the two souls declare a road trip and flicker to life

However, each route ended in a cul-de-sac,

Or a dead-end down a long, perilous dirt road.

And, the souls, once again, fell to the tricks of earth

Which promises heaven but leaves an empty space.

Although the sound of the crickets, the smell of the river,

The tune of some old Ernest Tubbs track, train-trapsing from

The transistor about love almost, almost snagged them

Into an endless longing for paradise before they turned

Around to encounter what remained for them to fully find

Outside and upside the dusty and tried and disloyal roads of life.

TW 7/21/13

Writer's note: This is in response to a prompt from a writer's group with former students. We wanted to play with words and our prompts came from our creative talks. Although I was their teacher, I was so grateful for their dutiful desire to stay by my side for a couple of years after our school writing group where we tossed words up to blow where they would; we laughed; and we also wrote songs and sang them and ate my homemade ice cream which I didn't make for hardly anyone else. Most of them have gone on to college, but I am happy knowing that they are making furrows in fields and planting creative words and thoughts. I am happy for my time in their lives and theirs in mine. 

swivel chair spin

When I hear the garage door
open, I feel the impulse to 
jump up and begin cleaning, 
throw away all artistic pursuits, 
black out the dancing
gyration show, and look up
with a smile (or a
complaint).

~~~~~

My son sits on the swivel
chair spinning, spinning like
so many swivel chairs before
when the doctor knocks
and sticks out his/her
hand, and the room rights
itself and greets
the inevitable.

~~~~

My friend dresses with
flair, has hair that
curls, has fine teeth,
and welcomes with
her arms in reach.
All around her, art
revolves around the
gallery wall, and she
blends, represents,
portrays the outward grace
which sometimes clashes
with the awful art displayed.

~~~~~~

I have essays to grade
and so I turn to poetry
where organization and thesis
correction aren't allowed
up in the treehouse
where I've kicked the
ladder down.

~~~~~

And so the good doctor sat
with a gentle smile,
with a smile used at home
with a smile that went
to the high and low,
with a smile that drew
a picture graph,
with a smile which
wanted to help, if only
it had something it
knew how to do.

Pacific pathways

I just returned from Los Angeles. There, I

met others who actively care for struggling learners;

discovered that SoCal has mountains and cool air;

reunited with a cousin and met her black husband and biracial children;

spoke on a walk with her about her pain from her parents' banishment;

received a certificate to practice educational therapy;

had a dog pee on my bed;

was reminded each morning how much God cares for me;

had dinner and wine with California valley girls;

spoke and had dinner with visitors from South Africa;

learned new techniques on how to stimulate cognition for learning growth;

ate lots of chocolate;

became more convinced of the path and mission which I'm on;

sounded like a dinosaur with my lips covering my teeth;

received highly complimentary remarks about my writing!;

swam with my little cousin after our own personal manicure;

was told that I need to practice one of the brain rewiring methods for my own good;

got hugged to death by my teacher at the end of session;

dipped my toes in the Pacific;

watched the start of the Olympics with my cousins;

navigated the morning and evening commute on the freeway;

dreamt in phonics;

enjoyed the support from a loving husband back home;

sat by a wedding dress sales lady on the plane;

forgot where my van was parked in the 106 degree day;

drove up to home feeling happy all-around;

hugged family;

slept to wake with a start!

The crickets are too much with us, late and soon

Right now, as I sit on my outside bench, the crickets are much louder than the birds. Has it come to this that the lowly insects take over the morning song of the bird?

In my spirit, I feel many insects taking over a more lovely sound of assurance. Back in June, I petitioned my school board regarding serving students with learning struggles. One woman in particular, an attorney, interrupted my presentation, asked questions, couldn't see how the school could possibly offer this without lawsuits, was more interested in how the school could serve the gifted. My perceptual hearing there, of course.

Today, I'm discouraged. I've been waiting on God to bear good fruit, to prompt someone to take up the cause of the student who gets denied or discharged because of needs that they have. I'm waiting on someone to connect Jesus' ministry to the oppressed to educating and loving on Christian school students of many different ability levels. I'm waiting on someone to eschew the Greek model of excellence in exchange for the Christian/the Jesus view of excellence as compassion, love in action. But, all I hear are insects and nothing else.

I'm waiting in a hard place, and I'm impatient. And, I'm mad.

I see all kinds of outrage on Facebook right now regarding Obamacare. I see phrases of "my money!" "money!" "money!" One Christian cousin, right after she posted a lovely Bible verse, posted a photo which said to "run the bastards out of office!"

I'm sick of the insects this morning. Sick of the focus being on the dollar, the anger. I am angry. I'm sick of people evading the question of how best to take care of others. What are our responsibilities? The poor will always be with us. There is a responsible approach, but there's also an irresponsible approach and focus. I feel like too many wrong questions are being answered with outrage.

"The world is too much with us" writes William Wordsworth, and all I hear are the stupid drone of the insects, living a short life, and trying to reproduce more insects for the future. I could be one of them trying to make my whine a song. Jesus, help us all to transcend the angry racket and hear one of your simple melodies we can imitate.  Amen.

Resist

I see teaching books around my desk within my grasp but outside my digestion. Superb classroom teachers are simply born -- there's a gifting given, developed, pronounced. Some gifted teachers make it in the classroom, others don't. We have a gifted teacher at our school.

Today, I was especially critical about my own teaching ability. I was feeling insecure like a 12 year old. I moped and sputtered inside; I felt like quitting immediately and running away to play my mandolin under an Osage Orange tree, where my unfettered mind could wander from one jumping grasshopper to the next within the crest of a thick summer humid-wave during August in the Ozarks where I would soon die anyway and be buried by my ancestores to finally rest in peace away from student life of any kind. Ah. I was feeling tired, weary, underappreciated. Wail!

As I walked across the parking lot to an appointment with a friend at a local cafe, I immediately decided then and there to just resist. Resist the temptation to compare and to despair. Resist the temptation to lump a feeling into a reality. Resist stupid acceptance of falsehood.

I decided to accept that I am human with limitations. I decided to accept that my sporadic outstanding teacher moments make up for my fair or even poor days. I decided that my qualities of giving love, appreciation, and encouragement to each individual student (whom I truly love) are enough. At the end of the school year, there will be accolades for our gifted teacher as usual which he deserves because of his care and love for students. But, inside, I will be applying accolades to myself and other teachers who do the day to day with hope, care, attention, without much mention.

I do receive rewards, notes, comments from my students from time to time. Those matter tremendously. But, after all is said and done and the last chapter is closed in the literature book, I work mainly for the approval of God showing his way of individual love for each learner (of all ages). I hope to learn all I can from his loving encouragement of me.

Amen and amen.

Pick Up Stix

Yesterday, we had a chapel service for our students; our much-loved speaker chose the topic of "Belief in God's Love for You" is the most important thing to know in the walk of faith. I sat in the back and thought of how the message was being received by the students. I saw one student who I know struggles with acceptance of this idea; one student who could easily exchange this sentiment for what the world offers; one student who believes this with all her heart; one student who will wait for the evidence; many students who willingly accept this message because they have been lovingly taught it all their lives. Whether they will believe later is the big question.

I thought about my class a couple hours later and how we would be looking at Lord Byron's poetry. The students then are eager to talk about other ideas, how the poetry reflects their love lives (or lack thereof), and I willingly stretch their minds wide to encompass new perspectives.

I remember when I was in college at Evangel University. I was so confused and frustrated by the world in chapel and the world in the classroom. The first was typlified by devotional response, by winnowing of misbeliefs, bad values, wrong perceptions. The second, which I preferred more, was  about "All truth is God's truth no matter where it is found." They clashed terribly for me, and I had a bit of a breakdown in my second year there. One week found me crying in my room for about three days straight. I had just read Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain. I confided in no one; no counsel was given or sought. I was just simply miserable in my inability to reconcile, approach, or disavow.

The message at my high school's chapel was good, like a breath of fresh air really. But, I sat in the back and wondered about the divide, between devotional belief and cognitive acceptance. I think it's like the old game of Pick-up Stix. You try to hold onto one belief (one stick) and take care of it, without moving anything else. When you can pick up a stick successfully, you get to progress until a stick gets moved in the process and you have to sit out. I think at times, we are like that with faith; we believe we must cognitively accept at least one thing without stirring up other questions / doubts. And, yes, while we can do that for a bit,  the pile of sticks will eventually move. There is no shame in it. No reason to sit out. It's just the reality of the difficult cognitive acceptance of the devotional aspects of faith.

To that end, I simply pray that my students can 1) accept that sticks of faith do indeed move; 2) choose to know that God is love and choose to experience it.  Amen.

Real name

It was a wonderful day in the classroom again as I taught poetry in all three classes. Poetry brings about such many thoughts, so many possibilities of finally being able to express oneself. We also talked much about God and spiritual things:  the Father-construct, the all-God-presence, the old goatfooted balloonman (in Just spring), etc.

In the Writer's Cafe club meeting, I read something from the book "poemcrazy: freeing your life with words" by Susan Goldsmith Woodridge. The prompt involved this question:  What is the name that truly expresses who and where you are right now? Using these starters, one can ponder, play, and plug:

My real name is
yesterday my name was
tomorrow my name will be
in my dream my name was
my husband, mother, son, boss (etc.), thinks my name is


This is almost too daunting for me to think about. You must call forth that strength of yourself (or that weakness) and claim it as yourself. I'll try, if you try. But, I have to think much about it first . . .

Ink wound irritants

Well, the happy people are going to church, and I'm Left Behind.

Caught in one of those moods

Which I hope Jesus doesn't catch me in on the Last Day.

A mood where the work piles,

The pressures of doing cancel being,

The people waiting matter more than the person plodding.

I have papers surrounding me

to grade with marks which I don't feel like marking.

I have books opened as if they're laying topless on a  Mexican beach

demanding stare, sunscreen, self-reflection (and incrimination).

I have cats meowing or pawing the door when they want service,

Needing me, needling me, with inscrutable eyes, claws, incisors:

Yesterday's adorable companions, today's taxi drivers.

Today, I think of all the cost of no pay back,

The long hours; the unfair advantage math instructors have

when I cut famous poetry lines to tape onto cards for four hours.

Gloomy words even  like "I heard a fly buzz when I died" or

"About suffering they were never wrong." Stab, slice,

and I'm responsible for being the guide into a field of flowers?

I think I should give.

Crawl back into bed.

Go eat a pile of chocolate cake.

I hope those church folk are singing pretty while I am

burning at the stake for poetry and felinity and

sacrificial lambnity.

As Mark Strand wrote, "Ink runs from the corners

of my mouth" and I agree.

Death such, for an English teacher,  would indeed be

an expected kind of bleed.

[I feel better now. Thank you for hearing violins and cats screeching when kicked.]

Slope lessons

And, what a gift is granted when you can laugh with your students even when you teach them that life isn't fair; nature doesn't care; God only intervenes at will (and their opposites).

But, there is a joy when we hit the slopes. When we release and fly toward God, when we navigate over or through the moguls, when we know life is coming. When in the classroom, we consider the hard with the solution --  the difficult with the sublime; the speed with the arrival.

However, let's be honest. My students are worried about life ahead. They don't necessarily fly with joy and skim happily away. It's serious business. Worry is real. Life and family strains are happening. Others are pulling them away from perceived truth. Other things are beckoning them to bound gratefully away from God and his pressures in cahorts with parents.  Life is happening to them. They need to find their own identities; their own faith; their own path wrought by problems, pleas, responses.

But, for the minute, today, they were my slope companions. And, seriousness and silliness knew no distinction. I felt like a conductor during a mountain festival; a gate releaser; a clown in the trees; a warm cup of cocoa at the end of a bitter wind.

Teaching can be invigorating. Smiles, laughs, and deep ponderings from my students can be the powder which softens any falls and makes a blissful spray along the way.

Selah. Amen. Merci. Word. Life. Graciousness divine.

Stick and Pumps

I apologize for my literary geekiness in my last post; I realize that it's not kind to all readers.

Yet I am the English teacher lady at the board with a stick-it-to-them pole and wearing high-heeled pumps  . . . I must speak the part.

Speaking of career, earlier today I was a graduate study social worker and a professional counselor, while signed up for a graduate education course. This evening, I am now a possible counselor and the same, smiling English teacher (with high heeled pumps and stick-it-to-them-stick). I have been swirling in the possibilities of a career move, researching, calling, caffeinating, but for now, the counselor track seems like a possibility as still does the teaching track.

Work. Ambition. Macbeth.

Work. Ambition. Hillary Clinton.

Work. Ambition. Mother Mabel Carter.

Work. Ambition. Rebecca Skloot, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf.

And, then there's Clara Barton, and Mother Theresa, and women who are the fabric of our society. Money isn't an issue. Their role, conviction, courage in everyday, faith are exemplary.

Illuminate my path, Counselor.

Not forgotten

Writing in the blog, non. Living in the life, oui. I was reminded this week of how powerful writing can be to capture the fast-movement of life. I was reminded of my place here, an open square for words to write and capture.

For a writing assignment given to my freshmen students, I wrote about homemade ice cream. I created a sensory map in which I captured all the sensory details of the ice cream family event which we used to have each summer at Grandma Cora's house. The piece has captivated me. I keep reading it over and over again reliving all of those southern Missouri moments of that specific time which represented complete harmony in the universe to me. Grandma's laugh, the smell of the grass, the spicy smell of hydrangea, the feel of the hugging humidity, the sight of aunts, cousins, uncles in the lit circle by the food table, the cicadas, the men hunched over, turning, turning the crank, pouring in the ice, the creamy delectableness of the gift. Grandma's bustle and joy. The wealthy life. God and pleasure.

Therefore, motivated by the writer's desire for preservation, canning, going to the cellar and unscrewing the jar which holds experience.

Grateful for the ever present possibility.

Life's musings, death notices

My third post in one day. I must truly be procrastinating my grammar decisions and my 9th grade fiction decisions, although grammar will be more innovative than imagined, and multi-tiered for the parents who desire the advanced treatment and for those who rebel and accept the basic package. A car wash approach. But, now, I want the 9th graders to hone their short story writing skills (the 2nd annual writing competition) and read The Hobbit and the obligatory Lord of the Flies all in the fall semester. And with three school days a week, time runs out quickly. Despair! I can't assign layers upon layers upon heads. Dismay!


On the Personal Front:


1. Kevin and I leave for France on Thursday.
2. I can't wait to smooch him on the Eiffel Tower.
3. Cody is going to the school where I teach.
4. I am scared to death for his success.
5. My purple phox is all a-lit outside my window.
6. I'm supposed to be planning for my course instead of blogging.
7. I ate three granola bars in a row.
8. I'm reading the book called "The Book Thief."
9. My husband just knocked on the glass door and told me a neighbor's husband just died; the husband in the house right beside them died about a month ago. I hope this isn't making its way down the street.




Au revoir!

Roll over

Oh, Grammar, how to teach you? Must I truly teach the correlative conjunction and the compound-complex sentences and the reflexive and intensive pronouns? Should I really use valuable class time to delve into your science, instead of your usage in students' writing? Or, do you really need to be labeled so that the students can so quickly forget about you (which they truly do -- even my smart students forget about you)? Yes, students need to know how punctuation works within your rules. Yes, students need to be able to identify certain parts of a sentence (noun, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), but when did you become a tyrant in my classroom, shaking your algebraic fist at my young learners who would rather be exploring meaning instead of hammering work ants to death. I must rein you in this year. I must! I must. I will:


A Rein Plan:
1) Go through the grammar book and choose the essentials;
2) Send the students home with their paid for books, where the two shall meet more than in the classroom;
3) Perform grammar check-ups throughout the semester, which looks like -- once every two weeks, set a grammar assignment deadline; throughout each week, spend only 30 minutes of class time covering the assignment, answering questions; incorporate the grammar lessons with their writing assignments, making practical sense out of the abstract; cut the abstract good-for-nothing lessons out! Amen, sister, preach it!


Thank you, O Grammar, for cooperating with the Alpha Teacher.

Thought deposit

My blog has suffered from distraction of good and hard things, but I've been yearning to return lately, so here I am.

Currently, I am downstairs surrounded my papers and books. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 stands nearby taunting me to a dare to choose it for a student text, a parent's anxiety. Will I receive a letter from a parent which asks me why I don't choose a book by Catherine Marshall or by one of those Christian writers that are making the popular fiction rounds? I'm not sure why I want to choose this book. I've not even read it, but yet I think it might be preparatory for students to figure out how to assimilate belief with social, and perhaps religious, criticism. How is faith firmed when angular worldviews are presented? How do you accept good points about life, truth, government, human nature without scalding your thin skin of Christian paranoia? Well, I want my students to be prepared for all sorts of ideas by learning how to think, filter, toss the damaging but save the good. If God imbues all, then let's see Him in action. Yet we can certainly not get caught up in destructive images, thought patterns, hopelessness. Come on, students, learn!

I'm teaching now obviously, and I love it. I have anxiety, yes, but that spurs me on to be better. I'm going into my second year, and I must go to work right now on my freshman curriculum.

Perhaps I can write in this blog again and trust that I don't have to produce little mini-treatises here but just deposit thoughts as I make my way through the land of potholes and God's grace and love and direction-giving.

Raised arms, gasping thoughts

Those little faces looking up to the stage, gasping when a related thought hits them hard, throwing up their arm for me to call on them stays with me. The talk this weekend was on fear and trust. And, as I performed the script for three children services, the kids listened and swung their arms high, wanting me to call on them, listen to their specific fear.

My script didn't call for participation at that point in the talk, but they were insistent arm wavers : "I have a fear that someone is going to walk up the stairs and get me and take me away from my mommy and daddy," said a six year old girl. "I have a fear of losing my sister," said another one. "I have a fear of falling off an airplane," a boy said. Waving arms of fear, gasping thoughts of the innocents filled the room. But I had to keep going, continuing on with the sermon, speaking of the issue of trusting God, giving him your fears, making a wise choice to trust Him. Their eyes glazed. Fears are quite specific, it seems. Something they understand early on. God is less detailed, fuzzy, difficult to sense in the same way. Will fear be supplanted by trust one day?

I hope, but why can't God be as tangible as fear to small children? Even now in their innocence, they feel especially vulnerable to terrible things. Waving arms of fright. Please listen, Teacher, and help us all in our anxious world, especially the young children, protecting them in every nation, because of your love, despite the fallen state, despite the horrible conflicts of man, despite a generational curse, despite a harsh environment. Suffer not the little children as you once willed. Please call on the children and comfort their arms and fears through tangible signs, proving yourself the stronger and more attentive force. Amen.

Perspectus

The world revolves for those of us lucky enough to be here.

When I see the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, I can't help but think of Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" in which he examines the lives of those who were crossing the bridge when it snapped and fell. The novel poses the question of destiny / fate / divine purpose against random occurence. The question used to bother me quite a bit. Now, I tend to believe that random occurence is a causal powerful thing which is hard to avoid in this land of natural laws and motions. Our divine purpose meets its wall. Our divine purpose occurs before meeting the wall. Perhaps God will move the wall, perhaps He won't. Perhaps we'll be on the wrong section of the bridge some time. May we live according to his plan and light until then.

But, life goes on for me. Cody finished his social skills training at the local autism center yesterday. I'm excitedly seeing timers and conversation topics and he and I conversing, with certain rules of conduct, over our reading. I think this will continue the work of the summer.

Music continues. Cody, his learn-by-play piano teacher (not the technical one on Monday's), and I whipped up a rendition of O Susannah to record on Wednesday afternoon. Cody wrote my (very haunted F minor sounding) harmony which I memorized on the mandolin. Linda played her guitar, and Cody manned the piano, having recorded also a drum part. We taped; Cody wasn't happy! We kept doing reworks. We kept laughing. He wants a mic for each instrument next week! I am grateful for Linda and call her Annie Sullivan, a deserving teacherly name for her.

My daughter is driving a friend to the KC airport today which worries me. I told her so, and she hushed me off, and I have no way to take her keys as she lives with her friends. Life goes on there. In a couple of weeks, we're all bound for the beach. I'll look forward then, away from the drive of the day.

Finally, I received my syllabus for my graduate class in English that I'll be taking online. Wow, am I crazy?! Yet, I'm idiotically looking forward to the learning goals and deadlines that this paper represents, now on the outside, soon to be swirled within the language of pedagogy. Do I have you to thank for this, Jennifer (haha)?

Life continues until who knows when or how. May God grant us perspective.

Cody happily asked me to categorize people in soil types this evening after our bedtime reading of the parable of the sower. "That's Dad!" he yelled after a review of one category. "There I am," he said about the thin soil description. I enjoy that Jesus made it quite obvious of our location on the sower's seed-scattering path. It's a parable that clearly tells us to "Quit it!' if we have too many thorny worries, or to stop being superficially delighted only in God's message. It tells us to press on towards the dark loamy nutrient-full soil which produces the fruit of paradise for others to taste, for ourselves to joyfully experience. All it seems to take is full and endearing reception of the seed, an obedience to the sun and rain, and a thrilling upward unwinding towards fruition.
My son seemed to take this passage as a movement of becoming. I liked that.

Last night, my daughter and I went out for dinner and then to the movie "Pan's Labryinth" at the independent film house here in town. It was enjoyable, quipping before the movie, hearing about her boyfriend, talking fashion and people. Like old times, our similar faces liking one another (harder than love at times). We saw her old Contemporary Thought teacher whose class she dropped during her renegade period. We saw a student co-editor in one of her current journalism classes. We saw random people and things to comment upon. I bought her popcorn and cream soda. And, then we snuggled into the old chairs as the cute-boy-movie-host rattled hither and forth as he described the upcoming films. The lights went down, and we began to hear Spanish and we began to read along even after the initial terrible image mangled our vision. As the film went on, the fantasy was fantastical, the reality abject, and we held on until the final image connected the first. And, a lullaby was hummed, and a girl twirled in new clothes. If you haven't seen it, consider it. The guerrila war aspects are worth enduring for the transcendence in the storyline, although the weightier of the two will become apparent. But, we must know both parts.

Life is knowing the parts, I suppose.

My guitar class today at the parent homeschool co-op was wild. Several guitars of the eight students appeared ill-tuned, and fighting this at the beginning took a while. In the meantime, one kid aspired to Clapton, and the other one who talks, talked and talked. The others "warmed up" and the discordance floated down through the hallway. It was fun, however, as well to conduct the sound once I got back into the room. We controlled our way into two or three songs, and those kids like to sing too. I think we'll be a hit at the recital in April!