On Breathing

Driving behind the ambulance at 1o:30 last night, I was thinking about all the things I miss living back in the city. First and foremost, I miss the stars. Even as we wound our way through the black mountain highway, the ambulance lights flashing in panic in front of me, I could see stars in the darkness overhead. Millions of stars. Billions of stars. "Do you think we'll get to see a star supernova?" a student asked me the night before. "Possibly," I answered skeptically.

But a supernova didn't really matter. What mattered right then, right when I found myself looking up more than following the road, was that billions of stars were out there even if I couldn't see them most nights of my life.

These past few days we've spent with our 5th grade class of girls at the North Cascades Institute's Mountain School, living in eco-friendly lodges, spending our days out on the trails studying the ecosystems, and enjoying nightly campfires while mosquitoes nibbled our exposed ankles. Spending three days in the mountains reminded me of all those bits in my life that have vanished with city living.

Stars among them.

Tall trees, too.

Once the ambulance shut off its lights, the trees surrounded me in a shadow of blackness that felt mesmerizing, comforting. At night at the Institute, after all the girls were fast asleep, I'd step out onto the patio of our lodge and look out to the wall of trees nestled around the feet of the magnificent peaks -- Pyramid, Colonial, and even Sauk mountain to the south. Some people say trees talk to each other, but in the mountains the trees talk to god.

But as I drove the winding road down to the hospital an hour and a half away I grew sleepy, despite the surging adreniline of just a few hours before. With my windows rolled down, I hung my head out into the night and smelled the thing I miss most about not living in the country -- the air. Mountain air. Rich. Almost heavy. The smell of dirt and heat rising from the soil and feathers and leaves and distant snow from mountainous rocks. I breathed it in again and again, willing myself awake, willing myself to stay a safe distance from the ambulance at the same time not lose myself to the stars and the trees and the fresh mountain air channelling through the car.

Millie wasn't breathing. Early that evening, Millie panicked, began to sob, hyperventilated, and the air, thick with memory, choked her every breath. We stroked her back and hands. We spoke softly and tenderly to calm her 10-year old anxiety. We wiped her tears and her snot and practiced breathing with her -- deep breaths in, deep breaths out -- but still, she gagged. She gagged on the air, on the tears, on the thought of not being able to take the next breath.

We tried a paper bag. We tried her inhaler. We tried lying her down and standing her up. We carried her to the sick bed at the camp office. We gave her oxygen. And still, each breath was stalled, blocked, prevented from filling her lungs.

We called 911. We called Millie's mother.

When the ambulance arrived, we had made our plan. I was to drive behind the ambulance carrying Millie. M., my teaching partner, and S. our other chaperone would stay behind with the girls and return, as scheduled, today. The drive to the hospital was about 70 miles along mountain roads narrow and dark. Halfway through our journey, we'd change over to another ambulance equipped with well-trained EMT's and one that could carry us all the way to the hospital.

By the time we arrived at the hospital around 11:30 p.m., Millie was breathing on her own, able to inhale her medication just enough to calm her down. I sat with her in the ER, holding her small hand and listening to the doctor talk to her about panic and anxiety and how not breathing is a vicious cycle. A sheep in wolf's clothing he called it. Much worse than it appears. A scary wolf on the outside, but just a simple sheep on the inside.

Millie understood little of his metaphor and when her mother arrived, she asked if she could go back to camp to be with her friends. Her mother laughed and looked to me. "Sorry," I said, "But once you leave in an ambulance, you can't go back until the next time."

"But they'll be no next time," Millie moaned.

"It will always be there," I try to console her. "Perhaps you can go back with your mother this spring."

But I knew that wouldn't be the same. There would be the blossoming mountain air, the budding conifers, and even more stars, but she'd be without her friends, her class, the experience of being on the mountain trail with 15 other singing 10 year olds.

At midnight, I left Millie and her mom in the hands of the doctors and the paperwork and stepped out into the parking lot trying to decide my next move. I couldn't drive back because I did not have the key to open the gate that let me drive across the dam to the other side of Diablo Lake whose shores were the home to the camp. I could check into a hotel and drive back up the mountain pass in the morning. Or, as my teaching partner encouraged, I could drive for another hour+ home to my own bed, to Ann, back to the city.

The hospital parking lot was full. An ambulance pulled into its bay and unloaded another sick patient. A young Native American man and his family sat on the curb waiting for their ride, the man's head recently stitched up, his shirt soaked in blood. He smoked furiously, his puffs curling up to the flattened stars above. He swore, he bleched again and again, he spat on the ground while a woman (sister? girlfriend?) talked on her cell phone next to him and another man (brother? friend? father?) sucked down one Coke after another, a six pack propped up next to him. The man glared at me, angry and agitated, and I lifted my chin to the stars. "Beautiful night," I nodded. "Fuck you," he mumbled.

I called Ann, opting to go home, slightly worried she'd be upset that I'd called so late. "Hello, honey," I said.

"Oh hi," she sang softly, "Are you homesick for me?"

I laughed.

Yes, I thought, just as I am homesick for the stars and the trees, and for the air we take for granted.

"I'm coming home," I sighed and then told her briefly about the events of the evening.

By the time I walked through the front door of our home, I was acclimated back to city lights and city smog and actually happy to see the maple trees that line our street. I crawled into bed and Ann snuggled up to me, warm and soft, her familiar breath against my neck.

In two weeks I'm heading back to the Institute for a writing conference, this time without students, without the responsibility for the breaths of 10 year olds. "I wish I could bottle up the air," I told Ann this morning. "I wish I could just take a slice of that wilderness and bottle it up to ground myself during the stressful times."

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "Remember your happy place," she suggested, referring to our recent commitment to meditate on those places where we feel at peace when our work overwhelms us.

"You'd be in that bottle, too," I told her. "You smell as good as the trees and the water and the stars." And then I sighed, one deep breath in, one deep breath out. Grounded.

Chunk o' change

I just received my Social Security statement. Intriguing points.
1. I made $11,000 less in 2005 than I did in 2004.
2. In my first job ever, way back in 1976, I made $340
3. If I wait until I'm 70 to retire, I can earn $2,201 a month
4. BUT, if I have an accident right now, I can earn $1,666 a month (note the 666)
5. In 30 years of working (messenger, bike mechanic, TV crew, and teaching) the difference between the least I earned and the most I've earned is $63,000. Seems, at first blush, a hefty sum...but then I think, I wonder what Bill Gate's SS statement looks like or Oprah's?

The gap between rich and poor -- evident and all relative, I guess.

And I think to myself, do I need more money? Honestly, no, but there feels like an injustice somewhere along the way and I just can't put my finger on it...

Okay, I've got it...I was just listening to the news. The armed forces are asking for $120 billion to "update" the military effort on the "two fronts." A General who was interviewed said it was time that we decide if we're going to have a well-trained and well-equipped ground force for generations to come.

As a teacher I ask -- isn't it about time that we have a well-trained and well-equipped citizenry?

Oh what a well-placed billion could do...

My two favorite bumper stickers to date:

If nothing changes, nothing changes!

And

I want a president who talks gooder.

Let's go to war on a third front, then we shan't have to worry about educating anyone! Shoot first, and we'll ask questions...NEVER!

Somewhere in this rant is the injustice I can't seem to put my finger on...

Dogs in My Life

Monty, the cross-eyed Standard Poodle. And the enormous long-haired Shepard, Ben. Two weekends ago, Monty stayed with his while his human-mom went to a wedding in Spokane. For the last month of our remodel, we lived with Ben and his human parents in a large house on Lake Washington. Ann and I are not ready for a new dog in our lives, so we borrow the dogs of our friends. Last night, we took Ben for a long walk along the Lake and every morning, we see Monty and his human mom on their morning constitution.

"I think someday," I told Ann last night, "we will get tired of borrowing dogs and want one of our own."

"Yes," she said, "But for now, I like borrowing."

This is because we only have temporary obligation to feed, water, and walk the dogs. This is because we both still dream about Chester. This is because we want to try living our lives without having to worry about who will take care of the dog if we travel or go skiing or stay out late at a concert. This is because Chester's long illness and death exhausted us and we are just now figuring out how difficult that was on us. This is because we still think Chester cannot be replaced or that our love for a dog can encompass another dog the way it encompassed Chester. This is because Chester is still every other beat of our hearts.

I had another dog, Abbie, who I loved as much as Chester. In fact, one of the reasons I liked Ann so much on our first few dates is that she had a dog that looked a lot like Abbie. Of course, the more I got to know Chester, the more he didn't resemble Abbie at all, but I do think Abbie was saying, from wherever she is, "This is a good dog" and so I let myself love Chester as much as I loved her.

I still dream about Abbie, but often in those dreams she morphs into Chester. I still miss Abbie -- her smile, the way she greeted me with happy moans, the way she rolled over on her belly to get rubbed. Chester did none of those things. Well, he smiled, but differently than Abbie. But he rarely barked, rarely made noises, and never once did I see him roll over to show his belly.

But the pain of Abbie's death has faded. Now I just remember her happy and the romps we'd take to the beach or the woods, but none of the sadness of her death (I had to put her down too because of her bad back...she was in horrible pain...both she and Chester lived to be 14). I know that someday I'll feel the same about Chester -- the fun memories will replace the painful ones, but for now, I still cry early in the morning when I cannot hear the sound of his waking up, or at night, when I cannot hear the heavy sigh that signaled his saunter into dreamland.

Sometimes, when I dream about him, I can feel the weight of him pushed up against the back of my legs or around my belly -- the places he liked to sleep the most -- and I wake half believing he'll be there only to feel the sunken feeling of his absence all over again.

It's not horrible. It's not like those first few weeks when crying is what I did more than not. It's just on occasion that the feeling of missing him wells up and I have to go borrow a dog, like Monty or Ben.

Or Lulu....
...the other neighbor's dog who we will be walking in the afternoons now that her mom is back at work and the daughter has gone back to college.

It's good to have a dog in our lives, if only part time.

And someday, it will be full time...when we get tired of borrowing...when we can't feel the weight of Chester on our hearts as deeply as we feel it now.

Netflix

I gave in. I signed us up for Netflix. I'm tired of another episode of Law and Order though now the reruns are ones I've not seen. It's surprising how many I haven't seen since there are some I've watched four or five times. I'm tittering on becoming a TV junkie again, but I'm trying to fight the urge...hence, Netflix.

The first DVD we rented was "Rivers and Tides", the documentary about artist Andy Goldsworthy. It was interesting. It was slow, but after spending our days with pre-adolescent children who ask a billion questions and demand our instant attention, slow was good. Slow was relaxing.

And just when I was really getting into the movie, it got stuck...froze, as DVDs tend to do in our DVD player. At least I think it's because of our DVD player. We once watched DVDs on a really expensive player and the disc froze then, too, so who knows why it does that, but it did it right at the end of Rivers and Tides and well, it kind of ruined the relaxed instrospective mood.

Still.

That sense of introspection stayed with me throughout the week especially after my Dean of Faculty confidentially informed me she was looking elsewhere for work (she doesn't make enough money as a single mom to support her two kids). Ironically, she can make about $25,000 more as an administrator in public schools. Which got me to thinking...how much could I make if I moved back to public school? I compared my current salary with Ann's public school pay scale and I was shocked that I could make $13,000 more.

It was enticing...but only briefly. Middle school teaching in the public arena means 125+ kids, 6 periods a day, and very little collaboration with colleagues. Students aren't as motivated as my private school kids and then there's all of those administrative headaches. Plus all the things we can't do, like field trips and integration of curriculum and having an actual conversation with every parent of every kid in my class.

Is that worth $13,000? Probably not, but I make enough...I don't need more. Yes, I'd like more, but I don't need more.

Yet when I found out that our Dean was working on leaving, I cried. I really like her. I really appreciate all the work she's done to get us organized and moving forward. She understands education. She sees the big picture. She's reasonable. She listens. She's helpful.

I cried for many reasons, but one of the compounding factors is that my teaching partner is also trying to leave for the very same reasons...money.

Here's where the introspection turned a darker shade.

The last time I struggled with depression, I came to understand that it was triggered by loss -- my dog had died, my teaching partner at the time took ill and left teaching leaving me to make a huge career decision, I'd had serious back surgery that limited my athletic abilities, I'd turned 40...blah, blah, blah.

Little red flags go off when I start to see the losses pile up, like cars on the freeway. Red flag -- Chester dying. Red flag -- struggle with my long-time friends (which is better, but still feels awkward). Red flag -- my teaching partner is going to leave. Red flag -- the Dean (who I consider one of my anchors) might leave.

I check myself each morning -- where's the darkness? How far away? How close? Can I touch it? Is it in me? Is it hanging over me? I measure my anger...is it reasonable, is it rational, is it justified? I count my tears -- what time of the month is it, is this menopause or is this depression? I watch for cynism-- is there a reason for it, is it coming out of my mouth at a constant rate?

It's like radar, beeping silently atop some unmanned lighthouse. How close am I to crashing onto the rocks?

Not close. I know I'm really not that close, but once you've crashed your vessel, the dangers seem much closer to the surface, much more threatening then they actually may be. If the captain of the Titanic knew when he set sail what he knew the second his ship hit the ice, would he have made different decisions?

Probably.

So I walk around with this darkness monitor, observing the needle as it lifts up when I find that two people I really like working with are going to leave eventually and wondering, will the needle stick, will the needle keep rising? Or will it ease back down, slide enough into the light that I can sleep peacefully at night?

It may seem like a stretch, but these are the real reasons I signed us up for Netflix. I don't want to be a TV junkie watching Law and Order episodes to the point where I can recite the dialogue. I want to watch Andy Goldsworthy build these incredible rock cones that tumble into heaps before he has time to finish them. I want to hear him say, "That's the way of understanding -- seeing something that was always there but you were blind to it."

That's how I feel about living with depression. Those threatening rocks on the jetty. Those dangers just beneath the surface the lighthouse keeps trying to warn me from.

It's always there...it's just now, I'm no longer blind to it.

Uniqua

Every once in awhile there are children who come into my classroom that I want to adopt, as in take home and be their parent. It doesn't happen often and while you may think me cold and heartless, it's not that I don't see kids who need better parents it's more that I do not view myself as parent material.

But this year we have a student who has tested my parent boundaries. Do to the nature of my job, I cannot tell you her name, but instead will call her Uniqua to reflect the odd nature of her real name and because she is truly that, Unique.

Uniqua is a survivor. She lives in a household with many brothers and sisters (most of them halves not wholes) and a mother who is a recovering drug addict, though many wonder if she's either still using or "overused" by her former addiction. Her sole focus in life is surviving the hole she's dug herself into financially and emotionally and while she's busily (and admirably) trying to better her life, her children (Uniqua is her youngest and suffers the most) are neglected and must therefore fend for themselves.

By fend I mean...feed themselves, shop for themselves, clothe themselves, get themselves up and going, organize their lives, keep track of schedules, and just about anything else children generally don't have to do if they come from a semi-functional family (note the "semi" please).

Uniqua does all of this and more. She has yet to miss a day of school. She hasn't so much as been tardy. Occasionally she's not had breakfast, but we have a stash of breakfast bars for children who miss breakfast at home. Before enrolling into our pricey private school, she attended the local neighborhood school, walking the 10 blocks to and from school every day. Her walk took her past our doorstep and one day, so her mother tells me, Uniqua declared, "I want to go to that school, Mommy."

And so she is.

This is one bright kid. Street savvy, yes, but intelligent bright as well. Unforunately, there are things she's never learned or never experienced and when she raises her hand in class to ask, "What's that mean?" all the other kids look at her in surprise. But Uniqua doesn't care. Whatever it is she doesn't know, she finds out and then says, "Okay, that's cool", storing it in some enormous memory bank of newly understood information.

Last night was Curriculum Night, or open house where the parents come and listen to presentations by the teachers about our curriculum, our philosophy, and get a layout of the year. Uniqua's mom wasn't there even though she lives 3 blocks from the school.

At the end of the month, we're taking a long trip to attend an environmental learning center for a few days and the paperwork involved is enormous. Uniqua never got hers turned in, so one of the secretaries (who belongs to the same church as Uniqua's family) walked over to the house and got mom to sign everything that we needed.

Today, we looked at the packing list for our overnight field trip and I realized Uniqua probably didn't have a rain coat or a pair of sturdy hiking shoes or even a warm hat and gloves, so the secretary and I brainstormed what to do. In the end, we decided to ask the church if they would donate money to Uniqua's cause and get her some shoes, a rain coat, hat and gloves and perhaps a pair of long underwear for the cold days in the mountains.

And through it all, Uniqua has the confidence, this survivor savvy that she will succeed at whatever she takes on. It's like those yuppy t-shirts that state "NO FEAR" in flaming letters. Uniqua has no fear of anyone or anything, nor does she care what others might say about her -- to her face or behind her back.

You might think that she carries those emotional bruises with her, but she really doesn't...it least not as far as I can tell. The other day, for instance, the kids were sharing items that meant a lot to them. Kids brought in stuffed animals, pictures of their pets, and gifts from foreign countries. Uniqua brought in a picture of her mother and father's wedding dance (very romantic) and then said, matter of factly, "But they got divorced last month." I said, "Wow, that picture must be very special to you in such a difficult time." She said, "I like the picture, but I like that they're divorced. Now I have two houses." There's no way to describe her smile after she said this...it covers her face and lights her eyes. Genuine. Authentic. The real deal.

The truth behind the story though is that her father left her mother because the mother almost accidently burned down the house while all the kids were asleep at night -- a smoldering cigarette, though no one is clear about it -- and dad has sort of dropped out of the picture.

All the kids in our class have "cubbies" or storage areas where they can keep personal items like a hairbrush or a pencil or a reading book. Uniqua's is stuffed with about 7 books, no hairbrush, and an odd collection of broken and semi-usuable pencils and a huge fuzz ball she's creating from the fuzz of our classroom rug. One day last week, she came into class with her hood over her head. The secretary came in and said, "She probably didn't have anyone to braid her hair." Sure enough, as the day grew warmer, Uniqua's hood comes off her head and her hair is Little Rascals, straight up and uncombed. I sent her to see the secretary who I knew would braid her hair for her (I'm telling you, the two secretaries who happen to be sisters, are lifelines...not just for teachers, but for the kids, especially kids like Uniqua who live in the 'hood where our school is located).

Often, in novels written for kids this age, there are these almost unbelieveable characters who overcome one obstacle after another. Rarely are the characters African American though there are a few authors who have recently written more authentic fiction for kids of color. Uniqua could be one of these characters. Her life is like a book in many ways and she is functioning, overcoming odds that most of the kids we see never have to face.

I worry that Uniqua will make no friends. She's fringy in many ways (her clothes are wrinkled, filled with holes, often dirty, and many days she wears the same set of clothes she wore the day before) and at a private school for girls, fringy doesn't really have a huge following. But Uniqua doesn't seem to mind. Her head is always held high, her voice is always strong, and I don't really know how to describe it, but she walks with a confidence that makes me believe that one day she's going to rise far above her circumstance and be the "woman leader" our school always advertises as our mission.

I know adopting her is selfish and may be viewed as coming from this position of white guilt, which is probably partly true. But there's another part that's equally true and that's this viseral feeling I get when she smiles or laughs or dances to the music we play during clean up, or the size her eyes when we showed pictures of the moutain goats and the cougar that live in the park where we'll be taking the girls for their first overnight (no worries, it's not like the cougar is a daily sighting, but it IS the mountains and wild animals do live there).

Today the kids wrote letters to their parents about their experiences during the first 8 days of school. Uniqua wrote in her first sentence, "I'm really excited I am going to school here, mommy. The biggest highlight of my week is that I get to go to the mountains and sleep in the woods where wild animals live."

I cried when I read that. Uniqua lives in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Seattle. The gang-bangers hang out at the park a block away from the school. Drugs are openly sold at the small grocery stores where they sell fried chicken and cheap beer. On weekends, I've seen Uniqua running down the street or riding her old squeaky bike, her nappy head uncombed and flying straight to the sky. She waves at the alcoholics who congregate on the bench by the public phone. She smiles her big smile at the prostitutes who slink by in their high-heeled shoes and sagging stockings. She gives a high five to the young thugs in their oversized coats and their super white shoes. Everyone in the neighborhood knows her. Everyone looks out for her. The wild animals are rampant in her own backyard, but everyday she walks into that classroom a sponge, ready to soak up the next lesson or the possibility of adventure in the woods, and she does it all with her chin resting high on the breeze of her confident walk.

She creates a feeling that anything is possible. She gives me hope. That's the kind of kid I wouldn't mind sharing my life with. The truth is, though, I need her in my life more than she needs me. She'll survive. It's written on the wake she leaves behind her. I'm just thankful I get to be a part of her amazing life.