No Impact Man: Winning enviro-conscious customer loyalty
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/getting-the-env.html
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
dear body
Okay, maybe I'll fit in a few entries here and there.
This made me smile and sharing it serves as my little prayer of gratitude for the day.
upcoming hiatus
Yesterday the Ex abruptly reneged on his agreement to serve as temporary physical custodian of the boys through December, effective immediately. I'm scrambling to make ready to take on full-time parenting despite my doctors' admonitions to rest and recover.
I saw one of the physician's assistants yesterday, and she wasn't pleased with what she saw. She consulted with the doctor, and they decided to take a "wait and see" approach. In the next four weeks we'll see if I can make enough progress in my recovery to avoid further hospitalization and surgery, but we're all on alert. I'm seeing my amazing wunderdokter (primary care physician) tomorrow for a more general health assessment, and I'll ask him how to do the work of healing under the new circumstances of parenting with breaks every other weekend and Monday nights.
So far, that looks like this:
--Transport children to their respective schools in time for breakfast provided THERE; that saves the effort and energy required to wheedle them into eating at home.
--Go home and eat, then get into bed until it's time to pick up the kids from school. Eat again before I do that job.
--Try to hire someone to help with the driving since I haven't been given the go-ahead yet. In order to do my own driving, I can't take narcotics, which brings me into the pain cycle but will keep me from being a danger on the road. Though I'm not sure if being under the influence of severe pain is much better than a little morphine, I'm not going to argue with the laws about intoxication while operating a motor vehicle.
--Make simple dinners, get the boys to help set the table and clean up. Sit down to eat with them.
--Baths only every other night.
--When the clock reaches 8:00, I am in bed and unavailable for retucking in, scaring away monsters, answering questions, reading yet another story, giving one more kiss, getting drinks of water, or ANYTHING. If they can't settle in during the hour before bedtime, with my full attention, then they have to fend for themselves. By then I physically can't do it.
--Inquire about having play dates on my weekends to help dilute the little boy energy or spread it around with the help of my friends and their children.
--Give up on anything that takes any extra energy.
That last point is the reason I don't anticipate writing more on my blog for a while. Lately I've gone slightly crazy, reading and reacting and researching and 'riting, but I've done it in bed, with long breaks. It has STILL taken more energy than one would expect. Now it's too expensive.
So, the conversation will continue later. Wish me luck... I need all the help I can get to rebuild my body, be a good mother, and eventually recover to the point where I can not only be well and be a GREAT mother and friend, but also get back to work to support us. That last point is the furthest away of all. Until I get there, sacrifices need to be made. Buh bye, blog.
I saw one of the physician's assistants yesterday, and she wasn't pleased with what she saw. She consulted with the doctor, and they decided to take a "wait and see" approach. In the next four weeks we'll see if I can make enough progress in my recovery to avoid further hospitalization and surgery, but we're all on alert. I'm seeing my amazing wunderdokter (primary care physician) tomorrow for a more general health assessment, and I'll ask him how to do the work of healing under the new circumstances of parenting with breaks every other weekend and Monday nights.
So far, that looks like this:
--Transport children to their respective schools in time for breakfast provided THERE; that saves the effort and energy required to wheedle them into eating at home.
--Go home and eat, then get into bed until it's time to pick up the kids from school. Eat again before I do that job.
--Try to hire someone to help with the driving since I haven't been given the go-ahead yet. In order to do my own driving, I can't take narcotics, which brings me into the pain cycle but will keep me from being a danger on the road. Though I'm not sure if being under the influence of severe pain is much better than a little morphine, I'm not going to argue with the laws about intoxication while operating a motor vehicle.
--Make simple dinners, get the boys to help set the table and clean up. Sit down to eat with them.
--Baths only every other night.
--When the clock reaches 8:00, I am in bed and unavailable for retucking in, scaring away monsters, answering questions, reading yet another story, giving one more kiss, getting drinks of water, or ANYTHING. If they can't settle in during the hour before bedtime, with my full attention, then they have to fend for themselves. By then I physically can't do it.
--Inquire about having play dates on my weekends to help dilute the little boy energy or spread it around with the help of my friends and their children.
--Give up on anything that takes any extra energy.
That last point is the reason I don't anticipate writing more on my blog for a while. Lately I've gone slightly crazy, reading and reacting and researching and 'riting, but I've done it in bed, with long breaks. It has STILL taken more energy than one would expect. Now it's too expensive.
So, the conversation will continue later. Wish me luck... I need all the help I can get to rebuild my body, be a good mother, and eventually recover to the point where I can not only be well and be a GREAT mother and friend, but also get back to work to support us. That last point is the furthest away of all. Until I get there, sacrifices need to be made. Buh bye, blog.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Baby bobcats
Today I peered out the window to see two bobcat kittens in the back yard. My home health care physical therapist arrived and I hurriedly hobbled to the door to let her in to see them... What a treat. I couldn't get a pic with both kits in it, and this one isn't all that great, but wow.
I got to see my own cubs today for the first time in more days than I have the heart to count. Only briefly... but nice to see them and tell them in person that I love them. Yeay!
little stabs against entropy
I wonder if the Romans mused, as their civilization crumbled around them, "Hmmm... maybe we could go back to the Old Ways." Or did they keep bludgeoning their way forward, rejecting classic and proven Ways of Being in favor of the latest trends in communication, education, consumerism, warfare, whatever?
As devastating as the fall of the Roman Empire might have been, and as many similarities as I may draw between that little landslide and our current catastrophe, they had nothing on us in terms of the range and speed of our trajectory toward destruction.
I suspect that ONE antidote to cataclysm is a return to selected Old Ways. This is not just prudent for education (let's leave aside the Back to Basics Movement for a more general return to What Works), but for the sake of our planet. The old Mecology theme song from one of the filmstrips we watched in my little rural school rattles through my mind now (I can't find it on YouTube, but I'm sure my contemporaries can sing along with me. One of the environmental suggestions was to plant flowers in old tires).
It's easy, when I'm teaching, to get caught up in details. I'm an English teacher, after all. The ability to comprehend and utilize nuance is part of what I'm trying to get across to my students. Being sick furthers my tendency toward the particular. Then I like to blow the whole thing up to the macro level. Only humans with an understanding of nuance, who can think, communicate, listen, integrate new concepts with their own habitual responses, and then TAKE INFORMED ACTION will be equipped to deal with the implications of their choices for the environment, for the state of this fragile planet we inhabit.
Yes, Rome is falling all around me, but I'm still doggedly prescribing grammar remediation and insisting that students follow through on the writing process to the wicked, monotonous end so that when they "publish," they don't embarrass themselves. I'm also insisting that the lights be turned off in rooms with no people in them, and turning off the water as I brush my teeth, and reportedly taking issue with wasteful hospital practices while still under the effects of Versed. I have no memory of it, but coming out of one of my seven surgeries, I was adamant about recycling something. My mother finds it charming. I find it scary but reassuring in some weird way that I have environmentalism as my default setting.
As devastating as the fall of the Roman Empire might have been, and as many similarities as I may draw between that little landslide and our current catastrophe, they had nothing on us in terms of the range and speed of our trajectory toward destruction.
I suspect that ONE antidote to cataclysm is a return to selected Old Ways. This is not just prudent for education (let's leave aside the Back to Basics Movement for a more general return to What Works), but for the sake of our planet. The old Mecology theme song from one of the filmstrips we watched in my little rural school rattles through my mind now (I can't find it on YouTube, but I'm sure my contemporaries can sing along with me. One of the environmental suggestions was to plant flowers in old tires).
It's easy, when I'm teaching, to get caught up in details. I'm an English teacher, after all. The ability to comprehend and utilize nuance is part of what I'm trying to get across to my students. Being sick furthers my tendency toward the particular. Then I like to blow the whole thing up to the macro level. Only humans with an understanding of nuance, who can think, communicate, listen, integrate new concepts with their own habitual responses, and then TAKE INFORMED ACTION will be equipped to deal with the implications of their choices for the environment, for the state of this fragile planet we inhabit.
Yes, Rome is falling all around me, but I'm still doggedly prescribing grammar remediation and insisting that students follow through on the writing process to the wicked, monotonous end so that when they "publish," they don't embarrass themselves. I'm also insisting that the lights be turned off in rooms with no people in them, and turning off the water as I brush my teeth, and reportedly taking issue with wasteful hospital practices while still under the effects of Versed. I have no memory of it, but coming out of one of my seven surgeries, I was adamant about recycling something. My mother finds it charming. I find it scary but reassuring in some weird way that I have environmentalism as my default setting.
the little response that grew... and grew... and grew...
[For context, please see Agathon's comment on a recent teaching thingy]
A,
Vroom, vroom... lots to get my wheels turning here. Let's start with your question: So when you stand up in front of 115 students, do they think you're there to bring them into a world they don't yet know, or simply to amuse them?
I think that many of those 115 students expect me to entertain them. They may have been entertained (or not) since they started their schooling, and teachers like me have been trying to wheedle some engagement out of them. They have probably grown up with a genuine belief that BOREDOM is REALLY bad. Some of them have the attention span of-- what? Insert some comparison that conveys the idea of SHORT or nearly non-existent.
My particular teaching niche seems to be in developmental education, once known as remedial education or even special education, but we have to be sensitive. We'll use the current label until it gains the stigmatizing, derogatory implication that will damage the participants' self-esteem.
I teach developmental college reading and writing classes. I'm near the end of the assembly line, trying to polish up a few dented or badly formed parts enough to send them further along the line towards higher education or whatever Lifelong Learning opportunities come along next.
I try to squirm out of generalizing, but sometimes it's convenient to establish context. Here are some generalizations, with commentary, about my students and teaching situation:
--There are between 28 and 35 of them in each section. I teach anywhere from one to five sections, so that I could max out at 175 individuals under my tutelage in a given semester, though that truly is the outside range. I usually have a "real" job elsewhere to support my teaching habit, but let's leave those duties and demands aside for a moment with only that nod of acknowledgment to the realities of adjunct teaching.
--When I teach at the community college, a good portion of my students are older than me. At the university, 98% of them are 18 or 19 years old.
--At the community college, I may have students from Mexico, Burma, the Ukraine, Lebanon, Jordan, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Somalia, or any number of places outside the United States. At the university, I may have one or two from Mexico, three or four from Korea, and a whole bunch from New Jersey.
--The older students almost ALWAYS make more progress on the standardized tests and under my own rubrics because they come to class every day, they come to visit me during my office hours, they ask questions until they get a satisfactory answer, they prioritize, and they value their time spent learning because it's damned hard to fit in classes and homework between child or elder care responsibilities, work, and all the other adult demands. Sometimes when the young'uns start acting up, one of the Moms will stand up and put them in their place. I was grateful for their interventions when I was a fresh-faced novice college teacher. Now I'm a mom, so I can deliver the whithering look for myself.
--At least two students have been so rude in my classes that I've kicked them out. I tried written notes on the latest draft returned with my painstaking corrections and suggestions and encouragements, but those papers ended up in the trash can before they read them. I pulled them aside for private consultations on their behavior. I finally had to resort to public humiliation, demanding that they pick up their bags and leave (not quite as feisty as Bill Maher with his rude students, but with the same effect). It's really not negotiable in my classroom: during the 50 to 110 minutes they are on MY time, they may not listen to their IPods or answer their cell phones or act like maniacs. I know some of them are sly with the phone texting, but staring at them long enough usually lets them know they're caught. Why are they so surprised? They are as incredulous as my three-year-old when they get caught doing something stupid RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. If they fall asleep, I handle that on a case-by-case basis. For one student, I began to suspect that my classroom might be the only safe place he had to sleep. A little rest was far more important in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than even my most brilliantly crafted exercise in metacognition.
--My older students and my foreign students make my job rewarding, and yes, "FUN" for me. Lots of the others demand a slick sales campaign. It's sad, but true. I would love to teach a higher level undergraduate class or a writing workshop or a literature seminar where everyone does the reading and contributes to the conversation and writes perky and insightful papers, but that doesn't seem to be my calling. I HAVE to do a little dance, sing a little song, and do the best I can to dazzle them into paying attention. I just want to get them hooked. Once they are Hooked on Learning, they'll be okay-- I'll be able to sleep at night, at least.
Here are some other swift reactions to other topics you mentioned:
--I bet the students in Taylor Mali's classes have "fun." I bet he orchestrates sneak attacks on apathy all the time.
--I have a major crush on Thomas Jefferson. If a larger proportion of our citizens were half as engaged in half as many disciplines as that man worked to master in his lifetime, we'd all be better off. I'm getting an urge to go reread some good Jefferson stuff to see how to incorporate that into my next syllabus. That's a conversation for another time.
--My clear, irrevocable transition from childhood to adulthood was not getting married, nor giving birth, nor mourning the deaths of a parent, a step-parent, or friends by disease or accident or their own hands, nor the deaths of all my grandparents by complicated conditions exacerbated by old age. All of those occasions served all kinds of other purposes in my life, and were steps along the path to adulthood. I became an adult when I had to take the family pet to the vet and hold him as he died, by my choice, in my hands. I realized then that my parents or nature had done that hard work my whole life, and I said to myself, "Now I am an adult." Exercising volition in the death of a beloved creature who had been in my care for years--that was when I grew up. I guess any of us who ruefully or proudly call ourselves adults have our own stories about that particular transition [Invitation for commentary, hint hint].
Our society seems to have lost the benefits of ritual passages, tribal initiations, formal acknowledgement of attaining adulthood, etc. I consider this a loss. But then, I didn't have to get my clitoris removed when I became a woman, either. I suppose we go to extremes, rejecting ALL initiations just in case they have any flavor of "primitive hoodoo" because we're more civilized, because the idea of self-sufficiency is shoved down our throats, because we should know by now how to do it better, etc.
Okay, abrupt end to long winded response to A's comment.
A,
Vroom, vroom... lots to get my wheels turning here. Let's start with your question: So when you stand up in front of 115 students, do they think you're there to bring them into a world they don't yet know, or simply to amuse them?
I think that many of those 115 students expect me to entertain them. They may have been entertained (or not) since they started their schooling, and teachers like me have been trying to wheedle some engagement out of them. They have probably grown up with a genuine belief that BOREDOM is REALLY bad. Some of them have the attention span of-- what? Insert some comparison that conveys the idea of SHORT or nearly non-existent.
My particular teaching niche seems to be in developmental education, once known as remedial education or even special education, but we have to be sensitive. We'll use the current label until it gains the stigmatizing, derogatory implication that will damage the participants' self-esteem.
I teach developmental college reading and writing classes. I'm near the end of the assembly line, trying to polish up a few dented or badly formed parts enough to send them further along the line towards higher education or whatever Lifelong Learning opportunities come along next.
I try to squirm out of generalizing, but sometimes it's convenient to establish context. Here are some generalizations, with commentary, about my students and teaching situation:
--There are between 28 and 35 of them in each section. I teach anywhere from one to five sections, so that I could max out at 175 individuals under my tutelage in a given semester, though that truly is the outside range. I usually have a "real" job elsewhere to support my teaching habit, but let's leave those duties and demands aside for a moment with only that nod of acknowledgment to the realities of adjunct teaching.
--When I teach at the community college, a good portion of my students are older than me. At the university, 98% of them are 18 or 19 years old.
--At the community college, I may have students from Mexico, Burma, the Ukraine, Lebanon, Jordan, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Somalia, or any number of places outside the United States. At the university, I may have one or two from Mexico, three or four from Korea, and a whole bunch from New Jersey.
--The older students almost ALWAYS make more progress on the standardized tests and under my own rubrics because they come to class every day, they come to visit me during my office hours, they ask questions until they get a satisfactory answer, they prioritize, and they value their time spent learning because it's damned hard to fit in classes and homework between child or elder care responsibilities, work, and all the other adult demands. Sometimes when the young'uns start acting up, one of the Moms will stand up and put them in their place. I was grateful for their interventions when I was a fresh-faced novice college teacher. Now I'm a mom, so I can deliver the whithering look for myself.
--At least two students have been so rude in my classes that I've kicked them out. I tried written notes on the latest draft returned with my painstaking corrections and suggestions and encouragements, but those papers ended up in the trash can before they read them. I pulled them aside for private consultations on their behavior. I finally had to resort to public humiliation, demanding that they pick up their bags and leave (not quite as feisty as Bill Maher with his rude students, but with the same effect). It's really not negotiable in my classroom: during the 50 to 110 minutes they are on MY time, they may not listen to their IPods or answer their cell phones or act like maniacs. I know some of them are sly with the phone texting, but staring at them long enough usually lets them know they're caught. Why are they so surprised? They are as incredulous as my three-year-old when they get caught doing something stupid RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. If they fall asleep, I handle that on a case-by-case basis. For one student, I began to suspect that my classroom might be the only safe place he had to sleep. A little rest was far more important in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than even my most brilliantly crafted exercise in metacognition.
--My older students and my foreign students make my job rewarding, and yes, "FUN" for me. Lots of the others demand a slick sales campaign. It's sad, but true. I would love to teach a higher level undergraduate class or a writing workshop or a literature seminar where everyone does the reading and contributes to the conversation and writes perky and insightful papers, but that doesn't seem to be my calling. I HAVE to do a little dance, sing a little song, and do the best I can to dazzle them into paying attention. I just want to get them hooked. Once they are Hooked on Learning, they'll be okay-- I'll be able to sleep at night, at least.
Here are some other swift reactions to other topics you mentioned:
--I bet the students in Taylor Mali's classes have "fun." I bet he orchestrates sneak attacks on apathy all the time.
--I have a major crush on Thomas Jefferson. If a larger proportion of our citizens were half as engaged in half as many disciplines as that man worked to master in his lifetime, we'd all be better off. I'm getting an urge to go reread some good Jefferson stuff to see how to incorporate that into my next syllabus. That's a conversation for another time.
--My clear, irrevocable transition from childhood to adulthood was not getting married, nor giving birth, nor mourning the deaths of a parent, a step-parent, or friends by disease or accident or their own hands, nor the deaths of all my grandparents by complicated conditions exacerbated by old age. All of those occasions served all kinds of other purposes in my life, and were steps along the path to adulthood. I became an adult when I had to take the family pet to the vet and hold him as he died, by my choice, in my hands. I realized then that my parents or nature had done that hard work my whole life, and I said to myself, "Now I am an adult." Exercising volition in the death of a beloved creature who had been in my care for years--that was when I grew up. I guess any of us who ruefully or proudly call ourselves adults have our own stories about that particular transition [Invitation for commentary, hint hint].
Our society seems to have lost the benefits of ritual passages, tribal initiations, formal acknowledgement of attaining adulthood, etc. I consider this a loss. But then, I didn't have to get my clitoris removed when I became a woman, either. I suppose we go to extremes, rejecting ALL initiations just in case they have any flavor of "primitive hoodoo" because we're more civilized, because the idea of self-sufficiency is shoved down our throats, because we should know by now how to do it better, etc.
Okay, abrupt end to long winded response to A's comment.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
as i think about returning to teaching
Digital ethnography is COOL. If I were in college right now, or had a real professorship at a university, I might be all over this.
I have to say that when I stand in front of a classroom full of students like this, I certainly see those messages. Well done, kids. Yer tellin' it like it is for ya.
So what can I do, as your teacher, to help you show up, read your assignments, and incorporate your "real" lives into whatever it is you are doing in my class? I can't do it without you. Speak up. I have my standards, and you have yours. What can we do to make this work? Seriously. If you don't step up, why should I bother to show up to do what I do?
See, you're in college now. No one is forcing you to be here. Feel free to come back later if you'd rather be somewhere else for a while. I'll be here.
The basic elements of a solid education are painstakingly laid out every day in innumerable institutions of learning by people who bet their time, energy and patience that helping YOU achieve literacy is a worthwhile way to make a living.
Yes, some of us might like to feel some nobility in our profession. We memorize the occasional "thanks" or other expression of appreciation. We generally enjoy our colleagues. We stay up late at night trying to figure out the best ways to make our curricular mandates interesting and relevant for you. We LIKE you. We want you to succeed. We believe that there is a great deal at stake in your success.
Some of us complain about our working conditions. We worry about you, collectively and individually. Most of us want to make this whole thing "fun" for you if we can, but not at the expense of the profundity of genuine learning--the kind of learning that will help you get by in the world, make good personal and societal decisions, improve the quality of your lives and those of the members of your community. That includes us, too.
So keep talking. Keep writing. Keep communicating your messages to us. We really are listening. Your lives matter to us. Your ideas involving your education are valid. Bring it on, kids...
Saturday, October 27, 2007
causes for celebration
--No Impact Man: We've got something wonderful going on here
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/could-we-at-lea.html
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/could-we-at-lea.html
common sense in action: to have a happy life, take care of where you live.
No Impact Man: Environmentalism means less deprivation
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/environmentalis.html
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/10/environmentalis.html
other science news of note, to me anyway...
--Study reveals how the brain generates the human tendency for optimism
http://scienceblog.com/cms/study-reveals-how-brain-generates-human-tendency-optimism-14617.html
--The neuroscience of theory of mind (PS: Happy 4th Birthday, Lil'un...)
http://scienceblog.com/cms/neuroscience-theory-mind-14578.html
http://scienceblog.com/cms/study-reveals-how-brain-generates-human-tendency-optimism-14617.html
--The neuroscience of theory of mind (PS: Happy 4th Birthday, Lil'un...)
http://scienceblog.com/cms/neuroscience-theory-mind-14578.html
OF COURSE redheads have been around forever. Who would have thunk otherwise?
Ancient DNA reveals that some Neanderthals were redheads:
http://scienceblog.com/cms/ancient-dna-reveals-some-neanderthals-were-redheads-14629.html
http://scienceblog.com/cms/ancient-dna-reveals-some-neanderthals-were-redheads-14629.html
what's all this about global warming?
Consider this perspective. Obviously y'all know which column I'm investing in. (Thanks, Marla, for sharing the clip.)
Friday, October 26, 2007
volume control
Whew. Today was H A R D.
I sort of wish I had a volume control on today's emotions and thoughts and physical sensations...
I'm laughing a little bit as I type away here on the internet. When I first heard of Blogs I thought --There is NO WAY I would keep my journal on the internet. Crazy.
But I think I'm writing my daily journal entry online. Absurd. Why not just dig up a pen and get my Travel Journal and write in there? Because if I do that, I won't write the Blog. And if I write a Blog, I won't do my daily writing. So here goes. Lucky I can take it all down and put it somewhere else in a minute when I come to my senses.
I went to my counselor today. The man at the front desk called him and said, “Your 10:00 o’clock appointment is HERE.” He turned to me and said, “C says he’s ‘thrilled.’” It was nice to be met with such jubilation. I suppose some members of the staff there know of my circumstances, at least tangentially, so they appreciate what it must have taken for me to walk in the door at 10:00 o’clock in the morning. Cool. I was crying my therapeutic tears even before C entered the room and pulled up his chair for my fifty minutes of intense presence and witnessing of suffering. “I’m crying already,” I greeted him.
I went to the Poetry Center with S to pick up and drop off reels and disks of the digitized poetry readings he’s working on for them. S introduced me to R and BJ. I’d met them before, and even worked with BJ when I taught English Composition at the university and she helped me develop some lesson plans and a tour of the Poetry Center. I felt a little dismayed to hobble in there with my grandfather’s cane, wearing a shirt that I’d washed in a load with a blue pen (the pen won), tear-stained, snuffly and rosy from my counseling session. I feebly explained/made the excuse, “I haven’t been teaching for a while because I’m sick but I’ll be back with my classes whenever I get back to teaching…” I murmured of my classes’ nice responses to the tour and my own enthusiasm for what the Center provided to support my curriculum. I felt a little weird, not being dressed like a Teacher, to be Outed as a Sick Person in a place where I used to be a Real Person. I guess it was a Close Encounter of the Work kind. EEEK. Not ready for THAT yet.
I cried with exhaustion before we even got back to S’s place. I’d been too nauseated all morning to take my meds. Too long without pain pills and it’s hard to “break the pain cycle,” said one medical professional recently. I had to try to eat something so I wouldn’t puke. I stood over the kitchen sink drinking a vanilla Ensure.
“What’s this?” S moved a cookie sheet off the stove.
“I was going to put a frozen pizza in the oven but then I didn’t get that far,” I said, lamely.
“No, no, no,” He said. “Don’t do that to a pizza… no cookie sheet. Just a bare-assed pizza.”
I snorted with laughter and spit Ensure all over the sink. I don’t know if it was the accumulated challenges of the day, the fact that I’d just finally taken a morphine pill, sheer giddiness from exhaustion, or what, but S’s muttering about a “bare-assed pizza” broke the spell of tragedy and drama and a complete and whole-body belief that I Just Can’t Take It Anymore. I stepped back from The Edge.
Once I got started, I just kept rolling… from bare-assed pizza to the idea of snorting Ensure, to the reason I’m drinking Ensure in the first place… CL recently expressed concern about nutritional aspects of my medical crisis and recommended that I drink it. “Ensure: not just for geezers anymore.” Of course, she uses it to help boost her training for marathons. Yeah, MARATHONS. Real ones. The ones with a bunch of MILES involved and times that are measured with HOURS in them. The ones where you RUN. With your legs. Not the little “marathons” used metaphorically by a partner in my neurosurgeon’s office to describe my expected recovery period, or by me to describe the “training” exercises I do to prepare for taking a walk down the driveway to get my mail out of the box, or to actually take a shower by myself before making a meal and putting the dishes in the dishwasher before I have to lie down again. Sheesh. Anyway, I’m drinkin’ Ensure. That sent me on another peel of laughter, as I wiped the nutritionally-fortified goo out of my hair and began to take off my clothes to take the second shower of the day. Then the delicious pleasure of the hot water and soap kicked in. I sat on the sturdy shower chair I brought over to S’s house along with a collection of other handicap assistance devices, thoughts of which sent me off on another tear of giggles so that S peeked in at me with concern.
We talked about this burgeoning idea for a novel that I’ve been tossing around for a day or two now. S and I joked about a possible title. “That’s a good name for a novel, or an album,” he laughed. (No, I’m not going to reveal it here… it’s one of those Writing in Process things and to broadcast it would be bad luck or something. But you know what I’m talking about… insert your own running joke theme and you’ll get the picture better than you would if I told you the specific words around our magnificent idea.)
“Write it down in your lyrics journal,” I said. “Along with Bare-Assed Pizza. That’s a good name for something. Maybe that’s the pizza joint where the main characters in my book hatch their plot.” I described to S how suddenly I had a picture of the street, the pizza place, the four or five main characters and how they dressed… all of that playing out like meta-animation, where you see the colors filling in the lines in rapid succession and the whole imaginary world is laid out before you. “That’s so cool when that happens,” I finished.
He leaned over and scrawled some notes in his little book of inspiration. He hasn’t done it much lately, so I watched with some satisfaction. I’m a wanna-be muse for this sensitive, gentle, caring, humorous, sexy, talented musician.
“I’m on writing fire,” I told S when he asked if I was going to start working on his website. “I’ll work on your website when I’m done writing.” There is no way I’m going to squelch my desire to write today, not the way I feel right now. It has something to do with the Volume Control thing. I can’t for the life of me recall what was so damned important to write, though I think the fire started with the idea that I’d damn well better get Those Words down--and fast--or they would be gone. I don’t know if I got Those Words in yet; NOW the fire is sustained by the drug of the writing process.
It really is like a drug, too. Add the satisfaction of words appearing beneath fingertips or at the end of a pen to the morphine and little caloric infusion and being clean and being in bed in my most comfy nighty and whew… I am HIGH. I feel GOOD now. I felt very, very bad for most of the day.
It’s not so bad when it’s good stuff that is on HIGH VOLUME, though it is still exhausting. I’m at the highest possible intensity because gratitude and the sheer extremity of contrary sensations is enough to launch every nerve ending, every thought synapse, every reaction and formulated ideation into Technicolor for me at the moment. THIS IS LIVING, boy howdy. I’m TURNED ON, and LOUD. I’m alive, and I feel it today.
I often feel the despair of inhabiting a region very near to the Cliffs of Giving Up. A good stiff wind from the direction of Pain, a fiercely curtailed telephone conversation with the Ex (who has been officially diagnosed by my counselor as having “narcissistic rage” because I’ve somehow wounded him so badly that his psyche is too injured to have any LOGICAL dealings with me in order to DO SOMETHING to help our six-year-old who adamantly maintains to his counselor at school that he wants to be DEAD), or any other massive stressor that breezes by the walls of this fragile shack of emotional shelter threatens to blow me over the Edge. And we can’t have that now, can we?
Today I told C that I want to take out a legal pad and write out a PLAN for how to deal with my life right now, and he said, “Okay, why don’t we do that? Here, I’ll write for you.” He grabbed my legal pad and a purple pen and wrote in block letters that filled up the entire legal sized page: TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF.
“Take the Scarlet O’Hara approach to all of this,” he urged. “Think about it tomorrow.” He is in unanimous agreement with everyone else I’ve discussed the situation with, whether he or they would put exactly like this or not: Fuck It.
Until I heal, until I can get strong enough to care for my own sorry self AND my children, I can’t do a thing about it. Let’s not even bring up any thoughts about keeping up the house and yard and pool, and certainly don’t think about earning money to pay all the medical bills and utility bills and mortgage. And don’t even think I’m anywhere near up to considering the idea of working to fulfill some higher purpose in addition to gathering money and putting the decimal points further along the string of numbers…
Driving back to S’s house this afternoon, we passed a lumbering Coca Cola truck. A few minutes later, we came to a point where the lanes merge. The big red truck roared up beside us. “He’s going to floor it to merge,” S said in irritated disbelief. “Why would you floor it to merge if you were driving a Coke truck?”
“Because you gotta get to the next stop on the delivery route, and you’re probably already running late, and your kid has Little League practice and if you’re not home on time your wife is going to have a hissy fit. You haven’t had sex in two months, and you’re a little frustrated because you’d really rather NOT be driving a Coke truck. You wanted to be an actor. This isn’t QUITE what you had in mind for your life.”
“Wow,” S said. “You and your fast talking…. I guess you have to be able to talk fast to be a good writer.”
“To be a good writer, you need to write,” I said. “Sometimes you need to NOT talk.”
I think there’s some relationship between the fast talking that can drive S crazy, and creativity/productivity, and the speed of thinking and the way ideas can get backed up in my brain if I don’t take my time to write. If I don’t get my writing fix, then I’ll start talking too much, too fast, and he won’t like it.
A little while ago he said, “It’s okay that you’re doing that.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Something like, ‘Yeah, sure, sit there and type your blog or your journal… it doesn’t matter that you said you would write a web page for me weeks ago and it’s still not up, and I went to all that trouble this morning to go get your computer so you could work on the web page, but that’s okay… just do what you’re doing…’?”
He nodded, “Yeah, something like that.”
But first I have to take note of the conversation I had with C about Bill Maher (sp?) today… how C thinks he’s getting a little too arrogant and grandiose and how he didn’t handle hecklers very well the other day on his show… I had complained that Bill Maher said that while it’s a crime for a twenty-eight-year old male teacher to fondle or fuck a thirteen-year-old female student, it’s not so bad for a twenty-eight-year-old female teacher to have sex with young male students. To bring Michael Jackson and his alleged malfeasance into the mix, Maher said that for him, it would have been less traumatizing to have been gently masturbated by a pop star than it was to have been brutally punched and kicked by a gang of bullies. I heartily disagree with Bill Maher on that one. As much as I stand up and applaud when he goes off on Bush and his tragic antics, I would have to tell Bill to ask those young male students about how NOT hurtful that was when they’re about thirty-five. C agreed; he said that kind of talk is just perpetuating a myth. “Yes, ask them NOW what it has done to their lives.” Not to diminish the pain of being brutalized by bullies. It’s just that there isn’t really a scale on which to rank those sorts of horrible childhood experiences. It’s all bad. Mean people suck.
Of course I don’t get to do ANY of this justice. I’m too tired to read up on my issues, cite authority, or even develop my own ideas/assertions fully. For example, I don’t even know if this is the season for Little League. I’m not POSITIVE I spelled Bill Maher’s name correctly. There are way too many words in some of these sentences. This is definitely First Draft writing. But I’ll tell you what: I feel better. I got my writing fix. The volume is turned down sufficiently so that I can turn my concentration elsewhere. I can exhale, and close one computer application and open another one and not even shift my bodily position. Without much ado, maybe I can toss up a simple website, a little something to help S. Maybe I can make him smile, maybe take away a little bit of his stress, maybe make him feel that he hasn’t been wrong to believe that I might actually do what I said I would do. And that, my friends, will be a very nice, satisfying way to end my day. To actually accomplish something real will be very, very good.
I sort of wish I had a volume control on today's emotions and thoughts and physical sensations...
I'm laughing a little bit as I type away here on the internet. When I first heard of Blogs I thought --There is NO WAY I would keep my journal on the internet. Crazy.
But I think I'm writing my daily journal entry online. Absurd. Why not just dig up a pen and get my Travel Journal and write in there? Because if I do that, I won't write the Blog. And if I write a Blog, I won't do my daily writing. So here goes. Lucky I can take it all down and put it somewhere else in a minute when I come to my senses.
I went to my counselor today. The man at the front desk called him and said, “Your 10:00 o’clock appointment is HERE.” He turned to me and said, “C says he’s ‘thrilled.’” It was nice to be met with such jubilation. I suppose some members of the staff there know of my circumstances, at least tangentially, so they appreciate what it must have taken for me to walk in the door at 10:00 o’clock in the morning. Cool. I was crying my therapeutic tears even before C entered the room and pulled up his chair for my fifty minutes of intense presence and witnessing of suffering. “I’m crying already,” I greeted him.
I went to the Poetry Center with S to pick up and drop off reels and disks of the digitized poetry readings he’s working on for them. S introduced me to R and BJ. I’d met them before, and even worked with BJ when I taught English Composition at the university and she helped me develop some lesson plans and a tour of the Poetry Center. I felt a little dismayed to hobble in there with my grandfather’s cane, wearing a shirt that I’d washed in a load with a blue pen (the pen won), tear-stained, snuffly and rosy from my counseling session. I feebly explained/made the excuse, “I haven’t been teaching for a while because I’m sick but I’ll be back with my classes whenever I get back to teaching…” I murmured of my classes’ nice responses to the tour and my own enthusiasm for what the Center provided to support my curriculum. I felt a little weird, not being dressed like a Teacher, to be Outed as a Sick Person in a place where I used to be a Real Person. I guess it was a Close Encounter of the Work kind. EEEK. Not ready for THAT yet.
I cried with exhaustion before we even got back to S’s place. I’d been too nauseated all morning to take my meds. Too long without pain pills and it’s hard to “break the pain cycle,” said one medical professional recently. I had to try to eat something so I wouldn’t puke. I stood over the kitchen sink drinking a vanilla Ensure.
“What’s this?” S moved a cookie sheet off the stove.
“I was going to put a frozen pizza in the oven but then I didn’t get that far,” I said, lamely.
“No, no, no,” He said. “Don’t do that to a pizza… no cookie sheet. Just a bare-assed pizza.”
I snorted with laughter and spit Ensure all over the sink. I don’t know if it was the accumulated challenges of the day, the fact that I’d just finally taken a morphine pill, sheer giddiness from exhaustion, or what, but S’s muttering about a “bare-assed pizza” broke the spell of tragedy and drama and a complete and whole-body belief that I Just Can’t Take It Anymore. I stepped back from The Edge.
Once I got started, I just kept rolling… from bare-assed pizza to the idea of snorting Ensure, to the reason I’m drinking Ensure in the first place… CL recently expressed concern about nutritional aspects of my medical crisis and recommended that I drink it. “Ensure: not just for geezers anymore.” Of course, she uses it to help boost her training for marathons. Yeah, MARATHONS. Real ones. The ones with a bunch of MILES involved and times that are measured with HOURS in them. The ones where you RUN. With your legs. Not the little “marathons” used metaphorically by a partner in my neurosurgeon’s office to describe my expected recovery period, or by me to describe the “training” exercises I do to prepare for taking a walk down the driveway to get my mail out of the box, or to actually take a shower by myself before making a meal and putting the dishes in the dishwasher before I have to lie down again. Sheesh. Anyway, I’m drinkin’ Ensure. That sent me on another peel of laughter, as I wiped the nutritionally-fortified goo out of my hair and began to take off my clothes to take the second shower of the day. Then the delicious pleasure of the hot water and soap kicked in. I sat on the sturdy shower chair I brought over to S’s house along with a collection of other handicap assistance devices, thoughts of which sent me off on another tear of giggles so that S peeked in at me with concern.
We talked about this burgeoning idea for a novel that I’ve been tossing around for a day or two now. S and I joked about a possible title. “That’s a good name for a novel, or an album,” he laughed. (No, I’m not going to reveal it here… it’s one of those Writing in Process things and to broadcast it would be bad luck or something. But you know what I’m talking about… insert your own running joke theme and you’ll get the picture better than you would if I told you the specific words around our magnificent idea.)
“Write it down in your lyrics journal,” I said. “Along with Bare-Assed Pizza. That’s a good name for something. Maybe that’s the pizza joint where the main characters in my book hatch their plot.” I described to S how suddenly I had a picture of the street, the pizza place, the four or five main characters and how they dressed… all of that playing out like meta-animation, where you see the colors filling in the lines in rapid succession and the whole imaginary world is laid out before you. “That’s so cool when that happens,” I finished.
He leaned over and scrawled some notes in his little book of inspiration. He hasn’t done it much lately, so I watched with some satisfaction. I’m a wanna-be muse for this sensitive, gentle, caring, humorous, sexy, talented musician.
“I’m on writing fire,” I told S when he asked if I was going to start working on his website. “I’ll work on your website when I’m done writing.” There is no way I’m going to squelch my desire to write today, not the way I feel right now. It has something to do with the Volume Control thing. I can’t for the life of me recall what was so damned important to write, though I think the fire started with the idea that I’d damn well better get Those Words down--and fast--or they would be gone. I don’t know if I got Those Words in yet; NOW the fire is sustained by the drug of the writing process.
It really is like a drug, too. Add the satisfaction of words appearing beneath fingertips or at the end of a pen to the morphine and little caloric infusion and being clean and being in bed in my most comfy nighty and whew… I am HIGH. I feel GOOD now. I felt very, very bad for most of the day.
It’s not so bad when it’s good stuff that is on HIGH VOLUME, though it is still exhausting. I’m at the highest possible intensity because gratitude and the sheer extremity of contrary sensations is enough to launch every nerve ending, every thought synapse, every reaction and formulated ideation into Technicolor for me at the moment. THIS IS LIVING, boy howdy. I’m TURNED ON, and LOUD. I’m alive, and I feel it today.
I often feel the despair of inhabiting a region very near to the Cliffs of Giving Up. A good stiff wind from the direction of Pain, a fiercely curtailed telephone conversation with the Ex (who has been officially diagnosed by my counselor as having “narcissistic rage” because I’ve somehow wounded him so badly that his psyche is too injured to have any LOGICAL dealings with me in order to DO SOMETHING to help our six-year-old who adamantly maintains to his counselor at school that he wants to be DEAD), or any other massive stressor that breezes by the walls of this fragile shack of emotional shelter threatens to blow me over the Edge. And we can’t have that now, can we?
Today I told C that I want to take out a legal pad and write out a PLAN for how to deal with my life right now, and he said, “Okay, why don’t we do that? Here, I’ll write for you.” He grabbed my legal pad and a purple pen and wrote in block letters that filled up the entire legal sized page: TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF.
“Take the Scarlet O’Hara approach to all of this,” he urged. “Think about it tomorrow.” He is in unanimous agreement with everyone else I’ve discussed the situation with, whether he or they would put exactly like this or not: Fuck It.
Until I heal, until I can get strong enough to care for my own sorry self AND my children, I can’t do a thing about it. Let’s not even bring up any thoughts about keeping up the house and yard and pool, and certainly don’t think about earning money to pay all the medical bills and utility bills and mortgage. And don’t even think I’m anywhere near up to considering the idea of working to fulfill some higher purpose in addition to gathering money and putting the decimal points further along the string of numbers…
Driving back to S’s house this afternoon, we passed a lumbering Coca Cola truck. A few minutes later, we came to a point where the lanes merge. The big red truck roared up beside us. “He’s going to floor it to merge,” S said in irritated disbelief. “Why would you floor it to merge if you were driving a Coke truck?”
“Because you gotta get to the next stop on the delivery route, and you’re probably already running late, and your kid has Little League practice and if you’re not home on time your wife is going to have a hissy fit. You haven’t had sex in two months, and you’re a little frustrated because you’d really rather NOT be driving a Coke truck. You wanted to be an actor. This isn’t QUITE what you had in mind for your life.”
“Wow,” S said. “You and your fast talking…. I guess you have to be able to talk fast to be a good writer.”
“To be a good writer, you need to write,” I said. “Sometimes you need to NOT talk.”
I think there’s some relationship between the fast talking that can drive S crazy, and creativity/productivity, and the speed of thinking and the way ideas can get backed up in my brain if I don’t take my time to write. If I don’t get my writing fix, then I’ll start talking too much, too fast, and he won’t like it.
A little while ago he said, “It’s okay that you’re doing that.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Something like, ‘Yeah, sure, sit there and type your blog or your journal… it doesn’t matter that you said you would write a web page for me weeks ago and it’s still not up, and I went to all that trouble this morning to go get your computer so you could work on the web page, but that’s okay… just do what you’re doing…’?”
He nodded, “Yeah, something like that.”
But first I have to take note of the conversation I had with C about Bill Maher (sp?) today… how C thinks he’s getting a little too arrogant and grandiose and how he didn’t handle hecklers very well the other day on his show… I had complained that Bill Maher said that while it’s a crime for a twenty-eight-year old male teacher to fondle or fuck a thirteen-year-old female student, it’s not so bad for a twenty-eight-year-old female teacher to have sex with young male students. To bring Michael Jackson and his alleged malfeasance into the mix, Maher said that for him, it would have been less traumatizing to have been gently masturbated by a pop star than it was to have been brutally punched and kicked by a gang of bullies. I heartily disagree with Bill Maher on that one. As much as I stand up and applaud when he goes off on Bush and his tragic antics, I would have to tell Bill to ask those young male students about how NOT hurtful that was when they’re about thirty-five. C agreed; he said that kind of talk is just perpetuating a myth. “Yes, ask them NOW what it has done to their lives.” Not to diminish the pain of being brutalized by bullies. It’s just that there isn’t really a scale on which to rank those sorts of horrible childhood experiences. It’s all bad. Mean people suck.
Of course I don’t get to do ANY of this justice. I’m too tired to read up on my issues, cite authority, or even develop my own ideas/assertions fully. For example, I don’t even know if this is the season for Little League. I’m not POSITIVE I spelled Bill Maher’s name correctly. There are way too many words in some of these sentences. This is definitely First Draft writing. But I’ll tell you what: I feel better. I got my writing fix. The volume is turned down sufficiently so that I can turn my concentration elsewhere. I can exhale, and close one computer application and open another one and not even shift my bodily position. Without much ado, maybe I can toss up a simple website, a little something to help S. Maybe I can make him smile, maybe take away a little bit of his stress, maybe make him feel that he hasn’t been wrong to believe that I might actually do what I said I would do. And that, my friends, will be a very nice, satisfying way to end my day. To actually accomplish something real will be very, very good.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
thoughts on excellence, music, little boys, being WEIRD and stuff like that
I'm back after a rest. I'm still on Agathon's musings, evidently, because this entry is a response to his post about excellence as exemplified in a You Tube clip of the trumpeter, Rafael Mendez (you gotta go to Scenes from a Broken Hand blog to check it out, and for now you gotta do it the hard way because on this old borrowed Mac I can't insert links: http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2007/09/excellence.html)
[editor's note: here's a more precise link, but you gotta read A's blog anyway. Well, you COULD, and you would be glad you did. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUij8FCg0z8&eurl=http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2007/09/excellence.html
That clip led to another of the guitarist Jose Feliciano and his rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee, which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOs1HC29zh4
Then, you can watch Luis Moreno do the Rimsky-Korsakov tune on electric guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muqflDqEEp8
As I write this, my Sweetheart is down the hall in his music studeo with a teen guitar student. I hear the low voices: the patient deep voice of the teacher offering corrections and praise, an occasional questioning tone from the kiddo. I hear the hesitant chords, the teacher's proficient demonstration, another halting attempt, then another, less halting, more smooth...
They work on measures from Guns and Roses or Depeche Mode or whatever modern hip tunage floats the kids' boats as they learn to play. I'm not sure where the Flight of the Bumblebee fits into these kids' agendas. In any case, they Show Up. Most of them seem to have practiced between lessons. They are in pursuit of something with this music thing. There's a reason for the effort from student, parents, teacher. Even in these half hour lessons, I hear progress.
After lessons, the boys can be seen ambling about the driveway while they await their rides home. They carry the guitar cases with some reverence. Some of them are still counting out the music as I hobble by... I can see them frowning in concentration, playing music in their heads. Mostly they don't look up, even if they offer a polite "Whassup" to acknowledge my presence as I pass by.
I try not to look too closely (or too obviously) at these boys with artfully scruffy clothes and hair long enough to have to twitch their heads to get the hair out of their eyes, but I can't help looking for clues, premonitions about my little guys. Especially my Big'un, with his guitar obsession that started before he could walk with much confidence. Now he's six, so soon it will be time to start LESSONS. Soon I'll hear the painful, redundant strumming and muttered frustration, but that will smooth out little by little as he takes it to the next level.
Now when I ask him about lessons, he says with a wave of his hand, "Mom, I already KNOW how to play guitar." And he does, on some strange level. We have about seven guitars around the house, of various sizes and in various states of disrepair. But when one of them is dragged out, there is indeed some proficiency in the playing. I don't argue, and I don't interfere. This little boy enthusiasm is where that music thing starts, I think. God forbid that I should squelch that with too much formality, too soon.
I know Agathon's Thing 1. I've been there to "supervise" his learning sessions, including his scheduled time on the trumpet. He picks it up out of the case and puts it together and toodles around for a bit with his own little boy joy in making some noise. Then he gets serious about the Formal Practice thing for a while. He enjoys telling me all about it as he practices. I'm a new grown up with fresh questions and genuine interest. I think the playful parts before and after the scales and the little song are the best parts of his efforts.
I'm charmed by this smart little boy and his earnestness and stick-to-it-iveness. He's a little older than my Big'un but he's of the same make: smarter and/or quirkier than his peers, with a different slant on his perspective, more often doing his solitary thing even in the company of other kids. Thing 1 and Big'un may grow up to be friends in that casual but enduring way of kids whose parents share long friendships. They may be skulking teenagers together. They'll most likely have music to help them through those hard times that are inevitable in any adolescence, especially for the Weird Ones (she says with the greatest affection, as one of the Weird Ones, herself). Maybe they'll have a boy band together.
Certainly Agathon and The Wife and I share a certain Intention for our kids, informed by education, culture, spirit, social influence, some genetic drive, some innate and cultivated intellectualism--whatever qualities that led us to be Who We Are.
I ramble along with no clear idea of where I'm going... just glad to be writing, glad to be well enough to reflect on these matters even fleetingly. As I've pecked out these words, the teenaged kid has left and an adult student has come in. He's doing something from ZZ Top, I think, and there's a lot more talking... two men conversing with their deep voices and their guitars... some laughter, some little musical riffs and inside jokes from the Beatles, a little Hendrix... a whole different quality of teaching and learning is going on now. Age, experience and exposure inform this man in his early attempts to learn to play. But you know what? There's still the same flavor of little boy joy in it. Amazing.
That's enough for now, even if I didn't make any real point. Thanks for putting something out there to think/write/talk about, A. Let's get the boys together sooner than later. Let's set 'em loose on our collection of musical instruments and see what happens. And let there be mojitos or margaritas for the Big Kids.
[editor's note: here's a more precise link, but you gotta read A's blog anyway. Well, you COULD, and you would be glad you did. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUij8FCg0z8&eurl=http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2007/09/excellence.html
That clip led to another of the guitarist Jose Feliciano and his rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee, which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOs1HC29zh4
Then, you can watch Luis Moreno do the Rimsky-Korsakov tune on electric guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muqflDqEEp8
As I write this, my Sweetheart is down the hall in his music studeo with a teen guitar student. I hear the low voices: the patient deep voice of the teacher offering corrections and praise, an occasional questioning tone from the kiddo. I hear the hesitant chords, the teacher's proficient demonstration, another halting attempt, then another, less halting, more smooth...
They work on measures from Guns and Roses or Depeche Mode or whatever modern hip tunage floats the kids' boats as they learn to play. I'm not sure where the Flight of the Bumblebee fits into these kids' agendas. In any case, they Show Up. Most of them seem to have practiced between lessons. They are in pursuit of something with this music thing. There's a reason for the effort from student, parents, teacher. Even in these half hour lessons, I hear progress.
After lessons, the boys can be seen ambling about the driveway while they await their rides home. They carry the guitar cases with some reverence. Some of them are still counting out the music as I hobble by... I can see them frowning in concentration, playing music in their heads. Mostly they don't look up, even if they offer a polite "Whassup" to acknowledge my presence as I pass by.
I try not to look too closely (or too obviously) at these boys with artfully scruffy clothes and hair long enough to have to twitch their heads to get the hair out of their eyes, but I can't help looking for clues, premonitions about my little guys. Especially my Big'un, with his guitar obsession that started before he could walk with much confidence. Now he's six, so soon it will be time to start LESSONS. Soon I'll hear the painful, redundant strumming and muttered frustration, but that will smooth out little by little as he takes it to the next level.
Now when I ask him about lessons, he says with a wave of his hand, "Mom, I already KNOW how to play guitar." And he does, on some strange level. We have about seven guitars around the house, of various sizes and in various states of disrepair. But when one of them is dragged out, there is indeed some proficiency in the playing. I don't argue, and I don't interfere. This little boy enthusiasm is where that music thing starts, I think. God forbid that I should squelch that with too much formality, too soon.
I know Agathon's Thing 1. I've been there to "supervise" his learning sessions, including his scheduled time on the trumpet. He picks it up out of the case and puts it together and toodles around for a bit with his own little boy joy in making some noise. Then he gets serious about the Formal Practice thing for a while. He enjoys telling me all about it as he practices. I'm a new grown up with fresh questions and genuine interest. I think the playful parts before and after the scales and the little song are the best parts of his efforts.
I'm charmed by this smart little boy and his earnestness and stick-to-it-iveness. He's a little older than my Big'un but he's of the same make: smarter and/or quirkier than his peers, with a different slant on his perspective, more often doing his solitary thing even in the company of other kids. Thing 1 and Big'un may grow up to be friends in that casual but enduring way of kids whose parents share long friendships. They may be skulking teenagers together. They'll most likely have music to help them through those hard times that are inevitable in any adolescence, especially for the Weird Ones (she says with the greatest affection, as one of the Weird Ones, herself). Maybe they'll have a boy band together.
Certainly Agathon and The Wife and I share a certain Intention for our kids, informed by education, culture, spirit, social influence, some genetic drive, some innate and cultivated intellectualism--whatever qualities that led us to be Who We Are.
I ramble along with no clear idea of where I'm going... just glad to be writing, glad to be well enough to reflect on these matters even fleetingly. As I've pecked out these words, the teenaged kid has left and an adult student has come in. He's doing something from ZZ Top, I think, and there's a lot more talking... two men conversing with their deep voices and their guitars... some laughter, some little musical riffs and inside jokes from the Beatles, a little Hendrix... a whole different quality of teaching and learning is going on now. Age, experience and exposure inform this man in his early attempts to learn to play. But you know what? There's still the same flavor of little boy joy in it. Amazing.
That's enough for now, even if I didn't make any real point. Thanks for putting something out there to think/write/talk about, A. Let's get the boys together sooner than later. Let's set 'em loose on our collection of musical instruments and see what happens. And let there be mojitos or margaritas for the Big Kids.
Boy, where do I begin?
I'm out of the hospital... three days, now, I think. I have good stretches of time and really, really bad times. I'm weaker now than I've ever been in my life. I'm as thin as I was in my early twenties, during the ballet dancing days. It's weird. I feel diminished in more than just physical presence; I feel half here half the time. (Okay, it could be the morphine and/or any of the other dozen drugs I take almost daily...)
I haven't seen my kids in more than two weeks. Littlest One turned four last Wednesday, the day after I had my second surgery for this hospitalization. I wasn't really lucid that day but I did my best to do a little meditation of recollection of his exisitence in my life, from the days of planning and conception to confirmation that he was a real budding being within me, to his birth, through the days and years of his life so far.
Usually on my boys' birthdays, I get to do that as I watch them bounce around and run here and there and then later as they sleep... the whole day is an occasion to REALLY concentrate on them, honor them, memorize them as they are in this moment, another year along in their lives. But this time I had to fight the effects of drugs and profound pain and use my imagination to do my ritual birthday observation/meditiation.
The lack of his little stout body to hold for a moment before he squirmed back to his busy daily agenda, the absence of his special baby smell that is transforming into little boy smell, the way he didn't even want to talk with me on the phone that day... those losses have caused me a special kind of grief to color this birthday. I only hope that one day he will understand, or that it won't matter, because I'll be THERE for all of the other birthdays and the other important times in his life. I hope that one day I will understand, for that matter.
I haven't reread any of my entries lately, but I remember the ambitions I had for this blog. They had something to do with taking note of moments and methods of simplicity and serenity. I was open to the probability that the topics would range far and wide. It was a different way to Write with a capital W. Now I know I have a readership and I've even appeared on Technorati, which may or may not be a "cool" thing, to be rated as an "authority." I have no idea what that means in that world, but it SOUNDS cool.
I guess my experience is another cautionary tale: please, please DO be careful what you wish for. I wished for my life to be more simple. The circumstances of my life haven't changed much, on the surface. The Obligations still exist. I just don't show up for them anymore. That, for me, has been excruciatingly painful.
I wished that pain away, but then I got so very, very sick that even caring that I wasn't showing up wasn't on my agenda. Whew. The Lessons from this Illness Thing just don't stop. And I can't keep up. I hardly can write in my own journal, much less come up with pithy lessons and glowing insights to "publish."
A few weeks ago I went to a party to see some old friends. I hobbled in with my walker and was ushered to a comfortable chair and I had about an hour of good talking before I faded and had to hobble out again. In discussing this whole sickness thing, a friend suggested that some of the best use of the experience would be to distill what I'm learning, put it into words and share it with my friends, as well as reflect on ways to improve my own life with the strange silver linings that appear even in the dire absurdity of this MESS.
This is a guy whose suggestions carry some authority with me--read his blog (http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/) and you'll see why. It would be groovy if I could come up with some nuggets of wisdom or simple moments of genuine observation and reporting like those on his blog and those of his wife (start with http://mamaoknits.blogspot.com/)...
But I'm not warmed up enough to reach articulation yet. The writer in me knows that I have to keep writing a bunch of drivel to get to the good stuff. Normally I wouldn't inflict that on ANY readership. But this time I'm going to say to hell with all that and just type away and get my writing fix and see what comes of it.
So with that introduction, I'm exhausted. Ha. Figures. More later, eh?
I haven't seen my kids in more than two weeks. Littlest One turned four last Wednesday, the day after I had my second surgery for this hospitalization. I wasn't really lucid that day but I did my best to do a little meditation of recollection of his exisitence in my life, from the days of planning and conception to confirmation that he was a real budding being within me, to his birth, through the days and years of his life so far.
Usually on my boys' birthdays, I get to do that as I watch them bounce around and run here and there and then later as they sleep... the whole day is an occasion to REALLY concentrate on them, honor them, memorize them as they are in this moment, another year along in their lives. But this time I had to fight the effects of drugs and profound pain and use my imagination to do my ritual birthday observation/meditiation.
The lack of his little stout body to hold for a moment before he squirmed back to his busy daily agenda, the absence of his special baby smell that is transforming into little boy smell, the way he didn't even want to talk with me on the phone that day... those losses have caused me a special kind of grief to color this birthday. I only hope that one day he will understand, or that it won't matter, because I'll be THERE for all of the other birthdays and the other important times in his life. I hope that one day I will understand, for that matter.
I haven't reread any of my entries lately, but I remember the ambitions I had for this blog. They had something to do with taking note of moments and methods of simplicity and serenity. I was open to the probability that the topics would range far and wide. It was a different way to Write with a capital W. Now I know I have a readership and I've even appeared on Technorati, which may or may not be a "cool" thing, to be rated as an "authority." I have no idea what that means in that world, but it SOUNDS cool.
I guess my experience is another cautionary tale: please, please DO be careful what you wish for. I wished for my life to be more simple. The circumstances of my life haven't changed much, on the surface. The Obligations still exist. I just don't show up for them anymore. That, for me, has been excruciatingly painful.
I wished that pain away, but then I got so very, very sick that even caring that I wasn't showing up wasn't on my agenda. Whew. The Lessons from this Illness Thing just don't stop. And I can't keep up. I hardly can write in my own journal, much less come up with pithy lessons and glowing insights to "publish."
A few weeks ago I went to a party to see some old friends. I hobbled in with my walker and was ushered to a comfortable chair and I had about an hour of good talking before I faded and had to hobble out again. In discussing this whole sickness thing, a friend suggested that some of the best use of the experience would be to distill what I'm learning, put it into words and share it with my friends, as well as reflect on ways to improve my own life with the strange silver linings that appear even in the dire absurdity of this MESS.
This is a guy whose suggestions carry some authority with me--read his blog (http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/) and you'll see why. It would be groovy if I could come up with some nuggets of wisdom or simple moments of genuine observation and reporting like those on his blog and those of his wife (start with http://mamaoknits.blogspot.com/)...
But I'm not warmed up enough to reach articulation yet. The writer in me knows that I have to keep writing a bunch of drivel to get to the good stuff. Normally I wouldn't inflict that on ANY readership. But this time I'm going to say to hell with all that and just type away and get my writing fix and see what comes of it.
So with that introduction, I'm exhausted. Ha. Figures. More later, eh?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
true love
true love exists. yeay
Congrats, friends... happy 11th...
http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2007/10/eleven-and-counting.html
Congrats, friends... happy 11th...
http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2007/10/eleven-and-counting.html
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Surgery Day... again
Five minutes left before I leave for Northwest Medical Center for the 5th (?) back surgery. I'll be in for a long time this time but this is it. This is IT. THIS IS IT.
Thank you all for the prayers and encouragement and blessings and humor, from near and far...
Thank you Katherine for the candle lit in a church across the Seine from Notre Dame... and Cecilia for the candle at San Xavier Mission, Connie for the braid and the good words, my sister for the flowers and good care, Amethyst for taking over my work, Kim for help with the house and kids, Kandi for EVERYTHING, Stuart for all you do for me, and for all the rest...
I wish I could write something profound but people are waiting for me so I can't fill in my entire list of acknowledgments.
Next time I write maybe I'll be more prolific and have something interesting to say about all this. Lessons abound. Mostly about perseverance.
Love to all,
Heather
PS: Kandi, I still love my life. :-)
Thank you all for the prayers and encouragement and blessings and humor, from near and far...
Thank you Katherine for the candle lit in a church across the Seine from Notre Dame... and Cecilia for the candle at San Xavier Mission, Connie for the braid and the good words, my sister for the flowers and good care, Amethyst for taking over my work, Kim for help with the house and kids, Kandi for EVERYTHING, Stuart for all you do for me, and for all the rest...
I wish I could write something profound but people are waiting for me so I can't fill in my entire list of acknowledgments.
Next time I write maybe I'll be more prolific and have something interesting to say about all this. Lessons abound. Mostly about perseverance.
Love to all,
Heather
PS: Kandi, I still love my life. :-)
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