Thankful

I am thankful for:

--My relationship with God.  I feel such strength in acknowledging and actively participating in my life as a woman of faith.  I had doubts for a very long time--I still do, in fact--but I believe anyway.  Isn't that what true faith is?

--Therapy.  The couple of months I spent talking to a complete stranger about the fears I've carried for years helped me to let down so many burdens.  I feel lighter, freer, and more capable of loving myself than I ever did before.

--My job and my students.  I wake up every morning excited about my day, thrilled that I get to speak to inquisitive young men and women who are learning about the world and their place in it.  Their optimism and curiosity is the greatest byproduct of my job; I am so proud to be a teacher.

--Love.  Over the last year, I have discovered real love cannot be denied or ignored, hidden or masked, forgotten or undone.  This is quite possibly the most shocking and breathtakingly beautiful lesson I have ever learned.  It is also without a doubt the hardest.

A few lamps are lit, the house is aglow with warm yellow light, the only sound in the room is the breathing of my sleeping dog.  In this stillness I hear my heartbeat thumping out two words, over and over: thankful, thankful, thankful.

Reading

This morning I (1) finished a novel, (2) read a tongue-in-cheek manual on how to be a good boyfriend, and this afternoon (3) I read another novel.  

I find, often, that words are the escape I need when I can't articulate what's happening in my own life.  It's not that I don't know what I want to say, it's that the language with which to say it is so evasive it may as well be a boy--okay, boys--I made out with at parties in high school who, come Monday, look at me like I am a visitor from another planet.  Words can be just that distant, with that same glassy 'please don't talk to me and make me admit we were close in any sort of way once' stare.  I have loved language longer than I have loved boys, but that doesn't make it any easier to adore.  

When I read something that makes me vocal--a sigh, an inward 'mmm hmm,' a catch of breath at something to beautiful to be real--I know that work is good.  Maybe not all 215 pages are well crafted, but that one sentence or phrase that gives pause, that yanks sound from deep within my chest and forces it through the thick red wall of my throat until the noise escapes, hanging in the room like yardsale curtains, lovely and thrilling for being cheap but always somehow feeling like they belong in someone else's house.

Emily Dickinson said to Thomas Wentworth Higginson--a man she saucily propositioned with the a version of the question "Tell me sir if you think my poems might be alive?"-- that she only knew if a thing were poetry if "...it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it.  Is there any other way?"  (and even she was stealing--this is apparently paraphrased from her sister-in-law with whom it is rumored Emily was quite enamored).  My point is, all of us, at one time or another, get the itch, the bug, the burn. the wild hair to express just what it is these magical expressions of others have done to us, and even we--writers by choice, word lovers by fate--don't always know how to do it without paraphrasing.

These are three things that got me today.  I hope you read something that moves you soon, and I hope you share it with me.

1. "We have a great belief, those of us who live in this income bracket and this postal district, in the power of words: we read, we write, we talk, we have therapists and counselors and even priests who are happy to listen to us and tell us what to do.  So it comes as a bit of a shock to me that my words, big words it seemed to me at the time, words that would change my life, might just as well have been bubbles: David  swatted them away and they popped, and tehre is no evidence anywhere that they ever existed. 

So now what?  What happens when words fail us?"--How to be Good--Nick Hornby

2.  "Think of the first boyfriend, Adam. You think he wasn't baffled by his girlfriend? You bet he was. Now, there's a guy who could have used this book. You may not think he needed it -- after all, he was alone in paradise, had some snacks, and Eve was already naked. But we beg to differ.

Their problems weren't over money, getting out of dinner with her parents, or his addiction to online poker. No, their issues revolved around a small piece of red fruit. God said, "Don't eat it." Eve said, "If you love me you'll bite." The poor guy had God on one side and Eve on the other; talk about a rock and a hard place. Adam tried to reason with his girl, warning her of the dangers of breaking the one rule God had made, but she wouldn't listen. From her point of view it wasn't about the apple or God (she wasn't hungry and had never even met the Big Guy in the sky), it was about whether her boyfriend took her seriously and understood her feelings. Sound familiar? In her mind, Adam was trying to control her … again. Talk about a power trip. Who died and left him in charge? There he was telling her what to eat, what not to eat, and by the way, was this "don't eat the apple" thing his way of letting her know he thought she was fat? Great."--The Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend--Felicity Huffman & Patricia Wolff (I bought this for the 50s noir book covers that corresponded to each chapter title but decided to  read the dang thing before I cut the book apart)

3. "Lying in bed, at night, my stomach growled. I rolled over and tucked my knees to my chest. I saw myself smaller and smaller, like a seed in the black night soil of the earth. Here were the stars and here was the city. Here was the net of the world and I was waiting deep down inside it.

In the morning, I took one piece of strawberry-blond hair and cut it with a razor, zigzag bangs across my forehead; I hemmed my skirt three inches above the bare knee; I blacked out my eyes with kohl, just like Astrid did. I had always been such a nice girl; I was still such a nice girl. My mother took one look at me and asked, "Why would you want to be like that?"

I ask you, why, why not?"--Whores on the HIll, Collen Curran

New Words

I am buried by grading which tends to exhaust and irritate me.  However, I learned two new words today--thanks to the inexpert editing of my students--that I simply must share with you.

MULTIPUBLE, as in "he had done so multipuble of times", and PANTYHOES, as in "he kept his girlfriends pantyhoes to remind him of home".

Who's got the OED address?  These are in dire need of being added.

Whitman

Most days, I believe there is something in me greater than myself.  A capacity to love, an inclination towards compassion, an ability to empathize.  Most days, I am confident, secure in the truths I know about my strength, my talents, my worthiness of love.  Most days, I can shake off a bad dream, the kind that wakes me in a sweat, hair sticking to my neck, mouth dry, throat parched as if I've been screaming.  Most days, I know everything is going to be alright, that all will be well, that the dreams I have will come true.
On the other days, I read Whitman.  From "Song of Myself" (section 51):

There is that in me... I do not know what it is... but I know it is in me.
Wrenched and sweaty... calm and cool then my body becomes;
I sleep... I sleep long.
I do not know it... it is without name... it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary or utterance or symbol.
Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Long Overdue

Music has been a part of my life longer than I can remember.  The story around my house is that the first song I ever learned was "She's Always a Woman" by Billy Joel from the '77 record The Stranger.  I don't recall my parents owning this record, but I learned it somehow--radio most likely--and would wander around the house, two years old and already crooning, the word 'woman' over an over again.  As in, 'woman woman woman.'  Even then, I knew what I was going to grow to be.

For a while this year, I've had a hard time listening to music.  So much of it inspires such bone deep reactions--from tears to melancholy to the unbridled wildness inspired by Heart's Barracuda.  Seriously, if I'm ever pulled over for speeding it will probably be because I was listening to this song and singing at top volume.  There are moments in life when my own emotions are so close to my skin that I simply cannot hear a song that will push me over the edge.  But, I'm not having any of those moments right now.

In fact, I can't get enough of my music.  I was wandering through old cds last night and realized how much good music I own that I never listen to simply because I get caught up in whatever's current in my ipod or cd player.  Today, grayish cold and windy, I am going to wallow in my music collection, cassette tapes, vinyl, and all nearly 1000 cds will get a peak, what to keep, what to retire.  I haven't been this excited about a long indulgent Saturday in a while.  Here's the gem from the morning--if you haven't heard this in a while, you--like me--are long overdue for a listen:

The Book of Love

There is a song by The Magnetic Fields called "The Book of Love," that Peter Gabriel covered (I know, there's humor in the original, Gabriel's is more of a ballad).  And every time I hear the Gabriel version (and I mean EVERY time)--brings me to tears.  There is something in it that grips my heart and pulls it up into my throat until I am gulping back sobs that want to take over my whole body.


The first time I heard it, and the time tonight that prompted this post, was in the film "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and Jennifer Lopez.  I have a thing for Sarandon--ever since Bull Durham I have wanted to, in one way or another, be her--and I secretly love Lopez, too.  I think she is simply beautiful, and I believe her in films.  Is she the greatest actress?  Well, she's certainly no Sarandon, but there's something likable about her.  And so, I watch this movie whenever I see it is on, and the song slays me again and again.


The thing is, every time I hear this song, I imagine someone saying these words to me or--better yet--proposing while this song plays.  I know, I know.  Silly.  But, see, I never had a real romantic proposal.  I love my ex-husband, he is a good man, a wonderful friend, but we both played at marriage like two kids who felt like it was what grown ups did; neither of us really knew what that meant.  So, the proposal wasn't thought out or romantic at all, it just sort of happened.  And I didn't think I minded at the time because I'd convinced myself I didn't need or want some elaborate thing, but honestly, I did.  


I do.


So, silly as it may sound, I want every damn thing in this song.  Someone to love me like this.  It may be a long time before I have that, but I believe I will someday because I deserve it.  


We all do.

An Open Letter to 6th Hour

Dear Students,

Today I had to speak to you in tones harsher than I have had to use with you before.  You all sat, wide-eyed, silent, knowing my words of admonishment were founded, that your behavior yesterday--when I was gone for a district meeting and you had a substitute--was completely uncalled for.  You knew, with every word I spoke, that you had done wrong.  In fact, you confessed to it even before my take down began, saying you knew you had been "really bad" yesterday.

You told me you missed me.  Several of you, as you walked into this room, said you had missed me yesterday because I make you laugh, or because you like hearing me lecture--this one nearly floored me--or because you look forward to seeing me all day.  You said such nice things, it made me sick to think of all the negativity I was about to rain down on you.

But, 6th hour, I have to put you on lockdown.  I had to tell you how disappointed I was, had to make you see that your behavior was wildly disrespectful to the substitute, to yourselves and to me--the teacher so many of you profess to love.  I had to do this so that you would understand our dynamic, laughing and relaxed and open, is one to be valued and honored, not taken for granted. 

You should know I hate speaking to you like that.  Telling you that I was sick all day thinking of the speech I was going to have to give you, how hurt my feelings were that you would act like that, that any help you needed would have to be solicited through email or before or after school because you had lost the privilege of getting my help today.  And now, watchin gyou work so seriously, trying so hard to prove you are better than the humans you were in this room at this time yesterday afternoon, my heart is so full of love for you all that I am having to bite my tongue not to say so. 

You are a good class, 6th hour, a great class even, fun and curious and full of energy--all things I encourage and that will serve you well in the future--but today's lesson is one knowing hte right time and place and audience for such exuberance.  It is an awful, sad lesson to learn, and I am so sorry to have to be the one to teach it to you, but that is my job.  I don't want you to just be better writers, better readers, better critical thinkers; I want you to be better humans.  I want us all to be.

Love--Ms. D