The Journey Evolved

Dear Harry,

We spoke about many things on that bench over a year ago, but there is still so much to tell.  A year has passed, can you believe it? My first post to this blog was on July 11, lucky 7/11.  My anniversary post is on 7/7.  Hoping to keep the good luck flowing.

I am a voracious ready, Harry.  It does not have to be anything of literary value, I just read everything, food labels, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, road signs, everything.  It never stops.  I soak it all in, the good, the bad and the ugly, so I decided earlier this year to make a list of books, classic literature mostly, that I needed to read.  I put away my fun fiction, my Nora Roberts and Maeve Benchy and picked up Sagan, Salinger and Steinbeck.  Ok, not Steinbeck, sorry Mrs. Baxley, The Grapes of Wrath left a sour taste.  Jack Kerouac did make the list though and my local library is fairly small, but it had a copy of Kerouac's On the Road.  I read this line, "I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost."  I paused, reread it, thought, "Man, I've been there."

Not only have I been there, but I've revisited it a few more times than I'd like to admit.  I can't speak for other moms, but sometimes the routine, the constant noise, work, home, cook,  rinse, repeat, ugh! I wake up and think, "Where is the person I planned to be when I grew up?"  I have already spoken about finding my passion and I have definitely spoken about how precious it is to me to be a mom, this does not change that; however, as readers are want to do, we begin to question everything.

I call this my internal battle with meaning of life vs. living of life.  This is where intellectual debate battles with water balloon fights, culture vs. fun, reading for pleasure vs. reading for broadening the mind.  I am constantly torn and I believe this battle has intensified as a parent/teacher, not lessened.  Now I am not just responsible for my intellectual and spiritual growth, I am also responsible for theirs, which leads me to make lists of classical literature I need to read, which leads me to read lines like Kerouac's, which leads to the questioning above and the vicious cycle continues.

Our world grows smaller everyday.  My phone now takes me anywhere I want to go with a swipe of my finger.  A mere 30 years ago, that same swipe, only got me one number dialed on a rotary phone and I still had at least six numbers to go.  Even then, that only led to another phone ringing and the hope that someone was there to answer.  Books were our main resource.  My mother was proud to be able to provide her children with a complete set of encyclopedias where we could learn about he world around us.  She also subscribed to National Geographic and bought the complete ChildCraft series, all in an effort to enlighten and inspire her children.  We took museum trips, zoo trips and she was always pointing out some cultural something.

Today, the leather bound encyclopedia has been replaced by Google and sadly, wikipedia.  I now follow National Geographic on Twitter and there is a new Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan's former student.  With information so readily available, I found the intellectual in me craving leather bound beauties.  I needed to smell paper and ink.  I needed my children to see me reading, my students to know there was life outside the internet and video games.  I began scoffing at anything I deemed unworthy.  If it was pop culture, I did not want to hear about it.  I only wanted to discuss the great philosophies of life and debate their meanings.  I became obsessed with my own self importance and then as I read Sagan, my almost insignificance in the grand scale that is our universe.

Two things brought me out of my own head, a friend and of course my babies.  This blog was inspired in part by an old friend who travels the world taking photographs and sharing the stories of the subjects they display, those human experiences, connections.  He always seems to be reading and quoting something prophetic while being humble and approachable.  Definitely someone I want to be like when I grow up.  A few weeks ago though, he asked if any one had an old video game console he could borrow.  He said he needed to get back to basics for a while, connect with the child inside.  Hold the phone!  Then later that same day, my son wanted to watch Swamp People while singing the entire soundtrack of Frozen.  He is eight.  I cringed but you are only a kid once, so I left the room, grabbed Kerouac and put on an old episode of Cosmos.  A few minutes later, I realize not just one, but all four of my children are on my bed watching Cosmos, asking questions, answering each other and pausing the episode for bathroom breaks, and there it was.  My answer as usual lie within the human connections.  My friend was right to look for our child inside, that curious, wonderful, full of energy and light and questions youth.  He was not leaving his other pursuits behind, he just needed to reconnect with why he was pursuing them and so did I.  I sat there and watched several episodes with my babies until the day caught up with them and one by one I put them to bed.  I remembered a quote I had read by mathematician Blaise Pascal, ". . . it is much better to know something about everything than everything about something.  Such universality is the finest."  I had deemed things unworthy where it was not my place and I shut myself off from the real reason to read, curiosity, child like and simple, but still worthy and most of all, joyful.  I had become the "haunted life", "the living ghost".

Again, I say thank you to my friend whose photographs and stories inspired me to start this blog a year ago and whose words still remind me that my journey is evolving.  I say thank you to my children whose effervescence gives me the energy to evolve and finally, as always,

To you Harry from New Jersey with love from East Texas!

Update to Purple Petunias

Dear Harry

Just a quick update.  Texas EOC (End of Course) Exams are over and they happened to fall during National Teacher Appreciation Week. Coincidence, I think not. 

Today, we received tokens of appreciation from various students and student groups.  I just wanted to send the pictures of what we received.  Blessing come in small packages that have big impacts. (Please note the type and color of the potted plant.)

Purple Petunias

Dear Harry

I'm struggling Harry not to make this blog all woe is me.  I will do my best not to let my recent frustrations burn through the beautiful and positive things that have happened since I last wrote; however, for a teacher, this is the most stressful time of year.  I have spent hours planning, preparing, scouring for new and exciting lessons.  I have tried new games, integrated technology and read countless articles on how teenage minds work, how to counter act environmental influences, how to reach the fringe student and so on, all in preparation and hope that at the end of the year my freshmen babies will be able to pass the one math test that the great state of Texas says they need to graduate high school.

It's crunch time in Texas and for the past 3 weeks we have worked even harder, longer, somehow finding new ways to approach old lessons all the while continuing with curriculum.  Pre-crunch time, I was usually home by 6:30, sometimes 5:30 depending on my biological babies after school activities, but now, I'm lucky if I make it home before 8.  I'm home in time to kiss them goodnight and check homework before the nightly grading and or planning begins for my freshmen babies.  One more week, I have, to try every trick we teachers have compiled to battle the apathy that currently is our greatest enemy, to engage the students who have procrastinated all year and yet still hold true to our own beliefs about not teaching the test.  Eight months of preparation and hard work come to a 4 hour test in May.  Do I hope that I have instilled more in my students than test strategies? Absolutely. Do I hope that I have encouraged, enlightened and inspired my students? Most definitely.

Now all this stress is surrounded by life outside of work. My oldest went to her junior prom.  She looked beautiful.  All of the traditions and pomp and pageantry were observed, the gown, the hair, the make-up and the corsage.  My grandmother, her great-grandmother, made sure she had one.  It was perfect and a simple reminder that times change and technology marches us forward, but the gift of flowers is nothing short of marvelous no matter the generation.

I was in a wreck recently, no one but vehicles was injured and the other guys insurance is paying the bill, so although it's a hassle and my car doesn't look very pretty, I cannot complain against the blessing that I nor the others involved went unharmed.  We did make the front page of small town Texas and for a day or two I had my 15 minutes of fame, but as always, time marches us.

My blessings sometimes are not so obvious.  As every year, spring break beckons me to make plans for my garden.  Normally, I have tilled and planted by our return to school, but this year between late winter storms that included snow fall and an illness that knocked me down, my garden kept getting pushed back.  I would look longingly at that patch of earth as days turned into weeks and still I was unable to plant.  Now Easter weekend was upon us.  On Good Friday, I awoke and headed outside for my morning coffee before waking the kids.  My plan that day was to meet their grandmother so that they could spend the weekend together.  Would I be able to plant while they were away? In answer, I heard the sound that had been absent throughout the long winter months.  The buzz and hum that were too loud for a bee or wasp or even the rambling bumble bee.  I look up from my coffee and there just ahead, he winked.  My ruby-throated visitor of summer past had returned.  He hovered for a moment and I smiled.


My daily grind was getting me down, but the earth was still making her way around the sun.  I was not the only tired, working mom wondering if she had made a difference.  Humans around the globe were having their coffee, putting kids to bed, stressed at work, burying a loved one or welcoming one into this crazy beautiful world.

I traveled to the arranged meeting place and then headed to my local Lowe's.  I gathered tomatoes, peppers, squash and all of my usual, with a few things just for fun, like the mucho nacho giant jalapeño.  As I waited in line, an elderly gentlemen walked up behind me holding a pallet of purple petunias.  I offered to let him go first as he had only one item compared to my cart full.  He slowly smiled and shook his head, "No thanks, the sooner I check out, the sooner I'll have to get to work."  We both giggled.  The line was not moving so no harm in continuing the conversation.  He notices my bags of manure.  Again he smiles, "I love that brand, too.  I got 7 bags, almost 300 lbs, for 11 bucks.  My wife's flowers love it.  That's why I'm here.  Got the wrong kind last time.  She's the flower general that one.  Every year, our yard put on a show, but she got the Alzheimer's so now I make sure I plant her favorites in the box outside her window."

The lane next to us opened up and with a tip of his head, he moved to the register with his pallet of purple petunias.  I could not help the stunned look on my face nor could I stop my heart from turning over.  I imagine his gnarled hands at one time fixed manly things while his wife in her gardening hear maintained her home and yard with the precision of the general he said she was.  Now those gnarled hands dig through manure and sand to hopefully bring some semblance of normal back to their lives. I ache at the love those gnarled hands show a wife who may never again say the words.

So on Good Friday, I planted my garden with my mother for company and on Easter Sunday, I laughed with my sisters about everything and nothing.  Now a week later, on Monday, I will enter the final week before everything is out of my hands.  Some would argue that nothing is in my hands to start with, but that will not stop myself and thousands of others from doing our part.  It will not stop last minute reviews and pep talks, games and
pop quizzes.  Teachers can no more give up than gnarled hands can stop planting purple petunias.

Love keeps us moving forward, despite all obstacles,  despite life's continued roller coaster ride of surprise flat tires, unexpected expenses and unforgiving work hours, despite apathetic students who cannot show fear or interest for threat of peer retribution.

"Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more. . ."

Wish us luck Harry,
With love from east Texas

I love this too

A little change of pace Harry, but the words needed an outlet.

Birds playing in the rain.
I love the sounds, the light patter of the rain,
the bird's songs and chirps,
and the silence of everything else,
the sights, as flashes of red and blue blink through the still bare branches.
The thunder tells me it will not last long,
so I will savor this until the beauty of the storm takes over.

Ah, the beauty of the storm
all rage and roar, blustering winds and sideways rain.
I love this too.
The thunder you can feel in the rattle of window and shaking floors,
the fingers of light giving glimpses of the swaying trees.
I love the goosebumps and snuggles from small, worried arms.
Shh, I say, the storm will pass.
Sleep now, sleep now.

Sleep, the storm shall,
I love this too.
The thunder now fades,
the whistle farther down the track,
the moon a beacon without rocky shore guides.
I love the ring of light,
a halo through the clouds,
as ghostly trees shine,
drips punctuate the still left behind.
I love this too.
I listen now to birds again,
who sing to dawn brought by the man,
who smiles down in the night, rejoicing.

Shh, sleep now, sleep now.
I love this too.
The quiet of deep night,
its stillness wrapping the weary,
shh, sleep now, sleep now.

Hope the storms your way were just as cleansing as the ones through my neck of the woods.
To Harry from New Jersey, with love from east Texas via a thunderstorm in the night.

Rites of Passage

Well Harry, another chance meeting, another moment frozen in a mind, another day where strangers become fast friends. Valentine's Day, a day for sharing our love with its history varied and bloody, but I try to stay in the spirit.  This year, it is one of those weird off days for my school.  Bad weather days that are built in and if not used, we get to stay home.  I suppose that is only a southern thing as I watch the news of the north hit yet again by blowing snow and crushing ice.

On the 13th, I watch young love spread over my high school as teddy bears and chocolates were given and shared.  I saw cheeks bloom with that fresh blush as the no PDA rule was tested again and again and young hearts burst with joy and sorrow over their Valentine's.  I teased appropriately as young girls walked into my classroom carrying the proof of that undying devotion only the young seem to carry so easily.  All of them convinced that this was the best day of their lives.  I secretly thought, "I hope not." My hope for them is to thinks of this day with love, to think of it with a happy smile, but hopefully not the greatest moment.  I hope they have many great moments, sad moments, but I suppose it is a kind of rite of passage.  We all remember our high school crush, some more fondly than others.  I think of my fickle heart in high school and how my crush seemed to change with the seasons.

On Valentine's Day, instead of pampering myself with chocolate and champagne, I woke early so that I could take my eldest for her own rite of passage, the driver's test.  We rode in near silence, I in the passenger seat, her getting in a little last minute practice.  We arrived at the DMV, appropriate paper work in hand and proceeded to wait our turn.  There were several other hopefuls in line accompanied by parents who looked just as nervous as their charges.  It came time and my daughter headed out with the instructor, all jangling nerves and brittle smiles.

The parallel parking portion of the test would be first.  As the instructor had her test mirrors and lights, I and the others watched through the window and the recollections began.  "I took my test in an old Ford with a 3 speed on the column," said a grandmother.  "I took mine in a station wagon.  I still don't know how I passed," a mother said.  My own test was taken in a blue Ford Aerostar.  I, too, do not remember how I passed.  Now, they are off.  We can see the parallel parking portion from our vantage point, orange cones that look to close together.  We all watch with baited breath.  Some of us trying to remember our own, others trying to get pointers on how to pass when their turn comes up.

"She's doing good," said the grandmother.  "Cut the wheel a little harder," I breathe.  Then she's done it.  She's pulling back out and headed off to the road portion of the test.  We all look at each other as the cheers and applause ring off the dull tan walls of the DMV.  Smiles greet each waiting face.  Now I wait for her return, but not alone.  These strangers wait with me.  We all hope she returns smiling.  We all fear she will not.  Only minutes pass before I see her return but they are the long minutes of time reserved for the waiting.  As she gets out of the car and heads in, her face gives me no clue.  Once inside, she sees me and even though it is a little shaky with nerves, she holds up that score sheet and beams at me.  Again, the cheers resound.  Congratulations are given and other hopefuls take a breath.  "If she can do it, so can I."  A few final words from the instructor and we are off again.  Her paper driver's license in hand.  I offer to let her drive home, but she shakes her head, "No thanks mom, you are still the better driver." Always humble and gracious my girl.  I did not have the heart to mention that it probably had more to do with shaking hands and the need to text friends of her new status.  As I head to her school, that did not get the same holiday as mine, we chat now about the car she wants, the job she will get.

Again, I am assaulted by my own remembrances of my first car, my first job.  I wave her off at school with one more congratulations and how proud I am of her, but my mind is still traveling backwards instead of forwards.  I spend the rest of the day doing a little retail therapy in the hopes my past will be forgotten, to somehow restart my forward thought.

At the end of the day as I happily make a congratulatory dinner and listen to the children make plans for where their sister will take them in her as of now nonexistent car, I receive an urgent email to call my aunts.  It seems, Harry, that this Valentine's Day would be a day of love, but of love remembered, love shared in the past.  My grandfather, my mother's father, had succumbed to his weakened heart.  Why had they called me you ask instead of my mother.  Well, good question.  I being the eldest on our side, was nominated since my mother was several thousand miles away in Costa Rica, her favorite place on this earth, her second home.

I was charged with getting in touch with her, with relaying funeral arrangements and other details, and then back to the aunts and grandmother he left behind.  I had to tell my mother through email that her father was gone.  It was necessary as we did not have a way to call and I had to tell her, but it will be a moment that I will have to forgive myself as she does not blame me.  It seems a kind of weird circle as the roles were reversed some twenty years ago when my mother had to tell me of my father's passing and serve as liaison to his family as I was too young.  I suppose that is part of what troubles me. She told me in person and was there to comfort me, while I had to tell her when my arms could not reach her.

So my children and I traveled west to say our final goodbyes.  He was remembered on a Thursday, bright and shiny with a bit of gusty wind.  After flight delays and missed connections, my mother had made it as well as many others.  I was finally able to give her the hug I was desperate for and the comfort I felt she needed although I suppose a child will always want the feeling of being wrapped in her mother's arms. We grandchildren many each said a little something, more I think, for our grandmother than ourselves.  Family never seen before gave their condolences and cousins forgotten were now remembered and greeted as old friends.  Happy smiles warred with teary eyes as each person reconciled with their own faith.

It was a week for rites of passage, Harry.  Some joyful, some sorrowful but all parts of each of our lives.  Death is our final rite, Harry.  As mortals, we struggle with it, we fear it, we either rush towards it or struggle to fight against it at different points along our paths.  We plan for it like it is some exotic vacation, but it is inevitable.

I have called my grandmother more since his death than I did in the six months before.  I slowed down enough to realize that that is all she wants from me, a voice on the phone and maybe a visit now and then.  She knows I love her, but she does not know my little joys, my triumphs, my worries.  I always speak of those random connections that unite us humans, this time I remembered that they do not always have to be random.

So here is to joy remembered, family united and random connections, Harry.  A little poem from my grandfather, Howard Hill, 1927-2014.

                       Miss Me - But Let Me Go
              
                          When I come to the end of the road
                          And the sun has set for me.
                          I want no rites in a gloom filled room 
                          Why cry for a soul set free?

                         Miss me a little - but not too long
                         And not with your heard bowed low.
                         Remember the love that we once shared.
                         Miss me - but let me go.

                        For this a journey we all must take
                        And each must go alone.
                         It's all part of the Master's plan
                        A step on the road to home.

                       When you are lonely and sick of heart
                        Go to the friends we know
                        And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
                        Miss me - but let me go.


As always, to you Harry from New Jersey, with love from east Texas via the great beyond.