The Day the Devil
Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
The Day The Devil The day the devil comes to getcha you know him by the way he smiles The day the devil comes to getcha He's a rusty truck with only twenty miles He's got bad brakes he's got loose teeth He's a long way from home The day the devil comes to getcha he's got a smile like a scar He knows the way to your house
The Day The Devil The day the devil comes to getcha you know him by the way he smiles The day the devil comes to getcha He's a rusty truck with only twenty miles He's got bad brakes he's got loose teeth He's a long way from home The day the devil comes to getcha he's got a smile like a scar He knows the way to your house He's got the keys to your car And when he sells you his sportcoat You say: Funny! That's my size Attention shoppers! Everybody please rise Give me back my innocence Get me a brand new suit Give me back my innocence Oh Lord! Cut me down to size Well you can hide under the porch And you can hide behind the couch But the day the devil comes to getcha He's right on time Here he comes Well I'm sick of hearin bout your problems Yeah girlie your breakin my heart I'm the original party animal Hey! Hey! Babaloo So don't come bangin your Bibles Cause you've been laughin all the way to the bank And don't give me those crocodile tears Cause you've been doing it for years I'm everywhere! Sign right here Mr. Jones The day the devil comes to getcha He's a long way from home And you know he's gonna getcha Cause you're stuck in the middle Everybody please rise Give me back my innocence Get me a brand new suit Give me back my innocence Oh Lord! Cut me down to size Give me back my innocence Get me a new Cadillac Cause when I get on up to heave Lord You can have it all back Cause in heaven, you get it all back In heaven it all comes back Cause in heaven, you get it all back In heaven Cause in heaven...... In heaven......
He's got the keys to your car And when he sells you his sportcoat You say: Funny! That's my size Attention shoppers! Everybody please rise Give me back my innocence Get me a brand new suit Give me back my innocence Oh Lord! Cut me down to size Well you can hide under the porch And you can hide behind the couch But the day the devil comes to getcha He's right on time Here he comes Well I'm sick of hearin bout your problems Yeah girlie your breakin my heart I'm the original party animal Hey! Hey! Babaloo So don't come bangin your Bibles Cause you've been laughin all the way to the bank And don't give me those crocodile tears Cause you've been doing it for years I'm everywhere! Sign right here Mr. Jones The day the devil comes to getcha He's a long way from home And you know he's gonna getcha Cause you're stuck in the middle Everybody please rise Give me back my innocence Get me a brand new suit Give me back my innocence Oh Lord! Cut me down to size Give me back my innocence Get me a new Cadillac Cause when I get on up to heave Lord You can have it all back Cause in heaven, you get it all back In heaven it all comes back Cause in heaven, you get it all back In heaven Cause in heaven...... In heaven......
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. Thoreau
Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Has it really been that long since I’ve written anything? Well not really. I wrote beaucoup papers for my class this last semester. Actually I probably, no most assuredly, wrote above and beyond what was required because that’s just how I do things (I refuse to insert “how I roll” because that will make me look an ass, er oops). So perhaps most of my words went in that direction. If you consider that my last paper needed to be about 5 pages and ended up being 15 with visual aids, well then you see why I’ve been quiet here.
Ok, odd ITunes shuffle moment:: Emily Wells, Dresden Dolls, Guster, then the Cox Family, Richard Yeoman Clark:Waltz Antipahy? The jury is still out for me on Guster though I do love Carol of the Meows (how shocking).
Got completely sidetracked there danceing with Em to Paul Simon’s Graceland. It’s nice that I can listen to that album. love that album even if it was (and sort of still is) associated with my ex husband. I haven’t yet been able to listen to Loreena McKennit (associated with Rick)
And then again sidetracked by a friend’s trauma. Being accused of things he didn’t do, perhaps only because he was gay.
I had other things to write. About following my dreams, about finally finding the strength to pursue what I was told was not a worthwhile calling.
Yet, yet… life gets in the way. That music, that dancing with my kid, that conversation with a friend.
Well I studied a lot for that test, even though I think my Master’s degree should preclude that. That FOUR POINT in my master’s. Yeah I can’t be a teacher with just that. I get taking theory and teaching practicums but REALLY are you saying that my master’s degree isn’t good enough to teach high school? WTF? Well everyone has to take those tests. I could have lots to say about those tests but perhaps not right right now. I think though they might be excluding many gifted educators.
oops another friend conversation got in the way Ah that is life. I have taken tests. I have studied to distraction. I have lived in times not my own, though I wish they could be. And then I have spat them out on a mulitple question form. Why my Master’s degree is not good enough escapes me, but I wish to help us go forward as a species so I must color in the dots. YES I think what we read and how we read it is significant in how we progress as a species and I will teach with this feeling in my back pocket.
And John Barrowman–with Torchwood and his lovely music.
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it. ~Shaw Man and Superman
Friday, February 13th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 5 Comments
So though I am loathe to share anything about this journey until success is guaranteed, I feel as if I must. Today I had my interview for the Masters in Teaching program at the UofA. I’ve actually been working towards this for about a year. I started off in the Non Traditional Licensure program and then discovered that getting that certification was not as beneficial as going through a university program. And that you could actually go through the program, pay the money and if you didn’t secure acceptable employment, you’d lose your license. Seems like a risk, since hiring around these parts that program is at the bottom. And I want to teach so very much.
I withdrew from the NTLP when I realized this and began the process of hoping to be admitted to the MA at the UofA. This has been humbling to say the least. I already have an MA and I did very well, even though Bev Voloshin degraded our degrees as only being from a state university, it was still not an easy thing to pull off a four point. And work, and go through a divorce. I think I’m still bothered with her disparaging us while she taught in the department, but hey, her karma not mine.
Of course I digress; this entry is about digression because how I have come to this is all about digression. I wanted to be a high school English teacher when I graduated from high school. I let myself be talked out of it as not prestigious enough. How sad is that–both me being talked out of it and the fact that the job of teaching our kids isn’t prestigious? I got my BA and tried law school and left it before formally enrolling. I was told by a really nice prof at Hastings, where I went for a “so you want to be a lawyer” day that I really wasn’t suited to it. I will not name his/her name but it came down to the fact that it was obvious to me what right and wrong was and that I would harm my psyche by making that malleable. I’m still grateful. While I enjoy reading in/about the law I am uncomfortable with so much about the law and the fact I could never fully defend someone in whom I didn’t believe.
And there is actually a crux. I need passion and desire to drive what I do. A belief that what I’m doing makes some sort of difference. Well mostly. When I worked in tech it was all for the love of the puzzle. I enjoyed and needed the challenge of the puzzle. How to make things work that shouldn’t. Or wouldn’t or didn’t. I loved being the one who came through with the impossible solution. It fed my brain in a way that offered completion. A problem, work, then a solution. MY solution. I made things work.
But I made things work for money. And some good money. I’m glad I did too. I’m glad I have that mastery behind me. I did things, built things, made things that are still running today. I, an English major, built large, freaking large computer networks. And they were elegant and functioned so very well. (Even after a male boss told me that girls shouldn’t do computers, that still cracks me up).
And, as they say, it was good. Until…
Until it got to be too much. Until I never got to stop. Until I couldn’t go home, turn it off, stop working. And until something became more important. That was the difficult conception and birth of our daughter. I have some things I’m very very proud of and the birth of our daughter is at the top of that list, right there with getting my Master’s in English and marrying J and being a devoted catmom. And building the most elegant multi state network I could conceive of. Perhaps I am supposed to say giving birth is always the finest achievement, but honestly women have been doing that for years and I did nothing special, as difficult as it was (complications). My personal achievements…well I worked for years on those. But our daughter changed priorities for me.
I realized it isn’t just about personal achievement, though honestly I enjoy good grades/reviews/raises. It’s about a legacy. I learned that as I watched my mother’s husband die. What will YOU regret as you realize there is so little time left? What will you wish you could have done? Had more time for? And as I spent time talking with him and learning a little more about his life, as I was lucky enough to do before my own father died, I realized I need to be the one who fires up teenagers for words. For Shakespeare’s words. For Ibsen’s and Gogol’s, for Shaw and Marlowe. Because this is where our soul, our collective soul resides. We have all felt everything they’ve written, they just put the pen to paper, or the typewriter or the computer. It may be out of fashion now, in this world of numbers and dollars to speak of our ineffable, incalculable, gorgeous soul but I mean to speak of it. It CANNOT be unimportant that we feel. It cannot be unimportant to read. It cannot be unimportant to learn to read beneath and between the lines. How else do you find a way to love, but through the words of Shakespeare or Michelle Tea? How else do you understand the fearful ugliness we all keep hidden except through Walter’s insanity in Chaucer’s Clerk’s tale? Why wouldn’t you write poetry? Why wouldn’t you write lyrics? And why wouldn’t I want to grasp this desire and joy and give it with both hands abundantly to a kid on the verge of feeling all these things?
Isn’t this how we feel? Isn’t this how we learn to distinguish the hair’s breadth of the difference between fear and love? Don’t words give us the meaning to our lives?
Or maybe I’m a loon. Every SINGLE time I mention what I’m doing, that I want to be a high school English teacher, someone rolls their eyes. Or sighs heavily and says “yeah, good luck.” Or “Oh god.”
Honestly, WTF? I realize I’ll lose status. Even though, should I be admitted and graduate from this program I’ll have three degrees. For some reason teachers aren’t viewed as professionals. Which is odd to me since we leave OUR CHILDREN in their care for seven hours each day. That strikes me as bizarre. Is it the bureaucracy? Is it the insane language that of the government that intrudes upon education (my early opinion, this could change). Why are people STILL trying to dissuade me?
Because I have to say–last semester I had epiphanic moments almost daily. I stood in front of a class in Elkins after reading a book I’d never read before and preparing a lesson on it–it took 9 hours–I wrote my outline on the board, sure of what I’d understood, sure of what I wanted to give to those students and I felt a joy so amazing, I felt my place in the universe, like I’d felt few times before. I wanted to give them my understanding so much it almost hurt. And this happened again nearly every single day I taught Othello at FHS. I’d go to class tired and within minutes of talking to the students that was gone, the desire for them to know Othello’s flaw and Iago’s evil–which they will see over and over and over in the world–it was so strong, I couldn’t possibly be tired, not even a little.
So there you go. I won’t know until April. but I’m so grateful to have gotten this far. I’ve been graced by some wondrous people who are helping me on this path. Should it not turn out, I have to say I’ve learned to trust in people again because of this entire journey. I’ve had such a convoluted and difficult road. I’ve seen violence and lived with fear but these people saw something worthwhile in me. After10 or in some cases 17 years, former bosses,professors and teachers have written letters, let me teach or just encouraged me to help me finally be the person I wanted to be when I dreamed unhindered by other’s viewpoints or my own fear. This gives me faith again in myself and a need to prove them right.
So why was it so bad to be a teacher again? What am I missing? Why shouldn’t I want this?
“Be courteous, be obliging, but don’t give yourself over to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade” ~George Eliot
Sunday, February 8th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I could almost say this is a ‘get off my lawn’ moment but I’m not bothered by kids, I’m bothered with adults. I think maybe kids have a handle on this “internet thing” and “the email,” (as those who have not used it long, which seem to be many in this neck of the woods) call it around here.
In the last 24 hours I’ve been on the receiving end of more net insanity and rudeness than in the entire last year. I’ve been on the net for …well I started in 1988. I’ve done BBS’s , message boards and run email lists. I’ve done it all. And I’m pretty disgusted with adults who don’t know how to behave on “the email.”
Kids do. Kids know already that you are judged by how you communicate in the ether. Kids know that words carry all the power because you can’t see faces or gestures when you are firing off emails or blathering on on a message board. In the last 24 hours I’ve been threatened with some sort of reprisal for pointing out that after making SPECIAL arrangements for me to meet someone in an inconvenient location because she was “too scared” to come to my house (in a very nice neighborhood btw, but hey, I know how it is to be nervous I used to live on 14th and Mission in San Francisco, this chick would last 4 minutes there) that the fact she stood me up, didn’t call, didn’t email and didn’t apologize after pelting me with emails all day because she really wanted to buy that phone– Deep Breath–well there is something wrong with me for pointing out that she was being rude. Good lord and the place she had me meet her is a freaking ARMPIT.
Let’s get this straight. I don’t care that she didn’t buy the phone. I care that she was too rude to write a 10 second email and say “sorry I can’t make it.” That’s all. That’s it. It is a small courtesy, that even after the fact would have been acceptable. I mean, I put myself out to make it easier on her and she couldn’t pick up the phone when I called and say “no I don’t want it anymore?” She made up an obvious lie and then when I called her on it, she went off on me and became threatening enough that I’ve compiled the information for the police. Sheesh.
This was the second time something asinine happened over this phone that day. Another woman pelted me with emails and had to have it “RIGHT NOW.” And then when I asked for a little time so that I might shower, she got snippy and went away. A third woman did something similar when I wouldn’t drive to Bentonville at 10:30 at night to sell her the phone. She made a point of being pissy to me when I emailed her the next day to see if she was still interested and that I might be able to send the phone with my husband to Bentonville, to make it easier for her.
I don’t get what is wrong with these people. Are they so new to email to think that what they do won’t be remembered? So what if the armpit girl comes up for a job with any of my computer friends? Does she think I’m not going to tell them all about her behavior? And the old lady who had to have the phone so badly that I needed to drive out at 10:30 at night–does she think she’s more special than the rest of us, so she gets to be rude for no real reason? And god forbid you wait to take a shower before selling someone a phone.
I’ve heard of cases where people have been nasty on message boards and eBay sales and then interviewed with people who knew about or were on the receiving end of the nastiness. Do you think they got the job? Nope. And this chick that’s decided to threaten me with “not physical” violence–I mean how hard is it for me to call the police and turn over the information or call her work (easy enough to find out).
What I find shocking is that I’m back living in the place where manners and courtesy are supposed to matter and in the space of 24 hours I’ve dealt with three very nasty, rude women. I spent 14 years in San Francisco and 4 in Chicago and I have to say that in terms of rudeness on the internet (in terms of a one to one transaction like freecycle, craigslist or local email sale lists) my home town is coming up lacking big time. That southern courtesy just isn’t there.
Honestly it makes me angry. It takes so little to be courteous. So little. I was in labor with the Bean and had been bidding on an ebay auction. I emailed the guy, told him what was going on and that he could absolutely count on me to pay if I won, or if he needed to cancel my bid I totally understood. But I emailed in WHILE IN LABOR. These…these, discourteous trollops who have nothing so pressing going on are unable to be the barest bit polite. Did their parents neglect this part of their education entirely? Do they not know right from wrong?
The internet is a goldmine. The internet is an incredible tool and a wonderful way to stay in touch with people you might not be physically close to any longer. But these newbies need to learn that it will eventually come back on you. Either when you try for a job, or maybe someone you’ve been nasty to ends up being your new boss. Or perhaps just karmically.
Or maybe all these people are Christian? Then what is their excuse? Isn’t this wrong under the tenets of Christianity? I’ve been to church, no one there said ” piss on your neighbor before she pisses on you.” Is it the perceived anonymity of the internet the old anonymous+internet=asshole joke? Because while we all seem to be anonymous, while we all seem to be more separated from each other than we were, it just isn’t reality. We’re all connected–by the tubes of the internet, by our daily dealings, by our guiding principles.
I guess unless you don’t have any, like these three chicks today. Feh. Or maybe they think they are too good to need manners? Or they are entitled to their bad behavior? This bad behavior is appalling and pathetic.
Our daughter is polite in public. She lacks a bit at home, though we are working on that. The problem at home is that she’s an only child and we tend to speak to her as a little adult. But in public and at school, she’s been highly praised. I’m forced to wonder what these women are teaching their children.
“Our children learn a great deal from what they see us say and do,” said Paula Levy, a family therapist in Norwalk, Conn., and mother of four ages 16-23. “They internalize these lessons even if they don’t acknowledge what we are teaching them. When they are in the comfort of their own home they relax and act as they wish. When they are with others, they want to be accepted and impress, so they use all the skills they have learned.”
I’m just betting Jamey, sue and mommy of 5 haven’t been speaking politely in front of their children. My husband and I say please and thank you to each other. Yes after nearly 10 years of marriage. When we get angry we go to our separate corners and speak to each other when we can be coherent. Perfect we aren’t but I’m going to go out on a limb and say neither of us would behave as these women did today.
So I hope you all get to experience from others what I’ve experience from you today. And I hope you all learn some manners. Shame on you.
Miss Otis Regrets
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today,
She’s so sorry to be delayed,
But last evening down in Lover’s Lane she strayed, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, madam,
When she woke up and found that her dream of love had gone, Madam,
She ran to the man who led her so far astray,
And from under her velvet gown,
She drew a gun
And she shot her lover down, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
And the moment before she died,
She lifted her lovely head and cried, “Oh, Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”
Bloggers Silent Poetry Reading
Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2009
WHERE: Your blog
http://branchesup.blogspot.com/2009/01/invitation-to-fourth-annual-brigid-in.html
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like – by a favorite poet or one of your own – to post February 2nd.
Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.
Thank you, Reya, for beginning what is now an annual event.
Here’s one from one of my favorite writers.
Men at Forty
Frozen Jack
Friday, January 30th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
First of all we are OK. NW Arkansas has been declared a disaster area. The worst Ice Storm in the state’s history. We were without power until just now–4 days in a 40 degree house, all of us dressed like bagladies. We slept in coats, hats and scarves and cooked by candle light. I re discovered how much I like coloring books. We read a lot. I didn’t get much homework done because it was too cold to think. I only cried once, when they told us yesterday it might be until Saturday or next week until the power came on.
We’re opening our house up to anyone who needs warm water and heat, just like everyone else in NWA. Click on the picture for the series. We’ll be posting some of the backyard soon, it’s even worse than the front.
All in all an adventure, but not one I’d like to have again. And James? Let’s just say he was the mighty protector and it is damn good to have a physicist around when you are talking about survival. He knew to heat water on the stove and made our drinking bottles in to hot water bottles. The cats monopolized those. Zack, the smallest red cat got right up next to one and growled when other cats tried to get close to it too–obviously he needed it all to himself.
We also found out the the fireplace does work and that we need a lot of firewood. Since we lost most of the trees in our yard, that won’t be a problem. Good thing J bought a chainsaw a few weeks ago.
It’s disjointed, this entry, but I”m still cold.
Nonexistant
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | Age, Angst, Fayetteville, Ghosts, San Francisco, vanity | No Comments
I know I lived here. I know I had these friends and experiences. I have them all locked in my head. I remember some very very clearly. But there are very few pictures. There are many pictures of my friends, some of them I took, but very few of me.
This makes me sad. When I moved to SF I told so many stories about my life here–the hat party, the music, the friends with whom I went through many more experiences than most kids in Arkansas had at that time,. And there aren’t any pictures of me–of Pop Culture in the Park, that poetry and music fest I put on, nearly single handed. There aren’t any pictures of me at the Icehouse, though I did help to get it going–I know I spent the time in the permits office and the Fire Department arguing to keep it open.
J pointed out that I was like the soundman–crucial but unobserved. Did I mention I ran sound for the Descendants at Lily’s? Or wrote for the Grapevine? None of those things show up either. Who photographs the soundman?
I left Fayetteville and then many things seemed to start here. It makes me wish I’d stayed another year or so, but then I might not have left and I needed to. I had a big life in San Francisco. I did many interesting and strange things. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. I might ask for a refund on a few of them, but I’d keep most.
I don’t think there are many pictures of me there either.
And there aren’t many pictures of me now. It’s almost like I don’t exist sometimes.
Maybe it is time to take a break from the internets for awhile. All this reminiscing where I don’t seem to be makes me feel like I’ve been amputated, or …excised…maybe removed..
Edited later after a facebook discussion to add:
I also don’t show up in many pictures with Em or with James. And I don’t think it’s strange that it’s sad, it just IS sad. We want ocular proof we existed, that our memories are true and when it is lacking it is like we aren’t there in our own lives.
I resolve to be in many more pictures as well as taking more (if that’s possible) this year. Even with my aging head and body–it’s better to to at least be present if not beautiful.
Stars: Heart
Sunday, December 14th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Time can take its toll on the best of us
Look at you, you’re growing old so young
Traffic lights blink at you in the evening
You tilt your head and turn it to the sun
Sometimes the TV is like a lover
Singing softly as you fall asleep
You wake up in the morning and it’s still there
Adding up the things you’ll never be
Alright, I can say what you want me to
Alright, I can do all the things you do
Alright, i’ll make it all up for you
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you
Time can take its toll on the best of us
Look at you, you’re growing old so young
Traffic lights blink at you in the evening
You tilt your head and turn it to the setting sun
You disembark the latest flight to paradise
You almost turn your ankle in the snow
You fall back into where you started
Make up words to songs you use to know
Alright, I can say what you want me to
Alright, I can do all the things you do
Alright, I’ll make it all up for you
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you
Hard rock god, he never had a chance, you know
Incurable romantics never do
He held a flame I wasn’t born to carry
I’ll leave the dying young stuff up to you
You get back on the latest flight to paradise
I found out from a note taped to the door
I think I saw your airplane in the sky tonight
Through my window, lying on the kitchen floor
Alright, I can say what you want me to
Alright, I can do all the things you do
Alright, I’ll make it all up for you
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you
Alright, I can say what you want me to
Alright, I can do all the things you do
Alright, I’ll make it all up for you
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you
I want more…
Give me more…
what isn’t and will not be
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Everyone is pregnant. Every blog that I read about miscarriage and infertility–they have either 1)recently had a baby or babies 2) are pregnant 3) about to give birth. I stay away from LJ right now too because there are new pregnancies and babies on my list. I am happy for them, but oh, I am angry too. Why them and not me?
I swing between angry and sorrowful. I am not sleeping, but instead thinking about what will not be. I wonder if this will ever ever stop hurting. I wonder if I will ever stop cursing, in my head, under my breath, as I pass through the maternity sections in stores. I wonder if I will ever stop crying late at night when everyone is asleep. Not every day, often enough.
\It hurts.
Thanks to two men, old and young
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 | Age, Angst, Fayetteville, Ghosts | No Comments
Sometimes in your life you can actually hear the door slam and the window open. It’s been a shattering month. Despite the pregnancy losses, mortality and the simple dividing line between living and not, was never so obvious as recently. We knew that C was dying. We’d been visiting weekly, sometimes more. We knew he was fading; indeed he’d been visibly fading in the 2 and a half years since we moved back. But the last few weeks from the hospital to the hospice to the last night–as his voice grew fainter, as he could “see” us only for minutes, then for seconds, as his breathing became more and more labored–mortality became less a concept and more a reality.
The longest time he held on “really seeing” while we visited was when he looked at my daughter’s face.
And then one night: nothing.
I’ve never had an easy relationship with my family. We’ve never understood or quite possibly been comfortable with each other. But the last two years and the especially the last two months–well I discovered , I realized that at the end of your life all you have are those whose lives you have touched in some way. That whatever the estrangement, you are stripped bare. In the end we breathe, shit and cry and hope for love, just like an infant. While I still felt apart–truly I couldn’t feel any other way–I’ve only seen his children a handful of times since 1987–I wished for his and their ease and comfort. I was sorry for all the suffering. I was glad he wasn’t alone and hoped we’d helped him know that.
I don’t know what he regretted at the end. I do know that by that point so much of my anger had fled. And I fully realized how thin the thread is that holds us all to life and to each other.
And as I scramble and claw at middle age I realize but only with the help of E’s dying grandfather and an angry 25 year old man that what has been scaring and confusing me isn’t what is actually important. It isn’t what will make the next 40 years meaningful or fill it with love and purpose. It’s so very hard to let go of how things have been and embrace how things must become. I have spent most of my life on the fringe in some way or another. Divorced parents before that was very normal, a dead parent before that was likely for most people, bookish, political, dreamy and odd. Sometimes horrendously outspoken, other times terrified. I gravitated towards others like me and reveled in the acceptance and freedom of those all dressed in black or screaming angry lyrics, or pounding poetry into the air with a vehemence most 20 year olds didn’t cultivate. And I wandered into technology, a lone female capable with a shell script or screwdriver, after being forced by money away from Chaucer’s canonical bosom. My music, the people I loved, the meaning for everything came from the fringe.
And however I might fight it, however it might terrify me–I don’t really live there anymore. We have a mortgage (now declining in value), yard work, 2 cars to take care of, pets, a nine year marriage and most importantly a young daughter. We go to PTO meetings and volunteer at her school. We’re still left of center and more Buddhist than Christian but don’t discount anyone’s beliefs, nor feel the need to chastise them. In our youth my husband and I were rebels. Now? We’re like a lot of other grown up rebels. We aren’t terribly unique. More open minded than usual perhaps, more likely to try new music or a new activity, slower to grow all the way up perhaps. Now though it becomes obvious that different isn’t so very different. Because we all grew up. And now the things that set us apart from the person next to us aren’t as important as the things that make us the same.
Once or twice a year the last 4 years I’ve ended up back in my old types of haunts or around younger, much younger, denizens of the the fringes. I’d stay up too late, get far too intense and unfortunately….become maternal. The youth and age inside me fighting for dominance. I’d have conversations I’d had repeatedly 10, 20 years ago. But as a parent now I start trying to “hear them” and “help them.” Which isn’t the point. While far younger than me, they certainly don’t require that from me. They need to push against me–not me in particular, just older adults, just people where I am, who have had experiences (like college, a career, a child) like I have had. This isn’t a bad impulse, just badly applied. I need to find an outlet for this–someplace I can do good. Some situation, where me paying attention, caring and nurturing even, is appropriate and helpful. Like it is with my daughter and her friends. As I hope it will be if I become a teacher.
So while that young man was rude and said some horrible things obviously designed to hurt me, I’m grateful he did. He didn’t prove the point he thought to–my age and experience does qualify me to decide that. However, he did show me where I don’t belong anymore and what I don’t need to be doing. Even only once or twice a year. Having an intense, soul searching conversation with a 25 year old on their turf and an intense souls searching conversation with a fellow 40 year old on your own shared territory are two wildly different things. One is the wrong thing for me to do, the other is right. It may actually be a moral question.
So, if I need to volunteer my time at high school debate tournaments, political campaigns and my daughter’s school and work at this new career of being a teacher–that is likely where my time is best spent. It is where I am supposed to be. I’ve been afraid of giving my energy to those things whole heartedly–afraid to love it all again. Why? I’m not entirely sure — I know now though that I must and will become comfortable with my age, my position as one growing into an elder who can both guide and withstand rebellion, and that I must leave behind those jaunts back into my 20s– that I’ll be embracing rather than refusing, rather than fighting–maybe I will stride towards the final destination, the final breath, and end surrounded by love, memories of my own and other’s children and how I hopefully loved and helped them. I’ll end with the knowledge I made a difference. An everlasting yea rather than a relentless denial of what comes to us all.
The door slammed closed the other night, but the window is open wide and the vista beyond welcoming, terrifying and necessary.
Archive
- June 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- April 2005