To You, Cheryl

Last Friday, a dear friend lost her battle with cancer. I posted about it once upon a time here.

It came as a shock. I was reading Oh, the Places You'll Go! to my AP students on their final day of class when my co-chair came to the door to tell me. We looked at one another and there weren't any words. What can one say in a moment such as this?

You see, Cheryl was a feisty, charismatic, ethical, and entirely beautiful human being. Every teacher who has ever worked with her can only say all that is good about her. She was only 62. She'd taught in our district for nearly 25 years and she was really, really talented at it. Those who CAN teach. She was to retire at the end of this year. And then the ovarian cancer we thought she'd beaten last year returned. Everywhere. And suddenly time seemed to be of such import to all of us who were touched by her.

Today, after her husband had a chance to take what he wanted of his wife's career, several of us went to help clean out some of her things from her classroom. And still, the space smacked of Cheryl: the posters, the unique and quirky teaching aids, the videos and beautiful volumes of poetry. The treasured mythology projects of bygone students. I teared up to see her handwriting still scrawled on the calendar--the little reminders we teachers give ourselves.

It felt healing, spending some time in a space that was so uniquely Cheryl just as I knew her. To be in a room that she designed, in a space that had soaked in her energy day after day. Sometimes I feel as though a teacher's classroom is a statement about their personality and teaching style. With Cheryl, this was true. As I worked, it struck me what a beautiful life she's lived. Until the end, she loved teaching. Her students adored her, trusted her, felt safe in this room because she was there. She was wise and gracious and funny. She taught them the double entendres in Shakespeare's plays and made them act out balcony and fight scenes. She took them out on the back lawn under the trees and made each one lay stomach-down and stare at the blades of grass when they read Walden.

Her death is a tragedy. But her life, her life is just as I think she would have wanted it. She raised three kids. Had a happy second marriage. She loved a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with friends. She read--oh, how she read. She was the best at suggesting good, entertaining books. She spent each day of her life imparting only the most important gifts to the future. Her life was a good one.

Henry David Thoreau, whom Cheryl adored, once wrote, "...I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Cheryl LIVED. Fully. I, like so many others, will miss her. I only hope that I can live my life in a way she did.

How to deflate your ego in three simple steps

Anything that happened in the years prior to my birth, didn't actually exist for me. Scratch that. Before the year my consciousness acquired the capacity for long-term memory, there is a big, black nothing. To a certain extent, the concept of nineteen seventy-anything felt false. Oh, I knew it was out there. My siblings were born in the 70's. Some were born in the 60's. But for me, the early-to-mid-80's marked the beginning of time as I knew it.

And I guess that is how it goes when you're young. History is some vacuumous black hole of nonexistence. And then one day it isn't. Somewhere along the way, I pulled my ostrich-like youthful head out of the narcissism I'd buried it in, looked around, and realized there were people who remember exactly where they were the day Kennedy was shot. Just as I remember the moment my mother came rushing into my smart-enough-to-schedule-classes-on-Mon-Weds-Fri-only-college-era bedroom to wake me with her tears on the morning of September 11, 2001.

I sit at my desk grading student essays about emerging trends and I feel slapped in the face by how very little my students know about the world. I read of the dreadful (not their opinion, mine) re-emergence of acid wash jeans, facebooking, iPods. I read lines about how iPods made listening to music on-the-go a popular activity (anybody ever heard of a Walkman/Discman/Boom Box?) I read lines that parallel boot cut jeans with the 90's (wait, don't I still buy boot cut?). One student writes about how adults are finally catching on to the Facebook craze (because, apparently, the first members of FB weren't adults--apparently, teenagers set all trends?).

It is reiterated to me that 17 years ago, the age of most of my juniors, it was 1993. Their capacity for long-term memory kicked in somewhere around 1996. 1996! And their perception of 1996 was through the eyes of a three-year-old.

They're babies.

I suddenly feel very old. Very old and weathered. Yesterday, I swear, I was young and hip and semi-trendy. Yesterday, I was the youthful expert on cutting edge technology. I had great taste. I listened to the indie, the edgie, the youthful. But not today. Today I'm the tired old teacher-lady informing a student that it was an "8 track" not an "Atrax", and that 30 is, in fact, not quite middle aged. Today I am the boring, unhip woman who droned on about something-something-something "you'll be at the movies and there'll be a gaggle (yeah, old women use "gaggle") of young hoodlums (they use "hoodlums" too) seated behind you. And you'll think to yourself Phhht! Teenagers! I was never that annoying! I'm here to tell you--and remember this moment--you were."

* image found here

P.S. The best part about all of this, of course, is that they get to look back through photos of their adolescence in acid wash and wonder, What in the hill was I thinking? This comforts me at night.

On Socks

Growing up, we had a basket that sat atop the dryer in the laundry room. It was filled with socks. Baby socks and daddy socks and fuzzy socks and ankle socks and slouchy socks and white(ish) socks and black socks. Socks and socks and socks.

Every month or so, my lovely mother would get the itch for Super Chore Saturday. So along with the usual dishes-mopping-vacuuming-variety-chores, the patio was to be cleaned off, the linens closet organized, and, the most dreaded chore of all: the sock basket's contents were to be sorted into mates.

It was a hellish job. Sure, you were the one who got to watch tv while doing your chore, but you were also the one stuck still doing your chore while everybody else had long finished and gotten on with their Saturday. And, worst of all, most of the socks just didn't have mates. The dryers and gym lockers of the world had swallowed up the mates whole. Even still, socks disappear into thin air. Today I throw those lonely socks away if the mate doesn't show up in the next round of laundry. But back then, my frugal father never allowed us to throw away a thing. He held out hope that one day the missing socks might return.

I seem to recall a single argyle knee sock (circa the decade prior to my birth) haunting the wonder years of my childhood.

You know where this is heading, I'm guessing. This sock story of mine. But then, maybe you don't fully understand. You see, I've been thinking how very like the mate-less sock basket the world views we singles to be. The well-meaning sock-matched people of the world want to empty that basket so they can go out and play. Nobody likes leftover socks. So they begin their matching attempts:

They'll put a blue sock with a black sock, and sometimes they pull it off in the right light: nobody sees the truth--the two aren't a perfect pair. And so the sock basket dwindles. Soon, the leftover socks start to look like some quirky modern art collection. The match-maker wonders, "When did I get so many strange socks?" And pretty soon they're desperate to just clean the basket out already. I mean, the sun is getting lower in the Saturday sky. They start mating a pink fuzzy house sock with a novelty pink Easter sock featuring a carrot. But while both socks might be pink, yes, who could stand to spend a day in such attire? But the match-maker wants that basket empty. They need to mate each sock. They get to the point of desperation. They think: well this fishnet thigh high is technically a sock, and that leg warmer from 1982 is sort of a sock, so surely this must work.

So the well-meaning people put the two together. And some poor fool spends an evening with a fishnet stocking on one ankle and a leg warmer on the other and it is every bit as awkward as you might imagine. And that same person returns the two to the mismatched sock basket atop the dryer later that evening. And in a couple of months, someone will try another desperate match. Meanwhile the other fishnet is hiding in the back of a drawer somewhere waiting to be discovered and reunited with its mate. And the other leg warmer? Well, with some socks, there just isn't any hope.

This Is Your Life

This move, I've made the wise decision to purge. My philosophy runs something like this: the more I recycle/donate/throw out, the less I have to move and find a place for next weekend. It is kind of like my own personal episode of Clean House on Style Network, except there's no Miss Niecy and really it's more like Clean Storage Closet (while the rest of the house becomes a disaster).

This act of purging has been a visit to my former selves. Days of sorting through old letters, journals, birthday cards, arrow-folded high school notes, concert and musical programs, essays and tests and pictures--the stuff my life is made of--have blown on the embers of the past, firing my memory. It is interesting, visiting your life. The feelings of it all, nostalgia and gratitude spread wild and running across the living room floor. The angst-ridden residue of each letter's subject like a smooth burn scar inside me I like to run my finger over every now and again. I keep coming back to this thought: I've lived a good life. So far.

Purging has been a concrete lesson in that which matters most: material things I once thought I needed are hastily discarded, forgotten. But the sentimental pieces of my life still feel critical, my life's scaffolding, without which I might crumble. Value, when attached to all this sentiment, has become something entirely new. With the excavation of my life's artifacts, I'm realizing my own definitions of need and want.

I challenge you, look in your old boxes, in storage. See what you can rid yourself of, see what you cannot do without. You'd be amazed what it might teach you.

10 Years

Later this month, up in Kodiak, Alaska, my 10 year reunion will be going on. I'll not be attending for various reasons. Primarily, the fact that said event is taking place in Kodiak, Alaska (and purchasing airfare just isn't in the old budget). And then there's the little bit about having attended at KHS only two years. Not to mention that I've somehow managed to remain in contact with anyone who is/was my friend during that time. But mostly, I have no desire to drop $1000 on a plane ticket to go and watch people I don't really know or like get sloshed all weekend.

It seems a strange phenomenon, these reunions: popping in every 10 years to get an update on people's lives, remembering our awful hair and fashion choices, listening to the old bands we still love. The truth is we go for one primary reason: curiosity. We need to know what happened to the rest of them. Perhaps it is because the social stratification of high school was much more condensed and obvious. Forced into one building together for three to four years, we shuffled out into a Social Darwinian food chain. We can't help but wonder if the structure of that chain remains intact.

This weekend, I bumped into this movie:

If you've never watched it, do. Though, for those with a sensitivity for language, try and find the version edited for television as the "F-bombs" abound. Essentially, it is about a hired hit man returning to his 10 year high school reunion. It is dark and slightly twisted but oh-so-funny. And, now this is important, it features John Cusack, who has captured my heart ever since he played Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. Beyond the brilliant concept, however, it hits on this idea that we all come from somewhere. And we're all still carrying around a little baggage from adolescence.

And perhaps that is why we really go to high school reunions: to drop off some of who we used to be so we don't have to carry it around anymore.

Words Escape Me

When it comes to the fashion "sense" of adolescents, little surprises me. In case you hadn't received the memo, the 80s are returning. Leg warmers are frequently slouching beneath desks, stone-washed purple jeans and other atrocities reminiscent of my childhood are slinking into my classroom after the bell. Some students prefer to move in four extra sizes of clothing, while some gender-benders have been found squeezing their chicken legs into the skinny cut jeans in the girls' section. Yes, adolescents and appearance-self-expression go hand-in-hand.

I've seen almost everything and I am rarely shocked. But today, while driving home from work, I saw something sauntering down the sidewalk that stretched my tolerance for fashion freedom.

Picture a teenage girl in a short, pleated plaid skirt. But not just any school-girl skirt. Oh no, this one had an accessory.



Yes, you guessed correctly there. Swinging in rhythm with the mini-skirt was one of these atrocities you see above. I'd seen this grotesque "something extra" once before on one of those hopeless individuals who spends a week with Clinton and Stacy on What Not to Wear. I thought that person was, perhaps, just that special, endearingly eccentric kind that frequents WNTW, that the tail was a fluke. But no, no, no. Never fear. These dead rodent unnecessaries placed (in the correct anatomical position) exactly where one's tailbone ends, are available far and wide. And on ebay.

And I say here again: Sometimes the words just escape me.

17 Miles

Growing up, we didn't travel much as a family.  In my parents' defense, you can imagine the enormity of shoving 10 yours, mine, and ours children into the family station wagon and you start to see why one trip to Yellowstone early on in their marriage (and in my young life--I was too young to remember the nightmare) was the only vacation I think we ever ALL went on together.

But one travel experience that took place several times every year was the long drive down to my grandfather's house in Antimony, Utah (pop. 122).  My dad loaded the willing into the car for a long weekend of sitting around listening to adults talk about people you didn't know and were possibly related to. People who were probably dead. It was misery, but I never missed an opportunity to go because it was a "vacation," a rare opportunity. And home was equally boring, though it had more toys. And even though the only television allowed came in the form of my grandfather watching Jeopardy, "the ball game," and the 10 o'clock news on full volume, there was something about it all that kept me coming back. Maybe it was in hopes of the slight chance that my dad would drive us the hour and a half to Bryce Canyon on back roads (all dirt, mind you-- I never knew there was a major highway that would take you here). We'd drive with stops along the way at the Antimony Merc, the ugliest all-dirt cemetery where my grandmother is buried right near the entrance, and at a condemned "haunted!" mill (the highlight) that I easily could have been severely paralyzed in had the rotted out wood given out under the weight of me (now that I think of it, my father--never blessed with the red flag warnings of a potential worst case scenario--was insane to take us here).

The drive down was equally as boring. My father didn't believe in purchasing the treasures to be found in the gas station. Nope, the cooler was stocked with homemade, soggy sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil (my "frugal" father thinks even ziploc bags are unnecessary) and a 2 liter of Shasta. Needless to say, I typically tried to fall asleep by Provo.

After enduring the long, miserable trip, typically in the dark, watching, waiting for the numbers to shrink on the green signs reading "Cedar City 228 miles" and "Richfield 73 miles," Antimony finally showed up, glowing like a beacon, at the entrance of UT S.R. 22. "Antimony 17 miles" it reads. And though I'd been stuck in the backseat for hours as it was, those final 17 miles always took the longest. At the end of those 17 miles was my grandpa's porch light, his dog Tibby barking in the night, the blaring sports report on the 10 o'clock news, and a big, rough hug with my grandfather's gruff Hello Schweethaht! in my ear. The drive down was miserably long, indeed, but those 17 miles were torture. The longest leg of the trip.

I haven't driven those 17 miles in who knows how long. My grandpa passed away at 92 while I was still in college and I've been back to his house and Antimony only once (another post for another time). But I've been thinking lately about how most of my life is a lot like those 17 miles. I feel like sometimes I am just surviving, enduring the monotony of a long road trip. Most days I'm trudging through the 17 miles to the weekend, the 17 miles to summer/winter/fall/spring. I'm living for what is next and not enjoying what is now. And I don't think I'm alone here. Life is frequently spent in auto pilot. Endurance mode. But sometimes, you can look up in the dark night along UT S.R. 22 and there are more stars out there than you've ever seen in the city. Sometimes the moon blinks its single silver-blue eye in the dark, murky water of Otter Creek Reservoir as you pass, and it is beautiful. This change will be a challenge, but I really want to work on redefining my idea of enjoyable moments. Life is lived in that in-between time. Life is lived in those 17 miles. Rather than thinking those miles to be a monotonous torture, I want to work on thinking of those 17 miles as my life. Wish me luck!

(And, seriously, what was my dad thinking, letting me walk around in that condemned mill?)

www.Death.com OR Further Proof That We're All a Little Insecure

When I was in college I was a poetry geek. It is true. I worked for the literary magazine my university published every year. Each week I met on the library's second floor with a group of fellow poets and friends. We even wrote a grant (well, our professor wrote a grant because let's face it I'm still not quite certain how one goes about writing a grant) to publish a volume of our work together. We thrived in language and imagery. We were cocky and young as only university students with their lives ahead of them can be. We were sort of snobby and elitist. And, to be honest, we took ourselves a bit too seriously, dropping lines like "honing our craft" and "I'm unclear on the antecedent here" like I dribble soup down the front of my shirt at nearly every restaurant between here and Hoboken.

That is the nice part about college. One can be peacockish there and everyone else reinforces the behavior. Preened by professors, praised by parents, one grows certain that they are the deepest thinker, the most sophisticated, and that the world is waiting for them, bachelor degree in hand. Perhaps it is because I belonged, full-bodied, to the generation of praise junkies. But, then again, maybe this was all just me (I've always been prone to delusions of grandeur, though, "one possessor of an overactive imagination" is the euphemism I prefer).

But I've gone on an unnecessary side trip. Back to The Poetry Geeks. We geeks meshed together when invited to a special week-long daily seminar and workshopping session with Robert Dana. Now before I go into the gory details of our week with Robert Dana, I must first say this: Writers, like most artists (and the vast majority of people, really), are full of themselves. They come to these literary and writing conferences as nobility. They come as guest writers at universities and, for a week, they live the life of a minor celebrity. Throngs (slight hyperbole there) of writing and poetry geeks trail behind them, hoping for that holy grail word of advice which ensures their shot at geeky publication. I won't get started on the boundary-crossing, student/guest writer romantic interludes that frequent these week-long visits, because I never crossed this boundary, one, and more importantly I find no reason to dwell on middle aged men's obsessions with the barely legal. It gives me the shivers. 'Nough said.

Now, when it comes to swollen heads, Robert Dana was no exception. I guess he had a right to it. He, with a few key individuals, built the powerhouse that is the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was Iowa's state poet laureate for a time. He is known in literary circles throughout the US. And, to his credit, Dana, to my knowledge, never took advantage of a poor co-ed. But the man was ever-sure of himself. He lived life with the firm knowledge that he had "it." And, looking at much of his poetry of the past, he did have "it" at one time.

This attitude of himself carried into our workshop sessions. We scrawny, sniveling college students knew nothing and he knew everything was the basic theme of the week. This treatment tainted our view of his greatness. His new volume (the most recent collection of his poems we had to purchase in order to attend his seminar, of course) lacked that certain something one would like to see in poetry. And, feeling insulted as we did, we poetry geeks spoke mercilessly at his expense and the expense of his rather bad poetry when he wasn't in the room. Afterall, we were nearly as big-headed as he was just without having earned the right.

The last straw of his conceit was our culminating project: a Friday night reading. We'd each taken a brief five minutes sharing our work, when the star of the show took the stage, er podium, for a while. Somewhere in the midst of the reading, he set up his next reading, a poem about the death of a neighbor. He shared with the small audience that this poem had his favorite line he had ever written in a poem in it. He thought himself so clever. He read it with all the drama and histrionics and cheesy seriousness that only a poet can. His favorite line? You guessed it.

www dot Death dot com

We couldn't control ourselves, some of us might have vomited a little in our mouths, others may have even snickered a little (because we were so mature, afterall). This was his crowning glory? Poor Robert Dana. Poor Robert Dana's dead neighbor.

Now why do I tell this story? Frankly, I started to write it because it makes me laugh, and I got the obligatory thank you card in the mail for attending a poetry geek's reception last month. But, always the English teacher, I can't leave this post without a conclusion. What's the point? I'd ask my students. I guess the point is that we are all a little cocky and conceited. We all are a bit too full of ourselves. And we use this to compensate because deep down we all are a little insecure. Even Robert Dana. The nice thing about life is that eventually we get knocked down off those pedastals. Eventually life teaches us that we aren't peacocks, but people. Eventually we learn the graceful art of humility. And as much as it hurts to feel like a donkey's hind quarters, isn't it great that sometimes we get that humbling opportunity? And, I say it again: www.Death.com is THE WORST line I've ever read in a poem. Ever.

Family and Shtuff

There is an undeniable fact about siblings. No matter how old you grow, your siblings will always have plenty of blackmailing material. They know all about your awkward years and how inappropriate you can act when you're angry. If they wanted, they could mercilessly embarrass you in a crowd about a former speech impediment whilst saying "Kentucky Fried Chicken" (turn the "kent" into an "f" and you'll see why I will never live this down).

Yes, siblings have dirt on you and a history that started the day you were born. Adjusting the sibling relationship from childhood to adolescence to adulthood can be a tricky path. I am lucky that my course with each of my siblings has run like smooth water under a bridge. And even if I don't speak to all of them every day, seeing one another after a too much time is always enjoyable, if not surreal. Suddenly the world makes a strange sort of sense again and I remember all too clearly why it is that I am the way I am.


Last week my (much taller than I am) Seattle-ite older (I always have to throw that in--my only payback for the tortured slavery that was youngest sibling-hood) sister and her husband were in town for her 20th high school reunion. Within 12 hours my mom's house already smelled like her distinct Seattle-scent (a hybrid of kale, herbs and seasonings, her "hippie oils", and damp fresh evergreen forest).

Stine and I are 11 years apart. She was half sister, half momma to all of us. I recall that it was Stine who disciplined me by squirting Basic H (my "naturalist" mother's Shaklee-long-before-it-appeared-on-Oprah-version-soap) on my tongue the first time I ever said "shit". I love her hippie Buddhist massage therapist health guru self to the core. She is good through and through. She is forever the animated drama queen. We went for pedicures together and chatted away and I was reminded of how much we all talk with our hands.

And, based on these photos from our visit, you'll see that she has one pose, and one pose only when it comes to the camera...Demure. She and her (not to be mistaken with know-it-all) knows-everything (no, really, he actually does know everything and expresses it all so eloquently) husband, Lyam, were kind enough to allow me to practice with my new camera while they chanted, showed off their tattoos, and chatted. The lighting was awful, but I made do.



My eligible bachelor brother, Richard, and his boys were around at the same time, and they haven't made any appearances on my blog yet so I thought I'd show off their boyish charm while I'm at it:



All in all, I'd say it was a good day hanging out with "my people."

10 Years Older...and a Self Portrait

Today I spent some time reading this post and this post by the Pioneer Woman (I know these were posted a while back but it seems I'm always lagging behind on her blog). For those of you who won't link up to see what was said I'll give you the low-down: basically she talked about where we end up in life compared to where we thought we'd be 10 or 20 years ago. Her story was interesting, but honestly, the comments in the second post captured my attention most--how uniquely similar we all are. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting topic of discussion and it got me thinking about a topic I brush over every now and again.

10 years ago I was ready for my senior year of high school at Kodiak High (woo. go bears.). I thought that in ten years I'd be married (after completing my degree at a college "back East" and perhaps a mission somewhere exotic and incredible) for two years to my oh-so-perfect husband and my first child (Emma) would be brand new or possibly on her way (I was a timeline planner, what can I say?). I figured I'd live somewhere other than Utah and I'd work as a stage actress and possibly appear in a commercial or two. But that, because of kids, I'd maybe step away from my great career for a while. Yes, I actually thought this would be my life in my heart of hearts. At 17, I recall now, I was oh-so-naive.

Fast forward 10 years and I'm single and childless and living in Utah with a roommate, my best friend, and the thought of performing on a stage or appearing on camera makes me sweat a bit under my arms. College happened in my hometown while I lived in my parents basement (because anyone with a brain could tell you that financially this would be the wisest decision). I'm not sure if my 17-year-old self would be crushed by this news or not. What I know is that I am very happy with where I am at.

I can't imagine what career I would prefer to teaching because, though I complain about it and it exhausts me, performing in the classroom is my life's work, my niche . I feel I get better at it every year and when it is good in that room, wow! how it feels to know you made a kid think about their world! And when it is bad in that room you always have a good story to share.

The past few years of single-hood have been a blessing. I know myself. I know what is important. And while a good marriage would be nice, I know that I am very content to keep busy until a good marriage presents itself. What doesn't appeal to me: a mediocre marriage for the sake of being married and no longer "alone."

And the thing about this supposed loneliness is, that I'm not. I'm lucky enough to live with my best friend who is like-minded and witty and good. I have a wonderfully mixed up, dysfunctional, and loving family that I get to live not far from because I'm living in Utah. And while I'm not a mom yet, have you seen the pictures of my nieces and nephews? C'mon--that is more than most could hope for!

So, 10 years later I can say that I'm nowhere near that place I thought I'd be. And it is fine by me.

Oh, and here's my squinting self-portrait challenge submission for this week:

Memory Maker...A Meme of Sorts

I've seen this on the blogs of a few other people and thought it was kind of fun. Reading the comments is the exceptionally entertaining bit. Here's what you do:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Are You Ready to Rock?

Back when Barbie was my vicarious-living-experience of choice so many, many years ago, she had herself a Rock & Roll band (one of her many multi-faceted career choices). "Barbie and the Rockers" was a strategically launched mixture of MTV culture and the every-so-cool toy industry and I, along with several other friends on the block, had multiple members of this metallic-clad, glam-rock-haired, neon-sock-wearing musicians in my Barbie collection. This, ladies and gentlemen, was the closest I ever got to being a Rock Goddess (excluding my friggen' awesome solos whilst driving in the car, naturally).

That is until now...

Alice's dear Papa received this little baby for his Wii recently and I must say that I never knew I had such tendencies for video game addiction in me. I play a pretty mean drum set and I'm honing my guitar skills (set on EASY mode, of course--no reason to get too far ahead of myself).

I am still uncertain whether I am exponentially cooler holding a guitar or not. (Does it count if said guitar happens to be a fake?)