March 2010

March 1, 2010


I made it almost four days before I ate some candy last week. And I don’t know what’s going on at the Brach’s factory, but they are cranking out some crap where they used to produce a mighty fine Fiesta Chocolate Malt Egg. By the time I finished the whole bag, I knew this wasn’t the Fiesta Egg of yesteryear, a thick, burly, sassy egg swimming in a fine layer of chocolate. No, I had to endure some sad second cousin to the once-great Fiesta Egg, probably produced at the same plant that wrecked the Girl Scouts’ Lemon cookies. . .

It used to be that I could blow Lent in real style, happily gnawing on the magic of a Marathon Bar, the caramel tickling my chin as I asked God’s forgiveness again. I know times are tough when I blow my eternal wad on something that doesn’t even hint at the glory days of candy bars.

I recall my years-long pursuit of the hallowed Mallo Cup, one that spawned an Odyssean adventure of epic proportions. I will never forgot how, after a fifteen-year Mallo drought, I walked into the Ben Franklin’s at Piedmont, a desperate and broken 25-year-old woman wondering what the hell had happened to the glorious cups that cradled both coconut and marshmallow-crème filling. That’s when I saw the lone yellow package, the 50s font shouting “Here it is! The very last one in the world…AND IT’S YOURS!” I very nearly cried when I paid for that Mallo Cup.

What do you do when you run into someone you haven’t seen in years? If that someone happens to be wrapped in chocolate, you rip it open and devour it before the car’s in reverse. Lapping at the chocolate crumbs on my shirt, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view window. I looked like a heroin addict who’d found herself in a poppy field. Wild eyed and empty handed, all I could do was think of where I could get my next Mallo Cup. Jonesing for the next fix, I fingered the package, sniffing it when no one else was looking. That’s when I noticed the small print. Boyer Candy Company Altoona, Pennsylvania. A kung-fu focus took over as I made my way home, bleary eyed and hopeful.

I pulled out the Smith-Corona, carefully feeding a fresh piece of paper through its rollers. And I proceeded to construct the most beautiful love song ever written. I told the company officials of my relationship with the beloved Mallo Cup. I mentioned the cruel truth that teased and taunted me at the local Ben Franklin’s. I included a check, hoping they could help me.

One week before Lent, a package arrived in the mail. Thank God it wasn’t a hot day, for neither my roommates nor I got to the mailbox before dinner. And oh what a dinner it turned out to be. Like all good addicts, I ran to my room and slammed the door shut, happy to spend my time alone, with my spoon and lighter, warming up the factory-fresh sugar smack, tapping my veins to find just the right one. And then I proceeded to eat five Mallo Cups in a row, sometimes without even chewing. As a waivering yet still hopeful Catholic, I did what I needed to do. I ate every one of those 24 Mallo Cups before Lent rolled around the next week.


March 2, 2010


I’m a bit of a leisure hound. It’s made for some very nice weekends that leave absolutely no trail of accomplishment in their paths. I have my Scrabble playmates, Jill and Kristie, who also are willing to carve out time to have fun, though not every game of Scrabble has been fun for us, especially when there’s a glut of vowels or too much layering. Still, I recognize that these problems don’t register on most people’s “hard times” maps, so I try not to complain too much.

Because of this leisurely attitude that pervades my weekend soul, I have been struggling a bit at work these days. As I think about this school year, one filled with really fun kids and enjoyable work mates, I realize that I have never worked harder than I’m working this year. You’d think that, after 20 some odd (some very odd) years of teaching, I would have figured out the formula of how to work less rather than more. Not sure, then, why my workdays are so packed but they are. And what gives in this scenario is the thing that I really do need—the leisurely moment.

I miss roaming the hallways to chat it up with my friends. I’m lacking in moments that have nothing to do with homework or planning or (the most loathed word I know of) pedagogy. Seriously, I really hate that word. I can’t hear it without hearing Alex Trebek’s voice, uttering it with such elongated snobbery that it very nearly makes me vomit. Would I be willing to spell it in Scrabble? Dang straight! But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t cringe a little.

In this ode to 9-to-5 leisurely moments, I recognize that some might think me lazy. That’s entirely possible. Like most lesser species, I’m always on the hunt for the path of least resistance, the limping prey that requires nothing more than a simple shove to put it in the oven. But I also think that there’s real validity in creating play time at work. I think I’m more efficient when there’s a pause in my day for a noon-time dance or a really bad pun or maybe even a School of Silly Walks moment or two. I’m certainly more refreshed, not to mention that such moments build up my resilience to humiliation, a strength of mine that wavers on the Herculean.

So, I’m going to do what I can to build in some downtime today. Heck, I may even pencil it into my calendar…”Fart at 10:15, then invite Andrea in for a chat.” I think it will do me good. Maybe not Andrea, but certainly me.


March 4. 2010


Mark and I were talking music yesterday—not a surprising subject for us, given how freely the tunes flow in our household. Many a late afternoon has been spent in high-drama music mashups, in which we take turns playing great songs, looking for nougats in the previous one that seem to hook into the next. And always, our selections are cloaked in secrecy until the first notes force themselves from the speakers. When these events are in high gear, dinner almost always takes a backseat.

Yesterday’s focus, though, was on the role of music in our lives and Mark made a comment that stuck with me. He said that, these days, he mostly needs music to comfort him. Now it’s possible he was trying to tell me something about the state of our union, so to speak, but that’s not how I heard it. Instead, I just nodded my head in agreement. While I still pop on the tune whose sole purpose (or maybe even soul purpose) is to pump up my jam, pump it up, most songs I choose to play because they scrub me clean.

Since getting the “new” car in January, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to choose more than just my radio station. For a Holt, this car came to us with all the candy—electric windows (they go up and down!), four hubcaps (classy!), a fully-mounted rear-view mirror (no Gorilla Glue!) and a CD player (goodbye 8 track!). I now have this precious pile of pre-selected tunes burned on colorful CDs with Sharpied titles like “Star lit” or “Drive Time” or “Funky Fiddlesticks,” each assigned a specific role in my life. Almost always, I’ve got one of the soul scrubbers in cue each morning I drive to work. And I am convinced that these songs make for better days at work.

Given the weather conditions, I roam through the selections for the one that feels right. Each of these jewels has moments in it that break my heart or lift my spirits just a little. There are single notes that completely blow me away, daring key changes or minor chords that leave me speechless. I nearly drive off the road each time they get to the chorus in “Be Thou My Vision,” convinced that I might be able to fly. And kd lang fills me with such longing when she sings “After the Gold Rush.”

In what might seem a gruesome turn, many of the songs on these soul-scrubbing CDs are nominees for my funeral song. Again, it must feel that I obsess about death, but really, I just want a good theme song. For a few years now, the top nominee, with its clunky name but unbeatable key changes, is “Cider House” from the film Cider House Rules. It is simply a beautiful, perfect song. My days are always better when I pop in one of those songs for the 10-minute drive to work. These songs do their job well.



March 5, 2010


“Full Frontal Crudity”

We seem to live in a culture in which “full frontal crudity” is both acceptable and expected. I remember growing up in a liberal Catholic household (I know what some of you are thinking…is that the same thing as a Fun Run or Military Intelligence? Well, no, as a matter of fact, it isn’t). In my household, I was free to share my opinions at dinner, in between courses, even though I was the youngest. Yet there were unspoken rules that dictated our conversations. For instance, no one could swear, except my dad. And maybe my sister, who had a wonderful, frightening grip on the slang vernacular of the day. Regardless, while we often piggybacked on each other’s opinions or input, we generally were a civil group. Heck, while I relished the chance to be included in the nightly dinnertime conversation, I was, at the same time, too embarrassed to pronounce “mature” correctly (emphasizing the first syllable, rather than the second), when playing Monopoly with my friend Barb, convinced that “mature” was just a half step from something so sexually deviant as to be unutterable. (Author’s Note: This paragraph, I believe, represents the longest paragraph I’ve written since delving into the world of journalism 31 years ago. Right now, I’m checking my skin to see if I have broken out in some sort of Faulknerian rash. . . )

Despite what I believe is my generally open mind these days, I really do still maintain that there are limits to someone’s self expression, even if I can now pronounce “mature” correctly without blushing or checking the location of my bra strap. I think about our school’s library, which is a welcoming place, even for people I would never invite to dinner. Some days (and those “some days” seem to be the days I’ve experienced recently), there are so many “f” bombs dropping in there that the first thing I do when I get home is to lift my shirt, certain that I have taken some verbal shrapnel to my midsection. And I can’t tell you how many teenaged cracks I’ve seen this month, mostly because recalling that number might, in fact, void all the good that my visual therapist did me recently.

Teens did not find this crudity on their own. Rather, they are simply following the lead of their well-honed adult mentors, who think nothing of libeling their perceived “enemies” by tossing at them the kind of poo that zoo monkeys usually fling at the people who stare into their cages. Seriously, it is this fact that really brings me down—our teens are simply aping adults when they sag and shag and brag their way through each hideous utterance or fashion statement. How on earth can we be mad at the young’uns when their elders are so stinking foul themselves?

March 7, 2010


Who’da thunk that hell on earth would come with a name like Westfield Shoppingtown? And yet, twice in the last two weeks, I have found myself face to face with Lucifer, masked as a bubbly salesclerk in name-brand clothing.

I try to be a good mother, but Allison’s interest in shopping and in having clothes with other people’s name on them present to me a challenge I simply am not prepared for. But there I stood yesterday, in the middle of a mall, shunning the sunshine that had finally returned, turning my back on all that is good and right with this world in exchange for some jewelry taped together by child laborers in a place where pennies are gold and humidity is a given.

I knew from the moment I found myself searching madly for a parking spot that this would not end well. Even before we entered the belly of the beast, I found myself sneering at a posse of pre-teens so intent on preening and posing that I had to fight off my gag reflex. We passed through another gaggle of gangstas at the entrance, each one trying to outdo the other, fanning his foul feathers like peacocks on parade. I was reminded of the upscale mall in London that pumped in a high-pitched tone, unheard by older customers, yet so unbearable to young ears that it sent the teens to the exit signs in droves. I must remember to send that mall manager a letter of admiration.

I felt like Richard Leakey yesterday, not participating in humanity so much as observing it. And what I observed frightened me. The frenetic pace, the desire to be seen, the obsession with Obsession by Calvin Klein. . . and that mall air, like air leaked from an old balloon, stale and false and probably not good for you. By the end of our 45-minute trek, I expected Allison to treat me with the gratitude reserved for relatives who donate an organ so that you may live longer. Seriously, I made her buy me a cookie at the Cookie Company and then kept waiting for her to fall to the ground, prostrate in humble thanksgiving for this, my eternal gift of consumptive opportunity.

By the end, I felt like Robert Johnson at the crossroads (make that Crossroads Mall for me), both of us choosing to walk with the devil. But he at least got the blues out of it. Me? I just got depressed.


March 8, 2010


I pity the wrinkly, brown Caucasians who have wended their way west to stake their sun-baked claims on their waning Golden Years. Even with an inch of snow in Thursday’s forecast, I know that I cannot live without the seasons. Period. Speaking of periods, there are single days in my life in which I go through two or three seasons before the sun even sets.

Seriously, if I were God, I would have mandated four seasons for all living creatures, regardless of latitudes and longitudes. And don’t even get me started on the Prime Meridian. . .

Seasons are like class periods to a teacher. Each holds a different promise, a new beginning, the chance to reinvent oneself and start all over again. They are invigorating, exhilarating, exhausting and flabbergasting. They scrub us clean, just when we can’t imagine one more day spent in those tan pants and that green sweater. Living in a climate with four fully delineated seasons is like running my brain through the demagnetizing device at the library—by the time thunder returns to my consciousness, I’ve all but forgotten about its sassy wankitude, the way in which it jolts me awake in the middle of the night, certain a Mack truck is blasting through my window.

Each year, I am reintroduced to Robins, who seem somehow unique and unbelievable to me. Each spring, I have a few evenings in which the eerie honk of geese manages to break through the inky blackness and dares to reveal the birds’ ghostly grey outline against the night sky. Each year I am completely blown away by the first sighting of a lightning bug pulsating its way across the lawn. I still can’t imagine the child-like delight of my neighbor Jody's California friends, when they saw their first lightning bug a few summers ago. . .

For me, the true beauty of the seasons is the opportunity that they offer us to rediscover. . well, of everything. The first fall sky, with its clouds stretching their long, thin legs across the horizon, reminds me that these clouds have little in common with their beefy, bold cousins who fills the summer skies like bags of toppled marshmallows.

Having four seasons makes me strong and appreciative, patient and introspective. It lets me return to childhood, wide-eyed with amazement as my feeble mind is reminded once again of the tangy taste of the first tomato of summer, the joy of pointing my sled downhill after the first snow, the ache that always accompanies the turning of the leaves, the pleasure of smelling wet dirt again.



March 13, 2010


Oh, I have taken a very long bathroom break from writing this week! The danger there is that someone might mistake “away” time with the production of a quality piece, which would be a disappointing and devastating conclusion for all involved. . .

Every branch of my immediate family tree (which is more like a sapling at this point) is in town this weekend. It’s odd, because, while I came from a relatively large family (I am the youngest of five kids), the Raglin and Shepard forests in which I reside are really quite small. A couple of my dad’s brothers remained single throughout their lives and my mom’s siblings have lived much of their adult lives on some coast or another, putting the few cousins I have out of my reach for much of my life. Considering that I only know my mom’s sister as “Aunt Weedy,” I shouldn’t be too surprised that her offspring have remained mostly off limits to me.

Lucky for me, though, that cousin Paige—my age and fun, to boot!—has lived in Colorado for much of her adult life, allowing me to spend some quality time with her every so often. Otherwise, my understanding of extended family rivals my understanding of lychee nuts or curling. . .

Such a sparse connection to and feeble existence of relatives, then, always leaves me flabbergasted when I hear about someone planning a family reunion in which they expect over a hundred people to attend. They will talk about t-shirts and contests and multiple cabin reservations, pounds of potato salad and slideshows filling their stomachs and minds. I simply can’t relate. Literally. The Raglins are like angels in that respect. We could hold our family reunion on the head of a pin, that’s how few of us there are.

And yet, when all of my siblings and their offspring gather together, I begin to understand why it might be enough that we can all fit in one room at the same time. We are a brash, brassy, boisterous bunch, vying vehemently for air time, leaving our spouses and children wide eyed and wasted on the couch in the corner. Maybe there’s only so much room for this motley crew and we should be glad someone made room for us at all.

Me? I’ll take what I can get of my family connections. I love that each child of Jim and Sally Raglin is so different from the other, that we bring such different things to the table, both intellectually and nutritionally. Like all families, when we gather as adults, it takes about three seconds until certain childhood traits emerge once again, yet we are a more forgiving bunch these days, probably because we are no longer able to hide our own warts and all. I will always relish, then, a chance to bowl with the bros and my sis, to eat microwavable bacon at my mom’s house—despite the sinfulness of such a product--, to let Alexi and Melina and Sam show me what it means to be a child in my sibling’s households. It’s all a gift, really, and one that I open with relish. Pickle relish, to be exact. . .


March 15, 2010


For the most part, I have lived a life void of religious fervor. I like God a lot and have mostly been glad to have God in my life, but I have held no parades for him nor have I cast stones at those who see God in different ways or outfits or skin color. I figure that God is so big, so beyond my comprehension that it does me no good whatsoever to find a box to put him in.

While I’ve gone through various religious stages in my life, at times embracing the deity and doxologies, the doctrines and distant respect, I think that I am most content these days in the spiritual clothes that I wear, having come to the simple conclusion that if it isn’t love, it isn’t God. Oh, I tried the Unitarians for awhile but wasn't sure they even believed in themselves, more or less God. I even went to some church that seemed to embrace snakebite evangelism but was worried it would nullify my Zoo membership, so I only went once. Ultimately, I'm not much of a shopper, though, so when I found my current church, I called it "good," which, indeed, it is.

No longer burdened by to-do and don’t-you-dare lists, I find that both God and I are enjoying ourselves, others and each other more these days. It’s really quite freeing to realize that because religion is a human spin on the divine, too often it is destined to fall short and risk defamation rather than come off as knowing very little about the one who created us.

Why is it we feel we have to figure everything out? I, for one, enjoy the mysterious journey. I don’t want spirituality or God or the universe to be explained away in some sort of divine quadratic formula. Instead, I want to be blown away by the simple revelation of waking up each day still with ten toes and ten fingers, by golly! There is so much in this life that is unknowable—unknowable!—ihat it seems we would better serve ourselves, each other and God by coming to terms with that incredible mystery and being content by being blown away.

That said, for the first time in my life, I attend a church that gets under my skin and whose ideas comes spilling from my lips in the fashion of an evangelical. I am never sorry that I go to a service, yet I also am not fearful because I have missed a Sunday to work through a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. There is no guilt, just contentment and amazement.

Yesterday, we had a guest minister, a Quaker who has just written a book titled “What If the Church were Christian?” He had the voice and storytelling manner of Garrison Keillor, without his face for radio, thank God. He spoke softly, with humor and poignancy, acknowledging that there were so many things we could never know and wouldn’t it be something if church didn’t bombard us with rules and regulations but rather just invited us inside for the ride together?

He recalled a story about William Penn, who was drawn to the Quaker faith but still liked to carry around his sword. When he asked the founder of Quakerism about carrying around his sword, the founder's answer was profound--"Wear it as long as you can." Ah, take it off when God moves you beyond that point, but don't do it because I tell you so. . . It was a powerful idea, one that would free far more people than it would doom. One that put more trust in God than in a silly set of rules some people had written long ago.


March 17, 2010>


Sometimes I stand in the hallway between classes and just look at people, seemingly detached from them yet peering intensely, as though I’m looking for a clue that would explain Why. I see kids whose names I don’t know and I tuck backs stories into their hulking bags, just behind the Geometry book that peeks out.

I am most fascinated with the quiet kids, probably because I am not one of them. I wonder where their resilience comes from, ponder how long it’s been since they’ve talked to someone other than an adult who elicited an answer last hour, despite the fact that they’d never raised a hand. It’s odd seeing so many kinds of people who are expected to divvy up their days into 50-minute chunks of learning, each of whom is assigned a navy blue locker that sometimes opens with three turns of the wrist. Sometimes I feel guilty, as though I am part of the problem, pointing out the absence of an ID badge, nudging them along as the warning bell sounds, willing them in the direction of their next curricular appointment.

I don’t know that we are supposed to live so systematically, that we could possibly expect someone to thrive in such a setting. Yet I close my door each hour and absolutely expect a little magic to take place. Like a CSI, I pull out my tools and dust for fingerprints, looking for something that resembles success or acknowledgement or life or hope. The spittle of my disappointment rarely falls upon these people, because they typically rise to the challenge. I do wonder, however, what the cost is of that rising. How much of themselves do they leave behind each school day in order to maintain status quo and, with any luck at all, escape the day undetected?

Who am I to think I can save a child? Who am I to show up each morning with the expectation that my plans, my requirements should go accordingly? What is it in these plans, these cat scratchings, that will nudge joyful life and surprising results and signs of humanity from these sleepy, tow-headed children? We are just doing our jobs. I think I do mine best when I take the time to look into their eyes and ask a question that has nothing to do with content and everything to do with them. I find myself best when I lift up my own cover and share a tiny shred of my own back story, showing them the tragicomic realities of my own imperfection.

March 18, 2010


Sometimes I wonder if just a tad bit of Rich Little didn’t leach out of the grave and into my bloodstream. I don’t know what it is with me but when I talk to many of my friends, I tend to switch my voice. These aren’t even worthwhile or admirable change ups that I make, and yet each acts as some sort of audible recognition system, like a retina scanner for the voice box.

For some, their given names are like flags that they wave, while others wear them like a hair shirt, physically pained each time their name is uttered. It's true that some people have such awful names that you wonder if you should call CPS or not. But a loving nickname, or a name uttered with a stupid accent,. . . well, that is something entirely different. These are like proclamations that say "I've been noticed! And someone likes me well enough, thank you!" That is why I love to mangle a name.

Walking through the hallway at school, I sound like that creepy girl in Go Ask Alice, who kept on donning new personalities. Is that Kevin walking my way? Then go deep, push chin to collar bone and utter “kEV.” Almost like a question mark at the end of it.

When it’s Jeff who’s caught my eye, my chin drops, a la kEV, beginning in a basso “jeF…” but then building up to and finishing off with a little Winston Howell the Third impression as I utter the big finish “FREY!” One more time: jeF-FREY!

I don’t even say Kristie’s name at all anymore; rather, I just let out a guttural grunt. It’s how I leave messages on her answering machine, in fact. I just grunt. Even on her Wesleyan professor’s phone, I grunt, though I do try to do it with some restraint and class. Regardless, she knows what that grunt means.. “ Scrabble at 1. My house. “

Can’t remember the last time I called Jill ‘Jill.’ Naw, she’s Brillo. Then again, I’m Draino. I don’t know which is worse—being called a coarse scrub pad or a container hair-eating poison, but somehow they feel like an audible hug, rolling off the tongue or vibrating on my ear drum.

Sister-in-law Jennifer on the phone? She gets the good, old-fashioned scream. “JENNN-IIII-FEERRRRRR!” Always a pleasure to hear from her, though she doesn’t call as much as she used to. . .

Barb gets the lilting BA-harrrrrrb, always a pleasure to deliver, whether live or in an email greeting.

And then there’s the general bastardization of names, that spills from me with the ease of drool from a baby. Jules, Kabourabakewell, Lillith, Chica, Marco Polo, Bean and Jerry, Fer, Eric Bo Dereck, Allisonian, Big Al, kday, BillllAY, CherylBarrel, Smorgasborgs . . . seriously, uttering these nicknames and using my stupid voices is my own version of a sonnet, a love song to my friends and family, and one I never get tired of reciting.

March 19, 2010

My favorite poem for you!

The Peace of Wild Things By Wendell Barry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

March 21, 2010


Adam Lambert made the New York Times crossword puzzle today. He was 65 across, to be exact. And it’s not like today is a Monday, when most of us can find some nougat of self respect by getting an answer or two, maybe even bypassing the pencil altogether. No, today is Sunday, and this is the New York Times, the nerd equivalent of bicycling’s Tour de France or meterology’s perfect storm. There he is, that cross-dressing, gender-bending American Idol Season 8 runner up, batting his mascara-laden lashes at every befuddled word nerd in the nation, all of whom had thought themselves otherwise safe and sound in their dens with an afghan around the legs.

Yes, I watched and even admired Adam Lambert, sometimes downright giddy as I wondered what odd twist he'd bring to last season's shows. While I'm not sure Johnny Cash would want to share a meal with Adam after his brilliant and bizarre take on "Ring of Fire,"I do know he'd appreciate this guy's musical cajones at least. While I admired him, I never actually called in my support for the guy. Or anyone on the show. Rather, I took them in the way I take in coconut kisses, one right after another, with nary a memory of a single one after a few minutes had passed. That's why Adam's mention in this morning's puzzle was so puzzling to me.

I try to imagine puzzle creator Will Shortz making that decision, bypassing biblical greats, grizzled 70s T.V stars, and former presidential duos to settle upon this infant of an icon whose star status is as uncertain as clear reception on my portable AM radio. Frankly, I struggle to form and hold such an image in my head. Surely, there is a logical explanation for this undeserved nod to that lanky bod, a bacterial bug that festered in Shortz’ stomach this week, fuzzying his logic and flaming his formerly well-behaved behind. Even Shortz, I tell myself, can come up short sometimes.

My feeble attempts at atonement, though, fall far short of making me feel better about all of this. The fact is, Adam Lambert has not come close to earning a spot on this coveted crossword. He has not lived long enough, died long ago, nor reached the kinds of epic heights required of those for whom the coveted ink is spilled. And so, in protest—a protest I know will neither tipple the axis of the earth nor cause hordes of people to flood the streets with rocks in hand—I skip 65 across and will reveal its answer only if those clues whose paths cross this way make their answers known to me.

I have, after all, at least some shred of dignity, even if no one’s seen it for some time now.



March 23, 2010


Today represented a perfect storm of good things for me—an ultimate combo platter of time, opportunity and temperate conditions, served with a side of family and fun. I accomplished a pile of good things before the 5 o’clock news could rev up, and realized that, for the first time in a very long time, I was a part of, rather than apart from. . . .

Maybe that’s the true first sign of spring for me—the realization that I am engaged in this life, rather than stuck observing it (even happily and most certainly sleepily so) from a cozy, fleece-filled observation deck in my home. I type this with chilly hands and red cheeks, remnants of happy outdoor living, signs of having done something in the midst of fresh air and change. I feel alive today and it’s a mighty nice feeling.

For someone who is on vacation—and for whom to-do lists are blacklisted from her weekends—I was amazingly efficient and accomplished today. In a very specific and concrete order, I read the paper, exercised, washed the dog, went to the library, helped daughter Allison buy a bike, revisited our investments, dropped off stuff at the Goodwill, cleaned out the garage, made hummus and enjoyed a beer with Mark. And the smile that is smeared across my face is there for a while at least, a sign of good and grateful living.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this pause in my professional life, how much I longed for days filled with. . . whatever and whomever. It’s as though I’ve taken a bracing shower after getting my hands dirty. I can’t shake this joy I feel, realizing I have made it through to this point in my life, that I am here and I can do as I please for a few more days at least. I have communed with the chickadees and cardinals, welcomed back the turkey vultures and crocuses, reintroduced myself to the hot tub and grill and I am rewarded with the buzz that says that I am indeed alive and that, perhaps, the world is a more interesting place with me in it.


March 24, 2010


Wended my way southwestward this morning, a lovely, rural drive to Cortland where lifelong friend Barb and her steady canine stead Lobo awaited me with muffins and music, conversations and lunch. I can see why Barb is such a joyful sort, each day getting to spend time among the trees and fields that too often have been chased out of the city for concrete dreams. I never hit the speed limit, wanting to languish a bit as I moved through the country, keeping my eyes peeled for flickers and hawks, deer and broken down pickups scattered throughout the fields.

Among my rural sightings was a sign that spoke of hands thrown up in compromising despair: “For Sale: Farm or Acreages.” I imagine someone painstakingly counting his pennies, reviewing his investments, talking with people for whom money is a business, a commodity, something to be harvested like milo in the fall. . . and ultimately, painfully, agreeing to add the loathed word “Acreages” to the sign.

It must have broken a hundred rural hearts to see that sign and all that comes with it—namely, rich city folks who want just a sliver of the country life, not too much land that it becomes unmanageable, but just enough to say “I live in the country…on an acreage.” Along with excellent and dependable utilities, good schools and decent roads.

I then realized there was evidence of both compromising and uncompromising behavior scattered throughout the countryside. About a mile past the “For Sale” sign, for instance, I spotted a turkey formerly known as Tom, his black-and-white tail feathers standing at attention between the strips of pavement making up this split highway. Blood and gore disguised by his still handsome dress, one thing was still obvious—either the turkey or the driver refused to compromise, leading to the gobbler’s ultimate demise. Had Tom refused to look both ways before crossing, or was the driver unwilling to swerve in order to miss him? Like most situations in which someone is uncompromising, there was road kill in its wake.

Maybe there was a time when I was uncompromising, or some issue on which I would not sway. I can’t recall either now, though. I am, for all practical purposes, a compromising individual. I don’t like conflict, I lack the strength of rock-hard convictions, and ultimately am too practical to see something through to the bitter end, if it means the end of friendship or work or something else that is both tangible and loved by me.

By being compromising, I suppose I’m also a bit compromised, too. I’m the late-model Ford that threatens to remain on the lot, generally overlooked because of the worn tread on my tires, the rust along the doors, the general sensation I give off that I’m not really all you’d like me to be.

But there also is, I believe, a danger in being uncompromising. Those who wave flags of indignation (and indignation most often is the flag of the uncompromising…too heavy and noticeable for those compromised individuals such as myself), unwavering in their beliefs, can cross that thin, almost imperceptible line into something more absurd than pure. Just tonight, on the evening news, the reporter uttered this headline, seemingly unaware of its inherent irony: Senators Receive Death Threats from Pro Lifers.

Sometimes, Tom’s not the only turkey in the road. . .


March 26, 2010


The Journal-Star was digging for stories today (a practice that seems more and more common in that paper), asking readers to share April Fool’s Day stories. Got me thinking about the important role that pranks and jokes have played in my life.

My dad was a very funny man. Well liked by Democrats and Republicans alike (which, in itself, might be kind of funny these days), I think his appeal had as much to do with his sense of humor as it did with his common sense, two things he had an abundance of. We always knew where we stood with our dad, although we couldn’t believe everything we saw. I will never forget the family dinner (all of our dinners were family dinners, an important element in my life) when he announced his impatience with the mustache he’d worn for a year or so. After the pronouncement, he grabbed the corner of his mustache and ripped it off. Who can remember what we had for dessert that night, given this fantastic and unexpected second course he’d served us?!

More than once, he used his newspaper job to his advantage. He sent UNL Track Coach Frank Sevigne fake articles about a 7-foot-tall runner from Alaska, tempting Frank to the point where he lifted the phone to make a recruiting visit. He taunted the meter maid who worked the parking meters in front of the paper, having found a meter that had pried apart a bit, leaving just enough room for a handful of 50-cent pieces. He was a merry prankster and we were his band of worshipful followers.

I can’t tell you how many allowances I wasted as a kid, pouring over and purchasing the latest gadgets and tricks at the downtown Joke Shop or from the Johnson-Smith catalog. I never let shipping fees get in the way of idiotic genius. Like the time I threw a plastic light bulb at the art teacher, who also happened to be a former governor’s daughter. Gut buster, I tell you, watching her drop a tray full of art supplies! Or the talking toilet I installed in the middle stall of May Morley’s bathroom one April Fool’s Day, absolutely beside myself imagining someone’s surprise when, upon sitting for a bit, would hear a man’s voice. “Hey, I’m working down here…phhhhwAAAATTT!” Priceless, and a bargain at $10.95!

How many fake cigarettes have I puffed while riding the city bus line? How many vomit Frisbees have I tossed on cafeteria floors? What about the fake names uttered (Merdith Goopling and Sarah Sanklemeyer being my favorites), when ordering a pizza or reserving a table? Or what about the time I actually got Jill, who is a devious master of these dark arts, thanks to a “form letter” I’d written on fake Near South Neighborhood stationary, informing her that the city was reclaiming five feet of her front property to widen her street? Word on the soon-to-be-widened street was that, fuming, she made it three houses to the south in her slippers and robe, rousing neighbors’ interest before she got the news it was a joke.

Really, I’m not nearly as clever or quick as I wish I were. But I am a good recipient of others’ quickness and deviousness. I’m still finding wallet-sized school photos of my workmates tucked away throughout my house, in books and behind outdated salad dressing. “Stay as cute and sweet as you are. Love, Chuck.” That was a brilliant prank. Just today, I received a note ON OFFICIAL PAPER, nonetheless!, pleading for my help in shipping clandestine clementines across international borders. Still have Susan Gourley’s note, too, asking for a taco.

I don’t have to “get” every joke to get every joke. They are like love letters, sprinkled with itching powder, reminders that I am a pathetic slob, and a loved one, at that. And I embrace each one, even if it means I have to change my shirt or find a new route to work or get a new phone number . . . .



March 29, 2010


I’m an early riser. Always have been. And now that Mark works weekends, his clock set at 4:50 a.m., any chance of me sleeping in until, say, 6:15 is pretty much shot anymore. I don’t really mind being up before the sun, though. I just wish I could stay up past 9:30.

Saturday morning, I awoke at 4:44 a.m., immediately alert, thanks to a shocking dream. Despite the fear the dream filled me with, a smile eased across my face when I saw the time. See, the number 4 is one of my favorites, so, in geek terms, I derived at least some pleasure from this numerical trifecta. Mark’s clock, though, read 4:50, a disparity that has always baffled me, given that our clocks magically set themselves when you plug them in. Makes me wonder where ours get their information.

The whole notion of a self-setting clock is both baffling and magical to me. When I bought a new clock radio last fall, I had an experience similar to the one I had when I bought my 1997 Nissan Sentra eleven years ago. At that time, both Mark and I assumed that things such as automatic windows or built-in CD players were what rich people enjoyed when they bought cars. We had no idea that, since the last time we’d been in the market for a car, such things became standard fare. Same with the radio. I hadn’t bought a clock radio since we first got married 20 years ago. When I picked up this cheap model at Target last September, I was stunned—STUNNED!—by all of its features. It has a 5-day and a 2-day alarm, so that I don’t have to remember to turn it off Friday evening. And I was utterly flabbergasted when I first plugged it in, watching the numbers frantically flittering across the panel, finding themselves, righting themselves by some unfathomable mother clock somewhere out there. Seriously, this is a concept I simply cannot begin to grasp.

Much like the concept of time, in general. I don’t know who decided that, after watching the sun move for a succession of days (and who knows where days came from), there would be 24 units marking the movement from and ultimate return to its astronomical home base. Why 24? And where did 60 come from? Why 60 minutes in an hour or 60 seconds in a minute? It absolutely baffles me to think of time. And yet, I am very much a time-driven person. If you want to drive me crazy, just make me late for something. Or show up late yourself. This is my idea of hell. Someone invites me somewhere, offers to pick me up, and then shows up ten minutes late. That’s my hell. That’s how deadline driven I am.

Actually, most of my family is deadline driven, intent upon being on time to things. I remember when Mark and I first got married and were heading to our first Raglin Christmas. We walked in my parents’ door at 8:35 a.m. Christmas morning, only to find my dad just hanging up the phone. “Oh, I just called, wondering where you were.” Five minutes between beloved child and spouse and one less gift under the tree.

Brother Jack spoke of a couple he knows back in Indiana (where Daylight Savings Time may or may not exist), who live by circadian rhythms, those alleged hard-wired built-in human clocks that monitor and adjust us. Neither one of these people will teach a class or attend a meeting before noon. Why? Because they have their internal clocks set to circadian standard. I have a name for these people. It is not a nice name, but I feel safe uttering it in the morning, when they are asleep. Or at least not around.


March 30, 2010


Despite not paying attention much of the time, I did cull some good stuff from my high-school years. It was in A.P. English where my teacher Jim Holechek introduced me to T.S. Elliot, for instance. I can still locate and be moved by entire lines of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” or “The Wasteland.”. It’s a line from Elliot’s “Ash Wednesday,” though, that speaks most closely to my heart: “Teach me to care and not to care.”

It is there, in those powerful words, where I find balance to my days. It is there, in those seemingly disparate words, that I find my capacity to love more by letting more things go.

I don’t know that I ever consciously committed myself to those words, but, clearly, that idea of knowing when to pay attention and knowing when to walk away and trust others to care has permeated much of my life. It’s not a permeation I talk about much, because the idea of not caring has a callous-sounding tone to it. Indeed, there are times when this stolen slogan of mine does feel a bit brutal or selfish. But I think, for the most part, it is faith in others and an understanding of my own limitations that make this a holy and healthy way for me to live.

Like everyone, I have found myself at different times in my life swimming in a pool of poo, hardship and sadness lapping at my feet. There are times when I don’t think I have the capacity to hear one more tragic tale, even if that tragedy is cloaked in the skin of someone I love very much. In those times, I want to put out a mental advertising sign that pronounces No Room at the Inn, Please Try Down the Block. It is during these times when my caring-and-not-caring practice can wrack me with guilt, even when I put on a good face and drop by with a dinner.

Mostly, this caring and not caring serves me in my daily, hum-drum life, that part of my days and nights that is mostly filled with okay things. By freeing myself from caring about everything, I don’t feel compelled to solve every problem, more or less understand each one. It gives me a protective coating of aloofness, a healthy distance that says “I trust that there is someone else out there—far more talented than I am—who cares about and will tend to this fill-in-the-blank.”

It might sound as though I’ve justified myself right out of participating, but I think I could make an excellent argument that those people out there who are deeply affected by every happening, who can’t seem to not join the next committee or stand behind the newest cause have, either intentionally or inadvertently, become less trusting in others. Or even in God. Even Jesus had to occasionally tell someone to back off and not worry about something.

As long as our filters are clean and functioning, as long as we are paying attention and loving the others in our lives, I think we can trust and benefit from the idea that sometimes life can just take care of itself.