Outliers

I have struggled this week to find a consistent topic.  So many thoughts to try and reign in and find a pattern.  As an Algebra fan, my analytical brain craves patterns. When those patterns elude me, the thoughts seem to just run amok, chaos.  Random characters are chosen and connected to others in hopes that a pattern will emerge.  Like some kind of cypher that if I just keep trying to find the key code it will all make sense.  Sleep has been a missed friend this week.  I have tried working in the yard to the point of exhaustion in hopes I'll be able to welcome him back.  Even still, I awoke at 4 am and followed along with a power yoga class on TV.

I am sure that in part my whirling thoughts are due to my return to the classroom.  The nervous yet excited jitters all teachers feel.  The lists of things I need to do jumbled with the knowledge that inservice next week will add many items to my list.  Do I have all my supplies?  Do my kids have all their supplies?  Oh yeah, meet the teacher night at their schools and mine, is the laundry done, probably should mow before I go back, better clean the bathroom, do I have back to school dinners?  Oh wait, we have to pick up Leslie's schedule before the others and Lily's dance uniforms need to be ordered.  Do I make that first day video now or wait till I have those new pics from inservice?  Does Mrs. Magee need any help with the mentees and is my mentee feeling welcome?

I could go on and I'm sure many of you have the same day to day to do list that runs in your head, but I also have quiet moments where everything seems to slow down.  I feel the cool breeze that has blessed our Texas mornings.  The half moon that lit up my lawn like a night light that doesn't charge my electric bill.  The stars at 4 am are the most clear and I simply stare and wonder.

One moment will stay with me.  My oldest and I were running errands, orthodontist appointment, prescription pick up, pay a bill or two and we stopped for drinks.  The gas station was crowded and so we parked in an odd spot out back.  I noticed two men sitting on the edge of the lot, their bikes beside them under the small spot of shade the odd tree provided.  I had seen them before around town and as before, a small pack of dogs sat in the shade with them.  Their constant companions despite the heat.  I stood outside and smoked while my oldest ran in, "Get two extra bottles of water, OK?"
          "OK, why?"
          "For the dogs." My Leslie glanced over, noticed the group and shrugged.  No hesitation, no second questions, just acceptance.  She humbles me often with her sharp wit, quiet nature and unflagging willingness to help others, whether it be tutoring after school or making lunch for her brothers.  She just shrugs and goes about her day.  Kindness is simply her nature.

She comes out of the store and I expect her to bring me the water to take over but instead she walks up to the gentlemen, hands them the water and says, "For the dogs." She then walks over to the car and gets in, having simply nodded at his thanks.  I watch as the man pulls a plastic bag over and makes a bowl.  Without so much as a drink for himself, he begins to pour the water.  The dogs calmly begin to drink without a sound.  As I put out my cigarette, he looks up.  He places a closed fist over his heart, closes his eyes and gives me a nod.  I believe it was one of the most poignant thank yous of my life.  Without words, I felt his appreciation and again I was humbled by such a simple gesture.



Then the whirlwind begins again.  Don't forget to water the garden, feed the animals, four legged and two.  I wonder if Wal-Greens has the shots Lily needs before 7th grade, nothing like the last minute.  When does Leslie need that white shirt for band?  I wonder when and if Boy Scouts will start up again?  Crap, I forgot to turn off the sprinkler.  Probably should grab the last of the figs before they waste.

The speed at which my mind turns scares me.  How will I possibly get it all done?  Just when I think I'll scream for it has begun to be too much, I feel a cool breeze, see the clear stars of early morning and remember a fist over the heart.  Yes, time travels at the speed of light as do my thoughts, but sometimes, the whirring stops, sounds fade and a stillness sets in, a calm.  Those moments are the ones.  So instead of trying to find my pattern, this time, I found the outlier, that random point in a data set that throws off the line of fit and saw it not as something to be thrown out, so the function can be found, but as a moment all its own, where I can stop the chaos and be calm.

Now, what am I going to wear tomorrow? If I wear the pink dress, what shoes? Etc, etc, etc!

Finding a Passion

October 2010

What do I want to do? I am at an impasse as they say.  I have fought for the past 10 years to earn my degree in Mathematics so that I may provide a better future for my children and for some warped sense of self fulfillment.  Now, even as I write, it sits in the envelope from the university, just behind my computer.  It sits there where I know it’s there but not where I can actually see it.  Do I want to pursue a little more education and receive my teaching certificate or has the whole search for the degree left me with a bad taste in my mouth?  

For the past two years, I have been gainfully unemployed.  I am a ward of the state so to speak.  I have applied for approximately 2 jobs per week since September of 2009.  It is now October of 2010.  So in total, I have applied for approximately 104 jobs varying from secretary to insurance agent to register clerk at Dollar General.  Oh, I work part time here and there, a waitress, a sometimes assistant to my dad, even a hotel clerk for about a minute, but nothing full time. No career that is supposed to fulfill the missing piece of my soul.  So I repeat, what do I want to do?  I want to watch my children grow. I want to sleep on Sundays and listen as the birds wake me up to a quiet sunrise.  I want to talk homework and boys and Buzz Lightyear and then marriage and grandchildren and sports and the economy. I want to travel. I want to see Venice at night as the stars and lights of that ancient city glitter off the water. I want to smell Ireland as I sit on one of its famous rock walls surrounded by such a green that even HD TV can not do it justice.  I want to feel the cold of Alaska as I crunch through newly fallen snow at the base of a mountain that is still ruled, not by man, but by nature.  I want to feel the heat of Rio as my heart pounds along with the music of Carnival. Then I want to do it all over again and watch my children taste the world through their clear eyes that see far better than ours.  

I took them to the beach this year. Just a little beach on the coast of Texas with its oil invested waters and tourist shops and I was in awe.  They ran full out and let the water take them.  No complaining about how dirty or how the derricks in the distance ruined the view.  They simply ran and dove and did it again and again until they couldn’t stand anymore.  Their eyes simply could not take it all in fast enough.  I have seen the waters of the Caribbean.  I have swam in a cenote of Mexico and surfed the beaches of Zihuataneho and yet, I haven’t done anything as joyful as watching my children play in the brown water of the Gulf of Mexico.  I had become so jaded as to what was fun, what was acceptable that I forgot to breathe.  I keep forgetting to breathe.  As a young daughter needing to be strong for my mother or as a teenager desperately trying to make everyone like me or now as a jaded adult sure in my own self righteousness, I keep forgetting to breathe.  

Why do we do that? Why do we look out at the world and only see the electric bill, the water bill and the mortgage? Part of me, the logical, rational side, says, "Because those are the basic calls of humanity." What brought us out of the primordial ooze, the need for food, shelter and companionship.  All of which of course are better achieved with a job. A  J. O. B.  The other side of me though, the one that still believes in fairies and happily ever after says, "No worries.  The money will come. It will all work out and everyone will find their way.  Just Breathe Woman."  Where’s the balance? How do we find that yin and yang salvation location where the bills are paid and we can truly say we are happy?

Present Day 

For me, it began when I made the decision to get my teaching certificate. It took me another year after this self loathing diatribe to achieve and several thousand dollars later, but thanks to the wonderful ladies at Region VII, tons of support from friends and family,  and a fortuitous moment where a local school district needed a math teacher, in the fall of 2011, I became a gainfully employed educator! I wish I could write that I chose the teaching profession because I had a great passion to change the world one child at a time, but alas, I can not. I originally chose it, because I am a mother of four and teaching provided a schedule that fit theirs. 

My first year was a lesson in survival to say the least, but it also proved that sometimes, we find our passion not by choice, but by default.  Most believe that after that final bell rings on that last day of school, teachers simply pack up to tropical destinations and drink fruity things with an umbrella in it till they magically appear back in their classrooms the next fall.  I discovered this is a true fantasy. I, as many others in my profession, did not head off for Bora Bora, I headed off for the wilds of Kilgore, TX, the location of our Region VII service center,  with many of my colleagues to become better. I found that I did not like just surviving in my classroom, I wanted to shine. I spent a total of 100 hours that summer in session after session on how to improve my teaching. I spent more hours online to find resources and watching webinars. I immersed myself in all things education.  My second year, well, it was better than the first. I did not go home crying every night, but again this past summer, I have spent another 100 hours in training sessions along with working on my PLNs or personal learning networks. I have begun conversing with educators around the globe to find new ways to engage my students. 

Why? I am a teacher. I don't just see brooding teenagers with huge chips on their shoulders. I see minds that have no idea at the beauty their world has to offer. I don't see whiny spoiled young adults who are perpetually logged in to social media. I see the opportunity of bright futures. Somewhere between just simply being happy to be employed and today, I found my passion. 

Have I been able to travel to Venice or Ireland?  No, but I did receive a hug from a former gang member who told me thank you for letting him have a piece of paper on which to draw. Have I danced at Carnival? No, but I had a student tell me thank you for making math fun again. I found I don't have to remind myself to breathe. I found that I connect better with my biological children because we are in the trenches together now. I do get to sleep on Sundays and listen to the birds. I found my salvation location in the halls of a high school. Now with the beginning of my third year just around the corner, I take a deep breath and let my passion guide me. 

 My friend Harry said, "It's a calling." He is right as he was on many things, I just took a while to realize it. So, in answer to my own question, "What do I want to do?" I want to teach! 

Thanks again Harry from New Jersey with love from East Texas!

Back to School

A hummingbird visits me each morning as I sit and drink my coffee and read my digital version of the newspaper.  I hear him, his flutter louder than the bees and other morning sounds, and so I look up.  Just there, not three feet from my face, he hovers. His wings a blur and his green, glossy feathers shimmering in the morning sun.  I smile and say, "Good morning," and then, he is off.  He comes everyday and I have come to watch for him.  He reminds me to enjoy the nature that surrounds me and her beauty that is eternal.  He only stays but a moment, yet they are as bright as the shooting star I watched as I wrote this.  His visits will end soon as summer fades and he travels to warmer climates, but I will look for him next spring, just as I watch the night for one more streaking wish.

A few days ago, I learned of the loss of an icon.  She never had her name in lights or a twitter following, but to many primary students, she introduced the joys of creating music.  Mrs. Harper had the energy to keep up with hundreds of them and the vivaciousness to keep them entertained.  She entertained me in the first grade, as she did my dad, and all the students in between.  I had Mrs. Booker in the first grade, a stern, giant of a woman.  Her room was on an outside walkway and it was very orderly to say the least.  Everything was this pale blue at Kaufman Primary School from the walls to the doors.  We would walk along that outside walkway, rain or shine, Mrs. Booker in the lead, whistle in hand, our little legs scrambling to keep up.  Through the giant double doors with their multiple panes of glass we trooped, past the restrooms on the right, down the inside steps and then to the left and through another set of double doors, these covered with bright images of instruments and musical notes.  There, just beyond, waited a very small woman with fluttering hands and a soothing voice.  There were no desks or rows in Mrs. Harper's class.  We sat on the blue carpet and her classroom helpers passed out sticks and bells, kazoos and tambourines and we were free.  Laughter and joy surrounded each of us as we made our music on that blue carpet.   Raucous and off key it was, but it was ours.

To me, she is like that hummingbird.  Each fall she brought us joy and she was there to greet each new generation with a quiet flutter and the shimmer of a tambourine.  The continuity of it, the routine brings me peace.  The thought of not seeing those green feathers is as disturbing to me as generations never meeting Mrs. Harper.

As the marketing gurus of print and screen remind me everyday, the return to school is just around the corner.  My plans for the first day activities and of course that first day of school outfit go into overdrive.  I'm making plans to get supply lists for my children and making a supply list of my own. Today at Wal-Mart, further reminders greeted me around every corner as "Mrs. Nolan," was heralded through the aisles. One former student caught me off guard and before I knew it, I was wrapped in a hug and talking about this year's tough Cross Country running schedule.  My boys, my biological children as I must distinguish since they are all my kids, will enter second grade, my Lily will officially be in middle school having reached the 7th, and my first baby will be a junior in high school.  I think back to my teachers, to my first day of school in each of their places.  Some of my teachers are still there, Miss Kerr, Mr. Feller, but most have moved on like the hummingbird. In second grade, Mrs. Covington will not greet them at the door as she too has been called home.

Yet, new students will be greeted.  They will be introduced to music and dance and history and science and of course, mathematics.  I and my fellow teacher warriors will have welcome back posters and silly first day videos.  We will compliment new shoes and ooh and awe over shiny back packs and mechanical pencils.  We will hug returning friends from class's past and wish them well on their next year.  Again, the continuity of it brings me peace.

I do feel a loss as I know I must say goodbye to the hummingbird, but it is fleeting.  As every teacher knows, we do not judge time by four seasons, but three, fall semester, spring semester and summer.  They rotate around each year and we welcome the fall crop of smiling faces and then say goodbye in the spring.  Once ours, they really never leave us. They simply move on to warmer climates until we greet them again somewhere.  This year, as I look forward, lesson plans and testing schedules and my hair standing on end, I will hear the hovering hummingbird and the shake of a tambourine and know this too is fleeting.  I will remember what they have taught me.  That I must enjoy the beauty around me everyday and to never stop making my own music.

So for now, goodbye Mrs. Harper and Godspeed!

The Momma Mobile

Any person of any age remembers the car that drove them to school, to grandma's and let's not forget those family vacations. We have pictures and memories of each location, but what brought us there?

My earliest memory of the momma mobile is the Chevy Citation, that two tone wonder with faux leather seats.  In the summer, you had to remember to bring a towel or second degree burns greeted you. In the winter, you never seemed warm. The windows were hand cranked and there was no stereo, just a radio. As simple as it was, it carried us to Christmas delights in the wilds of West Texas, to camping trips and pool side. It was where I blew my first bubble. It ended its life in those wilds of West Texas and I was introduced to the new momma mobile, the Pontiac 6000. A solid white station wagon where I spent many a road trip against the very back window with all the luggage. Before seat belt laws and child safety restraints, I would doze among the suitcases as mom sang along to Janice, Carole and Joni.

It was this momma mobile that greeted the additions to our little family. Now it carried four children and we listened to Dad sing along to George, Hank and Johnny. One Christmas Eve though, we made a memory in that Pontiac that brings a smile each year no matter where I am. It was late as we traveled home from the Wilson's Christmas Eve. Santa would hopefully come considering it was well past midnight and we were not in our beds. Children sleepy yet too excited, parents weary yet happy, "I Wanta Wish you a Merry Christmas" came on the radio.  All six voices joined in and we sang at a definitely unrespectful volume.  None of us knew the Spanish words but that did not deter our merriment.  When the song ended, the smiles and giggles remained and they remain still some 20 odd year later.

As fate would have it, the Pontiac met her demise as well in West Texas. She climbed her last hill in Comanche. Her engine replaced she made it to my teenage years but her spark was gone.  Our next momma mobile was the latest and greatest of engineering marvels, the minivan, a Ford Aerostar stood blue in the sun.  Now we four had plenty of room to spread out, no longer could we fight about who sat with the luggage.  It was in the Aerostar that I took my driving test.  It was in this momma mobile I carried my brother and sisters to school.  By the end of her days, the sliding door wouldn't open and we crawled out the front, but she will forever be my first car.

Now, I have four children of my own.  I carry them to school, dance class, football games and Boy Scouts. Our latest momma mobile was again a blue Ford minivan, although, it's now called a Windstar. Its windows were electric, and it had dual sliding doors, but a minivan she was.  She has carried us camping, family vacations and through my daughter's first driving lessons. I wonder what they will remember about her. Will it be how the twins drew self portraits in Sharpie on the back of the middle seat? Will it be how one of the sliding doors stopped working and the other had its days? Or will it be how it was the car that took them fishing for the first time?  She carried me through my teacher certification training and as she approached mile marker 180,000, she had begun to have a serious hitch in her gitty up. She was on her last leg as I drove into the Ford house last Saturday afternoon. We both knew her time had come.

Brian Faulk met me outside and shook my hand as well as the hand of my companion.  Both of us share the same first name and as most people do, he grinned and said, "Well, that makes it easy."  We looked at all the shiny cars and the latest of momma mobiles, the SUV.  Minivans have been deemed uncool, then, Brian showed me the Flex.  As destiny would have it, she was white.  Although not called a station wagon, she makes you think of those days of old when the "woodie" carried children to school or the Brady's to their next crazy adventure. For me, she sang "I Wanta Wish you a Merry Christmas" and had me looking for days gone by.  So we chatted us two Rachels and Brian, while the finance man worked his magic. I learned Brian had three children of his own and smiled when he said, "Bless your heart," when he learned of my profession.  He gave us a crazy grin and awarded us the "most miles on a Windstar".  They gave me $500 for her and after a little help from Dad on the down payment, the Ford Flex was ours to drive away.

Now she has all the current bells and whistles from a self lifting back door to heated seats. She is a far cry from the blue minivan I left behind that in memory is worth more than $500.  We picked up the kids in her on Monday afternoon and watched in gleeful delight as they marveled at the updated momma mobile; however, she was not christened quite yet.  Not until Adele came on and we six sang along to "Set Fire to the Rain". A whisper of a moment where I swore the Pontiac 6000 lived on and Santa would be on his sleigh.

The momma mobile is sometimes our first car, sometimes that vehicle where we pray she runs and sometimes she carries us to destinations new and exciting.  Although, I updated her, stories of memories will forever be started with, "Remember when we went to so in so, we were in the blue van then."  Our cars are not just metal and plastic and rubber wheels, they don't just carry us around, they carry our connections to time and space.  I write and wonder where this one will take me. What will my children remember of her?  To Brian at All-Star, you didn't just sell me a car, you gave me a way to future memories.  I hope they be as joyous as those of her predecessors.

Growing Things

My mother is a grower, a grower of children, of plants, of faith. She has always nurtured those around her with kind words and a helping hand. In my youth, she always had plants, from giant elephant ears in huge pots that are older than me to aloe vera in small pots that soothed sun kissed skin. She would work endlessly in garden rows weeding and watering. I loathed it. I would lay in the sun on the deck of our pool and watch her puttering in the heat and think she was a crazy person. She was always trying to get her children to help, to find the joy in the planting of something and watching it grow to bear fruit. I would whine and pout and trade any chore to not have to venture the few steps to the garden for any reason. It was always there and yet I cannot recall any time I willingly ventured into it. I cannot recall anything she grew other than tomatoes and that, only because she would make homemade salsa.

Growing up in small town Texas, my only thought when I graduated high school was to find the first city and live the urban life and so I did. I ran hard and fast to those city streets where delivery men would bring you everything from pizza to pharmacy items, where a car was superfluous and the train took me everywhere I needed to go. There was noise on every corner and the pace was swift. Patience was neither a virtue nor a necessity as rushing was a part of the game. The only gardens I passed were well groomed borders outside high rises and apartment buildings. Concrete replaced grass and no tree was older than me much less older than three generations. My few attempts at adding potted plants to my urban dwelling, proved fruitless. Actually, I could kill them at quite an alarming rate. I once killed a cactus and an ivy, so I gave up the art of growing things, much to my mother's chagrin.

Once my oldest daughter came of school age though, I started seeing our apartment life through her eyes. I started asking those questions of the right school, where would she ride a bike, where would she run? The answer was inevitable. I happily gave up the urban life for that corner of the world next door to my mother. Returning to small town Texas took something of an adjustment. In the city, you never made eye contact. People who did were either crazy or selling something, so when I walked into our local grocery store and the entire check out counter turned and smiled and said, "Hello", I jumped about 3 foot high. I had forgotten what it was like to be welcome, to be an individual instead of just another number in a long line.

There were other adjustments. Patience here, is a virtue and a blessing as the pace is set not by clocks or deadlines, but by conversations. There is no running in and out of the store. Here, people do not let anyone pass without a hello or at least the nod of their head. Traffic, well, what little traffic there is, is not in any hurry to get anywhere. Missed lights are just that, missed. You simply wait for the next one.

I found myself on several acres of land but what to do with it, so last year I decided to plant a garden. Oh horror of horrors, I was becoming my mother. So I consulted books and the Internet and bought the appropriate tools and began to cultivate a small area for tomatoes, squash, onions, carrots and watermelons. I also had cantaloupe, pole beans and cucumber. My mother that grower of growers came to see my progress. She seemed fairly pleased but underneath her brave face I know she said a silent prayer for each plant as she foresaw their doom. My previous track record as her guide, she believed I would soon prove to be a mass murderer. I couldn't blame her really. I mean, a cactus, really, who kills a cactus?

So every available hour, I spent weeding and watering. What I found though was that it wasn't the work I had once thought it to be. These tiny plants were in my care and how could I let them be suffocated by bull nettle and dandelions or let them grow thirsty in the Texas sun. It wasn't any different than the same nurturing I would never deny my children. My children who unlike their selfish mother, found such pride and yes, joy in the growing of things. Some days they beat me to it. They would check each plant and make reports on new blooms, new baby watermelons, where the bull nettle was trying to take hold. They would walk the rows with me and ask questions and give their intriguing theories on how the sun and water could make anything grow."Just like us, huh, mom?" Yes, I would say, just like you.  We harvested squash, we made salsa from our own tomatoes and onions, we looked desperately for any type of watermelon recipe to keep up with our production.

The planted garden though, brought our attention to the other things growing in our yard. We found blackberries, figs, and wild grapes. Again, the google searches ran wild for recipes. My children happily smashed grapes and figs for jelly, but even greater was that I realized that google did not have all the answers. It was like my mother who had been there all along came into focus. I finally had something solid to share with my mother the grower. She spent several afternoons, with her grandchildren and sure gel, ladling hot fruit syrup into Ball jars. She would step outside and smile at the garden I now lovingly tended. I wonder how many times she giggled at the irony.This year we planted bigger. The planning beginning well before the winter ended as each child was allowed to pick their own plant. One chose a tomato plant called a Lemon Boy. It produces these almost neon yellow fruit that are just as yellow on the inside as on the outside. Each day my son would travel to the garden and talk to the plant like it was one of his best friends. He would notice each new leaf, each bloom and when it bore its first fruit he was like a dad in a delivery room, flushed with pride but not sure what to do. Today, I rushed to harvest tomatoes, jalapenos and chilies before the rain forced me inside. I spent the rest of the afternoon canning my harvest. My mother does not have to come this year to show me how it's done, she simply enjoys the fruits of my labor.

She looked at my garden the other day with a wistful smile. "What are you thinking?" I asked. "I was just trying to picture what the land looked like before you started this beautiful garden. It's funny, but I can't remember the weeds." She said.  There my friends is the lesson in joy, in growing things and in life. Once you make that step, that joyful step towards something new, something passion demands whatever it may be, the ugliness you left behind becomes vague and indistinct. It was there in your past but now, all that remains is the beauty.

My mother is a grower. A grower of children, of plants and of faith. Her faith was the one I did not see in my youth. Her faith that her children would one day be a grower as well. She did not know what we would grow, but she knew we would. Her children have brought her 12 grandchildren so far. We all live very different lives in very different ways, yet I see her in each of us. Our passion for education, our faith in our children and in my new love of growing things. It is a simple joy, to harvest what one has planted, but no less a joy. It is a joy that I pass to my children as my shocked mother has passed it to me. In my search for those human connections, I found one very close to home. My mother has taught me many things as mothers do, but this simple joy of growing things, I will treasure, always.

San Antonio

Well Harry, it seems that New Jersey's love of Texas has been reaffirmed. I traveled to the Alamo City for CAMT (Council for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching) this week. I was accompanied on this journey by several of my fellow mathematics colleagues. These ladies and gentlemen and 6,000 of our peers gathered to share our knowledge and new techniques, but mostly, we shared our joy. Joy for teaching mathematics, for our students and most importantly, for each other.

When I last traveled to San Antonio, instead of being the driver, I was the drivee. I was a student of history then. Mrs. Shehee gathered us 75 7th graders on the big yellow limousine and off we went to "Remember the Alamo". I did remember the Alamo, but as some static figure whose walls stood bright in the sun. I remember San Antonio as vivid flashes of color and constant music, how Valerie Caldwell was the only one of us small town girls who knew to tip the bellman. I recall the drama of Jr high life, Jason Sherman had a crush on Kelley Davis and I had broken up with Doug Koller just before we left. I giggle at our naivety and yet, cherish it. My return is still vivid colors and constant music, but this time instead of rushing to the next place, I found myself rushing to the next encounter, my next human experience.

Our hotel sat on the Riverwalk these great engineering marvels of stone and steel and glass. My first night was very similar to my first night long ago, as my roommate and I chatted like school girls at a slumber party till the wee hours of the morning. Although, this time, instead of boys and fashion, it was kids and fashion and no one's underwear was stolen.

The next day dawned and we were off. I listened to speakers on technology, pros and cons, the challenges of public schools and new techniques to reach the next generation. For four days, wherever I turned, math geeks of the highest order whose sole purpose was to try to find ways to be better teachers, better educators, better people, flowed through the halls of the convention center. There was laughter and smiles and joy. Throughout this past school year, I struggled to maintain my joy in the daily grind of time limits and testing pressure. As I approach the new school year, I find that as those restraints begin to bind, I will remember 6,000 smiling faces and know that no matter what, the joy remains.

I visited the Alamo again and her walls still stood bright in the sun. Her cannons now rusting in the Texas heat with landscaped lawn, but there was more. A stillness surrounds her despite the constant ebb and flow people.  They do not call her a museum, but a shrine. A place "bigger than Texas" they proclaim on the wall, a place of reflection instead of a place of relics. She does not want your awe. She simply sits patiently waiting for you. Time to remember why she still stands.  Time to travel back, here the bells calling priests to prayers, to hear the cannon fire, the screams of men and feel the tears of the women who mourned them, smell the destruction, the pain and the struggle that caused her to become a place of birth and new life. I stood in the same room as other women and children did during the siege of the Alamo. I toured the barracks of the priests who had originally built her. Earlier this summer, I stood in our nation's capitol and read our Declaration of Independence. That day, I stood and read another nation's Declaration of Independence. I connected the two, the similarities, the differences, yet, all were simply written by humans in defense of the same principles. I gave her my time and she gave me that human connection for which I continue to search.

One evening, we colleagues five, who span the teaching spectrum from relative newbie to wizened veteran, sat on the Riverwalk and just were. We ate and laughed and ate some more. We talked to those passersby and shared in the experiences of mothers with sleepy babies, vendors whose personalities brought smiles to tired, sweaty tourists, Mariachi bands who did not mind when we sang along in Texas accents. We watched children feed bread to the ducks and pigeons despite the signs that ask you not too. We listened to the whir of motors as the river tours continued into the night.  Hours passed like blinks. All of us tired from the days events, all of us a little grimy from the heat, but each of us enjoying that space in time when we were just people, sharing the night.

In one moment though, as I stepped away from the crowd to the lonely places smokers are designated, I found a little reminder of you Harry. A woman joined me. She smiled as she introduced herself and her granddaughter. I stand only 5'4" and she barely came to my shoulder with silver hair that fell down her back.  As I heard her voice,  I knew that she was from that same small speck of the world as you, Harry. She told me how much they were enjoying San Antonio and how such a blessing it was that the humidity was so low. I laughed and asked her how 70% humidity was low. They smiled and said, "We're from Florida." She questioned my furrowed brow and I explained how I had placed her accent as from New Jersey. Her eyes shone with a held back tear and she gasped and told me no one had guessed the place of her birth. I almost told her of you then Harry, but she went on to tell me how she had come to Florida and then Texas and I did not want to interrupt. She told me that she was here as a representative of the Sister City program and how it was an organization that brought people from around the globe together to talk in a one on one setting, to communicate despite our differences. I almost cried then Harry and knew I had to pull out my phone to share the story of you. She kindly read it and I saw as the knowledge dawned that I have been on a similar journey.

We put out our cigarettes and began to part ways. She gave me her card, wished me well and told me, "Find Harry." So, I write and maybe in this digital land of opportunity, I will find you Harry. In the meantime, I will continue to find my joy and those human experiences.

So wherever you are Harry from New Jersey, love from East Texas by way of San Antonio.

Birthday 35

I hit a milestone earlier this year when I turned 35. To many, this is but a blip on the age radar but I confess my vanity took a blow. I also confess that I hope to have many similar blows to that vanity. I am reposting the story of my salvation in this new format as requested, but also so that I have time to process a new experience or I should say many new experiences.

Birthday 35

I turned 35 today at 2:44 pm. Holy cow! 35! I wanted to celebrate by being pampered and lazy and wallowing in my own self-pity as I hit that middle milestone of my 30s,that hump day of years that tells me I’m now sliding towards 40. No such luck I’m afraid. My sons who conned me into letting them join Boy Scouts this year had a troop family camping trip on this particular day, just another Saturday in their lives. So after much whining, wallowing and general pathetic, I loaded up the cooler and assorted camping gear along with my four children and out we headed for the wilds of East Texas.
Personally, I had not been camping since my oldest now 15 going on 16 was still in diapers and then it was the whole family, brother, sisters and parents. We arrive, the unloading begins. Girls squabbling, boys running amuck. Now to put up the tent. The tent that my father owned. The tent my father and mother took my sister and me camping in every chance they had. The tent of which I have so many childhood memories.
As I and some of the other Boy Scout parents put up the tent, I can smell the past. It comes rushing at me so fast I can’t take it all in. The sound the zipper makes at night when the world is quiet in the dark with only the stars for light. It’s so loud it hurts your ears, the feel of the tarp, cool and crinkly beneath your feet. There it stood my home away from home. The tent that is as old as me smiling at me with its zipper teeth and so I sit and smile back and let the tears fall as I watch the ghost of my father grabbing a fishing pole or a beer or heading off for a game of horseshoes. He laughs as he shows me how to cast my first line. The smell of the seven’s dust mom has sprinkled over my shoes and ankles to prevent chiggers and ticks. The way the sun sets over the lake at Brown Ranch, the crackle of wood as I walk to see my first beaver’s dam. Oh the smell of that campfire where wondrous delights magically appeared out of a cast iron Dutch oven. Wave after wave of sensation hit me as the tent never faltered in its smile. I was so young, so free. There was nothing I’d rather do than wake up on a cool summer morning and hear that gunshot zipper just to watch the sun rise. Then off we go, Troup 412, nature hike commences and the smell of sulfur follows.
Then it’s time for fishing. The patient man’s game. I stand apart as the troop leader lets my son bait a hook and the whispers begin. The smells begin. Oh they come so fast so deep. The bait shop on the corner of Washington St and Hwy 175 where we would bag our own minnows, scoop our own night crawlers, the bright flash of a lewer, the bend and sway of a good cane pole, the click of a Zepco reel. And then whoosh, he’s done it. My Ryan has cast his first line. I feel the shove, slight but steady and hear the whisper, “He’s got too much slack in that line. Show him how it must be, Rachel, show him.” I reach out and gently reel as I say, “See your line, all those curls, it should be almost straight.” “That’s a girl.”
As my arms wrapped around my son, my father’s wrapped around me. He smiled and winked. I saw him there casting and reeling and casting. “He was never still.” I say. “My dad, I would sit and watch my bobber and he’d be halfway around the lake.” Those around me just smile. They can’t see him, just there, casting. They can’t hear him. They can’t feel him, but I know he’s right here, casting and walking.
Over the years, his memory fades his face less distinct, his voice unclear. I attest it to time. I’ve had more years without him than I did with him. It troubled me but time marches and we but follow along. Today, I did not follow. I found a new time where past and present blended, old with new. His face was so clear, the old spice cologne strong. My son smiles and I see him right there. He was giving me a gift and all I had to do was open it. I did. I fished for pooches with my son and I watched the sun set on the lake as the bobber bounced on the waves. I reveled in the sound of water lapping and the subtle click of the reel, the feel of the pole, the thrill of that first pull, the dip of the bobber, the race to reel and tug, and the sadness when they get away. I was just free. Peace at last.
I struggle with finding balance with the ways of the past and my fast approaching future. My gift today, my birthday gift today was from my father. “Just breathe, slow down and watch that line. Don’t let it get too slack, reel in, slow, slow. Patience. You’ll get ‘em next time.” Thank you Bill “Country” Wilshire for reminding me that although I lost you physically long ago, you gave me the gift of life, the gift of joy in the simple things and fishing lessons that I can now pass to my sons. I know that you wish to bring me joy and peace and fishing. Our journey around the lake will never end and our sunset will forever stay just beyond the dam on Brown Lake. I love you, Dad!