Heaps-o-Hope, Hello!

People and things that give me hope for 2014

Pope Francis
He really is the man in white, the good guy riding in on his '84 Renault.  I love the way the pope has shaken up the status quo, both within the church and in the larger world.  I love how he has turned his back on the glitter and turned the church's--and the world's--attention on the poor.  He reminds me that reformers re-form, which isn't always a comfortable process but one that invariably leads to new things.  My heart is fuller with this wise and brave man leading the Catholic Church. 




Nebraska
...the state, not the movie.  Although, if I do happen to see the movie, it's possible I will add it to this pile.  For now, though--and forever, I suspect--it is my home state that fills me with love and hope.  I am deeply moved by its land, its people, its relative absence of people.  When I spend time outdoors in my state, I am reminded of the earth in its infancy, of dinosaurs and virgin prairie, of my smallness in the grand, sweeping scheme of things.  And all of these things leave me breathless and grounded.  May those cuckoo cats on the coasts continue to say "Eh?" when they hear of Nebraska.

Libraries

While the gap between rich and poor grows into a cavernous maw, I can think of no other public place in the United States that offers more leavening agents than a library. Providing virtually unlimited access to millions of ideas--in the form of books and magazines, archives and the Internet--and a group of smart individuals to help people connect with those ideas, public libraries are the embodiment of the First Amendment, my favorite law ever written.  Libraries are those magical places where people may gather, speak out, express themselves, find themselves.  And all for free.  They are excellent weapons against poverty--both economic and intellectual--and it would behoove our government to fund them more lavishly than it funds wars and corporations. 


My Children
While I see bits of both Mark and me in our children, what I mostly see in them is them.  And that makes me happiest of all.  Eric and Allison  give me great hope in the future, and not because of their potential earning power or grades or extracurricular activities.  They are not resumes any more than they are finished products.  What I love most about them is their willingness to work hard and their ability to keep their feet on the ground.  Oh, and the fact that, for reasons beyond my comprehension, they still openly love their mom and dad.  Sigh.




Long Underwear

My friend Kristie has been talking up long underwear for years, but she cuts her own hair and teaches math for a living, so you can understand why I have been hesitant to get on that bandwagon.  This year, though, I caved and bought some Cuddlduds and let me tell you that two legs of stubble can't hold a stick to the soft hug of wearing Cuddlduds.  In fact, I'm wearing them right now and I swear my writing is snappier, warmer, more comfortable to read!   While I doubt that Cuddlduds would've made my Summer Top Ten list, today, at least, they feel very significant and important.  Besides, sometimes, I just wear my Cuddlduds around the house with no pants on, looking like a 19-century pugilist, which is kind of a cool bonus. Although my family might disagree. . . . .

My Reading Rainbow

The roof of my mouth is a bit torn up, what with all the chocolates and peanut brittle I've been cramming into my maw these past few days.

Fortunately, I've managed to take my mind off the dangly little skin flaps by also consuming vast quantities of good reads.  Well, maybe "vast" is the wrong word, considering I'm talking about two books, to be exact.  But, for a slow reader, two books in less than a week's time is worthy of at least some self satisfaction, if not actual words written in ALL CAPS.

Books are funny things, tidy contradictions told in 12-point type, thousands of words all neatly tucked between two covers intended to entice me.  The two I've read this week--"Skellig" by David Almond and "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews--were written with teens in mind. Somehow, though, both books managed to move and change this 52-year-old interloper--a school librarian who can hardly find her own pulse, much less the pulse of her teen patrons. 

"Skellig" was a delicate tale, its setting and characters all slightly askance, an air of mystery and magic surrounding them.  It was quietly transformative, both for the young characters and for me, the reader.  "Me and Earl" was downright profane at times, but I loved it anyway.  Like "Skellig,"  it, too, captured that strange grey smear that separates life and whatever it is that follows it. 

Books, which always take me away from myself, invariably lead me inward, too.  And like the first step outdoors after leaving an absorbing movie, after I close a book, I often find myself a bit lost and disoriented, blinking at the sun when I was sure it was already night. 

As far as relationships go, my relationship with books has been a very good one this year.  We have spent plenty of time together, some of it on vacation, but most of it here, in my house, with me slumped low in a chair, my hands juggling the book between them.  True, I also have walked away from a few this year, turned my back on them before they could finish whispering their stories in my ear.  And I will not apologize for that.  There is no greater freedom than choosing to pick up or put down a book, and I will exercise that freedom with reckless abandon.

Since 1994, I have kept a journal of the books I read, in part so that I might remember their titles.  Below are the books I read this year--and the accompanying cat scratchings I've made after reading each.  These are the books that stretched and moved me, made me laugh and left me utterly lost in the end.  They made for excellent companions in 2013 and, no doubt, have opened up the door for more of their friends, come 2014.

The Round House (Louise Erdrich) FICTION
"What Erdrich does best is to form characters so rich and real that we can somehow endure the brutality of their worlds and find hope and humanity in the end.  A violent, unimaginable crime almost undoes a family, but they find their way back to each other."

Dante & Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Alire Saenz) TEEN FICTION
"Two Latino teens meet one summer day in El Paso and become friends for life.  Well told, although I don't buy the ending."

The End-of-Your-Life Book Club (Will Schwalbe) NONFICTION
"A moving account of how books bring a dying woman and her son even closer."

Marriage and Other Acts of Charity (Kate Braestrup) NONFICTION
"Another fine collection of essays by this outdoorsy chaplain, these focusing mostly on relationships."

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Emily Danforth)  TEEN FICTION
"A coming-of-age story set in Montana's cowboy country, this tells the story of a young gay girl finding her way in life without her parents, who died in an accident.  I read about half of it...I'm nost sure she developed into a rich character by then."

Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn) FICTION
"Intense psycho thriller about a very messed up couple who moves from NY back to his Missouri hometown.  Filled with lies, deceit and an annoying ending."

The Age of Miracles (Karen Thompson Walker) TEEN FICTION
"An intriguing premise--our days begin growing longer--sets up an interesting, slowly unfolding story of a dystopian, not-so-distant future."

The Beginner's Book of Prayer (Kate Braestrup) NONFICTION
"A good read with interesting suggestions and examples."

Tiny Beautiful Things (Cheryl Strayed) NONFICTION
"Excerpts from Letters to Sugar, an online advice column, that are filled with sadness, loss, humor and wisdom."

Star Island (Carl Hiaassen) FICTION
"Hiassen's latest, it's formulaic, occasionally fun but not my favorite by him."

It's Kind of a Funny Story (Ned Vizzini) TEEN FICTION
"Ended up really liking this story about 15-year-old Craig, who ends up in a psychiatric hospital, where he finds himself and his groove again."

Tell the Wolves I'm Home (Carol Rifka Brunt) FICTION
"Well written with good voice, this story traces an awkward teen's love for and loss of her uncle, who dies of AIDS, and how she and her family find their way home again."

Son (Lois Lowry) TEEN FICTION
"The final book of The Giver series follows Claire, a castoff of her town, who finds herself thrust into a wild world beyond the stifling rules she knew growing up.  She gives up much to find the son she never knew."

My Antonia (Willa Cather) FICTION
"My first, but not last, Cather book.  Such accessible writing for being 100 years old...and, most appreciated is the way she makes the land a character as well."

Molokai (Alan Brennert) FICTION
"An intriguing, sad and ultimately uplifting story about Rachel, a young Hawaiian girl who gets leprosy and must live out much--though not all--of her life on an island of lepers.  Really liked the characters and the land."

Dreams of Significant Girls (Christina Garcia) TEEN FICTION
"Told by three girls--a wild Canadian, a kind Cuban and an intellectual Iranian--who befriend each other at a French summer school.  I liked and appreciated their unique voices.  Funny and touching."

Insurgent (Veronica Roth) TEEN FICTION
"The followup to Divergent.  I'd forgotten details of the first, so I struggled for a bit.  Tris and friends try to upend the Erudites, only  to discover that there's another world beyond the gates."

My Name is Mina (David Almond) TEEN FICTION
"Quirky, thoughtful, broken Mina picks up a journal to begin chronicling her young, lively life.  I like the format, the content, the voice of this British novel of a young teen."

Every Day (David Levithan) TEEN FICTION
"An intriguing story of "A," someone who is reborn every day into someone else's life...until he falls in love and everything changes."

The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) TEEN FICTION
"A scary, strange little story about a 7-year-old English boy, monsters, and his ageless, magical neighbors at the end of the lane."

Gulp (Mary Roach) NONFICTION
"Too much poop, but another well researched book by Mary Roach, this one focusing on our guts."

Flight Behavior (Barbara Kingsolver) FICTION
"A slow read for me, but I stuck with it.  As did Dellarobia, the independent, curious, smart and mostly trapped protagonist in this tale of butterflies gone off their trail."

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour (Morgan Matson) TEEN FICTION
"A very nice teen lit book about heartache and discovery.  Well written and good."

Prairie Silence (Melanie Hoffert) NONFICTION
"Cool title, but I thought it was a bit of a letdown.  Melanie, from North Dakota, yearns to return but is scared that, as a gay woman, she won't be accepted."

Death Comes to the Archbishop (Willa Cather) FICTION
"A gentle story of a French priest sent to New Mexico to become a bishop in a wild, beautiful land."

The Running Dream (Wendelin Van Draanen) TEEN FICTION
"A high-school runner loses a leg and has to learn how to live again.  It was okay."

Pastrix (Nadia Bolz-Weber) NONFICTION
"A tattoed Lutheran minister writes about her unusual path to ministry."

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce) FICTION
"A gentle, quiet story of a quiet man who is compelled to walk to a dying friend.  He finds many things along the way."

Bad Monkey (Carl Hiaassen) FICTION
"Better than Carl's previous book, this was classic Hiaassen--stupid, bad people and complicated good ones who all come together because of a human arm someone caught while fishing in Florida."

Sparks (S.J. Adams) TEEN FICTION
"An okay teen-lit book about a girl who comes out and finds her life changed overnight.  I thought the transition was forced, too quick and smooth, but a fun read, regardless."

The Uncommon Reader (Alan Bennett) FICTION
"A small, delightful book about the queen's late-life discovery of the joy of reading.  Incredibly abrupt ending, though."

The Golden Buddha (Clive Cussler) FICTION
"An exciting mind game involving a ridiculous ship filled with geniuses, and the Dahli Lama."

 Skellig (David Almond ) TEEN FICTION
"A lovely, magical story of two kids who find themselves--and a miracle or two--tucked into the broken body of Skellig, a homeless man they befriend (a followup to My Name is Mina)."

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Jesse Andrews) TEEN FICTION
"Profane and fun and moving, this fresh story follows two teen filmmakers--Greg and Earl--through Greg's forced friendship with Rachel, a girl who has cancer.  A quick and good read."

TWO BOOKS I'M MIDWAY THROUGH...

Dad is Fat (Jim Gaffigan)...a funny collection of stories about life as a dad of too many kids under the age of ten.

Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (Alice Munro)...a collection of 13 stories by the Pulitzer Prize winner who is from Canada (where many of the stories are set).

The Gift of Receiving

Sure, I'm excited for my brother to unwrap the zombie-family car decal that's sitting under his tree in Bloomington, Indiana.  And I'm downright giddy about the See's peanut brittle that awaits Mark's grubby little hands.  But, amidst all of this giving, I keep thinking about what a gift it is to receive.

You cannot receive, after all, unless you are receptive.  And the only way to be receptive is to be open.  Open to getting gifts, hearing new ideas, accepting someone's help.  Open to life itself. 

Like the Christmas Eve service I just returned from, where I received the music and the lessons, the smiles from friends and strangers, and left feeling fuller and richer.  That's the funny thing about graciously receiving what others have to offer.  I become more gracious myself, excited to pass along the good that has been given to me.

So, here's to a season when we embrace the gift of receiving, a time of thanking and hugging and laughing with people for all the dumb and wonderful things they've brought to us.  Practical or outrageous, funny or touching, what others bring to my life will be received with open arms and a grateful heart.

May we learn how to open up ourselves a bit more to this crazy, strange and beautiful world and all the people who move through it.  May we receive it all with joyful mindfulness and nary a thought about all those gifts we charged at Target last month.

Small Wonders

A man was meowing in the cheese aisle at Ideal Grocery yesterday.  I backed up to get a look at him and, sure enough, there he was, howling and hunched over the gouda,  his back arched like a tom cat ready for a fight. 

The world is filled with strange wonders.  And, while some concern me, most leave me feeling both lighter and more connected.  Invariably, I can't believe I was lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time.

I try to collect pieces of these wonders, when I can.   Some, like the meowing man, require words written or told in order to preserve them in my memory.  Others, though, are scattered throughout my house, tiny reminders of this amazing, magical world I live in. 

What would be a coin or key dish in most households is one of the go-to wonder collectors in my home.  Sitting atop the desk in our library, this tiny dish is filled with tiny treasures--a cottonwood twig no more than an inch long, with its five-pointed star sitting perfectly on its stub end; a tiny green-and-black compass earned in the pine-covered Sandhills at an outdoorswoman camp this fall; a black-and-white rocked washed up on an Italian shoreline; a ruddy, vein-laced rock I polished in elementary school that has always brought comfort to my thumb.

Atop the piano in our basement sits a cornucopia of memories collected by simply showing up each day.  Most are blanketed in a thin layer of dust, not from neglect so much as from a lack of motivation to run a cleaner household.  One jar holds a rainbow of rocks lovingly collected in the Oglala National Grasslands, each nudged there by ancient seismic shifts of our moveable planet.  Another glass container reminds me of the shoreline, intricate and beautiful shells gathered from numerous visits to ocean-side beaches.  I am certain that, if I were to lick that tiny, perfect cat's paw seashell, I could taste the salt of ancient seas.  There, too, atop that piano we paid $25 for,  sit numerous bones our family has collected from area streams, bones from long-gone animals seeking a cool drink on a hot day.

This house is a living museum to things that bring me joy, not all of them from the natural world, either.  There are books filled with stories that have changed me and  handwritten notes from friends and family, tucked safely in a file marked "Happy Things."  Our walls, too, are proof of wonder-- adorned with framed butterflies and cidadas, Georgia O'Keeffe paintings of yawning rivers, oil paintings made lovingly by my mother and grandmother.  There, too, hang broken ice-cream parlor clocks, old pinball games and an arched stain-glass window from a rural Nebraska church. 


There are a thousand reasons I love to spend time in my home, each one of them a happy reminder of  some wondrous moment that I was lucky enough to be there for. 

This week, of all weeks--when the urge to outdo or overspend is sometimes too powerful to ignore--it would do us good to wander our dwellings, and rediscover the happy reminders of all of the strange and magical wonders we've come across in our lives. Serendipitous moments remembered by a small token we tucked into our pockets.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

Three Cheers for Journalism!

I am amazed by how much my students can learn when I get out of their way.  And I'm always grateful for those moments when I'm reminded of just how much journalism still has to teach kids.

Yeah, I know.

"Journalism" isn't exactly a nice word these days.  Over the years, its reputation has been muddied by its questionable kin--tawdry tabloids, alcohol-tinged tweets and anonymous online tantrums.   But, as any decent person with a long lineage knows (and, by the way, I am neither), guilt by association only goes so far before it finally falls flat.

 But a profession whose roots wrap around the importance of telling stories is a profession still worth practicing.  And, this week, as my students polished their stories, tweaked their layouts and reflected on their semesters, I was given ample proof that old-fashioned storytelling still has a powerful place in our lives.

Sitting in a sloppy circle, sharing the ways they'd connected with someone or something they had otherwise known little about, my Newspaper staff amazed me this week.  Their first-semester final assignment was intended to push them into uncomfortable territory, but I had no idea just how much they'd learn while they were there.  Or how seriously they would approach the assignment, whether their topic was something as silly as a club dedicated to eating pie or as serious as a Sudanese refugee who had found her strength through the hardship in her life (see link to the story below).

From Africa to America– A Transition to a Better Future  By Imani Wilson

And the Yearbook staff did not disappoint either, as their semester-in-review reflections pointed to ways in which they'd been stretched, times when they connected with strangers, and the surprising benefits of taking a chance on something new (see excerpts below).

"Just a simple interview can have a big impact.  You meet new and exciting people when you are working on a piece.  I get great satisfaction in interviewing people and learning more about them.  People love it when others take interest in them--we can’t help it, because we’re human.  And, when you see your story, pictures, or layout come to life, you feel a sense of accomplishment."

And from another Yearbook student. . . . 

"I have stretched myself in this class by talking with people that I haven’t met before. I am not much of a person to talk one on one with people that I don’t know, and I have learned how to do so without worrying."

If I were to buy a textbook for journalism, I think I'd buy "The Little Engine That Could."  Corny as it is, its message is an excellent mantra for scholastic journalism.  Writing a well-told story, designing an accessible layout, capturing a powerful moment with your camera--these things do not happen overnight.  Or without risk.

I want my students to be in uncomfortable territory.  I long for them to face roadblocks and mishaps, challenges and disappointment.  I really, really want them to move past personal discomfort to risk learning something new about themselves and their world.  

And I have found that the best way to help them do these things is to step aside and give them permission to go, do, offering them occasional roadside assistance along the way.

Contrary to what all the contrarians out there are hollering, journalism is still a noble and worthwhile field and I, for one, am delighted to be standing in it.

Avoiding an OCD Christmas

I woke briefly last night, as young lips brushed my sleepy cheek.
 
"I'm home."  

"How was it?" I murmured, not waiting for an answer.

This morning, our dining room table was cluttered with the detritus of her answer, the one I did not stay awake for--a crumpled, hand-written note, a small jewelry box and a necklace, red netting cradling two clementines.  And a perfectly good Christmas sack I hoped no one had stuck tape to.

For some reason, the pile seemed foreign to me, too much stuff.  And I thought about all of the ways--most of them unintentional--in which I have imprinted myself upon my children.  I did not need her to be awake for me to know how she felt last night, wondering, briefly, if she'd underdone it.  Not gotten her Secret Santa enough.  Even though I'd encouraged her to back off even more.

"Fifteen dollars is plenty," I uttered in the line at Best Buy, a store I usually avoid, its antiseptic boxiness always leaving me feeling empty.

Of course she made it twenty.  She is conscientious that way.  Occasionally too concerned with the reactions of others to do what is plenty and practical. 

We are different in that way, my daughter and me.  But my blood runs through her--good or otherwise--and I know that she will always feel a bit removed from the forced nature of such events.

Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season, although I suspect he'd be calling for do-overs, if he could.  Besides, I have trouble focusing on the Godly this time of year, what with all the 24-hour music stations and too-bright LED lights.  And, at times, I find myself resistant to participate, my hand having grown tired of holding iced cookies.

I do not wish to impart my resistance upon these young children whose bodies hold my DNA.  I know that I should encourage them to dive in, just say 'yes,' indulge themselves a bit. 

But there is that ancient hum I cannot ignore, the one that vibrates in my very legs.  And it tells me--and my children, I suspect--to fight mightily for a stripped-down, straightforward existence, a practical and quiet life in which we can just sit a bit and be, no frills or ornaments upon us. 

It is there, in the sitting and the slow breathing, where the ancient stories can be heard, the voice but a whisper. 

Lucky Charms and a Bowlful of Hope

"Show me a day when the world wasn't new."  --Sister Barbara Hance

I know I've shared that quote before, but several things this week make me want to chew on it and enjoy its flavor a bit more.

Thursday, for instance, when a few colleagues and I were faced with leading a discussion about the brutal, hard-to-watch documentary "Bully."  I was not looking forward to the evening at all.  It was a depressing, heartbreaking film to watch the first time, much less to sit down and watch again.  And to watch it so close to Christmas?  Well, that just felt a bit cruel.

My foreboding was amplified by events leading up to the second showing--a morning migraine, a flat tire, a clock ticking, a funeral procession, malfunctioning equipment, brutal cold weather. . . .

But one line in that film has since come back to me, over and over again.  Halfway through, Alex, a goofy looking kid from Iowa with a target on his back--a kid who'd been bashed and berated, torn down and kicked--said something that made me think he would be alright.

"I don't believe in luck, but I do believe in hope."

And, just like that, Alex took possession of his life, acknowledging that he would no longer be object, but, rather, subject. 

See, you can't have luck--good or bad--unless it happens to you.  You do nothing to create or repel it.  You simply receive it.  Or you don't.

But hope?  Hope is something you possess, something that swims inside you.  It is, as researcher Brene Brown said, "a function born of struggle."  That idea, that we can blossom in the face of hardship and vulnerability, was a message Brown shared throughout this morning's episode of "On Being."  It's one reason I was so riveted by the conversation.

This snowy, soft, magical day--and a Sunday, of all things!--seems to be the perfect backdrop for a  message of hope born of vulnerability (not weakness, so much as simply being human).  And I've seen just enough dads hauling sleds up the street, just enough dogs romping through light snow and bluejays dodging hawks, I've smelled enough wood-burning fires and fresh-cut Christmas trees today to make me believe that we might be ready for a return to something more hopeful than the fear-addled times we've been living through.

I, for one, am going to give myself one very long hug today--warts and all.

Middling Woman-Child

I got to hold a baby last night.  A beautiful, tiny, fine-smelling boy wrapped up in love and fashionable, N-gauge sized clothing.  And my womb did not ache!

Apparently, I've entered that stage of life when I can enjoy an array of pleasures without actually having a darned thing to do with them.   

Hello, vicarious living!  My, aren't  you looking good today!? 

I'm thinking this stage of my life (often referred to as "DNR" in hospitals) is going to be pretty awesome, if you ask me.  And, of course, you didn't.

Why, just today, I had the absolute pleasure of reading  yet another completely mind-blowing article about Pope Francis and, even though I am no longer a Catholic in good standing, I felt a wave of love and warmth roll over me.  Is it weird that I have a tiny crush on a Pope? 

 And, when two Yearbook girls called me over to their computer this morning to show me a photo of a young man they thought was the bomb, I was able to glance at his photo and say "Ah, like fresh laundry!"  My reaction was both entertaining and perplexing to them.

Bonus, I say!  I'm at the stage where people don't exactly "get" me but they have to kind of respect me, too, so I end up the winner, no matter what stupid think I just uttered!

And what advice would I give those two fine young women?   

"Get used to it, girls!  Life is both perplexing and funny!  And sometimes the lines are really, really blurred."

Granted, I'm not yet at the "When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple" stage yet.  And I'm pretty sure that, when I do reach that stage, the Internet will be a great, grey mystery to me.  As will my phone number.

But, for now, at least, I'm liking this strange middling place I find myself in.  One in which I can speak both freely and mysteriously--often using the very same words.  I like that I am just old enough to enjoy a newborn baby without actually feeding him, yet still young enough to tell a phone scammer to cram it up his....well, that wouldn't be a very ladylike thing to say, now, would it? 

The Bystander's Blues

I woke lopsided today
--askew and askance
unable to dance
an unnameable color of grey

And the prints on the wall
--tipsy and turned
all angled astern
as though they are ready to fall
 
I think what I have is
the bystander's blues
the burden of being aside

while friends lose their hair
their lunch and their flair
white-blood cells no longer abide

No pity for us
who watch from afar
Nor should there be,
this much is true

And yet I am heavy
on edge and unsure
my worries sit
restless on you

Worker's Comp

I work with some terrific people.  Funny, committed (the good kind of committed), hard-working and generally kind to teens (not always an easy task), these folks make the school what it is.  That's right. It's not about the content so much as it is about the relationships.  And that holds true for the adults, as well as the kids.

Especially fun are all the new folks on staff.  Now, I admit that, when I first heard that East High would have nearly 25 new adults in its halls this fall, I was a bit wary.  Realizing I'm in the last chapter of my life as a teacher, the idea of all those youngsters swooping in made me feel, well, a little dusty.  I started to envision myself as that old couple on the block, the last holdouts of another generation, the ones that were keeping the neighborhood from being cool again.

But then I got to know these folks and, even if everything I feared about myself is true, the newbies have flexed their altruistic muscles just enough to make me feel welcomed and nearly relevant!

Because I haven't held a job in another profession for so long, I'm making a leap here, but I wonder if the pressure-cooker feel of a school lets people get to know each other a bit quicker.  Like speed dating, new and old teachers quickly figure each other out, skipping many of the formalities and hoops of a traditionally-timed friendship.

And I'm all for it, frankly.

Since meeting these new folks four months ago, I'm delighted to say that one has opened my bathroom stall, mid-stream, causing near-fatal fits of laughter; another has stolen my team's Scrabble Scramble trophy;  several have found their way to the staff lounge for laughter and leftovers.  Why, just yesterday, one of the newcomers brought a lovely, delicious pumpkin cheesecake on a gingersnap crust--and shared it!  And last week, another newbie--possibly tricked into it by the library staff--made us biryani for lunch.  

We have shared beers, swapped stories, made fun of each other.  Why, we've even managed to collaborate, that most adult thing a staff of teaching professionals can do with each other!

It's possible that, in the afterglow of five days away from work, I'm feeling extra generous in my praise of my workmates.  A little distance does wonders, after all.  But, really, when you come down to it, even on the worst days--maybe especially on the worst days--I wouldn't trade this bunch for anyone.  They are always better than a poke in the eye.

And I haven't even talked about the work friends I've had for several years.  Oh, my.  The stories I could tell!

Super Savor

It's funny.  We live in a world where "more" is supposed to be "better" and yet, it's often the pauses that intensify my experiences or feelings.  Like the love of a child or an appreciation for a sunset, my feelings often grow stronger because of absence.

That's no secret, of course.  Regret, however twisted an emotion, is proof of this.  Take something away from me and I suddenly can't fathom my life without it.  Or believe how rich my life was because of it.  Or realize how stupid I was because of my casual past interaction with it. 

But I'd hate to give regret all of the power.  It is, after all, such a debilitating condition.

No, I'd like to give the nod to something more positive, something like the act of savoring, for instance.  A person can't savor anything if her mind is elsewhere, after all.  No, to savor something, I have to be fully present, and utterly unconcerned about the moment that came before or the one that surely will follow. 

Now that Eric is on his own, for instance, when he does find his way home, I'm amazed by the excellent colors we chose to put upon our walls.  And the way our chairs so comfortably hold a young body.  When he's in the house, the house becomes something more--something brighter, something steadier, something warmer.  And I savor the low hum that thrums through my being, that monastic chant of a soul well tended.

I think that this is one reason I love Thanksgiving so much.  It is an unpretentious holy day--holiday--focused on two of the most basic and necessary things in life--food and loved ones.  It is about sustenance, not bangles and buying more.  It is a holiday that lets us savor--savor a good meal, a stretched-out day, time with our loved ones. 

Even in the aftermath of hardship--death and disease, loss of jobs and separation--because of its simple structure, Thanksgiving manages to nudge from us the tiny gold threads of good things that run through our lives.  And we are left to savor the ordinary, made bright and shiny by the simple act of taking the time to acknowledge it.

GIving Thanks, and a Few Birthday Gifts, as Well

I have always loved Thanksgiving,  but never as much as I did 18 years ago.  That year,  I relished my "two Thanksgiving" schedule, happily (and literally) bouncing from one household to the other, one feast to the next. 

Like the turkeys I was ravaging, I, too, had popped my red-plastic timer, officially "done" and ready for the next stage.  Unlike my poultried friends, though, the next morning, it would be a doctor's knife that would make the first cut across my skin.

I have had 18 years to adjust to being a mother of a daughter, a situation I was ill prepared for, both then and now.  A person would think that I might have a better understanding than I do of what it means to raise a daughter.  Alas, most days, I find myself as naive as I was when told by the surgeon that "It's a girl!  It's a girl!"

Fortunately, "naive" is not a feared or unfamiliar state for me.  In fact, I have lived much of my life cloaked in the warmth of unknowing and I rather like it.  Because I am naive, for instance, I have seldom felt the compunction to shape Allison Shepard Holt into some idealized feminine representation.

Never one to have a pink bow in my purse--more or less, a purse to put one in--I mostly have made it up as I go.  And it is a tribute to Allison's essence--her flexibility, her kindness, her innate smarts and well-roundedness--that she has approached this life as my daughter in a way not unlike Ella Fitzgerald facing a long, as-yet-worked-out scat session.  And the results have been surprising and enjoyable.

It is ironic when a parent first realizes the depths of her love, when she knows--beyond a doubt--that she would set aside her own life to extend or enrich that of her child's.  And then, in the next breath, to already start missing that child.

Come 7:30 a.m. tomorrow--November 24, 2013--Allison Holt officially takes over her own life.  Suddenly old enough for cigars, tattoos and a life in the military (my own selfish fingers crossed that none of these might lure her),  the mere act of waking up entitles her to more time in the driver's seat (not that we're buying you a car, Allison. Because we're not.  Keep pumping those bike tires!) 

And me?  Well, I'd best find a comfortable spot along the roadside, one in which I can catch a clear view of her from time to time, as Allison pumps her legs and arms, running into the future that is hers.  Whatever level of faking it I've practiced so far in her life (and it is a commendable, at times significant level), I'd better be ready to ramp it up even more.

After all, high-school graduation, college, an apartment, a career, heartbreak and new loves all await her, each looking to her for its cue.  As for the parents?  The rear-view mirror is a position few parenting books warn us of.  I suppose that's because such a stark and certain reality might stifle the further production of the human race.

Ah, but Thanksgiving is hardly a time for stifling.  Rather, it is quite the opposite--a time to pause and pile on, a time of feasting and loving and reflecting on all the ways that we are blessed, followed by a nice stretch on the couch, laying warm in the afterglow of so much good. And, for me, Thanksgiving also is a time when, somehow, I manage to cram inside me even more love for Allison Shepard Holt, the daughter who has filled my life with so much laughter and joy, love and generosity.

Happy birthday, Allison.  I'm mighty glad you are here.

Love, Mom

Let's Break Bread, Instead of Heads

It's 4 a.m. and I'd hoped to still be sleeping, so excuse me if I feel like pointing fingers.

But something is clearly wrong here.  Like rainless summers and tornadoes in November, the evidence is mounting and I want to know why.  Why did Trinity McDonald die?  Why did Sara Piccolo lose it one morning in early October?  Why do I kind of feel bad for Bo Pelini?

And, while I'm at it, why can't that mayor in Canada see the forest through the trees?    Why did a baseball bat end two lives this past summer?  And who on earth wants to go shopping on Thanksgiving?

These are unrelenting times and I'm not sure humans can thrive in such conditions.  When "floodwaters" is our go-to position, the detritus of such raging power gets personal.   It's as though our culture is having one massive nervous breakdown and a billion hand-held devices are recording our collective downward spiral on tiny two-inch screens in glorious HD detail.

Stop the presses.  I want to get off.

And, while I'm at it, I also want to gather up all the cell phones, close down the 24-hour restaurants, and shut off the wi-fi for awhile.  Seriously.  Every single one of these things only adds to the unrelenting pressure to always be "on."

Hungry?  Eat.  Mad?  Post.  Bored?  Kill.

Who, in the midst of such floodwaters, has the time to sit down and discuss such things around the dinner table?

And yet . . . .

I am sure many will consider this quaint and laughable, a solution far too simple in such cynical times, but I really do believe that a little more table time would do us all some good.  Like my friend Barry said at dinner last night, our culture seems to have forgotten the power of coming home each day to a place filled with family and food and the utterly dull but incredibly powerful routine of a little dinner with people we love.

There's a reason that the basics are called "meat and potatoes."  And, yes, I know that we should cut back on our red meats and starches.  But that doesn't mean we should forego regular time with those we love, those routine pauses in our days when we can finally breathe a little.  Breathe and recollect the mundane, the overwhelming, the tests and trials and tiny joys that made up the moments that led up to this one.

If you want me to get all Biblical on you, it might be good for us to recall that the last thing Jesus did with his peeps before he died was to break some bread and share a little wine with them.  And it sounds like it wasn't even much of a meal.

And yet,  it meant everything to them, this pause amidst the unrelenting waters of their lives.

An Educated Guess

It was 2008 and I was seated on a hard, plastic chair in the basement of Redeemer Lutheran Church when I cast my vote for Barack Obama as president of the United States.  What on earth was I thinking, voting for a man with that kind of name, whose blood included that of a black man's?  It was an outrageous and utterly hopeful moment when #2 pencil met the cardboard bubble that afternoon.

And yet, it also felt like I was setting up the guy.  After all, the United States was a mess and perhaps it would have been kinder to Obama if I cast my vote for John McCain and let him muddle through the next four years.  But I voted my heart anyway.

I felt similarly conflicted last week when son Eric told me he planned to take advantage of a 14-month Master's of English Education program at UNL, after graduating in a year and a half.

My son wants to be a teacher!

My son wants to be a teacher?!

I have no doubt that Eric will be a terrific teacher.  He's loved his time at the Malone Center, after all, where he's worked with elementary-aged kids in an after-school creative writing program.  And I think he's felt successful at UNL's Writing Center, helping fellow students tackle term papers and research projects.

And heaven knows that the teaching field could use more good men in it.

Like most professions, though, the teaching field has a knack for shooting itself in its own foot, and being its own worst enemy.  In the past decade, educators have quit writing and telling their stories, stepping aside to let for-profit corporations, legislators, and really, really rich people do it for them.  For a guy who loves a good story, I wonder how Eric Holt will react to that sad fact.

What to do, then, with all of Eric's enthusiasm, the hope he holds within that he can make a difference, build a bridge, change the life of a young person?

I already knew the answer before I even asked it.

I suck it up, keep my lips closed and vote my heart, which says that this outrageous and hopeful act of standing behind my son is the only choice I have.

Moving to the Volunteer State

I confess.  I am a muddling, below-average volunteer.  For years, I've pointed to my career (teaching) or my pursuit of a master's degree (library science) or the work of raising my children (now nearly 18 and 21) as excuses when approached by others to lend a hand.

Mostly, though, it's been a combination of selfishness and my fear of a full calendar that have kept the do-gooders at bay.

Fortunately, last school year provided the fodder I needed to start doing things a little differently.  Feeling confined by a career that so many devalue and criticize--including those who work within the profession--I sought a way out of my 7-to-4 self. 

Yesterday, among the low hills of the prairie, I was tucked into a ravine clotted with Sycamores and Elms, my cheeks ruddy with joy as I encouraged a broken line of runners to keep up the good work.  And when the runners ceased, I could not help myself, letting loose a string of guttural turkey gobbles and peacock songs, giggling to myself that this is the place I want to be.

Who would've thunk that it would be Sandhills and Brome grass, Tiger Beetles and Sunset Maples that would save me?  Thinking back, though, what else could make a human feel more alive than the million beautiful beings that are not human themselves?

I have been saved this year by returning to my roots--to the elements, the land, its plants and creatures--and have found a new self along the way, one that is less defined by what I do for a living than how I go about making a life.

I think that's why I'm happy to start giving back a little, finally.  Yes, my master-naturalist's certification requires me to volunteer.  But those geniuses behind the program know something that I hadn't learned until recently.  They knew that, there, standing on the prairie or hunched over in the back room at the zoo, I would be doing something much richer than maintaining a status.

There, among the grasses and Tiger Beetles, I would begin to write a new chapter of my life.  And my legs would hum with the joy of being connected to something much larger than myself.

My Beloved Mother

**I would like to thank my mother, Jane Holt for, A) Leaving her blogging account logged in, and B) for being a marvelous mother.**

She has raised me to become an independent human being,
something I believe our world greatly lacks.

She has shown me how to live my life in a positive manner,
ignoring the dark clouds that seem so apparent in your teenage years.

She has guided me with open arms and a heart full of warmth,
to the distant lands where flowering marigolds grow as far as the eye can see.

She has protected me under her feathered wings,
which stretch to cover over the farthest seas where the great herons feed.

With that, I thank you Mom, for all that you do.

Love,
Allison Holt

Too Windy for Kites, And Yet

Driving home from church today,
I saw a woman clutching her young child to her breast,
bound up by coats and  mittens and scarves and hats,
standing in the middle of a field
while her young son knelt on the ground in front of her,
working the wooden dowel into the slots of his paper kite.
A whirl of leaves and wind
clouds and too-light birds
dancing, unchained, about him

It was hopeless, I knew
--for all three of them--
too cold, too windy, and a ball of string too measly
to keep things afloat

It was hopeless and yet I felt heartened.
For they showed up, didn't they?
With kite and string and child in hand.
They showed up, despite everything.

This, I thought, is the strength of the human spirit,
looking beyond everything that is in front of us,
plotting and plodding along, all the same.

The Importance of Shared Moments

I met Ben Vereen one early morning outside the Lincoln airport.  Well, we didn't really meet.  I just happened to see him crossing the parking lot and hollered "You're Ben Vereen!" as though he was struggling to remember that fact.

What is it about the famous and the dead that brings out our desire to pronounce our tenuous connections to them?  Sure, among a very select population of people, I knew that my Ben Vereen moment would impress, but I don't think it's bragging rights we're seeking so much as it is a reminder that, in this vast collection of human souls, somehow, you and I have breathed the same air.  And I was paying attention.

Lest we dismiss these intersections--however brief--one needs only scan Trinity McDonald's Facebook page to realize how important it is to acknowledge our moments together.  When I heard the heartbreaking news of Trinity's death,  I was one of hundreds who scoured my memories of her, locating glimpses of middle-school volleyball games, played out in a dimly-lit gym, my folding chair not far from her mother's.  I have been deeply moved by the tributes that others have posted on her page, love notes whispered to a silenced friend.

Because of those tributes--those connections--I am able grieve for real people, from the daughter who could not find a way to face the weight of her sadness to the parents, siblings and friends who wonder how it is they will get out of bed today.  Like well-written characters or moving lyrics, our tenuous and not-so-tenuous connections with others open us up,  and we find ourselves formed and changed by these people whose paths have crossed with ours.

No, it is not bragging rights that compel us to point out our connection to the famous and the dead. Rather, it is life itself--the spark--that primal desire to right our own ships sailing upon rough waters that keeps us reaching out for common threads.

Talkin' 'Bout our Generations

I can always count on Richard (not his real name) to keep the conversation interesting.  One of the more intriguing student assistants I've had in the past few years, this young man--often clad in a three-piece suit--has added much to my days.  Richard actively pursues knowledge, cutting-edge fashion, excellent haircuts and the soft spot in other people.  A complex, somewhat cynical young man, indeed.

As much as I enjoy my interactions with him, though, those conversations occasionally remind me that--despite his seemingly adult approach to all things human--he is still young and not-yet settled in his development.

Take our Friday conversation, for instance, which focused on my wish that journalistic institutions would move away from allowing anonymous comments in their online forums, and Richard's fervent belief that nicknames--at least in these digital instances--are as important as a legal identity is irrelevant.

The conversation raised my blood pressure--and volume--at certain points. 

As flawed as I thought his point to be, I also realized that it was rooted in  and supported by the daily and repeated experiences that Richard has as a 17-year-old American teenager.  He has, after all, grown up in an environment with 24/7 access to media outlets, venues easily accessible by tools now owned by virtually everyone except, say, the occasional 51-year-old high-school teacher too cheap to put down the Benjamins for the latest technology.

It's no wonder that the digital universe is rife with 140-character quips about everything from Nelly's newest video to a classmate's unfortunate choice of Homecoming attire.

But, still, can't a middle-aged person lament the loss of those filters and limited audiences that kept such drivel in check?  Is it unreasonable for me to wish that people were held accountable for their opinions and that those opinions had certain hoops through which they jumped before being expressed on a larger scale?

I believe that Richard and I have enough respect for each other that the sometimes contentious conversation we had Friday ultimately created more of a bridge than a wall between us.  At least, that's what I'm hoping.

Certainly, for me, it was a reminder of the strange, new world today's teenagers know, a world in which they can be anyone, say anything, and access heaps of once-hidden information--an exhilarating and frightening reality, all at once.

And this stodgy, out-of-touch teacher hopes that Richard now considers the awesome power and responsibility--the incredible First-Amendment flexing of one's intellectual muscles--that come with owning one's words and still sharing them, despite everything. 

This is, I suppose, the kind of thing that comes with the messiness of intergenerational conversations.  And, still, I look forward to seeing Richard Monday, curious about what he'll bring to the intellectual table.

Pupae, Not Pupils

Two weeks ago, in the East High parking lot, my friend Nancy stood in hunchbacked vigil over a magnificent caterpillar who was slowly making his way to greener pastures.  Because I just can't help myself, I exited my car and joined her.  Looking across the cracked pavement--broken up by weedy, dusty islands--I wondered where, exactly, those greener pastures were that he was seeking.  Embedded deep inside the tread of a Firestone tire seemed to be his likeliest destination.

And so, we did the only thing two middle-aged softies could do.  Nancy handed over her Tupperware container and I wrangled the fellow inside it, with the intention of bringing him to a lush Eden, where he would find respite, good eats and a sturdy stick on which he might have a chance to become something else.

That he curled up and died a few days later--despite the lush, green habitat that my daughter Allison created for him--does not diminish my belief that he wrapped up his short life on better terms than he'd found himself in when Nancy first discovered him.

In a weird way, this little story represents everything that people who work in schools experience on a regular basis.  Day after day, droves of denim-clad pupae wend their way to our doors, some possessing greater potential than others.  And, despite the odds and the exhaustion and the cynical, private knowledge that some will curl up in a corner long before reaching their full potential, we do our darnedest to create a fresh habitat in which they might have a chance to become something more.

What amazes me, 25 years after becoming a teacher, is that, for the most part, everyone still continues to show up each day.  Even those kids with all the odds stacked up against them manage to get up and slog across the cracked earth each morning, knowing that something better--even if it's only the suggestion of something better--awaits them at 1000 S. 70th Street.   

That caterpillar, complete with its scary horn and camouflage markings intended to make him both unappealing and  invisible, already was beautiful to me.  And it wasn't his potential that appealed to me, even though I knew that,  if given a chance, he would explode into an even more awesome being--a white-lined sphinx moth. 

Really, it was the fact that he showed up, despite all the odds.  That's what made me love him.

A Paultry Prayer for a Fine Friend

Dear God,
I'm a lousy pray-er.  Not that you didn't know that already.  But, really, I am.  I mean, while other people turn to Benedryl or Ambian to get them to sleep at night, I have always turned to prayer.  Give me thirty seconds of celestial thinking and--POW!--I'm out.

Then again, I'm also comfortable stopping, mid sentence, in a really good book if REM is knocking on my nocturnal door.

Clearly, I have few skills in this department.  Not that you needed any reminding.

But, the thing is, I've got some folks I'd really like to say a word or two about.  People who, come tomorrow, will be walking into a brand new chapter of their lives, a chapter filled with surgery and blood and pain and healing and all kinds of things that I frankly can't really imagine.

How to say the right prayer, though?  It often comes down to that.

It's not that I don't think you are capable of pulling a rabbit--or a cure or maybe even a miracle--from your hat.  But I'm not sure I'm the one who should be asking you to do those things.  Maybe it's my Midwestern roots, too humble, too non-confrontational to get pissy or bossy or demanding with you.

It's not the first time I've faced this spiritual quandry.  What to ask for?  What to ask for?  I really struggled with that when my friend Tracey was winding up her life and I wondered what it was I could seek from you.  That's when I settled on the kind of noncommittal word "healing," as though I could toss a warm, comforting blanket over all the needs and fears that Tracey and her family faced during those long days and nights.

Maybe, I told myself, "healing" could mean "acceptance" or "strength," or "laughter" or "peace."    And so, that's what I asked of you during those hard days.  For a little of what we all want--the strength, the laughter, the peace to get through our days, all wrapped up in a Godly sheen that made it seem like something bigger, something that could be "enough."

So, anyway.  Back to my friend, Mary Kay.  You already know that she is funny and smart and irreverent (but in a really good kind of way).  You already know that she's just an all-around terrific and awesome person and that--because she is who she is--she even was kind enough to pass along those same qualities to her offspring and husband. 

Yeah, she's got cancer and that pretty much sucks.  But she's approaching it with the same attitude she has approached her ridiculously-involved family's schedules all these years--with humor and practicality.

Any chance you could send a few other things their way?  Like strength and peace and heaping helpings of hope?  And, while I'm at it, I'd appreciate it if you could give her surgical team a really good night's sleep, along with some awesome dreams and maybe even some bacon and eggs tomorrow morning, so that they are feeling "in the zone" when they show up for their first patient.  Who is my very good friend, Mary Kay.

Whom I think you already know.  Probably really, really well.  Yeah, she's that kind of person.

I'm sending these thoughts your way and I haven't even had dinner yet.  That's because, come 8:30, I am simply too weak and pathetic to form complete sentences to send your general direction.  I hope you'll excuse the breach and do what you do best.  You know, give folks the strength to put their feet to the floor tomorrow morning.

And for many, many mornings to follow.

Sincerely,
Jane Holt
Your C Student on Woods Avenue

The Rues of the Game

For every action, there is a reaction.

For every shutdown--doors slammed closed simply to make a point--there is an unsuspecting everyman who pays a great price.

For every moment--planned and unplanned--there is memory, tinged with hope and regret.

For every move my daughter makes to place herself closer to the future, I hold my breath, catching a glimpse of friends and school ties, teams and teachers fuzzying around the edges of her recent past.

For every day I check off of the calendar, I hold tight not to rue a future much different than this very moment.  A future with a son stretched and set across oceans--competent and able, but a son, nonetheless.  Ruing a time without children and their polyblend leavings cluttering up the floors.

For every action--however bold and beautiful--re-action is more exhausting still.  I do not care to live in response to this life, but rather as a partner with it.  Hand in hand, albeit dragging my feet a bit, at times. 

And so, let me nudge my children to the door today, knowing that the tomato-horn caterpillar, the naked cicada burrowing deep into the earth, the cardinal fledgling teetering on the feeder--that all of these things hold greater promise still, stories buried deep within them that need time and patience, warmth and freedom to break loose.

Let me not get in the way of this wildly spinning earth, its grey-blue systems humming in place,  creatures acting and reacting in cosmic union, as the plan writes itself onto the winds.

A Mother's Vigil

Sarah Piccolo
It is 2:54
and I am awake,
a stranger standing vigil for you.
There is no comfort in tonight's blanket of stars
--too silent
and me, too small.
I am a mother, and that is enough,
knowing you are out there, untethered.

I whisper these words
in hopes that their long, lettery fingers
will alight upon you and let you know
that you are not alone.

Not even now,
when the inky black skies feel heavy with doom.

It is 2:54 and I am troubled by the tilt of this world,
subtle and off kilter.
Nudged awake by a frightened girl
who is huddled and haunted by
contents under pressure

I do not know how it is, Sarah Piccolo,
that--despite everything--
there is a sun making its way to us right now,
extending its warmth and its light
--great heaps of love and forgiveness--
even to us,
these broken souls under pressure.

A thousand mothers stand vigil for you tonight,
Sarah Piccolo,
wanting you to be there for the morning.

Lean on Me...Just Not Constantly, Please

Let me say it loud, if not actually proud:  I am averse to discomfort, whether in the form of hardship or controversy.

Such an admission hardly qualifies as waving my freak flag, I know.  But because of this particular aversion,  I spend a fair amount of my waking hours walking the proverbial fence in the fervent hope of not stepping in it.  Like a smarmy deejay,  I'll spin just about anything, simply to avoid the cockleburs of being human.

Such "lofty" goals, however, seldom do squat for me when members of my own tribe are suffering.

Unfortunately,  my tribe has been taking some hits of late.  And, between you and weasel-faced me, frankly, I'm starting to feel a bit worthless and worn out by all these challenges.

What to do for a peep with a problematic prognosis, then?  A friend or family member facing a funeral of someone far too young?  How to handle the heartbreak of someone I love whose beloved sister or grandparents have all too soon left their lives?

Apparently, I have great hope in the healing powers of a HyVee gift card.

I also lean heavily on the gifts of others, relieved by the realization that other people are picking up the pieces and tending to the tough stuff much better than I am.  This parasitic propensity of mine goes surprisingly far in supporting my "HyVee Answers All Things" theory.

Underneath my cowardliness, though, I do possess a willingness to name and lament the elephant in the room.  Not that such a thing comes naturally or comfortably to me.  But, having received and appreciated such acknowledgment from others while I was walking through my own burr-riddled prairies of the past, I know that there is a surprising value in naming things and being there, even without a casserole or quilt in hand.

At the end of the day, then, I do show up.  And that's something, I suppose.  Something, fortunately, that does not have to be everything, thanks to all the other good folks, the ones whose gifts are more practical, more consistent, more delicious.  Together, we do alright in tending to the tribe, a thought that I find oddly reassuring.

A Hankering for Hot Cakes

Earlier this week, when Allison asked about the title of a song (and--shocking!--I couldn't locate the answer in my cranial file cabinet), my eyes and hands returned to once-familiar territory--our dusty and fairly massive collection of CDs.  Running my fingers along the edges of those CD cases, I felt a great longing for the many years I'd spent deejaying my way through our musical library.

As much as I love iTunes and the ability to buy the one good song off of a new release, I realized how much I miss all those other hidden jewels waiting patiently on  grooved discs of hope.

Fall is the perfect season for reflection and nostalgia.  Ever since the autumnal equinox made it official, most of us (at least, most of my Midwestern brethren) have begun scouring the 5-day forecast, dreaming of the first 40-degree low so that we can again don blankets and flannels, socks and shoes.  And, as I ponder this week's menu,  I'm half tempted this morning to add a few soups and quick breads to the list, just to push the point a bit.

And, even if our new-found focus is on "silly" things like crock pots and lined pants, this cyclical impulse is nothing to be taken lightly.  To deny our urge for  three-bean chili, closed-toed shoes or a functioning CD player is downright foolish, like no longer caring if we fully empty our bladders or build up our retirement funds.  And Midwesterners, if nothing else, are genetically practical people.

Thank God.

Heaven help us if our collective memories ever fail us. If we wake one morning unable to recall the magical crunch of fallen leaves underfoot or the crackling pleasure of initiating the fireplace once again.  We will be truly lost if we ever shove aside our ancient desires to slow down and nest, to turn our focus inward, where long neglected family members and music collections await us.  Woe to us if we choose to ignore the quiet walking trails and crisp air awaiting us just outside our well-insulated walls.

Today is a perfect time to explore "out there," to reacquaint ourselves with the patient worlds of crockery and fleece, sleepy crickets and low-slung clouds quietly signaling change.

How grateful I am that Allison loves the music from "Cider House Rules."  And how apt that something with the word "cider" in it again draws me towards an ancient cycling where all things old are made new again.

Shadows and Light

Walking across the dam at Holmes Lake this morning,  I couldn't help but notice the shadows.  They were everywhere, stretched long by a sleepy sun just getting up for the morning.  I'd hoped to get to the lake a bit earlier, so that I could avoid the flood of sunlight that I knew would force my head downward halfway through my walk.  Like the Stones said, though, you can't always get what you want.

Thank goodness.

Had I gotten there any earlier, I wouldn't have seen my own shadow, pulled like warm taffy across the fields of brome, until it rested on a sunny brick wall hundreds of yards away.  And, for a few magical moments, I imagined someone inside that home, reading the newspaper by morning light, a brief shadow yawning its way across the front page.   My shadow.

I don't tell myself that this imagined moment, this brief interruption of light, forever changed that person.  But I do let this thought play out in my mind--that there are no sharp edges in this world, no places of clear delineation.  And that thought both comforts and excites me.

Try as we might--and humans try mightily--we cannot honestly create "us and them" any more than we can  grow feathers and fly.  Of course, that doesn't stop people from pulling out their Sharpies, maniacally drawing themselves into and out of a thousand different boxes each day.  "Us and them" drives much of our political lives these days, not to mention our religious and professional lives, as well.

But saying it or drawing it a thousand times does not make it so.  I know this because I have been painted by a million shadows, gentle fingers of trees and birds, people and buildings, alighting however briefly atop my shoulders as I move through this life.  And my canvas is more beautiful because of those brief meetings.

This is a world of shadows and light, our experiences shaped and changed by sun and moon, clouds and time.  We walk through each others' spaces, touched by things we cannot see or imagine, breathing in the same air, warmed by the same sun, the edges of our lives fuzzied by these thousand fingers of life reaching out for us.

Lincoln Calling

Dear Lincoln,
My friends invited us to go out on the town tomorrow night and, while I was excited at first, now I'm just a wreck.  See, you've gotten all cool on me and now I'm wondering just where I fit in. 

Don't get me wrong.  I was all for the urban makeover.  When you asked me for some money, I said "Yes!  Yes!  Choose me!  Choose me!"  and I happily paid that bogus "arena tax," too, even though I already helped with the bond, which really should have been enough.  And yet, not a single "thank you."  But I'm not resentful, I'm not. 

I'm just worried that you've left me behind.

So, I haven't even gone back to the Arena area since getting lost there last May.   I just keep flashing back to the 80s, when Lincoln went a little crazy . . . 

. . . you know, when they moved all those roads around Pioneers Park?  Well, 30 years later and I still can't seem to shake my old map.  To this day, my heart starts palpating when I get to that light on Highway 77, because I keep looking for that narrow, two-lane road that went past Lee's. 

Only now,  with the Arena, I have to memorize all these weird new names, too.   Canopy Street?  The Railyard?  The Cube? Are you kidding me?  How am I supposed to navigate that?!

And even if my brave, brave, slightly younger friends take us to the Haymarket tomorrow night, and I try hard to act cool, I'm still worried that everyone'll see that it's nothing but a ruse.  Kind of like how I feel when I go to Open Harvest and I think everyone can smell meat on me.  Only now, they'll smell "old" on me.  That musty, unhip, so-beyond-cool-you-probably-eat-dinner-at-5:30 scent that says "bad tipper."

(Seriously, what's wrong with an early dinner, anyway?  It's practical and the parking's better and you can always find a nice table near the Ladies Room.)

And if we do end up eating in the Haymarket area tomorrow, will I even be able to fake the menu?  The Brazilian steak on a stick?  Haute dogs?!  Sebastian's Table, whatever the hell that is?   Do you really see me faking it through a tasting menu or a cucumber-infused cocktail?  Yeah, I didn't think so.

I mean, I'm wearing a skort as I type this.

And yet, I really, really want to be your friend, new, hip Lincoln.  I want to feel like we're each other's peeps. I want to be wanted by you.

But I'm starting to think you only loved me for my money . . . Tell me I'm wrong.  Tell me there's a place for me at your table.  And, no, not that table at Applebee's.  I'm not ready to be that table.

Signed,
Your Friend,
Jane

Meet Mother Analgesia, Patron Saint of Late-Night Pains

Usually, I barely bat an eye when I hear someone up in the middle of the night.  That's because it's typically Mark or me, bowing to aging bodies in need of release.  Whoopee, I mumble,  rolling over into my school dreams again.

Last night, though, it was a door across the hall that groaned, a pair of young feet shuffling along the wood floors.  And that caught my attention.  Surely, by now, my family knows that I'm the one who is supposed to be afflicted.  Frankly, it bugs me when someone else comes padding into my territory.

Ah, but when it's one of my kids, . . . something clicks inside me and I feel nothing but warmth and compassion, even in the middle of the night. 

And so, 3 a.m. be damned.  I'm getting up to tend to my child, to lay my long body around hers, my right hand methodically combing her hair. 

I am not terribly maternal by practice, which is why I am grateful for the ancient murmurings within me, the old stories bubbling up from instinct.  In these moments, I am able to offer a mother's comfort when nothing else will do.  And there is no place I'd rather be at a time like that, than sleepily present at my child's side.

Eventually, all of us were up, so it seemed only natural to do something we'd never done before, to invite Allison to come into our room and lay with us.  As someone whose own few memories of my parents' bed are strong and sweet, I wasn't surprised when Allison slipped on top of our sheets and joined us. 

Soon, tucked safely between her parents, with Finn at her feet, her breath grew long and low, rhythmic and comforting, and we all drifted back to our dreams.

Of Preachers and Pesticide

In the two months following my master-naturalist class, some images from that class keep coming back to me.   This morning, for instance, after listening to a refreshing, surprising and well-tattooed urban minister being interviewed by Krista Tippett, I found myself thinking about pesticides.  I know, I know--What the WHAT?!

Towards the end of the show, Nadia Bolz-Weber, former drug addict and current minister at Denver's House for All Sinners and Saints (a Lutheran church, for pete's sake!), spoke of her trepidation of telling her parents she was going to become a minister.  She feared, she said, that they'd throw the book--the Good Book--at her.  Her dad, indeed, reached for the Bible after hearing her pronouncement.  And he turned to the book of Esther  and read this passage to her:  "You were born for such a time as this."

Bolz-Weber then spoke through choked-back tears, saying it was one of the most profound moments of her life, to have been given a blessing to become something new.

. . . and the connection to pesticides would be. . . ?

During our lesson on entymology, the professor spoke about pesticides and their devastating effect on the 98 percent of bugs killed by a poison whose real target was the other 2 percent.   He said that, in recent years, they'd developed much more specific pesticides, such as those designed to do in roaches and termites, two insects that shed their exoskeletons as their bodies grow.  These new insecticides deliver a hormonal message to roaches and termites, essentially telling their exoskeletons to quit growing.  What happens next?  He said they basically blow up because they really weren't done growing, but there was no longer a place for all that new stuff to go.

As someone who is starting to write the final chapters of my working life, I think about all the ways we tell ourselves that we are done growing--even if we aren't--and all the ways our silence holds back the blessings others need to reinvent and grow themselves.  Without that simple, ancient sentence spoken by her religiously-traditional father, Bolz-Weber may very well have told herself that she was indeed done growing.  And, I suppose, in some form or another, she would have eventually blown up and died inside.

So many conversations I've had with friends this year suggest that we aren't done growing and that our shells are starting to feel too small for our lives.  Like the cicadas whose droning fills the late-summer air, we have started to look for a stronghold, a place, a blessing we can grab onto so that we may begin the hard and necessary work of growing our lives some more. 

It is an exhilarating time, one of danger and vulnerability, our stories still emerging from within us.

Clang Clang Clang Goes My Noggie!

My ears are ringing and I don't know who to blame.

Mother nature and her pollen-riddled skies?  Perhaps.  But then, it could just as easily be the din of my workplace.  Schools are really, really noisy places.

Combine the hallway chatter, the band-room oompahs, the gymnasium grunts and cheers, the classroom clutter, the lunchtime noshing and farting, and, before long,  you find yourself sucking your thumb and rocking in a corner, babbling "Calgon, take me away.  Calgon, take me away."

Teachers who also happen to be parents know that, by the time we pull in the garage at the end of a school day, we want to hear a whole bunch of nothing--not even the sweet burble of our own children's voices.

Sucks to be you, teacher's kid.  

Beyond all the maddening mandates, revised curriculum and continual reinvention that fill a school day, I think it's the noise and the constant, on-our-feet decision making that take the biggest toll.  Let's just say that, f I needed synapses to fire up the stove at night, we'd be eating cereal over the sink for nine months a year.  

I don't claim the corner on this market, of course.  I'm sure that many other professions are filled with constant decision making and improvisation.  But few have the clatter and teenaged clientele that we do.  And those realities make a difference in our ability to refuel between decisions.

Even the best-laid lesson plans fall victim to the endless barrage of baggage that students bring to school each day.  For the most part, most of us are making it up as we go, even if we've got something detailed and creative written in our lesson books.

I'm not complaining.  Not completely, at least.  This on-the-fly thinking is generally something I enjoy.  I like the puzzles, the pickles, the prognostication that come with teaching.  Added up together, it's just a bit wearing, that's all.

For some reason, I am reminded of this awesome, unnamed rock from my childhood that I keep in my school bag.  It has been worn smooth by both time and the granular magic of a long-ago rock tumbler.   Every so often, my fingers find the rock and, inevitably, massage its smooth surface.  It took a long time to get out its rough spots, time and sand and wind and water.

Considering all the elements that wear away at people who work in schools, I'm sometimes surprised that we aren't smoother, shinier, less rough around the edges.  

Walk On By

6:02 a.m.
I shake off all the "shoulds" of a 51-year-old life and head up the dark street with Finn. My new sandals feel good, although the heel of the right one lets out a slow hiss with each step.  Still, it isn't enough to disrupt the chorus of cricket song.  For a moment, I am lost in the churring hum, wondering how it is that so many songs, strummed out in so many different rhythms, can come together so wonderfully.

My thoughts are disrupted by a runner on 33rd Street, whose speed and stride suggest escape.  More likely, it's determination that fuels him, but I am not a runner and, as such, can only speculate.

Our short stint on 33rd is the only part of our morning walk that is punctuated by the sights and sounds of city life, even when most of that city is still shaking off sleep.  A few cars streak by, one pumping music that feels more Friday night than Thursday morning. Who am I to tell others the right way to start their day?

We round the corner, greeted by the slow basso of a great horned owl.  A few houses later, his song is answered by a frenzied staccato coming from an oak tree across the street.  6:15 a.m.  Closing time for the owls, one last quip before they call it a day.  I am glad for these concentric circles that bring us together for a few moments, Finn and I leaning in to listen to stories not intended for our ears.

I have lived in this neighborhood for nine years, walking these paths a thousand times now.  They are home to me, these streets bathed in the warm lights of waking neighbors whose names now roll easily off my tongue.  At once familiar and new, I cherish these morning walks, my pedometer faithfully clicking off each step.

Soon, we find ourselves on 33rd Street again, the sky a bit brighter, the traffic a bit heavier.  That's when I spy something new on this late August morning--two lanky teens and a young girl shooting baskets in the early-morning light.  I stop and watch them for a moment, wondering if I'm imagining it all. 

6:28 a.m.
3,051 steps.
This morning walk is nothing much, I know.
And it is everything.

The Last Firefly of the Summer

Last night, I sat on the patio and watched dusk nudge the remaining streaks of sunlight out of the way.  A handful of cicadas were humming the last bars of their songs, while the robins finally gave up their frantic Gladys Kravitz imitations, conceding the night to the owls, those no-good scalawags.

That's when a lone firefly flashed his "open" sign across the tops of the goldenrod, hoping a lithe passerby might take him up on his offer.  No other light pulsed in response, though, and I followed his scattered trail across the yard, his abdomen swollen with longing, his lighted trail empty behind him.

I know that it is a human impulse to assign our species' qualities to others.  I know that this firefly probably didn't go home and etch a glowing note of despair before offing himself in the basement.  I know these things but, when I see the last firefly of summer tapping out his Morse Code across the night sky, I cannot help but feel an ache inside.

It's the same ache I feel when I see a kid eating alone in our noisy lunchroom, surrounded by sharks and minnows, schools of frantic classmates who seem to look every way but his.  I know that this kid, like the firefly, may not give a whit about being alone, that he may be focused solely on the sandwich before him, content to be doing what his body calls him to do.

But knowing doesn't make the ache go away.

I simply can't abide the  fraying thread loosing itself from one anchor, that missed opportunity, the selfish oversight, the phone that rings while I turn and walk away.

See, I know a thing or two about unanswered phones.

The one that still haunts me today rang unanswered in my college bedroom one early Saturday morning, the result of a plan I'd forged with my former boyfriend the night before.

That phone call was my chance to see Jerry again.  Jerry, whose body had been ravaged by bone cancer.  Jerry who was heading to New York for yet another treatment.  Even though we were no longer dating, we both still enjoyed each other and so, when he proposed I drive with him to the airport the next morning, it sounded like a grand idea.

So, why did I just sit there and listen to the phone ring?  I was up.  I had no plans.  And yet I let the phone ring until it rang no more.

Jerry died a few months later and I am left to live with that phone call.  I may never be able to answer that one.

Maybe that's why the last firefly of the summer leaves me hollow.  Because a part of me wonders if, somewhere in the garden, another firefly sees the pulsing glow, but chooses to turn away and let the other think he is the last.

Needless to say, I pick up the phone now.

Breaking B(re)ad

Thanks to Netflix, I occasionally dabble in the Dynamic! Exciting! and over-priced world of cable television--and all for just $8 a month (take that, Time Warner!).  One Saturday afternoon last winter, when my get up and go had gotten up and gone, I logged onto Netflix to find out what all the fuss was over the series "Breaking Bad."

I made it through a couple of episodes before calling "uncle."

I'm sure it's just me--naive, unhip, bright-side-of-life me--but all of those blood-soaked wood floors, the acrid, science-gone-wrong creations, the heaps of meth-laced Benjamins left me feeling icky and hollow.  I mean, the guy's a teacher, for Pete's sake!

At the very least, it seems only right that I'd object on professional grounds.  Surely, there's enough mediocrity out there to sully my profession's reputation, without throwing in all that Sudafed, lye and violence.

That's why I'm feverishly working on the script for a new teacher-based television series, tentatively called "Breaking B(re)ad: A Staff Lounge Gone All Happy and Share-y."  Yeah, I know.  It's Family Channel or bust for this one.

But it does speak truth, at least for me.  Because, when I'm at work, the one place that continually feeds both my body and my soul is the staff lounge, an under-decorated room filled with leftover chairs and wobbly-legged tables that, each noon hour, also fills with people who are looking for a break from both their fast and their fast-lane lives as educators.

Granted, it is a noisy place.  But, if we are lucky (and, at East, we are lucky), the root of that noise isn't incessant complaining about teenaged clients gone wacko, but rather the giddiness that comes from getting together and doing something different for a half hour.  Much of my RDA of laughter comes from that room.  As does an impressive flow of interesting life stories and, on occasion, two grocery sacks of ripe, home-grown peaches there for the taking.

When someone new comes to East (and, this year, we've got about 25 new folks), I always put in a pitch for eating lunch in the lounge.  In a job filled with such high stakes, not to mention so many angst-filled, Axe-soaked teens, lunch in the lounge can act like a lifeline, a joyful reprieve from all the meth and violence of the larger world looming just outside our doors.

Natural Selection

When I was a young girl, I was chased by a Doberman Pinscher outside of Morrill Hall.  That morning, I was with my grandmother Shepard, an eccentric artist who always seemed to keep her cool, and maybe her distance, too.  It took me a long time not to fear that particular breed, although the incident did make me grateful for the dust, bones and refuge of that building, not to mention my grandmother's steely courage.

This Saturday morning, Allison peppered me with a proposition that involved visiting Morrill Hall.  It'd been a handful of years since I had visited that museum, pulled away from its entrance by growing children who had burgeoning, disparate interests, most of them now rooted in not spending time at home or with family.   Fortunately, after just a bit of Allison's cajoling (I had, after all, countered her offer with an alternate destination--the hippy cliffs of Pioneers Park), we agreed to head downtown after lunch.

What a fine decision that was.

Like a well-written premiere of a much-touted television series, our visit to Morrill Hall offered me a happy peek into Allison's future, and I left the place wanting more.  Several times, Allison whipped out her cell phone, not to text a friend but, rather,  to record an interesting fact or the name of a long-extinct species she didn't want to forget.

For someone who has been battling a mild case of the nerves as the first day of Zoo School approaches, Morrill Hall proved to be the perfect antidote.

We ended the day on our backs, scanning the night skies for the thumb-smeared silver streaks of stray meteors, while the last warmth of summer leeched into our bones. 

That night, I went to bed deeply happy and firmly centered, grateful that nature has played such a main-stage role in our children's lives, even if other players have occasionally taken away the limelight.  Somewhere, deep in their bones, both Allison and Eric still recognize the clear "fee-hee" of a chickadee's song, revel in the cecropria moth flitting through our garden, appreciate the long shadows of the setting sun against the backdrop of mixed-grass prairie.

Some nights, as I drift off to sleep, I tell myself that these are the bible stories of my children's lives, the marrow that feeds them as they head into the desert, unafraid of what they might find there.