Gratitude List: 1. That our school offers a series of safety nets for students: from caring teachers, to an incredible group of Guidance Counselors, to classes that build resilience and self-awareness into the curriculum. I want to be ever more conscious of building those skills into my classes. 2. People who fearlessly speak truth to power. 3. Grateful that this is Friday. If I am this tired, I can only imagine how it is for the people who sing and dance and play instruments for the whole show. It’s absolutely amazing to sit in the pit–the conductor and instrumentalists are actively ON at all moments. I’m agog with admiration for the work of the students and others who have created this show. 4. Supper with the family last night. Jon went home and got Josiah and brought him all the way back to Lancaster so we could at least eat together. 5. Yesterday’s chapel: Songs of the Civil Rights Movement, led by students, supported by our incredible music teacher. (That’s another thing about my colleagues–they’re good at supporting students to become leaders, to take risks, to speak up.)
I should be used to it by now: I wrangle ushers for all the shows at my school. I shouldn’t be internally startled that the show opens on Thursday, but somehow it always confuses my days for me. It feels like it should be a Friday. And tonight, I have to train my ushers to do both the usual jobs as well as the intermission and end-of-show jobs because I will be running up to the stage to sing in the pit. I’m excited to be in a show, even if I’m back in the shadows, simply boosting the sound.
Gratitude List: 1. The incredible talents of the young people in my school. They are pulling off a major production this weekend. 2. The organizers and directors and costumers and musicians and choreographers who coach and assist and counsel the students to create the show. 3. Rest, in the between spaces. 4. Red. I am wearing a red scarf today for energy. 5. This not-so-little kid beside me, doing a puzzle and whistling something classical. I think it’s from Grieg. I don’t think we play enough classical music here, but he seems to have picked up some motifs.
Gratitude List: 1. Good sleep. Thor is a really good listener. After a week and a half of really difficult nights in which he consistently woke me up at three, he now lets me sleep until the alarm. When my watch buzzed this morning, he fell out of bed. I really think he understood my long imploring conversations. And why not? 2. Yesterday’s rain was moody. I love moody rain. I do miss the sun during rainy weeks, but sometimes, I just need a moody sky to bring out the inner colors. 3. While I was writing an application for a summer writing residency, I went off on a tangent searching for a particular quote that I remembered about the role of writers in times of peril. I finally found it, with the help of some friends, and along the way re-discovered a whole hoard of applicable quotes. Here’s the Toni Morrison quote I was looking for: “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” —Toni Morrison 4. Ursula K. Le Guin. She has some really inspiring notes about the purpose of the writer in difficult times. 5. Talented young people who put their hearts into their creative work. I keep missing cues at practice because I’m caught up watching the dancers. I’m grateful for my alto friend who gently pokes me.
Same photo as yesterday. Different filters and tweaking.
It’s getting difficult to wade through the re-posted tweets and memes on social media regarding the presidential race. While I might not get too anxious or flustered in what I used to think of as “normal” times, these days, I am becoming more and more wary of bots and trolls. The thing is, they’re funny. They’re clever. They make acid points. And the thing behind the thing is: Russia is no longer even trying to hide the fact that it is trying to affect our election process through social media.
In light of this, here are some posting rules to consider. 1. No quizzes. I am taking absolutely NO quizzes online. Even if I am pretty sure that this one will tell me that deep down in my soul, I am a mermaid and my personal animal is a unicorn. No quizzes. No take ’em. No post ’em. 2. No re-posting tweets and memes that disparage political candidates. Except Bloomberg. Okay, none. News stories from major outlets, and insightful (as opposed to inciteful) essays from vetted publications are still fair game, in my book. 3. No name calling. No name calling. No name calling. If the candidate is misogynistic and known to insult women, or racist and known to insult people outside his own racial group, it’s still simply never okay to call him names. It might feel delightfully cathartic to insult him back, but I’m still trying to follow Michelle Obama’s encouragement: “When they go low, we go high.” Besides, there’s so much truth that needs to be spoken that mean names dilute the issues. 4. I am struggling with the newcomer to the Democratic field. I have a favorite candidate, and you might be able to guess who she is, and if you ask, I will tell you, but I am trying to stay out of the bloody fight. I dream of a day when a nominee rises to the top in an election moment like this, but without the bruising and bloodying from members of her own party. In that spirit, I will do my best to not disparage any of the others, especially since word came out that Russia is trying to influence this part of the process, too. (Caveat: This newcomer, though. He has a pretty shady past when it comes to treatment of black people and women. I won’t insult him, but I don’t know that anything is gained by ignoring his history of racism and misogyny.)
What else would you put on the list? I need to get ready for school. . .
Gratitude List: 1. Big batch of grading done. I’ve begun using my gratitude lists as my accountability space for keeping up with the grading. Sigh. Right now, it’s got to be a whatever-it-takes proposal. And I am incredibly grateful to have that batch finished. 2. Last night’s dream: I had found an adult-sized pogo stick, and I made enormous leaps around a stage. I was planning to use the pogo stick as a transportation method because it was such a thrill to jump high and far. But I woke up before I could try that. 3. The sun seemed to rise SO early yesterday! 4. Yellow crocus. 5. All the wingfolk in the sky these days.
Some years, the messy beds out front have been filled with crocus by now, and windflowers were beginning. Even though I’ve been panicky about a spring come too early, I think perhaps my sense has been skewed. These two yellow crocus are the first in our beds, though on a drive through a residential neighborhood, we saw some yards just filled with crocus. I am always excited when they overflow the beds, but I have never seen them spill so carpet-like across the lawn. The aconite, at least, have begun to spread. When they go to seed, I will sprinkle seeds along the front bank and hope they come up there next spring. I think crocus spread underground. I will have to look that up.
Meanwhile, let’s spread beyond our bounds just a little bit today, shall we? Breathe in, breathe deeply. Hold it for a brief second. Breathe out. Expand. Send your breath and your roots and your seeds outward, beyond the tidy pathways that block growth. In. Hold. Out–Grow. Expand. You belong in the wide open spaces. What joy you bring to others as they see how you carpet your vast new green places.
Gratitude List: 1. I keep getting chunks of the work done. 2. This is show week. I’m tired already, but also excited to be part of the energy, and I love being part of something like this with my child (he’s on sound; I am singing in the pit). 3. I am applying for a writer’s thing this summer. There is very little chance that I will be chosen, but the daydreaming about it is giving me lots of energy and helping me to hold onto this piece of my identity with more intention. 4. How stretching and breathing work together, literally and metaphorically. 5. It’s 6:15, and the sun is coming up!
Three years ago, I ran a couple of my short poems through Google Translate to see what would happen. From English to Pashto and back again. From English to Pashto to Hindi to Javanese and back again. How does meaning become fractured through the algorithmic translation process? Last week, I tried it again. I started with:
Long have I longed for and dreaded this moment of darkness, belonging to silence, sure of my shadows.
Then I ran it through Sinhala —> Tajik —> Swahili —> Malayalam —> Pashto —> back to English
Here is what happened. Look how it pulled a rhyme in there for me (afraid/shade), and the meaning has definitely shifted, but I’m really happy with it. I added punctuation at the end for clarification. I actually like it better than my original. I’ve been waiting a long time. Don’t be afraid. At this point: Dark, In silence, I believe in shade.
Then I tried Mr. McConnell’s famous Truth: Nevertheless she persisted. Ran it through Punjabi —> Bangla —> Hmong —> Kyrgyz —> Tamil —> English Ended up with: The reality is, however, there is more. This changes the meaning a little more than I really want to, but it is an interesting end.
I tried a third, another of my tiny poems. This time, that fifth line changed anger to sex. Hmmm. Take a deep breath. Find the place inside you that remembers how truth feels; remember that there are kinds of anger that are more effective than blind outrage.
Tamil —> Javanese —> Cebuano —> Hindi —> Kazakh —> English
Take a deep breath. Find a place in your stomach The cruelty of truth is considered; Remember Sex is scary It was very effective Especially the blind.
Ah, well. I like putting the essence of meaning outside of my control for a moment and seeing what happens.
In Creative Writing classes, many of the exercises I have students do are to encourage us to move behind that space in our brain that controls the meanings. Part of the reason for this is that is helps us to discover hidden wells and springs of words and ideas within ourselves that we didn’t know were there, like finding the secret room in your house in the dream. At a basic level, it helps us learn that there are a thousand ways to say a thing, a thousand hues of meaning. Giving up control in the immediate moment, as with an exercise like this, helps us learn to take control, to refine and define our meanings.
Gratitude List: 1. Singing in the pit for our school’s musical. It’s a rather big commitment, but I love it. 2. Yesterday after I dropped a Big Boy off for tech prep for the play, I had a couple hours just to be by myself. I went shopping, of all things. Hit the Goodwill pay-by-the-pound bins, and A.C. Moore’s going out of business sale. I bought Small Boy a stack of canvases for painting–half price. 3. The Small Boy hasn’t painted for months, but at the moment he is creating a marvelous abstract cloud-like scene with watercolors. Hmm. Now he is adding some acrylics on top of that. Experiment, Kid! 4. Silver hair. When I see photos of myself now, my first awareness is of a middle-aged, grey-haired, gnome-like woman. I’m okay with that. No, I’m actually happy with that. I like being middle-aged, and I like having unicorn hair. 5. The way the sun casts shadows in the bosque across the road when it slides up and over the opposite ridge in the mornings. All those tree-shadows!
Munich, 1942: The year before they were arrested and beheaded for writing and disseminating anti-Nazi pamphlets.Left to Right: Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst.
The called themselves The White Rose. A group of young people, propelled by their deep desire for justice, their faith, their profound belief in doing what it right. They began writing pamphlets, an underground newspaper of sorts, detailing the reasons for their resistance against Hitler and the Nazis, and leaving them around their university and town for people to find and read.
Three of them, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst, were arrested on February 18, 1943, and sent to the guillotine on February 22, less than a week later. They were all under the age of 25. At the trial before their execution, Sophie appeared with a broken leg, apparently sustained during torture. The defendants were not given a chance to speak, but Sophie called out: “Somebody had to make a start! What we said and wrote are what many people are thinking. They just don’t dare say it out loud!”
On the back of the indictment that pronounced her death sentence, Sophie wrote, “Freedom!”
Her last words, apparently recorded by a guard present at her execution, were: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
This poem inspired the name of the White Rose (Die Weiße Rose):
I Have a White Rose to Tend (Verse XXXIX) by José Martí
I have a white rose to tend In July as in January; I give it to the true friend Who offers his frank hand to me. And for the cruel one whose blows Break the heart by which I live, Thistle nor thorn do I give: For him, too, I have a white rose.
CULTIVO UNA ROSA BLANCA… (Verso XXXIX)
Cultivo una rosa blanca, En julio como en enero, Para el amigo sincero Que me da su mano franca. Y para el cruel que me arranca El corazón con que vivo, Cardo ni oruga cultivo: Cultivo la rosa blanca.
Gratitude List: 1. How my students are present for each other. Yesterday, two in particular ministered (I just can’t think of a word that says it more clearly) to another student who was in pain. Natural, appropriate, immediate responses. The kids are all right. 2. Black History Month Chapel at my school yesterday. These young folks are educators, incredible teachers, wise souls. I’m so proud to know them. 3. All the birds! Yesterday as I was walking out of school, a group of nuthatches were angrily scolding in the maple tree at the corner of the parking lot (nyerk! nyerk! nyerk!). I noticed that they were hollering at a robin. Looking closer, I saw a junco sitting on a branch next to the robin. Then a downy woodpecker began shimmying up the main branch, and in front of her, a bluebird was murmuring along with the nuthatch racket. All in one tree! That was incredibly amazing in itself, but. . . 4. . . .just at the moment, the two people on campus that I knew would appreciate such a sight happened to come along, from two different directions. One a teacher and one a student. So I could share the amazing sight immediately with people who also experienced the wonder. 5. Speaking of birds, there’s a glorious red-bellied woodpecker out there right now chipping away at the suet block. 6. The examples of so many people of courage: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, John Lewis (whose birthday was yesterday), you.
I had a couple long conversations with Thor yesterday. I reminded him that my success rate for waking up in the morning has been 100%, so he doesn’t need to check whether I am still alive. I told him to wait until the alarm goes off. And here’s the thing: He did not wake me up last night.
Gratitude List: 1. The doves are getting all amorous out there in the weeds and the vines. Sure sign of spring. 2. During my lunch watch yesterday, at least three students came up and told me about book series that they love. 3. I correctly identified that Araucana hen in the FFA quiz in chapel yesterday, even if I missed the one about the cultipacker. 4. Friday. It’s Friday 5. How the kids in Speech class support each other. Some powerful stories were told.
May we walk in Beauty!
I’ve been really circumspect about not discussing the Democratic political candidates here. From the early days of 27+ candidates, I have been mostly sitting back to watch what happens. It feels to me like the more we citizens fight about our candidates, the more unruly the whole process becomes, the ore tarnished all the candidates become. When a nominee rises to the top, I don’t want them to be muddied and bruised by the Dem rivals. But this most recent candidate is causing me no little angst, and so here are a few thoughts, Andy Rooney-style:
I have not been particularly vocal about my candidate choice in the primary, and I’m still keeping all the doors open, with the exception of one candidate. I think it’s best, in general, to avoid jumping into the negativity and back-biting tornado. Still, when you line them up on a debate stage, you can sing Sesame Street’s teaching song “One of these things is not like the others. . .” with a pretty clear view of the one that “just doesn’t belong.” If he wins the nomination, I don’t know how I will be able to vote.
Speaking of Andy Rooney, I am getting so tired of grumpy old white men running things. Just tired. Tired. And I’m getting grumpy–like those old white men.
I can get behind a woman who can speak the truth about the Old Boys’ Club right to their faces. Call them out. Stand up to them. Call the bluff on their obfuscations. Such a woman empowers other women. I feel intense gratitude for people who don’t let the boors hide their bad behavior under a veneer of Good Old Boy bluster.
Stridently calling out bad behavior is not the same thing as being mean. Sometimes you have to be strident to be heard above the bluster and the big money.
I laughed out loud at the Elle article by R. Eric Thomas. Google it–you know how.
Can someone tell Bernie that pointing at people comes across and hostile, and emphasizes all the negatives of the grumpy old white man persona?
Some of you are older white men. I have no quibble with you, per se. I just want to try something different in the White House for a while.
Dear Sweet Thor, I know I said that I love the sound of your happy chirpy morning purr, and I do. Thing is, “morning” is the operative word in that sentence. It resonates a little differently at 3:30.
I love the way you pat my face so sweetly with your paw, but again, what is sweet at 5:30 only startles and annoys me at 4:00. The same is true of whiskers in my face, of walking up and down my body with your needle-fingers, of licking my hands. Please know that, no matter how much you lick my hands, I will not be petting you before the alarm goes off.
So far in my life, I have a 100% record of waking up in the morning–not always on time, I grant you, but usually–so you do not need to check on me every fifteen minutes from 3:30 onward to make sure whether I am still alive. Further, rolling over, stretching out my legs, yawning–these are not signals of my imminent awakening. They usually help me get back to sleep, unless, of course, someone is trying to wake me up.
One more thing, small dude: While I work hard at being culturally competent, I am never going to sniff your butt. You can stop offering. Especially in the night when I am trying to sleep.
See you in the morning, Sweetie.
Gratitude List: 1. Boy has been writing poems. “Who assigned you that prompt?” I ask. “Oh, I just decided to write a poem for fun.” Heart is melting. 2. Stretching and breathing. In-spir-ation. 3. Last night, I looked back through my New Orleans 2003 journal. I need to get back into doing watercolor sketches. 4. Carving spaces for myownself 5. All the little signs of spring.
Today, during the quiet moments between things, make a conscious effort to breathe deeply, down into your roots. Feel your spine straighten and your branches extend out and up.
Gratitude List: 1. The sweet little chirpy purr of a small cat who is happy that his human is awake. 2. Homemade soup 3. Making little changes to routines 4. The intense excitement of a small boy preparing for a competition. You’d think he was flying to California, with the seriousness of his planning and preparations. 5. Breath.
Mockingbird Chronicles 