Practice or Review

I sit and write this with a kitten tucked between my arm and the keyboard of my laptop. She came home with us on Halloween–not because she was black or scary (she is decidedly neither)–but because when I pinned her down, her back against my legs, and rubbed her ears she relaxed into the affection I was forcing onto her, and I saw a glimpse of something in that moment of kitten bliss (hers and mine). It simply made sense to bring her home and watch her meld into the familial fold.

Her penchant for cuddling, for curling up on a lap, a chest, a shoulder, or a bodily nook serves to pin us down for indeterminate amounts of time while we revel in the love she brings to us in her purr and her napping posture. There is an informal (but often enforced) rule in our home that a sleeping or cuddling cat on human is an instant excuse for avoiding a chore. If the water is boiling on the stove, the phone is ringing, the dinner plates need to be cleared and/or washed, and a cat has suddenly appeared on a lap, that lap is free to remain immobile until the cuddly body is gone. Someone else will take care of the chore.

A cuddly kitten body not only helps avoid chores, but most other movement as well. It is all too familiar a feeling; many kittens have come before her. From the first night she crept in between Joe and I in bed and plopped down for the night we knew that she was the puzzle piece we hadn't known was missing. Now we spend our downtime held in our chairs unable and unwilling to move lest we disturb this lovely cherub.

These feelings are familiar, not just because we have lived through and loved kittenhood before, but because it is so reminiscent of babyhood. One of my earliest and favorite memories of my son is the first night we spent in the hospital. I was holding him, chest to chest as he slept. The place where our bodies touched warmed and expanded until it engulfed us both. I had felt connected to him from the first moment that I felt him move inside me, but this outside, physical connection was stronger and deeper than I could have imagined. It was intoxicating, a feeling I didn't want to end–which also meant that I didn't want to move. Once we took him home, I spent as many hours of those first days as I could sitting comfortably on a rocking chair, holding him as he slept, occasionally allowing a visitor or family member a few moments of baby bliss.

On days when my baby and I visited my grandparents, my grandfather would insist on staying home to babysit while Gram and I went out to lunch. We would leave him sitting in the rocking chair cradling the sleeping infant head in the crook of his arm. Hours later we would find him in the same position still happily rocking while baby Vincent slept; Grandpa often nodded off himself, all the while gently rocking them both.

Now my son is expecting a baby of his own. I wonder if this kitten (who came from my son's house) was meant to be with us so that we could be reminded of that all consuming love of a baby, that visceral need to stay in one spot while something warm and cuddly sleeps and we revel in the warmth and intoxication. Are we practicing the immobility of being pinned down by a sleepy, needy baby, or are we simply reviewing our favorite positions.

Tourism

An outing to Carmel-by-the-Bay that immediately followed a visit to the Monterey Outlet Mall was very eye-opening.

Carmel was packed! Nearly every two-hour parking space on the streets was filled. The sidewalks were brimming with people. Some restaurants had lines of people waiting to be seated. And this was at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

We stepped briefly into a shop that sold pens and paper. The hope was that in addition to finding a cool journal (which we did find, but did not purchase) we could check in with the salesperson about a finding a local bookstore. We left shortly after we overhearing a woman choosing the $295 pen to add to her collection. Notice the missing decimal point. Yes, this was a nearly $300.00 pen! And I saw several on display, including a jewel-encrusted one, for over $1000!

In all the shops that we visited, nothing sold for less than $50. Nothing. Of the shops we visited, the average price for any item was $300. And the place was packed! There was no shortage of money in that little town on the last Friday of September.

In contrast, the Monterey Outlet Mall where we began our day was pretty quiet. Well over half of the store fronts were empty, 2/3 if I wanted to be realistic. We saw only a handful of people while we looked (mostly in vain) for some great clothing deals. The candy store was the happening place, the few visitors all seemed to gravitate towards the recession proof goods.

So it would seem that in the midst of a recession, the people who have always had money still do, and the people who could use a bargain can't find one. Interesting.

Love, Gratitude and Writing

I am feeling particularly blessed these days. I am working; I have a job with regular income; actually I have two teaching jobs (as of tomorrow). In this economy I feel blessed several times over. I am, however, grappling with the fact that although I am making more money than I have in my life, the cost of living here is more than ever and so I don't have any money. In fact this week I am waiting with baited breath for a paycheck so that I can pay my bills much later than I like to. But, hey, at least I WILL be able to pay them. Again, feeling blessed.

I am also feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude that my creativity level is so high. I am researching and writing a book that is the story of being sexually abused as a child. Yeah, I know, sounds dark. And it kind of is. But it is also very, very enlightening. The man who molested me is quickly moving from the deepest darkest shadows of my memories into the light where he looks more pathetic than menacing. You see I am researching my own story, the accuracy of my own memory, and the timeline of my life versus his. It is really fascinating how we humans deal with trauma, and much like that pathetic and ugly man, the more I examine my trauma the less of a grip it has on me.

I also joined a reading and writing group on Facebook, along with several alumni from my graduate program. It is such a joy to discuss books and craft with my contemporaries again. As much as I love teaching and watching students make connections with the required readings and their writing, it is really lovely to have discussions on a higher plain.

I am feeling loved on all fronts. My kids are healthy and happy. My marriage is good and we are quickly approaching our 20th wedding anniversary. I have the best friends a woman could ever hope for, and I seem to have learned how to accept their love.

Yep. Life is good.

Educational Nightmares

I think that most everyone has bad dreams about school, even long after we are done attending classes. My dreams often include an embarrassing state of undress, a corridor full of people and the inability to find a classroom or locker or paper to hand in.

Or realizing that I have an exam in a class I forgot to attend all year.

Or looking at homework that should be easy to do, but requires skills I have suddenly forgotten.

In my waking life I have a graduate degree, but in my sleeping life I might have forgotten to finish a class in high school which, if not rectified, could result in my losing all my degrees. There always seems to be one more classes to return to, one more paper to write, one more test to take. I understand that these kinds of dreams are the sub-conscious mind's way of processing unfinished business, but I sometimes wonder if I will ever finish processing the student life.

Then last night I dreamt that I was on my way to give a final exam for a class (finally I was the teacher) but I couldn't remember teaching them anything. It was a short-course (only 5 weeks or so) in a culinary class. I was fully dressed, but much like waking life I was carrying around mounds of papers. I couldn't remember teaching food or knife safety, recipes, or anything for the class. Keep in mind that I am generally a writing teacher, so I must have accepted the job to teach the course as a favor at the last minute. In a futile attempt to decide what I was going to test the students on, I visited them in a study group and invited their input which I wrote on a white board. None of them were asking questions about the subject matter of the class; they were asking questions about sentence structure and finding my errors as we went!

Then I visited a jail and spoke with some fascinating people, including a Native American who had wonderful stories to share–none of them were about the culinary arts. I was on my way to the classroom determined to ask the students to write short essays describing what they had learned in class when I woke up.

Apparently I have graduated (pun intended) from nightmares about being a student to nightmares about being a teacher. Lovely. The lesson here could very well be that no matter whether I am a teacher or a student the paperwork feels endless, the tension is ongoing and the deadlines don't stop.

Wonderful.

Empty Nest??

Technically I am almost an empty nester.

My daughter graduated from high school. She is my youngest, so that means many things. It means no more permission slips or phone calls to the attendance office when she is sick (or simply not in the mood to go to school). It means no more baking cookies or brownies to sell at drama or choir productions. It means no more coordinating parent volunteers (although to be honest I gave that up almost two years ago). It means no more phone calls for permission to give her Tylenol if she doesn’t feel well (even though she was already 18 and technically could make that decision on her own) or say yes, she can drive herself home even if she feels like throwing up.

My worth as a human being, and gauge of my identity as a mother, no longer relies on how often I take tickets or count money or drive a carload of kids to Marine World. My social life won’t rely solely on chats on the playground or hanging out in front of the school waiting for the bell to ring. My identity will always be wrapped up in my role as Vince or Melia’s mom. I’m okay with that, much I am is Joe’s wife. I am fortunate in that my kids and their friends think that I am a cool mom. I still get to be cool. That, thankfully, doesn’t change just because the kids are done with compulsory education.

The last several transitions have carried with them a heavy sense of loss. Even though death means gifts, and I do believe that even when we lose people we love they leave behind many gifts that stick around for a long time, any transition is a loss. But I’m okay with losing the burden of permission. Constant permission. I will no longer have frustrating conversations with school counselors or administrators. I no longer have to justify my reasons why I don’t want my daughter to take part in standardized testing that raises her anxiety to unsafe levels and labels her a student in need of remediation even though she maintains a B+ average. I no longer have to fight to remove my kids from the classroom of a tyrant who claims that communication is imperative, yet gives out an erroneous email address at Back-to-School night.

I can happily live the rest of my life without another automated phone call from the high school reminding us about an upcoming event that holds no interest at all whatsoever. I don’t care that the wrestling team is having a spaghetti feed, or that the athletic boosters is recruiting new members. The guilt of not attending PTA meetings or joining the music boosters is gone. I am not required by conscience to attend another Open House to ooh and aaah over construction paper art projects. Back-to-School nights and the 10 minutes the teacher has to explain a full year of curriculum at top speed are over.

There are no more team meetings to attend where we and administrators all pretend to be on the same side, the side of my child, when I know full well they are only there because the law requires that they respond to my concerns.

I won’t miss the girl whose solos make my ears bleed, or the boy who flipped me off when I broke up a fight between him and my son. I won’t miss the snooty parents who act like I don’t exist when I quit the parent group they belong to and am no longer a benefit as a friend. And I certainly won’t miss the tension that comes from misplaced permission slips, information packets, blank forms and (what seems like) arbitrary deadlines.

For now I won’t miss my kids. Well, not much because one still lives at home and the other is less than 2 miles away. The genuine friends that I made while the kids were in school will remain my friends. The skills that I amassed in all the years of volunteering serve me well. I get to walk away, leaving the worst behind and the best in my back pocket.

The phrase empty nest implies a simpler life, a sadder, more lonely life. With children gone, a parent's life has lost its center. The universe shifts, its contents moved onto another, larger, more independent space. In cliche land I could simply be waiting for grandchildren and retirement. Not this mom!

I waited a long time to go back to work and focus on my intellectual stimulation, my ambitions and my future. I still have a long way to go in order to reach my career goals. And I am really jazzed about the new possibilities it brings with it. I'm just getting started and it feels great!

There is room, now, to fill my nest with new interests, new people. A whole new life.
In reality my nest and my life are far from empty, in fact I may need more closet space soon.

All The Worlds a Stage

We spent time at the local university on Friday evening because the daughter's high school chamber choir took part in a choir competition.

In addition to our own kids, about 45 parents and other family members watched four groups representing various schools from about a 50 mile radius. Every group had their strengths, and we enjoyed them all.

After our kids were done with their time in front of the judges, they were ushered into another performance space to do "Clinics." While the parents and friends who had witnessed the competition watched, an instructor (not sure where from) worked with the kids and helped them with various technical aspects the songs that they had performed. I simply don't speak music, so I can't explain exactly what they learned, but most of them seemed to get a lot out of the experience.

All but one young lady, that is.

I will refer to her as "J." J was clearly less than thrilled at the clinic portion of the evening. Her boredom was evident and would not have been an issue had she been standing in the back behind the group where the likelihood of the audience seeing her would have been low. Instead she was on the right hand side of the stage, just far enough away from the group to be essentially a big distraction for several audience members, myself included.

She spent the first ten minutes or so picking at something on her face. It must have been a doozy because she contorted her face into several unflattering poses–open mouth, elongated mouth, tongue sticking out of the side of the mouth–and picked and rubbed and grimmaced. She stopped occasionally to mouth the words that the rest of the choir was singing. When she wasn't picking at her face or mouthing words, she was rummaging through her purse. At one point she pulled her cell phone and place it into her bra. Once she was satisfied that she had relieved her face of whatever blemish had been worrying her, she pulled a tube of cover-up out of her purse, removed the lid and rubbed some off onto her finger. After dabbing the picking spot, it was immediately apparent that she had accrued too much coverup on her finger and, to my utter horror, she wiped it off on a seatback in front of her.

It took everything I had not to yell something like, "Hey, pay attention! Don't you know that we can all see you?" But it occured to me that I didn't want to disrupt what the rest of the choir was learning, and that she really didn't realize we could see her–her little world was so clearly only as big as the personal space that surrounded her. She took less notice of the audience than she did of the instructor.

This was a teen moment at its most sterotypical. It was an active portrayal of the ability to only see just beyond one's own nose, to live in complete oblivion of the rest of the world. Actors onstage pertend that there is a fourth wall, that the audience doesn't exist. J didn't need to pretend.

Once beyond the teen years of naval gazing, many of us grow out of the belief that the world is only as big as we choose to see it, and J was clearly the center of her own universe. Sadly, I have known her long enough to strongly suspect that she will be one of the folks whose perception won't ever grow outside of her personal space. She will likely continue to live her life in her bubble and only see life as it affects her. Even when she is in plain sight of the rest of the world, her vantage point won't allow her to see how she is percieved, only what she is focusing on at that moment. Her own stage will remain tiny, as will her life. It is sad, but fairly predictable.

Then again, how much good does it do me to have the capablity to look beyond my own personal space, my own tiny world stage, and see the J's of the world as they move about in complete righteous oblivion? That night I was angry; I spent an hour angry and resentful at this young woman who, in my opinion, showed a complete and utter lack of respect for a fabulous opportunity. The choir program is on the chopping block as the recession deepens. J will likely graduate and not look back or feel pity for the students who follow her who won't have an opportunity to spend a Friday evening at a university competing or learning new music from a master. I wonder if she will ever look back at that small stage fondly and wish she could go back and relive a youthful moment.

And then I wonder why it made me so angry. Maybe because I stand in front of a classroom full of young adults 3 times a week offering up respect and support. The thought that a student would act so carelessly in the face of opportunity drives me nuts. I feel very fortunate that the J's of this world don't stay long in my classroom; there simply is not enough room for their oblivion on my world stage.

Blooming Broccoli

Sitting on a table in my living room is a paper plate that holds a stalk of broccoli wrapped in a bright red bow. It was joke gift to my daughter for her 18th birthday. It still sits there weeks after the party ended the decorations put away and the final leftovers eaten or thrown away.

I have left it there on the round accent table, where it sits under the leaves of a house plant on the tier above, waiting patiently for my now "grown" daughter to take responsibility for her gifts. But there it still sits even after all the thank you notes have been sent. It's not as if she had any intention of eating the broccoli. It was the impetus for a good hearty laugh amongst her and a few friends, and perhaps a good story later. But now it sits alone as the deep green slowly fades.

My only experience with broccoli that has remained in my home beyond its prime has been in the refrigerator. Too often the once yummy vegetable has sat in the back of the vegetable drawer inside a plastic bag that slowly fills with condensation. Then very light brown spots begin to appear and I imagine that the texture of the stalk develops a slimy texture. I don't bother to reach inside the plastic bag to test my slime theory. When it is time to clear out inedible foods, I take a hold of the corner of the bag and toss it into the trash.

Outside of its normal storage habitat, a stalk of broccoli reacts very differently as it begins its descent from healthy food to compost ready material. It first begins to fade something like tanned skin fading as the sunlight becomes scarce in winter. The fade brings out the yellow. There is no withdrawal of anything much beyond the color; nothing seems to be shriveling the way I would expect. There is a little shrinkage but nothing dramatic. It is aging gracefully. There is no foul smell. In fact I only notice its slow decline when I cross the room on my way into the kitchen, not because the air is fouled by the slow rot I would expect.

The real surprise has been the small and vital yellow flowers that are blooming from within the head. The head of the broccoli is often referred to as the flower, but it would appear that there are more traditional flowers trapped within the topmost portion of the stalk. The chlorophyll seems to have withdrawn inside itself to serve as food for these new flowers, with their tiny paper-fine petals and their white centers.

The red ribbon tied to the stalk has taken on the look of an accent for a bouquet of flowers. The silly gift has transformed itself into something more; it has reinvented itself, almost as if it is attempting to match its surroundings, to become a member of the various home accents.

I'm sure that an internet search or flip through the pages of my plant book would offer a simple and logical explanation for this phenomenon. I don't bother, however. I am enjoying my place as an observer in this happening. I don't feel a need to understand the death of the broccoli. I'm willing to accept that the process is predictable and there is no need to arm myself with knowledge; I can simply allow it to continue undisturbed and enjoy the tiny gifts that it shares before it exhausts it resources.

Anger

For lots of reason, including genetic and childhood exposure, I have a temper. In years past it was something I had great difficulty controlling. In general conversation my kids conveniently gloss over the fact that I had a pretty mean mouth on me when they were younger. I worked very, very, very hard to control my tongue and avoid saying anything I might regret. I did this in large part because I didn't want my kids to think that it was okay for anyone to talk to them in any way that was less that respectful. They are great kids; why should I allow my baggage to hurt them.

There are times even now, however, when I get pretty doggone pissed. Usually I can keep the irrational part of myself in control. I take a certain amount of pride in being able to argue a position or make a point while keeping calm on the outside and attacking the situation diplomatically, however much that may sound like an oxymoron. I am very fortunate to have a supervisor at job #1 who is really, really good about talking me out of a tree when I begin to react negatively towards a situation that has annoyed or angered me at work. I do vent my anger when in a safe location, with trusted friends or family. I have a pretty sharp tongue, and try to direct it away from loved ones. The thing I really don't like about being angry is the loss of control, of myself or what is happening to me.

Then there is the anger at things outside of myself that I have no control of whatsoever.

Take the automatic appeal of convicted killer, Richard Allen Davis, as an example. In the fall of 1993 this man brazenly kidnapped a young girl, Polly Klaas, from her home. He tied up her friends, threatened to kill her mother and sister if she protested, and whisked her off into the night. Within a span of a few hours he sexually assaulted her, strangled her and left her body to rot under a piece of plywood on a spot less than two hours from her home.

In 1996 Davis was convicted of murder with special circumstances and sentenced to die by lethal injection in San Quentin prison. (From research I have done separately, death row inmates are given a choice between lethal injection and the still functional electric chair in San Quentin. Since the re-instatment of the death penalty in California in 1974, all have chosen lethal injection.) He was imprisoned immediately and sat in solitary confinement while his lawyers planned his appeal. That "automatic" appeal process was twelve years in the making.
They pleaded his case before the California Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.

His request carried a couple of options. One was removing the death penalty. Another was throwing out the conviction altogether. This is a man with a laundry list of arrests and convictions. He is the reason for the "3 strikes" law. At the end of a trial that was moved to Santa Clara County in response to the tremendous public outcry, When Davis heard the jury's verdict, his reaction was to turn to the cameras and flip a double bird. When he read a statement to the judge just before sentencing, he claimed that just prior to strangling Polly she asked, "Just don’t do me like my dad."

Before this case, I sat firmly on the fence about the death penalty. The compassion I could fell for both the victims and the convicted made a clear, well-informed and well-formed position impossible. Even for someone who has no personal involvement in this crime, it is nearly impossible to feel neutral about the case. And I can't claim to have to no personal involvement. I met Polly once. She was the best friend of the woman I consider my adopted sister. Polly's house was less than 8 blocks from my own. My son was terrified and worried about Polly up until we learned she was dead.

I am pissed. I angry. I am frustrated. And I know that nothing I can do or say will make me feel better. I don't believe that someone is inherently evil; I don't believe that human-kind is destined for sin and evil deeds. I do believe that there are occasional individuals who make choices in their lives, who consciously take on the mantle of victim and use it as a badge of honor to justify their actions. Those people are evil. Richard Allen Davis is an evil man. This is not a glib statement. I don't write it without cringing. But I do believe it.

The anger is directed not only at the man, but at the system that the man has gleefully manipulated since he was young. Back in 1952 in Santa Rosa, California, a prominent businessman murdered his wife while 5 of his 6 children were watching. He was sitting in the electric chair in 1954 just over two years after his conviction. I'm not saying that we need to return to old west justice and the complete disregard of basic human rights. I do believe that prison reform is imperative. I don't believe that a confessed and convicted killer should be set free on a technicality.

This is the kind of anger that feels hopeless and full of sadness. The complete opposite of empowering.

What do I do with this kind of anger? For now there isn't much I can do except post a comment on another writer's blog or vent my anger here. I set up an email update with the California Supreme Court website. I'm a firm believer in positive thoughts, and in the power of negative thinking. Do what you will with that.

A New Year, A New Administration, A New School

I find it hard to believe that I allowed myself to avoid writing and posting on this blog since November. In my own defense, it wasn't like I had tons of time on my hands. I was working 60 or so hours per week, and I'm normally a 30 per week kind'a gal.

I'll be honest, I'm not the kind of writer who writes every single day. Maybe I should be, so far I'm not. I have done some revising of existing pieces, accepted a few rejections and sent a couple more out. (for more about this subject, check my other blog My Literary Niche.

So we have a New Year. It didn't begin very well, another lost grandchild and we are left with very unhappy and unsettled kids. I don't put much stock in the idea that the first day of the year represents what is coming. It just just doesn't happen that way in my life. Resolutions are the kind of thing that I strive for throughout the year, not simply when the calendar changes.

Tomorrow a new president will be sworn into office. Tivo is set to record the inauguration; if only we could figure out a way to tape it onto something more portable so I could take it to school and play it in the Writing Center. Alas, our electronics have been slowly dying off, so we have few workable choices. A new administration is certainly something to look forward to, especially given the world financial and relational situation. War sucks no matter where it is.

Wednesday I begin teaching at a new school, Contra Costa College. So far the staff has been great, very friendlty if not a bit scattered. The school is doing well financially, so I may even have classes to teach next fall. I am already mostly ready, even without the textbooks for one class (again).

I suppose if I want to bring some more new things into my life, one to include would be the commitment to my writing. Let's see how that goes.