May 2010

May 2, 2010


In typography, “san” means “without.” As follows, then, a san serif font lacks the flourished, dependable baselines of the staid, traditional typeface Times New Roman or its classier, sassier cousins in the Palatino family. Frankly, it’s stunning that the san-serif font Helvetica could make it through a single day, more or less survive in an anorexic Monday edition of the latest Journal-Star. And so it is that I struggle with partisan politics, considering that the very term “part-i-san” suggests to me both incompleteness and instability.

I’m not being party-specific here. Rather, I extend this skeptical net across the current U.S. political spectrum, if, indeed, you can refer to anything in U.S. politics as being part of a spectrum, a term that typically requires an array of delineations. Granted, this journal entry was inspired by an essay penned by that most partisan of party girls, Sarah Palin, written in praise of her boorish brethren Glen Beck, but it just as easily could have been inspired by the hypersocialist hype of a Michael-Moore penned piece.

In my dumber days (I know, I know…is such a thing possible?!), I often fell prey to partisanship, that allure of the simple notion that “either you’re with us or you’re against us.” I remember refusing to shake the hand of a Republican candidate for U. S. Senate while feasting for free at Grandmother’s Restaurant with my Pius colleagues one long-ago day in the late ‘80s. Not only did I refuse to shake his hand, but I also felt the tinge of misguided pride in my doing so. What a knucklehead. And I’m not talking about the candidate. At least he was putting himself out there, seeking change, trying to connect with the people. Me? I was just trying to round up enough colleagues to order another pitcher of beer and, thus, earn another plate of free nachos.

My mental changeover began when I first taught at East High, where I worked with a talented group of newspaper students whose political leanings represented the antipode of my own. Over and over, I made two lethal mistakes that year: first, when they asked me questions I was not qualified to answer, I answered them anyway. Second, when they wrote from a perspective opposite my own, I tried to use my position of authority (small “a” all the way) and nudged those opinions out of the publication, or at least imposed punitive costs, if nothing else. Not surprisingly, I felt little satisfaction or joy in my job that year—two facts that rest upon me, not those students.

I’ll be honest. I became pregnant for the first time in my life that year. A month or so after that most wonderful discovery, I had a miscarriage and found myself looking at the bloodied remains of a life not to be lived, eventually flushing them down the toilet, like so much waste. And yet, it wasn’t waste. It wasn’t for naught. Indeed, it made me realize that I cut myself off from living fully when I closed my ears to certain others. Turned out, I wasn’t very good at choosing my battles or embracing the lessons that I had yet to learn from those with whom I disagreed. I liken that long, heartbreaking night of blood, sweat and tears to a session in a sweat lodge. It loosed within me certain hard and beautiful truths, and I emerged from that red tent invigorated and free.

I no longer fear or blindly react to those who stand in opposite corners. Rather, I try to look at them as someone with whom I can share a beer (or, better yet, a person whom might actually buy me that beer). I can hardly afford to turn my back on the friendship and wisdom of half the population, just because we happen to bubble in different circles in the voting booth.


May 5, 2010


Last night, I cracked open the bedroom window to let in a fresh breeze (seems there is always a need for fresh breeze in our house). The sounds of nightlife seeped in as well and I thought I caught the sleepy snore of a Western screech owl amid the low hum of traffic. I’ll never know for sure, though. Two or three nanoseconds into my mini nature moment, the testosterone-inspired throttle of three hundred and sixty really angry horses snorted its way into the experience.

While I have never personally witnessed a street race before (merely catching glimpses of them during summer-movie commercials on my cable-free tv), I know, without doubt, that plenty of people race cars on the street. It’s one of the few downsides of living close to “O” Street, these episodic evening surges of manhood, lived out between street lights.

Mark and I often joke about such brassy displays of humanity, be they really awful power ballads on the radio, idiotic examples of political leadership or the screeching blare of another street race. “Do you think a man or a woman is behind that?” And so the joke goes.

I really do like men. They represent a fair chunk of my friends and are batting a thousand in my “spouse” department. I like the way men handle problems, typically practicing the “head on, move on” philosophy that I, too, try to emulate. Women (well, maybe girls more than women) tend to fester like pesky cold sores, never quite healing from the slights, real or imagined. Many women seem to be expert in the field of passive aggression, wending their judgment like an invisible thread that eventually strangles. Men? They punch each other in the nuts then go out for a beer together. I respect that, if from afar and with my hands cupped around certain body parts.

The “rooster” side of men, though, remains a mystery to me. I don’t get the strutting, the huffing, the showy displays of toughness. Fortunately, I don’t know many men who practice these “arts,” but whenever I see one in action, I feel as though I am watching a nature show, mesmerized by the way the male prairie chicken puffs up its chest and flips over its feathers, quavering in anticipation of the flittering hump of a female. These witnessed moments of raw manhood, however misdirected and, frankly, kind of funny, seem to be the best proof that we indeed come from animal ancestors, some seemingly only a generation or two away from us.

In all my days as an employee, I can recall working with only one of these roosters among the brood. He had a cheap mustache and a certain swagger that seemed uncomfortably out of place. That he was a boss created within me the need to at least find some way to negotiate his persona. My wily female ways have seldom served me well. Perhaps because they are so flimsy and flaccid. . . .Regardless, I eventually found the key to working with this he-man among men.

I had noticed that he’d been gone for a week and asked others about his absence. Apparently, he’d been in the Sandhills, killing things with a gun. Therein lay my solution. And so, I essentially prostituted myself. I, lifelong nonhunter who has shot only Roman Candles and perhaps a pigeon or two when our old house was having trouble selling, walked into his office with the sole purpose of making a connection. And for the next fifteen minutes we talked about hunting. He showed me graphic photos of butchered deer, grunting approvingly as he fingered the protective sleeve of the photo album. I, too, grunted, taking my cues from him.

While we didn’t exactly become friends that day, we did make a connection, however tenuous. And, as I recall, I got some really excellent deer jerky from the exchange.


May 6, 2010


I claim to like an open schedule and, for the most part, I think I will stick with that claim. A weekend in which I need to consult a calendar is, for me, a problematic weekend. Ditto that for a summer week. I relish the first summer day when I wake up and have absolutely no idea what day it is. I had some of these days in college, too, but for different reasons.

Usually I am content to know that a summer day will consist of a bike ride along the trail, some time with a book, a post-lunch date with the hammock and maybe a little Scrabble or word jumble, just to keep it interesting. I say “usually” because the prospects of another summer have caught me by surprise this year. Last summer (and, really, the summer before that), I had the luxurious job of pondering a two-week trip to Italy, chunking out the details, each one an adventure in itself. Now that Italy has been relegated to an online book and a few pounds around the waist, I wonder what it is that will occupy my brain in the upcoming months.

For me, there is something pleasurable in the planning. Like Mark, who feels great satisfaction at a perfectly joined corner of wood, I feel something similar when planning a trip or constructing a perfectly mapped out grocery list. May becomes my list-making month, by virtue of its added activities. From final journalism deadlines to graduation parties, the annual publications pizza party at my house to state contests and staff breakfasts, I need to keep my poop in a group. And I do it with a well-constructed “to-do” list (which, I know, stands in shocking contrast to my belief that we’d be happier if we constructed “ta-DA” lists instead).

It is the very making of the list that offers me some comfort, though. First, for instance, I must choose the perfect pens and color combinations. I know that the list’s header will be written with a Sharpie. The question is “what color Sharpie?” After I’ve settled on that, I have to decide which Precision Point pen will have the honors of compiling said list. A smear or factual error means that another tiny tree has given its life for naught, since the mistake requires me to begin again.

I made a very beautiful list yesterday before leaving work. It had a nice combination of inks and colors and was constructed with both precision and a bit of creative flair. And yet, a part of me hopes that something new bubbles up today, something that requires me to remember, to construct a new list, to put it to paper so that it might be committed if not exactly to memory then at least to a spot on the calendar. Already, I find my mind wandering, considering new and daring color combinations, my hand feeling the satisfaction of a well-formed letter.


May 7, 2010


I’ve been peeking at the future a bit lately. Not mine, though. Eric’s. And, as is so often the case, it seems the more I look forward, the more I slip back in time. I rather like this see-sawing effect, vacillating between memory and imagination, both ends of it swimming in the love of a son.

Eric was a great baby. Our old neighbors, the Buckners, once accused him of having too many Happy Meals, metaphorically speaking. I think they were on to something there. He proved to be a most excellent teacher to two quavering idiots whom he gently and patiently transformed into “mom and dad.” I think fondly of those days (not so much the nights, though), still able to feel his fat fingers, still seeing his chubby face and quick smile as he peeked over the edge of his bassinet to find out what all the racket was about.

He is lanky now, and five times smarter than the cumulative GPAs of both his parents. He shines in his own quiet way, so unlike either of us and then, without warning, he is a shadow to one or the other, an exacting mimic in movement or phrasing. Above all, he is his own man and the world is a better place with him in it. This is why I am so willing to let him go. I know just how much this world could use an Eric Carlson Holt, someone who is infinitely curious about life and yet who could not be less interested in accolades or spotlights. Seriously, is it possible he really grew in me?

When I was a senior in high school, I mostly pretended to be pondering my choices. On paper and in conversation, I claimed an internal battle between journalism colleges. Missouri? KU? Nebraska? In reality, I knew that my roots would anchor me here, that I lacked whatever adventurousness was required from a new zip code. In the end, I’m not even sure I could call it a decision, attending UNL. I learned a great deal there, made good friends, took some fabulous classes and even had a few months in which I dreamed and thought in Spanish—most magical, indeed! But it was rather like a lucky turn of events more than a meticulously plotted path.

My son has become a heck of a generalist, as per my secret instructions to him, whispered at night, when he is folded into himself and lost to this world. He can walk with confidence and joy among all kinds of people, flourishing in and learning from a myriad of situations. His path, once he graduates from high school, will be very different from mine. It will be mapped out, but in pencil, to allow for new things to emerge. It will include a long side trip to Sweden, where he will test the veracity of the Rosetta Stone proclamation. It will be exciting and hard, beautiful and heart-breaking. He will leave this house, but not our lives. It will be an act of stepping into rather away from. And I, for one, will stand aside and let him go, however much I’d like to tuck him in just one more night.



May 9, 2010


As I was driving to Allison’s volleyball game today (I was VERY good, by the way, only doing the wave twice and barely making fun of praying-mantis girl), I was reminded of Dr. Seuss’s tale of the Star-Bellied Sneeches. In it, a clever man makes heaps of money convincing some Sneethes that a star upon their bellies will make them superior to their star-free neighbors. And then he reverses the concept, when he’s done making money off of that crowd. Essentially, it’s the story of public relations, in which one clever huckster can convince people—or Sneeches, in this case—to do just about anything.

What reminded me of the story was what I saw in my rear-view mirror, over and over and over again. People for whom driving should have been job one were busily talking on their phones or texting a friend, nary giving me, the driver in front of them, the time of day. These people are why I now spend as much time looking in my rear-view mirror as I do looking in front of me when I’m driving. Believe me, my mirror has become a vital link to my survival, and not because I’m applying my lipstick in it.

So, what, exactly, is “Sneechy” about talking on the phone while you’re driving? Consider the fact that, ten years ago, the only people with phones in their cars were police officers and tech dweebs who played Dungeons and Dragons when they were younger. And there really was nothing “mobile” about those clunky predecessors to today’s sexy, trim cell phones that dangle from so many ears. Bottom line? No one had a mobile phone because no one needed one.

And now? Now, my children are freaks because they don’t have their own cell phones. Granted, they might be freaks for other reasons, as well, but this cellular absence most certainly has sealed and sullied their reputations, perhaps beyond repair. It is so odd to me that people have been so easily convinced by corporations that they need to be accessible at all times and that they should probably carry their phones with them everywhere, so that every conversation may be disrupted, every telemarketer may make their quotas.


I’d love to start a neo-Luddite revolution, convincing people that there is greater freedom in leaving their phones at home than there is in strapping their phones to their belt buckles. I’ve already got a nice pool of cable-free friends, who, like someone living off the grid, are getting great reception for free, thanks to the 1950s antennae crammed in their attics, pulling in more stations than they’d ever imagine possible (I’m up to 18!). The only problem with my revolution, though, is that there’s not much money to be made in it. I don’t know how to convince these phone-friendly fanatics that it’s actually cooler not to have one. Where’s the buck or the bang in that?

If Dr. Seuss were alive today, maybe he’d do a followup to his Star-Bellied Sneeches piece, pointing out the absurdities of these plugged in, amped up, 2.0 lives we’re living. He’d find a clever rhyme that’d sum up the absurdities of our situations, showing us that we have become hypnotized by hucksters, dishing out our dollars as fast as we can pull them from our pockets, just so that we may not be left behind.


May 10, 2010


How can it be that, as soon as we get closer to whom we’re supposed to be, we cease to look like anything we can recognize? Last night, while watching “Stranger Than Fiction,” a most excellent film, I paid note to one of those cheesy “but WAIT!” commercials, this one peddling heel cream. Normally $20, if I had just called that 800 number, I could’ve been one of the lucky ones, paying just $10, plus shipping and handling, for TWO tubes of this magical goo! But WAIT! Call now and I can have a complete pedicure kit, to boot, worth over $40! That’s right! Sixty dollars’ worth of products for just $10 plus shipping and handling.

For a nanosecond or two, I pondered my options, committing to immediate memory those eleven telephone digits that would save me from my heels.

Ah, my heels, two of several body parts that have betrayed me as I’ve grown older. Some days, when I stare at my heels, I am transported to Canyonlands National Park or Bryce Canyon, so riveting and unworldly are the dried riverbeds of my feet. I imagine long-ago rivers etching their memories into the folds of my skin, only to be whisked away by dry sirocco winds. As much as I’m drawn to desert climes (at least in my readings, if not in my travels), I inevitably give up the tales and return to the drudgery of the cheese grater, working my heels diligently, watching their stones of time wear down under the pressure of stainless-steel ridges.

Maybe we would be better off, though, thinking of our bodies as landscapes responding to the toils of time. If we viewed ourselves in the same way we view the lands around us, perhaps we wouldn’t be so surprised by our changing landscapes, the gentle hills that have formed after so many storms and birthings. Maybe I’d learn to embrace rather than recoil from the sandy gulches of my heels, looking to them for stories etched in time, for long-ago memories of running barefoot along the hot, recently-tarred streets of my youth. Wrinkles would no longer be targets for Botox but rather archeological treasures, appreciated for the remnants of history that have penned them into our skin. And gray hair would be embraced for its evidence of a life long lived, prized for the hearty genes it bespeaks of.

And so, I resolve today to approach my evolving landforms with the eye of a geologist, reading the stories that each wend and fold has to tell, learning to love rather than loathe the fleshy storytellers, anxious to turn over the next chapter in my tale.


May 15 2010


I think I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately. As much as I’m a weather dweeb, part of me wants to blame weather for that rut. The low clouds and absence of thunder (minus a few nice storms) have weighed me down and left me a bit listless, I’m afraid.

That is why this morning’s bike ride was so wonderful. It was the tipping point I most needed, the one in which good things come flooding back into my life again and I am left feeling refreshed and ready to participate. Even the act of penciling a quick note to the kids (“On a bike ride. Love, Mom”) felt right, echoing the daily habits of summers past. Sometimes, when we lose our rhythm, it is the simplest of acts that brings us back again.

Pulling out of the drive on my glorious, flashy, over-the-top Purple Hawaii and heading towards Woods Park, my legs let out a little “waHOO!” of joy at being able to stretch and burn again, no longer confined to the dark, dank basement bike. A bike is the perfect mode of transportation, reliant solely upon human power and utterly silent in its operation, doing nothing to interfere with the happy mojo of the rider.

I felt at home, buzzing down 32nd Street, wending my way towards Capital Parkway and the bike path. Greeting the butts of two mighty camels as I passed the Zoo, my eyes turned toward the Waterworks Apartments across the street, where friend Morgan once lived, regaling us with stories of mysterious underground tunnels, where waterworks employees once wandered. Shortly after, though, I turned away from all things human and let my head fill up with the sounds of nature.

I scanned the tips of tall trees and the cellular towers, looking for hawks. Rabbits skittered in front of me, running across the path to what must be greener pastures, though I cannot imagine such a thing. Robins and chickadees, blue jays and cardinals went about their business of luring mates and dissuading the competition. Even a lone Baltimore Oriole cajoled me with his slow-tongued, Robin-like song, flashing me his most awesome orange breast. I stopped only once, to inspect my fat, flower-tread tires after passing over some broken glass. Even that task didn’t discourage me, since it gave me extra time to enjoy the Oriole’s song.

And so, with this hour-long, early-morning bike ride, I find my life again moving forward. I am refreshed, re-centered, returned.

May 17, 2010


I’m trying to make sense of numbers today.

29
I heard a coal miner being interviewed on NPR today, saying he hoped they’d find out what happened in the mine, where 29 of his friends died earlier this spring.. What does the number 29 mean, in terms of humanity?

I will try to make sense of it by writing the names of 29 people in my own life.

Jill Simonson, Kristie Pfabe, Allison Goering, Susan Hertzler, Jennifer Cashmere, Jeff McCabe, Andrea Kabourek, Cheryl Wilkins, Kevin Wilkins, Cathy Wilken, Barb Murray, Mark Holt, Allison Holt, Eric Holt, Nancy Erickson, Pat Leach, Jerry Johnston, Julie Harder, Laura Runge, Laurie Fraser, Kari Luther, Morgan Tyner, Bill Dimon, Jody Kellas, Tim Brox, Mary Kay Kreikemeier, Patty Beutler, Sally Raglin Marshall, Cynthia Holt.

Twenty nine’s a much larger number than I ever imagined.

$43 billion


Also while listening to NPR today, I heard that GM is really bouncing back, after having to borrow a lot of money from you and me just to stay afloat. Apparently, they’ve had such a good quarter that the company has worked down its debt to the U.S. government to a mere to $43 billion. No doubt, Toyota has helped boost sales of U.S.-made cars, but I suppose it’s also possible that GM just learned how to run the business a bit better.

But how much is $43 billion?

A billion is a thousand million. Forty-three billion, then, is 43,000 million. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of 110 countries, according to the International Monetary Fund’s records.

The moon is about a quarter million miles from earth. Ralph Cramden could send his wife Alice to the moon and back about 86,000 times if those were miles, not dollars.

If a person counted, non-stop, a number every second, it would take almost 32 years just to count to a billion. Even the longest-living of the Biblical characters would be hard pressed to find 1,376 years for that kind of job.

Fourteen Days

I will hang up my “teaching” hat for the year in a mere 14 days. While that sounds fine and dandy, it’s not exactly a cakewalk. In school terms, 14 days represents to the typical high-school teacher 70 more class periods, averaging about 30 kids each period, for a total of 2,100 remaining hour-long exposures to zitty, cranking, foul, impatient, sagging teenagers. Think about it. When you go to the dentist, you get special gear to wear when they expose you to radiation for a few seconds. And, even then, the dental technician runs out of the room and hides in the hallway while she zaps you. School teachers? We get nothing. We just walk into it, time and again, like the fools that we are.


May 22, 2010


This past week, I have paused, if not actually reflected…

I have paused just long enough to remind myself that spring is the wildest of seasons, when humans are taken in by the beauty of nature, overlooking the deviousness and violence that rests just underneath those natural good looks. Somehow, we manage to find peace in the midst of this most desperate and horny of seasons, mistaking flowers and bird songs for solace and contentment. Alas, the truth is much darker.

The real reason those same flowers and trees pop out their finest siren songs, filling the nearby air with the allure of Chanel No. 5, is in hopes of luring in a wandering, lusty bee who mistakes their pistons for something else entirely. If all goes as planned, perhaps said bee will leave with goldenrod reminders attached along his abdomen, ripe with promise of more flowering trees in the future, if not with fond memories of an actual date for the evening.

And most of those bird songs, if not actually pornographic in nature, are ghastly reminders of the violent if not feathery pyramid that exists among our flying friends. When not hopping atop each other or eating someone else's eggs and babies, all too often they are squawking out desperate warnings of enemy fliers overhead, sharp-shinned hawks flying inches above the ground, looking for a snack along the way. Really, it’s ironic how much pleasure Spring brings to humans, given the life-and-death situations our flora and fauna are facing.

I also have paused just long enough this week to consider what I see as a fault line in our country’s current education system. When green cards become poison and celebrations fall to the wayside of implied hatred or at least serious misunderstanding, I find myself wondering why we expect better of people. After all, we live in times of second and third chances, when parents and adults and educators frantically wave a serious finger at the first sign of trouble, warning that, if said trouble erupts again, we may, in fact, do something about it. In this way, our warnings become veiled permission for once again doing wrong. Why, then, should we expect our offending students to understand this backlash, this odd insistence that something should be done as a result? We do people a great injustice when we don’t expect them to own their words and actions.

Finally, I have paused this week just long enough to ponder menopause, something that seems to be a knockin’, even as I type this tome. What else could I blame for my beard, my spare tire, my broken sleep? While I’ve gotten into the regular habit of taking tweezers to chin as I read each night, I now think I would be more successful if I simply stepped aside and let nature take its course. That way, when I have grown tired of neighborhood children running amok along our front lawn, I wouldn’t need to use harsh words to chase them away. Rather, I would simply step outside, silent, and jut out my strong chin, letting my waggling, wandering chin hairs frighten them into submission. I would become legend among the neighborhood young, that old, bent over, hairy woman whom brave, brave kids would attempt to lure outside with a heart-pounding ring of our doorbell.

This, I believe, will require just a bit more reflection, as well as some self discipline, if I’m going to make it fly. Tonight, I will find the strength to ask daughter Allison to hide away all of the tweezers that adorn our bed stands. Or not.

May 23, 2010


Mark’s dad Dale was one of the finest people I’ve ever known. Kind, quiet, funny, seemingly without a judgmental bone in his body, he did the profession of preaching a real service simply by waking up each morning and going throughout his day with a loving and gentle spirit. For most of his years in Lincoln, Dale’s ministry made its way to the people through the sleek tubes of the television, often framed against a mouse sidekick who gently reminded kids to shut off the TV and go to church. More TV personalities should take after Dale, nudging people to turn them off and go out and live a bit.

Dale finally got a church during the last few working years of his life, taking over as pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Walton. Mark and I, and, eventually, Eric attended Grace through Dale’s years there. It was quaint and simple, filled with good folks and basic truths. Today, I returned to Grace for the first time in 14 years, for the dedication of a new cross made in honor of Dale. Mark made the cross out of wood, one of three artisans who worked on the project, which included a beautiful stained-glass backdrop.

It was fun to see familiar faces and to be in a space where I’d spent some good years. I think Dale would be quite pleased with this tribute, though he would have been embarrassed by all the attention. That was his way.

I love that his dedication was on Pentecost, a day of quiet renewal and incomprehensible happenings. While I'm not one to choose favorites in a church calendar, Pentecost has always bubbled its way to the top of my list. That said, I approached this church service more as a stranger than as a member, and the experience proved to be a bit contradictory for me.

It has been 14 years since I’ve sat through a Lutheran service. I was surprised by the many similarities it seemed to share with the Catholic masses of my childhood, though I preferred the songs of my youth over the Germanic dirges we endured this morning. Throughout the service, the congregation and pastor took part in several call-and-response readings. Like the blues, but without the rhythm and soul. At least that was my observation as a now stranger. And I was sorry to see that Ezekiel’s vision of a valley of bones took center stage for the Pentecost sermon. Such a desolate setting for something so astounding and inexplicable. As I watched him throughout the service, it seemed to me that the minister was more dry bones than spirit, and I felt sad for him.

During the sermon, I found myself thinking of yesterday, and the great, heaping winds that blew throughout it. Not once during that day was I able to forget those winds. I tried to imagine how a Nebraska minister could have lived through yesterday without even making a mention of the metaphor of God’s holy spirit as wind. And on Pentecost, to boot.

And yet, I found God’s spirit this morning, not so much in the service or the sermon, but rather in the fine lines of the newly dedicated cross, in my niece’s recollections of her beloved grandfather, in a meal shared with old friends and new acquaintances down in the basement of a tiny church in the country. I suppose that's the way of things, isn't it? Finding God and love in the parking lot, our church clothes daubed with dribbled barbecue. Renewed by the warm breezes that welcomed us outside, as we uttered goodbyes both temporary and permanent.


May 24, 2010


Since the weather went all “summer” on us yesterday, I decided to return the favor in kind. And I am reaping the benefits of my decision, even at 4:56 a.m. the next morning.

I began my Sunday well, and should have known my internal clock was happily turning forward when a flock of cedar waxwings descended upon our neighbor’s tree while I was doing the Sunday crossword. They lollygagged just long enough to let me retrieve the binoculars and get some “bird” time with them, before alighting for another berry-filled snack shop. The crosswords themselves even offered signs of hope, the New York Times one actually revealing its dirty little secrets to me before heading off to church in Walton.

The drive to Walton also seemed to be directing me to “summer” mode, especially when we passed 84th and “A” and watched the country unfold before us. I felt more joy than envy when I saw the bikers wending their way along the trail, because I knew I could join them—on any given day—in just a few weeks. Before the day was over, I, too, would be on a two-wheeler, if not a human-powered type.

If a person has to eat bugs, I think it’s best done at 38 mph, with the wind whipping through the few hairs that have found a space next to the helmet big enough to squeeze through.

I rode the old Big Chief yesterday. Pulled it out of the garage (not for the first time this season, but it had been awhile), dusted it off, checked the oil and gas and put a little spit shine on the one remaining rearview mirror. When I turned the key, a belch of white smoke and low rumble told me that I would be victorious in Scrabble, for who could not win that game when escorted there by 49 c.c.s of sheer pony power?!

Coming home from Scrabble, with an hour to spare before a fun family birthday fish fry on my sister’s back deck, I saw summer itself, in all its lazy glory, wrapped contentedly in the body of a 7-year-old neighbor boy. As I rounded the corner of Woods Avenue, post-Scrabble victory (as per my prediction and, dare I say, my cocky predilection?!), I spied him, laying on his stomach, feet in the air, picking at dandelions with one hand while the other rested under his chin. He looked as though not a single thought was bothering him, the breeze carrying away any danger of expectation or exertion. He had answered summer’s siren song and was at peace with his decision. He was everything I desired to be.


May 27, 2010



As we were leaving the Lincoln High spring concert last night, I was once again reminded of the joy that is seasonal amnesia. Making my way across the small, graveled parking lot that abuts Antelope Creek, I was grateful that not every crevice of my brain was occupied with thoughts, leaving just enough room for one, lone, musical synapse to occur. Unlike the Mozart I’d just heard, with its boisterous strings and even a French horn or two thrown in for good measure , this was a simple riff played alone, a chirrrrrrrrr that easily would have lost out to just about any audible competitor.

There is something magical about the harbingers of a new season, that first cricket song, the kickoff light show of a lone lightning bug, the low rumble of thunder ushering in a new page of the calendar. For each, I am the ultimate audience, the kid who is hungry to see Barney belt out all those songs I’d heard a thousand times before, convinced that, with each performance, I was hearing it for the first time.

These reminders of a new season make me new again, which is nothing and, at the same time, something to take lightly. I lingered a bit longer on the front porch the other night, following the finale of a favorite show. It wasn’t the plot or the cliffhanger that anchored me there so much as the belief that, if I stared long enough into the darkening lawn, I would see a lightning bug. Turns out, it was a bit early to start looking, and yet I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.

There are not enough “What if—and why not?!” moments in life to be frittering them away with thoughts of other things. It is for this reason, then, that I will disrupt a springtime conversation to spy the Cedar Waxwing that teases me with its deceptively simple song, or the lone cricket that has emerged from its long, cold winter still chilled as it warms up its legs. It is the forgetfulness of my days, coupled with the promise of something both familiar and brand new that leads me to disrupt the flow of a walk to take in yet another noseful of peonies or to salute a long line of ants wending their way across the sidewalk.

These days and nights are transformative times, filled with moments in which nature, using its tiniest, most insignificant forces, reminds us that we are not in charge here. I take great comfort in that fact.


May 28, 2010


Ode to the End of School
By Jane Holt

Buh-bye crabby parents who lambaste our annual
For leaving out one son, whose first name is Daniel.
--As though they don’t have others.

So long pesky bells that beckon each hour
Like sheep, we move as one under its power,
--Bleating for our mothers.

My mind on dog days, I’m tired but happy.
Next Thursday’s so close. Let’s make it snappy
-- A long list of “nothing” is calling.

One more bubble sheet to fill with future predictors
Not so sure that the spoils will end up with the victors
--So fast are some grades falling.

Visions of Patio parties now fill my mind
Where drinks are served—the bubbly kind!
--Three cheers to this summer!

Away go the school bag and Jane-green skirts
Swapped instead for much-loved t-shirts
--As for “real” work? Now ain’t that a bummer!



May 31, 2010


I yank myself inside, away from this most perfect morning—still, blue, crisp—drawn in by the sound of a distant mower. Its grumbling “whirrrrr” reminds me that there are far more important things to do on a perfect morning than take care of business.

Why is it that adults feel compelled to make the most of their free days, mistaking blank spaces for lost opportunities? I dare say that a blank calendar aligning with a calm morning is a mandate to live rather than to do, to make the least of rather than the most of. After all, how can a person properly acknowledge a day called Memorial Day if they leave no room for wandering, for remembering?

The last few Memorial Days have been my best ever. Before moving into a neighborhood buttressed by two cemeteries, I never gave this holiday much attention, beyond the thought that it might include some decent potato salad. Now, though, I find myself looking forward to the long, slow walk through both cemeteries, one in which my dad and brother huddle around a fine piece of granite, recalling past antics.

Before I set out to reconnect with the dust of the earth, though, I forage through our collection of river rock that cradles the most excellent hammock in the universe. Underneath its steely girders, I look for the perfect rocks, the ones that remind me of my brother and dad. I am satisfied with today’s finds—a gnarled, complex, sassy knob of quartz that beckons of Mike and a rosy, egg-shaped piece of granite that reminds me of all the plans my dad used to hatch. Placing these at their graves is the closest I come to an official Memorial Day ceremony, and yet, it is enough.

This is not a day for calendars. It is not a day that requires email reminders or wristwatches or cell phones set on vibrate. No, rather, this is a day that requires an open mind and heaps of fresh air, taken in and then returned to its original owner. It is a day of bike rides and porch time, of kneeling down in the garden to spy the newly hatched grasshopper no bigger than a seed. It is a day for looking inward by going outward and living. It is a day of reaping as well as of making memories and I, for one, plan on following that agenda to the “t.”