no doubt meant to be the instigator of the first of what will become many attacks on the decision. The goal of such measures: to completely outlaw abortions, except in the case where the pregnant woman's life is in danger. (And I would expect even that will come under attack by ultra-conservatives; as a result, being pregnant will literally mean you would give your life for your child's. Most mothers would undoubtedly stand for that after the birth of their child, but I don't know of many who would choose it before--but the choice, in the conservatives' minds, is exactly what women shouldn't have.)

What this does mean is that women who become pregnant as a result of rape and/or incest will not have the choice to abort that child. Not only that, but it also means that the perpetrator of such crimes and his family would then be considered in custody and other parental rights' decisions. Of course, it also means they could be held responsible for child support as well, but we all know wonderfully that whole system works.

The issue of counseling the next generation in a society where abortion is outlawed is knowing that there will be an increase in the number of human beings whose conceptions came of violence and/or family relations. Individuals will grow up either knowing or finding out that their existence is the result of forced intercourse, an illegal exertion of power and control, not as an act of love or willful creation of a next generation. How might this affect a person's sense of identity? Of self worth?

What about women who are raped, who are victims of incest and now pregnant? These women will also need support from the very society that forces them to carry these children and subsequently raise them or give them up for adoption. What are current attitudes towards single mothers? Towards young teens who are pregnant? As the number of pregnant women and teens increases, will supportive attitudes prevail and increase correspondingly? I'm going to hold a pessimistic "No" response on this one, but I would love to be proved wrong.

I also can't help but question how these mothers might actually raise these children, how a woman who is raped by a stranger will love her child, how a teen whose child has the same father as she does will interact emotionally with that child as she raises it. It cannot be assumed these women will automatically give their children up for adoption; in a culture which forces their continued pregnancies, they may also feel the pressure to see through raising the child as well. What will the mental and emotional dynamic be of these mothers' relationships with their children? And how is this going to affect this next generation of children?

As a result of such restrictive abortion laws there will also be an increase in the number of children born out of wedlock (already problematic nomenclature, but still a prevailing ideology in our culture). In a time of outcry against diminishing "family values" and protection of marriage acts passing in state after state, we will see an increase in children born to single mothers, to absent fathers (if they were even known at all), and fathers who are not in a position be take on the role of father to the child for whom they are also already grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle, etc. As a society, we must begin now to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of mental and emotional complexities that will result from all such possibilities.

If this concern seems overblown, keep in mind the statistic that one in three women will be a victim of sexual assault in this society. One in three. Now consider the likely percentage of those that might result in an unwanted pregnancy. Rape and incest are still hushed topics in our culture, but by outlawing abortion, we will literally be able to see before our very eyes just what a prevelant place these vile acts maintain. We are not, by far, a civilized nation, and it has nothing to do with abortion.

Our society must begin to prepare itself for a new generation of bastard children whom we have demanded be born, and be prepared to embrace them and bring them into our lives. (Not to mention being ready to support the ensuing health issues that will be on the increase, those genetic complexities that result from familial inbreeding, and unknown health issues that a rapist passes on to his resulting child. An increase in special education needs in elementary schools, an increase in health care needs for young mothers dependent upon state aid...)

I wonder just how many parents would be eager to have their child play with "Tommy" from next door, who was born as the result of the 12-year-old neighbor being raped by her grandfather, all of whom are still living as a family unit. Or how supportive teachers will be of the single mother coming to parent teacher night who explains the reason for "Emily's" absent father is that she had been raped by a stranger and there was never any father in the picture. You might say that she wouldn't even say that, but why wouldn't she? We have told her it is nothing by which to be ashamed. Or will there be an increase as well in the currently prevailing response of victim blaming? So that now, not only is the woman to blame for being raped by stranger, family or friend, but this child is the living punishment for her transgression (of simply being born a woman in this society)? How would you feel as an adult to know that this society believed your existence to be the punishment for your mother having been raped by a stranger or by her own brother? I can't even begin to imagine the years of therapy that will take or the emotional response an individual might take against that very society as a means of acting out.

We must all seriously question just how we plan to live with this next generation of children, how we plan not to ostracize this group and make them feel as though their births were not misfortunes or mistakes. Frankly, I don't see it happening. If anything, we are about to become the first of a series of generational dominoes that will come crashing down as these children grow up despised, regretted and outcast from the very society that demanded they exist in the first place. It will be a long time in coming, if ever, before we embrace them and call them family.

Whimsy

I have been focusing on this word the past week or so. It came to mind one early morning as I was out walking the dog just before dawn in a light dusting of new-fallen snow. The air was crisp and as we walked, we left our footprints behind us. I could see the footprints of someone else who had been up before us. Unmistakable by its path, down the whole block-length sidewalk, a few steps up each house walkway: the paperboy (in our case, yes, it is a young male). I looked at and was able to identify the pattern of his boot tred on several blocks in a row. Suddenly, on one block, I noticed his individual steps had become a shuffling walk. He had dragged his feet to create two solid lines through the snow down to the concrete sidewalk. The parallel lines then took to curving, as he had shuffled his feet first from one grass-edged side of the walk to other. Looking up, I was taken aback to see he had continued this movement down the entire length of the block, a carefully measured serpentine pattern that arced left and right, left and right. I felt a spontaneous smile emerge as I stood in awe of the simple artistic beauty of these lines, the snow and cement and entire city block his canvas on which to create this transient image.

I laughed an appreciative and surprising laugh as I moved onto the terrace to continue our walk, careful not to disturb his work. I marveled at the time and careful thought it must have taken him to drag through this block, no doubt the whole time burdened with his pack of papers, but no more in a hurry to be done with his chore. I wonder if at some point he stopped and looked back at his work, satisfied with his creation. Did he for a moment hope that others might come upon it and appreciate its beauty, or be mystified by its appearance, something akin to crop circles? Or maybe this is just something he had done numerous times, out of boredom, walking that route every morning, rain, snow, darkness and sunrise. Regardless, I would just bet that at some point, either before, during or after his act of creating this, he must have smiled, if even slightly, at the thought of it, upon seeing its completion. In the same way I smiled upon encountering it and relishing in its existence. This, then, is what I came to identify as an act of whimsy, both in its creation and in its appreciation.

Whimsy, I said to myself over and over. How simple. How utterly delightful. How fun. Whimsy. But not just silly or childish. It was artistic. It was creative. Whimsy. The word stuck with me, as much fun to say as its own meaning, like how an onomatopoeia sounds like what it means to describe (pitter-patter of rain, creak of the door), this word makes you feel like what it means to define. Just try saying it: whimsy. It makes you want to smile just a bit, or even giggle. Maybe it’s an emotionomatopoeia—an emotional reflection of the word, or a psychonomatopoeia. Yet more whimsy in just creating these words.

Whimsy. The word hung in my head. What is whimsy? Of course, like good English-folk, I went to my dictionary for a more precise definition and was actually most dissatisfied with what I found there: an odd or fanciful idea; a quaint or fanciful quality; acting more from unpredictability than reason or judgment; an odd idea; a freak; an odd conceit; capricious (impulsive, unpredictable).

No, no. These wouldn’t do at all. It wasn’t what I had felt in seeing the serpentine creation; in some ways, yes—it was “odd” in that it was out of the ordinary, and unpredictable in that same way, as well as fanciful. But there seemed to be more negative connotation to those dictionary descriptors than what I sensed when I thought of whimsy. Certainly, I can see this having been a definition of the word when it would have been created, in a time when there wasn’t an appreciation for that which may have on the surface seemed frivolous. But, then, weren’t many artists considered such? Their works not considered serious, not, certainly, a serious profession, and most likely in their lifetimes, not appreciated for their innovation and depth. We see this a great deal more upon reflection of artists’ works from the past. Has this really changed that much? In some ways I think we do have a new and different sense of value for art, a greater appreciation and understanding of it and of our need for it in our lives, yet at the same time, some of those same old struggles continue. Can we not, then, revisit this notion of whimsy and perhaps create a new definition of it? Lets. Something which reflects a greater sense of fun and joy, snippets of bliss in our daily lives of mundane predictability and grayness. Accessorize with whimsy.

I think about ways in which I can be whimsical in my daily life, so I’m not sure that the act of being whimsical is in itself the unpredictable part so much as the person on the receiving end of the act does not predict its presence in their daily lives. For example, at the beach, collecting rocks and stacking them in a grouping so that others who come walking down the same path will see them. I would consider that an act of whimsy. It’s really meant to be simply fun, something that others will look at and say, “Oh, neat” and “Look at this, isn’t that fun?”

Acts of whimsy are actually quite creative, and require some thought and planning on the part of the creator, either in advance, or in the spur of the moment, but enough thought so that when asked about the creation of it, the answer isn’t simply, “Oh, I don’t know.” But instead could be, in the case of the bored paperboy, “I thought it was fun to walk back and forth, and I wanted to see if I could do it for the whole block.” Or “I thought it looked cool when I started it, so then I wanted to see if I could do a really long design.” That shows some consideration of the part of the creator which could be found out if queried. Another example is that at home, I have a tiny carved bear fetish my husband gave me to carry around in my pocket. However, I knew if I had it in a pocket, it would quickly become forgotten, lost in the wash, or vacuumed up some fateful afternoon after having fallen out. So, instead, I began placing it around the house. I set it on the banister. My husband asked about it, and I said the bear wanted to be there so he could watch us as we worked during the day. A few days later, I moved the bear to a window sill. My husband noticed this and asked about it. I said the bear must have wanted to look out the window and watch the snow fall. I don’t have a set schedule for moving the bear, and I don’t have it planned where he will go next, but, on a whim, I know I will someday grab him and simply drop him off in a new location and there will be a new story to go along with it once I am asked. Or, maybe this time, my husband will come up with the story himself and participate in creating this act of whimsy.

Are animals whimsical? I have wondered as I’ve been pondering the concept of whimsy. I often think my dog or cat really does mean to be funny sometimes in their own instinctual animal ways. When walking through the room, the cat will sometimes come out and jump up at the back of my legs, then simply drop to the floor and look at me as I yelp back in surprise. He doesn’t run away. He doesn’t look as though he wants to continue to play. He just sort of sits there and, yes, smiles at me, like, “Ha! Wasn’t that funny? Don’t you find me cunning and creative for still being able to surprise you like that?” Or the dog, who likes to hide his toys inside his owner’s shoes. I know an animal behaviorist will have a scientific explanation for this, but couldn’t it also be considered and animal act of whimsy? Or, for simple-minded me who doesn’t know the explanation for it, can I not consider it an act of whimsy and appreciate it as such?

I heard a song on the radio the other morning, its lyrics went something like, “I know why the Mona Lisa smiles, that DiVinci must have been a pretty funny guy.” And I thought, sure, the Mona Lisa is one of our greatest examples of how an artist himself created one of the most lasting symbols of whimsy. Was he intentionally being whimsical in his creation of the figure? Was the Mona Lisa model appreciating a bit of whimsy at the time of the painting, as the singer suggests? Don’t we continue to appreciate it as a bit of whimsy in our own lives? What mystery and at the same time what satisfaction this one piece has created for generations of viewers. And how greatly is it that we truly need and desire whimsy in our lives, as we have valued this painting as some kind of treasure.

Like purposefully creating opportunities for random acts of kindness in our days, I propose we also now add whimsy to our repertoire. Perhaps not every day, but once in a while, how about a random act of whimsy (is that redundant?). How about a simple sticky note with a smiley face on it stuck to the inside of a cabinet at work; pencils on a table lined up to spell out HI; a stack of rocks in an unexpected place; macaroni art in a gilded frame; famous quotes on labels stuck in unexpected spaces to enlightened someone’s day… The possibilities are endless since whimsy can crop up at any moment, inspired by the moment, anonymous, to be enjoyed or ahhh’d. But most of all, whimsy is more than the thought of action, it’s more than simply thinking, “Wouldn’t it be fun if…?” It’s the act. And so I urge you all, today, just let a little edge of your daily guard down, let loose a bit of that social rigidity, give in to a “freak” creative thought in the mire of daily structure and predictability. Be whimsical. I think you’ll enjoy it. And others will too. What a better world it will be with just a little more whimsy.

Coffee Snobbery

We have been trying lots of different kinds of coffee since we moved to a new city. While there can be a lot of fun ways to explore a new town, having to find a new coffee has not been one of them for me.

Last year, at a conference in Florida, when we had gone from the hotel to the conference site without anything more than a bad cup of hotel coffee, we found that we kept complaining to people that we needed a "real" cup of coffee to get ourselves on track. We kept asking people we ran into where we could get a "real" cup of coffee, and finally got directions to the cafe all the way across the campus where the conference was taking place. Casey said something to me like, he never thought he would become one of those people who complained so much about bad coffee and needing a good cup of coffee. "A coffee snob," I said. "Yes, we are coffee snobs. There's nothing wrong with that."

Life's too short to drink bad coffee, if you can help it.

Our friend Dave told us he drinks coffee from a can, Folgers or whatever he can get at Big K where he works. Sometimes he just reheats a cup of coffee from the day before leftovers. That made my skin crawl.

Okay, yeah, hey now, wait a minute, it's not that I didn't used to do that too: make coffee from whatever was cheapest or on sale at the store, use a paper towel for a filter, run water through old grounds because we were totally out of coffee, depend on the corner gas station to be my morning coffee stop, etc. Been there, done that. I'm just saying I'd like to think I've graduated from that, just like I have a lot of other phases in my life. And I also understand that some people will spend their whole lives there, and that's fine for them. But, for now, I'm a coffee snob.

The best coffee? Higher Grounds

After years of trying lots of different kinds of coffees, these guys take the cake. Their best coffee of all time, unfortunately, is out of stock right now, the Mut Vit. It was one of the darkest, oiliest, full-bodied coffees we have ever had the pure pleasure of drinking each morning. Unfortunately, Higher Grounds' warehouse was located in New Orleans and, you guessed it, they lost their entire year's supply of this bean. Not something you can recoup from immediately. They have to wait until the next crop season to get this bean back in stock. For now, however, they have a Sumatran to take its place, and a great decaf blend. This is truly coffee that will knock your socks off, and is a great cause to support with your dollar power.

Second best coffee? Hubbard Lake Coffee Roasters

We met these roasters when we lived up north in Michigan. A doctor at the local hospital and her husband. He does most of the roasting and selling the coffee locally. We were skeptical of their beans at first. They didn't have any fair trade when they first started, although they do now. Where they get their other beans is a concern, and they don't say much about it on their web site, although this is a "trade secret." Still, if they were working directly with the growers, like Higher Grounds does, it would be an open selling point. Hubbard Lake went through a growing phase in which we weren't really thrilled with their coffee, but then, once we had to use it as a backup and tried it again, we were really pleased with their dark blends. Great stuff, local folks, so that matters too.

Third best? Starbucks

No kidding. Starbucks has come out with organic coffees and fair trade coffees to meet the demands of its socially conscious consumers. I've been drinking Starbucks for well over a decade now, and I really can't stand those people who whine about what a mega-corp they are with all their chains. Starbucks started as a small coffee shop. I actually think it's great they've become so large and well-known; they are a success story in business. I mean, seriously, if you started a business, wouldn't you want it to do well? That's what they did. There are still small coffee operations around that do just fine (unlike the WalMart model of business plundering). Not every coffee shop is a Starbucks, and that's great. I visit as many coffee shops in any given town as possible, and prefer the locals over Starbucks because I'm out for an adventure. But, given a need for caffiene in a strange town, I'm going for the first cafe I can find, and that's often times a Starbucks. Not to mention in the airports! THANK GOD for Starbucks in the airports!

So, as I sit here and type this, what am I drinking? Alas, Starbucks this morning, as I have an order in with Higher Grounds that is on its way: ten pounds of coffee winging its way across the state to come directly to my doorstep. Now that's heaven.

Most Days

I love to get up in the morning. I love that quiet time in the house, when the world is still dark to my eyes and I depend on electricity to not trip and stumble down the stairs. I like it not bright in the morning. Muted light. I make my way through the house and get ready to take the dog out for a run. I turn the porch light off and step outside into the dark of morning, as though leaving the light on would make me noticeable to - well, to nobody - but it makes me feel stealth to step out into the darkness. By cat standards, it's really not that dark, and it only takes a moment for my eyes to adjust and be ready to set off on our run.

I like coming home to a quiet house, letting the cat out, the dog in, and finding my husband still warmly wrapped up in the flannel sheets and comforter in bed, snoring away (okay dear, breathing deeply...). There is such an incredible sense of comfort and calm to all of this simplicity. I relish in it within. I can feel it bubbling in me, a kind of self satisfaction with this life. It's a wonderful feeling that comes from really doing nothing but being who I am, where I am.

It's this time of morning I feel I meditate through the motions of my day. I breathe deeply through each task: running, stretching, yoga, making coffee, taking a shower. I believe in moving meditations, just being aware of and in the moment of the movements in which our bodies participate. The mind as working with and separate from this body, being it as well as seeing it. Routine, but aware.

By the time the light breaks on the day and I'm clean and caffeinated, I feel I have stepped out of my cocoon and am ready to alight. Most days are like this. And that's a good thing.

Wind Chill = No Run

Too cold this morning to go running. I could barely even get myself out of bed, not because of the cold, no, exactly the opposite. The heat was left turned up last night, which makes my head feel like a bag of rocks when I wake up. Anyone who lives in warm weather who might read this is going to think I'm crazy, but we keep the house at 67 during the day, and 61 at night. Even during the day, one degree of difference either way and I can tell; I either feel too warm or too cold. And at night, I've got to have it cool or my poor brain feels like it's set on simmer all night. I would have thought this very strange, except I know my parents sleep with a window cracked open in their bedroom all winter long. If the window isn't left open, my mom says she can't sleep or wakes up feeling groggy. Is this some kind of genetic medical condition? Or just general psychosis...

It's 20 outside this morning, which isn't so bad I wouldn't run, except for the rocks in my head, which cold air does help sometimes. No, it's the wind chill making it actually 8 degrees out that made me say, "Screw it. I'm staying in this morning." Not to mention that by noon it's supposed to be 38 degrees. Given the option, since it is a Sunday, no school, and no football until 3:30, I'm going to hold out for a noon run. The dog will just have to be happy to quack his duck around the house until then.

No School This Morning

Dang! Who ordered the ice? But, I gotta say, niiiiiiice. No school. At least, not until 11:00. All the public schools in the area are closed, of course, but the college will open three hours late. Just enough for me to miss my first class. YIPPEE!!

I had no idea this was coming. I had a crappy night's sleep, got up at 4am, moved to the sofa and had another hour or so of fitful sleep. Finally got up and let the dog out. I heard a loud thump on the porch followed the the shuffling scrapes of his paws against the wood. I thought maybe he was scrambling after a cat or something. I looked out to see him standing there, looking a bit bewildered down at the porch and steps. Covered with ice. He had fallen and scrambled back up and was now wondering what the heck he was supposed to do to navigate this stuff.

I called him back in and suited up for a walk. It was raining and 24 degrees out. The back deck was covered with a sheet of ice, and the sidewalks glistened with it. We had to walk on people's lawns and on the terraces to keep from falling over! Poor Scrappy did a funky dog shuffle several times when he ventured off the grass and onto the sidewalk. Good thing he's young and limber!

It should clear up by noon, as the temperature rises. So, not a complete snow day for me, but something is better than nothing. I've so far spent a solid hour writing--in my journal, on a piece I'm working on for possible publication, and now on this. Two cups of coffee and a banana muffin, and I'd say it's starting out to be a pretty darn good day!

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Later day update: No school all day! Double yippee! Counting on the rain and freezing temeratures to continue on through tomorrow...please...although, of course, keep all travelers safe, but CLOSE THE SCHOOLS!

Scrappy 2

Scrappy