Three Events

Jim's service is this weekend. He has been on my mind for weeks now. Heavy. Tiring. A deep sadness that hangs around the moments of my busy life.

Then yesterday. A man walks into a local restaurant and kills one person seriously wounds another. We've had a lot of shootings in the neighborhood lately. So many that, at school, we're in perpetual yellow alert -- parents must come into the school to pick up their kids and we can no longer go to the park for recess. The kids are crazed. So are we.

And then long talks about what the shootings mean to our community. Some are gang related, but yesterday's shooting was not, though the news would tell us otherwise. It was a young man, angry at the man who was dating his girlfriend. Domestic violence, they're saying, but it's so much deeper than that.

A student in my classroom lived with this man when he was a boy. He was a foster child in their home and she watched him like she'd watch an older brother. And then he went to prison. At 16 where he's been for the past 7 years. Not just prison, but solitary confinement.

"He has anger issues," said the mother of the girl in my classroom, the mother who knew this young man. She wept as she told me how sad she was that this is how his life ended up. "What was he supposed to do? I'm not condoning what he did, but he was a kid who couldn't get a job, couldn't find a place to live, and was very, very angry."

I listened. I cried, too. It's so much more complicated than a young man killing another young man over a girl.

In the morning, another parent told of us her oldest daughter's current condition. The youngest daughter is in our class so the mother wanted us to know that "G had turned for the worst." G had suffered a brain injury in a horse riding accident. For over a year she's been in a coma and now today, she was diagnosed with an abscess on her brain. G was coming home with a hospice nurse. W, the girl/sister in our class, has never once talked about her sister. She's never once let on how horrible it must be to have a sister in a coma, a sister she's watched diminish and slowly die for over a year.

And then this afternoon. W's father came and asked to check W out of school. "A medical emergency." W raced out of the room.

Three events. So unique, so different, and yet so much the same.

I walked home today in the rain. It was cold and windy and wet. When I got home I leashed up Rubin and we went out in the weather again. I was hoping it would wash me somehow, make me feel as if the world in which I lived was good and clean.

It is, of course, both good and clean. But it is also evil and dirty. It's also unjust and unfair.

I am thankful for the rain. I am thankful for the cold. I am thankful for the wind.

And, despite the pain, I am thankful I knew Jim, that I know the foster mother of a troubled young man, and that I know a young girl who is facing the world the only way she knows how -- one moment at a time.

In Times Like These

I am addicted to the sound of the keyboard. The clickclickclick feels cathartic. I want to hear it. I need to hear it. I find myself typing and typing faster and faster pushing the limits of my skill just to hear the pattern of sound my thoughts make as they are transferred through the keyboard.

And I have nothing to write, really, just random thoughts about random things.

We just returned from dinner at our neighbors. Lamb soup. I did not eat it. I tried, but pictures of the lambs I once raised kept leaping into my mind. I ate salad and hummus and bread and goat cheese.

We laughed as we shared the meal with our neighbor's housemate, Abdullah who is learning English, but as our neighbor says, "Has yet to put a whole sentence together."

Still, we understood each other. He was cold. It is not this cold in Saudi Arabia. There is no ice. He waited 30 minutes at the bus stop. He was cold.

He ate the radishes on the plate with a fork. They rolled around while he politely tried to stab them. I laughed and pantomimed the radish ricocheting around the room. He laughed.

I had today off. No school because of the ice and snow though there was more ice than snow. I was thankful for the day and I'm trying hard not to long for another tomorrow. At noon I took a nap and slept deeply. Now I feel rested, but still one more day would feel healing.

I have made a resolution. I will no longer complain. Well, I will try to stop complaining so much. I am alive and I must live this life. Each day. Each day until I am no longer a teacher. And then, each day again without complaint.

I read Bookworm's blog and I cried. Ann wanted to read it so I read it again over her shoulder and I cried again. Bookworm, there is such beauty in your pain. I feel wrong to say it, but your voice is so strong, your words are so exactly what they should be. I wish to have such wisdom at such a time.

Instead, I just want to hear the sound of the keys under my fingers tapping out something. Even if it isn't beautiful, I want the sound to soothe me.

I am saddest when I think of what is left behind. Yes, Fossil Guy is gone and there is a hole in the universe, but it is the ripples that make me cry. My parents. Bookworm. The children. The grandchildren. All the friends, the mountains of friends. All ripples and I know not how to offer comfort or sympathy and I feel arrogant in thinking that my offer is of any use.

Rubin has come into the study and laid his head on the carpet with a big sigh. He liked today. Snow. Staying home. Playing with his dog friends from up the street. The long walks.

Tonight, while we went to our neighbor's house for dinner, we left his kennel door open as a test. Will he feel comfortable moving about the house when we aren't here? Eventually we want to be able to just leave him in the house, no longer using the kennel. When we came home 2 hours later and he was still in his kennel, the door open, and he waited for our "okay" before he came out.

His kennel is a comfort. The sound of the keyboard appears to be mine.

I guess we each find what we need in times like these.

6:40

It's not raining yet, today, but the Ethiopian women are bundled for the wet and the cold. They scurry by our house dressed in white scarves and wool coats. There isn't a single place to park on the block, but the churchgoers try again and again to squeeze their SUV's into tiny spots next to fire hydrants and driveways. They park too far away from the curb, their cars angled out into the middle of the street. The neighbors across the street call the police. Every Sunday, they wake up, place orange cones in front of their house and driveway and then, call the police.

This happens every Sunday. We don't go anywhere on Sundays unless we are away until after noon when all of the churchgoers have unwedged their cars and gone home.

But this is not every Sunday. Today I feel like donning a white scarf and chanting in the orange Coptic Christian church where all the Ethiopians are headed. Today I feel like saying the name of god over and over again in a foreign tongue until my throat grows raw, until my knees bleed rocking back and forth on the cement floor.

I woke at 6:40 this morning. I looked at the clock and thought, "Is Jim (Fossil Guy) still alive?" Then I took the dog out and watched the Ethiopians drive down the street looking for their parking places. I crawled back into bed, summoning the dog up with us. He rested on a pillow in between us, his head draped over my hip.

"Is Jim still alive?" I thought it again and kissed Ann on the forehead.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Just thinking about Jim."

I came downstairs and got the paper, made coffee, and listened to the radio. A slow morning. Ann read the paper and I searched for new music on iTunes.

Then an email from mom and dad. Jim died this morning. 6:40.

Death is a squeeze to the heart. Not a gentle squeeze but a firm one. It hurts. It reminds you you are still alive. I want to do something to relieve the squeeze, but there is nothing to do.

I shall take the dog for a walk. I shall grade papers for the upcoming week. I shall clean the house, fold the laundry, and call my parents.

But those aren't things one can do to loosen the heart. It's tight and it will stay that way for days, weeks, and Sundays to come.

Goodbye, Fossil Guy. Know that you are loved.

Still.

And that the women in white chant their prayers not knowing they are chanting for you.

I know.

I will miss you.

42.2 Days

I've been thinking a lot about time. Every day it walks around with me on my wrist, in my head, and now even on my computer. We bought a new computer recently and because of the ridiculously short life of computers, I had to reload all of my music. It took over a week. CD in, hit IMPORT, CD out and do it all again. At the bottom of the iTunes window I watched the minutes, the hours, and the days count up. Now, if I played my library from beginning to end it would run for 42.2 days.

A lot can happen in 42.2 days.

Today, for instance. My allergies returned. Full throttle. I could scratch my eyes out and perhaps feel better. I could rub my knuckle deep into my skin and perhaps relieve the pain from the unending itch. Instead, I'm taking too much Benadryl and trying to stay calm.

Today, part two. Rubin went in to have a tooth removed. It came in crooked. So crooked, in fact, it dug a hole in the roof of his mouth. So crooked, all the other teeth shifted and now his once minor underbite is a major underbite. Tonight he is groggy and wobbly and disoriented. He wants to sleep, but he finds himself staring out the back door window, slightly leaning, with an occasional "woof" escaping from his drooling mouth.

42.2 days. That's a long time to listen to music.

In 6 months I will no longer be a teacher. I've submitted my intent to resign at the end of the school year. Then I jump my ship of certainty for something wobbly and groggy. I'll stand at the back door of my life and drool. 6 months seems like an eternity though where every day I must face students who make demands, ask questions, feel insecure, want my attention, create crises, walk around self-absorbed.

They don't know I'm leaving, yet, and frankly, I don't want them to know until the day after school gets out.

I don't like goodbyes. But that's still 6 very long months away.

Then I remember FossilGuy, my surrogate uncle. A man I've known since I was 8 or 9 or maybe 10. No one seems to quite remember. FossilGuy is dying. He's been given 6 months at the most.

Ironic. We have the same time though my time marks a shift and his, well, his marks a more permanent one I suppose.

6 months is too short. When I think of FossilGuy breathing through his oxygen tank 6 months feels too long, too.

Rubin has finally fallen asleep in his bed behind my chair. His head is still up, but now resting against the side of the bed. His breathing is heavy.

My eyes are itching and I just popped in two more Benadryl and an Allegra for good measure. Soon I'll be floating. I floated this afternoon almost down the stairs when I came home from work early to rest and attempt to get through this allergy attack. I was wobbly and groggy from the medications and only wanted to put on my pajamas and take a nap with a cold, damp cloth over my eyes. I felt as if my feet weren't touching the ground. The stairs moved and I caught myself on the railing.

I slept. I slept like the dead. I didn't move and when I woke, Rubin was there, wagging his tail and falling over. Ann picked him up from the vet hospital and she came in stroke my forehead and tell me about Rubin's tooth removal.

I have yet to listen to any of the music on the computer. I feel almost compelled to play it straight through -- 42.2 days straight through.

But I can't start. I don't want to measure time in songs. I don't want to measure time in transitions. I don't want to measure time in medication. I don't want to measure time in death.

I can feel the Benadryl coursing through me. My eyes are a tad less itchy. Still swollen and red, but not as unbearable as they were before.

I should stop complaining.

My heart is sad tonight. Not because of Rubin's tooth or my puffy eyes, but because I don't know what to say, what to do about FossilGuy. There's nothing to do. I can just send love his way. I can't fix it. I can't slow down time. I can't speed it up either.

It took me a week to download 42.2 days of music. There must be some kind of meaning in all of this, isn't there?

No. No meaning. Just time.

Eyebrows

I've been thinking about eyebrows lately.  My own in particular.  They are rough, but I've never really seen them as so...not until I looked at my friend Jeanne's eyebrows that she'd just had waxed.  First, it's important to know that both Jeanne and I are on the hairy side.  Not abnormally so (whatever that means), but fuzzy -- more hair than a lot of women. 

 

And it's black hair.  That makes a difference.  

Blond hair or lighter hair seems to go unnoticed say on unshaved legs or armpits, but black hair shows up.

Even in the dark.

So I was intrigued when Jeanne told me she'd waxed her eyebrows. 

I took a close look.  Yes, they were thinner and not nearly as thick or full as they'd been before. Certainly leaner and lighter than my own.  I was surprised Jeanne undertook such a procedure for she, like me, is not a girly-girl, not a lipstick lesbian or a femme -- all those labels people still pass around despite the changing times.

Once I'd seen her eyebrows it got me looking closer at the eyebrows on other women -- friends and passersby alike.

Eyebrows, in and of themselves, are simply swaths of hair placed in unique positions above people's eyes. They move.  They arch and furrow.  They lift.  Sometimes they lift awkwardly, haphazardly.  Sometimes they lift without each other.  They convey emotions.  Anger and fear, patience and sadness, love and frustration.  

Men's eyebrows are more varied. They are allowed to be.  Old men are prone to bushy brows like the man I saw standing in line ahead of me at Starbucks. Wisps bent in all directions, varying lengths of coarse hair curling into his forehead and temples and even into his eyes.  Some men, and women too, have uni-brows -- that line of hair that extends across the forehead, no distinct break for the natural line of the nose.

But women, I've noticed, sculpt their eyebrows.  Some, it seems, pluck the unwanted hair creating an arch and puffy red skin where the hairs used to be.  

Others do what Jeanne did -- waxed their eyebrows into a shape with a bit more curve.  No pointed apex, no tips sharply slanted toward the ears. 

Beauty or some perceived notion of beauty drives such artistry.

Or maybe it doesn't.  

Did Jeanne wax her eyebrows because she was worried about the shape and thickness and volume of hair?  Did she want to look more beautiful?  Did she look in the mirror and scare herself into making an appointment for an eyebrow wax?

I can't picture it.  Jeanne is beautiful no matter what her eyebrows look like but somehow she felt moved to rid her forehead of unwanted thickness.

Looking at eyebrows has made me look at my own.  Years ago I thought I'd never be a woman who plucked anything, but then weird, wiry hairs started to appear on my chin.  I took a pair of tweezers to them and yanked whenever the black whiskers showed themselves.  

One day, a few years back, Ann and I spotted an older man who had huge strands of hair emanating from the moles on his face.  Lengthy.  Five or six inches lengthy.  I have moles, too, and hair pops out all the time.  In fact, one particular mole gets so hairy old women and young children often try to slap the spider from my neck.  

I clip those hairs often.

When we saw the man with the long wisps of hair on his face, I turned to Ann and said, "You'd tell me if I had hair protruding from my face like that wouldn't you?"

She just laughed, but when I looked in the mirror, my god, there were three hairs curling out of my cheek mole.  They  must have grown for weeks. I trimmed them instantly and then watched the mirror every morning for signs of unwanted growth.

So what's the difference? Why am I okay with trimming mole hairs, but not pruning my eyebrows?  

I looked at them closely this morning.  They aren't too bad.  They certainly aren't trim.  And when I use the word "trim" I mean like the trimmer or edger Ann uses to give the front parking strip that well-maintained, golf course look -- no raggedy edges spilling onto the sidewalk.

If my eyebrows are the grass and my skin the sidewalk, well I have to admit there are some wisps of grass growing out of the pavement.  

Should I pluck them?  Should I schedule a wax?  

Isn't okay that hair doesn't grow in neat little rows?  Isn't it okay that sprigs of black pop out at random locations?  Are people walking around looking at my eyebrows and saying, "Jesus, even cavewomen had less fur!"

I remember as a teenager deciding to no longer shave my legs.  This was a big deal because I was already an outcast and the hair on my legs is just like the hair on my head -- thick and dark.  

My nickname in high school was Magilla Gorilla.  

In college, when I walked into the women's bathroom with shorts on (and short hair on my head) women would gasp or even worse, tell me, "This is the women's bathroom!"

Once my mother said, "Oh honey, you should shave your legs, it looks so dirty!" (She'll deny that she said this, but believe me, it took years of therapy to get over that one.)

Of course, she sleeps with a man who has just as much hair on his legs as I do and more on his chest and back than I ever expect to see on my body.  Is he dirty?  

Our friend Trina came by today.  She has sculpted eyebrows.  They're almost perfect.  She's very young, of course, so it's hard to know if she makes them look like that or if they just come so well groomed.  

What did my eyebrows look like 20 years ago?

I haven't a clue.  I never looked.  I never even thought to look.

Now I can't seem to stop.

This Weather

The avalanche of fear accompanying the threat of Global Warming has always been a bit tempered by the thought that maybe, just maybe Seattle's gray wetness would evaporate. While Phoenix drowned in rainstorms, we'd luxuriate in warm, sunny weather at least 6 months out of the year instead of the standard 6 weeks.

But no, Global Warming (yes, capitalized) has only made our gray, wet, cold weather grayer, wetter, and colder along with windier and slightly more unpredictable. Every fall and spring the local news stations innundate us with footage of floods from the flatlands, but this year, the floods rolled down the hills and through the cities and right into our neighborhood tucked safely, we thought, on one of the many Seattle hills right into the winter. Winds blew out powerlines, snow piled 87 inches high in the mountain passes by mid-December, and below freezing temperatures are predicted for the next few nights.

This isn't uncommon, but the frequency has increased and the skies have looked everso more ominous on my walks with the dog.

Is it possible that the length of the winter days is actually shorter than ever before? Is it possible that the nights have stretched into a record length? Did we move north in latitude?

Today offered us a respite. Yesterday too. It was dry yesterday though not completely clear until the afternoon, but today was sunny if not warm, and dry if not any less muddy. We sat on our new neighbor's porch and felt the sun on our faces and arms and laughed about all the mishaps of moving and remodeling. Our young neighbors have just moved in after days and nights of painting and sanding, caulking and stripping. This is their first home and they have high hopes for its future, but for now it is liveable and big enough to hold the whole family -- 16 in the extended group -- for the New Year's Eve festivities.

For now, the sky is that blue no one can quite describe, trapped between cerulean and turquoise, the kind of blue on postcards sent from tropical oceans. The pink horizon gives no hint of Global Warming, unlike the often orange skyline of summer. The air is clear after weeks of rain, but it's cold as well, my breath lifting from me each time I take the dog out.

Years ago I met a woman in French Glen, Oregon on the edges of the wildlife refuge. It was early in the morning and she was sitting on the screened in porch of the old hotel painting the sky. Her canvas was the large palette of a sketchbook, previous pages turned back on a spiral binding.

"What are you painting?" I asked.

"The weather," she replied and never once let her paintbrush lift from its purpose.

"How do you capture something so statistical with paints?"

She smiled and looked up. "Like this." She folded back the pages of her sketch book to reveal day after day of paintings. In the bottom right hand corner of each page she'd written location, temperature, humidity, precipitation and almost every other meterological data one would find on the evening weather report. "I paint each day," she continued, "And try to capture in color and texture that vague statistical data you mention."

She'd done it, too. The days prior felt captured in her book -- the unexpected lightning storm of the previous day, the slant of the sun against the migrating birds resting in the refuge wetlands, and the cloud cover that greeted me as I drove into French Glen.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

"I'm recording the weather each day for a year. I began on January 1st." She went back to painting, mixing the colors to produce just the right morning blue of the muggy August sky.

I think of that woman often especially when the weather challenges the forecasts. I admired her discipline and perseverance. I admired her creative genius. I admired her desire to chronicle something very few people would remember.

I cannot paint, but I've often thought about keeping a daily weather journal. Every time I try, though, I long for the tubes of color she had laid before her. Words are not magnificent enough to capture the bitter frost of tonight or the gusts of tomorrow's windstorms.

Perhaps Global Warming is just a cyclical event. Perhaps thousands of years ago the weather leapt from the skies to slice down trees and set forests ablaze. Perhaps great drifts of ice melted into flooding streams that carved rock and tossed boulders tumbling. Perhaps huge swaths of grasslands parched into sands. Perhaps humans are nothing more than rooted debris, tenuous fixtures about to be swept into the rising oceans. Perhaps it can't be stopped and the warmth of the skies will wipe the earth's slate clean of human life with all of our words and paints, our statistics and predictions.

Today I am simply moved by this weather, whatever the reasons.

The Light

It rained all day. There was the promise of snow, but it was indistinguishable from the drops of rain. It was dark and wet all day. We did very little, which I resigned myself to about 3 this afternoon. Do nothing day, officially declared.

Now the gray light that filled our day is gone and it is dark and wet and cold. Ann is cooking dinner and Rubin is chowing down a bowl of kibble and chicken. For some reason it is this light that I love so much. It's not a natural light, but a warm light of the kitchen and the study, the lamp light in the living room and the glowing light above the stove where Ann is cooking.

I was glad when the winter solstice passed. The days would grow longer, more light to live by. But occasionally, I like this winter light or winter dark is more appropriate. Our house feels soft. Our house feels like a nesting place, a place where we can just do nothing and feel little to no guilt.

Ann never feels guilt about such days. I did for the first half, but then, lying on the couch with a book to finish and that lamp light warm above my head, the guilt faded away, much like the light of day and I settled into the darkness.

Now dinner is ready and we'll sit in that glow of the kitchen and talk about making cookies tonight -- a perfect endeavor on a dark, rainy night.

Courage

I love this picture because of Rubin's exposed tongue and my apparently missing teeth. I guess that's what happens when you turn 49 years old.

Today was a great day, though. We went to Peggy's farm and played with the horses. Rubin didn't play much, but Jeanne and Lisa's daughters played big time. They are two and four years old and were the pure definition of COURAGE.

When I was a kid, my family would watch "The Wizard of Oz" every year on our little black and white TV. You sort of lost the switch from Kansas to Munchkin land, though the quality of the picture changed right when Dorothy opened the door, but still, I remember that movie like I'd written it myself. Later, when we had a color TV, I'd hide in the kitchen when the Wicked Witch was on the old house with a ball of fire on her broom ready to hurl it at the scarecrow. Something about the green skin wigged me out, but once she was gone, I was skipping down the yellow brick road as they fetched up the Cowardly Lion.

I loved all the characters, but he was my favorite. I imitated him all the time -- What happens if you run into a Prontasaurus? I'd show him who's king of the forest! -- and I practiced under my covers after I watched the movie saying "Courage" with just the right amount of spittle in my throat.

Courage dribbles out of us, I think, as we get older. Okay, maybe not everyone, but I often feel like it's dribbled out of me. This is an interesting time. I'm finishing out my last year of teaching, getting ready to leap into something completely new and different, and all I could do today on my 49th birthday is cry as I listened to the four-year old say, upon watching Peggy demonstrate how to work with the horse, "I can do that!" And then she marched right into that arena and lead that horse around like she was 150 pounds and not 40 pounds.

And if that wasn't amazing enough, her two-year old sister got up on top of that 1,100 pound beast and pointed the direction she wanted to go every time Peggy said, "Where should we go?"

Courage, I've read, is not the lack of fear. It's supposedly knowing the fear and doing the thing anyway. I buy that on some level, but on another level there's something to be said for being purely courageous (doing the thing without the hint of fear). The girls were like that today. They hadn't a clue what there was to be afraid of though somehow they must have sensed it as they reached up above their heads and groomed the horse's belly. How could they not know that the animal next to them could squash them flat with just the wrong move?

But the horse was gentle and patient and the girls sensed that more than they sensed anything we adults define as fear.

I liked watching their courage today. I liked watching them move confidently forward, trusting Peggy and the horses without all those tapes playing in their heads -- "You can't do this...what the hell are you thinking? You're going to fail. What if I do something wrong? I could get hurt!" They were inspirational today and the perfect birthday present. Courage is about moving forward, with a smile on your face and a swagger in your walk that says, "It doesn't get any better than this!"

It doesn't. It really, really doesn't.

Working Alternatives

My survival these days depends upon long walks in the inclement weather. My cheeks are flushed from a brisk cruise down by the lake with Rubin in tow. Walking is my meditation and when I walk I think about my life -- past, present, and future.


Last week was no exception. In the waning winter light I thought about leaving teaching and everything that might mean. I'm ready to leave, but in the wake of that decision are doubts. Who am I if I'm not a teacher? What skills do I have to be anything else other than a teacher? What if, when I make the leap to dog training and writing, I fail?

Fear defines my wake along with the doubt and a whitecap or two of insecurity about myself, my skills, and my desires.

So when I came home from my long, pondering walk I talked with Ann.

Me: How are you feeling about my desire to leave teaching?

Ann: Fine. You're ready.

Me: Yeah, but what if it doesn't go well?

Ann: How wouldn't it go well?

Me: What if I don't like what I've chosen, what if I fail, what if I can't earn enough money?

Ann: (Who is putzing around the kitchen never stopping to look at my fears with me, just moving intently from the fridge to the sink to the garbage can to the stove...) Well then, I guess you can always be a lesbian prostitute.

This, of course, makes me laugh. Ann is not a worrier. She just takes things as they come. She may get upset about something, but generally that something doesn't linger long -- she moves on and in her wake is a uniformed set of waves disappearing in the wide expanse of her life.

Later that night we're watching TV. I'm still chewing my arm off with worry. Ann's talking about the landscaping that's currently happening in our muddy yard.

Ann: It looks good, doesn't it?

Me: Yes, though I'm tired of the mud.

Ann: (Who can see beyond the next few months...) Yeah, but next year, it's gonna be great and we can have dinner out on the new deck and really enjoy it.

Me: Unless I'm in the poor house.

Ann: You won't be poor. You'll be "the wife" making the meals and cleaning the house. (She smiles.)

Me: That would be okay with you?

Ann: Sure! Why not? Who doesn't want a wife?

Me: Okay, I promise to be the best lesbian prostitute wife you've ever had!

Ann: Actually, you'd be the first!

We laugh and though I know she'll never let me starve or be homeless or feel guilty about being "kept woman" I still worry that this is the right move at the right time.

Yesterday I met with our school's "consultant" who meets with the staff to talk about issues that might be running under the surface. My issues are personal and have to do with how I go about telling everyone (especially my teaching partner) that I'm leaving.

Consultant: Telling is a series of stories. You don't just tell this once. You'll tell it over and over and every time you tell it, your narrative will refine itself and the truth will emerge.

Me: The truth?

C: Sure. Right now the truth is emerging even as you tell me. First your story was focused on the issues here at school and then, the more you spoke, the more the story became about you and your self awareness that you are becoming something you don't admire -- a cranky, bitchy old teacher. The more you tell the narrative of your leaving, the more the story will be about you and not everyone else. That's the truth. You need to leave to stretch yourself. You need to leave to pursue other passions in your life. You need to leave because you need to be fulfilled and challenged and after 22 years of teaching, that's not happening any more. You are at a key place in your life -- you either leave now or you stay for the next 10 years and retire. People will understand that story. People will understand the service you've provided for 22 years and they will be grateful for you, they will be supportive of you, they will be sad, but they'll wish you well, too.

Me: But what if I fail?

C: You won't fail. Life will just be different. And if it's a difference you didn't want, you'll find your way back here or to something that does feel right. You aren't going to do nothing are you? You don't strike me as a person who's going to do nothing?

We laugh. No, I'm not that kind of person. If I was, the worry about doing nothing would eat me alive, one limb at a time.

After my talk with the consultant, I spoke with our Assistant Head of School. I love this man. He's kind and sensitive and I trust him completely. When I told him about my conversation with the consultant, he nodded and said, "I won't lie. This is hard for me. It's going to take me awhile to get over your leaving. You are one of the finest teachers I've ever known."

I was stunned. "Thank you" was all that popped out, before he continued, "But don't count us out completely. We're looking at hiring master teachers who would work part time with our younger faculty to support them. Keep that open as an option."

When I think about it now, I realize I have many options -- clerk at REI, dog trainer, writer, part-time master teacher, wife, and lesbian prostitute. Maybe that's why I slept so well last night -- my wake didn't look so choppy with doubt and fear any more.

And now Rubin wants his morning walk. It's windy and cold outside...just what I need to chill off my doubts.

Narrowing It Down

In high school I was a sprinter. I ran the 100, 200, and 400 meter races. I long jumped. I competed in sports that required my speed -- basketball, softball, volleyball, and yes, even badmitton. I liked fast and I still do. My brain even works fast. I think 10 steps ahead with contingency plans along the way.

Ann, on the other hand, moves at one speed. I kid her about this, but it's the truth. One speed. She does not hurry and if pushed to hurry she gets flustered and snippy, she shuts down and gets quiet. She considers all options before she makes a move and sometimes this can take days or weeks.

When her father died last spring, she spent months talking with her financial planner about the best choices for the inheritance. Meanwhile, papers needed to be signed and the longer Ann took to sign the papers, the longer her brother, but mostly her sister had to wait (her sister was much more anxious and in need of the money). So her sister would call and sometimes her brother, but her brother calling was always a relaxed conversation as he explained the details of being executor of the estate. Phone calls with her sister are rare, but for about 3 weeks, Ann received 3-4 phone calls a week and though they'd start out, "How are you?" they'd end up with, "When are you going to sign the papers?"

Now that Ann has signed the papers and distributed her money into well-researched funds, her sister no longer calls on a weekly or even monthly basis.

But that is neither here nor there. The point is, Ann is thoughtful and takes her time with important decisions and even the unimportant ones.

Being a sprinter, it can drive me crazy. I like to make and act on my decisions. Like right now, I've decided to shift from teaching into dog training, but I must complete the next 6 months of my contract. It's difficult because while I teach during the day, I train dogs three nights a week. During the day, I rarely feel joy. During the night training classes I feel joy every moment.

But I must be patient. It's a distance race not a sprint and so I must conserve my energy if I expect to see the finish line.

So, while Ann flew out of town to visit her sister who is recovering (quite nicely) from her masectomy (her only sister and hence the one who rarely calls unless money is involved), I started researching the purchase of a new car.

In a previous post I spelled out my dilemma. Hybrid or bio-diesel? Small car or SUV? Do we own two cars instead of one? Do we sell our car now and buy something new and environmentally friendly? Or do we buy two cars and sell our old one?

I did my research and have surmised that we need a Ford Escape Hybrid. Though I'd prefer a 2007, there aren't that many out there and so I am stuck looking at the 2008. But part of my dilemma is still there -- do we own one car or two? Do we sell our Toyota 4Runner or keep it, adding a hybrid to our family?

If I were living on my own, I'd go out tomorrow and sell our SUV and buy the Ford.

But I live with Ann and she doesn't sprint to her decisions.

So, while she was away I wrote out the 4 options we have for purchasing a car. While Ann appreciated it she still is not ready to make a decision.

Meanwhile, I'm in my anxious mode. "If we find a 2007 Ford Escape, I think we should buy it," I tell her.

"Why?"

"Because they have better gas mileage than the 2008's and Click and Clack think it's a better deal, but there aren't that many out there so we must jump on any opportunity."

Silence.

"What do you think?"

Silence.

And then, "I'm not ready to make this decision. Let's talk about it when I'm not so tired."

Sprint, sprint, sprint. My heart is surging ahead and now I must wait. I am not good at waiting, though I know Ann's way of making decisions is probably more advisable. Still, now that I've done all my research and narrowed it down, it feels time to act.

I am the hare clicking away at the computer comparison shopping.

My tortise is asleep on the couch. The TV is on and lo and behold, an ad for a Ford Escape Hybrid comes on.

Wake up, wake up!

But if I've learned anything it's that an anxious hare cannot rouse of resting tortise.

December

I have a love/hate relationship with December. December is all of those things we commonly think about -- holidays, families, snow, cold weather, dark days and long nights, holiday parties and get-togethers -- but it's also my birthday month, which makes for a whole lot of mixed emotions.

No matter how good people's intentions are, when you're birthday is in December, it tends to get pushed out of the way by other festive (and not so festive) events. We already have 4 invitations to 4 different parties/events. We haven't accepted all of the invitations, but there's a tipping point -- after so many you either decide you must go to all of them (small circle of friends) or go to none of them. Picking and choosing is not an option.

I also have a love/hate relationship with the weather in December. I love snow and I love to cross country ski, but as a walking-commuter, it's damn cold and wet and windy out there (especially of late). I walk to work in the dark and I walk home in the dark only to leash up the dog and walk some more. With all this walking I should be 20 pounds lighter, but cold weather, dark hours, and December also mean I eat more...I WANT to eat more. It's like I'm never full. I just want calories...as many as I can stuff into my mouth and all the walking in the world ain't gonna knock that off!

Last week I heard two young teachers talking in the hallway:

Teacher #1-- There aren't enough scarfs and sweaters in the world to keep me warm these days.

Teacher #2 -- I feel exactly the same way. I can't believe these people who walk around in winter with short-sleeved shirts and scooped necklines!

Each of them was bundled head to toe...and then, one of them raised their hand to reach for something on the bulletin board and her shirt pulled up to expose her bare belly. She couldn't reach the posting, so the other teacher helped her and her bare belly, too, shimmered in the winter light.

I wanted to ask: So, your necks get cold, but not your bellies?

But I kept my mouth shut.

I dress warmly, except when I'm having a hot flash and then I'm in a t-shirt -- short sleeve with a scooped neck. I always carry a sweater and on my walks to and from work, I generally stop to either put the sweater on or take the sweater off. Unless it's raining and then I just wear my raincoat over my t-shirt and by the time I get to work (or home again as the case may be) I'm drenched in that kind of cold sweat that happens when you exercise with Gore-tex close to your skin.

See -- love/hate, love/hate.

I like the idea of hibernation...except...

...I'd miss my birthday...

Snow!

Nothing warms my heart more than snow! It came down fast and is still coming down. The only downside...I have to pick up Ann at the airport. She's flying in from, of all places, Phoenix...though it's been raining there for days now. She'll be shocked at how much snow we have. Could be an interesting drive to the airport and back.

More photos on the Rubinations site!

In Ways You Never Imagined

Four years ago we made a decision as a family -- we would own only one car. Our family, at the time, consisted of the two of us and a dog and even though the death of our old dog changed our configuration temporarily, we now have a new dog and still one car.

The choice to be a one-car family was made for a variety of reasons. First, my job was a half mile away. I began walking to work and home again every day. There was no need for a second car. Next, by selling one of our two cars, we were able to pay off the loan of the other limiting our "debt" allowing us to apply for a nice big loan to remodel our house. In fact, when we met with the representative of the mortgage company, she meticulously listed our "assets" and then asked about our debts. Aside from my student loan and what we owed on the house, we had none. She looked up and said, "Really?" We nodded, surprised by her surprise and she said, "Good god, I can get you oodles of money."

The final reason we made a choice to be a family who owned only one car had to do with our commitment to the environment, our commitment to reduce our ecological footprint.

Living with one car hasn't been that difficult though it does limit some of our options. For instance, if one of us has the car and the other is at home without it, it's difficult to run errands or go anywhere particularly if the weather is bad. Yes, we ride our bikes or take the transit if need be, and we even walk 5-6 miles to get where we need to go. There have been frustrations when we both need the car at the same time for separate commitments and occasionally we've had to spend energy figuring out how it's all going to work or worse case scenario, one of us has had to cancel our commitment. Though that rarely happens it still adds a friction we didn't have when we owned two cars instead of one.

But now I've started working with a dog trainer not only training our dog, but learning "how" to train dogs in general. Three days a week I'm driving to a training session 25 miles out of town, which can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on traffic (the 2 hours is rare, but it does happen on occasion). This has made the dance of who gets to drive the car a bit more complicated. And so we have begun to talk about getting another car.

In the past this decision wouldn't have bothered me, but as my knowledge of negative impacts on our enviroment has increased (I currently teach environmental science), I'm struggling with the decision.

We've been looking at more environmentally friendly ideas like hybrid or even something we can run on biodiesel, but my research into these options hasn't made me feel any more comfortable with the idea of being a two-car family versus a one-car family. It's a long and complicated dialogue in my head...

...IF we get a biodiesel car, we lose the car's warranty as biodiesel isn't regulated and car companies aren't inclined to service a vehicle that runs on old vegetable oil purchased from someone's home-brewed concotions...and while biodiesel is becoming more popular, biodiesel stations are still inconsistently available. To fill a tank with biodiesel, we'd actually have to drive about 10 miles roundtrip.

...IF we get a hybrid, well, we're still using gas...less gas, but gas still the same.

But there are deeper issues...at least for me. There's the issue of class and privilege, of being able to own something most of the world cannot. There's the issue of consumption of limited resources, not just oil, used to produce a car. There's the issue of using gas in our other car and increasing our overall consumption of gas as a family. And there's the issue of choice -- and this is perhaps the most difficult for me.

Choosing to purchase another car is the proverbial choosing the lesser of two evils. The best choice, of course, is to stick with one car, or if possible, no car at all, but if I wish to continue my pursuit of becoming a dog trainer, we need at least one car and one car has a negative impact not only on the environment, it also has a negative impact on our lives -- arranging our schedules so we can get where we need to go.

I torture myself with these internal debates. Today, in fact, while I escorted my students on a field trip to see the Sockeye salmon spawn, I heard our guide talk about the evils of oil runoff on our watersheds, the contamination of our oceans from CO2 emissions, and the suffocation of salmon runs by the construction of roads and highways. When we got to the river where the salmon were to be spawning, we found only two decomposing salmon on the riverbank and about 10 or so dead salmon floating in the river. Last year when we went to this very same river, there were at least 100 salmon working their way upstream or rotting on the shore inviting bald eagles and hungry hawks to fly over our heads as we marveled at the salmon cycle.

"Last year," our guide said, "We had about 6,000 salmon for the season. This year, we'll be lucky to see 2,000 at this river."

"What are the issues preventing a good salmon run?" a parent chaperone asked.

"It's complicated, but much of what we know points to human impact with development, pollution, and destruction of the salmon's complex and expansive habitat (from the ocean to the rivers)."

It didn't make me feel any more hopeful, at the end of the day, when we all piled into our 6 different cars to head back to school and it didn't make my internal struggle any easier to resolve.

Though this idea did come to me...

...we could sell our gas-powered car for a hybrid (one with the best gas mileage and the lowest emissions) AND purchase a small used diesel car (sans warranty) to run as a biodiesel for our town driving. While we'd still become a two-car family, the impact of those two cars might actually add up to the same impact as our current gas-powered SUV.

"You need to make an educated choice," I heard our guide say as she pointed to the housing project butting up against the edge of the salmon-free river. "The more you know, the more your choices will have less of an impact on our wild places."

I'm not sure how much our students picked up on the message or how much their "education" will inform their choices, but I know that even if what they learned today does make them better stewards, it's still not an easy road because when you KNOW that very same knowledge can paralyze you in ways you never imagined.

First Impressions

I'm listening to Norman Mailer on the radio. He's died, but his rough and goopy voice lives on. I don't know what I think about Norman Mailer or how I feel about the legacy to which the radio host keeps referring. I think I am supposed to dislike him, to find him arrogant and misogynistic. I think I am supposed to feel offended by him, oppressed by his intellect and use of big words.

But I have never read Norman Mailer. I have only heard him speak -- short snippets of interviews before I change the channel of either the TV or the radio. I seem to dislike the rumor of him. I do not like his voice and for some reason, I don't like the look of him, but all I know of him is his perceived greatness, the greatness now broadcast on the radio after his death.

I form opinions like this often and try as I might, they stick. I feel much the same way about my neighbor. Our interactions have been limited, but his aura, as it were, gives me the creeps. His wife is affable though we call her Mrs. Kravitz because of her rather snoopy nature, but he, the husband feels smarmy and unpredictable.

A few years back, Sharon lived up the street though we called her "Lulu" in reference to the odd and loopy things she did -- sitting on her front stoop in only her underwear and slippers in the dead of winter or her monthly "cleaning" of her house where she threw everything out the front door including furniture, applicances, rugs, and a TV and left it in a pile until a kindly neighbor came by to clean it up.

Last year, as I was walking home from work, a middle-aged woman stopped me on the street and thanked me for being so kind to her. "I was your neighbor," she said once she saw my puzzled look. "I'm Sharon." She looked nothing like the Lulu we'd known. Her hair was clean, her clothes were on and relatively new, and the whirling dervish I remembered of her eyes were now clear and direct. "You were just so kind and I will never forget that," she continued. I had no recollection of what I did other than call the police as I watched her beat her son with a broom handle and chase him down the street, but I bowed my head and said, "You're welcome" afraid to ask any of the questions swirling through my head (where are you living, what happened, why are you sane when I thought you were a lost caused?).

Even as she walked on up the street and I continued on home, I doubted that she'd changed, that she was as kind and as thoughtful as her words.

My first impression stuck and I couldn't shake it.

When this happens with one of my students, I do an excellent job of compartmentalizing my feelings and dealing with the kid on her level. Years later, if she were to stop me on the street I might not remember her or if I did, I wouldn't necessarily give her the benefit of the doubt.

This happened once when I was in a bar. There to hear one of my favorite bands, a young woman approached me and smiled. "Do I know you?" I asked. "Yes, I'm Elsa." And it all flooded back to me. This was Elsa. Perfect Elsa. The Elsa who asked amazing questions in my history class and wrote insightful, powerful essays on the failings of war and the exhausting struggle it took to maintain peace. I loved Elsa. But I didn't recognize her. 17 year old Elsa would never go into a sleazy bar like this one. Elsa wouldn't like this band. Elsa wouldn't be holding a shot glass in her hand and look at her former teacher a bit bleary-eyed. This was not Elsa of my first impression. This was an adult Elsa, an Elsa of her own choosing.

It didn't fit.

I do it with people with whom I work. R. at work who makes me nervous. J. who I joke with in public, but find difficult to respect as a teacher. K. who does everything to bug me, or so I think, even down to her slurpy food that she eats with her hands and spills on the table.

They are good people. They are people doing the best they can and still I keep my distance. Still I find it hard not to let my first impressions limit their potential.

Norman Mailer is now talking about sex on the radio. How sex with someone you love is much different than sex in a brothel. He is articulate. The audience laughs. The host interacts in a jovial way. And Norman Mailer coughs a phlegmy rattle, stopping the conversation long enough for there to be a moment of silence on the radio.

And from sex, he moves on to the topic of Hitler and then Stalin and finally, the radio show ends and I still feel as if I cannot like the man even in his death.

This is not me. I am a good person who tries hard not to judge.

And yet still, the judgment happens. Conversations prattle on inside my head and I argue both sides of pointless debates. My first impressions hold firmly and my kind self cannot seem to get a foot hold in the spiteful mountain of my mean self.

Okay, I'm not mean. I don't actively hate anyone or go out of my way to do mean and spiteful things to people who make me uncomfortable. In fact, I am an avoider choosing to remove myself from possibly confrontational situations even if my judgment of them is visceral. I do kind things too like help the old lady with her groceries at the store or open doors for those in need or smile at the neighbor who sits on his porch watching the world go by.

Still, if I could wipe away my gluey first impressions what would my world look like then?

Dear Tampax

Women all have their stories of when we first used your product. Mine began later in life when, at 25, I ventured to use my first tampon. Up until that point, I used only pads -- saddles in my underwear. My housemate, at the time, helped me insert my first tampon and then later that day, my other 3 housemates came into the bathroom to share their techniques. My first tampon was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. It was, as you advertised then, freeing not to be restricted to the side of the pool during those "times of the month" but now, almost 25 years later and thousands upon thousands of tampons disposed of, I have a complaint.

What the hell were you thinking changing the shape, length, AND WIDTH of the "new" tampon? They hurt, they leak, and when pulling them out, it's much the same feeling as I experience during my yearly pelvic exams. OUCH! I wish I'd known you were changing your design for I would have hoarded as many of the old style tampons as I could have possibly fit into my storage cabinets. I would have hauled away one of those slatted wooden pallets straped high with boxes upon boxes of tampons from Costco. As a pre-menopausal woman, my time left in the purgatory of your recent invention should be relatively short, but still I cringe at the thought of another year or even another month dreading both the insertion and extraction of this medieval device you dare to call "feminine" let alone hygenic!

Alas, I am left with only one option: I am sending out an ad on Craig's List calling all post-menopausal women to scour their cupboards for half-full or perhaps fully stocked boxes of the old-style tampons that have gone unused since the blood stopped. I will pay any price though currently the outrageous cost of any tampon cries out for revolutionary action. Who invents these things? Certainly it is not women. Certainly it is not middle-aged women who've been using your product for 25 years and have grown accustomed to the absorbent structure and the cardboard applicator. Certainly it is not women who, during that 25 years, have literally carved out a "niche" for one particular type of tampon.

For if women of my generation, my size and shape had been part of your research and development team, we would have cried FOUL. We would have stormed the board rooms swinging tampons by their strings over our heads like Xena the Warrior Princess weilding her spiked mace at drooling enemies. We would have bled on your fine boardroom chairs, soiling your white carpets as we raced around your typing pools.

So much for "freeing" me...I now feel enslaved by one little white plug slowly slipping out even as I write.

I no longer want to be a part of this story. Change it back!!

Signed,

Tampooned

Cook a Homo

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to sit down and just write. Between teaching all day long and the 3 classes of dog obedience 3-nights a week, I feel like I've been doing at least 2 jobs and not one.

And in between there's been some interesting fillers:

Last weekend, for instance, we went to a friend's party put on by her financial planner as a "thank you" for she and her partner's business for many, many years. (I'm sure it helps that this friend of mine is rather well-off...) We felt honored to be invited though the announcement of the event made me a bit nervous...

Vegetarian Cooking Class

I am not strictly a vegetarian. I enjoy vegetables and I don't enjoy red meat much (anymore...after a long time of not eating it), but I will eat chicken and a good bratwurst (the German side of me) as well as occasionally much on some bacon, which technically isn't red meat...right?

Vegetarian sounds like a good idea, but I've never been enamored with much of the food or the amount of time it takes to prepare things or the funky texture of tofu (like the slime on the bottom of swimming pools) and so I am often at a loss about what to cook and how to get my proteins and so I stick to my regulars -- Boca Burgers or Garden Burgers or pasta with some kind of sauce.

Boring.

I was intrigued by the idea of taking a cooking class, but worried that I might not like any of the food and therefore be hungry and I don't do hungry well.

But I've lived to tell you that IF you know what you're doing, and have the menus that we had, vegetarian food can be damn good.

But it wasn't the food that was the most interesting. Rather, it was the chef. A small, Italian man with a very heavy accent assumed, I think, that everyone in the room was straight. There were 6 men and 6 women, hence, as most of the world might presume, 6 x 2 equals 12, but he got the twos in the wrong pairings.

No one corrected him. In fact, I don't think any of us really paid that close attention, though it was rather obvious to me when he called all the women "sweetie" and slapped all the men on the back. At one point, as I was cooking with my gay male new friend, Mark (an Episcopalian minister), when the Italian chef, named of all things Tiberius (though he insisted we call him "delicious") asked if Mark and I cooked together at our own house. Mark and I just stared at each other and continued chopping onions and basting eggplant. "Yes" was the answer though "our house" was a separate -- his with his partner, Mike, and mine with my partner Ann, who were, ironically, also teamed up together for this class.

Delicious floated around the room at a frenzied pace imploring us to "cooka on higha, yes?" because it would get done faster and to "justa do ita like thees" skipping whole steps in the recipe and ending up with a finished product that tasted pretty damn good.

But the highlight of the evening was when Delicious thanked us for our interest in his cooking school and for our enthusiasm in the kitchen. "I hope this will inspire you to cooka homo!" And with the clap of his strong hands, he made his exit.

We all sat in silence for a moment and then laughed out loud. "Yippee, we now know how to cook a homo!"

Who knew vegetarian cooking could be so fun!

Tuesday night of this week was the only night I had to just relax. With dog classes on Monday and Wednesday nights, usually Thursdays and Fridays are free as well, but this week as well as weekend, was filled to the brim.

Thursday night we went to watch the UW women play volleyball. This may not seem that interesting, but since I made my athletic career playing volleyball and running track at the UW, it was an intriguing venture back into my past. A parent of one of my students gave us the tickets and we sat in the student section feeling old and behind the times sans a cell phone or some such device with which to text message...as everyone around us was doing just that between the volleys.

The game has changed. It's faster, more powerful and the rules are radically different. Who knew that when the served ball hits the top of the net and still makes it over it's still a ball in play? The players are taller (at 5' 9" I was one of the tallest players on my team) and if at all possible, the uniform shorts are shorter...and the women much, much skinnier.

We had a great time watching, though at one point, I had to turn my back on the parent who gave us the tickets as I was unintentionally party to her conversation with another mother sitting next to her. It was appalling how they vied for position..."well, my daughter went to camp for two weeks there last summer"...."well, my daughter did their survival camp there last summer for a month!" and on and on..."I can't believe that lot is so small...only 15,000 square feet, and the house, well the house is a good price at 1.5 mil, but I worry about that small yard."

The joys of teaching at a private school.

Friday night was again rubbing elbows with the wealthy, but we also rubbed elbows with some of the geekist scientists I've ever met. My dear friend Janice at the Seattle Aquarium got us tickets to hear one of my idols speak. Sylvia Earle is a dynamo at 71 years of age and I would have stormed the doors to hear her speak, but luckily we got complimentary tickets for 7 o' clock at the Aquarium.

There is a great deal to say about this event, but I shall hold my tongue. In the end, it was an event of great irony -- we arrived at 6:45 for a 7:00 start time only to be escorted into the touch tank area where we were served appetizers (nothing with seafood, mind you...it would have been too weird eating salmon by the salmon tank) and milled around amongst the governor's staff, the weatlthy benefactors, and these pods of geeky scientists who hovered around the appetizers like gulls around a fishboat.

Finally, at 8 they let us into the auditorium where we were seated, finally. I was tired. It was Friday night after a long, long week and the last thing I wanted to do was stay out until 11, but Sylvia Earle did not come to the podium until 9. Ahead of her were the many "big names" at the event -- state officials, Billy Frank, Jr. (elder of the Nisqually tribe), and Aquarium sponsors. By the time Sylvia made it to the podium, I was exhausted.

She is a very small woman, hunched with osteoporois (deep water diving?) and spoke in a deep, sultry voice about the fate of the planet. "They say that the new red, white, and blue is green, but I say the new green is blue..." She flashes up the picture of the earth taken from space and yep, it's blue, blue blue.

(Sylvia Earle in 1988)

More blue pictures unfolded as she applauded all in attendance for "getting DC to listen, finally, to the warnings we've all known for years...the ocean is dying and when it dies, we will die as well."

Not an upbeat message, but from her mouth, it was a call to action. "90% of the big fish in the ocean are gone. They are not coming back, but to feed the hungry mouths of humans, we are now catching fish from the middle of the food chain and selling it as a delicacy. You want to know how to kill and ecosystem in seconds flat? Eat from the middle of the food chain!"

I have been struggling with this dilemma since I began working with the Aquarium. Each spring we take our students out to learn to be Beach Naturalists and the more I learn, the more I feel compelled to make a change in my life in an attempt to save the oceans. Ann thinks I'm ridiculous, but I've limited our fish intake dramatically and have even considered going back to eating red meat. "Cows aren't wild," Sylvia Earle says, "but fish are. Eat the cows, eat the cows. We've learned to grow them like wheat. They are a replenishable food source, but the fish are not! You're clearcutting the ocean forests and no one seems to care!"

But I can't bring myself to eat red meat. Ann says I should start slowly, but it's not just the texture or the digestion of something so undigestable or the threat of mad cow or ecoli poisoning, it's the "industry" of it all, the "unknowns" of where the cow came from, how it was treated, how it was fed, how it was killed, and the fact that most people in the world do not eat meat because they cannot afford it...and all those left of liberal reasons that float around in my head.

And now they float around because of the fish and Sylvia Earle and all I've learned about our dying oceans...and ARRRRGGGGHHHH...what to do, what to do?

Despite the inner turmoil, Sylvia Earle was inspirational. She hasn't given up and she's seen it all -- plastic dumped out of dead birds and the expanding dead zones in the ocean -- and I've seen only a smidge and I even though I feel like giving up, I can't because Sylvia, all hunched and crippled, is still fighting the good fight.

And finally, on Saturday, I spend the day at Peggy's horse farm helping to run an Educator's Day when it hits me. I'm watching a teacher from Canada work with a horse and Peggy is telling her things I've heard a hundred times -- not just from Peggy, but from Dave and Becky the dog trainers -- it's your energy...where is your energy?

"Thousands of years ago, when horses roamed the plains with lions, they'd live together on the same piece of land." Peggy's story...I've heard it all before...but this time it hit home..."The horse is munching peacefully on the tall grass and the lion is sleeping peacefully by the tree. They know each other is there, but not until the lion thinks 'I am hungry' does the horse fear the lion. In fact, when the lion just touches the edge of his thought...'I am hu...' the horse has alerted the herd and skidaddled out of danger. It's all energy."

I'm standing at the edge of the arena thinking...My energy is wrong. I'm off balance. I must not think about what I can't eat, but what I can eat. I must not think I am alone in saving the planet, I must think I am one of hundreds, thousands, millions upon millions who right now are working to save the planet. I must believe it before I can see it.

Peggy tells her clients this all the time. "You must believe you can make the horse move towards the cone, then, once you believe, you must see it and every bone in your body must hold that intention."

Time and time again, people scrinch their eyes and focus their energy and I'll be damned, EVERY TIME that horse moves right to the cone, right to the place they are pointing.

Tonight we had a warm kale salad we learned to make in the cooking class with Delicious. Right next to the kale, bathed in pears, nuts, corn, vinegar and olive oil was a small piece of Wild Caught Alaskan King Salmon (on the safe list put out by Seafood Watch.org).

I am always coming back to a few lessons in my life. One of them is learning to be mindful. This week has taught me, in the oddest of ways, to be mindful of my energy. Even in training Rubin, my energy must be forgiving and patient, understanding and grounded or he will train me and not the other way around. My energy around transitioning out of teaching and into dog training must be patient and methodical. I must not rush ahead because there are important lessons to learn along the way...like how to enjoy warm kale salad and marvel at the strength and skill of young women in sport and how to learn from a wise older woman and how to cook a homo all in the same crazy, exhausting, and fulfilling week.

Fenced In

During the falling of Autumn leaves, Bob, our fence and deck man, has been working busily on our new fence and expanded deck. It's looking great, if I do say so myself, and Rubin thinks it's fantastic. He hasn't been out of the house much off-leash, but the new fence allowed him to run wild, circling the house with a big fat smile on his face.

The fence is a gift from Ann's father who died last April leaving her a nice chunk of an inheritance. Perhaps then the fence is really Ann's gift to our house, but David (her father) certainly allowed the possibility of such a massive expenditure.

Behind the fence...well, that's another story...

It's all bare and muddy...not very conducive to a puppy with an apricot coat. He's getting tired of his feet being wiped off every time he comes into the house. And still, STILL there is a dirt path down the hallway after endless sweeping and the removal of all shoes.

Nonetheless, progress is being made. The deck is now twice the size, perfect for a table and four chairs, though it will be awhile before we sit outside to dine.

Our stomach muscles hurt for a week after we spread ourselves like commandos under the deck to lay down the weed barrier. Even our 9 year old neighbor asked, "Why didn't you put it down before they built the deck?"

Duh! Why didn't we think of that?

Actually we did, but life got in the way and before we knew it, the deck was done (or almost...there's still a planter box to be built in the foreground of this picture) and we had to shimmy ourselves like slugs for 16 feet in either direction.

I am now a homeowner. It makes me laugh in some ways -- I never thought this would be my life -- but I suppose it never turns out exactly as you thought it would and if it did, that would be kind of boring, wouldn't it?

I love our home and I shall live here with Ann (and whatever dog lives with us at the time) until I can no longer make it up the stairs! Even then, it might be worth an investment in a ramp, an elevator, or maybe a big strong "maid" to carry me to and fro.

But that's in the future...for now I shall enjoy being fenced in.

Good enough!

Good enough. It's been the mantra of my life. Am I good enough? Now, in a marriage to Ann, the most stable woman on the planet, I face a perplexing shift in perspective. "Good enough?" Ann says, "That's funny, I'm like always saying, 'I could probably do this better."

And then this:

Rubin, our 8 month old Labradoodle, has a tendency to bark. This is not necessarily good. 1) Because it's a loud, echoing bark and 2) I want to be a dog trainer -- having a dog that barks uncontrollably is like being a cobbler who has no shoes or a car mechanic without a functioning car...

His barking, I have assessed, comes from a bit of fear. He IS only a puppy and so some things do and will scare him. It took a bit of training to get him NOT to bark at the vacuum cleaner, but we have yet to overcome his fear of the furnace and the forced warm air through the big vent in the hallway. While he doesn't bark at the vent, he walks on the far, far side of a very narrow hallway to avoid it even when the furnace is not on.

He barks at sounds outside -- like the neighbor starting up his very old and loud Studebaker. He barks at the shadows of people who walk by the house. Early in the morning and and in the evening, when it's dark out, he barks at anyone, whether he knows them or not, because they look like dark shadows coming out of more dark shadows.

This is not good, so over the weekend I emailed the trainer with whom I am working and with whom we have been taking classes. He wrote a very long and wonderful email describing this "time" of Rubin's life -- his second phase of fear (his first being the first few months of his life) and how it's normal that certain things would startle him, but how we react will determine his ability to feel more emotionally balanced.

Okay, makes sense to me, so I keep reading this thoughtful email from the trainer.

Find a "treat" that is highly motivating for Rubin. When he barks, at the moment he takes a breath say, "Enough!" in a happy, positive voice, wave the highly motivating treat in front of his nose and then happily trot back to a designated "neutral" area saying "enough" all the way. Once he is quiet and in the neutral area focused on you (and the dandy little treat) praise him and give him the treat...and another...and another. The point: Have him associate those things that he usually fears with happiness and joy and the chance to eat his favorite treat. Soon (in about a month) he won't bark, he'll just run to his "happy place" and wait for a treat.

So this weekend we practiced. Ann rang the doorbell, he barked, I calmly said "enough" and trotted to the study, just down the hallway. He sat, stared at me in anticipation, I gave him the treats and he stopped barking.

Great! We practiced again and again. And then later, as we sat watching TV, he sprang up, barked at some noise from outside and I calmly said "enough" from my comfy place on the couch and lo and behold -- he ran his curly little bottom into the study, plopped into a sit, and looked at me like, "Okay, baby, cough up that treat!"

I was so startled I found myself saying, "Good enough, good enough!"

Jesus...it's all therapy isn't it? A canine conspiracy of some sort.

Good enough, good enough, we're all just good enough! Woo-hoo!

Mistakes

Does my mother make mistakes?

She's grinning right now. She's probably laughing out loud reading this.

"Of course I do," she'd guffaw. "I make mistakes all the time!"

So this morning I'm in the kitchen making breakfast for Ann and our friend, Laurie. French Toast with caramelized pears. I've never made caramelized pears before, but once I had them served on my French Toast at a fancy restaurant (I even think I was having breakfast with my mother...but no matter...) and they were delicious.

There I am carving out the guts of the nice ripe red pears, dipping the juicy halves into brown sugar, placing them gently into a cast-iron skillet and worrying that they will burn or turn mushy or taste awful.

Ann comes in. "Smells great! What are you doing?"

Me: Caramelizing pears.

Ann: Do you know how to do that?

God no! I'm thinking. Shit! What if I've made a big mistake?

And then I think of my mother who, in my eyes, rarely (if ever) makes mistakes and most certainly never does so in the kitchen.

She had to have made some mistakes, I tell myself. She's not perfect. Weren't their meals I couldn't stand? I search through my memories and while there were meals that I didn't like, everyone else ate them with enough platitudes of gratitude that the food must not have been awful.

No, I concluded, my mother does not make cooking mistakes.

My mother is not perfect either, but she does not make mistakes when it comes to food and the preparation thereof.

Okay, I buoyed myself, I am half of her...I mean, her genes are in me and while I've avoided admitting it, I like to cook. I may not like it as much as my mother, I may not be half as adventurous, but I like spending time in the kitchen preparing things. Hell, even she started out with basic stuff like brownies and grilled pork chops before she took on great feats of culinary wizardry like caramelized pears.

I poured the 1/2 cup of water on the browned pears and waited. Lid or no lid? Are they softening or mushening? Will they still be brown? Is the sauce at the bottom of the pan evaporating, thickening or getting even more watery with the juice of the pears? Is the flame up high enough or is it too high?

These must be all the questions my mother asks herself, I'm thinking. She probably even compares herself to her own mother who cooked for truckloads of people when she was alive and whipped up things like ice cream cakes on a moment's notice. Maybe my mother feels insignificant when she compares herself to her own mother just like I'm feeling now...right?

20 minutes later the pears are done. The sauce is thick and spreads evenly over the pears sitting beautifully on a white platter. The French Toast tasted great, the pears the perfect compliment to the measured vanilla and the sprinkled cinnamon.

Whew! No mistakes...

...this time.

My iPod

Like most people, when I walk there’s something in my ear. I avoid cell phones. I just want to listen. I don’t want to talk. So at first, it was my MP3 player pinned at my side, the black headphones in my ears. Now, it’s an iPod with white cords dangling, unless I feel “watched” and fear an iPod nabbing fast approaching.

There are times when I feel guilty walking around listening to something other than the sounds around me. I feel especially guilty when I’m out walking the dog because face it, this is the time I’m supposed to be “at one with the dog.” Still, I love my dog as much as I love music so it’s a toss up most days and inevitably I end up with something other than my dog’s clanging tags in my ears.

He doesn’t seem to mind. I still talk to him. “Good dog. Good right here. Good boy.” And his tail wags as much if my ears are free or if they’re not. He’s just happy to be heading somewhere. Preferably the lake. Preferably the green corner of the park where we play “chuck-it.” Preferably up the street to the neighbor’s house where his best dog-friend lives.

Years ago, when I used to ride the transit more and before MP3 players and iPods, boom boxes were popular. At the back of the bus, questionable youth would sling huge music players onto their shoulders and slide down the aisle on their way to their next stop. Everyone got to hear the music and sometimes musical selections competed with each other. Then the Walkman was born and headphones vibrated out the heavy beats of the Beastie Boys.

The headphones have gotten more elaborate and the “players” more inconspicuous, but now you can’t seem to travel anywhere without someone listening to something either on a cell phone or through their own personal listening device. Last summer, while stuck on a plane on an O’Hare runway I walked to the bathroom and counted only one person not on a phone or without headphones. Everyone, and I mean everyone was listening to something other than the pilot who was once again apologizing for the delay.

I worry sometimes that I’m disconnecting myself from the world around me by going on long walks plugged in, but I don’t worry enough to stop from doing it. I grew up in a musical family, my parents both music teachers so it only seems appropriate that music is a lifeblood of sorts for me. Yet here I am writing about something that seems as acceptable as it is ubiquitous.

What does it say about Americans that we have checked out, isolated ourselves from the sounds of the world with sounds from another world? It says a lot, of course, but I’m only concerned about what it says about me, another uniquely American quality I suppose.

So on my walks, the dog swinging his happy self at the end of the leash, this is what I think my iPod says about me:

I am well enough off that I can afford an iPod. In addition, I am well-enough off that walking for an hour or two is something I can afford. There are no kids to pick up from daycare, no second job to which I must attend, no bus I have to catch, no appointment I have to make.

I care about my dog. I’ve come to learn, after meeting many other dog owners that a lot of people don’t walk their dogs at least not for a long time. They may take Fido around the block for his daily constitutions, but they don’t just walk so the dog can get exercise. Some just throw the ball at a dog park or worse, just let the dog loose at the dog park and hope he or she gets enough exercise playing with other dogs or sniffing around off leash.

I care about my dog enough that if you were to watch me every day for a week you’d see that the dog walks (as do I) anywhere from 4-6 miles a day. Rain or shine. Furthermore, I care enough that when it’s raining my dog wears a raincoat. Another sign of my affluence or perhaps compulsion – either way, I care.

My iPod says I’m up on current pop culture. I own one where a lot of people my age (almost 50) may not or if they do, aren’t exactly sure how to use it. My iPod says I’m not living as a neo-Luddite. I know what an iPod is and I know how to use. Of course, if passersby could hear what’s on my iPod they would know a lot more about me than what just meets the eye.

I like folk music. There’s a lot of new young folk singers out there and I search, online at the iTunes store for quirky musicians that most iTuners don’t listen to. I know this because there’s nary a review about the CDs I download. Radio stations generally don’t play what I listen to so finding new music is a bit like searching for the Holy Grail – I may not find exactly what I’m looking for, but along the way I learn a whole lot about different artists.

My iPod says I have time. My iPod says I struggle with boredom. In the past, walking the dog was enough, but now walking must be entertaining, more entertaining that watching the dog chase leaves that blow by in windstorms.

My iPod says I can no longer run. I used to run with my iPod, but now my back aches and my knee is “crunchy” every time I go up or down stairs. I’ve given up running, which was very hard to do and the subsequent 20 pounds I’ve gained frustrates me to a raw nerve, a raw nerve that I soothe by listening to music or occasionally a recorded book I’ve downloaded temporarily on my iPod.

I never listen to my iPod while riding my bike, though I have a number of friends who do. I cringe when I see them. I don’t care how low the volume, you miss hearing certain sounds when you’re tuned in to music or even a story.

Some days I don’t listen to my iPod though and I suppose that says a lot about me too. Like I can be forgetful or that some days I need something other than music to bring me back to center. A walk in the rain will do that. A walk in the summer heat will do it as well.

While I may forget my iPod or choose not to take it, I never forget the dog. He could care less if I’m listening to music. He just loves to get out and my life seems all the more important when he’s at my side.

And what my dog says about me perhaps allows a more in-depth view of my psyche.

But I’ll leave it to him to tell that story.