Observations from the Knee-Deep South

The Help

2011-05-27T02:50:00.004-05:00

I don't know if anyone else has read the novel The Help which has recently been made into a movie. It's written by a White southern woman but told largely from the point of view of two Black maids. It's set in Jackson, Mississippi in the sixties right in the middle of the civil rights struggle. I had been circling this book for a long time. It came on my radar earlier this year and seemed interesting but I just didn't want to read another tragic Negro story. Then I saw the previews for the upcoming film and thought I might want to see it. I do not read books after seeing the movies, I like to read them before. So I thought about the book once again, but hesitated. Then a few nights later my Zumba instructor, a Black Northern woman in her mid to late twenties was raving about it. She said it was really an uplifting book. So I bought it. It's 4am and I've just finished it. I started reading several days ago and had to stop.

I don't really know what to say. I had to stop reading halfway through because it was just too hard to take. I can certainly see why my Zumba teacher thought it was uplifting, but I found it very disturbing in the way I found Schindler's List disturbing. At first I figured that it was just that I couldn't see the"triumph of the human spirit" because I was mesmerized by the ugliness. And that might be partially true. But it's more than that.

When I teach the fourth graders at our school about the first Thanksgiving I start by introducing the Social Studies theme for the year. I tell them that we are going to be history detectives and work on various cases. To start, I define the difference between history and the past. The past, I tell them, is what actually happened, and history is how we talk about what happens. The past is always the same, but history changes across tellers and time.

I think that's why my instructor and I essentially were reading two different books. She sees what happened between 1958 when I was born and the 90's when she was born as history all neatly packaged and tied up with a ribbon. I see it as the past. I lived parts of it. I knew women who worked those jobs. My grandmother was a maid and laundress before finally becoming a restaurant cook. I remember the stories. I remember White ladies being condescending to me assuming that I would eventually clean their houses. And I remember the point at which I realized I never would. It's not history to me it's my past. History is written in books, the past is etched on your soul.

My Zumba instructor's inability to feel the way I do about this book gives me immense joy. I am happy that she can't quite get where I'm coming from. I'm happier still that my twenty year old daughter cannot even fathom why I would be upset over a book about some maids. My daughter has a White Jewish father and a Black Southern mother. She became a bat mitzvah at 13, and at 18 chose to go to a selective Black college after being accepted at an equally selective White one. She is just as comfortable working with homeless black children as a volunteer in DC as she is helping wealthy White Jewish kids learn their Hebrew as a camp counselor.

I am happy about all this but it frightens me too. I can imagine now how scary it must have been for my mother and grandmother to watch their children sail off into a racial landscape they never thought they would see. Even though they helped create that landscape, they must have worried about us just like my great, great grandmother (a former slave) worried that the slave catchers would come and get her family. We worry because we can't quite believe it's over. We worry because we still see the traces of the old ugliness everywhere around us. Our president tells us that those people are on the "wrong side of history" and I believe that to be true. My husband, with the supreme confidence of a White man with a Ph.D., tells me that there's only so much that crazy people will do. I wonder if he realizes that his own history tells him that's not true. But of course he doesn't. The Holocaust is history for him, and past for his parent's generation.

So here I stand on one side of the great divide watching my daughter with relief and fear. I am so happy that the children I teach are mystified later in the year when we get to the Great Migration and I try to explain why there were colored toilets. I am thrilled that my daughter's friends look like a UN delegation. I'm happy my Zumba instructor thinks this book is just an uplifting story about things that happened a long time ago. I wish with all my heart that I could jump across the abyss and live where they do, but I can't. I can't anymore than my grandmother could jump to my side or her grandmother to hers. I hear Dr. King's mountain top speech in my head at times like this. I understand the reference to Moses in a different way. People say he was predicting his own death, and perhaps he was. But I've learned by now that the people who build the bridges often can't cross them. We are stuck with the baggage of the struggle. Once people have sunk to a certain level of ugliness toward one another, you can never truly fix it. You can't, as my husband says, unring the bell. That's why I'm careful in relationships. I know how ugly sticks. And that's why I've come to see the continuing struggle for racial equality in this country as so vital. I get angry when I hear Black people making rude comments about Asians or Latinos; or when they make those comments about us. I want to grab them and shake them and tell them they are tying chains around their legs that they will never be able to get off. That they will look up one day as their sons and daughters move to other ways of being and know that they cannot follow them. I want them to see how terribly sad that is. In the end that's what makes The Help worth reading. Depending on where you are on the timeline (and the color line) you may find it uplifting or disturbing; infuriating or depressing; or some combination of those things. But it will make you think about that divide and which side you want to be on going forward.

I'm going to bed now. Thanks for listening.

Jackie

My House is Winning

2011-03-19T15:36:00.002-05:00

I have been waiting and waiting to have something deep and meaningful to say. But alas that will never happen because I am renovating my house. My house was built in 1906. It is a beautiful craftsman, and it has taken over my life. We bought it because we wanted to entertain friends and have people stay with us for long periods of time. We fell in love with the woodwork and the leaded glass windows, the third story servants' quarters, the history, and the potential. Let's not forget the potential.

This is our second older house. We should have learned by now. They woo you with promises of returning them to their former glory. They reward you for your first tentative tries. You remove carpeting and find beautiful oak flooring in wonderful condition. You take down wallpaper and see that the plaster is in great shape. You paint a few rooms, maybe revive a flower bed. It all goes so easily. The house whispers "come on, do more, it'll be fun, what could happen?" Then you get into the hard stuff. You start opening up walls, workmen come in and leave large bills. But it's too late now, you're hooked. Finally you go for the big one: the kitchen renovation. You become obsessed with finding period reproduction hardware for the kitchen cabinets. You stop blogging, or going out with your friends. All you talk about is whether it's OK to put vinyl tile in the laundry room or would that ruin the integrity of the house; and whether the cabinets need to be quarter sawn oak or will cherry be fine. People stop calling. You feel that you must spend every waking moment in service to the house.

Then you know it's happened. You are a slave to your older home. When will it end? Who knows. Perhaps if I can get the perfect slab of uba tuba granite for the kitchen I'll be able to stop.

I'm back from Ghana!

2010-08-25T19:40:00.040-05:00

I am finally over my jet lag and can give a reasonable account of my trip. It was amazing. I am not the best photographer, but it's hard not to get some good pictures in Africa. Lonely Planet calls Ghana Africa for beginners. I'm not so sure about that, but I did feel very safe there and it was nice to be in an anglophone country. Most people learn English in school, so even though Twi and Frafra are their first languages, English is familiar to every one. I went with a group called Beyond Boundaries which partners with a grass roots organization in northern Ghana to work on issues of gender equality. We spent a week with the sister organization and a week being tourists. I'll tell the story in pictures.

Arrival:

This is my group just after getting off the plane in Accra. 11 hours in coach and we still look fabulous. We were met by a group of very helpful guys including Pakwesi who is married to an American and whose main job was to keep us from doing anything stupid.

That's Pakwesi in the plaid pants helping me out at the Cape Coast slave castle.

We drove to Cape Coast the night we arrived in Accra and stayed at a guest house called The Mighty Victory. It is run by a Ghanaian woman who lived in the US for forty years and then went back to run her father's guest house. In Cape Coast we visited and toured the slave castle. it was a strange experience walking where all those Black folks walked. This would have been their last sight of Africa. The tour guide starts every tour by showing a plaque installed by the current Ashanti chiefs apologizing for the role that Africans played in the trade.

Here are some shots of the castle.

These are the cannons that protected the castle.
This is Denise and me in front of the cannonballs. Don't I look like that aunt you had who went all these exotic places and never wore pants? Picture me in a dress on a camel...

It was eerie how beautiful it was there. The views over the Atlantic were beautiful, and there were fishing boats on the shore outside the castle, much as there must have been when it was being used for slave trade. The guide said that there was a chapel where the White people who ran the castle held services. It was located right above one of the dungeons.

The view from the castle

At any rate there were children outside the castle selling some of everything. You can buy anything, and I mean anything on the streets in Ghana. In the cities people walk through traffic carrying things on their heads -- food, clothes, phone cards, dog leashes, toilet paper... it's amazing. They are a very entrepreneurial people. It struck me how true this was when Pamela and I were walking on the street in front of Kwame NKrumah's tomb on our last full day in the country. A woman walked up to us with a baby on her back and began to beg for money. We were shocked since we had literally not seen a single panhandler for the entire trip and Pamela had not seen one on her previous trip. As we were standing there a Ghanaian man came up and began to berate the woman. "You are just asking for money for nothing, do not do this! Someone in a car passing by asked why he was yelling at a woman, and he said "She is just asking for money!" Turning to her he continued "Find something to sell!" For us that said it all.

This is a picture of the kids outside of Cape Coast castle. The girl is selling plantain chips. I am addicted to plantain chips. If you go to Ghana, you will also become addicted. Accept it. You will find yourself hanging out the side window of a tro tro frantically waving down a plantain chip seller trying to get your next fix.

From Cape Coast we began a two day trip to the northern border of the country just across from Burkina Faso. We were headed for Bolgatonga where the Center for Sustainable Development Initiatives (CENSUDI) is headquartered. This is an organization headed by a woman named Franciska Issaka. She is a force of nature who started the organization with her sister. They focus on helping other grass roots organizations make changes in the everyday lives of villagers. Their particular concern is gender equality -- education for girls, getting wives full ownership of land that sort of thing. They are doing wonderful things. We visited some of the organizations they help, made a donation and had a wonderful dinner at Franciska's house where we heard from the young people who work with her.

While up North we visited a women's cooperative that produces rice for resale. The same group also makes baskets. We bought Bolga baskets while there, and talked with Stella who runs the organization. She is an amazing woman. I left promising to help her produce some specialty labels for small runs of the rice. Franciska will take the labels back when she visits at Thanksgiving. Here are some pictures of Stella at work. Yes this is how Ghanaian women dress to go to work! I am humbled.

Me, Stella and the label!
We also met the women of the Kanada women's association (they produce the baskets) and visited Kantia school. These are all organizations that work with CENSUDI. Everyone was wonderful and the Kanada ladies even let me dance with them. I was out danced, but it was fun. Pamela has the pictures, so fortunately no one will see my shame.

The Kanada ladies.
Kantia School. The children were amazing. They are focused and serious. The school is really just a cinder block building. Each classroom faces out on to a hallway and the fourth wall is open. The headmaster and teachers can walk by and see everyone. The amazing thing was that while we were there the sixth graders were studying for a national science test. They were working on things that I cannot understand now. I know I never saw that stuff until high school. We stood outside the classroom while the teacher reviewed the material. Talking (quietly) to the headmaster and senior teacher. Not a single one of those children lost concentration or looked around. I was awed.

One of my traveling companions, Denise, is also an elementary teacher. This is her teaching some of the younger kids how to play tic tac toe.

Traveling in a developing country had its challenges. Apparently paving roads is optional and we spent hours in bone jarring motion on the trip north. Also, the sanitation infrastructure is really, really bad. Let's just say that when we came back we felt a compulsion to flush toilets just to watch them work. But that's to be expected. There was one incident involving lizards in a bath house that Pamela and I will share forever.

After our week in Bolgatonga we started the drive back. Going both ways we stopped in Techiman and Kumasi and on the way back we stopped at Mole national game preserve where we had close encounters with elephants. Let me tell you it's not like the zoo.

The requisite elephant pictures

Safari guides and Pakwesi. The little guy in the middle had a very large gun. I stayed very close to him. Especially after the guy on the right uttered the following sentence: "You know I was in Kenya and they are so lucky. They have the big five. And since they are on the savannah, their lions are easily seen. Not like our lions who hide in the trees." Yes, I stayed close to the man with the big gun. He was my friend.

We also visited Bonwire which is a village which specializes in kente cloth. Kente is only woven by men. Let's just say that driving into a village where every single vendor is male, they are all more or less related, and they all want to sell you something is a unique experience.

Here are some pictures of the wonderful cloth. I bought a piece of black and white kente which is traditionally worn for mourning. I went there specifically to buy it. Kente is very expensive, and I was determined to buy the mourning cloth and nothing else. Then I saw this.

The picture does not do it justice. It is beautiful. I wanted it, but did not buy it because I needed to have money to get home. Seriously, it is that costly. However if you happen to be in Bonwire and want to make me happy, buy this for me. Seriously.

Kente weaver

Kente heaven

We had a great time, and I will probably go back one more time with Pamela. This time we'll take Ed and stop in London to see the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Here's hoping that works out.

Well I won't bore anyone with more pictures. I'm glad I went, and I'm glad to be back home.

Bathroom urgency

2010-07-25T18:51:00.005-05:00

I am just a few days away from my trip to Ghana. I am now positively humming with excitement. My husband calls it bathroom urgency -- that feeling you get when your goal is in sight. At any rate, I have handled it by sewing furiously. I cut almost all the fabric my friend brought me from her trip to Ghana and made it up into dresses. I am taking at least two of them with me on the trip. One which is very elegant will be for a fancy party on day two. The remaining ones are casual and light. I have a dress form which can be adjusted to fit your exact measurements. I call her Zelda. Zelda looks exactly like me except she's not quite as lumpy. So I make fewer mistakes in choosing patterns and making adjustments. Also I can hem without help. Mostly, though I like to put things on Zelda because she never has water weight gain, her stomach is always sucked in, and she never gets those weird wrinkles in her neck. The clothes look like they do on the mannequins in the store. Then when I put them on I think they still look like that, so it's all good. Here's Zelda in the dress.
Doesn't she look gorgeous?

Africa Bound

2010-06-26T13:49:00.002-05:00

Since my college days I have wanted to visit Ghana. I have had several opportunities to go to Ghana and one to go to Senegal. Both fell through at the last minute. Now I finally am going! I have my visa, I have my group of girlfriends and come the end of July we are Africa bound! The group I'm going with is out of Syracuse, so I will be driving up there with my very patient husband to meet them. VPH will then spend a couple of days surrounded by bossy, talkative Black women. Since he is a very quiet person, this is always a challenging experience. Oh well, afterward he will get two weeks of peace and quiet to recuperate. Meanwhile I get to travel through the country visiting a school, a women's cooperative and lots and lots of fabric vendors. We will go to a party hosted by a UN representative, visit the Elmina slave castle and shop for fabric. We will stay at a national arts school, visit a village that specializes in basket weaving and did I mention we will shop for fabric? I am, as many of my friends know, addicted to textiles. This was the big draw for me. Previously a friend (who is going on this trip a well) went to Ghana and I pressed money and instructions on her. She came back with gorgeous fabric for me which only served to whet my appetite. I recently visited Syracuse and received a bargaining tutorial from an experienced shopper, so I'm all set. I'll be sure to blog about it and post pictures when I get back!

Tales From the Trenches

2010-02-11T19:12:00.002-06:00

We're into day 7 of the big snow. Our mayor whom I refer to as Opie has finally figured out how to deal with snow. Opie was president of city council when our real mayor passed away. No one really cares who's mayor of Pittsburgh except when something goes wrong. Opie is this young dumb guy that they made president of city council when they couldn't agree on a real person to do it. So Opie was just standing there and the mayor thing fell on him. The sad part is that the citizens of the burgh recently reelected him because -- let's say it together -- nobody cares who is mayor of Pittsburgh.

But I digress. Anyway, Opie finally got all the roads cleared but my suburban school district is still suffering with downed power lines and broken water mains. So I have no school tomorrow. A full week off is great, but we will pay for it next week when all the little ones come back wound up like tops. It will be like the first week of school all over again. It's a good thing they're cute. My beloved and I went out today to run errands, mail bills and go to the gym. We were scheduled to drive to DC to see my daughter at college this weekend. Beloved was revved to go because he will drive in anything, but I chickened out so we called and moved our hotel reservations. HRH was disappointed but bounced back when we said we will reschedule for two weeks from now. So for now it's more books, more food and maybe a nice dinner for Valentine's day. Life is good.

Snow days

2010-02-10T08:47:00.002-06:00

I have been snowed in since last Friday evening. I left school around 2:00 and made my way home after stopping for a few supplies. I got in just ahead of the storm. Pittsburgh is a northern city but apparently our city fathers are in denial about that. We are never fully prepared for snow and a blizzard of this magnitude pretty much shuts us down. The suburban school district where I teach but do not live suffered major power outages and water main breaks which have yet to be repaired as the snow continues to come down.

My husband dug us out and we had a couple of opportunities to go out between snows to get essentials: books, food, books. The beautiful northern magnolia in our front yard lost several large branches and was responsible for the loss of cable service. I mourn the tree more than the television. I hope an arborist can save it. Meanwhile I am discovering something disturbing about myself. I do not want to leave my house. I am enjoying just puttering around fixing things, cleaning, cooking huge pots of soup, baking bread, inviting the next door neighbors over for waffles. It's fine with me if I only get out twice in 5 days. This is scary. I always thought of myself as more social than this. My husband is the perfect companion as he is quiet and likes to read even more than I do. He eats what I cook, helps me work on things, and thinks my company is just fine. We got out one day to go to the gym and a movie, and then yesterday I bought an exercise DVD to keep myself going. I spent yesterday afternoon at the book store spending my birthday money which had been burning a hole in my pocket. I already had a stack of books from the library and from paperback swap. I could last at least another week. Food is not a problem as I have stores of ingredients and shelves of cookbooks.

I'm not sure what this says about me, but I have decided to enjoy my solitude and wait for the thaw.

Driving Lessons

2010-01-02T11:47:00.002-06:00

We were in Tennessee for a while over Christmas and when we came back I had to return the rental car. Since our 19 year-old daughter is now driving she followed me in her father's car while I drove the rental. I had studiously avoided driving with Chloe since she got her license last year. Her father and her uncle kept telling me what a good driver she is, but having witnessed one too many toddler (and teenaged) melt downs on her part, I just didn't have the confidence I might have.

Well, I was driving along and periodically glancing in the rear view mirror. She was following at a safe distance and a reasonable speed. She had her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head and her new very cool glasses on. She looked like the responsible college student she is. When we left the rental place I got in the passenger side and watched as she navigated the roadway. She drives like a grown up. It's amazing. She stopped for a bagel and asked very politely if I'd like anything. I waited in the car and thought about this change. Chloe had a rough and characteristically dramatic adjustment to college. But in the past few weeks she's had one of those miraculous maturity leaps which have become her trademark. I'm getting a glimpse, now, of the kind of adult she will be. She is always going to be flamboyant and probably headstrong. I'm sure she'll be high maintenance in relationships. But she's also extremely generous, funny, loyal and kind. Her first semester of college went fairly well. Her grades aren't terrible, but there's room for improvement. She was upset but not unduly so about that. Chloe has always had a remarkably positive outlook and a good sense of self esteem. Those are two of the things I've always loved the best about her.

So I guess I'll be riding in the car with her on a regular basis now. And when I'm too old and senile to drive myself anymore I can sit back and let her have the wheel.

Nerd Genetics

2009-08-21T21:17:00.004-05:00

I was aware when I was in high school that I was a nerd. Really, how many teenagers could give you the hierarchy of all the kings and queens of the entire British Isles? What I didn't realize was that it's not something that you outgrow.

According to Wikipedia a nerd refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obsure interests rather than engaging in more social or popular activities. Oh, God, I really didn't need the confirmation, but there it is. While I hope that I have learned to throw a realistic cloak over my social awkwardness, I still find myself drawn to obscure, esoteric pursuits to the exclusion of most normal activities. (That may be one reason that I was hesitant to start blogging--the possibility that I might take it to some bizarre extreme.)

My friends, both then and now, are very sweet and understanding about my peculiar disconnect from reality. They even treat me like a normal person, but despite their kind efforts, I am frequently reminded that I am a nerd. There are those awkward moments when I hear myself making inane conversation because I know the moment calls for conversation but I have no clue what I should say! Then I scurry back to playing my brain games until something or someone forces me out again.

If I thought it was tough being a teenage nerd, I didn't reckon on what it would be like to be a middle-age nerd! I really didn't mind getting caught wearing two different color socks when I was sixteen. Now I have to adopt a whole persona that acts like it's cool to wear mismatched clothing and forget what day of the week it is. I'm aware that I'm not totally dysfunctional, but I have more than my fair share of moments when I'm not completely in touch with what's going on around me. If it weren't for the fact that I was exactly the same as an adolescent, I might think I was slipping into early senility.

Stressful situations, an abundance of which seem to fill my life currently, bring out my nerdy tendencies. It is so much easier to scuttle into my shell and play word games and read books about existential questions regarding consciousness (An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman--great book). Social is hard. Pretending to be normal is hard--pretending being the operative word. Someone pointed out recently that my tote-bag with its side pocket full of pens was exposing my inner nerd--if they only knew!

As if all of these revelations were not disturbing enough, I have had the dismaying realization that nerdiness may be genetic. My eldest son, who has always exhibited too many similarities to his mother, threw a birthday party this week for H.P. Lovecraft, dead sci-fi, horror writer. The party included streamers, partyware, and themed food offerings--including a Cthulhu cake (creepy tentacled monster creation of Lovecraft's). While I was delightfully tickled with his bizarre creativity, I had a thump-your-head-V8 moment when I realized I had given birth to a next generation nerd. Wow, I wonder what kind of karma you accumulate for that!

Empty Nest

2009-08-21T10:40:00.004-05:00

The day before yesterday I went to visit an elderly relative who is dying. She is my husband's cousin by marriage. When I married into this family there was a bit of tension seeing as I was not Jewish and not White. Other than that they liked me fine. Several of the older women in the family welcomed me and made me feel as if this was going to be fine. Shirley was one of them. She herself was something of an interloper having been married before and not being Jewish. Even though she was accepting of me, Shirley was never easy to be friends with. She has always been very guarded and sometimes a little paranoid. I told my husband a while back that trying to be her friend is like hugging a porcupine. But I like her just the same. I tend to like difficult people. That's a good thing since my daughter is also extremely difficult in a different way. She is the poster child for oppositional behavior. Said daughter left for college in DC last weekend. She is four hours away. The separation was as full of drama as every transition HRH has ever endured or made us endure. It was not pleasant.

So yesterday I was in Whole Foods and suddenly was overcome by this terrible feeling of loss. I realized that it had to do with Shirley and my daughter. I teared up and this very nice lady asked me if I was OK. I do not do public displays of emotion so I was very embarrassed. When I got to the car, though, I started to laugh. Here I was tearing up over the loss of two of the most exasperating people in my life. I should be happy that my daughter is on her own. I mean raising her has been like riding a wild bull. And Shirley is 84 and having the end of life experience she has always said she wanted -- no fanfare, no heroic efforts. She looked peaceful when my husband and I went to say goodbye. I understand being upset about Shirley -- no one is ever really ready to lose someone they are fond of. But I could not at first understand why I got so emotional about my daughter. Then I realized that I am mourning the fact that I have exhausted all possibility of having that fantasy mothering experience we all want. You know the one where your every move is perfect and you have this magical, mystical bond with your sweet compliant daughter. Ah well.

I remember a boy from Northern Ireland who was my friend in graduate school at Vanderbilt. Mike used to say "You can't pick who you fall for." He was talking about romantic relationships. But I think it goes for parenthood too. We don't pick our children. They come to us and we love them. As soon as someone puts a child in your arms or in your life and says "This one is yours" a switch goes off and you are lost. My daughter is adopted and when they brought her out and we looked at each other, we came to an agreement. She promised to be my child, and in return for the privilege of being a mom, she reached in my chest and took out my heart. And then she proceeded to stomp on it. She didn't mean to. It's just what children do. When they get hurt you bleed, when they get sick you nearly die. When they turn into teenagers and say the things that teenagers say you are devastated. There is a casual cruelty of which only a well loved child is capable. They are so supremely sure of their parents' love that they don't feel the need to guard their words. I realized this the first time I reprimanded my daughter for saying something hurtful to me. She looked confused. Mommies' feelings don't get hurt.

I have never loved another human being with the intensity I feel for my daughter. It is the same love I felt coming from my own mother to me. It is the only way I know to be with a child, and it is the most painful experience I have ever had. I had my daughter out in public when she was about five. We were in an ice cream shop and Chloe was being her usual self. I was constantly having to correct and corral her. This required a delicate balance of firmness and cajoling in order to avoid a scene. There was an older Black couple sitting there and the husband kept looking at me with that smile that made me know he wanted to say something. Finally he said "You need to have another one so you don't love this one so much." I think he might have been right, although at the time I barely had the energy to deal with the one I had.

So she's in DC holding the better part of my heart in her hand. I have a picture of her walking away with her roommate. They walk away from us without any idea that we are frightened and worried and sad. If had known what my mother was really feeling when I left home I would never have been able to go. I think mothers are the strongest people on earth, and the best actresses. We let the most precious thing we have walk away from us to a place where we can't protect them and we smile while we do it. My mother did it more than once. That makes her a super hero. If she were still alive I would call her up and apologize (again) for all the times I must have stomped on her heart. But being Mama she probably wouldn't even acknowledge that it hurt.

Deep Space Anomalies

2009-08-05T18:30:00.005-05:00

This week I feel almost as if I have fulfilled a childhood dream of being launched into space, but unfortunately something has gone very, very wrong. Instead of soaring through the stars, I seem to have been propelled into a losing battle with a black hole. School started back, and, despite rumors to the contrary, teachers are just as reticent as students to return. It has been particularly stressful this year since our system is going through a number of substantial changes. Lots of rethinking and replanning, not to mention lots of paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. This week has been crazy busy, and the 175 little darlings that have wandered in and out of my room have merged into a blur of t-shirts with questionable slogans and names like Kaitlin, Katlyn, Katelynn, Catelyn, Caitlin, and . . . well you get the idea. I have spent so many hours at work that I am now making less than minimum wage--an encouraging use of my master's degree! I moved way past exhausted somewhere around 9 am on Monday. I have discovered muscles that I didn't know I had and ways to make them hurt that I didn't think were possible. Who knew that glaring over the top of your glasses could make muscles in your neck seize up? So I find myself tired, in physical and emotional pain, and adrift amidst the darkness of a deep space anomaly. What could be worse? I could have the realization that it's only Wednesday!

Nuts

2009-07-23T23:50:00.004-05:00

It appears that I am getting closer and closer to being that crazy old woman with cats. I putter around my house grousing at the world in general, the state of my finances in specifics, and my ex in expletives. No one listens. Well, occasionally the cats will deign to appear interested, but I know better--I may be crazy, but I'm not senile. . .yet. I've managed to work myself into a near-constant state of anxiety. What I really hate about it is that my brain still functions fairly well, and I'm quite aware of what I'm doing. I just can't seem to stop.

I believe I'm about to corner the market on imagining unique worst case scenarios--like being bitten by a rabid possum while putting garbage on my back deck or drowning in my shower or giving myself brain damage by pulling a five-pound trifle bowl off on my head. I'm up to at least a half dozen apocalyptic fantasies per day. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to borrow trouble as it were. Like most of us these days, I have the prerequisite amount of trouble and hardship--personal, work, financial, etc.--without imagining anything! But, no! I have to go and be paranoid and create bizarre possibilities for death and destruction. Okay, so maybe not death and destruction, more like miserable mayhem.

Regardless, there is obviously something wrong with me. My youngest son delights in telling me to chill. He has no idea how much I would love to do just that. If I weren't certain that I'd end up in the emergency room, I'd try yoga. Drugs just make me see things, like fluorescent green spiders. Many of the more common stress relievers are not possible or not working.

Maybe I should just face the fact that I'm nuts and enjoy it.

Here kitty, kitty!

Finding My peeps

2009-07-22T08:19:00.003-05:00

I have been working really hard to come to terms with my appearance as I age. This is not as bad as it sounds. I actually look pretty good. But I used to be a dancer and weighed 117 pounds. I also used to be 22 years old, so I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I have been taking various aerobics classes at my new gym and trying to get used to moving a considerably larger and much older body around. Since I also have a very twisted sense of humor this has led me to burst out laughing a couple times in class. It's ok, though, since I'm taking zumba classes and people just think you're really happy to be there.

A couple of Sundays ago I stumbled upon an 8:30 am class taught by a professional dancer in her fifties. I went in and everyone came over and gave me what turns out to be their standard interview. It's like a secret little club over there and they don't let everyone in. It's made up of former dancers in their fifties. This woman's movement vocabulary is very similar to the one I was trained in (Graham, Cunningham, Dunham). It was wonderful to hear those words and see that my body remembered what is was supposed to do even if it took some adjustments to do it. To have someone say "feet in fifth please" rather than "ok put your right foot like this" is a relief and a wonder. To have someone know what fifth looks like and appreciate the need to modify it to third was beyond my wildest dreams. It was like when my daughter and I found the zumba class populated entirely by big girls. We walked in, everyone looked at each other and we all burst out laughing. It was great. We spent the class smirking at the skinny teacher and laughing. Most fun I've had standing up in years.

Anyway, I'll continue the search for my cohort.

Wish me luck.

Child of the South

2009-07-19T22:36:00.006-05:00

My father celebrated his 74th birthday today. He's amazing; both he and my mother can run circles around most of the people I know--both physically and mentally. They work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labors in their own special way. Once they've put in a full day of work, they like to chill on their porch, reading or just enjoying the surrounding woods and wildlife. They endowed my sister and me with their love of reading and their enjoyment and appreciation of the beautiful southern landscapes that we call home. They gave us every possible opportunity to be unfettered southern children, at home with the sun and the wind and the woods. They inspire me in so many ways.

I am a child of the South--
rural child on the porch,
with lemonade and calloused feet,
grass-stained knees
and sun-bleached hair.
I hug warm breezes close
and slap laughing kisses
on each sultry, sun-blessed day.
I am my mama's child--
kitchen imp
with doughy fingers
and flour-dusted hair,
fashion queen
in lavender taffeta,
floppy high heels,
and jaunty hat.
I am Daddy's darling--
high priestess
held aloft on broad shoulders
to worship sun and sea,
precious cargo
tucked in with downy covers,
kisses, and whipsered prayers.
I am a child of the South--
rural child sleeping sound
with starlight and moonlight
in the magnolia-scented evening.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Chicory

2009-07-18T23:30:00.009-05:00

I've decided that I want to be as resilient as wild chicory. Every spring I watch those beautiful pale blue flowers bloom along the roadsides and wild places. Inevitably as they reach their peak, road crews come along with their monstrous mowers and strip them away. It always makes my heart ache a little to see them disappear. But I only have to be patient and give them a few weeks to regroup, and then there they are again, their periwinkle faces bobbing on their spindly stems.

I feel as though I have been run over by a mower or two during the last couple of weeks. A conference, a workshop, hours and hours at my desk scrambling to get ready for a new school year and a plethora of changes. I love teaching, but life as a high school teacher seems to become more difficult with each passing year. I can deal with the changing nature of the young people I teach--life changes and so do the creatures that inhabit it! It is often a challenge to translate the current adolescent mind and its accompanying angst, but that keeps the job interesting! What I have more difficulty with is the apparent illogic and ineptness of the policy makers in the field of education.

There is such a focus on student performance on high stakes testing that true learning often gets lost in the shuffle. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but I can't understand why it's not obvious to everyone that the focus has to first be on learning--then the testing takes care of itself. Many of the policy dictates that educators are dealing with right now have a tendency to be counterintuitive. We are often asked to use convoluted methods to tackle problems that would be better confronted head on. It can all be exhausting and potentially demoralizing.

So I think about chicory. It is so beautiful and seemingly fragile, but it doesn't give up. Maybe I should plant a twig or two on my desk as a reminder.

Intrigued

2009-07-05T09:19:00.003-05:00

I've been doing my homework--reading blogs, lots of blogs. What I'm struck by is the supreme self confidence with which people blog. They post the good, the bad, the mediocre, even the drivel, and, let's face it, we all descend into drivel now and again. It doesn't seem to matter what the content or quality; bloggers are remarkably self-confident and bold. They throw themselves and their ideas, itineraries, and ignominies right out onto the web for all to see. I am amazed, intrigued, and inspired. But not quite emboldened yet. Hence I am posting on a blog that has seen no traffic for about nine months. What can I say--I'm an inveterate coward. (Baby steps, Joy, baby steps!)

The repressed cultural anthropologist in me has become totally fascinated by the blogging phenomenon. This is human communication unlike anything we've ever known. It has created human communities unlike anything we've ever known. I am fascinated that individuals are allowing so much access to themselves, opening themselves up to a world of strangers in ways we seem incapable of doing face to face, even across our dining room tables!

While I find myself sitting here on the edge of the pool, unwilling to do more than swirl a toe in the water, I am absolutely enthralled by the swimmers--the fearlessness, the grace, the occasional antics. Blog on, blithe spirits, blog on!

Fear of Writing

2009-07-04T22:41:00.004-05:00

I still find myself overwhelmed by the sheer nakedness of posting. Joy does so effortlessly, a blithe author on the web. I find the whole process almost painfully arduous. Of course, it is this very fear of exposure that has kept me scribbling in notebooks and journals all these years--scribbling that is always tucked away in drawers rather than shared. It is very possible that I have never been published because I have never truly made an effort to be. Apparently I find that more palatable than not being published because my writing has been found wanting! Just to prove to myself that I can break bad habits, I offer up a scribbling to share.

Fear

Sometimes it's hard
to even contemplate
the commitment
of pen on paper.
It's frightening
to allow the flow of ink
to shackle you
to word and thought.
The bold gallop
across parchment
scatters shadows
and rends your veil.
It drags you shivering
and exposed into the light
and chides you
for your reticence.
No matter how weighty
the poetry or prose,
the letters are too spare
to hide the quivering soul
and the fiery mind
whose coupling
gave them life.

--Tina

Flight

2008-09-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

Growing up I didn't dance. This was not because I didn't like to dance. It was because I was shy and had been told by a more assertive cousin that I was without rhythm. I rarely danced in public until I went away to college. During my freshman year I took a modern dance class to fulfill my P.E. requirement. In that class I discovered that not only could I dance, but I was fairly good at it. Over the next four years I developed a dancer's body and a dancer's sensibilities. I continued to perform with a small regional company after graduation and even took classes during graduate school.

There were problems from the start. I had been a very thin and extremely sickly teenager, and my physical problems continued throughout my twenties and thirties. In my late twenties I had to stop dancing altogether because I just didn't have the stamina for it anymore. Meanwhile I married a man who couldn't dance and didn't like to embarrass himself, so even my social dancing days ended.

Over the years I had surgery to correct my chronic health problem. I developed a thyroid problem that caused me to gain and lose weight capriciously; I adopted a child and changed careers several times. The career changes necessitated my going back to graduate school twice. All this led me to where I am now. Looking at me you see an overweight middle aged slightly frumpy Black woman. No one would ever believe that I used to be a dancer.

I remember reading years ago about a therapist in New York who specialized in helping dancers get over the trauma of ending their careers. I remember thinking how silly that was. Life goes on. People who use their bodies must realize that they can't go on forever. I didn't think about dancing again except in passing.

But this afternoon in a moment of idleness I engaged in a very dangerous pastime. I googled a long lost friend. Therese was a dancer with me in college. She had had an interesting life even then. She was in her mid twenties and I was 19 when we met. Like me, Therese came to dance without a lot of prior training. But she was really good. She was also strikingly beautiful with pale skin and masses of curly red hair. When I typed her name into the Google search box, she came up immediately. I clicked on the link and there she was. She is still dancing. In the pictures she looked as if her body had barely aged. There were beautiful shots of her soaring through the air. She does aerial work now. She looked strong and graceful and completely at home in her body. As I looked at the pictures and read about Therese's life, I found myself overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and loss. I remember what it felt like to be able to move that way. I remember being able to rise off the floor and fly across a room. Sometimes, when I dream, I still can.

These days I take Zumba classes. I follow along with the class leaders and ignore the fat lady in the mirror. I spend a lot of time on treadmills and elliptical machines. I fight against my endocrine problems trying to hold the line against morbid obesity. Most of the time I'm okay with this, but sometimes I'm hit by just how much I miss that other version of myself -- the one who was light and strong and graceful; the one who could fly.

Becoming 50

2008-06-10T14:55:00.005-05:00

It's My Party

by Tina

I am about to turn fifty. With my students and friends, I joke about being old, but alone, in the eerie silence of dawn, I find myself agonizing over where I am in the span of my life. My anxiety actually has nothing to do with being x-number of years old; other than a handful of minor complaints, I don’t feel that I’m at death’s door or any such morbid thought. Instead, what I find myself anxious about is what I am not doing at age fifty. My anxiety is little more than unfulfilled expectations.

Looking back over the span of my life, I have to chuckle at myself for dragging this cloud of disappointment around with me. If I am honest, my life has been a series of unfulfilled expectations, almost from the beginning. Why I would choose only the latest in the series to go into a major decline over probably bears some contemplation.

If we are honest, most of us would probably find that our childhoods, no matter how idyllic, were a series of unfulfilled expectations. It is in truth the nature of the beast. Children can imagine almost anything and usually do. This, in turn, leads them to expect almost anything. Few if any of those childhood expectations will be realized. At six, I truly expected one day to discover within myself the mental and physical ability to fly—without benefit of machine. Needless to say, that expectation remains unfulfilled. On a more prosaic level, I expected to be a brilliant, awarding-winning doctor—didn’t happen. It is normal for us to go through an entire gamut of expectations as children—about our futures, our families, our own abilities. It is equally normal to have the majority of those expectations unmet, unfulfilled. It’s not considered a tragedy; it’s growing up.

Even as we leave childhood, however, and venture into adolescence, the threshold of adulthood, we have expectations which more often than not are never realized. Whether they be meeting and marrying prince charming or having an award-winning career, rarely do the road maps envisioned in adolescence hold up to reality. There are always unmarked obstacles and detours. In high school, I was overwhelmed by offers to attend colleges such as Bryn Mawr and Northwestern. I ended up at a local public university. By late in my teens, I envisioned myself on a quest to achieve fame and fortune as an award-winning writer. Two years out of college I was married to a local airplane mechanic, trudging along his chosen path to fame and fortune.

While in retrospect, the results of many of these unfulfilled expectations may sound dull and depressing, in reality we are very adaptable creatures. We compensate and adjust and most often try to carve out the best niche for ourselves in whatever pond we land in. I created an entire universe around family and children. Idyllic it was not, but it was for the most part busy and full and interesting. I still found time to write, and I still entertained notions of one day being a nationally-recognized author. Along with that expectation, however, I had discovered an entirely new set of expectations—watching my children grow and thrive and succeed, growing old with my mate, achieving enough financial security to sit on the back porch and watch the sun set in peace and tranquility. Those expectations fell victim to betrayal and divorce.

Now on the precipice of fifty, I sit contemplating the plethora of unfulfilled expectations that have adorned my life. The crotchety old woman in me wants to wag her finger and shout, “See, see! Just one disappointment after another!” There are moments, days, that it is not only easy to hear her, it is impossible to shut her out. I sigh, I sob, I fret over how I got to be where I am now. I blame life, I blame my ex, I blame myself, and I wallow in despair. I can throw an absolutely brilliant pity party.

Fortunately for everyone, however, my optimistic super-ego comes to the rescue. It picks me up, dusts me off, and gives me a firm whack on the back. “You’re not dead,” it points out. “There’s life in the old girl yet!” Despite everything, I find myself chuckling over my own doom and gloom. Everyone has unfulfilled expectations; they are a part of the human condition. They go with the territory, like birth, death, and spoiled milk—they happen.

So I reexamine this anxiety I have about what I’m not doing at age fifty. It’s true enough that I’m not doing what I expected to be doing—not what I expected when I was ten or twenty or thirty or even forty. But, then, neither was I doing what I expected when I was any of those ages either. Life truly is an unfolding mystery that most often defies game plans and road maps and even simple expectations. What can I expect as I turn fifty? Who knows? What do I hope as I turn fifty? I hope that I can greet each day with joy and curiosity and the energy to tackle the unexpected.

By popular demand

2007-08-21T15:37:00.001-05:00

So now that Joy has asked me to post the pictures I can do so with impunity. This one is a rose I call the prom queen because it blooms early and fades fast.

The sunken garden. This was where the patio used to be so I'm amending the soil to make it more fertile. For now, it's struggling a little. But the rock wall is here and the heliobore.

The rest of the pictures are just documentation for what my garden looks like in June. This is the point at which I am on a mulch induced high. I think that I am the best gardener in the world. I am considering quitting my job and becoming a landscape designer. I have visions of moving to England and growing roses and boxwood. It passes by the end of July when I am very very tired of my compost pile. Now (in August) with the hurricane induced rains settling in and all the stuff that needs to be mown, cut back or debugged, I am back to my senses. This patio is at the very back of the yard. I have lots of pictures of individual plants but I won't bore you here. The thing is that I am truly happy in my garden. I tend to be a very strident person sometimes. Dr. Husband says it's because I have an overdeveloped sense of justice. I think that's probably the case. I tend to get exercised about big issues like education and health care. Then I go on a rant and before you know it my blood pressure's up, my heart rate has increased and I'm breathing hard. It's like a little aerobic exercise.
In my garden I can focus on little things like how to get rid of aphids without insecticidal soap. (It only takes a garden hose and a little determination). And in the garden I can let go of my need to fix things. Mother nature has a way of putting us in our place. People are friendlier when they happen upon you working in a garden. They seem to think you're nicer than maybe you are. Now everybody just be glad I don't like cats.

jackie

My herb garden

My temperamental hybrid

We're building a rock wall. That's the royal we as in my husband collects the rocks, hauls the rocks and stacks the rocks. Then I tell him I want them someplace else. It's a wonderful backdrop for the hellebore on the other side.

Channeling Martha

2007-07-30T02:11:00.000-05:00

OK, my neighbor is right. I am the love child of Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker. I have spent two weeks of my first real summer vacation as a teacher painting my livingroom. But it is sooo gorgeous. Then I spent two days catching up with deadheading in the garden. AND I LIKED IT! This is not right. But I am doomed. I even took pictures to document the garden so I can plan what to plant for next year. You may laugh, but mark my words. If you plant just one rhododendron and it lives, you too will become a gardener. I will spare you all the pictures for now. I may not be able to hold out forever, though, as I have become one of those people who names her roses.

jackie

Foul-Weather Friends

2007-02-18T16:03:00.000-06:00

An interesting aspect of Jackie's and my friendship is that we have been there for each other during more bad times than good. We're always there for each other emotionally with support, jokes, and understanding; however, physically we seen to be present for the sad times. Perhaps it has to do with how we met since I was lurking at play auditions to find people to compete on the speech and drama team (NFL). I'd never seen Jackie before and recognized her talent. She didn't get a part, so I caught up with her outside the theater and said I knew she probably didn't want to think about it then but that if she were interested in the forensics team, to come by my room and let me know. She answered that I was right and that she was not interested in thinking about it then. I wasn't sure I'd hear from her, but she did come by my room and became an outstanding competitor and leader on the team. We were just getting organized then and had to learn by doing. Jackie, Tina, and a few others hung in there and were like sponges soaking up what they needed to know. They got tired of hearing the phrase "learning experience." Those two excelled and went on to the state eventually, with Tina's winning first place in poetry interpretation her senior year with "Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling. But I digress. Jackie started out in dramatic interpretation with a gut-wrenching piece about a Black mother (cannot remember the title - help with this, Jackie) and then was Antigone her senior year, winning second place in the district tournament.

Our friendships were forged during these years since I was learning along with them. I said soemthing to Tina about how I was so young then but didn't know it. Tina said, "Oh, we knew it." That's funny but quite true, I'm sure.

Jackie used to baby-sit with Brian for me, so they got close, too. Years later I was there at the funerals for her mother and grandmother, but not for her wedding. I did make it to her daughter's naming ceremony but not for her Bas Mitzvah - not good for a godmother. It was excruciating for those closest to her when she got her MBA and such a celebration when she finished it. I was worried when she went back to school for her teaching degree, but fortunately that was pain-free. She was here sitting out on the patio with Paige, Gena, and me drinking wine the night before the phone call when I got my lymphoma diagnosis. Gena and I went to a movie (I'd refer you to the Mission Impossible curse posts on my other blog but they didn't make the transition of the new version, so I'll just say that MI2 was released when my lymphoma changed to a more aggressive kind. Fortunately, nothing bad happened when MI3 came out because I didn't see it unless we count Tom Cruise getting more publicity.) the next day, but Jackie was around for me to call. There are many more examples of our foul-weather friendship, but you get the idea.

Molly Ivins

2007-01-31T19:57:00.000-06:00

I was on yahoo! and found that Molly Ivins died of breast cancer. I did not read much of her writing directly, but got many good quotes from her through Joy. It's always sad to see a witty woman take her leave. Especially now we need people who can speak their minds.

Home for the Holidays

2006-12-25T19:54:00.000-06:00

I am spending most of my Christmas break back in my hometown. For someone raised in the kind of atmosphere that I was, living up North can be a challenge. A small Southern town is not quite like any other place. I don't pretend that my home town is perfect. It has all the flaws of any small town. And I don't pretend that my family, my large sprawling Southern family, is the Waltons. We have all the problems of any big family. But tonight I sat in a crowded house and listened to the younger generation stand in the kitchen singing. My family is full of gospel singers and we have always been prone to impromptu concerts. As the kids sang I heard echoes of my mother and aunts. And I remembered what it was like to grow up in a house full of music. We played records and sang songs and talked -- always talked. My family was big and messy and funny. And my town is a place where newcomers eventually get folded in and prodigal sons and daughters get welcomed back. Every now and then you need to come home. To be reminded of who you are, to be reassured that you still are that person and to be with people who speak the same language and sing the same song.

Merry Christmas.

Bravo!

2006-11-17T19:56:00.000-06:00

This is a letter to the editor I wish I'd written. It was in the Nashville City Paper.

Redefining righteousness

In response to "We can't alter God's rules:” God defined marriage? Then let God judge them in the afterlife. Last I checked, church and state were supposed to be kept separate.

Who are you to determine how other people live their lives on something as small as gay marriage? Are homosexuals hurting anybody? Are they plotting to bomb our banks and ports or kill our troops? Probably not. But a big thanks to Tennessee for stomping this fire out before it really took off. Way to recognize a true threat.
The Bible is a collection written to be accepted or not accepted how people see fit. If you choose to follow what is written on those pages, good for you. Live a happy life and let others do the same. But don't push your ideals on other people because of what you believe. If you feel homosexuals getting married is immoral, don't attend the wedding.

Maybe we should pass a constitutional amendment against the self-righteous too. Some things cannot be redefined indeed. Archaic thinking must be one of them.

37209
Nate Herweyer

Holiday Season

2006-11-17T17:29:00.000-06:00

The holidays are upon us with my favorite one next. I really do enjoy Thanksgiving because it's a time for families to get together and enjoy each other with good food and companionship. My family is fun to be around, and I look forward to being with them when I can. We used to play games and spend more time doing such as that; however, the new additions to the family have made that more difficult for their parents to juggle seeing everyone and taking care of their babies. It's wonderful to see things through the eyes of these children and rediscover the marvel of the world. I'm so glad they had them and that we can all enjoy them. I can always play board games with my friends. Listing them in the order they arrived, Kelsey, Kari, Luke, Brendan, Ally, Carter, Will, and Reese are bringing so much pleasure to the rest of the family. We are thrilled to have them!

Talkin' 'bout My Generation

2006-10-26T11:45:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned on my Updates blog, the 50's and 60's have been politicized. This and all those emails going around the 'net about 50's nostalgia made me think about it.

The 50's were a wonderful, safe time for me to grow up in. But then I'm extremely fortunate because my parents were loving, supportive, and functional and instilled values in my brother and me that gave us a feeling of responsibility and compassion for others, healthy self-esteem, and knowledge that we always have family there for us, just as we are there for them. This wasn't such a good time if you were black, gay, American Indian, a woman, or other minority who wanted the same rights as white males. It also wasn't a time when anyone discussed anything that could have helped them leave an abusive situation I didn't even know existed until I heard people on TV talk about it. While I grew up in what to me was one of those stereotypical 50's families on television I identified with so closely, I understood later that to many people it was a myth. I had no idea. In some ways I wasn't prepared to have problems since I tried to be a "good girl" who those things didn't happen to. In other ways the foundation of unconditional love always provided a safety net.

The 60's as chaotic, disturbing, and violent as they were brought about changes that were necessary. It wasn't all sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, although we did have good music then. The 60's made us gun shy enough that I didn't realize how tense I was about the Carters walking on the street during his inauguration until he got to the stand without being shot.

I identify with all the decades during which I've lived because they all shaped who I am. Jackie isn't a fan of sociology, but I am. I love studying it and cultural anthropology and history as well as the pop culture that's going on in the present.

Molly Ivins said that Southern liberals are formed because they lied to us about race. I agree with her about that and many other things. It's easy to sweep all those inequities under the rug and feel nostalgic about an era seen as blissfully innocent unless you had to give away your first-born child only because it made others uncomfortable because I was unmarried and nineteen. That was much too high a price to pay for maintaining the status quo of 1963, which was philosophically still part of the 50's. We nice middle-class white girls who went through that baby-mill holocaust of our own don't feel an obligation to return to that hypocrisy. Those of us lucky enough to be reunited with our children we lost to adoption are grateful to at least have contact with them now, but oh how much we missed!

It's All In Your Point of View

2006-09-04T17:38:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the best people to make you stop taking yourself so seriously are children. I am on the board of a local theater company and went by to meet with the artistic director last week. I am new to the board and he is new to the theater, so we were having one of those rambling "getting to know you" talks. He told me that he was on faculty at the University of Iowa. I asked if that was where they have the Iowa Writer's Workshop and he said yes. I mentioned that my daughter really wants to go there eventually and asked if there were any Black people at all in Iowa. He laughed and said that most of the Blacks at the University were in the medical school. Then he told me the following story:

A White colleague of his at Iowa moved East and was driving through a predominately Black and poor neighborhood here in Pittsburgh. She had her preschooler in the car, and eventually heard the child exclaim "Look at all the the doctors!" It was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Here this child had only ever met upscale Black people and so a street full of Black people was of course a street full of doctors! I often think of how difficult it is for parents of Black children to instill positive self images in our kids. It makes you wonder if we're coming at it the wrong way. I say we all move to Iowa where all the Black people are doctors!

I am not the Shabbos Goy

2006-08-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

I've been away at a conference for Jewish Educators on the campus of Duke University. I love Duke. It is a wonderfully quirky place even in its architecture. It's campus was designed by a Black architect named Julian Abele. If you're curious about how that came to be you can take a look at this article on the Duke website. It was reprinted from Smitshsonian. I kept a journal while I was there because my wireless connection went south on me so to speak. So this is what I would have posted had I been connected.

Monday August 7, 2006

I once saw a made for TV movie based on the lives of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. In one scene Jim and Tammy are making a commercial to get more donations for some scheme of theirs. They have to make multiple versions of the same commercial because Jim names a specific city in his spiel. It went something like “We need the people of Tampa to come forward and help with God’s work.” Tammy had one line: “Jim and Tammy really needya!” It was to be delivered with her signature grimacing smile and perky diction. After they had done dozens of these, Tammy began to lose it. She was pretty much sobbing through the delivery of the last one. I remember thinking how completely messed up and out of control she must have been when this happened.

Well, I had a Tammy Faye moment today. I am attending a conference for Jewish educators on the campus of Duke University. Duke is a beautiful school. In fact one of the people I came with pointed out that it looks a lot like Hogwarts. We eat in something called the Great Hall which looks like a narrower version of the dining hall at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. There are 2000 Jewish educators here and only two of us are Black. Everyone else looks “typically” Jewish. Whenever I am in a Jewish context I’m used to people mistaking me for a visitor. I joke that I love to go to temple on the high holidays because all the people who only come once a year run up and welcome me to the building. It’s like always being the bride. Here it’s been a little different. We all have to wear id badges on cords around our necks. They are large badges in plastic protectors. In addition, we have room keys on lanyards around our necks. It’s nice because you quickly spot a conference attendee. Well, at least I can. Apparently some of my colleagues have a problem with it. I should say that the majority of the maintenance and food service personnel here are Black. They, too, are easy to spot as they wear blue polo shirts with their names on them, or chef’s jackets. The plastic aprons on the food service people are also a dead giveaway.

We arrived on Sunday at 3:00 pm after a nine hour drive. By 9:30 this morning (Monday) I had fielded a number of requests to get coffee or clean up toilets along with questions like “Do you work here (in the dining hall) full time?”. It is interesting but not surprising to me that all these comments came from Northerners. Not a single Southerner has yet confused me with the help. The first 3 or 4 times I smiled and said something along the lines of “I’m so sorry, I don’t work here.” giving the person time to really focus on me and take in the street clothes, lime green conference goody bag, badge and keys hanging around my neck, etc. Whenever I come south my accent slowly regresses so that fairly soon this was being delivered with a distinct drawl. By breakfast this morning, I’d had to smile and correct quite a few times. Finally, this woman barreled up to me in the chaos of the dining hall and said in a New York accent “Did you put more coffee out or what?” I said “Sweetie I don’t work here.” At which point she looked extremely embarrassed. That’s when I began to channel Tammy. I made my way to a corner table and began to get really, really shaky. I called my husband to complain for a few minutes which is usually enough to reset my equilibrium when I get upset, then I walked out of the building. This poor little 20 year old boy in a kippah and a name tag saying he was from Chattanooga had the misfortune to ask me a question and I just lost it. I ended up standing in the middle of the student union in tears while the two people I came with tried to get me to a seat. It was horrible. I have no idea how I lost control like that. I now have much more sympathy for Tammy Faye.

I my defense I did not get much sleep over the past few days, and the conference was not turning out to be as useful as I had hoped it would be. Additionally I am in the middle of a job search and really can’t afford to be away for 4 days, but I had paid quite a bit of money for the conference well in advance and had committed to drive down with my colleagues who were counting on me to share gas and driving. So, this was probably not the best time for me to try to exhibit grace under fire. Still, it was not my best moment. As I write this I am hiding out in my dorm room (where the internet connection has failed). I will post all my missives upon my return. My hope is that things will look up soon. They certainly can’t get any worse.

I did call my husband and with his usual wit he googled Black Jews and came up with a website offering buttons and stickers for Jews of color. He offered to get me one that said "I am not the Shabbos Goy". Others were a little more direct as in "If you keep staring at me I'll hit you."

Wednesday August 9, 2006

After giving it our best shot over 3 days my two colleagues and I are throwing in the towel. Last night we decided to leave the conference a day early. We went into Durham and had dinner at a nice little French Bistro. Then we returned to our respective dorm rooms, packed and went to bed. This morning we were scheduled to meet with our religious school principal to choose materials from one of the vendors. We will do that, pick up a souvenir for one the women’s boyfriend and then hit the road. We plan to be home by 10:00 pm. My colleagues were disappointed with the quality of the workshops as was I. There were lots and lots of workshops (15-21 consecutive workshops every hour and a half with very few repeats.) The conference booklet is the size of a large catalog or a small phone book. When I saw it the first thing I thought was “somebody didn’t take their lithium”. The thing is that if you have that many sessions and presenters you cannot have quality control. The first session I attended was so bad that the participants were embarrassed for the presenter. I have never seen an entire room full of educators go completely silent. It was like that scene in The Producers right after they do the “Springtime for Hitler” song. You get a shot of the audience members staring in open-mouthed horror.

Things got a little better Monday but nothing was better than mediocre. Yesterday (Tuesday) I took one really extraordinary workshop with a woman cantor with whom I had studied before. The rest ranged from mildly interesting to mind numbing. This conference was extremely expensive and took several days of my time. I tell my students that no experience is ever wasted, and this was certainly true of this trip. I got to see a really wonderful campus, and I’d love to come back to Durham as a tourist sometime. I got to think about some issues of race and religion in a different way; and that will help me in journey. However I'd like my next learning experience to be just a little less like a spinal tap. Going to get on the road now.

B’Shalom

My Hometown

2006-07-30T16:03:00.000-05:00

I just posted some memories about my hometown which I plan to expand on here soon. If you'd like to read them, look over there on the links and click Joy's Updates. Thanks!!

Telling

2006-07-23T21:41:00.000-05:00

My Spouse pointed out that none of us identify ourselves at the beginning of our posts causing people to have to read all the way to the end before finding out who's speaking At first I thought I would suggest that we change that. Then I began to think about it. Why should we conform to standard procedure? I personally like reading without immediately knowing whose post it is. I wonder if my anal retentive little husband is the only one to find this disconcerting?

At any rate, I just spent the past four days dropping in and out of a storyteller's conference. There were 350 tellers in a hotel downtown. I knew I was really at a storyteller's convention when I went into the ladies room for the first time. As I entered I heard lots of voices but did not see anyone. However, all but one stall was occupied and people were carrying on conversations and finishing stories while they were in there! It was pretty funny. Of course I commented on it causing everyone to begin to riff on that. I belong to a truly interesting professional group. If you have never been to a storytelling conference or festival, you should go. Tellers are not like other artists. You are basically surrounded by extremely extroverted people who practice an artform that requires no equipment and who are always "on". People launch into their schticks seamlessly. It's like a convention of stand up comedians. Also having a serious conversation with a bunch of tellers is really amazing. You have all these people who can organize their experiences in an extremely coherent way on the fly. I always come away from festivals and conferences ready to work at telling more. I've been a dancer and actor, but storytelling is the scariest and most satisfying thing I've done as a performer. It's like flying without a net.

Email joke

2006-07-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

Here's a joke Earl sent me I'll share with you.

Southern Lady

A very genteel Southern lady was driving across the Savannah River Bridge in Georgia one day. As she neared the top of the bridge, she noticed a young man ready {fixing} to jump.

She stopped her car, rolled down the window and said, "Please don't jump, think of your dear mother and father." He replied, "Mom and Dad are both dead; I'm going to jump."

She said, "Well, think of your wife and children." He replied, "I'm not married and I don't have any kids."

She said, "Well, think of Robert E. Lee." He replied, ''Who's Robert E. Lee?''

She replied, ''Well bless your heart, just go ahead and jump, you dumbass Yankee."

2006-07-17T23:04:00.000-05:00

Mouth Full of Twinkies

I have not contributed to our blog thus far because it appears that I am in the midst of some sort of mental breakdown. We’re cautioned not to bite off more than we can chew. Well, apparently I’ve crammed an entire twelve pack of Twinkies into my mouth at one time. Divorce, new job, graduate school, teenagers, and a multitude of dysfunctional family members—somewhere along the way I decided I was Wonder Woman and could handle it all while holding evil at bay with my handy dandy magic lasso. If ever there was someone begging for psychiatric intervention, it’s got to be me.

In my defense, I did attempt to get help. I asked around for recommendations for a good therapist; I knew I needed to talk to a professional. The woman I made an appointment with had come highly recommended; the entire practice she was associated with was top-notch. I felt smugly virtuous that I was facing my problems head on and actively seeking help. I have to admit that this notion didn’t totally alleviate my nervousness when the day of my appointment actually arrived and I found myself in the therapist’s waiting room.

You have to understand that no one in my very southern family had ever received counseling or therapy unless they had first been strapped into a straitjacket and hauled off to one of those euphemistically southern sanitariums. Voluntarily confronting my demons was not something I was genetically predisposed to do.

Sitting in the therapist’s waiting room, I found myself fidgeting and pacing and glancing longingly at the exit. Fortunately, I didn’t have long to wait. The receptionist called my name. Standing next to the front desk was a very elegant older woman with a stern, but not totally-unwelcoming, expression. What caught my attention, however, was that she was holding a small terrier that was wearing some sort of tiny coat. Now I’m a sucker for animals, and I immediately thought, “Wow, what a cool place—they bring their pets to work with them!”

Before I could comment or speculate further, the woman said, “Follow me,” and started off down a long hallway. As we walked down the hallway and up a staircase and down another long hallway, the woman made no attempt at conversation. I began to feel uncomfortable and nervous again as I trailed along behind her, watching the little dog’s tail wag from side to side. Finally she ushered me into a large office. Comfortable chairs and couches, soft lighting, floor-to-ceiling bookcases—it could have been someone’s den or study. She pointed to a couch and said, “Have a seat.” She sat in a chair opposite me and placed the dog on the floor. For the first time I noticed that the dog’s coat had something written on it, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. While I was still straining to read the dog’s side, the doctor launched into speech.

“Now, this is my hearing dog; he alerts me when the phone rings or someone knocks on the door. He is not a pet—he is a working dog. Do not attempt to touch him or pet him.”

At this point, I felt an overwhelming urge to pull my feet up off the floor and cower in the corner of the couch. The dog was staring right at me, as if daring me to extend my hand toward him. It was only as the doctor continued to speak, that I really started to take in what she was saying. The woman was deaf. She couldn’t hear, but she was apparently an expert lip reader. Panic and dismay streaked across my brain. How was I supposed to talk to someone about some of the most intimate and difficult problems I had ever had, when she couldn’t hear a word I said. I felt myself giving into the ridiculous urge to speak with exaggerated mouth motions when I tried to answer her questions. And I couldn’t make eye-contact with her because I was afraid to take my eyes off the dog. He certainly wasn’t taking his eyes off me. I just knew he was waiting to pounce if I had even the briefest sentimental thought to treat him like a cute little pet.

I truly have no idea what I said to that woman. It must not have been too horrible or deranged because I was allowed to leave the building on my own—no sedatives, no straitjackets, no men in little white coats. I felt anything but normal, however. I felt like I was walking out of an episode of the Twilight Zone. What were the chances that on my very first attempt I would manage to find what was probably the only deaf therapist in the state? I do know that she was an excellent doctor; unfortunately, she just wasn’t the right doctor for me.

Needless to say, I have been more than a little reticent to seek out professional help again. At this point, I don’t really know what to do about this mouth full of Twinkies.

Got milk?

Kudzu

2006-07-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

Kudzu - bane of the South! It's taken over trees and anything else in its path. So don't take a nap outdoors anywhere near it, or we might never see you again. For an enlightening and entertaining article about it, check out Dew on the Kudzu and enjoy!!

Rebel or Yankee Test

2006-06-30T20:02:00.000-05:00

Paige told me about this online test which is interesting in terms of language and usage. Try it and let's discuss! It's fun. Click here.

My score, by the way, was 97% Dixie! You can take the girl out of the South but not the South out of the girl!

An Experiment Gone Terribly Wrong

2006-06-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

Imagine the gods and goddesses in their modern-day Mt. Olympus strolling the grounds, smiling in the shade, playing games, and relaxing inside their palatial mansions. There are all kinds of them in various types of clothing and appearance. Each has created a world and follows its progress as s/he chooses. There is a master control room with screens where they can monitor their creations. Perhaps one creator is very controlling and regimented, and the people in their world don't have much choice about their lives. Others could be environmentalists, pacifists, war mongers, zoo keepers, clowns, whatever.

The creator of our world Earth is played by George C. Scott, with a cigar in one hand and a whiskey in the other. He sits at the monitor watching us as we go about our lives. Once the world was created, he left us alone, much like Kino who watched the ants with "the detachment of God" in Steinbeck's The Pearl. He notices the governments, individuals, everything. Then he laughs raucously puffing on his cigar and almost spilling his drink as he calls out to some of his cronies with, "Hey come here! Look what the dumb bastards have done now!"

Lawn Boy and the Weather Goddess

2006-06-28T08:39:00.000-05:00

People (who shall remain nameless) have been laughing at my recently acquired gardening obsession. I realize that I have become one of those people who talk about plants as if they are human. I blame it on the roses. Once you start to grow them you go insane. However, I had some vindication when my husband decided to put in a lawn in the back. He cleared out an area between the path and my cutting garden and laid sod. He was blessed with ample rain and he nurtured his little patch. Then mysterious yellow patches began to appear. He turned into Ward Cleaver. It was so funny. Finally one evening he came in with a jar and went upstairs to the computer. Turns out he had lifted the sod and found bugs. He captured some and went on the internet to identify them. Having found that they were indeed the culprits he purchased insecticide, and killed the little varmints off. The insecticide part was tough as neither of us really likes to use that stuff. Men and grass are strange. They get really weird about it. I guess no man is immune. Thank goodness it's just a small patch or I might never see him.

While my husband works on his little patch of green I have decided to open a rainmaking business. If you want it to rain in your area have me come over and put my bicycle on the roof of my car. It's the most amazing thing. I love to bike and recently purchased a nifty new trail bike. It's wonderful because it has front and rear suspension. I added a padded seat which has springs on it too. (I like to bike but I need to be comfortable). I am, as they say, a traditionally built Black woman, so I don't need to be jiggling around. At any rate I was so excited about this bike and couldn't wait to ride it. Then to top it off someone told me about a new trail in the city that runs along the river, is 15 minutes by car from my house and has access to a hip shopping district at its extreme end. It was like heaven. Well, my beloved and I went out one afternoon and loaded the bikes on the roof rack of our car. This is no mean feat. The bikes are cumbersome and it really takes two people to get them up there. I can do it alone but it involves a step ladder and lots of obscenities. (Please don't tell me to get rear hitch for my car because we have tried that and because of the sort of car we drive and the sort of bikes we ride it didn't quite work out.) At any rate, as soon as we got the bikes up the sky opened and it proceeded to rain for a week. The sun would come out and I would put the bike up at which point it would begin to rain again. Today the sun is out and the sky is blue, and I am too busy to ride. So we should have continuing sun. Joy told me that I was really powerful to be able to control the weather like that. So I am embracing my magical powers. If you need rain, just call me.

Beginnings

2006-06-20T10:32:00.000-05:00

I don't know what I'm doing here. Of course, that could be said for most parts of my life. Obviously, I am a procrastinator since it has taken this long for me to get on this blog. Who knew that retirement and part time work would be so time consuming. Everything takes longer-waking up-there must time for visits with the cats-making coffee and sitting in my chair-moving to the deck and sitting in my chair-going to the creek-looking at the water there and the swaying of the tops of trees. Looking at the swaying tops of trees can be an all day activity if one allows oneself to get into the activity. Reading- I spend lots of time reading. I must stop this explantion of daily activities to express my regret that the user name possum was already taken. What better name to express deep south feelings. Possum. Oh well. Apparently others came before me with that same thought. I could get into my thoughts about the current leader of our country, but an e-mail that I read by Garrison Keillor expressed it so perfectly-violently ignorant- how can you say it better than that. When I wake up and finish my chair and creek activities and my thoughts are more clear I will write more.
Rachel

Chaos and Clutter

2006-06-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

I'm attempting to create some order from the chaos that is my house. After a year of retirement, I'm beginning to feel rested and relaxed. Debbie, my massage therapist, told me yesterday she could tell a big difference from a year ago and that my muscles feel more like they are supposed to instead of like a wall. So last week I started with the kitchen and got rid of bags and boxes of out-of-date food from shelves and the refrigerator. When in doubt, I tossed it and dealt with the guilt of wasting food while children are starving all over the world. Seriously, it did bother me to throw away all that food I'd let stay too long. I began with the kitchen because there were two choices: keep or throw away. I became ruthless and now enjoy opening the cabinets and refrigerator to look at blank spaces and organized food that I can see and know is there and will use in a timely manner. My dishes are organized because their number doesn't change. I like those lazy susans and organizers and will put things back when they have a place. I wish I had a pantry with shelves and those sliding out components that hold canned goods and boxes. I love all that stuff. It's fun to browse Lowe's and Home Depot and Staple's and Office Depot. The organizers, carts, furniture, and binders are part of what appeals to me about scrapbooking. They have neat stuff!

Now I'm ready for the harder jobs with more choices. With clothes, books, knick-knacks, videos, and all kinds of things, I'll have to decide to keep, toss, donate, or sell. I'm hoping the skills I used in the kitchen will carry me through with the other rooms. Paige calls this urban archeaology - good name for it. If I'm brave, I'll post some before and after photos. You'll be horrified and amazed. Just sorting through the kitchen made me realize what an emotional coma I've been in for more years than I'd realized. It's sad and scary, yet somehow I was able to teach. I'm not sure how well I did, but it was like a haven of normalcy in a way since the rest of my life felt out of control. Having cancer has longer-ranging effects than just getting over the disease, and those are bad enough. It's so scary that I'm not sure we're ever the same. So now if nothing else will interrupt my nice, boring, peaceful life, I can continue the excavation and finish this dig. So far, so good, but I've only just begun.

Parenting

2006-06-13T13:08:00.000-05:00

My daughter is 15. That sentence alone should say it all. She is a wonderful girl in many ways, but she is 15. Fifteen has to be the scariest number in the universe. Next year she will be old enough to drive. She will not be allowed to drive, but she will be old enough to do so. This conversation alone, has been like WWIII. She attends a performing arts school downtown and has a bus pass, a cell phone and a collection of artsy teenage friends. Today she called me at lunch from school and said she would be going home with some friends to help them study for a science final. I have allowed her to do this sort of thing before, but for some reason today my heart lurched when she called. I think that periodically we remember what little ability we have to actually protect our children, and it causes momentary panic. Last night I clipped a magazine article which details how to "crash proof" your teen. It basically lists all the frightening statistics about teen drivers and then urges parents to wait as long as possible before giving them free rein with the car. After reading those statistics, I may make her wait until she's thirty. My husband the neuropsychologist has not helped in this regard. He informed me that the parts of the brain which govern self control do not fully develop until the early to mid twenties. Yep, thirty sounds good.

Northern Weather Demons

2006-05-30T06:46:00.000-05:00

I have come to the conclusion that I am a regional chauvinist. I'm sure that none of my friends and acquaintances will find this the least bit surprising. However, I had deceived myself for sometime that I was an open minded person. I had this picture of myself as someone who could easily acclimate to foreign ways. I mean, I moved up north and got used to such oddities as unsweetened tea, crisp vegetables and meals which did not include cornbread. I even adapted to the insane pace at which people walk and talk up here. But yesterday I finally had to own up to the ugly truth.

It all started with the weather. I found myself getting extremely exercised about it. You can all understand it though. I mean, really. People talk about how hot and humid it is in Tennessee and parts of the really deep South like Mississippi. Well, that's true. But down there you expect it. I mean, if you complain too much down there people can say "Good Lord you're living in Memphis, what do you expect?" But up here it's different. You get lulled into a sense of false security by a mild Spring, and then BAM, it's 80 degrees. You don't even have time to switch the clothes in your closet. Pittsburgh, especially, has some of the most bizarre weather I have ever experienced. A few days ago we had turned our furnaces back on because it was so cold at night, and then yesterday it was 80 degrees. This is not right. What happened to transitional weather? See, this is why it's better to live in the South. It's hot, it's always hot, and we know it. We can prepare, we can brace ourselves. And we don't have those ridiculously cold winters. And when it snows down there we have the good sense to stay in the house. People up here actually go to work when there is ice on the roads. Then they get all upset when they have accidents. Well, if you would stay home, you wouldn't have that problem! Once when I lived in Chicago, I was actually forced to stand at a bus stop when the snow was drifting up to my knees. So now it's out there. I suppose I have no choice but to repatriate. I'm thinking of starting slow. Maybe Maryland...

Katherine Dunham

2006-05-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

I was logging on to my yahoo account and saw a news headline that said that Katherine Dunham had died. She was 96. I spent my college years as a dancer. I remember studying the Dunham technique for the first time under a Black choreographer in Memphis. It was like being hit with a mac truck. This was a movement vocabulary that celebrated me! My body, my internal rhythms, my history. Suddenly it was all right to move your torso and dance from your soul. I loved it, and it was what caused me to turn to African dance when I could no longer pound on my body with "classical" techniques.

Dancers are like storytellers in that we pass along our history face to face. There is a dance notation system, but not many people use it. Instead we teach each other by show and tell. This is a very intimate way of passing along a tradition. We must see and hear and touch each other, and each time a movement goes from one body to another it changes just a little bit. Imperceptible modifications have to be made to accomodate the individual's quirks. The struggle is to make that modification transparent. You leave traces of yourself in another person when you put a piece on them. As part of my college degree I studied choreography. I was never anything great in that department, but I came to understand the frustration and joy of depending on other people to articulate your vision.

Ms. Dunham left a legacy of art, social action and courage. She died in poverty having depended on former students and various celebrities to help her meet day to day expenses. She spent most of her time from the sixties forward in East St. Louis, IL, trying to pull a horribly defeated community up through art and education. I saw her onstage once when she must have been in her mid sixties. Her company was doing a retrospective and she came out at the end and danced down the stage on the arm of a young corps member. She was magnificent.

I don't dance anymore. I gave it up reluctantly when I got too sick to keep up. I've never gone back even to social dancing because I married a man with no rhythm. But sometimes when I'm cleaning the house and a certain type of music comes on, I feel my body move in the way that one of Miss Dunham's students taught me, and I remember who I am.

Goodbye Katherine, we'll miss you.

Job Search

2006-05-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

OK, I know that everyone has at one time been on the hunt for a job. So, tell me am I the only one who thinks job hunting is like internet dating only much, much more painful? This is especially true these days with more and more employers using the internet to collect and screen resumes and applications. You read an ad online and it sounds like a perfect match. You respond only to find that the handsome guy with the high income is really a bald, fat nerd with a job at Best Buy.

I have changed careers several times so that means I've done a lot of job searches. In the past I've had some truly scary interviews. People have asked me illegal questions, propositioned me, asked me to be a front for shady operations ("I want to get a city contract, but I need a Black Female to be my front") and told me they would definitely hire me only to never call again. The Black Female guy ended up in the news a couple of years later. So glad I passed on that one. This time I'm not so vulnerable to scammers since I'm looking for teaching jobs. But the pickings are slim right now. And anyone who has ever applied for a teaching job can probably attest to the difficulty of just filling out the paper work. In my area you have to fill out a ridiculously long standard application and then assemble a packet of information that is different for every school district. Some want the application, resume and all your clearances, transcripts and test scores at the time you apply. Some want just a resume, some want a supplemental form all the other stuff PLUS your letters of reference in a sealed envelope. Each ad or website contains the ominous warning that "Incomplete packets will not be processed." By the time I had filled out several of these I was a nervous paranoid wreck. "Did I put all the right forms in that envelope? Were they stapled? Did they want them stapled?" Since there are relatively few jobs for a lot of candidates you could really work yourself up into a tizzy about this. Today I hand delivered the application for a job that opened Monday and will close on Friday of this week. It took me 2 hours last night to assemble the packet because they wanted such weird stuff and several of the standard application answers had to be tweaked to fit their specific format.

I guess you really have to want to be a teacher to get through all this. Meanwhile I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll write my own ad.

Energetic, warm and caring educator with a passion for children and deep dedication to helping them succeed seeks school district of like mind. Send all information about every student you have ever graduated to me immediately. Incomplete packets will be graded and returned to sender.

Wish me luck.

A Bed of Roses

2006-05-15T08:26:00.000-05:00

In case you don't know, I have become a gardener in my later years. People think that growing up in small town Tennessee is the same as growing up on a farm. After all, you were "out in the country". The truth is that for most of my life I could not have told you how to plant a seed if my life depended on it. Then we bought our first house and all my latent fantasies came to the front. I yearned for roses. In fact, I found that I had a strong desire to live in a rose covered cottage.

When we bought our current home I inherited two rose bushes and added four more spread throughout the various beds in my front and back yards. I soon found out why some people hate roses. They are like temperamental teenage girls. Over the winter they sit sullenly in my yard resembling nothing so much as rusted rebar. I swear at that point that I will rip them out. Around the beginning of May I begin my enslavement to them. Each week I feed them with smelly concoctions, I watch carefully to see which ones have developed any horrible rose-specific cooties and then use gentle organic (read time-c0nsuming) methods to get rid of them. I prune them and coddle them and swear once more to get rid of them and plant a yard full of daisies. And then they bloom. The cottage roses at the front come in all full and flashy, the hardy bush rose bursts out in a riot of deep pink. The two old roses that came with the house fill my back yard with this wonderful spicy sweet scent. And I am hooked again. The two roses that I inherited are old roses and only bloom for a month in June. The others will bloom all summer if I am a faithful servant. I'm beginning to accept my relationship with the roses. A couple of years ago I bought them lavendar bushes to keep away pests. The lavendar completed the "scent garden" I had put at the front of my house. As you walk up the front path you brush against a creeping thyme and then you smell the roses. There are lilies later in summer which give off a less cloying scent.

You can tell a lot about a person from their garden. And often the act of planting a garden tells you a lot about yourself. I always thought that I would plant well ordered rows and boxes. I assumed I would do formal plantings in well contained beds. Indeed that's how my first garden started. But once I got enough space, my inner Byron came out. My well ordered beds morphed into a cottage garden in the front. The rock garden I inherited overflows now with lily of the valley and succulents. I have a cutting garden in back that is home to my sacrificial daffodils. In spring I cut every one of them and fill up a cobalt blue vase. Then I spread the rest through the house. This year I also had giant red emperor tulips back there. Those landed in my front hall. I am a glutton for color but somehow it all works. And I have no idea who this person is who plants these flamboyant plots. I'm beginning to think that a garden is the perfect path to self awareness.

Our Blog

2006-04-27T13:09:00.001-05:00

This blog is off to a slow start, but I have faith in its future. Tina and Jackie have been extremely busy (as usual). In addition to teaching English and creative writing, which have the most paper grading of anything, Tina is also teaching in the credit/course recovery program after school that I used to do, going to school herself, involved in community theater by acting in plays and being stage manager of some. She also has a son at home and one who works at the Renaissance Center in the theater. Both sons work in the theater, actually. She also has pets to take care of as well as house, car, and all the responsibilities of single mothers.

Jackie is also teaching and going to school. She's just finished her student teaching in the Pittsburgh school system and has stories that are disheartening for the future of education and don't make a good case for paying teachers more and having better instruction. She has a teenage daughter and bunches of responsibilities as well. She's also a professional storyteller, as I mentioned in my other blog, when I described her wonderful show Middle Passage she's performed in Pittsburgh and Dickson and that I hope she takes to other places.

I used to be a workaholic, too, and know how it is. Some of it was from necessity and some from doing things I enjoyed and was interested in. Now I'm the one without a busy schedule although some people consider me busy. If so, they must not do much.

Jackie and Tina will probably be writing about these experiences and more in this blog. I know Tina has some poetry and Jackie some stories they might post, too. I hope so because they have a lot to offer that you'll enjoy reading. Please keep checking on us.

Y'all

2006-04-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

Many non-Southerners don't realize that y'all is plural. Unlike those people who affect a really bad Southern accent and bandy about the word y'all indiscriminately, we use it as the plural form of you.

Funereal Fun

2006-04-13T10:54:00.000-05:00

My neighbors on each side when I was growing up were Elaine and Eloise, three years older than I who constantly dangled the future in front of me with such taunts as, "you haven't lived until you can ride a bicycle, you haven't lived until you've gone to school, you haven't lived until you are in the 3rd grade, you haven't lived until you can shave your legs, wear make-up, drive, date" and on it went with all kinds of milestones always ahead. Maybe that's why I've lived in the future most of my life instead of enjoying the present. Sure, I think I'll blame them for that! Why not?

Naturally, Elaine and Eloise went to a funeral before I did and told the other younger ones of us all about it. I was fascinated, asked questions, and filed the information away. It would be a while before I would actually see a dead person. I think I was probably around 11 or 12 when a neighbor died. She was young and the mother of two girls, one who was a couple of years older and one younger than I. The casket was in her home, and Mother took me there with her to pay respects. Then when I was in the 8th grade, a classmate died. He was a twin. They took a bus with all of us in his class who wanted to and were allowed to attend his funeral in a small country church. That was my first funeral.

Well, it was my first funeral for a person. Daddy always raised a garden and chickens, so I grew up on fresh vegetables, eggs, and chicken. Mother canned the vegetables, made apple sauce and tomato juice, and all kinds of delicious food. One day I remember that one of the baby chickens died, so I suggested to the neighbors that we have a funeral for it. We all volunteered for various roles. I wanted to be the family, so I could pretend to cry (ever the actress!). We had someone else to be the choir and another for the pallbearer (don't need but one for a matchbox with a baby chick in it). We needed someone to preach the funeral and thought Eloise's father would be the perfect candidate since he played the organ at their church. He refused. We were upset but found a replacement. The funeral was dramatic and grand and is something that I've discovered many other Southern children have played. I'm not so sure about other parts of the country, but then funeral home etiquette here allows for it to be a social occasion as well as a time to offer support and condolences.

After a while we were ready for another funeral, but nothing else had died. One of the older ones suggested that we kill a bee and then have a funeral for it. Made sense to us. So we caught a bee, put it in a jar, but didn't punch holes in the top they way we did for lightning bugs. It takes a while for a bee to die that way and would have been much more merciful if we'd stepped on it. In retrospect, I realized how cruel that was, but for those of us who had been stung by bumblebees, we didn't seem to mind. We watched the jar for days to check the progress of the bee's death. Yes, it's macabre, but there is a dark side to Southerners I'm not sure I can explain. Maybe one of my other blogmates can.

The bee died, and we had an elaborate funeral for him. Somehow we tired of funerals and didn't have another one. Perhaps it was too mafia-like to go to a funeral of someone we had killed. I don't know. Maybe we moved on to something else. That was the day we got our first television. Yes, kids, I was a child before TV and remember playing outside all day and into the evening. I was probably around seven or eight years old. We would just turn it on to watch certain shows we wanted to see and then turn it off again. It took it a while to warm up, and there was a test pattern on it when the stations were off the air. Everything was in black and white. It was a novelty but not something we kept on or watched all the time. I do remember Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy, Doodles Weaver, Spike Jones, and other shows, but those are for another post. For now, I remember that we got our first television the day of the bee funeral.

When I told this story to students, I generally got reactions and comments from them about how cruel I was. Lots of kidding followed, especially by Challenge Class student Ben Blankenship, who presented me with this gift of bees in a jar. Thanks, Ben!

Dressing Down up North

2006-04-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

Joy and I were talking the other day and she instructed me to enter my thoughts on living in exile. Since I always do what Joy says, I will begin with my "favorite" pet peeve. First let me say that I willingly came north upon marriage. This is only because I had no idea what I was giving up. Twenty years ago my future husband drove to Memphis and kidnapped me. (That's another story). For now suffice it to say that I ended up in Chicago. Chicago is a pleasant vibrant city. Unfortunately from October to May it is also the coldest place on earth outside of the arctic circle. If you don't believe me just go up there for Christmas. Of course I did not know this at the time of my abduction. So on my birthday in January I put on what a Southerner thinks of as warm clothes and prepared to go out for dinner with my beloved. Picture it: one Black Southern woman standing on the El platform in a skirt, tights and a wool coat. No hat. By the time we arrived at the restaurant I was a fudgescicle. I "insisted" that my very frugal husband hail a cab to take us home.

Not to worry, though. After 10 years in Chicago my husband relocated us to his home town in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is further east and south. We were leaving the prairie! Sigh. There's one thing you need to know about Pittsburgh. Noone dresses here. I mean noone. Not even the Black women dress. This is disturbing on so many levels. I realized I was in some parallel sartorial universe when I went to a play in one of the beautiful theaters bequeathed to the city by one of their many robber baron benefactors. I looked around and people were wearing jeans, and even sweats. I'm not talking about those cute matching track suits either, I'm talking about honest God gray sweat pants. It was 8:00 on a weekend evening, so I cannot even fathom what possible excuse these people could have had.

Being an open minded person, I thought that maybe I was being too harsh. Perhaps the theater had designated this as a casual night and I had missed the memo, maybe these people meant to go to the Steelers game. I was ready to believe anything in order to avoid the possibility that I had landed in a place where people did not know what to wear when they left the house. After 10 years here, I'm sorry to report that my first impression was more than correct. Just last weekend I ventured out to the theater once again. Having lived here a while I dressed down. Since it was the 5:30 show I wore a pair of black pants and a brocade jacket. It didn't help. My husband now sees my reactions to what people are wearing as part of the evening's entertainment. I can refrain from commenting in public (I am still Southern) but when we get home, I just have to say something. I try not to, but it's just too much. Since we have a daughter, I have had to work really hard to instill the proper values in her around this issue. Trips down home and lots of supervised shopping have helped.

The way people dress is so bad that even the merchants have given up. Last summer I had to do a show down home. I needed an outfit for the second half, something simple and elegant. I had to go shopping in Nashville in order to find anything suitable. My other recourse has been catalogues. It's not just dressy clothes, either. People don't know what to wear to work! I,ve seen teachers in capri pants and house shoes, secretaries in fishnet stockings and spike heels, receptionists in torn jeans and sales people in lord knows what. There are two types of business dress here: sloppy and wildly inappropriate. I finally knew I had to leave when I tried to sell some business suits to a consignment store. One was a $400.00 Mark Shale wool suit in Olive green. It was in perfect condition and I was only selling it because I will never be that size again. I had another Mark Shale suit that had a cropped jacket and knee length skirt that I took by as well. I had purchased both of them when I worked in Chicago where people actually wear clothes to work. I had both suits cleaned, and took them to an upscale consignment shop. The woman told me that she couldn't sell anything like that in Pittsburgh because "women here don't dress like that". I finally gave the clothes to Goodwill. As my husband and I plan our retirement, my one requirement is that we move someplace where the women are familiar with the little black dress. Every time I see a woman in a little black dress here, I know that she's either obscenely wealthy or from out of town. I must admit that my standards have fallen since I've moved here, and I often take advantage of my surroundings to cheat on the clothing thing. It's a slippery slope. I just have one request: should anyone see me sitting in nice restaurant in a stained sweatshirt please organize an intervention!

Hello

2006-03-30T23:49:00.001-06:00

Welcome to our new blog! There are three of us who will contribute our ideas about life in the South and many other things that occur to us as we go. So now I'll introduce myself with a little background.

I'm the oldest of the group and the one who encouraged the others to contribute to this blog. I was born in Alabama while Daddy was working at a chemical plant during WWII. He was also born in Alabama but moved with his family to Tennessee when he was in 7th grade. My mother was born and grew up in Middle Tennessee. They met in high school since they were in the same class. Mother won the county-wide spelling bee when she was in 8th grade. Daddy used to say he was valedictorian of his 8th grade class but neglected to mention that he was the only 8th grader in the one-room school he attended. They were class officers and married several years after Mother went to comptometer school and worked at DuPont and Daddy went to the University of Tennessee at Martin. She was a beauty queen and he a football player which is royalty in the South. They had a mixed marriage since Mother was a Methodist Democrat and Daddy a Baptist Republican. It was important to them that they go to the same church as a family, so as Mother says, Daddy joined the Methodist people. I'm glad it happened that way and that I was brought up in the Methodist Church. They always cancelled each other's votes, though, and made sure they voted. It's an important part of being an adult, and when I was sick, Mother made sure I voted and drove me to the early voting place. She's an amazing 85 years old and sharp mentally and physically active. Daddy died much too young at 56, and I still miss him.

Stay tuned. There's more to come.