Small-Town in Big-City, California

It's typical of California. We make small enclaves within larger cities, enclaves that make us feel we're in a smaller, less populated, more community oriented place.

Had a delightful visit with an old college friend yesterday (for the first time in at least 10 years). She was out from TX with her kids for Christmas; got to meet her children for the first time -- lovely and amusing! (More on that later.)

In any case, we had lunch in one such small-town-seeming enclave, and it was quite enjoyable. Despite the fact that we had to travel the busy freeways for an hour in each direction to get there, our time in small-town was refreshing. The atmosphere, in conjunction with reminiscing and catching up, were enough to make us forget we were in the big-city sprawl, at least for a while.

He's Home

Christian, the 14-year-old young man we've been praying for, has gone home to be with his God. The details from their CaringBridge site:


SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2007 11:09 PM, CST
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day." 2 Timothy 4:7-8
His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant!..." Matthew 25:21
Christian earned his angel wings at 10:42 PM tonight in the arms of his family. We are beyond proud of the fight he gave, the courage he showed, and the faith he maintained. Our hearts are absolutely broken, but know he is pain-free in paradise.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/christianbarker

Now starts the hard work. Your prayers for this family who has lost a vital and precious young man will be most appreciated.

Looking Back

I'm updating my calendar for the year, and going through the old one to transfer dates. My vow to engage in more cultural events has held.

The cultural year in review:

• Saw Defiance. (At Pasadena Playhouse. Shanley's second in a trilogy. Like Doubt better, but didn't dislike Defiance, if that makes any sense. He aims -- successfully -- to make the audience think, wrestle, squirm a little.)
• Saw The Piano Teacher. (At SCR. Thought-provoking.)
• Saw Wicked. (Fabulous! Funny. Want to see it again.)
• Took the GRE Subject Test in Literature. (Killer! I scored exactly the mean score. Heh. Don't think it affected my acceptance -- I got in.)
• Worked on summer one of master's degree in lit.
• Saw Annie Lamott. (At All Saints in Pasadena. Got to shake her hand! We were in the overflow crowd, and she came out to greet us all, and to both commiserate and scold us for being late -- which we weren't.)
• Saw Joan Didion. (She read and spoke about death and loss and Year of Magical Thinking. Fascinating! I'm so glad I got to hear/see her.)
• Went to the Orange County Fair. (The fair is always a cultural experience! Deep-fried Twinkies?!?! OMG! Totally foreign to my culture, though I do have a generous appreciation for good grease otherwise. No, not inconsistent in the least! Why do you ask?)
• Saw Measure for Measure. (In the open air atBalboa Park in SD, just after taking a class in Shakespeare's comedies -- wonderful!)
• Saw Harry Potter 5 and read Harry Potter 7. (Hey, these are totally cultural phenomena!)
• Saw The Simpson's Movie. (Even though I felt they could have done more with the long-awaited movie, I stand by my position -- cultural phenomenon!)
• Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Saw them in Israel originally, but I was younger and didn't have as much perspective on them then as I do now.)
• Saw Emmylou Harris. (The red dirt girl's got it! Wish she would have talked more.)
• Saw King Lear with Ian McKellen. (Already posted about this, but he was amazing!)
• Saw several different flicks with the nieces. (When you spend your days in the company of high-schoolers, seeing movies with kids under twelve is a cultural revelation.)

The social year in review:

• Went to a number of the above events with my LittleSis -- fun! She has a lot to say these days. She's still a social butterfly, but she went and got all philosophical and thoughtful and stuff.
• Went to church women's retreat...with great fear and trepidation, mind you -- I've been to too many religious women's functions; I know how cheesy they can get! And I hadn't properly been attending church for years. But this one wasn't cheesy. We retreated to a working abbey, and it was contemplative and peaceful and soulful. We came in with no preconceived notions, as we knew almost no one there; we came out with stories, hearts, connections, icons, and a church to call home (fearfully and tentatively...but it had been a very. long. time.). God bless the women of this world.
• Saw former professor of mine, Dr. FemLit, and her husband and son -- I used to babysit and clean house for them. Wonderful to renew this connection! She's on sabbatical this year to write a book about some early women preachers whose names are all Mary; she's putting to use all the England travel and research she's done. She totally inspiring me to resume my involvement in academia. She's one of the professors whose recommendations helped me earn acceptance into my master's program.
• Reestablished contact with another former professor of mine, who's now in NC -- God bless blogs!

Enough reminiscing and reflecting for now. I'll add more as my memory turns things over. Must go update my address book and calendar -- I've been putting that task off for a couple of years now. I think I might actually get a Christmas Epiphany newsletter out this year! Will wonders never cease?

Survivor Mommy and her Christmas crew!

Survivor Mommy and her Christmas crew!
Originally uploaded by concretegodmother

While it seems death is ever-present at the moment (Christian is pending, Papa R went several weeks ago, a friend lost her baby at 8 months), this photo reminds me of the miracles God performs. Just a year ago, Survivor Mommy (my partner's sis) was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer that had metastasized to her liver and lungs. Her youngest daughter was just 2 months old at the time.

She had a colon-resection surgery in January, began chemo shortly thereafter, adopted an alkaline diet, and implemented measures to reduce stress. The doctors went from talking terminal to a more tempered outlook ("you can live with this") to shock ("I've never seen the word 'tremendous' used in a lab report before"). She claimed God's miraculous healing, prayers went up worldwide, the support staff went into action, and she is still with us.

God is indeed good.

Yummy!

Made this one for my sister's Christmas Eve party, adding a fourth element to the established traditions (1. cheese potato soup, 2. beef stew, 3. lil smokies). We like to Polynesian it up by serving it over rice with diced bananas, peanuts, raisins, and jicama (when available).

West African Peanut Stew

2 cups shredded chicken
1 large onion diced
1 T minced garlic
¼ C dark sesame oil
1 T curry powder
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1 t dried red pepper flakes (or to taste)
4+ cups chicken broth (whatever consistency looks best to you)
½ cup tomato paste
2 cups chopped stewed tomatoes, drained
½ cup chunky peanut butter

In a large pot, sauté the cooked chicken, onion, and garlic in sesame oil for about 10 min. until onion is tender. Add curry powder, salt, pepper, and pepper flakes, sauté for 1 min. Add broth, tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, and peanut butter stirring until well combined. Heat until hot, not boiling, and serve immediately.

Post-Christmas Post

I mentioned Christian in my last post. It appears his time is near, likely tomorrow. Let our prayers usher him into heaven. Let our prayers support and cushion his family. I. cannot. even. imagine. the. pain. [www.caringbridge.org/visit/christianbarker]

"Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Romans 8:26) I find it amazing that God Himself prays for us...to Himself. Wow. I know He's praying for the Barkers right now, as am I.

Almost-Christmas Eve Bullets

• If you haven't discovered joys of http://www.freerice.com/, let me take this opportunity to recommend it, for both enjoyment and good cause (good cause being learning vocabulary and donating rice to those in need). I'm asking my AP kids to visit it at least thrice over this Christmas break.
• Doing experiential, whole-family gifts is the only way to go for Christmas, as far as I'm concerned! Our family made the decision to do this this year, and it has led to an essentially stress-free season. It forced us to spend less (we enacted a dollar limit), caused us to be creative in our presentation of the gift to the family, and it will increase family together time over the course of this next calendar year! Can't beat that! [For those who are wondering, we had my side of the family's Christmas early -- the 22nd -- so we know what our gifts are. Throughout the year, we will be visiting the Getty, doing a traditional family game night, picnicking in Descanso Gardens to the tunes of the Pasadena Pops Orchestra, boating around the Long Beach Harbor and Naples, and attending a cooking class together.]
• Next year will be no gifts. We're going to the Grand Canyon for Christmas! (We did this for the first time several years ago, in Yosemite. It snowed on Christmas morning. It was a gorgeous trip!)
• My sister was born on Christmas Day (2:30 a.m.) lo these 33 years ago. She was delivered to my mom swaddled in a ginormous red stocking. :-) Many people who learn of her birthday moan and mention how terrible they think having a Christmas birthday would be. Don't you get ripped off? Don't people give you combination gifts? Ever since I can remember, we have always held a Christmas Eve birthday party for her, a completely separate event from Christmas. It has morphed into both birthday and annual see-old-friends party. In years when we travel for Christmas, we hold the event on a different...and so many friends comment how weird Christmas Eve felt with no LittleSis party.
• Fervently praying for young Christian, son of my dentist (who has become at least a little more than an acquaintance). Christian has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, diagnosed over a year and a half ago. He's received two bone marrow transplants. With the first, the cancer recurred. With the second, his body and the donor marrow have not been getting along as well we'd like. The cancer is still gone, but he is suffering a 'multipass' of physical woes -- things no 14-year-old should have to endure. If anyone who reads this is the praying type, your petitions would be most appreciated. If you're interested in knowing more, visit his Caring Bridge site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/christianbarker.
• Looking forward to visiting with some old and dear friends this Christmas break! One is an old college buddy, another a retired colleague, and possibly a former student. I'm making a Christmas resolution to actually make contact with a couple other friends of yore. Why is it so easy to lurk on blogs and so difficult to make meaningful contact?
• I was forced to pack up my entire classroom (everything into boxes) so the carpet could be replaced over Christmas break. Now, I don't want to sound like an ingrate, because I'm actually thankful for new carpet -- the old stuff was ripping up, stained, and foul -- but doesn't it seem illogical to make me pack up twice in the same school year? Wouldn't it be more efficient to do it during the summer, when the room is already packed? I had to eat into instructional time and have my students help me pack, because there was no physically possible way I could have gotten it done on my own...save staying till 10 p.m. each night for at least a week...which I would have happily done during this Christmas season...when hell froze over...or if they actually paid me overtime for it. (Ha!) Our Key Club kids are coming in one day near the end of break...and so am I {sigh} to unpack everything and get it all back into place. It's that or lose another instructional day. Seems wrong.
• I wish you all a restful Christmas filled with reflection and renewal.

Advent and Poetry

How wonderful to return to church today after a several-week absence. How wonderful is Advent, the beginning, a fresh start. How hopeful I feel.

I had my Madeleine-and-me day on Friday, which was perfect as we were receiving a day of desperately needed rain. We stoked up the fire, had it burning all day; I slept in till I woke naturally; I gathered a stack of Madeleine's books, both first reads and rereads, and I went to it; drank lots of hot vanilla chai; gorgeous day, one my soul needed.

I've reread Moon by Night, which I haven't read since high school. It's funny what I did and did not remember of it. I recalled the book cover, a shot of two teens sitting on a national park-ey stone wall with colorful buttes and monoliths behind them. I recalled the difficult relationship stuff between Vicky and Zach. I recalled some of the small offhanded-but-important things various characters said to Vicky. I had managed to completely forget that the setting of the book is a country-crossing road trip. How did I forget that? My family did that kind of thing a lot in my growing up days. I was surprised I had forgotten, is all.

I'm reading Wintersong, which is a collection of Christmas-related readings by both Madeleine and her dear friend, Luci Shaw. Some beautiful, striking, thought-provoking work -- I'll comment more specifically later, when the spirit moves.

Today I'm moved to talk about Mary Oliver. My first introduction to Oliver was, strangely enough, from the AP English Language exam. Students were given a prose passage from her Blue Pastures (which I've not yet read) extolling the beauty/terror of both the great horned owl and sand dune roses. Incredible, visceral, powerful piece of writing. My students totally don't get it. (It's prompted me to work on nature-writers unit, for clearly these city kids need this, not only for deepening their reading skills but also to hone their own powers of observation and to minister to their souls.)

In any case, I was prompted to look her up, and I found she's better known as a poet, and a Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning poet at that. So I snatched up three or four of her books on Amazon and I'm just now diving in. Wow. And again I say Wow.

I made reference in an earlier post to my partner's and my serious discussions of moving out of the concrete jungle to someplace beautiful...and our determination to do it while we're still young enough to enjoy it. Then I read Oliver's poem, "When I am Among the Trees," and my soul shouted yes!

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

--Mary Oliver, from Thirst

Amen, and amen.

thanksgiving, grading, madeleine

This here's a catch-all, since I haven't been meeting my goal of posting once or twice a week. [ahem]

Thanksgiving: Lovely time with parents, sis, and cousins (3) and cousins' kid. Somewhat scaled back; not as many casseroles as usual. While I missed some of said casseroles (and plan to make one of them myself this week, I miss it that badly [ahem]), it felt good to be a bit more moderate. We spent less time in the kitchen, more time hanging out and talking, and the post-dinner consequences were much less painful -- satisfaction versus stuffed.

School: Well, I've done no -- NO -- grading this weekend. Let me make myself clear. I've. done. NO. grading. And I am gonna pay dearly. I'm already behind in my AP class, both in schedule and in returning papers. My sophomores have finished a novel (bless Mockingbird), and they've done an absymal draft of a wretched paper that I dread even to read much less mark up with revision advice. I was supposed to decide this weekend how to triage this disastrous paper, and I am no better now than I was on Wednesday afternoon (except better fed and more rested).

I cannot make myself grade at home anymore; this year is apparently a rebel year. I spent this weekend eating, watching movies, decorating for Christmas, cleaning out my constipated closet, watching TV, watching nieces/nephews, taking a real-age survey (my 36 is actually 43 [sigh] -- exercise, flossing, and better nutrition, anyone?), and reading.

Madeleine: As desperately as I want to attend the memorial service this Thursday at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I have come to terms with the fact that it would be financial folly for me to fly across the country just now. However, it is important for me, personally, to commemorate this her birthday and passing into the next life. She is too important to me -- to my development, my thinking, my sense of God and mystery. Therefore, I shall take Thursday off and conduct my own memorial day of reading, poetry, writing, reflection. It is a compromise, but I am satisfied with it.

Other news: My lifelong partner and I are making more than just ephemeral "someday" plans for moving. We crave a place with beauty, clean air, a dedication to nature and preserving our God-created environment. We want out of the concrete jungle. And we are making more than just a pipe dream. Planning is good.

ancient (?) history

Saw this on another blog and figured I'd take a stab at it. Gives me something to blog about, because what's going on IRL would take too long to write about tonight.

What were you doing ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago?

Thirty Years Ago:
I was six, which means I was in first grade in Original Racecar State. I went to Patriotically-Named Christian School, and had Miss T as a teacher. Looking back now, I realize she was probably only in her twenties at the time; she seemed so matronly. I remember earning colored foil stars in my speed-reading drill book. I remember walking for recess to the sort-of park, down the street from the church which housed our classrooms; Miss T would occasionally amuse our single-file first grade line by surprising us with a skip after every few steps. This was especially amusing given her generous proportions and voluminous shawls and extreme age (to us). My family would move westward in two years.

Twenty Years Ago:
I was sixteen with nary a thought of driving (didn't get my license till I was 18 and Mom made me). I was a sophomore in Ghetto Christian School (dubbed as such because it really was located in a scary part of town), and it was my first year at "real" high school; my junior high was a throwback, extending through 9th grade. I had made the JV volleyball team (thrilling) and was enduring the pain of geometry. I met the girl who would be my best friend for the next ten-plus years. She introduced me to the 'evils' of alternative rock music and the joys of deep philosophy (best expounded in the wee smalls).

Ten Years Ago:
I had already been with my life partner for nearly two years -- ok, a year and a half. Three years out of Local Christian U, I was whiling away my time as a secretary at Company that Cuts and Cooks Trees. It would be three more years before I came to my senses and went back to school for my teaching credential. I had enjoyed discovering the beauty and logic of Anglicanism for about five years, but Young Upstart Anglican Church was set to implode a few short years later.

Wonder what the next ten years will bring.

A Master

Oh. Mah. Gah.

Ian McKellen is a god of theater. Though we literally had the worst seats in the sold-out Royce Hall, I feel fortunate to have been there, in the presence of tangible greatness. He was riveting, and the rest of the cast was incredible, too. I cannot say I recall a single false note during the entire three-and-a-half hours' traffic of the stage.

After the show, a lady in the restroom stall next to me remarked to a friend, "They found all the humor in the text. That's something not every production does. ...And it's the humor that makes the tragedy even greater" True on all accounts.

How does one become a "classically trained actor," anyway? And is age 36 too late to start?

The Stats

420,424 acres burned
1,155 homes destroyed
881,500 people evacuated
(Info per Los Angeles Times)

So many friends affected -- either evacuated or on alert to do so. Walking the edge, they are -- the wind could shift and their fortunes along with it. The wind has abated, but the humidity is still non-existent. Cooler temperatures are a welcomed relief. The particulate-laden air is with us still, coating everything from bookshelf to bathroom sink to lungs.

Lord, in thy mercy, hear us.

I'm Burning Up, Burning Up for Your Love

Picture from space. Welcome to my homeland. We call it Hell roundabout this time every year. The Santa Anas are fierce and erratic. Tomorrow is on tap to be 98 degrees and uber-windy. Not nice. Not happy. Not calming.

Such unpredictability leads to illogical and seemingly impossible fire movement. Fortunately we are in too much city (who ever thought I would be thankful for that?) to be in too much danger. But many friends are in harm's vicinity, so our prayers are profuse tonight. We are all breathing in the thick, smoky ashes of acres and homes.

In high school, I read Joan Didion's "Los Angeles Notebooks" (from Slouching Toward Bethlehem), and it burned itself into my whatever-cortex-it-is-that-texts-and-ideas-burn-themselves-into. I had the distinct pleasure of inflicting it upon my AP students today. May they be as entranced as I was, and may they recall her immortal words every time the winds kick up.

And may the lives and homes and loved ones of so many -- from San Diego to Ventura -- be preserved and protected. This does not promise to be a fun night.

------------------------------------
from "Los Angeles Notebooks"

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior.

I recall being told, when I first moved to Los Angeles and was living on an isolated beach, that the Indians would throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew. I could see why. The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana period, and one woke in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal. The sky had a yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called "earthquake weather." My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete. One day he would tell me that he had heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake.

"On nights like that," Raymond Chandler once wrote about the Santa Ana, "every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen." That was the kind of wind it was. I did not know then that there was any basis for the effect it had on all of us, but it turns out to be another of those cases in which science bears out folk wisdom. The Santa Ana, which is named for one of the canyons it rushers through, is foehn wind, like the foehn of Austria and Switzerland and the hamsin of Israel. There are a number of persistent malevolent winds, perhaps the best know of which are the mistral of France and the Mediterranean sirocco, but a foehn wind has distinct characteristics: it occurs on the leeward slope of a mountain range and, although the air begins as a cold mass, it is warmed as it comes down the mountain and appears finally as a hot dry wind. Whenever and wherever foehn blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies, about "nervousness," about "depression." In Los Angeles some teachers do not attempt to conduct formal classes during a Santa Ana, because the children become unmanageable. In Switzerland the suicide rate goes up during the foehn, and in the courts of some Swiss cantons the wind is considered a mitigating circumstance for crime. Surgeons are said to watch the wind, because blood does not clot normally during a foehn. A few years ago an Israeli physicist discovered that not only during such winds, but for the ten or twelve hours which precede them, the air carries an unusually high ratio of positive to negative ions. No one seems to know exactly why that should be; some talk about friction and others suggest solar disturbances. In any case the positive ions are there, and what an excess of positive ions does, in the simplest terms, is make people unhappy. One cannot get much more mechanistic than that.

Easterners commonly complain that there is no "weather" at all in Southern California, that the days and the seasons slip by relentlessly, numbingly bland. That is quite misleading. In fact the climate is characterized by infrequent but violent extremes: two periods of torrential subtropical rains which continue for weeks and wash out the hills and send subdivisions sliding toward the sea; about twenty scattered days a year of the Santa Ana, which, with its incendiary dryness, invariably means fire. At the first prediction of a Santa Ana, the Forest Service flies men and equipment from northern California into the southern forests, and the Los Angeles Fire Department cancels its ordinary non-firefighting routines. The Santa Ana caused Malibu to burn as it did in 1956, and Bel Air in 1961, and Santa Barbara in 1964. In the winter of 1966-67 eleven men were killed fighting a Santa Ana fire that spread through the San Gabriel Mountains.

Just to watch the front-page news out of Los Angeles during a Santa Ana is to get very close to what it is about the place. The longest single Santa Ana period in recent years was in 1957, and it lasted not the usual three or four days but fourteen days, from November 21 until December 4. On the first day 25,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains were burning, with gusts reaching 100 miles an hour. In town, the wind reached Force 12, or hurricane force, on the Beaufort Scale; oil derricks were toppled and people ordered off the downtown streets to avoid injury from flying objects. On November 22 the fire in the San Gabriels was out of control. On November 24 six people were killed in automobile accidents, and by the end of the week the Los Angeles Times was keeping a box score of traffic deaths. On November 26 a prominent Pasadena attorney, depressed about money, shot and killed his wife, their two sons and himself. On November 27 a South Gate divorcée, twenty-two, was murdered and thrown from a moving car. On November 30 the San Gabriel fire was still out of control, and the wind in town was blowing eighty miles an hour. On the first day of December four people died violently, and on the third the wind began to break.

It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. The city burning is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself. Nathaniel West perceived that, in The Day of the Locust, and at the time of the 1965 Watts riots what struck the imagination most indelibly were the fires. For days one could drive the Harbor Freeway and see the city on fire, just as we had always known it would be in the end. Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.

Excerpt from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, © by Joan Didion.

Madeleine Rereading Update

I have now completed the entire time quintet, and I just finished A House Like a Lotus. What a delight to reread that one! I have such fierce memories of certain events and conversations in that book, but other things I had forgotten utterly. It was a pleasure to rediscover.

I'm still trying to decide what my next one will be. Perhaps my all-time fave, And Both Were Young, though I did reread it about five years ago, along with Camilla. Perhaps some from the Austin series. It's been a while for those. I'm not quite ready to broach the poetry or the spiritual non-fiction yet. My soul needs story just now.

In the meantime, I'm reading Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls. I needed a fairly light read for school. I'm not far enough into it to know what I think of it yet.

A School Funny

Just got home from Back-to-School Night. You college professors, thank your lucky stars that you don't have to do this. I mean, it's fine to meet parents and all, but really, we end up teaching two full class days in 12 hours' time. It's exhausting. It's voice-depriving. And we still have school tomorrow.

Today one of our school board members was visiting campus. Halfway through 5th period, I hear someone walk up the metal ramp to my portable classroom, try the door, and leave. Background needed: my classroom door handle hasn't worked properly for a year and a half. It's latest trick is not opening when one pushes the handle down, so one must pull the handle up instead. I have a sign posted right by the handle that says "Pull Up," with a handy little arrow indicating the direction one should pull.

Now, I know -- quite well, in fact -- that people do not read signs, because almost daily, a student or I have to get up, interrupt our class, and open the door for some illiterate who can't work the door. Today was no different. The handle was jiggled, the footsteps retreated down the metal ramp.

I said under my breath but to my class, "Read the damn sign! Pull up!" Then I asked a student to go open the door and see if it was important.

My student opened the door, waited for the parties to walk back up the ramp, politely inquired as to the need, and proceeded to explain: "See, the sign says you have to pull up." My class and I were laughing silently yet hysterically.

Then in walked the principal and the board member.

I immediately began showing off my class's strengths. We discussed their performance on today's PSAT, and then I invited them to ask questions of the board member. They asked some wonderful questions. Why is the sound system we purchased for the gym still not installed after two years? (Hem, haw, electrical issues, we're still working on it.) What does a board member do, exactly? (Makes school policy, has to be voted in, goes around and visits campuses like I'm doing now. That's it? was the follow-up question.) Does the student board member have an equal vote? (In a word, no.)

I have to say, I was incredibly proud of this AP class. They asked their questions respectfully but honestly. They demonstrated thoughtfulness, but they were not afraid to ask their legitimate questions. After the principal and board member left, we had a good laugh about my student's comment regarding the door sign. I thanked him and complimented him on his very polite and respectful handling of the situation. After all, if the principal and school board member can't read a sign and work a door, we are in dire straits. I'm glad my class could remind the powers that be that they are accountable to more parties than just the voters.

Incidentally, I started to tell one of our A.P.s about the visit, and she replied, "Oh, yeah, I heard." I smiled and asked what she had heard. Apparently when the principal and board member left my classroom, they had no sooner reached the foot of my ramp before the board member turned to the principal and asked, "So what's going on with that sound system?"

Rebellion, Part 2

So meetings at school have been tense and frustrating lately. This is not the atmosphere to which we are accustomed. New administration and new district personnel have dramatically changed the tenor of our working relationships. I'm sorry to say it is affecting morale; it is affecting my morale, too. Hence, rebellion part two.

I'm finding it difficult to leave a meeting without being angry, exhausted, toxic. Today's all-day staff-only meetings were no different. The good thing that came of today, however, was the coming together of our oft-contentious-of-late department. Together we confronted the administration on some of their vaguenesses and ambiguities and mealy-mouthed doublespeak. We've learned that we have to get things in writing from this administration; today we learned it's also okay to have things spoken in front of twelve witnesses who are taking notes. :-P

If the administration wants to turn this into an us-and-them situation, it's nice to know that we can still pull together and be an 'us.' This has not been a given over the past couple of years.

I shall continue to attempt to practice the law of attraction (The Secret, as some call it -- I've never read it nor seen the video). It's silly, but I make myself little mantras to breathe throughout the day. They are more for myself and my mindset than they are for the universe, of course. I consider them small prayers.

In other news, my cutter (the second one) is more than a cutter. She is in therapy, thanks be to God, but I'm beginning to grok what a former teacher of hers said to me a couple of weeks ago -- that she is the unfortunate offspring of parents who should have never procreated together. Really, the situations she describes are astonishingly ridiculous. I think it's what St. Paul had in mind when he admonished fathers to 'provoke not your children to wrath.' I believe this student will come out on the other end strong and wise, but it will be in spite of her parents, not because of them. I will seek to be a quiet refuge, a listener, a space-giver, a sounding board.

I've been enjoying rereading Madeleine's time quintet, as it's now referred to, whilst brushing my teeth. I'm now on House Like a Lotus, one of my all-time adolescent-hood favorites (after And Both Were Young). All those intense junior-high and early high school feelings return to my heart so quickly, as if it hasn't been decades since then. Well, Madeleine always said that we are every age we have ever been, and lord help us if we forget what it was like to be each of those ages. It makes me long to see Greece and sad to think about all the devastating fires of the past few months. I feel the same about New Orleans and NY's World Trade Centers. I suppose my sadness is partially motivated by selfishness -- I never got to see them -- but not entirely, I hope. I mourn the destruction -- needless, in every case.

Rebellion

I'm finding it difficult to consent to spend any time over the weekend working on school stuff, be it grading, planning,...what have you. Instead I'm willfully parked on my ass watching the gorgeous 37" flat screen HDTV we splurged on. It's been football heaven, among other things. And all the new seasons of old faves have begun, and that snarfs up weeknight time. And I feel guilty. And my guilt makes me even more rebellious and determined to sit on my ass and not allow school to take over every realm of my life.

...And I get farther and farther behind in grading, planning,...and what have you.

My quest for a healthy balance is still a quest.

Hmmm

Well, I'm not doing the best job of maintaining this, but I am setting a goal to update it at least twice a week. Didn't do so hot with that last week, but this is a new week, and I shall succeed. :-)

Went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls on Saturday in San Diego. It was quite a good show; well-narrated, and conveniently arranged for self-pacing. The second batch of scrolls is supposed to be in place sometime during the second week of October. Some very nice photography on display, as well. It's always somewhat mysterious to me how compelling things such as the scrolls can be. It seems no one really has a claim on them...and yet everyone has a claim on them.

Thank God for our recent rain! It was nowhere near enough to counter our record-setting dry year...but it was glorious while it lasted.

School is OK this week thus far. I'm in meeting hell this week, but it's my hope that most of these will actually be productive. It's just unfortunate that they all happen to be scheduled during the same week.

Talked to my cutter, apologized, had a good response. She's too nonchalant about it for my comfort. I'm not happy when they wear it like a badge. If there's a fresh occurrence, I'll have more to say to her about it. At least the door has been opened, and it's swinging in both directions.

I've had a chronic truant already -- she only ditches my class. She was suspended today for it, but events have contrived to prevent me from talking directly to her these past few days. Supposed to have a meeting with her tomorrow. I hope having a candid conversation will lower her defenses some.

In other news, I'm getting to teach To Kill a Mockingbird again for the first time in over five years. It's a love affair all over again! Lord, what gorgeous, hilarious, powerful book! May my fervor be contagious, and may the sophomore immunity to hard-but-good literature lose its power of resistance! My new motto: What Would Atticus Do?

Seriously contemplating...

...attending the public memorial service for Madeleine. Waiting for the exact date to be announced, but the family said it would be around her birthday (which is Nov. 29). NY is a long and expensive flight away, and I'd have to take personal days for it, but I just might go for it. I'm not one to make many pilgrimages, but 25 years of input to the soul is difficult to ignore.

Just a thought, for now.

School -- Week 2

Well, really, it's only the first full week, but it's sort of the second week. I'm enjoying getting to know my this year's kids. Random bullet points of victories and retreats:

• I've already got about half their names down (not too bad for 150 students)
• I've already blundered and called a few by their siblings' names (d'oh!)
• I've already moved too quickly with one student who incidentally revealed herself to be a cutter and I inadvertently called attention to her methodical arm slashes in front of another student. It was a gut reaction, and I couldn't call it back in time. (Dammit, dammit! I think I'll apologize tomorrow, let her know my concern, and suggest some creative outlets to replace the destructive one).
• I already have some 300 essays to read and/or grade. (questioning the English teacher decision, yet again)
• New L.L. Bean shoes finally arrived today (took 12 days! gasp!). I'm hoping they'll help with my aching feet.

Off to bed. Must be early to rise.

Requiescat In Pace

This is it. I'm going in. After toying with the idea for several years now, I'm taking the blog plunge. Why now? It may sound strange, but it's because my writing hero has died.

Madeleine L'Engle died Thursday, September 6, 2007. Her passing is a seismic event in my life. I was first exposed to her work via a radio dramatization of A Wrinkle in Time, aired on KVPR from Fresno. In junior high, I found the book in our school library, and it was off to the races! From that point on, I read everything of hers I could get my hands on. I still have not read all of her 63 books, but I'm getting close.

She saved me, in many respects, and I'm learning as I troll the nets and blogosphere that I'm not the only one. She never forgot what it was to be a stupid, gawky teenager. She never forgot what it was to be kid for whom the imaginative sphere was more real than the adult 'reality.'

She preached against hero-worship, something I really needed to hear back then. She talked about needing to notice our heroes' clay feet before we put them up on pedestals. She was my hero. She was human. She had clay feet, too. But she taught me to live and to not despise my own intelligence or difference. She taught me that art and writing and music and intellect and soul and theology and science and math all go hand-in-hand in universe.

She taught me joy, joie-de-vivre, and the beauty of work -- good, hard, physical and mental work. She taught me to listen for the music of spheres.

It's hard to put into words how much she will be missed. Thank God she wrote. I have 63 books to revisit when I need certain grounding.

Oh, to hear the conversations she's having right now with Einstein, Bach, Jesus, and her beloved Hugh! May the souls of these faithful departed rest it peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them!

As she accepted the Margaret Edwards Award, which is the American Library Association's Lifetime Achievement Award For Writing in the Field of Young Adult Literature, in 1998, she said this:

"Someone said, 'It's all been done before.'
"Yes, I agreed, but we all have to say it in our own voice."

This blog is begun in her honor, as I attempt to say it in my own voice.