Spontaneously Combustin'!

Nicolette has every reason not to be a nice person.  She's beautiful.  She's smart.  She's a terrific dancer and has a hundred trophies to prove it.   So, why on earth is she smiling like a banshee, huddled over her knees, pencils in hand, pounding out a rhythm for her classmates? 

Because, despite all those reasons to the contrary, Nicolette is a sparkly, kind goofball with a song in her heart. 

We were between interviews, having just started the arduous task of choosing next year's Yearbook staff, and the kids were a bit wound up.  Sure, they were behaving whenever the applicants showed up, putting on their professional airs and asking thoughtful questions.  But, in those in-between times, with no outsiders within earshot, they were just a bunch of ding-a-ling kids, their excited voices piling atop each other like snow balls in a backyard fort. 

That's when Nicolette decided it was time for a song.  She shushed and corralled her classmates, who were sitting in a sloppy circle, and began tapping out the rhythm, pointing whenever it was their turn to holler "Hey!" and "Ho!" 

I had no idea what the song was but, by the time the chorus came around, most were singing it, their young voices surprisingly together, their timbre--all joy.  Some swayed, some smiled silently, a bit in awe of the impromptu choir, and every last one of them was grinning. 

(Hey!)
1, 2, 3 

I belong with you, you belong with me, 

you're my sweetheart 

I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet  

(Ho!)

Did I tell you that I really love these kids?  For all kinds of reasons, this group has warmed my heart.  They are generous, funny, familial.  They look out for each other (and for me), cajoling when necessary and stepping up, even when the assignment kind of sucks. 

I feel such affection towards them, knowing they will do their darnedest to do right by me.  And, in return, I by them.  And, always, they do it with a joy-tinged spirit and a song in their hearts.


THE SONG THEY SANG THAT MORNING:
Ho Hey
By the Lumineers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4

Stealing Magnolias, Among Other Things, . . . .

I admit it.  I am not above stealing.  And I have the record to prove it.  Beyond that unfortunate shoplifting incident of 1975, though, I've stolen all kinds of things, from ideas to bad jokes. 

Still, I'm almost embarrassed about this latest larceny I'm about to commit.  It's no grand larceny.  Not by a long shot.  But what I'm about to steal does possess a format that holds some appeal on this not-so-overly snowy day we're in.

Thank God the librarian in me still has a decent streak, though.  And so, I give a nod to Steve Sipple, Lincoln Journal-Star sports writer, whose format I am stealing.  The fact that everything he writes is set up in this "things I know and things I think I know" format does sully its shine a bit, but I'm not proud--another thing Steve and I apparently share.   So, here it goes, following this alleged snowstorm that was supposed to have shut down so much of Lincoln today.

Things I Know and Things I Think I Know
By Jane Holt

•Twenty-first century technology is a joke, at least in comparison to Mother Nature. 
I'm pretty sure that, in her generous moments, Mother Nature pities the fools who draw up those storm models, nudging her flaky brood south when we are certain she'll send those flakes northward. After my initial disappointment in her unwillingness to obey the Internet gods, a new-found respect for the old lady bubbled up from within me. 

•Ken Dewey was the most popular man on Facebook this week.  
My former meteorology professor, who kind of looks like a wonderful Muppet character and has the brain power of Spock, was the go-to man on Facebook this week, doling out his predictions and sexy, colorful maps like a drug lord hands out bricks of pure Mexican.  A humble man, I imagine that, in the midst of all that adulation,  there were moments when Dewey considered running for governor of Nebraska.  I, for one, would have embraced such a decision.

•Nothing beats a real eye in the sky.
I spent so much time online this week, feasting on various weather models, that I worried I had  come down with the first documented case of digital bulimia.  And, when this morning finally arrived--dry as a 68-year-old woman--I felt hungover and a tad regretful at all the time I'd spent with those electronic hussies, so full of empty promises were they.  By the time the snow finally started, though,  I was reminded of the power of first-person observations, heartened to know that I didn't need to feed on the prognostications of strangers and could, in fact, count on my own orbs to do the job, thank you.

•Hope is a crazy companion.
Crazy?  Yes.  But hope is always desirable, too.  And, while my usually wise friend Pete warned me in church last Sunday not to attach myself to things--even hope in a bleak weather model,--I damned his torpedoes and hoped away anyway.  And I was glad I did!  Even after shoveling a piddling 2.5 inches of snow from my drive this afternoon, I was heartened by the hope that bubbled up from within.  After all, some of the weather models still showed churning bands of heavy snow groaning their way through Lincoln long after sunset. 

And what's not to love about that?!

Looking for an Out House

Some days feel like Friday, when meteors and asteroids were passing within blinking distance of one another.  The thing not to forget, though, is that we can be blindsided by goodness, too. 

Not all surprises are asteroids and meteors.

I have felt the slow transformation of my 50s settling deep within, and, more and more, I find myself open to change.  Actually, what I really feel open to is living and being out in the open.  Especially after listening to and reading Kate Braestrup, a chaplain for the Maine State Parks Department, I can't seem to shake the idea of a work life lived in the elements.

Certainly, there are complications.  Consider the new bed Mark and I bought recently.  It is a glorious, firm, unyielding bed, filled with a happy mishmash of springs and cooling gels and topped with an irresistible 25-year warranty.  At 51, there aren't many things left that come with a 25-year guarantee.  I cannot imagine saying goodbye to that glorious nudger of dreams. 

Then again, until last Friday, I could not imagine the windows on 3,000 buildings shattering amidst a sonic boom caused by sky garbage.

I can't imagine living far away from family and friends, nestled in a wilderness, blanketed by nothing but stars and solitude.  Well, actually, it's not hard at all to imagine the second part of that sentence.  But life is complicated, in part, by its goodness.  Ah, if only my family were toxic, my friends unfaithful.  Then, my move would be an easy one.

First things first, though. 

You may not have read about it, but a tiny, shattering, joyful meteor popped through my atmosphere last week during a walk with my friend, Mary Anne.  While we wandered the neighborhood, she told me about the Nebraska Naturalists program, in which people take courses to become master naturalists.  She'd signed up to take the class this summer.  Within ten minutes of our walk's end, I, too, had signed up. 

If I pass the naturalists' sniff test and make the cut, I'll spend a week next summer splitting my time between Pioneers Park and Spring Creek Prairie, getting dirty with discoveries.

Several years ago, while digging around in our garden, we discovered a leathery, patterned ball the size of a big acorn.   It looked like an archeological treasure, a sarcophagus of a long-dead Egyptian king.  Turned out, it was the pupa of a luna moth. We nurtured and watched over that pupa all week, looking for signs of life and hope. 

It never did emerge, wet-winged, into our lives.  But it had ignited something inside all of us.  Even though we didn't witness the metamorphosis, we now knew that such things were possible.

Who knows if my wings will emerge?  Who can say if this is a whim or a transformation?  Whatever it is that I find myself in, I will bask in it and enjoy my time here, where the air is crisp and filled with possibility.

My Cups Overfloweth

How on earth can a woman live 51 years and still have no idea how to adjust her bra properly?   I'm not lying when I say that the thing I wore today had more in common with spray paint  than it did with an i-beam or trestle.  Actually, it was like I'd tossed a light cardigan across my fair moonbeams, something to take away the chill.  That's how impractical this thing was.

Halfway through the day, I dodged into the women's bathroom and messed with the straps a bit, hoisting a little here, cinching a bit there.  Alack, it was all for naught, as my sad sacks just kept their eyes pointing downward, drenched in peri-menopausal shame.

Frankly, I shouldn't be surprised.  Truth is, I have never had a good relationship with bras, dating back to a disastrous first date with one in a Miller & Paine dressing room back in '73.  The evidence mounting, my mom had taken me to the store, where they had experts who knew how to fit a girl.  I fumbled with the first one she gave me, eventually putting it on backwards, because it was a lot easier to hook that way.  Ten minutes later, the "expert" nearly ruined my young life, flinging open the door of my dressing room, thereby revealing all my innermost secrets, much to the horror of a passing boy from my 5th-grade class. 

As someone who kept tampons in her socks well into her 30s, and still chooses a practical pair of briefs over those newfangled thongs every time, I have never swooned over a lacy bra.  Not once.  True, I nearly passed out in a Victoria's Secret about a year ago, but it wasn't from excitement.  More like from the paroxysms of sheer terror and befuddlement that swept over me.
  
Girls bring their boyfriends to that place!  And they all act like it's normal! 

I suppose I'll give my sad, little bra another chance, come tomorrow morning.  I may even fiddle with it a bit, trying to figure out which is better--to lift or to separate, for, surely, this thing cannot do both at once.  And I'll probably grab a cardigan--a real, full-sized one--to toss over my shoulders, not only for a little warmth but also as a bit of a buffer for the outside world. 

Some things, after all, are hard to prepare for.

End Times

There is this thing
     about an ending.
It is concentrated,
     like a can of frozen orange juice.
Thick with life.
Dense with meaning.
Begging to be diluted.

So it is for all ends, I suppose
Books
Days
Lives
    this thickness that confounds
    this clarity that breaks through
    the "aha" that bubbles up and
       latches on for the ride