July to October

Since returning to Louisville from Colorado, life has been a whirlwind.

Truth be told, the only reason I'm writing right now is that I am procrastinating. I need to plan the rest of my week with my students, I'm woefully behind in my coursework at U of L and Charlotte needs to be packed up for her journey tomorrow to Virginia.

Funny, too, how so much has changed and evolved and been grappled with in that time. Why is it so hard to write when stuff is actually HAPPENING?

It's taken me a while to adjust emotionally to my new internet habits, which means me+teaching=no internet all day long. Not even personal email. Which is a huge change from being involved full-time in website creation and surfing all day every day. Weird.

So, how's the teaching? Well... what was the general mood of the 120 12 year olds that walked through my classroom with their raging hormones and simultaneous desires to rebel and please? The answer to that question holds the quality of my day in its hot little hands. I take it class by class with varying degrees of success. I'm an okay teacher. Not great. And, I'm horrifically bad at all the tracking and analyzing. But, I have a feeling I'll get better at it.

Here are the things I love about teaching:
- The days when things just chink along and the kids understand what the heck you're talking about and they participate and you reach a couple of kids you haven't been able to... like today, this one student unlocked the key to coming up with things to freewrite about - and he's so proud of himself. You can just SEE it in his eyes and his demeanor. I'm proud of him.

- The way they want to tell you about all the minutae of their lives and really believe that it's probably the most interesting thing you've heard all day. I find their innocent self-centeredness just so sweet. It's not the same brand as 16 or 18 year old self-regard, it's this mixture of approval seeking and trying out their identities that is just phenomenal to watch and nurture.

- There are some of them that get so excited about things they write or think that they burst out of their chairs to get your attention. I have to get them to sit back down so everybody doesn't bum rush me, but I'm always happy to see it happening. Same with "blurting" when kids don't raise their hands. I have to make sure that I keep it to a reasonable level, but I love it when they have a thought and they just have to share it.


There are things that drive me insane, but I'm not going to blog about those. At least, not today.

And, there are a lot of things that have changed in the way the pirate tribe functions that I'd like to address, but not today. For now, let me say that this is the most changeable job I've ever had. The kids are like a moving target. And, I struggle to keep up. But, I think I might love it.

....yeah. I might.

going... going...

My grandfather is dying. Has been for almost a year. He has end-stage lung cancer that they stopped treating about four months ago. He is 86 years old.

Right now, the majority of his remaining 7 children are gathered around him (his eldest daughter, passed of lung cancer in January of 2005), my sister KW is amongst the crowd. My mother will head to the family gathering sometime tomorrow as the vigil continues.

There is nothing for me to do, but wait for the wake and funeral. For the phone call to come with the inevitable news. It is a helpless feeling.

My father called me earlier today, shortly after his father received his Last Rites. The purpose of the call was to say my awkward and public goodbyes to a man who has been mostly enigma to me. I felt like crying, mostly because hearing the note of a break in my father's voice can inspire me to move mountains to attempt to salve his pain. I am never successful in my quest, but my father in distress is a motivator I don't fully understand.

I wanted to jump in the car and get there for the important part. For the departure. Funerals just don't make sense to me as a gathering place. Deathbeds seem more friendly-like. Am I bizarre? Maybe.

I wanted to get in the time machine and have one more real and lucid conversation with him, ask some questions I never got answered. That's the real problem with "one last time." By the time you know that's what it is, it destroys the spirit of the actual conversation. Assuming there can be one.

And, there couldn't be now, anyway. In a sense, I was too late already when I went out there over the summer - you can't ask existential questions of a man who has already been given a death sentence. It's just not done. Best to talk about the weather and hope your toddler doesn't deliver him a death-blow of a cold direct from daycare. That's how it felt. A polite audience on plastic covered furniture. No real connection with the situation. All bright natural light and photo ops for albums that my daughter will see when she is older. Proof.

From Charlotte's Big 4th of July

And, I'll always look at those photos and see a dying man. Not my grandfather. Not really.

He and I never had all that much in common. I don't think he understood a single decision I made as an adult. A quiet, introverted man, I think he found me to be a bit gauche, frankly. He wouldn't be the first.

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time trying to draw him out, to learn more about him. But, I felt it exhausted him. And, as other distractions entered the scene, eventually, I gave up on it altogether.

Now I am just bracing for the inevitable. Sad that I never found a way to grasp the essence of the man who shaped the way my father shaped me. Sad that I will have to watch people I love, be sad. Sad that there is nothing I can do to fix them. Or me.

growing

So, looking through all the old photos and videos, I saw CB and R and H grow up before my eyes all time-lapsey. I heard the bass notes start to enter R's timbre. I laughed with tears in my eyes at Charlotte's stilted language. I saw H grow inches.

I thought of how fleeting this time in their lives is. And, how much we've all grown together. This is the second year I've given my little buccaneers Valentine's gifts. I was surprised at how sweet it was to do something for the second time. Usually, I'm more blown away by the firsts.

Two nights ago, two small boys came one after the other into the kitchen for a big hug and a kiss goodnight. "Oh!" I said, startled before settling into a grin that ran the width of my face. C walked in a couple of seconds later and saw me surrounded by small arms, my lips buried in shaggy hair and he had the same reaction I did. "Oh!"

It was a first. Not the first time I've given them hugs and kisses goodnight. But, the first time that I was not the initiator. They wanted me. They sought my arms.

There is a sweetness to the repetition of new traditions, and a sweetness to the adventures into new frontiers of family-ness. It is the beauty of watching growing things, including my own ever expanding love.

Six.

There are six reasons I am happy today:

1) I got up my gumption and still went to my masters program info session despite
- stinky armpits
- no parking which led to stinkier armpits
- running very, very late
- feeling very, very hopeless
- insane amounts of social anxiety
I got halfway home, after talking myself out of it - and then turned back around, double parked and walked in 45 minutes late like I knew what was what. And, you know what? It was worth it... because....

2) I got my transcript re-evaluated and now I'm eligible to apply for the alternative program I wanted!

3) AND I found out that the deadline for the program I want is a month and 15 days later than the other deadline

4) The weather is getting better - supposed to be 50 degrees outside in the next few days!

5) I am so lucky to be in love with the most amazing partner. Without C-Roll, I wouldn't have turned around. Not even a little.

6) 9 credits turned to six, just like that... I'm beginning to believe....

and it's a wonderful feeling.

Forcing

Today I woke up wrapped in my lover's skin and could hardly lift myself out of my deepest sleep. I dreamed long after I was conscious and felt delirious with tired bones all slack with exhaustion. There is a lot of tired in those two sentences - I think it's the dreary winter-ness. Or, perhaps it was the news I got yesterday. One class may keep me locked exactly where I am. And, I'm so tired, so defeated, that I don't feel much like fighting it.

Winter Blues.

When I was in college, I got the winter blues pretty badly. So badly in fact, that I would go to the tanning bed just to get my body to produce warmth. I only went once every couple of weeks, so it was definitely not an exercise in body darkening - I don't tan so well even in real light - but the artificial sunlight helped my mood.

Even the Sunday Sun didn't help my feeling of helplessness. I sat outside with a chair in the snow, closing my eyes and letting the warmth wash over me, I took supplements, I had water. Still, this exhaustion, unnatural in its tenacity. Honestly, I don't even feel like posting anything right now, but the only way to get past the roadblock of the winter blues is to force one foot and then the other, willing to do whatever you've got wrong, looking at every movement, small and large, as a triumph against your static nature.

Bizarre Passions

It's fascinating what incites passion in we humans.

Yesterday, C and I met back at the homestead after work. We had decided we would race to the boatyard to pump the water out of the cabin of the sailboat and duct tape the hole where the rain gets in... again; taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather.

On the way, we chatted with All Things Considered playing softly in the background just under the roar of the 1984 Mercedes Diesel engine. One of my favorite things about Louisville is Louisville Public Media. We have THREE public radio stations. And, they are awesome.

After a minute, C and I fell into a comfortable silence, waiting for a train to pass. Suddenly, we began to wonder what in the hell we were listening to. It didn't become clear what the story was about, or what they were trying to accomplish with it until the whole thing was nearly complete.

All I knew for sure is that people were up in arms, passionately defending throwing bread in the water somewhere in Pennsylvania. This was accompanied by a song about the fish and the bread by Tim Fite.

It was a bizarre report both in format and content, and it made me think deeply about the nature of our passions and how simple things can incite real rage. Passion for a tradition of littering, instead of a passion for peace or environmental consciousness. Or universal health care. Or human rights. Interesting.

Here's to the hope of 2009 being a better year for channeling our energy toward real, positive change.