Rivers and Rocks

A few weeks ago I was talking with a woman who is a leadership consultant. Among many skills, Leah, the consultant, is her ability to listen to all sides and then bring out of the differences an agreed upon truth. Sitting in such a session, I marveled at Leah's ability to honor the feelings and opinions of everyone in the room even though those feelings and opinions often came from opposite and conflicting perspectives. At the end of the meeting I asked her how she does it -- how she can genuinely respect such opposing viewpoints making everyone involved feel heard, valued, and open.

Her response surprised me. "I learned long ago," she said, "that I must value each person's best side and assume, despite what they might be showing me at the moment that they live in their best selves." She went on to explain that often we say we're "respecting" someone when in actuality we're giving them the "benefit of the doubt," which she described as seeing the person as their best self 80% of the time. "That's not good enough," Leah explained, "because that damn 20% dominates and we assume that their best selves are contingent on situations or specific events or even specific moods or even days of the week. We must see the best self of everyone 100% of the time and in doing so, that is what we shall receive from them -- good and honorable people."

I am an 80% person and on some days a 50% or perhaps even 30% believer in the best self. To give it 100% seems impossible, equivalent to climbing Everest or performing brain surgery. Not that I don't want to be a 100% believer, but I'm not certain I'm capable of it.

"Are you capable of trying?" Leah asked me.

"I suppose I am, but..." I feebly responded to which she put up her finger and said, "In finishing that sentence your are committing to not trying. It is only in the trying that you catch yourself, that your conscience says, 'I am not accepting this person, whoever that person may be, as capable of living up to their best self.' When you catch the voice doubting that is when you say, 'I will erase my doubt and assume best intentions, best potential from this person.' And when you do that enough times, the doubt will fade away and you will begin to see the best self in everyone."

I am not a fan of Oprah. I don't read Deepok or the Dali Lama or meditate at coastal ashrams. My house is not filled with incense or with books teaching me about Feng Shui or balanced living. I don't go to church and until recently, with a growing list of friends and family diagnosed with cancer, I have not been a person who has attempted to utilize prayer.

I do not surrender. I do not "Let Go and Let God" or anybody for that matter. I prefer to live with my feet firmly planted on the ground. This became even clearer to me this past week as we vacationed in New Mexico, spending days marveling at the blueness of the desert sky and the shades of red on the mountain horizons.

On long hikes through canyons and the shores of the Rio Grande we ventured through time measuring our steps in the flow of rivers and the weight of rock, the cycle of water and the sculpting of earth. Leahs' words came back to me with every breath I sucked in, my sea level lungs challenged by the 7000 foot elevation and the steep, narrow trails of the ascending canyons.

I want to dismiss her words as hokey, as fluff used to market books and schedule expensive lectures, but the more I counted my steps up the rocky trails, the more I marveled at the patience of geologic time, the more I realized how right she is. I'm not exactly sure of the connection, but somewhere between the basalt and the tuffs, the waterfalls and the wide river beds, I committed myself to trying to understand the people in my life who irritate and annoy me, who anger and enrage me, who seem to purposefully find how to drag their long nails across a dusty chalkboard.

Perhaps it was the desert air or the heat of the sun despite the snow on the ground. Perhaps it was the rocks, mountains of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and sand and time. Perhaps it was the layers of age pressed into the earth or the water on its return journey down the same river through the same canyon generation after generation. Perhaps it was feeling insignificant not only in size to the canyon walls, but in comparison to geologic history.

We visited the cave dwellings of the "ancient ones" and even among all the tourists from France and New Jersey, their was a vibration of time and purpose carved in those cliffs. The narrow passages, the depths of the kivas, and the perfect arc of each dwelling seemed significant and important. The best self was present even in the petroglyphs and hand-made bricks.

Early this morning, as we waited to board our flight back home we met a woman from Australia. She had spent time in Santa Fe not exploring the wilderness, but taking classes in what she vaguely described as "energy work." In her late sixties, perhaps even early seventies, she talked with great animation about energy's memory, how we carry with us all of time. "Your vibration or your aura, as it were," she explained with her hands flowing through curves of air, "is specific to a place and time. Actually, it's specific to the place and time of your mother at least two months before you born. When you arrive back to this place, you are perfectly aligned with the energy of the earth, the vibration of the place. You are, in every sense of the word, home."

I am not a desert dweller. While the high desert is one of my favorite locations to vacation, I could not live with the dust and sand, the wind and the thunder clouds, the cacti or the snakes. While I was born in Iowa, I have lived most of my 48 years here in the Pacific Northwest. As we flew over the mountains today and ascended over Puget Sound, I was reminded of a drive my brother and I made from a small airport in Iowa northwest to the birthplace of my mother years ago. As much as the Pacific Northwest feels like home, I remember carving our way through the cornfields of Iowa and knowing I'd been there before, not just as a small child, but always. As if the corn and the sky and the dairy cows and the puffy clouds were as much a part of me as the rain and evergreens and salt water of Seattle.

Who is my best self? Most days I don't even think about it. Most days I am completely caught up in what must happen next. But this I know: My best self is rooted in place, in the unseen rhythm of the earth. In order to meet my best self and, I suppose, to allow myself to see the best self of those around me, I must be outdoors where rocks and rivers whisper in languages I'm just beginning to understand.

You Never Know

(I'm not certain why I took this photo. We were walking up the gallery street and I looked through the trees and saw the snowy mountains. The tree, the adobe pueblo, the hills, even the snow just felt like Santa Fe at the moment. Hard to see the mountains in the background, but I liked the photo anyway...more tomorrow.)

We fell asleep at 8:30 Santa Fe time, 7:30 our time. We slept like we were sinking, waking at 3:30 Santa Fe time. We rolled over and sighed. It's good to be close again, in the same bed, and semi-conscious. I read for a half hour and fell back to sleep and then we started our day with rain and hail and finally snow. Breakfast was an accident albeit pleasant and fulfilling -- organic everything right down to the Mexican Hot Chocolate Ann let me share with her. We bought an umbrella and sauntered around the plaza saying good morning to the artisans bundled in their colorful blankets trying to stay warm. Every gallery was beautiful and though we want to buy art for our house, it was overwhelming, a sensory overload so we walked away with only postcards from the Georgia O'Keefe museum.

And then a nap. I am still suffering from this nasty cold, which first settled in my throat where all my nasties settle and has now moved to my chest. I feared something worse on our hike after the nap as I had to stop on numerous occasions to catch my labored breath. "How high up are we?" I asked Ann. "I haven't a clue," she huffed back. So tonight, after another scrumptious bowl of squash soup and cornbread, we looked up Santa Fe's elevation.

7000 feet! No wonder I can't breathe!

The sun is setting and as our hillside retreat looks west, we've a beautiful view of the pinks and blues of the evening. Tonight Venus is supposed to be visible and the Seven Sisters as well. We'll stay up for a look and then I imagine crash again as we are both recovering from the life (and death) of the past two weeks.

Traveling is not in my blood. I like landing, but the journey brings about my impatience. Ann is very tolerant of my irritation with slow lines and nasty flight attendants, but I am a much better person when I am HERE and not on my way HERE. I am enjoying this HERE (Santa Fe) and I so thankful Ann's friends were out of town for the first half of our visit as their house has been the perfect retreat -- quiet, clean, spacious, and filled with good food and more bathrooms than bedrooms (odd, but helpful when you're in one corner of the house and nature calls -- oh, there's a bathroom right here!)

Traveling also makes me appreciate home more. Simple things like the taste of the water or not knowing the aisles of the grocery store throw me out of whack. Though our trip to Whole Foods was a cultural experience far more entertaining than our gallery hopping. I don't miss home, but I know, once we board the tiny plane back to Denver and then head home from Denver to Seattle, I will grow impatient with my desire to be home where the water tastes clean and I know my way around.

Ann (as we're sitting eating lunch at Whole Foods before shopping): Don't all these people looke like they live in Seattle?

Me: Yes, but they're all white.

Ann: True, but their clothes and their posture, it all says Seattle.

Me: Do you think we'll ever travel to some place that's not like Seattle?

Ann: We'll go to Paris and visit my relatives. That's not like Seattle.

Me: But then I'll have to wear fancier shoes. People in Paris wear fancy shoes, like fancy-expensive and uncomfortable shoes. I wear Keens. People in Seattle wear Keens. I'd be guillotined if I wore Keens in Paris.

Ann: (smiles)

Me: I like to fit in, but fancier shoes, well, I'm not sure I can do it.

Ann: We don't have to think about it now. We can just be here.


Yes, we can just be here with Venus and Mexican Hot Chocolate and the thin air.

From Where I Sit

The green mother-in-law tongue stands out against the yellow adobe wall, the terra cotta tiled floor, and the enormous picture window that lays before us the Santa Fe mountainous desert. We have arrived. Our road only slightly bumpy both metaphorically and in reality. All connections to cabs, planes, and the loaner car went well, only a bit of a hitch when the tiny plane that was to take us from Denver to Santa Fe locked up its emergency breaks and would not move. We all got off the plane, waited in the tiny corner of the huge airport until the crew brought another tiny little plane after deeming the first to be officially broken.

And the bumps down the road to Kasha and Rob's house chattered my teeth as much as the ride through the storm clouds in the little plane.

But we're here and we're the only ones as Kasha is offer on a mini-retreat and Rob is off hiking with his buddies in Arizona and we are left in this desert home listening to the rain pattering on the crooked juniper just outside the window. Kasha has left us homemade squash soup with just enough spicy kick to rattle my clogged sinuses. The freezer is packed with homemade goodies -- enchiladas, tamales, pesto -- that if we chose, we would not have to leave the confines of these four walls. When I turned on my computer to write, wireless popped up allowing me to contact the world if I so desire. Vivaldi and Eva Cassidy and music I've never heard of lines the shelves of a beautiful Mexican armoire with delicate hammered copper fronts. The floors are heated. The bed is lush and firm and inviting. Our room spacious and clean and perched at the highest point so from bed, we can see the park behind us and the mountain in front of us just by lifted our heads.

This is good. After all we've been through, it feels good to just sit next to each other and do relatively nothing with no one else around. Ann's emotions have run a marathon. We are both sleep deprived and exhausted. I have a nasty cold stuck where my colds always get stuck right in my throat. I've lost my voice.

But this is still good. We are finally here, where the world seems to have stopped, if only for a short while. I am no longer spinning. Ann is finally off a plane (she's been on 12 in the last two weeks with two more to go before we land home). And the desert surrounding us is beautiful. Georgia O'Keefe beautiful.

We don't even mind the rain.

Living In My Head

I haven't exercised in over 2 weeks. As I type this, I'm eating ice cream...low fat ice cream, but ice cream nonetheless...my life is on speed dial...

...so much so that now it's two days later and I'm finally getting some time to finish this post...

Here are the highlights (some lowlights, so perhaps best to just call them "lights" though at times they've felt heavy)...

Ann flew back to Wisconsin last week and came home for a brief stay only to fly off again this past Thursday...
...her father died.

If that wasn't enough, we had a number of emotional conversations around the whole "go back/don't go back" for the funeral and while I wouldn't call them arguments, they were emotional debates. (We rarely argue...)

Ann says that when we "debate" it's unfair because she says I'm far more articulate while she is a "quiet debater." Over the years, she's asked that I not respond so quickly and let her think in silence. Fair enough. In the meantime, I've learned to choose my words carefully, trying not to think out loud, but instead, form my side of the debate with well-chosen arguments and then set them out as methodically (and unemotionally) as I can.

This "debate" was harder though because in my heart, I knew she should return for her father's funeral and I knew she was extremely resistant to the idea. Finally, after patiently listening and letting time pass I said, "It's not about you, Ann. It's not even about your being there. It's about your NOT being there. No one cares really if you're there, they only care that you're not."

The debate ended when she got on the phone with her brother and sister and sent out this trial balloon -- I'm thinking about not coming to the funeral.

Silence. No pun intended, but it was DEAD silence.

When she got off the phone she said, "Did you plan that?" and then smiled.

So now, she's about to board her plane in Madison, fly to Minneapolis, and then arrive home this evening.

But here's where it all gets complicated...here's where I feel like someone pushed pause on my life and I'm now wrapped up in the dramas of everybody else's life...

We fly out for Santa Fe tomorrow morning...early. We have to be at the airport at 4 in the morning. Ann flies in tonight at 11. We'll be home by midnight and then up again at 3.

This isn't how we planned it. Every flight scheduled in the past two weeks has been delayed, changed, or cancelled. Ann was to be home by now, but her flight got cancelled, so now she's coming home later...much later.

In addition, her ex is here visiting from Michigan with her 7 year old daughter Zoe. I picked them up at the airport. I was supposed to pick them up this morning, but guess what, her flight was cancelled and she came in later.

And when we stood waiting for their luggage, we had to wait an extra plane as they loaded all the baggage on the plane after hers.

I've been on the phone with one person or the other these past few days double checking flights, making certain I'll be available for pick up or drop off, and checking in on funeral arrangements, sibling interactions (Ann's not mine), and blindly feeling my way through this emotional terrain.

Then our friend Laurie called. She's being stalked by freaky neighbors. She wanted to spend the night, but decided her dog and a pile of rocks by her bed would make her safe. One more emotion. One more person's life to deal with.

Not that it's a problem. I don't mind picking people up at the airport or offering our house as a safe haven. In fact, I love doing that...I just didn't expect it to all happen at once.

And so, of course, I now have a cold...a sore throat, a nasty cough, drippy eyes, and a need to sleep...but I can't sleep because Beth and Zoe are here, there are bags to pack for our trip to the desert, and oh yes, I must go pick up Ann at 11:30 tonight.

When whirlwinds happen like this, I move out of my body and just shift into my head. It's weird. I don't want it to happen, but I can't seem to stop it. I'm disconnected and while I try to sleep, it's difficult because I'm making lists or reliving my day or staring at the ceiling wondering why I said that to someone or this to someone else.

Then I look at this picture....


...and I feel my heart beating again, I wiggle my toes, I hear my breath relax and stretch through the length of my spine.

Laurie says the world is spinning just 5 mph faster these days and we're all holding on at a 45 degree angle.

Perhaps a week in Santa Fe will be just what we need, though that's been crazy too as Ann's friend, Kasha (with whom we are staying), called and said she won't be home until Tuesday. Luckily, we can still stay in her house and we can use her husband's car, but the logistics of getting from the airport to her house has been one more straw on this camel's back...

...I'm not breaking yet...so let's just hope the flights all take off and land when they're supposed to...

The Purple One

Ann and I are tucked into a small cabin by the Metolius River just outside of Sisters, Oregon. The cabin is so old, we walk downhill to enter the kitchen, but it's quiet and clean and just the place for us to be after seeing the puppies for the first time. The picture above is of the "purple one" -- a sweet boy who we held today and may end up being "our dog"...though there is another male (a blue one) who may also be the choice. It's up to the breeder who will choose based on personality and not by the color of the little bands they wear around their necks.

We'd be happy with either...they are so, so adorable (a word I usually avoid using, but today, while holding them in my hands there was no other word for their puppy breath, their puppy smell, their puppy kisses).

It's been a whirlwind trip. Tomorrow we drive 6 hours back home and then back to work Monday morning. Ann has had even more of a whirlwind this week. She left for Madison on Monday morning, returned on Thursday night, we drove to Portland Friday morning and then to Sisters this morning. Sisters isn't close to anything so we drove back and forth between this little cabin by the river and the house of puppies further north, stopping in between for soup and a sandwich at Russian deli and dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

And through it all, we've talked only about the puppies!

Terrie, the breeder, was wonderful. Kind, informative, and very concerned about her dogs, their health, and the health of the puppies. She's an animal person, for certain, with a blue crested Amazon parrot in her kitchen and a bevvy of dogs in the backyard and in the house. She used to own horses, but doesn't have the time for it anymore. Her husband is a painter, but pays the bills contracting a few days a week. We didn't get to meet him, but we saw his paintings. While we would never buy them, he is talented and hopes in his retirement to paint full time.

We originally chose this breeder because she was recommended and the mother of the current pups is named Abbey, which happened to be the name of the first dog I ever owned when I was officially an adult. But the more we talked today, the more we realized how much we had in common with the breeder. She and Ann talked about esophogial (sp?) cancer, which both of their fathers have been diagnosed with -- Ann's father most recently and Terrie's a year ago. Terrie gave Ann some hope because her father is now cancer free. In addition to the father/cancer connection, I used to own an Amazon parrot so we swapped stories about parrots and their funny antics. There were many more connections, but listing them doesn't seem important. What was important is that we felt wonderfully confident that this was EXACTLY the woman from whom we wanted to purchase our next dog.

Meanwhile, Sisters is a trip. I've been here many times before, but Ann never has. I love the scenery and I really enjoy the high desert air, but amazingly I've forgotten how redneck and white the place is. The only people of color we've seen are the Mexican owners and workers of the recently opened Mexican restaurant where we ate dinner tonight. Everyone else is either cowboy boot and dusty conservative or sinfully wealthy and well-pressed Republican. The only moment we felt like we belonged (aside from being with the puppies) was in the local bookstore whose liberal offerings and folkie music (The Weepies -- which the clerk was surprised I'd heard of...) made us sigh and relax a bit. It took over an hour to get seated tonight for dinner and I felt very much as if the "gay girls" were forced to wait while the Republicans all took their seats. Ann thinks I'm being paranoid, but it sure felt odd to be stared at for an hour.

Still, it's been a very successful trip. In a month we'll come back to Sisters, pick up the new pup and head back to Hillsboro to stay with my brother and sister-in-law who've graciously allowed us to stay at their house while "passing through" to puppy land. If you're reading this big brother and dearest sister-in-law, you're absolutely going to go ga-ga over the pup (who I'm pretty sure will be named Rueben or Reuben because that's how it was spelled on the lunch menu at the Russian deli...or maybe Rubin so there won't be any trouble with e before u or u before e...)

Ann says she can't hear it, but the man in the cabin next door to ours is snoring. Could spell trouble, but earplugs solve everything.

Long drive tomorrow...best get my rest tonight. A sweet goodnight to all family and friends who read these blogs and who, we know, are awaiting the new puppy as much as we are.

It Goes Like This

I hear the doorbell. I scoot down the hall in my stocking feet and slide to the front door thinking maybe Cecilia's come by or perhaps Dely or Laurie to check up on me while I'm "alone" for the week with Ann off in Wisconsin.

I look through the peephole, but I don't have my glasses on so the person outside the door just looks like a bundle with rain dripping off the edges.

Cecilia?

I open the door and there stands a man I think I know, but am not so certain I know. There are lots of homeless folks around the neighborhood. I saw three such men today, huddled in a driveway a few blocks up the street. When I walked by, they got quiet, squatted closer together and eyed me from under their rain-soaked baseball caps.

There's also a number of crack addicts. They wander the streets in sleeveless shirts oblivious to the rain or the wind or the recent cold snap. I see them early in the morning as I walk to school swaying their arms like they haven't got a care in the world. They strut, pacing a street corner in frenetic circles waiting for their dealer to drive by or walk by or once, to my amazement, bicycle by. They shout out nonsense peppered with insults and curses and toss their heads to the sky like god is carrying on one half of the conversation.

So the man at my front door could have been homeless or drugged up, but he was submissive and calm and stood like a wet puppy on the first step of the stairway so it was hard to tell. He looked up, "Hi, I don't know if you remember me, but I used to live across the street and I once borrowed gas from you."

When we first moved into the neighborhood, the house across the street was abandoned. Squatters occupied it occasionally and one night a mid-sized RV pulled up to the front curb and ran an electrical cable to the basement of the house. They sat their for days until the police showed up and moved them on their way -- which happened to be one block over and one block up.

The man on my front porch lived in that RV and to earn money, he mowed lawns, hauled away people's garbage, and busied himself as a gruff handyman. Two boys in the neighborhood worked for him and he ordered them around, cussing and swearing loud enough that the engine of the mower couldn't drown him out.

We did give him gas for his lawn mower, but just once. He always said he's pay us back, but he never did. Instead, he just kept showing up and asking if we could spare some more gas. Eventually, even Ann's midwestern kindness faded.

We haven't seen him around for about a year now, until tonight when he stood at the front step, drenched and deshevled.

"I just need a bit of work," he kept saying. "Do you have anything for me?"

I'm always torn by those who are down and out. Part of me wanted to give him money. The other part knew that giving him money meant he'd be back next week and the week after that like a woodpecker on a dead stump. And he didn't really look like the same guy who used to boss around young kids making them do all the work while he hauled in all the cash. That man was strong. He stood tall and barked his orders with authority.

This man looked lost. He stood hunched, his head down, and he barely looked me in the eye. He was beaten. I don't know if it was drugs or hard times, but he really wasn't the same man we'd tried to help years earlier.

I decided not to give him money partly because, with Ann away until Thursday, I am home alone with no dog to signal warnings. There have been robberies of late -- the neighbor up the street, the neighbor just behind us -- and it's hard to know if this man still has kids working for him. I doubt it, but still...And I didn't give him money partly because, even though he didn't look like the same man, he claimed that he was and the man he was before was not a man I liked very much. He was mean, he was deceitful, and took advantage of kids who were just trying to earn a dollar or two.

"If you don't have no work, could you spare a dollar?"

When the crack addicts ask me for money on the corners, it's easy to say no. I know exactly where my money would end up. But occasionally, when the homeless ask for change, I give it to them. Like the old man who stands outside Walgreens with a cup and his cane and smiles a greeting as I pass by. I give him change and he nods and blesses me. Once he was in line in front of me at the grocery store buying a loaf of bread. He didn't have enough money so I paid for the rest. He blessed me then, too.

Folks in the neighborhood tell me he's not really homeless, that he lives in an old run-down house behind the grocery store. Giving him money seems to have a point, but giving money to someone who just knocks on my door early in the evening doesn't feel right.

When I finally shut the door, I could hear him still asking away. "I don't mean no harm, miss," but I couldn't listen. I don't want to be cold and cruel. I don't want to be someone who turns their back on those in need, but sometimes it goes like this -- you just have to close the door. You have to choose and all the reasons for choosing are screwy sometimes and sometimes it's just a matter of what's in your gut. There was doubt in my gut tonight and I tried to listen to it.

Sometimes it just goes like this.

It Came Down To This...

We talked for a long time this weekend. In between the basketball games and the laundry and Ann packing for her trip back to Wisconsin, we weighed our options. My options, really, but they will impact both of us. In my head I created the plus and minus columns and tabulated the results the deeper into the discussion we went.

And it came down to what was best for the new puppy we are soon to get (about a month away). I have always loved animals. No matter where I am, if there's a dog or a cat in the room, they climb up on or next to me. Perhaps I was a house pet in my previous life, but no matter the aura, they are as drawn to me as I am to them.

A dream I've always had (aside from spending my days writing) is to be a dog trainer. I never really knew how to go about it, but took opportunities to help train friends' dogs whenever I could. Since the Dog Whisperer has gained such popularity, the dog training profession seems to be a bit more prestigious. I've looked into earning a certification many times before, but now that I'm back in the city, the options are limitless.

I want to raise our new pup as a therapy dog -- a calm dog who ventures into children's hospitals and nursing homes to lay his head on some soul's lap for comfort and scratches. We chose to get a Labradoodle precisely for this reason -- a non-shedding, hypo-allergenic dog bred for a calm disposition and intelligence.

Staying at my current job allows me to raise the puppy literally at my side since I can take the dog to work, put on his "working dog" vest, and train him to stay calm amid the adolescent chaos of a middle school. Plus, we live 6 blocks from school and if I need to keep him at home, I can race back to the house during lunch or breaks to check on him.

If I left my job, the dog would be less of a companion animal and more of a pet. His therapy training would happen in between my work schedule at an undetermined business and I wouldn't have easy access to home or to work.

So here's the plan: One more year of teaching and while I'm teaching, I'll get my dog training certificate, build a network of job opportunities (outside of classroom teaching) all the while training our dog to do therapy work in and out of the classroom.

One more year. I need to stay focused, work on my boundaries, and give all my attention to my students for just one more year.

Who knows what will come with that decision. Right now, there are a few opportunities that just might open up -- a trainer for an anti-bullying program, working with the "horse whisperer" to teach parents better parenting skills, joining forces with a dynamic woman who is using current brain research to help eliminate the achievement gap in schools, or even REI with its excellent benefits and equally wonderful opportunities to move up into something like training or educational work with local kids. Or even just being a dog trainer...

"Don't just react," my friend told me the other day. "Take your time and everything will unfold as it should."

There's a lesson I can learn.

As for the dog, we travel down to Sisters next week to meet him...yes, it will be a him although we don't know which him it will be. At the end of April, that him will come home and the next weekend we begin our "therapy" training every Saturday morning way out in Woodinville, which a friend from Rhode Island pronounces as W00- Din- Ville versus "Wooden" ville..the way it's pronounced out here. It will be nice to have something else to focus on. It will be nice to have something to ground me, lower my blood pressure, and make me laugh. It will be nice to remember Chester and what an amazing dog he was. It will be nice to take the new dog for visits. It will even be nice to clean up his messes.

It's come down to this...

Our Current Focus

Today was a weird day. I worked at home, meeting with our Dean of Faculty and one other teacher to write up our assigned section of the accreditation document. It's a beast. And frankly, once we get approved for accreditation, the document will sit on a shelf somewhere and no one will pay any attention to it.

Still, we blurred our eyes and fried our brains editing, rewriting, and rephrasing the document...again and again and again.

It's hard to stay motivated when I feel so torn about work. I love my job on the one hand -- the teaching, the kids, the families -- and abhor it on the other -- the lack of structure, the deceit, the inability and unwillingness to diminish the chaos. I went back and forth today between leaving at the end of this year and staying for one more year ...

...and then the phone rang and we got the message from school that one of our students (she was in my class last year) has been diagnosed with cancer. That makes student number 2 with such a diagnosis. They aren't sure exactly which kind of cancer, yet, but it's not looking good.

Why, my teaching partner asked me over the phone, do the most messed-up families have to cope with such tragedy?

It's true...E. who is battling leukemia, lives in a family that can barely dress themselves let alone raise a child. V., the recent student diagnosed with some kind of lymphoma, has parents who can barely say a kind word to each other and are equally torn about their expecatations for their daughter.

There's weird ju-ju in the atmosphere...I'm telling you...weird-ass ju-ju.

So instead, we're focusing on this...

One of these cute bundles with their eyes closed will be ours. We drive down to Sisters, Oregon next weekend where we'll meet them along with their human owners and spend our time rolling around on the floor smelling their puppy heads. They're only 2 weeks old in this picture, but by next weekend, their eyes will be open and they'll be moving around a bit more at 4 weeks old.

I can hardly wait. I'm already so excited about a new dog in our house, I'm not even sure I can wait until the end of April when we drive back down to Sisters to pick him up. Yes, it looks as if it will be a him and one of the darker, redder hims piled somewhere in this photo.

I find myself dreaming about the puppy wondering how he'll do during our long drive back from Sisters to Seattle with a stop along the way at my brother and sister-in-laws house so we can spend the night and let the little guy meet his four-footed relatives, Hope and Ringo. Should be interesting.

I dream about our walks through the neighborhood and our first visit to the vet. I dream about how much he'll enjoy our doggie friends -- Monty and Lulu and Josie and Lucky and Salal and Ben and Keenan. I dream about our ferry ride to Bremerton to see Grandma and Grandpa and then Fossilguy and Bookworm. I dream about how everyone will "ooh" and "ahh" and giggle and snuggle over the little fur ball. And dreaming of it all keeps my spirits up. Knowing we're ready for a new dog in my life gives me hope.

I can hardly wait to feel his soft, full belly and listen to him sleep deeply, twitching his little paws as he dreams next to me.

When does the stronger come?

I am on a three-year cycle. Every three years (or sometimes six) I think about quitting my job or changing my job or going back to school. This time it's three years...three years in my current teaching position and I can't even contemplate coming back next year.

Not because of the kids or the teaching or my colleagues, but because of the politics and mismanagement. It's all too complicated to write about so I won't, but needless to say I feel exhausted, unmotivated, and nasty. Why do people treat each other this way? Why do "institutions" always resort to such misguided, inhumane tactics to get to their glorified goals?

Or is it just me?

Last week I experienced the worst convergence of early menopause (sweating, irritability, and rage) on top of pre-menstrual angst (bloating, headaches, and snappishness). It wasn't pretty. I was all emotion. I kept it in pretty well until the faculty meeting where the Head of School lied without actually lying, avoided confrontation by agreeing with me, and forged on ahead like an enormous bulldozer rolling town a tiny stream. "By god we're moving forward no matter what delicate ecosystems we destroy."

I felt like my head was going to pop off my neck. I turned bright red. Still, I kept the emotion somewhat contained and what do you know, the next day an enormous cold sore popped out on my lower lip.

So much for containing emotions.

Here's the dilemma:

My teaching partner is leaving. Our Dean of Faculty was essentially fired (that's where the lying without lying came into the conversation), and I feel left hanging without any support systems for next year. I look around at the rest of the faculty and while I respect them, there isn't one person I feel I can ally with, one person who I can be supported by at the same time support them.

Teaching without M., working without the Dean, A., bringing in a new partner is like starting a new job all over again, but one I'm not sure I would have chosen if there was any choosing to do.

To make things even more complicated, IF I were to quit, I'd be leaving the school in a really tough spot as I am the only anchor for our grade team -- I created the curriculum, I've been teaching it for 3 years, and I'm the one who really understands how the whole thing works. I walk away and I'm not really certain what impact it would have on the school. Would the new enrollees pull their kids? Would the administration demand that I explain everything before I go? Who knows.

Ann and I talk endlessly about our options. There are many, but is it the right time? Is it just a three year itch that I need to work through? What if I stayed another year? Would things get better? Would I feel better?

My fear is that I'll be completely overwhelmed by a new teaching partner and all the nasty politics that keeps flicking its dragon tail through anything that appears normal or balanced. I don't do well in chaos, yet our school is founded by a woman who creates chaos in EVERY aspect of her life.

Maybe I'm just middle aged. Maybe I'm just hormonally imbalanced. Maybe, as my dear friend Jeanne tells me, I'm a victim of my own passion -- it drives me and it burns me. Whatever it is, I feel like I'm at another crossroads and I can't decided which choice to make.

What was it my therapist said to me years ago -- a choice is just a choice, nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps, but it feels like there are weird cosmic rays penetrating earth and we're all warped by them and every choice is wrinkled and slighted twisted.

It's not just at work, either. Our neighborhood has been hit with numerous house and auto robberies. A woman at work had her car broken into in the middle of the day right on the street in front of school. The bad boys from down the street are out of jail and they have taken to "hanging out" on every street corner the cops aren't patrolling.

Closer to my heart, FG is on the cancer fence...how much time, how much pain, what kind of treatment? This not only impacts me, but a whole bunch of people I love deeply -- FG, of course, but BookWorm, too as well as my parents all the friends who love FG as I do, probably more than I do.

One more zap from the cosmos came when we found out last week that Ann's dad is dying of esophageal cancer (she's flying back to Madison next week). I wanted to go with her, but I'd have to take unpaid leave (how's that for a family friendly policy) and the airplane tickets are outrageously expensive. Meanwhile, she's unsure of exactly how she feels about it all. He's been drinking and smoking himself into a stupified lump ever since his wife (Ann's mother) left him 40 years ago. Every time Ann's seen him she's unsure how to connect. He gets nasty at times and when Ann calls him on it, he gets quiet. She loves him or the him he used to be, but she says she doesn't really know him anymore.

Convergence.

That which does not kill you makes you stronger.

When does the "stronger" come?

A New Campaign

Epiphany: (Noun) A sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.

I leapt the other day. I was sitting at my desk at home with the radio on in the background. Throughout my two hours of work, I heard the phrase “Children are our future” at least four times during a conversation with an educational analyst who was dismayed at the lack of funding and standards in American schools. I found myself agreeing with this analyst one moment and then, struck with an “intuitive understanding” I realized he had it all wrong.

Children are our future. How often do we hear that phrase? How often do we use it? My firm belief in that expression has driven my work as a teacher for my entire career. In a time of social and political anxiety, I find hope in my students, in the knowledge that they will be the compassionate leaders I long for; that the world will be a better place in their thoughtful hands. Sitting at my desk, correcting papers and planning lessons while half-listening to the radio, my epiphany came fast and strong as I imagine most do. We’ve set ourselves up for failure by doing what my father always warned against: Putting off until tomorrow what we can do today.

Americans have a paradoxical relationship with time. We attend Zen retreats to learn to live “in the now,” but spend hours overworking, saving money, and acquiring the “things” we think will make us happy someday. We schedule our weekend in date books or on Blackberries at the same time we reflect on past mistakes. We race from one place to the next in an effort to “get there” wherever there may be, not really paying attention to the journey and then spend thousands of dollars in therapy to learn how to slow down.

In America, the future is both motivator and excuse, the thing we work towards at the same time fear. We put off homework (remember cramming for the test the night before?), we delay scheduling doctor appointments, paying taxes, cleaning the cat box, flossing our teeth, writing thank you notes, getting to the gym and on and on and on. We procrastinate and in the same breath grow impatient with slow drivers, congested traffic, grocery clerks, long lines, technology, arrogance, and with impatience itself. We rush and multi-task our way through life torn between working too hard and not getting enough done. Our lives are filled with doing and avoiding, and in this oxymoronic relationship with time we throw out the phrase, “Children are our future.”

No, children are our NOW! We can’t wait until tomorrow or in the future of tomorrows. Children are not bills to be paid or traffic to race through. They are not commodities to fund or employees to promote. They are not cargo to move or packages to pick up. They are not the destination, they are the journey; they are the now we pay money to find.

If we continue to put our children’s lives in the undefined future, we avoid our daily obligations on both personal and political levels. A futuristic commitment holds no weight; it’s too easy to disregard the consequences of our daily actions. By saying children are our future we avoid the magnificent and daunting responsibility of raising thoughtful, compassionate, and critical citizens of the world right now.

Children are our now. Say it. Hear yourself say it. Better yet, hear yourself commit to it. Do you feel the shift? Do you feel the urgency? Imagine how priorities might alter if we made such a commitment on a state and national level. Demand that our leaders say it and hear themselves saying it, committing to it.

Children are our now.

Demand an epiphany.

Now.

Thrown Off Course In A Starbuck Moment

From Bookworm's Writing Workshop...thanks for the writing time, BW!

I find myself searching for balance in an unbalanced world.

It happened this morning. Exiting Starbucks, the man in front of me flung open the glass door and slammed it unintentionally into the face of a man passing by. I saw it coming and gasped, spilling my cup scalding onto my hand. The man who walked into the door smacked into it face first, a split in his forehead spurting a tablespoon of blood upon impact. In that silent moment when everyone paused and held a shocked breath, I expected to hear the injured man shout obscenities or at least a “What the hell?” Instead, his apologies spilled forth like the blood from his wound.

Meanwhile, the man who’d pushed open the door smiled innocuously and said nothing. He walked off while I ran back into the shop for napkins as a compress for the bleeding man. There was no apology from the door opener, no sense of worry, not even a helping hand – just a smile, perhaps even a giggle, and then off to his day, a bloody man in his wake.

In the parking lot, I watched another man drive off with his recently purchased vente double pump on the roof of his car. I thought to stop him, but I was still lost in thinking about the man with the gashed forehead. In the end, the driver didn’t hear the thump of the cup or the sloppy spill on his bumper and sped down the avenue oblivious, in so much of a hurry it seemed as if he’d forgotten he’d stopped to get coffee at all.

Later, the drive on the freeway to my appointment was about counting red-tailed hawks perched in hunger on the light posts. Twelve in total, watching for rats, I imagine – unbalanced predators doing their best to dent the burgeoning populations of unbalanced prey. The president was on the radio using words I could not hear and I was thinking about work and how I want to leap and change and manifest myself into something different, something balanced.

Yin and yang, and in these troubled times I feel caught in between.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that he “cracked up” when he could no longer hold two opposing thoughts in his head at the same time – to be hopeful, for instance in the time of hopelessness.

I feel neither hope nor hopelessness nor do I feel as if I am cracking up. Cracking up, I now think, is more a matter of feeling one without feeling the other – the heavy weight of hopelessness flinging the scale vertically or the equally profound import of hope catapulted by the reality of despair. Balance is quantified in dosages. A bloody forehead and famished hawk. A bouncing coffee cup and a long, fast drive on the freeway.

I have often wondered, at what point did the Romans know their empire was crumbling? At what point did they throw up their hands and say, “Well, folks, it was a nice ride but this isn’t working anymore? We are too far out of balance, we must begin again.”

I know it’s not that simple, that change does not walk in the plain clothes of a monk. Change is layered, like a beggar dressed in pants on top of pants, shirts on top of shirts, wool coats covered by wool coats. Good happens. Bad does too, and we mark our days with what went well and what didn’t, with the memories of a smile or the flame of someone’s anger. The scale tips, first in this direction and then in that and we are forever trying to hold out our arms and balance it all as skillfully as we can.

I find myself counting the weights placed on either side of the scale, observing, speculating, determining if indeed one disaster here can outweigh a thousand little pleasures over there. Can laughter compensate for grief? Can a compliment counteract an insult? Can a drop of compassion stop internal bleeding?

I want to believe it can. I want to believe that balance is achieved not by stacking the weights in our favor, but by relishing the gentle nuances – the rise and fall, the delicate swing at the fulcrum.

There is the man with the bloody forehead apologizing for something that happened to him, something he could not control. And there is the man who walked away, inattentive and seemingly pleased with the world at that moment. We can live in those extremes or we can live in the middle, swaying as if on a ship, our legs firmly planted on the deck piloting this stormy sea of an unbalanced world.

Naming

Why is it, I asked Ann the other day, that people learn the sex of their unborn child and decide to name it right then and there while it's still in the womb, but when they get a new pet they feel they have to "get to know" the animal before they name it? What would our lives have been like if our parents had waited to name us after assessing our personality?

I wonder what my parents would have named me? What was my personality at birth? I had a head of hair, I hear, and I was active. Harry? Harriet? (depending on my gender) Or maybe Spunky or Curly or Frolic? Who knows?

We are getting a puppy. One of these...

We're not sure which one of these, but one of these nonetheless. They are tagged with a colored ban so the breeder can tell them apart. They are not yet named (aside from the color), but when I think of a puppy, names cascade through my mind and I blurt them out.

"Rubin!" I shout at Ann while we watch the latest Netflix movie or "What about Quasi or Psuedo, ya know because they are not quite labs and not quite poodles."

At first, she engaged in these conversations. Then she just rolled her eyes. Now she just ignores me.

We watch the credits scroll by at the end of a TV show or a movie and I try whispering, "Tilly's a nice name. What about Mavis? Phineaus is long, but I like it."

I try to ignore her ignoring.

We're not sure what we'll get. We like the red colored Labradoodles and I think we'd prefer a boy, but then I think, "Ginger's a nice name. Or even Opal or Zelda."

I try to sneak in names. "I met this man Oscar today. That's a nice name, don't ya think?"

No response.

I try a different approach. "You know, there are so many kids whose names I don't like. I'd never name a kid Tyler or Justin," I say and this usually gets a response because, as teachers, we've met one too many Tylers and Justins who are screwy and out of control. "And no way would I name a girl Ashley or Amber or Brittney." Then I say, "So we could name our dog Rumor or Banjo or Splash, ya know, something nonhuman."

Ann turns away. She will not engage.

Nell. Prudence. Abner. Rufus. Wiley. Herschel. Odetta. Ivy. Flora. Archie. Darwin. Oliver. Grover. Flora. Cleo.

Still no response.

So, I've taken to writing the names down on a scrap piece of paper and leaving the paper in obvious places like by her coffee cup in the morning or in her underwear drawer...just in case...just in case Ann decides that it's time...now that the puppies are out of the womb and we can see pictures of them like this...

Now that's personality, don't ya think? Who needs any more information? Rupert, I think, or maybe Ivan or maybe Grace or perhaps Nell ..."

I Don't Do Well...

I don't do well with death. Odd as it is, at 48 years old, I've only really experienced the death of family pets. Yes, I've known people who've died and while it's saddened me, nothing has surpassed the death of my dogs, in particular, and even the death of a baby lamb just 3 days old who we tried desperately to nurse back to life in, of all places, our kitchen.

Fossilguy is not dead, but as we wait to hear the prognosis -- lung cancer or not, operable or not -- death is on my mind. My life feels like a disconnected montage. There are the routines -- getting up, making coffee, walking to work on these surprisingly cold, crisp mornings, teaching, coming home, making dinner, and then reading or writing before bed. But then there are moments like this:

A friend of a friend is trying to get her daughter accepted to our school. I see her in the hallway with her daughter, the applicant. A, the daughter, is bright, friendly, and very sweet. J, her mother, is loud, brash, and slightly irritating. 6 years ago she fought off breast cancer. "How are you doing?" I ask, yet instantly I know that something's not right. J is not brash or irritating and she says, in almost a whisper, "Not so good. They've found spots on my lungs." And all of the sudden I can feel tears in my eyes. I'm not thinking about Fossilguy (well, I am sort of), I'm thinking about A -- the bright, cheerful kid who is being raised by a single mother and then I think of Aleister, Fossilgut's grandson and what pops up is a 5th grade whiny voice (one I hear almost daily from my students) yelling inside my head, "It's not fair!"

Or this moment --

Our friend, L is in Mexico on vacation. She has owned a house in a small village on the water for 30 years and she journeys south 5 or 6 times a year. We've offered to watch her dog, an 11-year old shepard/chow mix who is slightly crippled and a bit crotchity. Her name, of all things is Salal like the bush that grows prolific in these parts and is an impossible mouthful when you're calling her at the dog park. She's been with us for almost a week and goes home on Saturday night. She sleeps mostly, but gets excited and barky when she hears the house keys or the car keys or watches one of us put on our shoes. When we walk, she grabs the leash in her mouth and pulls herself down the street. At night, she sleeps by the front door and then eventually hauls her stiff back legs upstairs and sleeps on her bed at the foot of ours.

Last night, while she was in her downstairs by the front door position, I was reading in bed while Ann was getting ready to join me.

Me: Can you feel it?

Ann: What?

Me: There's a dog in the house. She's not making a single sound, but you can feel her presence here just the same. I miss that.

Ann: Yeah, me too.

And then my eyes welled up with tears again remembering Chester, remembering my old dog Abbie, remembering all the pets in my past whose presence grounded me to my life.

Fossilguy grounds me to my life. I've known him since I was about 8 or maybe 10. I played with his daughters. I laughed at his jokes. He's like an uncle only closer. He's like this wise philosopher who dabbles in bones and photography and who turned me onto Louise Erdrich and even to blogging. Even if I can't hear him...even if I don't see him very much...his presence is there and I can feel it. He's like the dog at the front door of my life.

And then there's this moment:

A student from last year who is in 6th grade now comes by my classroom almost every day to say hello and give me a hug. She drove me crazy last year. She and her family live in chaos and every drama known to humankind falls in their laps almost daily. During Thanksgiving she was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with Leukemia. For awhile they didn't think she'd make it, the treatment was not working. Now, she comes to school for half a day, wears magnificently crazy hats to cover her extremely large bald head, and smiles at me every morning with puffy, drug-induced cheeks. Some days she comes in and throws herself at me demanding a hug. Other days she can barely drag herself through the door to wave at me. She loves my library and I'm certain half the books I'm missing are under her bed at home.

Yesterday she came in to peruse my bookshelves.

E: What's new in your library?

Me: Ummm, I'm not certain. It's been awhile since I've updated the collection.

E: What's this book about?

She holds up a book about a boy who is wheelchair bound, can't talk, but is able to think quite clearly, which he does in his first-person telling of the worries he has about his father trying to kill him and he's not sure how to explain to his father that, even though he can't walk or talk, he still wants to live.

Why do I have that book on my shelf, I'm thinking after E. holds up the cover to show me.

Me: Well, to be honest, it's about death and not being able to control your own destiny.

E: (Looking more closely at the cover) I don't think I need to read it. (Long pause because I can't really think about what to say in response and she's still looking at the cover.) Besides, I'm already kind of living that story.


Death, I think, isn't so bad if you're the one dying. Yes, it can be long and painful or it can be short and quick, but then it's over and you don't experience the aftermath. It's everyone else who does, everyone who's left behind, everyone who didn't die with you. What are we supposed to do with all the absence? What are we supposed to do with the hole that's left? I think that's why sometimes I fear death...I don't want to leave a hole in somebody's life.

I knew what it was like when Chester died. For weeks, months even, I kept thinking I heard him -- his dog tags, his licking lips, his deep and heavy sighs at night. I'd wake up from sweaty dreams because I could feel the weight of his body on the bed with me only to realize it was a dream and he really wasn't there. For a long time the hole he left behind in my life had a very painful weight. Now it's just there, a simple hole reminding me of what I had and what I lost. Somedays the hole makes me laugh with funny memories. Other days it makes me cry because I'd rather have the dog than the hole.

I imagine the same things happen when someone close to you dies, but so far I haven't had to experience that. I'm still holding out hope that Fossilguy will get better. I've even started to pray, which is something I've never done because I thought, like an unused library card, my account with whatever god there may be was closed.

I want Fossilguy to be well, but more than anything I just want to know that his weight, his presence will be in my life. That even if I can't see him every day, even if I can't hear his witty under the breath comments, he's still there, resting at the front door of my life.

Dreaming Memories

For about 10 years of my life I lived on a small farm on the Olympic Peninsula. We dug up an old horse corral filled with sandy soil and years of horse manure and built 20 foot long raised beds where we grew peas and squash, artichokes and beans. In the pasture, we provided a home for a variety of rescued animals and my ex-partner's old, old mare.

Farm life was part chop wood/carry water, but it was also part overwhelming and exhausting. When my relationship broke up (over 5 years ago), I was thankful in one way to be done with farming. Most of the heavy tasks fell to me (part of the reason why the relationship didn't work though there were many other reasons as well) so my days on the farm began feeding sheep and llamas and ended cleaning stalls and clearing the pasture of unwanted debris. In between it all was tilling and planting, weeding and harvesting.

Most of the animals who lived with us were rescues. Our friend, Jan the large animal vet, was always the recipient of half-eaten and close to death critters. Two of the llamas, for instance, had been chased by dogs who ripped out the back end of one llama and scarred the other. The wounds did not heal easily and required flushing out of cavernous holes and picking out maggots that formed almost overnight. That llama, Paco, survived but spent most of his life with limited vision learning to depend upon the other llamas as his guides around the pasture and on our excursions through the woods.

The llama he depended upon the most was Lupine, a skinny, short-haired ruffian with the temper of a snake. Lllamas spit, it's true, but generally at each other and usually only after serious provocation. Lupine, on the otherhand, spit as a matter of principle, hurling green slime at anyone who dared to test his patience. This became interesting when Lupine developed acid reflux, not a pretty picture in a long-necked llama. Anything chunky got stuck in Lupine's throat and he'd gag and choke until we put a tube down his throat to clear whatever was dislodged there. This made feeding Lupine difficult as he couldn't eat hay or fresh spring grass.

But he had to eat so we cordoned off sections of the pasture with sheep fencing and confined him to the parts of the field that had short grasses or had been eaten down by the other llamas. He could have no hay, which is the main staple for llamas and his grain had to be made into a goopy mush in order for him to eat it.

Atticus was the third lllama. Spunky and graceful, he had an overbite that made him look even more like a Dr. Seuss character than llamas already do. Atticus eventually went to live with friends who raised sheep where he served well as a guardian of their flock, chasing off coyotes and even once, a mountain lion.

We had rescued sheep, too who were also chased down by a pack of dogs. The sheep were part of a large flock used primarily for dog herding practice. The flock was about 30 sheep strong when a pack of domesticated dogs gathered together and broke into their pasture. Fueled by instinct and shared energy, the dogs turned ruthless and violent killing all the sheep except for two ewes. Those two ewes came to live with us where their gashed and bloody loins were nursed back to relative health. After a few weeks of care, I finally decided to name the sheep knowing they were most likely permanent residents.

Dotty received her name for the brown dot on her right hind leg while Fiesty was named for her temper. A black-faced sheep with spiraled horns, she protected Dotty from any human contact by stamping her front hoof hard against the floor of the barn and then lowering her head and charging. I was hit once by those horns and the brusie left me limping for a week.

What we didn't know about Dotty and Fiesty is that they were pregnant. Of course, it became obvious quickly as the grew in size and developed swollen teats. Then one day, when I got home from work, I found the ewes tucked away in the corners of the barn each nursing twins. Our flock went from two sheep to six and soon we were naming the new lambs just as we'd named their mothers. Truth, Justice, Honor, and Ukelele.

Now that I live in the city, there are parts of farm life I miss. The smells mostly -- the warmth of a llama's neck, the breath of a new lamb, the dust of hay, even the sour smell of the mush I'd mix three times a day for Lupine. I even miss the blistered hands and the sore shoulders from lifting 100 pound bales of hay or 50 pound sacks of grain or from repairing broken fences or clearing away brush.

Sometimes, when I'm deep asleep, I dream of the animals on the farm. In addition to the horse and the llamas and the sheep, there were four cats, two dogs, and a parrot. My dreams are ethereal with llamas galloping in the sky above me and cats lined up like birds on the barn rafters. I can smell all the scents I miss in those dreams and I float around the garden and pastures with my arms outstretched trying to hug a lamb or a dog.

Things did not end amicably with my ex. I was the "leaver" and so I was seen as the evil one. My old dog, Abbie, had died a few years before I left and though I wanted to take a cat or two or even the German Shepard, Ali, I left the house without any of the animals in tow. Perhaps that is why I dream about them or why sometimes my dreams are filled with worry -- who is feeding Lupine? Is anyone scratching Paco on the warm white spot on his chest? Is Bella (the cat) still catching swallows from the rafters of the barn or is Ali digging holes in the garden searching for moles? And what of Rico, the parrot? My ex purchased him before our relationship began, but he was difficult and demanding and instead of committing time to him, she ignored him, which made Rico all the more difficult and demanding. What has become of him?

Recently, Jan (the vet) got ahold of me. I'd loaned her some money years ago and through some wheeling and dealing she'd managed to scrape together the funds to pay me back. She called to get my current address and we talked, not about my ex but about the animals I've missed so much.

Paco and Mesmer (a llama who came into the picture later) still live with a family I found for them after I left. Lupine died shortly after I'd moved to Seattle. Unable to keep food down any longer, Jan helped euthanize him to end his suffering. Rico, the parrot, was given to a woman who rescues birds and is much happier now that someone is paying attention to him. All the cats are gone except for Kiffa, the 25 pound calico who adores Jan and rolls on her socks whenever she visits the farm. Ali the shepard was put down this last Christmas after suffering from bad hips and crippled legs. All the sheep died except two -- Dotty, the stalwart mother, and her fat, round daughter, Ukelele. They live with Jan now. Jan's old dog Vern is still alive, but crippled and aging.

And my ex? Well, I didn't ask about her. She's rarely in my dreams though when I do dream about her I am always struggling to correct the dream. "This is not my life," I say to myself, "She doesn't belong here." And then I wake up, roll over and look at Ann to make certain the dream was just a dream.

The animals on the other hand, are always in my dreams though since Jan's phone call, I haven't dreamt of them once. Perhaps Jan's report provided closure or now that I know their fates, my dreams no longer need to be filled with worry or concern or the heavy weight of responsibility to feed and care for them.

There are days when I miss the farm and there are days when I'm glad I live in a city. There are days when I long to nuzzle the warm neck of a llama or stroke the rough muzzle of lamb, and there are days when I marvel at the creativity and ingenuity of city crows. There are days in the city when I know I haven't worked hard enough and there are days when I am thankful there isn't wood to stack or stalls to clean. There are days when I wish the city weren't so loud, when the sound of the wind down a long valley whistles in my memory. But there are also days when I hear the organ from the church, the whine of the electric bus, and the songs of Avery, our neighbor, singing along with his iPod as he walks to or from work that make me appreciate the diversity of city life.

What I miss the most... if there were one thing I could bring with me to the city it would be the brillance of the stars at night. On warm summer nights I loved to lie out in the pasture with the musky smell of llama dung all around me and the black shadows of the tall trees above me, and just blur my eyes to the silvery sparkles cast like dust across the sky. Often the llamas or the sheep would lie close by, close enough to hear their breathing. The dogs would lie down too, and in the spring, when the lambs were trusting and curious, they'd curl up with their butts tuck into the dogs' bellies like some biblical scene.

Sometimes, in those dreaming memories late at night, I'm spread flat in that pasture pretending to count stars when in actuality I'm counting the heartbeats of all the different animals around me. Though it's sad to know Bella is no longer chasing birds and Rico is no longer calling my name, in my dreams everyone is right where they should be -- nearby, content, breathing -- and so am I.

Ivy in the Hood

Yesterday I walked to the store to get a half gallon of milk for our morning coffee and pick up a newspaper since we cancelled our service while on vacation. In the shopping complex we have a Neighborhood Service Center where people can do all sorts of business like buy stamps, pay their phone and water bills, or even apply for or renew their passports. A stout older woman works at the center with her cushy rolling desk chair and every piece of office equipment surrounding her. Her little box of an office is cluttered with reams of forms, every kind of pen imaginable, and two computer monitors, an equal number of keyboards, and an ancient manual typewriter. She's obviously a smoker, coughing her way through the forms, stamping them with one of those metal stampers that looks more like a garden tool for planting bulbs than it does an official city document stamper. Her voice is raspy and when she laughs, she rattles.

I've been in a couple of times to check on a bill or pick up some stamps and even to apply for my passport. She's helpful and kind, but rarely looks up from her busy hands to look anyone in the eye. She's truly a fount of information and refers to everyone as "hon" or "darling" even the elderly women who totter on their walkers.

But yesterday morning, I arrived at the grocery store before it opened (didn't grocery stores used to be open 24 hours a day?). So I stood in the parking lot, scanning my options and contemplating a trip to Starbuck's across the street so I could just order coffee instead of get milk to make it. The sign above the Neighborhood Service Center is a bold neon sign, but like most of the signs in the shopping center, many of the letters are burned out. The same is true for the Army and Marine recruiting center just three doors down from the service center, where the sign reads "...ecruiting ..my..rine..." It's a wonder anyone signs up with an advertisement that always makes me look twice because I swear it says "...my urine..."

The Neighborhood Service Center sign, though, made me really laugh as it read "...hood Service Center" and frankly, that's exactly what it is...the service center for our 'hood.

Once the grocery store opened, I got my milk and checked out with June, the grocery clerk who looks like Annie Lennox. I've told her so and she claims everyone tells her that though she doesn't have the paycheck to back it up. June is warm and wonderful and I don't care how long her line is, I always get in it because she cheers up my day. But yesterday morning, no one was in the store but me and so I pointed out to June the funny signs in the rest of the shopping center. "Well, ya know," she flashed her Annie Lennox smile, "I believe everything happens for a reason. Someone out there has a sense of humor about this area of town, that's for sure!"

And now, the sun has pushed away the threat of rain and Ann is sweating in the backyard ripping out thick beds of English Ivy, the bane of our existence. Ivy grows invasively all over the city, but finds a particularly healthy environment here in the 'hood. Most of our neighbors don't pull it out so it spreads almost as quickly as the rats. So even though Ann may clear out the jungle of vines in our backyard, the ivy will creep back through the fence from the neighbor to the east who never does any yard work and when she does, it's certainly not ivy clean up.

Still, Ann loves ripping and stacking all the vines in addition to tearing down the shaky wooden fence between our new neighbor to the south and us. With a new dog on the way we're getting ready to put in another new fence along the south side to match the one we built last spring on the north side. The whole yard needs landscaping and I'm thankful Ann is excited about the project. She's drawn sketches of what she wants it to all look like and even mapped out which plants she'll put where. Her biggest dilemma, next to the ivy though, is the neighbor's insistence on having a compost bin where he throws food scraps.

"Rats," Ann complains, "He's just inviting rats."

But that's life in the 'hood, ya know? Burned out signs, overgrown ivy, and fat rats. There's no place like home...or perhaps that should be h...me.

Security

This is to RJ (and anyone else who may be worried about my blogging silence)...I am here, I am well, but I appear not to be on your (RJ) "approved" comments list for I can't seem to sign in even with the correct word verification. So I shall write here what I've attempted to write on your blog three times.

First attempt: I am well, just busy with vacation and blank in the word department, but my fingers are getting itchy so I will post soon. The news on the homefront is that we've put money down on a puppy (soon to be born) that we shall bring home (if the gods are with us) in early May. We chose a hyp0-allergenic breed though it's not so much a breed as a mixed "designer" dog -- a labradoodle. After reading your latest post, I was thinking we may have to call him or her Cissi or perhaps Sissy, but Ann prefers Nellie!

Just kidding.

Actually, since the dog is a designed mutt we've jokingly chosen names like "quasi" and "seque" and my personal favorite, "pseudo" but those will depend on the dogs "dog"anality I think.

Anyway, I am well and thanks for thinking of me from so far away!

Second attempt: How is living in the second largest state in the Union?

Third attempt: This must be the charm!

The End of Kissing

It's amazing to me how, when given time, my mind can wonder, making odd connections. These were my thoughts as I kneaded this week's bread...

On NPR this morning, they interviewed the author of a book on the history kissing. 90% of the world kisses the way we, Americans, have come to define it -- the use of the lips against the skin of someone else...perhaps their lips or their cheek or the top of their head. Some cultures, though, consider "the exchanging of saliva" as dirty, our mouths afilled with bacteria, transmitters of viruses. Other cultures, especially in Africa, see the mouth as the portal to the soul and kissing is seen as inviting death or worse, the possible loss of the soul.

With the current flu virus making its way through our school, we've spent class time and community meeting time discussing appropriate protocol for sneezing and coughing. We've stressed again and again the importance of washing hands with warm water and soap, vigorously scrubbing while singing Happy Birthday. We've even banned the sharing of food, which above all has been the most difficult burden our students have had to bear.

Kissing, of course, is not a problem. As an all-girls' school, we have had our share of "dating" among the students (girls holding hands or cuddling in the hallways), but no more than a co-ed school and no one has been bold enough to kiss, at least not in public.

But this morning's story got me thinking -- will we ever get to the point where kissing is banned, seen as the most dangerous transmitter of deadly viruses, viruses that adapt and become resistant to medical advancements or the latest version of antibiotics?

Kissing doesn't rank up there with the likes of clean air, water, food, or adequate shelter, but its possible loss feels even more dire than the threats we'll face from global warming, terrorism, or the depletion of our fresh water supplies around the world. Certainly no one is proposing the end of kissing, but with the recent proposal to ban cell phone and iPod use in of all places the streets of New York city, I suppose anything is possible.

It's silly to speculate about something that no one is even considering, but I find that in this day and age I am considering my choices every minute of every week. I suppose I have Al Gore to thank for that. While I've enjoyed the recent spat of snow and chilly weather as well as the equally odd timing of our recent spring-like temperatures, there's an omnious feeling that comes from wearing shorts on my morning walk in the middle of February. When I run the faucet waiting for the water to get hot enough to wash the pots and pans that will not do well in the dishwasher, I worry about my overconsumption of such a valuable resource. It's not like I'm obsessed by my contributions to environmental degradation, but my concern is always there, like a haunting melody I can't seem to shake.

So to consider the loss of kissing is just another refrain and for me, the saddest verses of all. Kissing allows us to get lost. It's Zen. During my yoga sessions I concentrate on my breathing trying to block out my worries about the Iraq war or the papers I have yet to grade or the friend who has been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I try to be "present" as the instructor on the yoga video asks of me.

This is something I can do when kissing. I can be present. I can shield my mind from the past and stop projecting my worries onto a future I cannot predict or control. I can just feel the softness or the passion or warmth or the longing. I can be in the moment. My breathing is exactly what the yogi asks of me -- steady, deep, and life-giving.

If Rod Serling were alive today, I bet he could write this amazing episode for the Twilight Zone on the End of Kissing. It would star Kim Novak as a librarian. She'd live in a time of no kissing, a time when all kissing had been forgotten. Until one day, while searching through a stack of dusty manuscripts she'd see this picture, faded and yellowed.


Only through the camera angle or the music or the movement of Ms. Novak's eyes would the viewer realize the dangerous excitement she'd feel, electric and pulsating. She'd search the ancient stacks for explanations, supportive evidence that such activity was not an anomaly. Until one day, while being courted by Robert Young or Robert Mitchum, she'd boldly press her lips on his, igniting an underground revival in kissing.

Of course, it wouldn't be the Twilight Zone unless there was a twist and the twist would be that Kim or one of the Roberts would fall ill, shaking and sweating in a sterile hospital where doctors looked on stymied by the tenacity of the virus, its unknown origin, and the rapidity with which the hospital filled with the network of closted kissers. And in this age of fear, the government would blame terrorists for introducing a deadly virus through something so personal and passionate. Passion would be outlawed, of course, controlled by the state and kissing, once simply banned, would now be punished by death. The military would invade homes, place the latest spy technology in the most unlikely of places. And while Kim Novak sweated her final breaths in the hospital, Rod Serling's throaty voiceover would surmise...

A kiss is but a kiss, but in an age of fear, when our doubts control our once rational minds, a kiss can become the deadliest symbol of our intolerance. "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, predjudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, predjudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, freightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.” (actual Rod Serling quote)

The Blog Across the Street

Neighbors are a curious species in the city. In many ways, I felt much closer to my neighbors when I lived in the "country" even if their houses weren't up against mine. I left the said country because I got tired of watching trees get leveled to make room for enormous houses or worse, resorts and equally as tired of watching farmers, who could only sell their land in 10 acre plots, continously vote conservative Repubican because they wanted the right to develop their cow-pooped pastures in small subdivisions.

My first night in the city was here at this house. It was the Fourth of July and I remember staring out the bedroom window gaping at the pyrotechnics showering up and down the streets. It went on like that for hours and the next morning, when we pulled ourselves awake, the street was covered in about 4 inches thick of fireworks leftovers.

Later that summer, I remember watching gangs (and I mean this in terms of numbers, not necessarily identification) young black men swarming in the middle of the streets, the music thumping from 20 different cars, and their voices rising up, cresendo after cresendo until I was certain someone was going to get killed.

Every Sunday, there isn't an inch of space for parking as the congregates of the Ethopian Coptic Church flock dressed in their white veils into the neighborhood for long services that usually include food (roasted goat on some occasions that they broil on a spit in the parking lot), drums and the most amazing chanting followed by the high-pitched throat warble of the women.

It was on such a Sunday and the morning after another enormous party in the streets that I met our neighbor across the street. He was in his little white car driving nowhere, just pulling forward then backward again and again and again, ramming the car behind him with greater and greater force. He was pissed that the church-goers had parked in his driveway, which I found ironic as his car was not even parked in the driveway. It was, as I've describe, on the street rocking back and forth, back and forth into the car behind it.

I wasn't used to such behavior, so I did what any good citizen of the city does. I ignored him. Ann, (being from Wisconsin where good neighbors don't let neighbors act stupid) on the otherhand, took up arms and went straight out into the street to tell the neighbor to knock it off. I didn't hear the whole conversation, but as Ann walked away from the scene I heard her say "mother fucker" and I knew, if it was loud enough for me to hear it, it was loud enough for him to hear it.

Ironically, the mother fucker's name is Dick and more than once we've been party to his liberal brand of racism. Liberal in that he sees himself a raging leftist all the while spouting racist quips about welfare and gangs and thugs.

Over the years, we've watched Dick and his wife, whom we call Mrs. Kravitz, weild their prowess in the neighborhood. At neighborhood meetings, they are the first to complain inciting angry confrontations with the mothers of the kids who run freely in the 'hood. They aren't innocent, these kids, but in the meeting, it's amazing to me how brazen Dick can be in calling them names, making assumptions, and spewing his often racist, privileged opinion in their direction. My favorite comment came from Mrs. Kravitz who, clearly still miffed about the parking on Sundays, said, "Can't they just have their churched in their own neighborhood?" She was not just referring to the Coptic church around the corner, but to the four other black churches scattered within a four block radius of our particular street.

I countered, cautiously with "But this was their neighborhood until we moved in!" She just threw up her hands and gave me a list of reasons why that argument didn't hold water.

Part of the neighborhood group's work is to send out newsletters via email to everyone who signs up. They keep us up-to-date on meetings with the police department, problems with mail delivery, the latest robberies, and their efforts to stop cheap liquor from being served in the neighborhood stores. Dick contributed last week and at the end of his posting was a website for his blog. Yes, the man blogs. I suppose, since he was "let go" from Amazon (we have many suspicions why they let him go...intolerant bigoted asshole top of the list) he has time on his hands and he fills this time by blogging.

I couldn't resist. I read his posts and in them detected the same tone with which he reacted to Ann calling him a mother fucker. He rails against the president, spews mighty fire about the war, and in the same breath, complains about, yes, the parking on Sunday and the crack house on the corner.

I once had a student, years and years ago, who brought me a list of words she felt I should assign for the next vocabulary test. She told me she put "audacity" at the top of the list because she thought every high school student should use it when referring to the corrupt adults who rule the country. I'm not sure whatever happened to her, but I loved her spunk so "audacity" landed on the next week's vocab list and has been on just about every vocab list I've assigned every year since.

Dick has audacity. Mrs. Kravitz, too. She has her nose in everyone's business and he has his nose perpetually bent out of joint.

We're civil neighbors. We smile and wave and say, "Good morning" and last summer we even went to one of their "Concerts in the Garden" series. Still, when we talk about them in the confines of our own home, they are simply Dick and Mrs. Kravitz, though now I think it shall be Mrs. Kravitz and the Blog Across the Street.

Sour

Ann and I have both come down with the stomach flu. It's mild compared to our co-workers and friends who've had serious bouts with the virus spending their sick days running to the bathroom. We just feel queasy, as if we've just gotten off a swaying boat and must now walk on land. There's a knot in our stomachs and food seems unappealing. We've made a diet out of toast and bananas and last night we attempted mashed potatoes. Worst of all, we smell funny. Sour, like bad milk. I can't stand the skin I'm living in because it reminds me of baby slurp and nursing homes. Even my clothes are a bit rancid and no matter if I shower or put on new pajamas, the air around me, the air exuding from me smells curdled.

On top of all of it we're extraordinarily tired. It's amazing, in one way, how the body puts up a fight, battling with sleep against the armies of unknown bacteria that float through our systems. It's remarkable, really, but right now neither of us have the energy to marvel at any of it.

Instead, we lie around correcting papers, planning lessons, watching bad television, and making attempts to steady our sea legs every time we get up off the couch. It's a bummer in many ways, but most of all it's caused us to cancel our venture to B-town to visit my parents. Bread baking was planned and pizza making was scheduled all while we screamed at the television on Super Bowl Sunday. But, seeing how I came down with the bug first and then Ann woke up with the same queasiness, we decided it was best to keep our bugs and germs on this side of the Sound. Bread and pizza shall have to wait, though we do plan to lounge in front of the TV later this afternoon to watch the game.

We also have a four-footed visitor staying with us. Salal, an Australian/Chow mix, is staying for the weekend while her mother skis in Idaho. Luckily, Salal is an elderly dog and after short walks, she's as ready to sleep (and snore, I might add) as we are.

Meanwhile, life goes on outside our windows. The Ethopian Coptic Church Congregation has blocked the streets with attempts to find parking and beautiful veiled women stream up and down the sidewalks heading to the chanting church just around the corner. Our neighbors are cleaning up garbage from the empty lot at the end of the street and Mrs. Kravitz (the nosy neighbor) has just gone for a walk with her husband and their dog. It gives me hope to know that others are not riding the waves of this flu and that someday I shall feel better, but for now, it's more toast, a glass of watered down apple juice, and my feet up on the couch.

Yuck.

Staying Home

My teaching partner has been gone recently. She lives a busy life and between trips to the East Coast to visit family and pregnant friends and days when she's been fighting the recent flu bug, she's been out of the classroom more than she'd like. Her guilt has gotten to her and so she insisted that I stay home this morning and not come into work until after lunch. She offered it not necessarily as a favor to me, but more as a way to appease her guilt.

I couldn't say no.

But what does it say about me that I wanted to say no?

These are my "no" reasons:
1) To teach I must be in teacher mind. I've always found it difficult to shift from say, meeting mind to teacher mind or vacation mind to teacher mind. When we meet in faculty meetings before school, I am out of sync all day long with my class. My brain operates in some other dimension and shifting it back to teaching is a struggle.

This makes me think of current brain research that identifies something known as downshifting where the brain literally disengages and operates at a lower, less functional gear. When I'm not teaching, I downshift. So, an early morning without priming myself for work is a downshift and I find it hard to push the gears to function at a more precise and efficient level later in the day when I AM teaching.

2) I have my own guilt. Despite thousands of dollars spent in therapy, countless books read on the subject, and my own approaching commonsense middle age, I worry what others will think if I'm not at work. Will they know I'm sitting at home searching for puppies on the internet? Will they know I'm in my pajamas? Will they know that I've gone to the gym?

This morning, in fact, I walked to the gym just up the street and made the mistake of going before school started. Three separate families from school spotted me and waved, worry looks all over their faces because I was walking in the opposite direction of school, which leads me to...

3) I'm not a good liar. "Yes, that was me you saw walking away from school this morning," I'll have to say to one or more of the parents I saw today. "I was on my way to an appointment before I came to school." Will they know I'm lying? Will they see my ears turn red or the corners of my mouth quiver? Does it matter? Or better yet, why does it matter?

4) Letting myself relax is dangerous. Teaching is a lot like running a race. If I let myself consider how difficult it is in the middle of it, I'll struggle to finish the race. Each step will be torture. It's only January and if I let myself relax now, June will seem so much farther away than it already does.

Yesterday, on my way home, I pondered the thought of not coming back next year, of just signing up at REI for a job in retail. With full benefits even if I worked part-time, I'd probably be able to pay the mortgage and alleviate my stress. My job would be 40 hours a week and no late nights worrying about the parents who complain or the kids who are lost or the institution of education that is crumbling at my feet. No papers to grade, no phone calls home, no emails to respond to, no meetings to attend where my blood boils.

Everyone tells me I'd miss teaching and I probably would, but would I miss it so much I'd come back to it? Or would I just miss it enough to say, "Yeah, that was a good run, but now I'm on to something different?"

5) Lastly, I start to like relaxation. Even when I just get four hours of it like today, I start to think how much healthier this is not to be rushing around or answering a bazillion questions. I can workout when I want, I can spend time writing, I can bake something, I can organize my bills and my papers and even call the tax woman to set up an appointment to get my taxes done (all things I've done or tried to do this morning). This seems civilized. This seems like it's the way people should live.

I'm probably fooling myself that others live like this. Everyone is probably just as overwhelmed as I am, but it's interesting to measure this time (not at work) with that time (at work) and notice the gap between them.

Ann is overwhelmed with work these days, too. She's contemplating a change as well. Politics and incompetence are getting to her. We both got up this morning and looked at each other with a bit of resignation, but more with a look like "what shall we do about this mess?"

She, of course, had the perfect answer. We got online and looked for puppies. Then, as she headed off to school and I practiced "staying home to appease my teaching partner's guilt" I filled out a puppy application for Oh Henry! a 10 week old English Pointer. We'll find out if we're in the running in the next day or two.

A puppy, that will shake things up around here, refocus us on something other than our own choices.

Oh course, I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up. Others have applied for the same pup. Still, it's hard not to wish and dream about something other than a different job! I even hesitate to put our request on this blog...I don't want to curse us...still, it's important to dream, isn't it?