Learning to see rightly...

Something Forgotten, Deep Water

2005-05-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we walked into church. If I am honest, which I rarely am these days, I didn't want to go. Inconvenient. We aren't staying anyway. Why go anymore? I know, I know. Heathen. But we went because Ben is persistent.

I could hear something familiar. As the old door creaked open, I was drawn into the crowded stain glass shadows of the church. I felt like I was walking backwards, to a place I had once been... a person I once knew myself to be. I know that voice...

I walked forward taking a seat. Recognition. Don Chaffer. Waterdeep.com on the screen. Familiar melancholy voice purely filling air. I could feel myself beaming.

Something inside of me... rejoiced. Something forgotten, clothed in adult apparel that pulls at the collar uncomfortably chocked by a tie, stripped bare. Something leapt as if called out to play after an unforgiving winter. Something sighed from relief. Familiar. Old. Beloved. Free.

Music. Driving to concerts. Deep Water. Crying the first time I heard HUSH in the darkness of UBC. Playing music until CDs needed to be replaced. Borrowing, sharing. Friendships. Affinity for Lori who looks like Shanna. Lynnette's envy of a blue electric guitar. Old Stuff. Literally.

The two hours... passed in memory's span of years. At the end, someone asked for requests. Ben pleaded with me in whispers to give him a title to call out. My mind froze, nameless titles became fragments of a few lines from a dozen songs.

I missed the moment when the songs were new to me. I missed the people who love them as much as I do.

Oh, God, sometimes it is so hard to love people down here. On the inside, you try to do something right and it ends up all wrong. I talk of hating war, but where's my own peace time? I'm scared. You said, "Go tell it on the mountain tops that I'm alive" I know you will come... you will come for all that's hardened. Sweet River... roll.

Something remembered.... standing in memory's deep water.

The Way My Husband speaks.

2005-04-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

Clearly, you can see how there can be a communication breakdown. However, assimilation seems to be occuring.... to both of us.

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

5% Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

How I Speak...

2005-04-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

20% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Is anyone shocked? I'm not.

Texas... Our Texas Oh, Hail our F'd up State

2005-04-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

That's right folks. Texas..... is screwed. I am Texan... born of Texans, but I currently detest the debacle our state is in.

Why? Four letters: TAKS.

I spent the week in a room so cold that my nose hairs froze surrounded by a silence like a fog horn. I honestly wore three layers.... one of which was a homemade t-shirt that cryptically said in red, smeared Sharpe ink... "PASS THE TAKS". I cynically joked that it was written with student blood. How far was I from the truth? I looked at these students, Seniors mind you, that were so nervous they could have puked if they breathed wrongly. See (our brilliant state decided that) if these kids can't pass, these kids don't graduate.

I understand standards. I have them in my classroom; eventually, my students rise to them. They fight and kick imploring me to give less homework, but eventually they realize, "I can do this." Standards are healthy. And, honestly, most teachers standards aren't high enough. Treat kids like they are smart, and they become smart. I believe that because my cynicism is always countered by idealism. However, 90% of the students testing were ESL kids. Translation: they hardly speak, write, think in English. This doesn't make them stupid, unmotivated, or slackers. It makes the test foreign to them. A student, you could tell he is the kid that did everything his teacher told him to do, a real "tries his best" kid, raised his hand with trembling fingers as he looked at the essay he was to respond to, "Miss... what is does this word mean?" What word had inspired such trepidation? Felt. He didn't know the word "felt." All I could say (because if I said more I risked loosing my license), "I am sorry. I can only answer questions about the instructions. You may use a dictionary though." Translation: Your screwed courtesy of the state.

Our education system is in bad condition, folks. If a certain percentage of these students don't pass, the state can come in and fire teachers. I believe in teacher accountability, but extremes are dangerous. I believe this to be an essential rule: balance.

Nothing was taught at Chavez High School this week. Learning was not on the agenda. Five days.... lost to tests. Not to mention all the money to publish the test. And, Texas gives this test three times a year. Do the math. Consider the waste and ask yourself.... What is that teaching our students? What does that assess?

Welcome to the Texas Education Agency; we have drills of futility mastered.

Is the World Flat?

2005-04-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

Time, I am convinced, is linear. Who can argue? Time lines everything around us... History, calendars, our own faces. So, why do I feel like I fell off the face of the earth? So what really concerns me is not the "time line," but the fact that I haven't written anything for over a month... on the face of a computer or a Journal.... nor have I spoken to the people who somehow speak reason to me. I have been moving forward at "break necking" pace as if searching for the edge of something. As Bridget Jones... perhaps teetering on reason's edge.

What has happened? Life.... not linear but spiraling. Changes. Interviews. Contracts. Purchases. Adjustments. Stress. I want some flatness in my life right now. I want destination, but I want to remember the traverse because I don't remember journeys right now. I haven't taken time to put down monuments of times passing. I merely goes like wind through hair.... Whirl.. Fall. I want to find some edge in my world that I can sit... Be still. Know. God. No mountains. No valleys. Horizon. Flat.

Home, Where My Thoughts Escapin'

2005-03-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

I used to listen to Simon and Garfunkle incessantly. (Friends of the past can attest to this.) Ritualistically listening to the song, "Home" whenever I was about to leave Baylor for some holiday (which entailed an eleven hour trek across some of the most mundane parts of Texas. The monotony of tumble weeds on 1-10 isn't exactly inspiring.) gave me a forward perspective to home. Familiar. Roots. The song became transitional. I began to listen to the song, "Home....where my music's playin'... home... where my love life' s waiting silently for me...." on the way back to Waco. (Point of disinterest: I had no love life waiting for me in Waco.) Waco began to feel like home. I hadn't thought about the song... the ritual... in a few years honestly until tonight.

I have come to tranquil acceptance of my vagabondish state of living. Yet, just below the surface... insatiable scratch... creeping into familiar conversations.... I have spoken of "rootedness" almost implacably.... like a child wanting to dance in animation but settling for the movie.

Rootedness. Home. Today, we made an offer on a house in Kansas City. The owners accepted.

Tonight my thoughts escape to 1863 Tennyson. I think of where I will hammer nails to hold pictures, walk the hardwood floors at night with our first born (when we have a first born)... live Christmas trees dropping needles. I think of snow. Fall. I think of permanence (at least my short lived version of it) First steps. Master degrees. "All my words come back to me like shades of mediocrity, like emptiness and harmony... I need someone to comfort me..... Homeward bound."

For the first time in a long time, I feel homeward bound.

Strays

2005-02-17T16:16:00.000-08:00

I picked a dog up today. I picked her up literally and placed her in my minivan. Stray. Dirty. Stinky. Frightened. Untrusting. I didn't have the intention of keeping her, I just wanted to take her to a better place than the Chavez Teacher's parking lot. I think a student had thrown something at her to make her limp.

She isn't pretty, but she is sweet. (and much improved with a bath) There is something about the crookedness of her face and her sideways look that is endearing.

So, she is here. In our home. Developing a personality. Realizing she is safe. Eating. She follows me everywhere.

I don't know really where I am going with this, but I feel a kindredness to this mut. I think have "strayness" in our blood. It is one of the reasons... that when doubt shouts at me... when someone throws something at me to make me limp.... I seek God. The safety of belonging. Recieving provision.

Yet, I don't follow closely for too long. I stray. Again I am dirty, hungry, frightened, untrusting. The "circle" of life. Dog chasing tail. (pun intended)

Oh, to have the sense of this stray dog.

Mania

2005-02-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

In the background of the "shoebox" I live in, I hear frantic clapping. Hoping that somehow... the Philadelphia Eagles win. Super Bowl Mania. Fanfare. Pyrotechnics. Comercials. Money. (Although there was no nudity this year and double standards for Justin Timberlake)... The Superbowl has become nausiating to me.

Of course, I detest football. (Hey... here's a brilliant idea... let's take 100 yards... make buys in tights run around and hit each other and charge an exorbinate amount of money... and the NFL was born.) I suppose I don't get it. I know all my students will be discussing the "main event" tomorrow at school. Mark Twain will fain from interest (not that they found him interesting in the first place), and he will be replaced by the great egos of today. T.O. ... the ostentatious, overpaid phenom of the Eagles. Bradey. Sad really. Sad.

Mania... over what really? A moment? I fail to understand frenzy over the game... the hype. Maniacs in paint and jerseys. Yelling. Screaming. Investing hundreds in the span of a three hour game. Mania over points.... yards....

My husband is calling me to watch a "close" ending. The only part that really matters (other than Mcartny singing "Hey, Jude") is the ending. Finality. Winner. Loser. All the mania for this.... the ending.

Borrowed Inspiration

2005-02-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who pushes me to write. She believes that I can which is more than I believe at times. However, like it or not, we sometimes have to borrow from others..... borrow a staple gun from the neighbor (when it means avoiding a trip to Lowe's during the Christmas rush), borrowing your hsuband's toothbrush (as much as it makes you whince.... and kick yourself that you didn't bring your own), borrow faith when our own is broken, borrow inspiration when your spirit is simply dry. So, I borrow this.. inspiration... from Lynn. Often. In ways she doesn't even know.

So, with borrowed inspiration (because I have been in the same Journal for over a year) I begin writing ina forum... that up to this point is unknown.. and a little more vulnerable than I am used to. This unlike a Journal... cannot be burned. Here is to the borrowed.