Calling It

The image of a teen girl, smiling and eyes aflutter, sprawled out on her bed with a phone to her ear?  Yeah.  That has never been me.  Maybe it's the shape of my ears, but I've always found phone calls to be an uncomfortable form of communication.

Not last night, though.

For some reason, I was still conscious when my mom called around 9 p.m.  I'd meant to call her a half hour before, but didn't know if it was too late to call (yes, I realize that this is an absurd thought for most people, but I'm pretty sure I am a farm girl long ago transplanted to the city--all "early to bed and early to rise").

Ah, but last night's call--the phone's unsettling disruption of night-time rituals and reading in bed?  It was pretty wonderful.  After I'd determined that there was no medical emergency or mental lapse behind it, I settled in contentedly to the comfortable back-and-forth, verbally walking the ambling path my mom had set out for us.

The topic of our conversation ranged from Thanksgiving-Day reflections ("I had such a nice time being with everyone")  to cumbersome bunions ("What are those things called, anyway?!" we laughed).  Somehow, we also managed to cover past and future trips to Hawaii and how good my brother Steve is at creating entertaining events for the family.

"Ambling" really is the perfect description of our conversation last night.  And, just like an ambling walk outdoors, I found myself wanting to extend the event, to keep shuffling my feet through the colorful family leaves that had gathered around me.

That phone call was a quiet love song magically delivered through wispy copper wiring, its lyrics forgettable to everyone but my mom and me.  Like a bedtime story, carried by the lilt of my mother's surprisingly cogent voice, it lulled me into a happy, warm place.

I'm pretty sure I fell asleep with a smile on my face, my heart filled with love.

I Am (a) Woman

I am a woman.  I am not women.
I am a teacher.  I am not teachers.
I am a mother.  I am not mothers.
I am American.  I am not Americans.

And, in the same vein, I must remember that Donald Trump is a Republican.  He is not Republicans. . . although I kind of think that Trump is actually working for the Clintons.

When the day is done, all I can do is try to own who it is that I am--the decisions I make, the beliefs I hold to, the words I say.  These things are mine, not ours.

God help anyone who expects me to Represent.  

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't try to behave.  Educators, after all, fall in the same precarious category as ministers--when one of us screws up, we all wince.  But that person's act doesn't make me screw-up-by-proxy any more than being born in Syria makes someone a terrorist.

I don't think some of our U.S. politicians--our governor among them--have any idea how difficult their bigoted spittle makes my job.  When Pete Ricketts says "no" to all Syrian refugees, when Chris Christie shuts the proverbial door on a child, the hot wind of their words reaches the hallways of my school, where whispered threats gather steam.  And this is not the kind of steam you want to give to still-forming human beings.

Unlike me, these politicians are expected to Represent. First, however, they should repent, for their words have done great harm to many people, my students included.

A Solemn Salute

At first, I wasn't even planning on going.  After nearly a week away from work, I figured that it was time to go back to East, to return to the serious business of being a school librarian.  Whatever that means.

Sheesh, I can be such a knucklehead.

Finally--thankfully--I thought of my mom--frail and bent, alone and confused--and I realized that I should skip school and go to Dick's internment this morning.   He was, after all, a father to me and a grandfather to my children for these past 16 years.  Not to mention the wonderful role he played in my mom's life all these years.

So, when we drove out to Lincoln Memorial this morning, my thoughts were: Well, it's good I'm going, because mom will appreciate this.  

Our car eased around a curve, and there they stood, two women in military uniforms.  They were saluting.  Just behind them, a line of men--also in uniform--was standing at attention, guns resting atop their shoulders.

And that's when the tears came.  Finally.

Dick was gone.

All those years ago, a younger Dick was flying a plane over Africa.  And these uniformed strangers were here on a misty, breezy morning, thanking him for his service.

My God.  How could I be nearly 54 years old and have no prior experience with a military honor guard?

It was one of the most powerful, solemn, moving times in my life, framed by serious strangers who vowed to remember.

Gunshots.  Rituals.  A flag unfurled and furled again.  And then, that same flag presented to my mother, delivered with deep-felt thanks for a man who served his country all those years ago.

And to think I almost went to work today.

I am an idiot.  And my stepfather is dead.  And my step siblings move slowly across the uneven landscape,  away from me, from this place and into another.

My mom?  She is small, but her heart is full.

I finger the empty cartridge in my pocket, remembering the sharpness of its cry as it left the rifle 10 minutes before.  And I remember Dick, again wondering why I have never before been to a funeral with an honor guard.

I suspect the answer says more about me than it does about everyone else.

Moss Grande

I have not been sleeping well lately.  Or at least not for very long.  And in the wee hours this morning, when something once again nudged me awake, my mind turned to moss.  As the wind battered our house and sleep left me for good, I closed my eyes and imagined myself wandering the moss forest, surrounded by tiny trees and elaborate structures--patient passageways standing at the ready for life-giving water.

Recounting the moment when she first looked at a snowflake in detail, scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer kicks off her surprisingly beautiful book all about mosses, one part science, one part gentle sermon.  "Gathering Moss" is a wakeup call to take notice of that which has otherwise been ignored.

That theme translates nicely to a school building, where the din of testing and timelines can distract us from the truly important work that we are called to do--namely, connecting with each young life that moves through this space.

In the school library, where the adults are freed up from the grind of the gradebook, we are given a gift--the chance to meet kids where they are, no standards-based strings attached.  Here, in this buffer zone, a refreshing cross section of students gathers, their needs and intentions ranging from the academic to the maternal.  They are, in surprising ways, reminiscent of moss.

Easy to overlook, mosses are rootless, primitive, low-lying plants.  They also are incredibly diverse, with 22,000 species inhabiting virtually every landscape on earth. Mosses, unlike their more sophisticated cousins, have a resilience that is enviable.  While they seem to shut down in the absence of water, they have simply gone quiet.  These mosses then bounce back within minutes when water is reintroduced to them, even after waiting years to slake their thirst.

It is water, then, that educators should seek to provide.  And in the school library, that water takes all kinds of forms.  Just yesterday, a student left the library with a book he'd requested, one we bought just for him.  The same happened last week, proof that their voices, however small, have been heard.  Yet another student came to the library Monday to report that he'd gotten a Learn to Dream scholarship.  I have no doubt that my workmate Helen played a part in this.  It was Helen who'd been watering his primitive ideas about a future he could not quite imagine.  He had the tools and she took the time to notice and encourage them.

Kimmerer, who works and lives in the Appalachian Mountains, talks of finding mosses even in the stripped, brutal landscape of an orphaned iron mine, a long, ugly scar that runs through an otherwise rich landscape.  There, she and her student study a patch of moss that somehow has made its home in a dead zone.  And there, underneath the protective shadows of its tiny, primitive forest, they note that the land seems to be healing, new life emerging from a place of hopelessness.

I am heartened by her find, filled with a renewed commitment to take note of the small things, to honor the quiet, young lives of my students who--like all of us--have a thirst and a deep desire to make a good life for themselves.

Between Things

Yesterday, my mom and I visited my stepfather, Dick, a kind, funny, sharp man who happens to be writing the last chapter of his life.  Over the last year, he and my mom have been separated more than once by medical circumstances.  Each separation has left them filled with longing for the other.  That longing would be sweet if it weren't so wrenching to witness.

And now, in this latest separation, it is hard not to see the whorls of endnotes swirling around them, as my mom cuts up bite-sized pieces of fried egg to feed to the man she loves.  Here in this room that is both comfortable and foreign, two people lucky enough to have found each other struggle with desires that vacillate between companionship and release. While I am glad to be here with them, I also am fully aware that I am the interloper, pulling precious energy away from where it should be--between the two of them.

I listen as Dick tells stories that are both detailed and dream-like, speaking of them as though recalling an event from the night before.   He has always been a terrific storyteller, a man who relishes the nuances.  And--always--there is a well-delivered punchline, an unexpected twist at the end.  This time, it is that he found himself in a room with Laura Bush.

In fact, he was in a room with Sally Shepard Raglin Marshall (names earned and cherished in her 88 years of living) and Jane Raglin Holt (a shorter yet still-appreciated strand of happy evidence).  And it was obvious that this was a time to be cherished, a moment in which to be fully present, even if I was the sore thumb, the reluctant escort, the unsteady stenographer transposing these quiet moments played out in a small room in the middle of everywhere.