Homesick

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I can't believe how this picture makes me feel. I'm surprised.

I have been so happy to live in Houston. No mountains, no small town culture for me. But for some reason I can't readily identify, this street view picture of my first childhood house makes me homesick. I had forgotten about it. I felt that it didn't exist any longer since it wasn't a part of my life. I figured it would be raggedy and falling down if it were even still standing. I was shocked the other night when I obviously had too much time on my hands and looked it up on Google maps.

It sounds silly but I experienced some resentment that it was looking so good without my family there to take care of it. How could anyone else be living there? It just didn't seem right. For the first time I can remember, I felt like claiming my history there.

To tell the truth, I never missed the house after we moved to Texas to a split floorplan house with "my own private room." Actually, the Virginia house had been kind of spooky for me. It presented so many challenges for a child as anxious as I was. The back yard literally dropped off a few feet past my swingset. Far "down the bank" was the city of Salem or Roanoke, I don't know which. Regardless, no place that a child would want to slip and fall into. The cold damp basement had one lightbulb in the front and one in the back, both requiring a blind sprint through darkness to the center of the room to feel for the worn twine to pull to turn it on. There were too many granddaddy long legs. And there was the man I swear I saw in the basement going through our things (probably a nosy landlord) and the devil that stood in his red cape out by the clothesline many nights when I looked out my window just before dark. I hated that window by the foot of my bed. And I thought the world must be full of trouble since we were located down the road from the fire station with all its sirens.

So for all these years, since I left at the age of seven, I haven't exactly had fond memories of the place. And I'm not saying that I suddenly have a whole host of them. But when I saw the dogwood tree in the front yard the homesick feeling slammed through me. It's still there. The shade is still there. I remembered BELONGING there. Me and all my dolls and my barbies and my baby sister. We ran through the thick grass with bare feet, often getting stung by a bee. I sat for hours in the clover patches looking for the "four leaf's." I looked up at the telephone poles and hoped there would be a problem so I could watch the men climb it again. I imagined what it would feel like to climb them myself. I watched with wonder that the birds sat still on their wires when the fire trucks flew by. We ate popsicles on the porch so the neighbor kids wouldn't see and wish that they had one if they weren't as lucky as us. All these little memories made me willing to reconnect, willing to say it was my home.

I don't think I will likely choose to go back there, but seeing how it looks now has been a sort of a gift. Instead of working to maintain a safe distance between now and the past, I have a reason to feel good about claiming it. It is so easy to remember the negative things about the past. I don't know why it is so difficult to remember the "dogwood trees." I am thankful that I could virtually go back and reframe my memories of 910 Red Lane.

I hope they take good care of that tree.

Academy Street: Things are different these days.

Today was Fall 2009's first day of school! I had kindergarden duty in the morning. There was NO WAY I was going to argue with those teary eyed parents who were just sure their babies would not make it through the morning without them. I tried to smile and tell them it was best to go ahead and let me take the children to story time in the library, but ended up letting the parents take them to the classrooms for a longer goodbye if they looked scared. Tonight I wonder what it must have been like for my own mother when she dropped me off at Miss Hanley's kindergarden class at Academy Street School 38 years ago.

It was Miss Hanley's first year of teaching. Bless her heart, I was scared to death of her. She was black. I had never been around anyone of another race. Between my fear, her first day anxieties, and my mom's own worries, it must have been a pretty terrible day!

Academy street was a school full of character. It was built in the 1800's and it was evident, even to a kindergardener in the early 70's. The doors creaked, there were windows in the bathroom, and the cafeteria was in the basement! Worst of all, the bathroom door which opened into the classroom did not have a lock. Let's just say I learned a lot about boys when I opened up the door and saw David doing his business. He had on a powder blue Mickey Mouse shirt. Funny the things we remember.

Soon after I left Academy Street School, the building was condemned. I always thought they tore it down, but was surprised a few days ago when I found a picture of the restored building which has been converted into apartment homes. Things change.

Anyway, this morning as I directed parents and students around the school where I teach, I remembered to be kind to them. I remembered the peeling paint and the stern teachers from "back in the day." I was thankful for our bright new classroom and library additions that were built over the summer. At lunch duty when the boys were pouring powdered drink mix into their hands to be licked instead of mixed and sipped, I accidentally smiled. I told them about my old teachers who would make us eat any food we mixed up on our trays, no matter how disgusting the combination. These kids were different. Powdered drink mix really did taste good to them, even on top of pizza. I was different, reacting with humor instead of the glaring reprimand my old teachers would have given in the same circumstances.

People can argue all they want about how great the children's behavior was back then, and how the kids of today are spoiled. Things are different, for sure. I think it's a good difference.

I didn't know.

When this tree fell last year I have to say I was more than distressed, for several reasons. First, I have to say that surprisingly and fortunately, it didn't happen during the hurricane. I was surprised because it was during one of those unannounced storms . . . not much advanced warning or hype associated with it. The sun was shining that morning. But I consider myself fortunate because it went ahead and fell before the big storm, during which it could have done more damage to the house.

My distress began with the rain. I am not normally scared of storms and I like the rain, but this was different. It got dark and within minutes the wind was blowing and it was raining sideways. Horizontal rain. So I hid in the hall bathroom and peeked out the office window every few minutes.

This part might not have actually happened, but in my mind I think I remember a noise I've never heard before or since. It wasn't the thunder, and it wasn't the tree crashing against anything. It was sort of like that little sound that I've heard before when I'm on an airplane and the pressure makes my ears pop. Except this sound was somehow bigger, affecting more than just my ears, and I was even more scared because it represented the unknown.

When the rain turned vertical I got up from the bathroom floor and went to my back door to look out. I saw sky like I'd never seen it before . . . because it had never been there before. That space had always belonged to the big tree I loved.

I went immediately back towards the front of the house and sat propped up within the door frame of my office, watching more of the heavy rain as it splashed and steamed off of the street. I couldn't tell the difference between crying and breathing. It was like the crying was actually being pulled in and out of me by something. I was distressed because of the sudden change in landscape, because the change had been so violent, because I was alone, and because I am terribly in love with trees. Those were the immediate problems.

But it was after the storm, after the tree service had been called, after all was safe and settled that I found myself more upset. As I stood looking at my now horizontal tree I saw the effects of disease. All along, the tree had been doomed, and I didn't know it. The tree must have been hollowed for a long time. Sure I knew there was a cute little hollow at the bottom of it that the dogs would stick their noses in from time to time. But I had no idea that the tree was weak. No idea that what was left of the substance of that tree looked like a dirty sponge underneath that bark.

I was reminded of that tree a few days ago when I was made aware of some weaknesses of my own that for some reason I hadn't recognized. I cried in a similar way to my crying during the storm. But it is only today that I'm realizing that once again I was fortunate. Unlike the tree, I don't think I've become totally hollowed. I am now aware of some problems and have the ability to try and work on some of them. I have the opportunity to intervene before they weaken me more and increase the chances of a fall if my rain unexpectedly gets horizontal one day.

Personal development is boring.

Today I decided I would relax and read a book. I walked over to my kitchen bookshelf where I keep my "to read next" selections and wondered what I was thinking when I stocked that shelf. For my reading pleasure I could . . . . learn to be creative, get organized, train my dogs to mind me, be a better teacher, lose weight, eat like a diabetic . . . . the shelf is too long to go on. What stressful reading I've lined up for myself! I must have really thought I suck at a lot of things. I'm wondering just how many more things I need to learn before I can lighten up and read a story or something for pure entertainment. I'm starting to question how worthwhile it is to keep trying to be better at everything.

I know why I bought those books. There was a slight high that came from choosing this lineup of books that could potentially be LIFE CHANGING. They represented hope and purpose. But when I looked at all those books together today I had a moment of clarity where I recognized the stages of my "personal development cycle." Read. Learn. Plan. Try. Fail. Buy a different book. Read. Learn a little more. Plan a lot more carefully. Give up. Why try again, it didn't work last time. Choose something else to learn.

I have to admit that my development cycle is funny. It is actually a happy thing to discover that my mind works this way. I was getting bored. I was running out of things I thought I had hope of improving.

Just for fun I think I am going to spend a little time purposely not trying to better myself. I'm honestly too scared to make a time commitment for this experiment. I know full well that I am addicted to trying to live smarter and be a better person. And I'm not saying there's anything at all wrong with that for most people, most of the time. But for me, recognizing my cycle today made me say to myself, "This has got to stop!" I want to see what will happen if I spend a little while operating with only the knowledge I already have. I want to see if I can enjoy life a little bit more, and spend less time worrying about whether it could possibly be better.

Before I sat down to write I picked up a book of short stories edited by an author I like. I had to get it out of the middle of a stack of books I'd put to the side in an out of the way place. Tonight I will experiment with reading "just for the fun of it." For tonight, I will be satisfied with the person I already am.

Teachers have it made.

bench and buddha
Originally uploaded by *Susie*

For too many years to count, I have listened to people tell me how "teachers have it made . . . summers off and all." I love being a teacher, but summer is definitely not the reason. All of my past summers as a teacher have been spent attending workshops, planning, shopping decor for the theme of the year (I don't want to look at another fish or frog cutout) and setting up my classroom. Summers seemed the time to play catch-up and vow to "do even better this year." I have enjoyed all of the summer preparations, but for some reason I have always disliked hearing people tell me how lucky I am to have so much time off.

This summer has been different. The day before school was out Mom had a heart attack. Major heart attack. I breezed by school briefly the next day to find that my coworkers had graciously pitched in and packed all my stuff up for me. The day after that I cancelled all of my staff development workshops for the summer except for the last two. For this summer at least, there were more important things. Later on, when Mom was hospitalized again after having chest pains, I cancelled the last two.

It is now only a week and a half until teachers report to school for the new year. I have learned something very valuable this summer. I have figured out how to have a vacation. How to relax. How to make a to do list and not do it. I have learned how to skip the guilt that usually comes from not being "productive." I have spent time with my family and friends, being more present with them than I have ever been before. I have bored my dogs with my all day presence . . . they haven't gotten enough rest, they say. I have rested.

When my students show up at the end of this month, I think I will be a better teacher. This will be an even better year than the last. But this time it will not be due to new knowledge and ideas about teaching. Instead it will be because, even if just a little bit, I have learned to relax and breathe. I have come to realize that new ideas are not everything. I have gained confidence in myself, knowing that I already have enough. I will have enough time to learn new things. Just not now.

Now I can say, "I agree. Teachers have it made."

Next blog

Last night my world got bigger. I never understood why so many of the blogs I read had a "next blog" link at the top. When I clicked I was amazed. Suddenly I was looking into the minds of many many kinds of people. I was fascinated by teenagers, fashion designers, scientists . . . even people who blogged about a million different things at once. My understanding of life expanded. I felt more connected than ever.

But it gets even better. Fortunately, the "next blogs" come from all over the world. Some of them looked so interesting I found myself trying to read the texts, grabbing on to any word I knew . . . or even just the sentence structures and punctuation. Suddenly I had a 2:00 in the morning idea. Google translate. It takes some time figuring it out (I have only scratched the surface,) but I was fairly immediately reading blogs from many different countries and cultures. Blogs about the most ordinary things were interesting to me. The imperfect translations made me feel like I was talking directly with the authors, hearing their accents and gaining a whole new perception of what a language's sentence structure means.

I found out that with a simple cut and paste I could make my blog available to people who spoke any language on Google translate's long list of available translation combinations. Now, I don't imagine that anyone in Israel or anywhere else in the world is particularly interested enough to read about my cat or my bookshelf or my photoshopped dogs. However, it is true that at times last night I found myself wishing that the woman who wrote about lipstick (which I never wear) had opted to make her blog available for translation.

In my wildest dreams I never imagined the possibility of being so connected to the rest of the world. I hope someday lifeboat will end up as somebody's "next blog," expanding their world as they read and shake their head about everyday, ordinary thoughts of "some American woman."

Elizabeth looks like me.

I was playing with William for quite a while tonight. I overestimated his energy. After a while he couldn't quite keep up with the birdie I was waving around. He just gave up, plopped down on his side, and panted there on the cool floor. Elizabeth said "Good." It was time for her to get all the attention.

So I petted Elizabeth for a long time. I petted her, not like someone who pets a cat while watching a tv show, but giving her my undivided attention. Probably nobody would really call Elizabeth a pretty cat. She's not ugly, but she is very ordinary. Her fur is that wild mix of browns and greys.

At one point she put her head up under my arm, hiding her face. I remembered the first time she did that. It was a few days after I got her from the animal shelter. She was going into labor. I remember lying there beside her on the floor and thinking it was amazing she trusted me enough to comfort her. I guess maybe animals have an instinctual awareness. Or maybe she was desperate and just hoping. Whatever the case, I was happy to be there for her. Happy to share the experience with her.

As it turns out I did spend many hours with her while she was in labor, but wasn't present for the actual birth of either of the three kittens. But while I was looking at her tonight I felt like I had been there in a way. I missed the "moments," but was there beforehand and for many nights afterwards taking care of her and the kittens as they struggled with the respiratory virus.

So tonight I'm wondering why it is that right before Elizabeth decided she was exhausted from being petted, I looked at her in the face and saw myself. I would have been startled, but I recognize that feeling. I have the same feeling when I look at my old dog Gabbi. And Elizabeth and Gabbi sure don't look anything alike! I love all of my pets, present and past, dearly. But there is a different feeling that comes from watching these two. It is comforting and peaceful. Maybe a way of learning to be peaceful and content with myself.

So as Elizabeth was nibbling my hand, letting me know she'd had enough petting for the night, I was thinking about how I probably need to spend more time with her. Not so much for her benefit . . . because I think she is perfectly content lounging in her royal suite, waiting for room service. But I think it is probably the most calming part of my day. It occurred to me that I've always had this idea that I should set aside specific time for meditation or relaxation. It never has happened. Seems like I could never settle . . . was always worried about what I was missing while thinking about my breath or whatever I was supposed to be focusing on. Always thinking I should spend any extra time problem solving and planning. Tonight I thought about how absolutely cool it would be if I set aside a certain hour for Elizabeth every night. I am willing to bet that it would be every bit as effective as any formal meditation practice.

I'm glad Elizabeth looks like me.