Always Full

Optimism, however fake it feels when I am forcing it, is a highly effective weapon against defeat and despair. Better than optimism, though, is to learn to accept things as they are and learn to be good whatever happens.







1/2 Air


I don't know where I'm going to live or what my job is going to end up being.
And yet, I am good because I live in the moment and prepare for the future.
I appreciate the good things in my life and focus less on the things that could cause anxiety.
My life is nothing but potential.When I don't know what to do about my life situation, I concentrate on the things that I do know what to do about...


1/2 Water

The good things are many.
I know that if I have anything at all I can give it away.
I know that I can still teach, still love, and still hope.
I have a car and a roof over my head, but those things would just be exhisting.
Better than those things: I have friends and family who love me.
I ran for a full hour today and it felt great!

Technically, the glass is always full.
It's all a matter of perspective.




For the Kids Who Aren't Like the Rest

Probably I never would have known what true compassion is had I not had a sister who had suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was a toddler. Reduced to roughly the IQ of a four-year-old, she underwent numerous forms of ridicule throughout the years we were growing up together. My parents, frustrated and without resources back then, were often angry and impatient when she couldn't do things as other kids could do them. Various kids throughout the neighborhood and from school were constantly making fun of her or mocking her. Mom and Dad's disappointment was crushing to her self-esteem, but the cruelty of my peers toward my sister seemed only to hurt me. She wasn't intellectually advanced enough to even know that they were making fun of her - Oftentimes she would smile along with them, because surely if they were grinning around her, it had to be because she had done something right for a change.

Over the years, as my sister's body grew and her mind remained the same, she struggled to stay happy despite the onset of horemones that she couldn't understand and the growing anger and frustration of coming to see that her younger siblings were all doing better and developing more than she could ever seem to do. She didn't understand why. Why didn't Mom and Dad love her the same as all the rest? Why didn't she ever seem to get anything right? The pain of this has stuck with me all of my life. I don't mean that I am traumatized for life and can never be whole again because of the thoughtlessness of kids I never saw again, or because of the well-intentioned but ultimately harsh  efforts of my parents to raise a child who would never grow up. What I mean is that when I see a child who is different, for whatever reason, I know that there's a real person inside of them, a unique, (and therefore beautiful), precious individual. I know that the words and actions of those around them might make them feel sad, then frustrated, and then outright belligerent to the point that no one else can even stand to be around them anymore, but I also know that I'm one who knows better. I know that when my sister was sent to bed without dinner for not using proper table manners I, determined to combat what I knew was injustice based upon misunderstanding, would always be there to sneak a sandwhich to her. It's funny. As I type this, tears come to my eyes now even though those times are from long ago. I know what compassion is. In the dictionary, it is described as the understanding and empathy for the suffering of others. In practice, I just know to look a little deeper when I meet someone who is difficult or even outright annoying to understand.

It was for the sake of my sister that in school I always sought out the underdogs and made them my friends. I wasn't always happy with the results, because of course this put me under fire, too, but I had a passionate conviction that I was doing the right thing. Everyone left the table in the lunchroom wherever one little girl would sit. Only a little girl myself, I would go and sit beside her. For some reason in early high school I became a craven coward and would mostly feel sorry for a kid being teased from a distance, and at best would find them afterward and ask if they needed anything or wanted to talk. Having become a target myself, I tried to blend into the crowd as much as possible. Sometimes the only person who might smile at me all day was a teacher who liked my story or admired my artwork. Having become a target myself, I felt empathy and a connection to every single student in the school who was misunderstood: the dumb kids, the ugly kids - even the really bad kids.

I remember also the time when I was paired with two stupid boys in Home Economics class and one of them called someone a "retard." Losing my patience, I told him that my sister went to the Intermediate School District, and that if he wanted to call anyone names he should come on out to our house and meet her for himself. I think I expected this to subdue him in some way, but instead his face took on the kind of disgust you might feel toward stepping into a pile of dog feces. He asked, "God, how do you live around that? Doesn't it make you sick just looking at her?" What stung the most about this question was that he wasn't even trying to be mean anymore; he honestly didn't comprehend why somebody didn't just come along and clean up the shit. When I think back to some of the truly sickening things that kids did and said to other kids within the walls of the schools I went to over the years, it's a wonder I ever wanted to step anywhere near a school building again.

In a way, it was for my sister's sake that I became a teacher. It was also because of those teachers who had noticed me, encouraged me, and more or less kept me from runnin away from home and ending up on the streets somewhere rather than put up with things at home or school a moment longer. But mostly it is for the sake of all those children out there who need someone to look past the surface and see a real person with feelings in there. To this day, I still love the kids who are in special education, the kids who don't look like everyone else, and I think somehow most especially those kids who have just had enough of it all and are angry. I find those kids and I smile at them and ask them questions and just keep right on believing in them, even when they project all that anger and frustration right up in my face. I know that if I am compassionate hard enough and long enough, somehow that will eventually pierce their deceptive surface and reveal the beautiful soul inside. Sometimes I come home discouraged at how long it is taking, but I am encouraged to know that most of the kids I see really do have the capacity to grow up and make something of their lives if they can come to believe that of themselves. And I know that it starts with me, because "me" started when someone else believed in me. It's discouraging when they backtrack or act out, but I know that when they learn to trust that my empathy and understanding are real and permanent, they will do anything for me. I've seen it time after time. The "bad" kid is reformed - at first maybe only for me - and if then I can take them just that one step further toward doing anything for themselves, then I have done my true job as an educator.

While I was substitute teaching today, I was reminded of all this by a fairly simple encounter. By nature of being a substitute, students come and go and it is seldom that I really get to know them or that they really get to know me, but I never let that stop me from trying.

Today a kid came swaggering in looking rough and mean and disrespectful, slammed his belongings on a desk, and began pulling out his laptop with the all-too-familiar "I hate school and everybody in it, and I really hate you!" look. Because some teachers I have known take this demeanor personally, they will feel instant animosity right back at kids like this. I know better. Why, that kid doesn't hate me - He doesn't even know me well enough to hate me yet. I smile at him. The kid gives me the "Don't you even look at me, bitch!" glare. I say, "Hi! As you can see, I'm your substitute today. We will be doing - or, in the case of some of these guys - not doing all the usual type of work that your teacher gives you when there's a substitute. I'm happy to be here for you if you need me." I know that I sound cheesy and as if I am not taking my job seriously, and so do the kids, but it relaxes them to the point that they don't even mind when they find out I'm actually going to make them do their work.

This kid was easier than some. His face registered surprize and he relaxed a notch as he got out his work.

He asked hopelessly if he could borrow a pencil.

I smiled and said, "Of course!" giving him my last one.

I then focused everywhere else at once (substitutes have that super power, you know) and didn't trouble him again until after he had reluctantly brought out his work. Now, this is where I really got him. The majority of his classmates were standing around talking and being disrespectful for real, but I didn't pay them any mind. Instead, I got up with my notebook and a pen and walked over to the angry kid's desk. I stood there until I got his attention, then asked, "What's your name?"

Angry, distrustful expression again that clearly stated "Right! Fine! Single me out and tell the damn teacher what a hard time I gave you like all the other substitutes do!"

He snarled his name.

I wrote it down and said casually as I walked on along the row, "I don't write up kids that give me a hard time, you know - I just make a note of the names of all the kids who actually sat down and did their work." I didn't look back, just took down the measly two other names of diligent students before going back to the desk.

As usually happens when I take this approach, students sat down and grew quiet. I won't say that they all go right to work on the promise that I'll put them on my Nice list, but it's amusing to me how many kids will suddenly want to know what they're supposed to be working on (never mind that I already told them- of course they weren't listening before) or have questions about specific details of the assignment. Now, I'm not Super Sub for nothing, but I have to confess here that this method only works if I am substituting in the classroom of a teacher who has excellent classroom management skills already established. The teachers who have no particular control over their classroom even when they're there have highly difficult classrooms to control in their absence. I did have the fortune to have substituted in this classroom before, however, and knew what was going to work for this group.

My now diligent student finished his work before the rest of the class, gave me back the pencil he had borrowed with something like awe on his face, and then asked if he could use the bathroom. I let him. While he was gone, I looked over his work. Not surprizingly, it was very well done. Some of the Angry kids are angry because they're frustrated at assignments well beyond their level of comprehension, but I could tell this was - and he was - one of the Angry kids who was mad because he was really smart and nobody had the patience to find that out anymore. Maybe things were tough at home like for my sister, or maybe they were just tough at school - maybe both. Doesn't matter. I don't look at the situation, I don't look at the surface - I look at the person inside there.

At the end of the hour, this student stopped by the desk one more time and said, without quite making eye contact but with a friendly smile, "You would make a great teacher!"

I smiled back. "I know, right? Thank you so much for taking the time to see that about me!"
(I acutally hate the phrase 'I know, right?' but students are always amused when I use it)

Anyway, I thought that I would write about that today, because this is the reason why I personally became a teacher.

Vocabulary is Sexy

I love a man who uses the word egregious in every day conversation!
I have simple needs, really.

Confidence

Sometimes I wish I had the brazen confidence of a little boy. They may screw up a lot, but I admire the way they come out swinging and are unafraid.
I even wish I had a little more of Calvin's ego.
How nice to know who you are at your best and to expect due treatment from all the rest.
Put me in my areas of strength, and I think I do have this confidence.
I have the confidence that there is no teacher in the world who can stand before a class and set up such an intricate, well-balanced performance that contributes, entices, involves, entertains and engages students in such a way that they find themselves demanding to learn. This is me at my best and most confident in a public forum. (Conversely, on a bad day, I would probably tell you the opposite)
I feel confidence when I'm doing any presentation. I'm not a Communication Minor for nothing, I tell you. I love to stand before an audience, get them on my side, and use nothing more than the power of well-chosen words to move them. I've gotten both laughter and tears in the same performance when I've chosen to do so.
Of course, High School students are a much tougher audience. They prefer that you be quick, sharp, and hilarious.
I'm a good public speaker because I can read an audience and know what they require.

I was not always this good.
I will never forget the time when I first stood before an audience and heard the sound of laughter and applause. It was, as I have mentioned elsewhere, when sharing a story I'd written with my fourth grade peers.
But time and circumstances chipped off my shiny veneer of confidence. We moved three times in one year, each time to a different school district. My father's drinking went out of control and frightening things began to happen. A vat of venomous negativity began pouring into my ears every evening after dinner when he came home from work. Nothing and no one was ever ever good enough. I became a  perfectionist who could never meet her own standards. I shrivelled up inside of myself and became all but invisible to the world around me. Social situations had never been easy for me, but once I accepted a vote of no confidence in myself, I was finished.
I dreaded the scrutiny of public presentations with an extreme level of fear equivalent to someone being thrown into a pit of lions. I would become physically ill. I would sweat and shake. I would miss school. I would do whatever I could to get away from standing in front of people and reading anything that I had written. I had this sense that no one would want to hear what I had to say. If it was well-written, they would sneer at me for being arrogant. If it was poorly written, as I suspected, they would laugh at me for being incompetent.

My artistic abilities somewhat relieved me of my low self-esteem. I could always paint, and no one

ever disliked anything I created after my Junior Year of High School. But I didn't get over my fear of public speaking until I was in college. I had to do a speech class, and the Professor had everyone give their speeches in the most nonthreatening environment that she could possibly devise. Our first speech had to be ten whole minutes long, and an introduction of ourselves. I remember observing my classmates, all of whom seemed to have a deadly fear of public speaking themselves, squirm and tremble before the class as if they were in a firing line. In addition to their great discomfort, they were presenting their personal information with all the organization and variety of a resume. After a certain number of days of this with no one dying of anything but perhaps a little boredom, it began to seem just a little bit silly. I decided to bring in one of my paintings, because I knew from High School that a good visual could break the ice like nothing else. I tried to think of what things I had to say about myself that might be interesting or funny. Interesting I wasn't so sure of, but funny, now - funny happened to me all the time. Or maybe I just saw something funny in most situations. Either way life was a little more bearable.

I don't remember exactly what I told the class, but I remember that I opened with one of my favorite stories from art college. One day, my friend James and I were walking down the street together when a man came panting up to us and was begging us for money. "My car just broke down!" the man was explaining urgently, "I got out to get help, and somebody mugged me. I was on my way to my grandmother's house. I had some food to bring to her. She's going into the hospital. She had an accident!"

I was thinking his story sounded a little suspicious and wondering when he was going to mention that there had been a wolf in the house wearing his granny's pajamas, but then I caught sight of the man's feet. Seeing the direction of my gaze, he embellished with a grand sweep of his arms: "And then they stole my shoes!"

"Oh, gosh," said James. James was from a small town in Louisiana and had the most pleasant Southern drawl I think I had ever heard, primarily because he was also the most laid back, pleasant person I have ever known. "That's terrible!" James dug around in his deep pocket and fished out a roll of quarters that I happened to know was for his laundry. "Here you go."

The man grabbed his quarters and ran.
I looked at James accusingly. "James, obviously the man was making all that up!"
James smiled at me slowly and drawled, "Aw, come on, Heather - It was a good story, wasn't it?"

My audience laughed.

I had succeeded in both getting their attention and killing two of the ten minutes that I was supposed to be talking about myself. I segued into my actual story, which was about how I ended up in art college to begin with, and also about how frightened I used to be of being myself around other people. (I secretly still was, but talking about it in the past tense really did seem to help some) I talked about how, through art, I was able to express things to people that I had been unable to do before, and then for a finale I revealed the painting that I'd brought.
My only self-conscious moment occurred just then, when I found myself apologizing that I couldn't draw hands as well as I'd like. My audience loved my painting and the speech anyway, and I got an A.
In this way, I learned something that I have used in all my dealings with people: That, as a general rule,  if you make yourself even a little vulnerable before people, they will be drawn to your side. Get the audience on your side, and from there make them laugh, and from there you can make them do whatever you want - get angry or motivated, cry or feel touched. I have always been a natural storyteller, and now I had the confidence again to do it.

Is There Something I Should be Doing?

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

Missed opportunity is nothing next to all the opportunities laid aside when the time comes to choose.
No one says it quite like Plath.
This quote spoke to me deeply in high school. Emerging from my parents' home and from the school system that raised me, I had the entire world at my feet. All I had to do was choose where I wanted to be and set the goals to get there.
I wanted to be an artist, a writer, a teacher, a psychologist, an historian.
I damn near threw it all away when I chose not to be lonely and marry my ex-husband instead.
Apparently I never had to worry about the figs rotting before I made up my mind; I had to worry about my inability to delay gratification.
Always I was worried about living my life and making a choice that would negate all the rest.
That is what is called "All-or-Nothing" thinking.
A person is made up of many parts.
I have found that I can teach, write, paint, date, analyze people and events all I want to, all at once.
No, my current weakness is procrastination.
I've heard it called fear.
Fear of what?
Both failure and success, they say.
I'm not afraid.
It's not really so much that I procrastinate as it is that I am easily distracted from my goals. I tend to be obsessive. If it's the novel I'm working on, then that's all I do for days, forgetting to eat and losing all kinds of sleep.
Delayed gratification is still an issue, for I'd rather write, for example, than fill out one single more extensive online application for a petty job somewhere working outside my area of expertise for a salary that wouldn't keep a hole in the ground.
And yet one more pointless job pays the rent and keeps me living in that hole instead of on the street.
This is the week of job applications and home hunting.
Next week I must concentrate on packing for the home that I don't have that I can't have until I get the job that I don't have.
Right now I can either research more jobs or go to bed.

Response to Ferris State University's Vagina Monolouges

I just came back from seeing The Vagina Monologues again.
There is one statement that they open the show with that sticks with me tonight:
That, although women are at first very uncomfortable about the subject, once they open up it turns out that they love talking about their vaginas. It's a freeing thought, that maybe it's okay to have one and okay to talk about it. I mean, seriously - If you are a woman, it's a part of you.
Of course the great Mission of the show is to stop the silence surrounding domestic violence, but there's also a lot to be said for the overall sense of empowerment that it provides.

I laughed in recognition.

I cried in recognition.
I laughed and cried out of empathy and compassion.
I was inspired.
Frankly, I was actually kind of turned on. If I'd had a date tonight, it would have been a perilous thing. The show certainly makes you want to go out and do something!
Should I volunteer at the local women's shelter, or get laid? Hell, I can do both! It's my vagina.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was October and I was seven years old.

Our family was going to the school Halloween Party, back in the days when you didn’t have to claim it was a Harvest Party. My father had spent considerable time on a robot costume for my brother, who was now clumping around inside a box that was spray-painted silver with vacuum tubes sticking out of it – for arms, maybe. No Polaroid pictures exist, so I have to draw from my own spotty memory.

I had chosen to be a ghost. A ghost seemed like a powerful and scary idea, although the reality turned out to be two holes cut in an old bed sheet that rubbed my hair all around until it was static-charged and insisted on sticking into my eyes and getting sucked into my mouth. I was hot and tired before we’d even walked the few blocks to the school.

It was a grand party in the traditional sense – bobbing for apples with no mention of catching diseases from mouthing around in the same water as everyone else. I had to pull my costume off even to attempt this game, and was as disappointed by this as I would have been if my parents had made me wear a coat. What was the fun of being a ghost if everyone knew it was me? I was surprised at how difficult it was to actually clench a chunk of apple with my teeth. I’d make contact and then the apple would bob away from me. I tried repeatedly, until the closeness of the water made me fear drowning and I had to stop. I had similar difficulty with the apples dangling on strings from the ceiling. A volunteer tied my hands behind my back and I had to bite the apple and eat it from the string before my competitor. The apple bounced repeatedly off my face as I circled it like a puppy chasing its tail. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My brother won the costume contest that year. I remember being jealous. No one had spent any time at all on my costume, and it wasn’t as if he’d made that box himself.

I hid hotly beneath my sheet and scuffed along the sidewalk behind everyone, disturbing the crisp leaves. Enticed by the lit porches of the neighboring houses and joyful cries of “Trick-Or-Treat!” my brother and I begged Mom and Dad to let us get some candy. Kids in costumes were pushing past us to get to the houses. Mom and Dad were tired and didn’t feel like stopping anywhere on the way home. One of the jostling kids was the Bigger Boy who lived across the street from us. Gallantly, he offered to take us to a few houses along our route home.

This Bigger Boy was the one who organized all the neighborhood games – races, contests, soldiers, vampires, tag, colored eggs, hide-and-seek. He always told everyone what to do, everyone did it, and he was about as self-assured as anyone I had ever seen. People did what he wanted them to. I didn’t know what  bullying means.

As Mom and Dad wandered off up the street without us, we stopped at a couple of houses and yelled, “Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!”

The Bigger Boy – he seems in my memory to look about seventeen or eighteen – comes up with this brilliant Divide and Conquer Plan wherein we would each take a different side of the street – therefore getting twice as much candy. I was seven years old – I didn’t know the math. I didn’t stop and think to myself, “Wait a minute – If my brother goes on one side of the street, and I go with this Bigger Boy to the other side of the street, we will actually be getting half the candy we could be if we were all to go on all the sides of the street!” Nope – the Divide and Conquer Plan made perfect sense to me. What did not make sense was that the Bigger Boy didn’t take me to any houses across the street. Somehow we ended up in an abandoned parking lot next to an old brick building.

I remember the glass – those hexagon-shaped sparkles of broken windshields scattered across the cracks with weeds growing up out of them. Chunks of broken pavement. The roughness of the crumbling bricks in the wall. Heavy breathing. The pressure of the Bigger Boy’s hands against my shoulders, against my hip. The horrible, stomach-dropping feeling as he jerked up my sheet and pulled it against the wall until I was pinned there against it with my sneakers barely touching the gravel. How do those bits and eddies of gravel always collect outside old buildings? I could feel the tug of the elastic of my underwear as he thrust his hand down inside – inside, and  I had what I couldn’t describe except to say that it was yucky, a yucky feeling that scared me because it hurt and the more I struggled the tighter went the sheets.

I could hear my brother, not much older than me after all, calling us from across the street uncertainly. Where were we? He wanted to go home.

I wanted to go home. I told the Bigger Boy that I needed to go home. I think he told me to stop whining.

I became a ghost that night. Ghost-girl. It did not matter what I thought. It did not matter what I felt. It did not matter what I wanted. I couldn’t stop it. I was scared, but I physically could not get away. This was wrong. This was – this hurt. It hurt and I wanted to go home but I couldn’t get away. I did manage it, though, in a way. I went far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could find me. I don’t remember when we went back to my brother. I don’t remember when we came home. I think I ate a lot of candy, and it made me feel sick. The candy made me feel sick.

The next day, I told my mother what had happened. What I thought happened. Her reaction – I don’t remember her reaction but it scared me or embarrassed me because I hid behind the couch. I hid because I had told her. I told her, and I didn’t like it when she had to go and tell my father. I knew instinctively that he would be angry. And I didn’t know whether or not he was angry at me. I remember his face, red and screaming. I thought he was screaming at me. I remember the front door, wide open and swinging in his wake.

I was a ghost now. No one ever talked to me about what happened again. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t want anyone to be angry. And I spent my entire childhood that way. I tried to go unnoticed. Don’t look at me – I’m not attractive. I’m not someone you want to get too close to. I’m not anything at all. I will hide inside myself, far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could ever hurt me, I thought. But they did. Someone always did. And no matter how much I wanted to get away, how much I wanted to stop it, I always felt trapped. Trapped. Alone and afraid. I couldn’t tell anyone. No one would understand. They would tell the wrong people, and someone would be mad at me, and for some reason the anger of others – especially of men – terrified me. Please don’t be mad at me. Please don’t hurt me. Please. Can’t you see that I’m scared? That I can’t find my way home?

My ex-husband was complaining recently about sex education and how they’re going to start “teaching masturbation in schools, starting as young as five years old!”

“Whatever,” I thought.

I mean, first of all: Masturbation is normal. For crying out loud, our own daughter had begun much younger than five. She found her vagina and for whatever reason had decided that it was a pretty cool place to explore. I remember one of the daycare ladies who watched the kids while we were at work came to me and asked me in shocked tones if I had any idea if our daughter had been molested. ‘ For pity’s sake,’ I thought, ‘You need to get educated!’

Secondly, it’s not like the agenda of the government (as he would claim) is to actually demonstrate or show videos of masturbation. They’re going to say things that are established facts – such as that it isn’t dirty and wrong and sinful. Such as that a lot of toddlers do it, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wicked or have been molested. Maybe they’ll actually prevent some zealot-idiot parents from burning their children’s fingers as punishment for their so-called wickedness, for God’s sake.

I think I started masturbating when I was seven years old. In my case, I do think it was because I was molested. I was trying to figure out why the hell someone had wanted to touch me there so badly. I was surprised to find that it didn’t feel bad if I had control over it. After awhile, it got so that I couldn’t relax and sleep at night if I didn’t do it. Maybe there was something sick and sad about it – or maybe not. It is what it is.

What I do know, however, is that a little sex education could have gone a long way. I needed to know that I had a vagina, and I needed to know that someone else might want to have it for some reason. I can’t imagine how my parents, in that day and age, could have expressed this to me, but I say Thank God for The Vagina Monologues.  Thank God that someone somewhere decided to break the silence and speak up about what is happening in our society to women and little girls. Thank God that I do not have to be ashamed of my body anymore. Thank God that I am no longer anything like a ghost.

It took a long time for me to even see it: what I had become. I was a frightened little girl way past the actual ages of innocence. I got married too young because I thought somehow that then I would be safe from harm.

I found out that the sheets could still pin me down and that my mind and then my body would snap back to when I was seven years old – a powerless little girl who could not save herself. Ghost-girl. It did not matter what I thought. It did not matter what I felt. It did not matter what I wanted. I couldn’t stop it. I was scared, but I physically could not get away. This was wrong. This was – this hurt. It hurt and I wanted to go home but I couldn’t get away. I did manage it, though, in a way. I went far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could find me. I wanted someone to love me and to hold me, to be gentle and to be kind, to stop and think for just one moment that maybe they’d lost me somehow. To notice that I was scared and that I’d gone away from my body for a time because I didn’t know how else to feel safe.

My marriage became a horrible thing.

Maybe if my ex-husband had been a little more intelligent, a little more thoughtful, a little more patient or kind…

Maybe it was my fault. I tried to explain.

It became a ritual, a thing that happened once in awhile because he couldn’t resist the urge. He seemed to think that he should. After all, masturbation was an evil thing, an unspeakable thing. Truthfully, we never spoke about sex. It was something that happened sometimes. I was seldom present.

It’s funny. It’s funny because I couldn’t sleep without it. I couldn’t sleep. But if I were to touch myself, it was like cheating. It was wrong. It made him angry, and I couldn't handle anyone being angry with me. I wasn’t just a ghost – I became a ghost who could never relax and sleep.

I thought about these things tonight. I watched The Vagina Monologues and I thought about how ashamed I had been of my body all of those years. How I always thought I was too fat, too plain. Or, conversely, how I was too much. How, if I were to truly come out from under that sheet and be my full self, I would be rejected. I would be embarrassing. My thighs would be too fat, or the damage inflicted by the knife in my emergency C-section would be too hideous, or the varicose vein that I’ve had running down my right leg ever since I gave birth to my last child.

My last child. Because my ex-husband hadn’t even wanted two children, hadn’t wanted the last one – and I, pinned beneath that sheet, couldn’t speak up for myself and voice the opinion that I didn’t want to have any part of my body cut and cauterized, mutilated so that any other little children that I might ever have held in my arms were now dead before they’d ever had a chance to live. It was a grieving thing, to “get my tubes tied,” as if something inside of me had been murdered against my will. Nothing special. Just another piece of my heart.

I watched The Vagina Monologues tonight.
I laughed at the woman who complained about how angry her vagina was at all the mistreatment.
I cried at all the women who had been abused.
I smiled at the story of the woman who had a good experience with a man. I smiled at how he seemed to adore her body just the way it was, and what a relief that was to her. What a release.
I thought of somebody that I know, and I smiled. Because not all men are assholes, and it's nice to remember that sometimes, and nice that the show is not such a militantly feminist show that it doesn't recognize that.
I cheered when the men who ran the technical aspects of the show came out at the end - particularly one dedicated husband who had helped out with the Ferris State University productions of the Vagina Monologues for the entire ten years of the show. Because he loved his wife and his daughter, and he wanted to promote a better, safer world for them to live in.
I cheered at the women, all of the women, because they stood up and talked about what had happened to them and were not ashamed.

Low Tolerance

Don't you ever just say something completely off the grid, on the spur of the moment, when an emotion is fresh?
I do it all the time.
I most certainly hope that it doesn't make me a bad person for all time, but I am forced to admit that at least in brief doses I am just as intolerant and ugly as anyone else.
For example, I opened the refrigerator just now, saw that I would have to buy groceries if I ever wanted to eat anything more for dinner than the same lasagna I had made last night, and exclaimed, "Oh, My God, my life sucks! I want to die!"
Not remotely true.
So why is that the first thing that pops out of my mouth?
Is there an angry, petty, suicidal little person somewhere inside who actually cannot tolerate buying groceries a moment longer?
I think not.
But there's definitely something going on in there of which I am not entirely aware.

Another example. I'm substitute teaching at a school that considers themselves "Paper Free."
To the eyes of a temporary guest, this means that everyone has their laptops and phones out, the "lesson plan" is most likely for them to go online and "watch a Power Point," and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is merely to maintain order.
For some reason, this particular class brings back every unpleasant memory I ever had from high school.
I note that students still talk about all the same things that I could barely tolerate then.
Gossip.
Clothes.
Hair.
Boys.
Who did what that was stupid.
How I am really proud of myself for doing something even more stupid than that.
I am just as bored of it all as I was my senior year of high school - Perhaps more so, because it's grating on my nerves so badly that I don't even know if I can remain long enough to accept money for this treat.
One student brazenly decides that she can't study her Power Point without trying to blast her music for the benefit of the class.

Well the boys 'round here don't listen to The Beatles
Run ole Bocephus through a jukebox needle
At a honky-tonk, where their boots stomp
All night; what? (That's right)
Yea, and what they call work, digging in the dirt
Gotta get it in the ground 'fore the rain come down
To get paid, to get the girl
In your 4 wheel drive (A country boy can survive)

Yea the boys 'round here
Drinking that ice cold beer
Talkin' 'bout girls, talkin' 'bout trucks
Runnin' them red dirt roads out, kicking up dust
The boys 'round here
Sending up a prayer to the man upstairs
Backwoods legit, don't take no sh*t
Chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco, spit...

"Do you have headphones?" I ask coolly.
Nod.
"Then use them."

Later, a student comes and asks me why I "hate country music."
Now, I meant to say something reasonable, like "I don't hate all country music - only the songs that fail to stimulate my lymbic system and to challenge the status quo of this ill-fated microcosm of society."
But, no-oh-oh, completely off the grid, on the spur of the moment, when the emotion was fresh, I blurted out, "Because I have an I.Q."
Now, why did I, the woman who has Patsy Cline's Crazy memorized and loves listening to Johnny Cash when she's in the right mood, just insult the intelligence of two out of five people in our entire population?
Is there an angry, rural-hating intellectual snob inside whose I.Q. literally drops every time someone plays a repetitive, unoriginal, ignorant set of lyrics?

Why yes; yes there is.
Because Music is where I draw the line.

That, and possibly tacos.

Needs

Learning to take care of myself instead of just other people is a hard and long lesson for me.
Today my need to write surpassed my need to eat, and now my body's shaking mad at me.
Additionally, I am too exhausted to cook.
Taking stock of Quick Food in my house:

1. A container of radishes and carrots. (That would be great on my empty stomach!)
2. Brownies, already baked. (Even with a glass of milk, not the best of ideas)
3. Oh yeah - I still have half a sandwich from that restaurant I went to. I'll just eat that.

I need to do my dishes!
Maybe after I've got food in me, I'll have the energy.

I read that there is going to be a gorgeous meteor shower tonight! I am going to stay up past dark and see if it's true.

Staying up should be easy; I'm still itching to write some more.

I Need Tools They Haven't Necessarily Invented

Sometimes I just love huge swaths of a person!
If certain aspects of their personality were like so much grain in a field, my love would encompass rows and rows of them.
It's beyond something cloy and ensnaring like "being in love," which I think mows everything down, and instead it has more to do with qualities they posess as a person, which preserves their individuality and separateness from me.
Sometimes I think that with all the words in the English language, there just isn't anything adequate to express this properly.
With a girlfriend, I might just exclaim, "I love you!" and most of them aren't too uncomfortable with it, especially if I follow up with specifics, such as "You're so insightful and compassionate - knowing you makes my world a better place!" It always feels a little cheesy and unnatural, but I make myself say it anyway, because I think that kind of input it important so long as it's the truth.
It's a little bit more touchy and words are even less adequate when I'm speaking with someone I happen to be attracted to. What is the etiquette here? How do I say, "I adore this, this and this about you!" without just saying "I love you?" I find I have to catch myself quick.
It is terrible to be a wordsmith and not have the proper tools at hand.

Personal Independence Day

Today marks the anniversary of the day, nearly twenty years ago now, when my mother dropped me off at the homeless shelter and then drove away. I was nineteen, but hadn't graduated high school yet. There have been people who have said that they would never have forgiven their own mother for doing something like that, but that's because they don't really understand the situation. I believe that my mother, out of love, was doing something for me that she could not do for herself - leave a hopelessly abusive relationship that was literally killing her.
Crying in the empty room of the shelter, I pulled out my journal and scrawled "Personal Independence Day" on the next blank page as I began to write melodramatically about what had just happened to me. I had a sense of being totally and utterly on my own for the first time in my life, and it was scary instead of wonderful because I hadn't been remotely prepared for it.

But by the next year, when I had a job and my own apartment, I celebrated it.
And the next year, when I was in art college, I celebrated it.
The next year, I was married too young to someone I hardly knew, stranded in the woods with no driver's license and no idea that I had the freedom to leave any time I wanted to. Somehow I had not learned my mother's lesson yet.

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
 ~Alice Walker

The year after that, when I had enrolled in community college and was working on getting a degree in teaching, I celebrated the day.
I continued to celebrate every year - by doing things for myself that I was usually too self-sacrificing to do. Sometimes - most of the time, when I was married - it was something so simple that I could almost cry thinking back on it. A haircut my husband disapproved of. Buying myself a new journal. Skipping the dishes and watching a chick flick instead. Going for a walk by myself  in the woods. A step up from this would be visiting some shop or gallery that I had never been to before.

Over time, it became a sore spot and a big joke to my husband, who became less and less interested in me as a human being and less and less inclined to treat me with the basic respect accorded a human being. At best he would roll his eyes or accuse me of being selfish for causing him any kind of inconvenience - at his worst he actually would put a stop to it in some passive aggressive way (his modus operandi).

Immediately following the divorce, money was tight but doing those small things for myself was more common. Personal Independence Day might be the day I began attending a support group, the day I applied for Graduate School, the weekend retreat where I painted a picture to a live audience with music playing in the background. The day I attended the orientation to go on a trip to Ireland.

It took a few years for the scales to fall from my eyes so that I could see that I was worth it, that I deserved these things, and that I wasn't being selfish for wanting them.

It has taken a lifetime to be comfortable in my own skin, to not be that heartbroken girl whose parents had disappointed her.
A lifetime to realize that I had never been a victim on that day.
After all, it had been my choice to be left at that shelter.
My mother hadn't wanted to do it, but seeing that I refused to go back home where I saw only more pain ahead for the entire family, she took me back to the shelter. I had decided that I didn't have to live in a toxic, dangerous environment any longer. I had decided that my own worth was more important to me after all than what worth I held to them, or to others.
I went on to do the best I could do with what I had at my disposal at the time. I made mistakes, but I also made and met many of my goals. I am the person I am today because of that day at the shelter.
I am a wiser, more compassionate person. I have more to offer the world than I ever would have had if I had allowed myself to remain in bondage to judgement or oppression.

I am independent.
Being independent, I find more ease and joy in the company of others.
I love myself for who I am at my core, and I am aware that anyone else who gets to know me at that level can't help but love me, too.
And I celebrate that.

Priceless

I'm going to share a little story with you - hope you don't mind.
It's a proven fact that by and large, children of divorce tend to have low self-esteem. It takes a lot of extra love and support from parents to overcome this. Here's an account of one of the things I have done with my own children.
Grocery shopping used to be a nightmare for us, because Stuart and Lucy would get bored and restless, and Stuart would get plain mad about it all, so they'd bicker and whine and generally drive me crazy.
Then I came up with a plan.
I made grocery lists for each of them, organized by aisle, and as we hit each aisle, we would see who could read and locate all their list items first, like a scavenger hunt.
We talk about what is the best buy and how we can tell, and I let them have choices as much as I can allow.
"What do you think? Should we buy the tongs with the red handle, or the green handle?"
"Purple!" says Lucy happily.
"Oh, I didn't even notice the purple! Those are gorgeous!" (Truthfully, I didn't want the purple so much, but I decided that whether or not my tong handles matched my kitchen was a small matter that could easily be let go for the sake of her enthusiasm.)
We read food labels and talk about what they mean. "This stuff is solid sugar, with no healthy ingredients at all! Here, try reading this stuff!"
"High fruck-toes corn sigh-rup?"
"Yeah. That stuff is not so good for you in large quantities. Let's find something else."
"What's quantities?"
"Amount. Like if you have a LOT of My Little Ponies, that's the amount of ponies you have. This stuff has a large amount of high fructose corn syrup, which is not even as good for you as straight sugar, really."
"It SOUNDs yucky, too."
"Well, the sad thing is, it probably tastes really good. That's how they trick people into buying it."
"I like fruit better than cookies," Lucy declares. It's totally true - we go find some.
We talk about what makes a good value and checking the amount you're getting for the price you're paying, and getting the milk with the latest expiration date on it - all kinds of things. The kids have really loved it, and not even noticed that they're learning anything. I make a point of complimenting their choices.
Anyway, one day while shopping I told Stuart all about the Reading Endorsement class I was taking and how the professor said I needed to find a recording device so I could record a student reading out loud.
Stuart said, "I'll bet they're over by the video games," and I said that was a great idea.
We went over to electronics and looked everywhere, but no recording device was to be found. I was getting a little frustrated.
Stuart said, "Mom, if your professor wanted you to have one, then maybe she has one. You could ask her where to buy them at."
I was so happy, I said, "Good problem-solving skills, Stuart! That's an awesome idea!" I wanted to hug him, I was so proud, but lately he's becoming a little self-conscious about me doing that kind of thing in public, so I held off.
Later, he went and stood meaningfully beside a big plastic container full of red-sprinkled heart-shaped sugar cookies (his favorite!), and I said, "No, son - we've got enough snack food in the house this week."
Stuart grinned and said, "Mom, I love you as much as every single one of these cookies!" and he flung his arms out
He stood there grinning, arms wide open and eyes shining with love, and I realized that, despite his growing embarrassment at being embraced in public, he wanted a hug right then and there in front of everyone.
I gladly acquiesced, holding my cheek against his fuzzy little head and wondering at the love and devotion that a boy can feel for his mother.

2013 Ferris State University Vagina Monologues

I have a beautiful daughter who is smart, funny, creative and kind.

She is my angel, my conscience, and my joy.
I love the way that she sees the world. She is kind to others, even if they are smelly, like her friend Kelly - she sees through the outside of people and into who they really are.
When she sees the ugliness in the world, she looks to me and says, "That's not very nice, is it, Mommy?"
And she makes me want to do something about it.
When she found out that some people actually sleep in boxes out on the street, she gave me all her piggy bank money and asked me if that would help them. We ended up donating online to the local shelter, which is something that you could easily do if you would like to offer your help, too. A more hands-on option would be to volunteer at a homeless shelter or other type of program.

All proceeds of The Vagina Monologues at Ferris State University goes toward WISE, which is a domestic violence and sexual assault services program.
Their vision is to empower people to create violence-free communities.
Their mission is to provide advocacy, safety options, and support services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. WISE empowers individuals and families through respect and equality and works toward strengthening our communities through awareness, prevention, and education. They have partnered with The Vagina Monologues because they stand for the same things.

Statement of Beliefs:

We believe...

• In the equality of all people.
• Domestic Violence and sexual assault are crimes that affect individuals, families, and society.
• Domestic violence and sexual assault are the result of one individual's desire to control another individual.
• Ending domestic and sexual violence begins by creating an environment of tolerance and empowerment.
• Individuals who choose violence must be held accountable.

The Vagina Monologues are at Ferris State University on Thursday, April 25th at 7:03pm at Williams Auditorium. Tickets are available at the door. They are $5 with Student ID or $10.00.
You don't have to go to the show to help out. You can go to the WISE website and donate online.
I did.
My daughter is watching me.
She's looking to me to be smart, safe, and kind.
Just like her.

Writing Advice I Follow Daily

"Writing is about honesty. It is almost impossible to be honest and boring at the same time. Being honest may be many other things - risky, scary, difficult, frightening, embarrassing, and hard to do - but it is not boring. Whenever I am stuck in a piece of writing, I ask myself, "Am I failing to tell the truth? Is there something I'm not saying? Something I'm afraid to say?" Telling the truth on the page, like telling the truth in a relationship, always takes you deeper."

~Julia Cameron

"The Rise of the Cult of Intellectual Incoherence"

"In a career spanning 35 years, Leonard Pitts, Jr. has been a columnist, a college professor, a radio producer and a lecturer. But if you ask him to define himself, he will invariably choose one word.

He is a writer, period. "

I must confess I didn't know about Leonard Pitts until he spoke at the Michigan Reading Association's conference I attended last March, but now I'm a big fan.
I can't copy down everything that he said at the conference, because my memory's not that good, but I thought I'd share with you a parable that he shared with us that I found alternately amusing, profound, and heart-breaking. He was the finest speaker I had heard in a very long time, very eloquent. His love of words and education made him a joy to listen to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Once upon a time, there lived a stupid giant.
The giant had not always been stupid. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say, the giant had once revered intelligence, reason and the byproducts thereof.

Indeed, the giant was renowned for an ingenuity and standard of living that made it the envy of the world.
But much of the world did more than envy the giant.

Much of the world admired and respected it. Its basic decency, along with its strength and intelligence, set it apart. There came a time, however, when, though the giant retained its strength and arguably even its decency, it lost its intelligence.
No one can say exactly how and when the loss occurred. There was no great blast of thunder and lightning to herald it, no sudden instant when the giant's intelligence plummeted dramatically from the instant before.

No, stupidity crept over the giant with the stealth of twilight, a product less of one abrupt moment than of a thousand moments of complacency, of resting on laurels, of allowing curiosity to be teased and bullied out of bright children, of dumbing down textbooks so kids could get better grades with less work, of using "elite" like a curse word.
And, of behaving as if knowing things, and being able to extrapolate from and otherwise make critical use of, the things one knows, was a betrayal of some fundamental human authenticity - some need to keep it real.

Stupidity stole over the giant until it could no longer tell science from faith, or conventional wisdom from actual wisdom, and in any event valued ideological purity above them all. Stupidity snaked over the giant until science teachers shrank from teaching science, history books contained history that wasn't history, late-night comics got easy laughs from people on the street who could not say when the War of 1812 was fought, political leaders told outright lies with blithe smiles and no fear of being caught, and you would not have been surprised to hear that someone had fixed mathematics, so that 2+2 could now equal 17, thus preserving the all-important self-esteem of second-grade kids.
Some regarded the giant's stupidity as a danger. They reasoned that when one is so big that one's merest movement or slightest utterance affects the entire world, it's a good idea if those movements and utterances are animated by something more than autonomic function.

Others saw the giant's stupidity as an opportunity. They learned eagerly until they surpassed the giant's intellect. They grew until they rivaled the giant's size and strength. They did not attempt to match the giant's decency. They considered decency a hindrance.
And the giant?

It sat on its haunches in the mud as the world changed about it and new giants rose and shook their fists.
The giant did not notice. It was watching "The Jersey Shore" on MTV.

And it lived obliviously ever after."
The End

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fending Off The Easter Bunny!

Another Easter has come and gone.
That damned Easter grass is still popping up in strange places.
I tried buying the edible kind this year, to get rid of it quicker, but it tasted terrible.
My son scarfed down all the candy in his basket the first week, while my daughter's candy is still hanging in there...dawdling...moving at that same leisurely pace that she has perfected through a lifetime of practice.
I don't really mind.
In fact, it put me in the mood to post a story I wrote about Easter from last year.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prepping the house for Easter, Lucy decided that the bunny she drew was the perfect present for the Easter Bunny.
So she settled down and wrote a little note on the page for him and propped it up against my purse.
Stepping back to admire the effect, she said, "I think the Easter Bunny will be really proud of me, Mommy, for thinking of this. I'll bet nobody ever made him a present before. Why should Santa always get stuff us and not that poor, nice little bunny?"
"I don't know, honey," I said, "But I'm sure you're right. That was a really sweet idea."
She beamed at me.
Lucy and I discussed what the Easter Bunny must look like again. Last week she decided that all the bunnies at the stores were imposters because the real Easter Bunny looks like a real bunny.
Their dad says the Easter Bunny is a 6 foot tall invisible rabbit named Harvey.
I say Lucy is probably right - I always imagine The Bunny being like one of the rabbits from Watership Down, but I can't quite figure out if he uses only his teeth to carry things, or if he can walk on his hind legs and use his paws like hands.
Stuart piped up, "Nobody really knows what the Easter Bunny looks like - even Scientists don't know, right, Mom?"
"Yeah," I said, keeping my face perfectly straight with an effort. "I suppose not."
It's one of those charades that always makes me feel midly guilty, but the kids have so much fun with it.
Until tonight...
The kids brushed their teeth.
I read them stories about Easter.
I gave Stuart Benny's Bunny to read to me, but he said that was too easy and then proudly read me the book we have from the movie HOP. Only missed three words.
Lucy read a book about a bunny who painted eggs.
Then I kissed her goodnight and went to Stuart's room to say prayers with him like we do every night.
Lucy called from her room, "Momma, I'm going to sneak out of my room tonight and look downstairs to see if I can see that Easter Bunny!"
Stuart called back, "Don't do it, Lucy! You don't know what he might look like!"
He looked over at me, his hazel eyes widening, and added in a whisper, "Right, Mom? 'Cause no one knows what he looks like... He might be ugly...or scary... or maybe if you go downstairs when you're not supposed to and you see him - maybe he's got a really nice bunny face, but then when he sees you're looking at him, his face spins around and he's got a really scary torn up face!"

Next thing I know, the kid was whimpering and begging me not to leave him.
He was so desperate, he beged for his half-sister Justine to come up and stay with him until he went to sleep.
Marvelling at the difference in imagination between my two children, I ran downstairs and put some carrots out in front of Lucy's drawing, snapped a picture of it, and then ran upstairs to show it to him. "Look. See? We left him some carrots. He'll be so happy about it! Stuart, you're fine. It's going to be fine. The Easter Bunny can't be scary - think of all the nice things he gets you."
Stuart: "Mom, you can't tell if someone is good or bad just because they give you candy, or because of how they look."
That stumped me.
I mean, damn, he was absolutely right.
What kind of crap were we teaching him here?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This year, the Easter Bunny Myth hung on good and strong in their dedicated little souls. They left a bowl of water, some carrots, and some beautiful little cards. I have no idea if I still believed in the Easter Bunny by the time I was in the third grade, so I have little to refer back upon. This leaves me mildy worried about the situation, but mostly I feel glad. How nice to think that they get to be children a little longer. How wonderful that their imaginations are so strong. It will make storytellers out of them, and storytellers are my favorite kinds of people.

The Perils of Reading to Your Children

Thinking only of the great values in the story regarding having a good work ethic and sticking to your goals, I decide to read Where The Red Fern Grows to my children. This particular coming of age novel is at least partially responsible for my determination to see good in every circumstance and have faith that all things happen for a reason. I want that for my children. I don't think one way or another about the gory axe accident halfway through the book until I start the notorious chapter and it already seems too late.
As the boy tries to speak and the bubble of blood works its way out of his mouth and bursts before he falls back dead, my children's eyes are wide and fixed upon me, their mouths hanging open.
Lucy stares at me as I close the book, then declares, "Mom, don't you ever read that to me again!"
Stuart exclaims, "THAT is why you don't go running around with an axe trying to kill some other kid's dogs! What a bad kid!"
Later that night, I find Lucy curled up in her bed sobbing.
I have traumatized my babies for life!
Tonight over the phone, Stuart says darkly, "Mom, I cannot believe you read that to us. I guess I'm going to have to tell on you."
"Who?" I ask, "Your Dad?" My concern is not so much with his father as the idea of my son thinking he can tattle on me like I am some sort of covertly bad influence.
"No."
Ominous pause.
"Your Mother!" He bursts out laughing.
I don't know how he managed to keep such a deadpan expression in his voice before that.
Must take after his Uncle. That guy was always fooling me growing up.

Like a Distant Star

“A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.”

 ~   John Steinbeck

Art!: An Adventure Story

I'm on a roll now, baby!
Okay, so: If Reading is a Love Story and Writing is like Sex...
Then Art is?
Art is exciting!

To begin with, stepping into an art gallery feels like going on a speed dating website.

You're going to see hundreds of pieces of art within a matter of a couple of hours - longer if you bring along someone who really appreciates art and doesn't prefer to remain "single," so that you can stop and really get to know what you are encountering. (Do not under any circumstances, as I once made the mistake of doing, bring along your very young children, who will have a contest to see how fast they can run through the building and still see a little bit of artwork along the way. I'm by no means saying that young children don't belong in an art gallery. They most certainly do. My mother took us to art galleries and I am eternally grateful to her, especially now when I have children of my own and can fully appreciate the adventure it must have been to drag five kids under the age of fifteen through the silent halls of any gallery. I'm just pointing out that it's hard to get to know a painting or a sculpture while walk-running in an undignified manner after your kids) Or maybe choose to go alone, because what you are about to embark upon is an adventure...
Some art you will love.
Some art you will hate.
If you are not a romantic as I am, some art will make you question whether or not it is even art at all.
Some art doesn't make sense to you.
Some art draws you in like a siren and makes you long for things you previously didn't even know existed.
Art will make you laugh.
Art will fill you with awe.
Art will be kind of awkward and set your teeth on edge.
Sometimes a work of art will start out kind of uncomfortable, but as you continue to gaze at it you begin to appreciate it for its finer points. That piece of art you might return to examine again later at more leisure.
There is art that seems finer than anything you own and doesn't seem as if it could possibly work out on your panelled apartment walls.
There is cosy, comfortable art that would work anywhere in your house or workspace.
Art that is too nice.

Art that is unpleasant.
Art that is loud and insistent.
Art that is quiet and gentle.
Art that seems childish.
Art that strikes you as stupid.
Art that is so clever that you think it's the cleverest piece in the room and you simply must buy it because all the other artwork bores you to tears.
Art that you think you might become friends with but could never fall in love with.
There are as many different forms of art as there are artists.
No two paintings are really alike.

Probably the most important encounter you will ever have with art is when you learn that you really can create it for yourself. I will call this Learning to Love Yourself. I personally believe that absolutely anyone can create artwork if they have the right mind-set, a lot of daring, and a little self-confidence. In order to make a work of art, you have to suspend that little disbelieving voice inside long enough to just do it. Take a plunge. Don't look back and whatever you do, don't look down. That's the adventure of it.
Bear in mind all the different varieties of art that you can encounter, some of which are listed above, and all the different kinds of relationships that various people have with artwork. Whatever you create, however you create it, and whatever it looks like, if you learn to love it and put love into it, someone else can and will love it, too. Feel free to apply that scenario to dating and relationships as well.

Art is more than representative of different kinds of people whom you may meet; it is also the most direct line of communication that your insides have with the outside world. Creating a work of art is like pulling out your brain matter and slapping it on a canvass or forming it into a sculpture, or whatever other form of art you choose to express yourself with. A picture speaks a thousand words? A picture speaks to thousands of people instantly in thousands of different ways. A picture is like a mirror, a history lesson, a prediction of the future, a dream, a destiny, a familiar friend. You display your artwork; someone on the speed-dating circuit takes a glance and instantly decides what they think or feel about it. If you are sensitive, it is important to remember that whatever your art means to you will always be in your heart, perfectly expressed, but that they have a right to their own viewpoints and opinions, which are hardly an expression of your worth as a person so much as their own.

Art is as natural as breathing. Almost as soon as they can sit up for themselves and reach out and grab objects, children are making art. Definitely the moment they can grasp a crayon you will find yourself some wall art on some occasion. This early spontaneity is something that art students sometimes struggle to return to so that they can let go of self-imposed limits and really create something exciting. Children produce such a massive quantity of artwork that there is scarcely room for it all, and parents or guardians have to come up with all sorts of creative display solutions - scrapbooks, screen printed on t-shirts, framed on the wall, posted on the fridge - I started an album on facebook and soon Shutterfly just to keep track of all that my daughter makes so that she feels appreciated but I don't get buried in piles of newsprint, construction and notebook paper.

 As with any of my passions, my own artwork stemmed from my great love of books. In the first grade around Easter time, our teacher held a coloring contest. We were to decorate an outline of an egg, and the best decorated egg would win a prize. I don't remember what the prize was; for me the point was to emulate my then-favorite illustrated work, The Golden Egg Book, by Margaret Wise Brown. I filled that egg with a colorful, intricately-detailed profusion of flowers. Standing out in the hallway gazing anxiously at my creation compared to all the other lovely eggs, I overheard several classmates exclaiming how mine truly was the very best egg of all. I don't know for sure if I won, but this was the first time I was really proud of something I drew, most likely because no one but my parents have ever said anything nice about my pictures before.


Like any child, I blossomed when encouraged in any way. I started drawing in all my free time. I drew so much that I ended up repeating the first grade because I kept drawing pictures on the back of all my schoolwork instead of concentrating on the actual work. For some reason, I remember drawing a lot of clowns with unusually long, color-striped legs.

In third grade my teacher had me design and draw her bulletin board for her one spring. This is also
the teacher who walked past my desk, spotted my watercolor of a squirrel, and said, "That painting is so good that it looks like a real squirrel!"

"I know!" I said with that level of smugness that only a third-grader can affect.

She shook her head at me. "We never take pride in our talents, young lady!"
I scrunched down in my seat and have been self-conscious about being visibly proud of my work ever since. I knew I could draw anything I set my mind to, but I didn't go out of my way to display anything I did.

In fourth grade I developed a love for Garfield and drew endless little comics to the exclusion of anything else.

As my writing skills developed my drawings fell by the wayside. Drawing came so easily to me that I took it for granted. I always loved any art project of any kind for an assignment, but for some reason I didn't draw as much as I wrote.

I remember there was a little comic contest in my world history class. The drawings were put up without the names shown and everyone was to vote for their favorite the next day. Mine was of Hannibal struggling through the mountains on a less than surefooted elephant, dangling fearfully from its leg. At the end of class, I was looking over the other drawings when my teacher came up and asked, "Which one do you think will win?"

"Mine," I blurted.
My face burned when he remarked, "You don't lack confidence, do you?"

After I got the drawing back with an A+ circled at the top, I saw the teacher had written "Heather, you were right!"

The best thing about high school was that you could be in art class all four years. (Joy!)
Imagine that, in this current political and economic climate!
The other best thing about high school was that the art teacher was completely crazy in a passionate , confident(obnoxious to some - I certainly was in no position to judge him for that) kind of way. How inspiring to meet someone who was good at their craft and proud of it, who spoke with authority when he pronounced that everyone in the class was going to leave it able to draw better than when they came (it was all drawing the first year, then painting, then a variety of other medium). This man wasn't a mere teacher; he was a missionary in the blackboard jungle (a lot of them were still black then). He had a message he was compelled to preach: That it was okay to be unique and that you had the power to change your life and the lives of others if you cared deeply enough and worked hard enough.

I was a complete sucker for this message, easily converted to his faith. I had always been fine at doing line drawings and cartoon people and animals, but this was two-dimensional drawing. I wanted to learn it so badly that I drew whatever I was told with complete trust that it would all make sense in the end, even after weeks or months of drawing gourds and piles of junk that he placed randomly on a table central to the room so that we could develop eye-hand coordination and really learn to examine what we were putting on paper. I learned the use of light and shade to create depth.

My early drawings were terrible.

It would have been easy to give up.
Many others tried and failed because they didn't have the patience or the faith to push forward.
I held in my mind's eye the drawing I'd done on the first day of class. On the first day, he had sat in a chair and asked us to draw him. That drawing also was terrible. I looked but I did not see, right? But he promised us that he would sit down on the last day of school and that we would then draw him as he really appeared. This was better than an adventure - it was like magic!
Only magic that was really hard work.
And repetition.
And disappointingly ill-proportioned.
Finally I struck upon the answer: Suspend my disbelief in myself. For now, focus on the object and not the emotions. Look at the object and not look too closely, too minutely, at how I was copying it. Just draw. Don't over think it. It was like meditation, and when I figured it out, I could draw.
Magic.
My end of the year drawing of the teacher was great.
It wasn't my art yet, but it was just great.

Next year, painting class.

My early paintings were terrible.
I had to remind myself that they would get better if I kept practicing.
How to make this blasted paint shade my drawings as a pencil could?
How to mix the colors right, how to hold the brush right, how to control the strokes?
More hard work magic.
By the end of the year, I could copy a photograph with fairly decent results.

In my Junior year of high school I was frustrated with my artwork. I could copy things, but I wanted to say something. I had this idea that art had to have meaning, that when I looked at something a "real" artist did,  I should know what it meant.

The teacher hauled out slide shows of modern art: Warhol and Pollock, and it seemed like a lot of guys from the 1960's, but also some Picasso and Van Gogh. I didn't much care for Warhol's precision and was uncomfortable with Pollock's disarray. Picasso I was okay with. After all, he had undertaken the bold statement of Guernica. I liked Van Gogh at first for the same reason a lot of people like him: His life was such a tragic story, and Starry Night looked to me like something I could paint.

All right, all right already, I grumbled, so art doesn't have to mean something.

 

But my art would.
Once I made that decision and had a little skill under my belt, I found my art and I learned to love it.
I can draw something that's in front of me so that it looks exactly like itself upon the page - I know how to play that trick on the eyes with darkness and light, but I may never achieve the precision of a Warhol or God forbid a Norman Rockwell painting - I think I might have had to have finished art college to have achieved something like that. It doesn't matter. I have learned to love the bright colors and thick slabs of paint more reminiscent of Van Gogh or Pollock, the figures colored and shaped by my mood, like Monet or any other impressionist. Who knew?
For me, the important thing is to paint things that I care deeply about.

When I finally came to these conclusions, I became an artist. I learned to relax and to have fun with my work. I loved my paintings, and my classmates and my teachers loved my paintings.

I discovered an entirely different way of communicating with the world.
I found out that I had all kinds of things in common with my classmates that I had never known before. And finally they came to understand me as well. Instantly. Like magic.

I didn't realize when I set out to learn to draw two dimensional figures that I was really setting out on an adventure to find and accept myself.

Most protagonists in an adventure story don't see it, either.
That's what makes it an adventure.