My life is a series of beautiful images and half-eaten thoughts
and some nights I shiver with emptiness as they pour onto the page.

Home is Where the Heart Is

I read an article today that says: "Two years ago Manistee County tallied 144 homeless people. This year’s count was taken on Jan. 23 and the total, which isn’t completely finished, is much higher — 361."

 

It's a small town, with a lot of churches and all the charities you can think of, and the people all seem nice enough, and I say that this situation is inexcusable. I know times are hard and money is shorter than before, but I say get to work! And I'm not talking about the people who have no homes.

I say, Manistee, pull up your own bootstraps instead of judging these people and insisting that there's too much wellfare fraud and that they should pull up their bootstraps and get to work so that they can earn what they need for themselves.

A lot of them don't even HAVE bootstraps.

And, as I've heard from more than one person since the economy took a dive, "a lot of us are just a paycheck away from disaster" ourselves.

The unexpected lay-off.

The fire.

Whatever happens, it's unexpected.

And some people don't have family who are always available or able to help them.

 

I'm a certified teacher. I worked really hard to get my degree, fighting my ex-husband and his family every step of the way (They would say I should get my priorities straight, quit college, and get a job so I could take care of my husband; he wouldn't let me go to the school of my choice because it was too far a drive for me to be taking away from him).

 

 I got all A's (except for that freakin crazy, off-the-wall poetry class - and the History and Structure of the English Language zzzzzzz...) I did everything I was supposed to do to be successful in life, except that I married (too young) someone who turned out to be controlling and mentally abusive. So when I left him, it was like this big MISTAKE in the eyes of this STILL backward society in Northern Michigan.

 

 I couldn't keep my children because the overcrowded shelters have a limit on how long you can stay and the limited job market didn't prepare me for the day I had to move out. Before that, because I didn't have a home, an "enlightened" judge decided that my paranoid schizophrenic husband was more stable than I was and sent our children to live with him.

 

My family was all out of state, and all pretty hard up after trying to help me with court costs. So I ended up homeless for much longer than I ever expected, even sleeping in the back of my van parked outside the back lot of an abandoned K-mart in Grand Rapids one night. I couldn't get help because I didn't qualify for assistance without my children. I couldn't ask for help without being treated like a lazy criminal.

 

No children, no job, no home, no support - I suffered nightly from anxiety attacks and nightmares to the point that I could no longer sleep. I wanted to be dead, so I sought counseling at the local mental health agency, and they turned me down because (despite my ex-husband's words in court) I was not "crazy" enough to qualify.

 

And so what did I do? I had to be STRONGER and work HARDER, because every time I wanted to just QUIT or even just end it all, the faces of my children floated before my eyes.

 

I MUST fight to be who I know I was meant to be and to do what I was meant to do, because my children are looking to me to show them the way.

 

I just feel COMPELLED to say outright today that not everyone DESERVES the poverty they live in, or CAUSED it themselves; that we are all innocent until proven guilty, and I will not rest until society learns to understand and do their part without judgement. I feel a fool for talking about this on a public forum, because God knows people judge and presumably my past could come back to haunt me if it's all out there in the open for everyone to know about. People will make assumptions about my character or personality or identity that simply are not true. They may hate me for whining about my life or assume that I'm allowing myself to be a victim, be embarrassed to look me in the face or to respond to me. I'm past caring. If there's one thing I've learned from my life to date, it's that the opinion of others is not the be-all end-all of the world. Not in the larger realms of thought, where life really matters.

 

Please help the homeless in your area in any way that you can: Money, volunteering, donations - with all the cuts hurting every kind of industry everywhere, always always remember that there are those who need the help even more than you.

Think of their children.

Their children didn't ask for the life they're living.

If those children never see any kindness or compassion from others, just what exactly do you think they will become? What kind of people will they be?

It's not charity.

It's loving thy neighbor, and "there but by the Grace of God go I"  - it's just plain the right thing to do whatever religion or creed you may live by.

 

I'm off my soapbox now.

 

I'm grateful to have food and shelter and to be near my children and to see them every weekend.
I am not for one second saying "poor me - please help me." I don't need anything right now, especially not pity. I'm lonely but I'm certain that I am doing the right thing and that things will work out. For the sake of my children, I would believe anything, I can do anything.

And I also have to do it for myself.
All I'm saying, again, is that I don't want to hear one more person say anything negative about people who get help from the state or whom they don't think are doing their share. It's condemning an entire class of people without knowing or understanding enough of them in person. Maybe I do see with my rose-colored glasses the good in everyone. I have yet to comprehend what precisely is wrong with that. When it comes to how you view other people, idealism is the braver choice over cynicism.

 

 

 

The Raven: Read by Christopher Walken

It's the anniversary of the date when this poem was published in 1845.
I'm sure there's better readings of the poem, but I have a preverse fondness for the esteemed Mr. Walken.
It's a little family in-joke.
One of my younger sisters even thanked Christopher Walken in her graduation speech.
In our defense, we weren't the only ones who laughed.

I cried in the shower this morning.
The warm water spraying over my back felt suddenly way too much like someone holding me.
Knowing it wasn't true is what set me off.
It's all right, though.
I'm going to go out there and create my life today, concentrate on the things that matter.
Love myself awake.
Maybe later I can tell you how it all worked out.

Full Performance of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from "Sadie Hawkins" ...

Yes, no one in their right mind watches this show (or course my mind has always been questionable). It has weak plots that revolve around adolescent angst, contrived storylines, bad acting, questionable morals, and is 80% set to music. But dammit, I like the music, and it's one of my guilty pleasures to curl up on the couch with some ice cream and watch.
I love this song from Jesus Christ Superstar primarily because I do excel at unrequited love, but also because once long ago I walked the streets of Toronto with my friend Dawn and her boyfriend ranting about how at least Canada has the decency to fund their arts - when I was literally stopped in my tracks by this haunting melody played on a saxophone along some side street I couldn't identify. I continued walking, falling behind my companions with a dance in my step as I dreamily listened to the music and thought of the boy I had a crush on...
Okay.
So you got it out of me.
Are you satisfied?

Blackboards

I'm watching Blackboards (or Takhté siah in its original language), a 2000 film by Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf, in which travelling Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.

Somehow the sight of these men, dressed much the same as teachers I have known, scurrying around the rocks and the sand searching for someone, anyone, to pay them to educate their children seems not so very far from where I walk myself.



Please, let me teach your children/ let me teach you. Education is valuable. Reading is invaluable. Can't you see that?
I am begging you simply to let me teach.

It's a sad, senseless little film in the way that the destruction of war is sad and senseless.
As I watched it, I thought, "Hey - at least the American Education System doesn't have to deal with parents not valuing education and teachers getting shot at..."

Uh, yeah.
Scratch that thought.

Ah, the passion of these educators in the movie. Now there's something I relate to very strongly. They were such kind, well-meaning men. In the end they pretty much taught for free. I'd like to say a lot more about the end, but that would spoil it for you.

The Lone Bellow - Two Sides Of Lonely

lonely tonight. always there's two sides of lonely. i wonder where the other one is?

The Lone Bellow - You Never Need Nobody

i like their sound. good song, too.

Until the Violence Stops

The Ferris State University 2013 Vagina Monologues will be performed in Williams Auditorium on March 1, 2012 beginning at 7:30 p.m.

All proceeds go to W.I.S.E

Tickets:
$5 for students with ID
$10 for others

This is my cause.
I am what Eve Ensler would term a "Vagina Warrior."
I was in the show last year and promoted it heavily on facebook.
A few people asked me whatever happened to feminine mystique and if I were a lesbian or not, but I wasn't terribly concerned over their opinions. I had my reasons (very strong ones) for speaking up, and I wasn't going to let public opinion sway me.
By way of explaination or clarification, however, I posted the following note:

I think it's time I explained what on earth possessed me to audition for something like the Vagina Monologues in the first place.
I was certainly not "raised to talk about these things."
I even feel a little guilty about posting such a personal note. How shameful! This is a polite little social network where people are not supposed to burden everyone with their personal agendas and issues.
By way of explaination, let me introduce you to myself and to the women I am representing in this program.
During my divorce from my ex-husband, I ended up homeless in Grand Rapids. My children and I stayed at Mel Trotter, because I hadn't established residency and no one else would take us.
My ex-husband hacked into my email account and took the letter I'd written to my family asking for help getting the children to a safer shelter and he took it to a judge, making me out to be some sort of Andrea Yeats who had kidnapped our children and was endangering them.
In retrospect, had I conducted my affairs more wisely, I might have done a few things differently so that I could have looked a little better in the  eyes of the judge. Hindsight and all that.
My ex was granted temporary emergency custody, and I ran out of money to pay the lawyer to get full custody back again. In case you haven't noticed, I see my children every weekend.
Within a course of one summer, I had slept in no less than three separate shelters, one hotel that charged by the hour, a Super 8 that my brother paid for (all my family lives out of state), and the back of my van under a pile of garbage bags with my clothes while parked in an empty lot behind an abandoned building.
I heard through Frontline Community Church of a ministry called Healing Hearts, and went to my first meeting so full of grief and guilt and shame that I couldn't even look in a mirror at my own face.
I thought God was punishing me for messing up my life and the lives of my children by leaving my husband and allowing him to divorce me. I had some old-fashioned, Old Testament ideas about God back then, reinforced by the man I was married to.
Of course I was wrong, but it took some time before I came to realize that.
I got myself a job and an apartment and began the slow process of rebuilding my life.
People talk about rebuilding their lives and they generally mean that they had to become financially stable again.
What I mean that I had to completely change the way that I viewed myself and my life, and God's view of and purpose for my life.
Healing Hearts, along with a Divorce Care group at Impact Church in Lowell, helped me to not only shed light on my past, but also to see it in myself.
The hardest part about the process for me was the chapter in our workbook on childhood sexual abuse. I never really had too much to say on that topic if I could avoid it. I didn't consider being molested by the neighbor boy as real abuse because it had been so long ago, but when I read the list in that chapter of traits a person might have if they had been sexually abused, I found that I had nearly all of them. That really disturbed me for a long time.
The fact is, anyone who has been physically and emotionally abused and repeatedly had their boundaries broken as a child would share many of these traits, regardless of sexual abuse. Furthermore, I have come to see that what happened to me was very serious - it stole my innocence and violated my trust, and I spent the rest of my life until that point "protecting" myself from being hurt by encasing myself in a little half-life world where nothing touched me. I think very few people knew that I had a troubled childhood. It wasn't something I told very many people in high school.
I was horrifically lonely long before I ever got married.

Part of the problem was that I had not been raised to talk about those kinds of things. In fact, when I told my mother I was going to be in the Vagina Monologues and I told her what it was all about, she said stiffly, "Well, the way I was raised, people just didn't talk about those things. Why, your grandmother will be rolling over in her grave."
I told her quietly that maybe if we had talked about those things more, I would have been better able to tell her what the neighbor boy had done to me. Maybe we could have talked about what happened and how it made me feel, and maybe I wouldn't have grown up ashamed of my body and ashamed to be a woman and... ashamed.
That's why I auditioned for The Vagina Monologues in the first place.
I felt it was time to talk.

I auditioned because I heard the money would go to the local women's shelter, which has experienced horrendous cuts just like the school systems, and is short-staffed. Having been there, let me tell you that those women need all the love and support that anyone can give them.
What the author of the Monologues did was actually interview over 200 women about how they felt about their bodies and what their experiences had been. These are real women's stories, and they are not rated G. Many of them have suffered and struggled and done, as I did, all the wrong things, but only because they were doing the best that they could with what they knew at the time.
There are parts of the show that make me very uncomfortable. After all, I was not raised to talk about "those things," and because some of the women use language that I wouldn't. You hear them in all their anger, humor, courage, humiliation, guilt, shame, love, sin, misguidedness and glory.
But the main theme is not to be ashamed.

Some of the women whose voices we hear have been raped.
Some were abused as children.
One angry woman complains about how awkward and uncomfortable it is to go to the OBGYN.
There's a duo that talks about rape warfare in foreign countries.
There's a woman who describes how she ended up in the sex trade.
A woman who describes watching her grandchild being born.
A little girl who tells about how she feels about her vagina.
A homeless woman who falls in love with another woman because that was the only person who had ever been kind to her.

One woman talks about sex - actually, many of the women talk about sex.
There's an elderly woman who sounds just like my mother. That one is both hilarious and heart-breaking. (Also just like my mother.)
Imagine my horror when I was given a part in the five-woman cast story of a transgendered person. After all, I don't personally even know any transgendered people. Well - I don't know that I know any...
However, I don't believe that judgement or hatred is the road to healing for anyone. How could it be?
I have come to look at these women in this show as the very women that Healing Hearts was created to help.
They need someone to love them unconditionally and to let them know that they are worthy and they can succeed in life despite what they have been through. I know in my case, all the things that happened to me happened for a reason.
After my divorce, I thought I had lost everything.
But I gained myself.
Through the love and care of kind women of the shelters, and the guidance and love of my family, friends, and spiritual family, I became a new woman.
A woman who could stand in front of a crowd of people and say out loud that love is stronger than hate, and that they are not alone.

I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support I received from people after they read this - and touched beyond words when many women came on there and shared their own stories with me. Being open and honest about yourself if a cathartic experience in which you almost always find someone else really does understand and want to help.
That show was life-changing for me.
I highly recommend it because it could be life-changing for you as well.
Shocking, perhaps, and never quite what anyone expects to encounter, but life-changing.
It leaves you thinking.
And all the proceeds go toward the local women's shelter.
Since the Violence Against Women Act was allowed to drop, these shelters need more of our help than ever.

Maybe, if you can find the courage, you could share your story with me. Break the silence. I understand if you can't, believe me. Just know that in a sense I am talking to you, and thinking of you. Things do get better. Don't give up. And don't let them get away with it without speaking up when you've healed enough!

Note to Self...

Whining

The car is buried in snow and, beneath that, shellacked with ice.
My scraper is missing.
Perhaps I can try again in daylight.
Waited too long.
I'll do my dishes and then curl up with a 1930's French film instead.
I can assure everyone that I shall not be passive like this for long!

Winning

Today, now - today I feel like I'm moving around under water.
I have to force myself to do the things I need to do to call myself alive.
Eat.
I only eat when I am hungry.
That's a new one for me.
I tend to eat when I'm feeling anxiety or depression.
Managed to take a shower at three o'clock.
Blow-dried my hair, got dressed.
Light blue cargo pants with a v-neck blue t-shirt and a TARDIS blue cardigan.
My clothes are a collection of Goodwill finds.
We'll call them vintage.
This world needs to recycle more, and so I'm doing my part.
I just wish sometimes that I could have the wardrobe I really want instead of the one i can afford. I imagine having a closet that's a mixture of things worn by Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Janis Joplin, and Marilyn Monroe. I'm build more like the latter two.
I'm going to make myself go downstairs and clean off my car with the parking ticket on the windshield and check under the hood in hopes that it's only blowing cold because I need to refill the anitifreeze.
Otherwise, we're looking at some serious repairs that will cost more money than I have.
I've been invited to a huge January Birthday party at my friend's house.
I'm feeling anti-social.
I don't know that I really want to be alone so much as that I don't necessarily feel I've earned any kind of party for myself.
And yet if I make myself show up and feel isolated in the crowd, I'll know I was wrong about the anti-social feeling.
I'm sitting at my kitchen table debating the pros and cons, trying to ascertain how I'll feel about myself later if I just pass it off and stay indoors tonight.
There are dishes in the sink to do.
There's a cover letter for a teaching position to create.
The car.
A few groceries to buy.
A few.
Must conserve money.
Maybe it's fine. Maybe it's a good idea to have a little downtime this weekend.
I've got a big week ahead.
It's possible that being laid off from the factory is triggering some emotions that cause the PTSD to creep upon me. Fear of homelessness triggers insomnia, nightmares, panic attacks and deep depression. I refuse to follow that pattern, however. They say I will have the symptoms all of my life - that you never get better; you just learn how to cope. And so I'm coping.
I'm coping by going outside and sweeping off my car, looking under the hood, and fixing what I do have control over. I'm coping by not isolating myself and getting out and talking to people. I'm coping by transforming my thinking patterns and rebuilding my life in my own image. My chosen image.
I'm not just coping or surviving, really - I'm winning.

Painting Metaphor

Yesterday I was painting to some music - slapping paint on the canvass and singing along at the top of my voice, happy as can be
- when suddenly it occured to me that I wasn't paying any attention to where the paint was going anymore - I was just happy and singing.
I thought fleetingly, "This is a pretty good way to mess up a painting - not even looking at what you're doing..."
But I shoved the thought aside and kept right on singing.
For me, painting is an act of faith.
I suspend my disbelief in myself and just focus on texture and color and music - and joy flows out of the brush.
I don't paint anything that actually looks like anything - you might call me an Impressionist, I suppose.
I paint feelings.
A few months ago I was painting a picture of a little girl dancing in the rain.
She was holding her arms out and smiling - and I thought, "This is a pretty good way to mess up a painting - "
only it didn't stop there. I started dwelling on how hard the subject matter was - how fast the paint was drying - that what was on the canvass didn't look anything like the image in my head - It looked like white blobs against black background.
I got so worried that I couldn't finish the painting.
I sighed and started covering it over with black.
No painting ever looks like much when I first start it - It's a bunch of flat washes of background color that I want to shine through, and none of them are shaped like the actual objects I plan on putting over top.
The thing is, if I just suspend my disbelief for a few moments - those moments turn into an hour or two, and next thing I know I've got just exactly what I was looking for...
Okay, so not exactly.
I always end up with something different than I had planned. The girl is happier than I expected, or the sky is darker - I never know what to expect.
But whatever happens, it's always beautiful.
I stand back and stare at it in astonishment - every single time - because I have no idea how I did it.
It's a mystery, and therefore a miracle.
For me, painting is like this familiar scene in a movie: I'm walking across a narrow, rickety little rope bridge with my eyes focused on the lush green forest ahead.
Look down for just one second and see the teeny tiny little river hundreds of miles below, and I'm so scared I stop dead in my tracks.
I'm too terrified to inch one more step.
I have to focus on the goal ahead, and not for one moment glance down and think of how far I can fall.
This makes painting more than just an act of faith - it's an act of worship.
When I'm painting, I'm slapping that paint out on the canvass out of sheer joy, in sheer gratitude that everything will work out fine so long as I keep moving ahead.
Yesterday I painted the little girl dancing in the sunshine.
You can't see her face, but you can tell that she's singing.
Is this a metaphor for life?
Isn't everything?

Don't Be Fooled By Me

(If you know me really well, you've already read the following poem.
I didn't write it - Charles C Finn wrote it in 1966 - but I like it, so I decided to share it with you.
I also share it in every classroom I enter. I've adapted it into Reader's Theater. It's very effective when read by an increasing number of people, and the last lines are read by everyone in unison.)


Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled within me,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask.
.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly build.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well
For I am every man and every woman you meet.

Patsy Cline - Walkin' After Midnight (1958)

 Found myself singing this song at work last night. Also the more well-known Crazy. I like Patsy Cline because I can hit the notes.

Let Us Begin!

Recharged my batteries over the weekend.
Ready to kick ass and take names!
I refilled my well, restocked my fish pond, what have you.
Simply getting out and seeing how others make their art
or explore their passions
cheers me no end
and excites me
incites in me a riot of pleasure.
Also taking a look into a Believing Mirror
The Golden Mirror
my Muse
I'm mixing up Breathnach and Julia Cameron here,
but the general concepts are the same.

"What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it! / Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
~ Goethe

Nothing There

I don't ever seem to want tomorrow to come these days.
Must need to work on my perspective again.
Insomnia?
Tomorrow, don't come in any great hurry, please.
You are just too much for me.
I have had enough for one day.
Stop.
I am tired of being strong
and independent
perfectly smooth
pristine
Untouchable
Glass
You can see through me
Don't tell me what you see
I'm so afraid
there's nothing there.

First Grade - The Second Time Around

We moved sometime while I was in first grade, and if we hadn't, I think I would have never liked or succeeded in school.
I did not like school.
The first teacher I remember is Mrs B, who was harsh.
One time I leaned over and asked the person next to me what she had just told us to do, because I didn't understand her dialect very well yet.
She whipped out a ruler and smacked my palms for talking in class.
She also spanked.
I kept my mouth shut and my head down and drew all over the back of my math papers instead of asking questions.

Then we moved.

I was terrified my first day at my new school, and terrified to meet the new teacher.

She had me at hello.
Like an angel, she swooped down at the door and hugged me tight and told me she was delighted to meet me - and her huge smile agreed with what she said.

This kindly, gentle teacher drew me out of my shell and taught me the love of learning.
Better yet, she helped me learn to love myself.
She loved and encouraged my drawings, but she also helped me with my math.
I learned there was a time and a place and a purpose for everything.

I had to repeat the first grade because I came to Mrs Lynch's classroom so very far behind, but it wasn't the stigma I am told it can often be.

I GOT to be in her classroom again!

One of Many Teachers I Will Not Forget

When I was in second and third grade, I used to be terrified of the day I would be in fourth grade.
If I happened to be out in the hallway during class hours for some reason, I would hear strange and terrible howls coming from that room.
Mr. D, the fourth grade teacher, was tall and broad and loud, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he might eat children.
He certainly seemed to be yelling at them an awful lot.
He would stand outside his room in the mornings, popping antacids like they were candy, and I imagined it upset his stomach a little to devour students whole for their infractions.
But my day came, as I had always feared it would.
On the first day, he demonstrated for us his Tarzan bellow. Being only nine and ten years old, we all laughed hysterically at what a crazy teacher we had.
He had a good sense of humor.
Once, when I groaned over my math homework, he set one of his antacids on my desk and said he thought I needed it more than he did.
There was that twinkle in his eye that told me he was teasing me but, more importantly, that he understood.

I will never forget the time when he had us draw our self-portraits as an art project. I was a shy, awkward kid and didn't think much of myself - I drew a skinny girl with a big nose and large glasses.
Mr. D. refused to accept my drawing.
He marched me over to the mirror over his sink and made me look at my reflection, saying, "Look at this girl - REally LOOK at her! Why, she's beautiful! Don't you notice what pretty eyes she has? And, goodness, that's the best smile I think I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of smiling kids over the years."
My next picture he pronounced "Beautiful!" and every picture I ever drew after that.

He found that I had a knack for writing, and never failed to encourage me to read my brainchildren to the rest of the class.
He did what every good teacher does every day - He encouraged me to see the best in myself and pursue my gifts and talents.

You will never find these objectives in any common core curriculum, you may never see them in any standardized test, but these are the things I took from my fourth grade year that were most valuable to me in my lifetime.

Frustrated

I'm feeling so intellectually frustrated right now that just one conversation about an especially well-written line or perfectly-worded phrase and metal and salt will ignite with oxidation in the air until I burst into multi-colored stars across the landscape.

Identity

She melted, quivering against him
and evaporated against the heat

The disappearing woman;
invisible to herself, though everyone sees

Strong, solid, warm and real
Unless, in a moment's doubt,
Her face congeals.

Eric Burdon - The Animals - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

Sometimes I feel myself biting at the bit, pulling away and struggling to be free of the ties I've bound myself with. It's a restless, frustrated feeling, and it almost always makes me think of this song.

Underwhelming night out. Maybe I'll elaborate later when my laptop doesn't need charged - and maybe I won't! :-)

I don't suffer from insomnia.
I swim through it like a penguin plunging into the icy depths.
I roll around in it, undulating wildly until I crack the cool surface and gasp in the air again.
I got the four solid hours of sleep that the doctor says most people need the most.
I must admit that I find the rest of the sleep, however REMy, desirable as well.
"Where's all the REM gone?!"

This Just in: Parrot Knows O Captain My Captain!

Rough night at work.

In a desperate attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of a nice older gentleman, I begged my boss to let me off early so that I could avoid getting asked out on a date or proposed to.

Despite all my best efforts, Walt Whitman still caught up with me and gave me his telephone number. I mean, he's a nice guy and everything (I happen to like eccentric men); He's just not my type of eccentric. I'd have to live out in a cabin in the woods without transportation - but with a parrot!

I was married to a man who lived out in the woods. I might have liked it The woods are lovely, dark and deep... if he had let me out once in a while...

Okay, so really, the man does strongly resemble Walt Whitman, except in one important particular: He doesn't read.

I can't do it again.

That's like an Evagelical Christian going out with an Athiest who hates group singing and potlucks.

Could they just be friends?

I like to think so.

I like to think that, dating being off the table, a man and a woman could just hang out and enjoy - what? What? If they have nothing in common?

Debates about group singing, potlucks and religion?

That doesn't seem like a good idea.
(Yes, yes, I know in what other particular the man obviously does not resemble Walt Whitman...)

I value literacy, literature, music, art, drama...

I love museums, travelling, exloring different cultures, painting

talking about plot and character development,

watching The Daily Show, Sherlock, classic films, innane British television, re-runs of The West Wing...

plotting random acts of kindness,

cooking various cuisines...

Oh, so many things!

But none of them include being ponderously talked down upon for long stretches of time, or being regaled with lies that are aimed to impress people - and these are perhaps the real reasons that I tried to give this faux Whitman the slip.

 

 

 

 

Romance Is Not Dead; Just a Little Peculiar

Tonight's story happened four years ago, but it's one of the best random acts of kindness that I have ever experienced, and a great story, so I've decided to share it with you.

 I was living in my friend Sheila's basement (near Grand Rapids) about a year after my divorce, and I was planning to return to college for my Master's Degree. In order to do so, I decided to start looking in advance for a job in the vicinity. The local papers contained very little employment within my realm of expertise - mostly for experienced welders and auto technicians - so I decided to try my hand at the position closest to feasible: Telemarketing.

 This particular telemarketing office had such a high turn-over of employees that they called me immediately upon receiving my application and asked to interview me. Encouraged by this turn of events, I dressed to the nines, as they say, and hopped into my 1993 Ford Taurus (best vehicle available to me in my reduced circumstances) for the 45 minute drive. I was delighted by this positive turn of events and excited for my future in wheedling innocent victims to fund research for various causes while their dinners were cooling on their tables.

As I drove, I thought about my decision to go back to college. My entire family thought it was the best thing possible for me. My ex-husband had all but forbidden me to take any more classes while we were married because he saw it as a waste of time and money. He was eager for me to start teaching full time so that he could retire and do what he wanted to do with his life. When local teaching jobs didn't fall into my lap, things went sour. He refused to relocate, or to find a better job himself. Among many other issues that arose between us, this one created quite a strain on our weak little union. It felt so good to be free and driving to that interview! It wasn't a teaching job, but it was a step in the right direction. When student teaching and later in permanent sub positions, I had been concerned by how many of my high school students couldn't read well. Now I was I was going for a reading specialist endorsement and working on strengthening my knowledge of exceptional students and lesson planning skills. I wasn't certain if this would make me more marketable, but I was certain that it would make me a better teacher. I felt as if I was finally getting my life back on track.

Ironically, now we had joint custody of our children I would never be able to re-locate for a job anyway.

 I reached Ye Olde College Town a little later than I expected, so when I came to the stoplight at an intersection it was naturally red.

And naturally just then my car's engine stopped dead.

Silence.

I turned the key.

The engine wouldn't turn over at all.

(Um, I think that's the phrase. Heh heh heh. I don't know a thing about cars.
I'm the kind of gal that makes auto mechanics rub their hands together and stretch bumper grins.)

 The light turned green.

Desperately, I gave the key another crank.

Nothing.

The light turned red.

The cars behind me began tuning up their horns. I didn't know what to do.

Flustered, I turned on my hazard lights and got out my cell phone to call the insurance agency.

The overly pleasant automated voice blasted, “Hello! Welcome to Liberty Mutual! If you are calling to make a claim, please press one…”

The light turned green again.

“If you are calling to report your vehicle lost or stolen, please press two…”

I started mouthing the words.

(Hey, I’d called the number a few times before. What can I say?)

“If you are calling…”

Just then, I was startled by a loud rap on the window beside me.

A middle-aged woman in some sort of Mumu had pressed her round, livid face against the glass and was screaming at me. “Hey in there, fucking moron! What the fuck are you sitting here for?! Don’t you give a shit that there’s a whole line of people behind you who actually have better things to do today than wait around for you to move your ass?!!!”

That was highly uncalled for.

Being somewhat sensitive to people raising their voices at me and calling me names, I had to swallow down a lump before pointing out what I considered to be the Obvious: “My car has stalled. It will not start. I am on the phone with the insurance agency. I have my hazard lights on. How about getting back into your truck and going around me?”

I believe she called me a fucking bitch before stomping back to her truck. I glared at my phone hotly for a few minutes, my eyes stinging.

Now she’d gone and made me miss my cue to press six.

I could think of more imaginative expletives for her if she cared to come back and have a listen.

Someone tapped on the window. Gearing up to be more assertive this time, I rolled down the window and saw a smiling cowboy leaning to peer at me from under the brim of his tall black hat.

Huh. A cowboy in Western Michigan. I suppose it made sense.

“Can I help you in some way, Ma’am?”

I explained my situation, ending with, “Thanks anyway – I’m sure roadside assistance will take care of things once I get them on the phone.”

“How about we get this car out of the way for you first?”

I looked around. Cars were moving around me when the lights turned green, their owners leaning heavily on their horns and shooting hard, seething stares at me as they passed.

 “Should I get out so we can push?” I asked anxiously.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Ma’am. You just put your car in neutral, sit back, relax, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

 I did as I was told, other than the relaxing part. I felt awkward allowing a total stranger to exert himself so on my behalf. He rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and leaned his long, slim body into the back of my car. It moved smoothly past gawking people on the sidewalk, swearing people in their cars, and sailed on through the intersection to a safe little side road.

 I thanked the man profusely, climbing out of my car and stumbling around in my heels to the sidewalk where he stood. Coming face to face with his kindly smile, I looked up and said, flustered, “I don’t even know your name…”

 With a tip of his hat, he said “They call me Cowboy Jeff, Ma’am.”

 

He straddled his bicycle and pedaled away into the sunset.

 

 

I was up until one in the morning typing my heart onto the page.
It's shaped a little funny, now that I look at it in print like that.
One of these days I'll haul it out here.
No one will recognize it for what it is, but they'll like it all the same.
Generally I find that in it they recognize themselves.

"Procrastination is the Thief of Time"

I don't want to go to bed and sleep, because that will mean my vacation is over and I have to return to the factory.
Need to refocus my thoughts: Tomorrow is another opportunity to improve my lot if I work hard and keep my eye on my goals.
I should have done that during vacation!
Keep refocusing: Time resting is not time wasted; it strengthens my spirit to continue my fight against apathy and despair.
When you have PTSD, you have to continue to transform and reframe your thinking to encompass what you want rather than what you fear.
It can be exhausting, but is well worth the effort.