An Embarrassment of Britches

For all I know, Calvin Klein is dead.  For all I know, Calvin Klein is the Beanie Baby of the fashion world, laughably out of date and an embarrassment to own these days.  Yet,  my Calvin Klein jeans still manage to utter to me "You are fashionable, Jane!  Fashionable AND very nearly fancy!"  . . . even though you can see me underwear through the ever-burgeoning holes along the waist.

And, frankly, I can't take the pressure of having to worry about my jeans AND my underwear.  Not at the same time, at least.  So I am slowly making my peace with the fact that this pair of jeans--purchased almost a decade ago after months of unending harassment from my school "friends"--is neither new nor particularly stylish anymore.

I will never forget how proud I was after I left T.J. Maxx with these jeans, imagining what my "friends" Marti and Laura would say when I showed them my right rear pocket, the one that usually had words like "Wrangler" or "Lee's" above it.  It's possible I have never shaken my white ass so sassily as when I first donned those jeans at school, knowing that all eyes were on me and Calvin, as we traipsed down the hallway, our attitude uttering "All That!"

I don't know what it is about me and pants, but the Calvins are only one chapter in My Embarrassment of Britches (now in its 30th printing, coming out in paperback this summer!). 

The worst pants I've ever owned were sewn by my own loving mother, a woman for whom a needle and thread typically were like paint and pallet, producing beautiful things to drape across the landscape of my awkward body.  Alas, pants were a challenge for Sally.  And, as such, for me, as well.  Especially that pair she made me, the one whose crotch hung comfortably around my knees.

So immense was the crotch that I could wear a soaking swimsuit underneath these pants and still manage to air dry the suit by noon.  As I recall, I actually didn't buy a backpack for school that year, choosing, instead, to simply balance all of my books and pencils along the generous mesa that hovered between my knees.  I also didn't date much that year, as I recall. . . .

To be fair, though, I have dished it as well as taken it in this lifelong war with pants.  It was my decision to temporarily clothe son Eric in my own Chic jeans, in fact, that lead to my eventual purchase of the Calvin Kleins, not to mention some Levi's for Eric.  I'm not sure either purchase ever completely healed the wounds of my earlier decision, though.

Even today, pants continue to harass me.  A key button on one tan pair, a pair I still think of as my "good" pants, hangs by a thread so thin that could not floss a baby's tooth.  It is dangerous to pee while wearing those pants, so uncertain am I of the fate of that button.  More than one of its closet mates live without that all-important button, long ago replaced by a bloated, overworked safety pin working fervently to keep the world safe from my marauding underwear.

Maybe I should throw out all my pants and just start over.  Maybe I should become a "skirt" girl or a "dress" lady or, better yet,  a P.E. teacher and put all of this behind me.

A Sunday Morning Poem

Sometimes, this life is too big for me
   both fettered and floating
its edges just beyond my fingertips.

These are the times I reach deep into my pocket
    pulling out the tiny, soft things I love most
the fuzzied motes within which my life finds balance and meaning.
too small for cosmic microscopes too rich to be ignored.

Resting my head upon my daughter's chest
    her heart magically beating
White toast bathed with creamy peanut butter
    deep pools sunk into its yeasty surface
That single note of a great song
    the one that breaks and heals my heart again
The first bite of a perfect pear
    its sweetness dribbling happily towards my chin
The unapologetic joy of boys playing football after dark
    their shouts drifting through my bedroom window
A look exchanged in silence
   one that speaks of understanding

These are not the moments of great literature
but rather the gentle anchors that keep my boat from listing.

These are the sparks that fire me in this joyful, small life I'm living
    infinitesimal and unknowable
lived against the backdrop of the enormous unknown.

Of Venn Diagrams and Spirographs

I woke up thinking of Venn diagrams and Spirographs this morning. I'm not sure whose pencil nub is turning all these gears, but I do know that the intersections where my life meets the larger world are always interesting places to gather and learn things.

"Interesting," though, as the old Chinese saying goes, isn't always a shiny, happy thing.

And so, these days, I am walking through the miry muck of my mom's aging life, trying to learn this new vocabulary, wishing I had a GPS to set me straight.

I was not a particularly good parent of a newborn. I hope that I will be a better child to an aging parent who, in many ways, offers similar challenges. Mostly, what I need is a heaping helping of kindness, wrapped in a package of perpetual patience.

While medical procedures and prescriptions may very well improve my mother's life, it is kindness that will save us all.

I am just learning all of the forms that this particular kindness takes. As my own circle intersects the "old age" circle, I am surprised--as always--to discover a previously-unknown world of services geared strictly towards the end phases of one's life. Yes, there is money to be made in this intersection--heaping helpings of it, I suppose. But, if you look hard enough, endless kindness resides there, too.

From local aging agencies operating on a dime to luxurious retirement homes with large deer statues in their lawns, aging is a thriving industry in this country. Ironic, considering the waning nature of its clients.

I don't know how my siblings and I will do as we wend our ways through all of this. I do believe that kindness and concern are fueling us, though. We ache as we watch our mom struggle to rise from a chair. We share quick, concerned glances as misfired synapses tumble down her shoulders. And we convince ourselves that more phones, more food, more family time will ease this transition.

Mostly, though, we lean heavily on kindness, counting on it to soften the hard edges of too little sleep or of important paperwork lost in a pile.

I have no idea what next month will look like for my mom and Dick. But I do know that I wish to see the hamster wheel go away, the one that spins round and round, yet never moving, while everyone pants to catch his or her breath.

There is no meaningful movement on that wheel, no intersection where it meets up with kindness or fresh ideas.

Ah, but the still-larger wheels turn, as another circle--as yet unseen--slowly makes its way towards us. I, for one, am holding my breath.

It's a Dog's Life

I’m starting to wonder if I’ve ever owned a dog before now. Sure, I’ve lived with some dogs (most of them four-legged), but so few of them displayed typical canine behavior that I’m not even sure of their true nature. Yes, there was Ginger, the persnickety poodle who snipped and growled her way through most of my adolescence--but, really, what adolescent doesn’t need a little snipping and growling? After Ginger, though, our string of family dogs displayed behavior more often associated with ganja-smoking Rastafarians than canines.

Heck, we even named one of our dogs Rasta. And she lived up to that name, her mood always mellow, her needs mostly food-related. Same goes for Hobbes, who seemed more like a tired British gentleman than an animal even remotely related to a dog.

Then along came Finn. . . . Frenetic, hopelessly devoted, funny-as-heck Finn. Finn, who growls at men and pees whenever Mark looks at him. Finn, who hops on our furniture as though it’s exercise equipment and folds his body up like a fairgrounds contortionist.

My God. Is this what it’s like to own a dog? Is it really possible that I had to go through four furry friends and turn 50 before I landed upon the quintessential “dog” experience?!

You can understand if I feel a bit resentful, like the mother of two who discovers, after her second child is born, that nothing she learned the first time applies anymore. (Hey--I’ve actually been that mother before!)

Maybe “resentful” is the wrong word, though. Maybe what I’m feeling is an odd mix of joy and bafflement. Finn’s most frustrating behaviors--his noisy, sometimes negative reaction to visitors and his free-flowing, submissive wee wee--require more parenting than I thought I’d have to give. I can deal with that. I think.

But his delightful behaviors--his devotion, his utter joy, his sparkling humor--are like magic fairy dust, smearing the edges of my rougher memories until they no longer matter anymore. This dog--who was advertised as a Wheaten Terrier (like Hobbes) but who has no more Wheaten in him than I do--this bill of goods who showed up with a kink in his tail and no way to tell us his story--has dug his too-long claws deep into our hearts.

I, for one, welcome his dogness with open arms--and a wary eye on his water-logged wee wee.

Night, Moon

It’s ten after one. IN THE MORNING. And, as I type this in our cozy library, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. True, I am battling a migraine—my second this week—but this strangeness goes beyond anything pharmaceutical or medical.

No. This strangeness is pure astronomy. And that it is available every night—usually without my active acknowledgement--is pretty amazing to me.

What is it about a planet’s sun slipping below the horizon that leaves things feeling so different? Why is it that, when shadows are nudged away by the swath of darkness, I am left feeling out of place in this place I otherwise call “home?”

I seldom venture downstairs after 10 p.m. And when I do, I feel like a guest in my own house, conscious of every squeak in the floor, awkward as I settle into a chair next to our French doors, certain that a marauding stranger lurks just outside, watching me in my shabby t-shirt and sweats.

But if I brave it and venture outdoors in these wee hours, I always find comfort in the night sky, the constellations calming me in their unwavering commitment to shape. I love the ancient light of the stars, never failing to find me, despite all the years between us. And, like so many before me, I am anchored by their presence.

Things seem older and more foreign to me by the time the 10 o’clock news wraps up. Our clock louder, as it ticks off the seconds passing. And those seconds themselves, somehow slowed down and amplified.

I will work my way through this pain in my head and the off-setting imbalance of the wee hours, Finn faithfully curled up at my feet. And maybe, some time between now and the first yawn of the morning’s sun, I’ll make my peace with this other world, blanketed in darkness and wrapped in mystery.

Even now, as I type this, I feel a sense of warm comfort moving up me. And, already, I feel calmer, less strange in this veiled land.

What's Your Point?

It's that time of year again. The one when teachers are more apt to look at their feet than in the eyes of their peers, for fear that someone just got some bad news. Now, I've always rather liked my feet, but, even with my exceptional bone structure, I'd prefer gazing upon my friends. Except now.

Like I said, it's hard to look at my peers these days, considering each school just found out how much funding it'll receive next year. No surprise to learn that Lincoln schools took a hit. Again. At East High, where I teach, we've lost the equivalent of 20 staff members in the past four years. Granted, our enrollment has decreased each of those four years, but not enough to warrant 20 employees.

This year, East is being funded at 89 percent of the rate it was funded last year, in part because our estimated student population will go down by somewhere between 30 and 60 kids. In fact, it's been almost a decade since East has been funded at 100 percent. And East isn't alone. Virtually every school in the district will receive less funding next year. And less funding--at the school level--means fewer adults in the building.

Even the Lincoln Public Schools District Office is feeling the pinch. Just yesterday, the superintendent sent out an email to all LPS staff, saying that just about every district department also has taken a hit this year. It must have been a difficult email to send.

Now, I know there are people who think teachers don't work hard enough or aren't qualified to do their jobs. For these people, perhaps, the budget cuts seem justified. Forgive me if I assume that these folks haven't been to a school since chalkboards were made of slate. But I'm just speculating.

Here's what I do know. As a teacher, I have never worked harder than I have worked this year. I have never felt more pressure, more expectations, or more scrutiny than I feel this year. And, still, I have never figured out a way to cruise through my days doing little or working less. Never.

Maybe I'm just a slow learner. . . .

. . . or maybe teaching really is an exhausting, intense job, even when our students are terrific. Seems to me that people would want to pay for the quality education they expect. And I'm not talking teacher salaries. I'm talking about funding education at 100 percent--for every student, there is a fully-funded system in place that includes enough teachers, enough supplies, enough time to get the job done.

Some things aren't worth their price tags. And then there are things--including education--that should never, ever be shortchanged.

Enough is enough. And not enough is getting harder and harder to take.

My Allelujah Chorus

On a lovely Easter morning, my family spent an hour in my husband's childhood church, listening to a minister who looked quite a bit like Christopher Walken. Despite that, he still had plenty of charm and smarts about him. It was a very nice service--good music, good messages and a series of congregational responses that were oddly reminiscent of my Catholic upbringing. I liked nearly everything about it.

. . . but I did struggle a bit with the minister's message to the children. In it, he mentioned the item they'd tucked away in a chest six weeks earlier. Completely clueless while he cracked open a series of nested eggs, I kept wondering what they'd tucked away on some dreary February morning. Candy?! Cigarettes?! An issue of Rolling Stone?! Eventually, the drum roll. And then--Voila'! (yes, I finally figured out how to spell that word!). Inside that last egg? Nothing but air.

I wasn't disappointed by the air so much as I was by the word that again was allowed to float up from it--"Allelujah!"

Despite 50 years on this earth--most of them spent in near-regular attendance at a church--until two years ago, I had never heard of this practice of putting away our allelujahs during Lent. As much as I respect the good folks who practice this omission, I cannot honor the practice myself.

Frankly, there is too much beauty, too much joy, in this world for me to ignore it. I can nary withhold a spontaneous "allelujah" any more than I can manage to stay silent during the chorus of "YMCA." Some things reside deep in our bones.

Joy, for instance.

Perhaps I'm a spiritual infant, still enjoying the simple swaddling cloth of my understanding. But I can't imagine a God that would purse His or Her lips at the sound of love seeping from a person's mouth.

Had I taken an allelujah-free pledge this past Lent, silence would have marked some otherwise terrific moments. Like the first time I heard the Carolina Wren, returned from a long winter's vacation. Or the time when Eric introduced me to the irresistible beats and rhythm of "Tightrope." Had I been forced into silence, my inner "allelujahs" would have cried out in protest, stifled as my East High Trivia team pulled off a victory, thanks to someone's obscure knowledge about the "Good Times" cast. And I'm pretty sure I would have suffered an embolism had I not been able to laugh when a group of students and I relished a rotten pun.

True, I've got infinite areas for self improvement, but I believe that God is glad for the laughter and joy that regularly seep from me. They are a part of me. Three hundred and sixty five days a year.

And, for that, I say Allelujah!

Satisfaction Guaranteed

“I can’t get no satisfaction.” --The Rolling Stones, 1965

Mick Jagger was 22 when those lyrics first crossed his poochy Brit lips. Twenty two.

No wonder he couldn’t get no satisfaction.

Satisfaction takes its sweet time. And nothing particularly sweet or slow happens when you are 22.

Now that I’ve got AARP knock knock knockin’ on my door, I can say with certainty that I “get” satisfaction. What’s surprising is the range of things that now satisfy me.

Like knowing that, as I type this, there are four extra rolls of Scott toilet paper in our bathroom closet. Four! Extra tubes of toothpaste and additional bars of Safeguard soap give me the same kind of kick.

As do the mornings when I wake up to a full Holt household, mornings that take place less and less frequently days. Nothing beats a house—my house—filled with contented sleeping beings.

I can’t imagine a 22-year-old Mick Jagger laying in bed early one morning, enjoying the sound—if not the smell—of others’ breath.

Satisfaction requires a long view, something most young folks don’t possess. It is at once both nostalgic in its recollections and Buddhist in its embrace of the moment. This moment.

While I’m sure that a 22-year-old Mick Jagger embraced many things in the moment, he lacked the long view (and, perhaps a last name or two) to be truly satisfied by that embrace, that woman, that moment.

No.

Satisfaction is not the domain of the young. It blossoms when you’re too old to have a bloom anymore, when our colors start fading, the spotlight has moved on. When we are old enough to recognize it for what it is.

Our reward for making it this far.