At least I'm still considered a "Young Adult"

It's the day before the first day of school.  Typically, this day is spent somewhere on the spectrum of frantic last minute preparation and resignation that nothing will ever be truly complete/done/ready to my idealized perfection for the moment when students first walk through the door.  For the first time since 1981, I will not have a "first day of school." For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, per order of the Board and Superintendent, I am not allowed to discuss school matters with Profile staff, students, or the community.  I cannot welcome my students, meeting new faces and assuring them that Profile will be a good, safe home for them.  I will not see how much my veterans have grown and matured over the summer. I won't get to hear about internships and summer jobs, see gleaming smiles set off by tan faces.  Instead of laying awake thinking about what I will say at the opening assembly, I will lay awake in bed for the umpteenth night, debating on whether or not I should give in and take an Ativan, my brain gnashing frantically but without resolution at what it means to be forced into this "medical leave" of mine that feels an awful lot like banishment from not just a job, but my vocation.

As I have recently learned, I belong to the "Young Adult" category of cancer patient, those of us supposedly in our working, reproductive, familial, and physical primes, for whom cancer poses a series of complicated challenges aside from the disease itself. Many of us are juggling young children and careers, struggling to maintain health insurance and salaries, perhaps pensions and life insurance, if we are lucky, while also spending and inordinate amount of energy fighting this demon called cancer. We are far too young to consider retirement, but given the uncertainty of treatment schedules, prognosis, and the simple cost of insuring us, we are not the first to be called for an interview, either.  It is illegal to discriminate against someone who is sick, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  It seems it is surprisingly easy for us to be pushed out of the way.

I can handle being sick. As I have learned, burns heal.  Scars fade. I don't like being poked and jabbed and scanned ad nauseum, but I understand it.  Fatigue. Well, that's new and less than exciting, but I will survive it. What I can't abide is feeling inert, like I don't have a purpose. Yes, I know.  My job is to heal.  My purpose is to get better. And yet, I can't stand the anxiety that bubbles up in me when I hear about something happening at school or with one of "my kids" that I am not allowed to do anything about. I spend as much time worrying about the family I have created over the last seven years as I do wondering if I am going to live seven more.  Neither is a healthy pastime, and yet many inky hours have been spent at this rather than correcting papers or planning faculty in-service.

For every problem I have or pose, I typically have at least one solution. But for this one, I'm not so sure. I can't change the fact that I have cancer.  I also cannot change the minds of the powers that be to believe I or people in my position are still capable of being productive members of their work societies. But when I am healed? I may have just found a new cause to fight for.

The Power of Youth

Nearly 15 years ago, sometime in the late winter of my very first year teaching, I stood behind a woman in our local grocery store while she loudly lamented the state of today's youth.  It was an unfortunately typical, "Kids today are good for nothing, selfish hellions," conversation.  The middle aged clerk grimly nodded as she scanned her groceries, affirming the older woman's heated condemnations. At the ripe old age of 23, I was not far removed from the age bracket being roasted, but as a gainfully employed "adult professional," I felt I could weigh in on this diatribe.  "Have you ever given one of them a chance?" I asked her, as politely as I could without seeming like I was itching for a fight (which, admittedly, I sort of was).  She gave me a down the nose sneer, huffed, paid for her groceries, and righteously marched through the automatic doors.

"Really, kids aren't that bad," I said to the check out lady. "I know.  I work with them every day.  I teach at the high school."   She gave me that rather sad smile and shake of the head you give to someone who clearly has no idea what they are talking about and said, "God bless you."  I left feeling like I owed it to my students to do something to help them show the world that they were not to be cast aside as a generation, as mine had been.

When I was a senior in high school, in 1995, one of the major news magazine ran an article about Generation X, which I am on the cusp of, branding us as do nothing, care for nothing, apathetic slackers.  They painted a picture of morose, plaid-wearing misanthropes who would earn less, care less, and be less than every generation before them.  I was outraged. I hated labels and stereotypes then in the passionate way only a purple haired adolescent can, and I vowed that I would NOT, under any circumstances, allow society to see ME in that way.  You see, I had been blessed with amazing adults in my world who never once told me I couldn't change the world.  I had phenomenal parents, mentors, teachers, and administrators who supported me while I argued for gender equality, gay rights, drug and alcohol free choices for students, condoms and the arts in schools.  I did advocacy work, sat on youth panels,  attended and worked at a camp called New Hampshire Teen Institute that stressed education, outreach, and the development of leadership skills and self esteem in teens to help them stay healthy and drug free.  People believed I could do good things.  They didn't have to be big things, but to me, they made a difference.

I attended college at the University of New Hampshire, where I quickly saw that kids like myself from poor, rural towns were at a great disadvantage in comparison to those who had grown up in well connected, affluent area.  I had never heard of AP classes.  I didn't have the money to travel.  So I used my passion for advocacy and my sociology major to start researching disparity in educational funding, proving that separate is not equal, not simply in the matter of race, but socioeconomics, as well.  And again, I was blessed to find people who supported me and believed in me.  I had two amazing professors who helped me do funded research for four years on various aspects of education. I took graduate classes as an undergrad, I managed to worm my way into classes in the education department by taking on a second major in English Teaching and a minor in Education all with the goal in my mind of going to law school and becoming a lobbyist or activist on the national stage.  I agreed to do my M.Ed. at UNH because they let me into the program early and it would only take me a year.  Everyone told me they expected grand things, BIG things, from me, that I would be Secretary of Education or president of the NEA or head of some major think tank. And then I started student teaching.

All of a sudden the "big" things I hoped to accomplish took a back seat to being in the classroom. I found I loved it.  I could touch lives and affect change in a very real, albeit microcosmic way through teaching literature, writing, sociology, psychology.  I connected with students.Their curiosity and questions inspired me.  I thought I might teach for a few years and then head off to law school.  But I didn't.  And for this I blame my students, my amazing, passionate, forward thinking students.

Not more than two weeks after my disheartening grocery shopping experience, I was approached by a handful of students at White Mountains Regional High School, my alma mater and where I was spending my first harrowing year as a teacher, to see if I would help them with an idea.  They wanted a class where they could work on real projects that would have meaningful impact on the school and local communities.  With my combination of youthful naivety and social science background, I somehow was their choice (or perhaps everyone else had turned them down!). This was exactly the antidote to the check out counter lament that I needed.  The students and I approached the principal about our idea, and not only did he support it, but he paid me over the summer to design the class and purchase books. You have to understand, this doesn't often happen in spring when the budget process begins the previous November.

This class, which was officially titled Community Activism, but students referred to as Revolution 101, has affected everything I have done in education since.  It showed me clearly, with tangible evidence, that students crave the ability to do good for the world around them.  They are acutely aware of social issues, injustices, problems that need solving, people who need help.  Sometimes they just need a place to convene and brainstorm, an adult who will help them access their resources, and the support of the community at large to allow them to spread their wings and try.  Not every initiative that the CA students undertook was successful, but many of them were.  The point was that they learned from every attempt.  The communities surrounding the school embraced them and sought them out for projects and research.  Students were empowered.

Unfortunately, the administration who supported the development and deployment of the class was not supported by the local school board, and they were all asked to leave or they resigned.  The replacements were not student-centered and seemed threatened by young people having a voice.  Rather than exist in a culture that was clearly not healthy, I chose to leave WMRHS after three years and take what I had learned to another school.  Over the next five years I worked in a small private high school, White Mountain School, where I learned about the power of truly knowing every student in your community, Lancaster Elementary, a K-8 school where I taught 8th grade English and worked on my Administration certification, and simultaneously, an Adult Diploma program I helped to develop for people who had dropped out of school but now wanted a new chance.  

When I made the incredibly difficult decision to leave the classroom after eight years and move into Administration (at the encouragement of that very first principal who believed in me), I brought with me the idea that young people will surprise you if you believe in them and treat them with respect.  If you treat a school like a police state, it will become one.  If you expect the worst, that is exactly what you will get. However, if you remember that everyone wants to be heard, everyone wants to be valued and treated with respect and humility, and everyone has their own baggage and needs, EVERY student can succeed.  When we were faced with issues of intolerance at Profile School, where I have made my home for the past seven years, I knew that the only way I could change the situation was to enlist the help of a diverse group of students.  Working together as a team, they helped educate the entire student body on the toxicity of hate, and as a school, they decided that we would not tolerate that culture.  It wasn't me preaching or hammering out discipline, it was them.  They made the change.  Profile's teachers embrace this philosophy, and it pays off.

This most recent act of kindness on behalf of the senior class is just one example (a fantastic, amazing, phenomenal example) of the power of youth to do beautiful things.  They saw a problem, cancer in someone in their community, and they knew they had to do something.  They had amazing mentors in their class advisors, Kristy Duris and Ann Eaton, who gave them the tools and support to do good.  The school secretaries, Lisa Peckett and Kim Antonucci, knew that this was special, and they wanted them to be recognized.  Never, in anyone's wildest dreams, did they anticipate that it would gather the attention it has.

And why has it gone viral?  Because the world so desperately needs to see good things.  People need to believe that there are people out there who are kind, selfless, and giving.  They don't want to demonize today's youth or believe that there is nothing but mayhem and destruction in the world.  They simply need to be freed from the paradigm that that is the only way it can be.  And it works with adults, too. People have been inspired to reach out to my seniors and support them, offering money, new trips, and simply their kind words.  People of ALL ages want to do good.  They simply need an outlet.  If we empower people to see the positive acts, to realize it doesn't have to be a cure for cancer, but simply the support of someone with it, a relatively small gesture in this grand world we live in, perhaps we will all start to believe again that we CAN, as Gandhi said, be the change we wish to see in the world.

Witching Time

“Jesus, again?!”  Despite having just flicked on the lightswitch, she stood in the dark, the faint pop of the last regular filament bulb in the house echoing faintly in her ears.  It was a quaint sound, but it was the fifth light bulb this month. Neither type, halogen, fluorescent, traditional, nor location seem to matter.  She had also caused the demise of one cell phone, at least one neighboring car alarm, two clocks, a handful of children’s toys, and countless other small scale catastrophes that left people scratching their heads when their computers refused to boot or their radios wouldn’t pick up signals after she left the room. But she knew.  She left a trail of inert devices in her wake, a faint electrical burning smell tainting the air around her.  And there was still a week and a half left in the month.

October is an in-between time, a time of extremes and change.  Hot golden days, birds drunk on fermented berries, animals fat and languid from seeds and fruit, to bone chilled nights, damp and raw, leaving heavy frost on corn stalks and pumpkins.  She was startled awake at night by a flood light full moon, the tang of snow in the air, only to be drowsed to a stupor at midday by steady drizzle and slate grey skies.  The warmth and ocular orgasm of peak foliage had been stripped bare by whipping winds and pummeling rains, leaving the silver birch, green-black evergreens, and hearty orange oak leaves clinging tenaciously to round out the Halloween pallet. Old stories said all of this dichotomy in nature allowed for a weakening of the walls between worlds, allowing for an in-between space in this in-between time, when other “energies” could move between the flimsy scrim of this reality.

October was a particularly active time in her cycle of inadvertent destruction.  She knew why, but she didn’t like to admit it: it was the witching time, and she came from a long line. History had dismissed the Salem trials as the hysterical rantings of young girls, but the family quietly acknowledged that they had the real article.  She couldn’t verify that Great Grannie many times removed had actually turned someone into a blue boar, but she wouldn’t have put it past her, either.  Most people in 1690 weren’t living to see 40, say nothing about 80, without a little help.

All you had to do was look at the complexions of the women in her family to see how they mimicked the month when they were at their peak: pale skin overlaid by cheeks that went from pink to scarlet in a flushed blink; unruly hair the colors of a penny jar- bright coppers streaked with earthy browns; eyes that wouldn’t stay fixed but shifted from whiskey amber to moss green to pitch black, depending on mood.  The farther away from the source, the more dilute the pallets, but despite the infiltration of stronger genes from more typical stock, the traits remained.  Witch blood ran thick and deep.  

She was a weather witch.  That didn’t mean that she could control the actual weather, per se, but that weather had an extreme effect on her.  It also helped explain her “electrical thing.” Most disconcerting was the feeling that she was going to catch something on fire if she got too close.  She could feel it pulse in her fingertips and try to burst through her chest.  She vibrated.  On days when her mood was light and bright, she couldn’t help but skip instead of walk.  Her blood bubbled as though carbonated and her feet didn’t actually touch the ground. But then there were the other days, when her head felt like it was going to explode.  Those were the days when her hair wouldn’t stay put, power lines fried, wireless systems went down.  Her hands tingled, itched, burned. Even atomic clocks went on the fritz, cycling endlessly or grinding to a halt.  She prayed no one with a pacemaker got too close.  

Like thunder and lightening storms, this power was unpredictable. Sometimes it was a little crackle pop, slow rumbles like heat lightning, and others it was the whole explosive show, complete with torrents and great crashes of destruction.  She didn’t mean to have this effect on the people and things around her, but it apparently couldn’t be helped, at least not in a way she had found. Some days her moods settled over others like the warm glow of August sun and on others like November sleet.  She put women on edge and left men wondering why they were drawn to her. Even when she locked herself in her office on her darkest days, speaking only cursory snippets, trying to shelter people from her storm, the pall seemed to seep out through the cracks, under doors and down hallways, until a melancholy settled like thick fog, leaving people shaking their heads and wondering just what was wrong with them.

A natural toucher, hugger, petter, kisser, she knew the unintended consequences and did her best to mitigate them. While not affecting discontent at the Helen of Troy level, she had still brought on an undue number of jealous arguments and marital disputes, fits of brilliant mania and catatonic depression, crying jags and giggle fits. There were a select few who seemed caught in an especially powerful vortex around her; they simply couldn’t escape.  Sometimes she sought them selfishly. Maybe she could share some of her euphoria with a brush or a glance. A masterpiece might get finished, a mile time improved, world peace achieved. Maybe, just maybe, on the tough days, if she got close but didn’t touch, she could discharge some of that pent up energy without causing too much chaos to feel human rather than elemental again.

At least this time the casualty was insignificant and easily remedied.  The light needed cleaning anyway.  It would have been nice to have someone there, not only to bring her a lightbulb, but to pull close, skin to skin, and pass some of that electricity to. Someone who could withstand the jolt and come out energized, not anesthetized.  The right combination was euphoria hitherto unexperienced- creative genius, physical fulfillment, mental peace, and the best damn sleep you were ever going to get.  The wrong was catastrophically ugly. She had seen the results and it was rarely worth the risk.  And so she stood in the dark, fingertips burning, counting the days until November.  Maybe then it would be safe to turn on the lights again.  

Happy New Year

Crammed up against Christmas and unfortunately mired in the coldest, darkest time of the year, I've never been able to reconcile January 1st as a holiday, much less the start of a New Year.  It’s cold, bleak, and unwelcoming, not a stellar time to be thinking about a new exercise regime, changes to bad habits, or really anything other than hibernating.  That’s why I’ve always taken heart in the natural way my year seems to transition at the end of June into the beginning of July.

The start of my New Year celebration begins with the Summer Solstice.  The pagan in me finds this day enchanted.  The longest day of the year, lush and green, smelling of fresh cut hay and ripe strawberries, such a contrast to the stark landscape of January.  It’s the perfect day to be outside from dawn until dusk doing something that is good for your soul. This year the Strawberry Moon was coming full and I watched it rise over the Oahe Dam in the middle of the South Dakota grasslands as the sky radiated magenta beneath the thunderheads.  You can see to forever there, which is a beautiful thing when you are considering all of the possibilities life has to offer.  

The next leg of my new year happens on my birthday, almost a week later, on June 27. I consider birthdays each person’s personal New Year.  This year my transitioning held the additional boon of my son’s first birthday on June 25.  Starting with the Irish blessing of a buttered nose for luck (don’t ask, I don’t know where it came from), you get to take stock of everything the year before has been for you and use your special birthday wish (yes, these do come true, you know) to give a bit of magic and weight to your heart’s desires for the next one.  

My 35th year was far and away the most challenging of my life.  I got my birthday wish from my 34th year- a baby!  Sterling was ardently longed for, and perhaps it was that birthday candle dream that made him a reality. I spent all of 34 trying to get pregnant and then being pregnant.  That year passed in a quiet hum, flushed and pink with anticipation, dreams, and extra baby blood.  On my 35th birthday, I brought my son home from the hospital, sore and exhausted but proud and in awe of this new life.  I have no idea what my birthday wish was as I sat at the table with him beside me, snuggled in and sleeping away his newness. I had everything, so perhaps I wished for nothing at all.

The next day I had to bring Sterling back to the hospital. He was jaundice and tongue tied, not able to nurse.  I was battered and bruised and my milk wouldn’t come in, but I was so swollen that I winced at a touch.  I got a phone call while I was at the hospital that only I had the data needed for some report for school, needed ASAP, so I sat on my hospital bed and cried as I tried to pump and type.  And so the challenges of being a new, working mother began.   How would I balance trying to be exceptional at both my job and being a mother, because I was willing to accept nothing less of myself. I was back to work by August, taking really less than five true, full weeks of leave.  I did my best to give 100% of myself to my work and to Sterling (I know the math on that doesn’t work out) while not forgetting my husband, my family, and the other people and responsibilities around me.  I had to remember to pay the bills and feed the cats and horses and smile appropriately when people asked if they could talk to me about their problems.  I had to be level headed and fair even when I had had no sleep or was an hour overdue to pump.

And then I noticed things around me starting to change.  My husband was never home, and when he was home in body, he wasn’t present.  He refused to touch me and rarely talked to me.  He blamed me, saying that I was off-putting, that I was too stressed to be enjoyable.  Did he not see that I was stressed because I was trying to work to make sure we could survive and pay our bills?  That I was working so he could live his dream of running a music shop when really all I wanted was to be able to stay home and be a mom?  Did he not see that I was stressed because I was doing the lion’s share of taking care of our child because he was never there?  In reality, he was using this rationale as an excuse to be having an affair with his 24 year old shop girl.  It was easy to villainize me when his own conscience was so tainted.

I spent the entire fall in denial, praying that he wouldn’t do something like that with a brand new baby at home.  It felt like winter came very early.  In the darkest hours of the coldest days, right after the REAL new year, we confronted reality.  How appropriate a setting for my life to fall apart.  I spent the early months of 2013 watching as the dreams I had for my life and my family sluiced away like sheets of freezing rain.  Friends I needed turned a deaf ear. I fretted away every calorie I was able to take in, causing people to wonder if I was sick or had an eating disorder as I dipped below 110 pounds.  I doubted everything about myself. I had made no New Year’s resolutions, but this was decidedly NOT what I had predicted for 2013.  

As winter slowly began to melt away, I resigned myself to the fact that my marriage was truly, irrevocably over.  But spring is a time of new beginnings, much more so than January.  Once I was able to share what was happening in my world, the people in my inner circle showed me an enormous amount of care and support.  They reached out and tried to take care of me, even though I am terrible at letting that happen.   An old friend became a new source of happiness, reminding me that I have worth, that I am desirable, that I am lovable.  And that was terrifying.  I was encouraged to apply for a job that I considered well beyond my reach, but to my surprise, I was a finalist.  I was content with not getting the position, until my world tilted again and I waited, my breath and future uncertain, to see what would come of my mentor and friend vacating the top spot at Profile. Spring became a time of flux and wondering.  While great things were afoot, I was unmoored and uncertain about everything.  

In the final days of the school year, in the final days of spring, the final days of my 35th year, I began to think that life as I had hoped wasn’t over, and even more to the point, that it could be better than I had ever wished, birthday candle or no.  Hope springs eternal.  I was appointed to Profile’s corner office, which meant the loss of a dear friend from the roll, but an amazing opportunity for me.  My task is ahead of me, and I know what to do. I spent the Solstice in South Dakota, the place where my soul feels most at peace, in the comfort and belonging of a very special person.  My questions about myself and our potential relationship were answered.  Which brings me to now, past the change of seasons, past my birthday, into July.  

When you are in education, July 1 marks the New Year.  The books have been closed on the previous quarter and year, honor rolls are posted, and the time comes to start thinking about September (or late August for us).  For me, this year that means a new job with new responsibilities.  It means proving myself.  But is also means opportunity abounds.  July 1 also marked the start of a new challenge for myself, running (well, sort of), which is so far out of my comfort zone as to be laughable.  But you know, it feels great, especially in the company of an amazing cheerleader and coach.  It is my effort to open up, take risks, and not shy away from things that I can’t automatically do well.  It also means letting someone new(ish) in to my life in a non-work related way, which, believe it or not, hasn’t happened in years.  I have to let go believe that I can be valued as a friend, not just as a leader or problem solver.  

So here I sit on July 4th, Independence Day, the final stretch of my New Year celebration.  My beautiful, amazing son is sleeping through the raucous bangs and crashes of the fireworks all around us.  My legs remind me of the effort I have put in and itch for more. As dusk settles over the grasslands of South Dakota, two hours after ours, I will get a good night phone call from my cowboy, wishing me sweet dreams for the night and my future.  I look forward to Monday when I return to school refreshed after the long weekend, ready to get down to the task of making Profile even more amazing than it already is. And I realize how beautiful it is to be excited about life, love, friendships, work.  I am independent, strong, and capable of not only doing hard work, but of being valued and loved.  What a great way to start the New Year.  Cheers and blessings to all.  

Fireworks over Pierre/Fort Pierre, South Dakota

Country Confession

I have to come clean.  I’ve been keeping this a secret for a long time now, and in order to be true to myself, you know, all that “walk the walk, talk the talk” stuff I’ve been preaching forever, I have a confession: I think I like country music.  Maybe more than a little.  It kinda gives me this warm feeling inside that I haven’t felt before.  OK, I am active country music listener.  

I know some of you have been wondering for a while.  I mean, there have been some hints and clues, right?  Maybe it was my predilection for boots and jeans, or that I ride horses and can drive a tractor, or perhaps the not so subtle big-ass Dodge 1500 Big Horn truck? Or have you been digging a little deeper and recognized the South Dakota grasslands in my Facebook cover photo, or read the longing in my poetry, or saw my blush when they kid behind the register called me ma’am with just a hint of a drawl?  Or did I out myself when I forget to change the radio from WPKQ back to NHPR?  Whatever...now it’s out there and I can’t take it back.  

I first got the inkling that I might be a country music listener three years ago.  I came to it late in life, you see.  When most people are first starting to experiment with music,  I was completely shut off from it.  Even though I was surrounded by country music growing up,  I can hear my mother saying, “Not in this family you don’t.”   You see, it’s not that country music isn’t accepted where I’m from; it’s just that my people don’t accept it.  The country station, which happens to be the one that always comes in, was completely bypassed with a quick scan through.   Instead I was given a healthy diet of Vietnam protest songs and Motown with a smattering of Blues and Soul, coupled with my own generation’s moody cynicism packaged haphazardly in Seattle Grunge and European techno.  It was all about the irony, the disaffected malaise and angst of many young people with purple hair and extensive black wardrobes.  Country was just so, well, country.  

But how could I hide that I was a country girl!  My dad was educated but blue collar and my mom stayed home. My best days were spent playing in the barn, and my best friend was my horse.  Any weekend from Memorial Day to Columbus Day could find us at a horse show, where the experience really wasn’t complete until one of us got dumped into the manure pile.   We had dogs and trucks and we all knew how to muck stalls, throw hay, and use power tools.  But man, don’t let any of my friends at school know all that.  All of those kids who rode on the circuit or I sat with in the bleachers at the Fair- a nod in the hall will do, thanks.  They understood: vo-ag kids don’t talk to the weirdo theatre chicks.  And they certainly don’t share music.  

So there I stayed in the closet until a fateful day in June of 2010 when I drove from Denver to Rapid City and the only stations to come in in my rental car were country.  And for some reason, as I crossed state and county lines, the Muses felt I needed to hear “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” about ten times. After nearly choking on my expensive iced coffee the first time, then really listening and laughing every time thereafter, I started to hum along.  Just a dip of the musical toe, you see.  

But then I arrived at my destination, just west of Pierre, SD. Country music heartland.  And these people didn't just listen to country, you see, they lived it.  Land stretched forever under skies ripe for fireflies and thunderstorms, casting a golden glow over round bales and countless head of cattle.  Pickups abounded, farm trucks and dualies, big jacked up toys. I swear, there is not one foreign car in the whole damned state.  It’s like they are illegal.  You have never heard a country song about a Prius, but at least twenty-five percent feature as a central character a pickup, tractor, or combine.  And the people...”Yes, ma’am” is not sass talk.  It’s real.  They are truly being polite.  Even the little boys in their boots and cowboy hats. Women may be expected to help castrate bull calves and feed twenty sweaty ranchers, but they are still treated like ladies.  And hats get tipped, or at least a finger to the brim and a nod.  They have high school rodeo teams with national champions and everyone stands for The Pledge and sings along to the National Anthem.   They go to church on Sundays and real men believe in the power of Jesus and their mamas.  Just like in the songs.  It would be like going to Seattle and realizing everyone does wear flannel all the time and they really are pissed off and disaffected, and totally like, whatever, dude about everything.  This was a much kinder, gentler reality.  

So I started out experimenting.  You know, a little here, a little there.  Maybe only in NPR wasn't coming in.  But then I found myself actively seeking out the stations, yearning for twangy guitars and songs about country kids on the farm, girls who like boys in trucks, boys who like tractors.  This liberal agnostic found herself singing along to songs about trusting God and letting Jesus take the wheel. And once that sweet boy from South Dakota, the one with the truck and the dog and the ranch and the tractor, started sending me song lyrics, I knew I was done for good. I found songs that fit my life and my longings and melodies that stuck like honey. Eastern grunge techno cynic be damned.  Yes, ladies do like country boys, just like the song says.

"The Blowup," by Tim Cox.
A reminder to save a horse, ride a cowboy.

It was hard to break my newfound love to my family.  I did so gently, easing them in with crossover music, and reminding them that they had voted for Carrie Underwood on Idol.  I was met with raised eyebrows and smirky smiles.  Really?  Country? Are you sure?! Don’t get me wrong, they are getting better, but it’s still going to take time. My dad will now sit in the same vehicle where it is playing, and my younger brother is kind of bi-musical (Bluegrass being the happy medium); my mother, however, it still a bit of music bigot. “It’s ok if country music stars are on reality television, but please don’t let me have to listen to them sing.”  Although she does like Luke Bryan’s butt (who doesn’t?).

Red Season 2013

Hardwoods, lithe and long,

Push upward from frozen ground,

Their finest extremities shooting forth

Pulsing for the warmth

And the pale April sun.  

Red season spreads in a blush

Across the mountains,

Perhaps slow to start,

Shy in its wanting, but similarly

Impossible to hide or contain.

What is this if not Nature’s show of lust

Borne of a long season of dormancy?  

Spirits running heady and strong, reaching,

Filling each branch with potential for a

Spontaneous combustion of life and green.

Promise vibrates through every stem and tendril,

Sending out a frequency to everything that breathes:

NOW

Is the time to rush forth, connect, entwine,

Yielding singularity to become one.

As Spring’s flushed cheeks conjure that which fills us with life,

We would be wise to remember our part in Nature’s grand plan

And breathe deeply, revelling in the riotous energy of

A New Beginning.  

April 21, 2013

Catharthis

This was written on September 23, 2011, when it really hit home that Alan Campbell was not going to rally through his fight with cancer.  He is still acutely missed.

I have always found writing cathartic, a way to let pent up angst or elation vent through a well turned phrase.  I work in written pictures, mental snapshots, Polaroid lines.  And yet, for as much as I love writing, I don’t consider myself much of a storyteller in the written or oral tradition.  I have always been in awe of those people who can place you in a scene and carry you through an event in its entirety, whether it’s something that spanned minutes or years, and leave you with an indelible impression or emotional imprint.  

Using that most human of talents, the power of speech, the Storyteller can set a scene: a courtroom with disgruntled judge and cast of thousands, the backwoods of Vermont during black fly season, a concert from long ago resplendent with long-haired hippies, or one more recent with the same hippies (only older), the hallways of Old Profile with kids (and some teachers) who ran amok. Then they establish the mood: you’re bereft at the squalor of a shack with no running water and a filthy mattress over the bathroom door; enraged at the social injustice of a failed political or economic system;  giddy at the impending foibles of a Bad News Bears group of young ne’er do-wells working a trail.  Then they swing you through the tale, over stunned deer (thought dead) smashing the interior of a brand new car to bits, around the mountain highways of music-filled roadtrips, up a side road to the generations-long history of some infamous cohort, then back around to the room you’re sitting in right now.  The best at the craft make you feel as if it’s the first time this story has ever been told, and you are the luckiest person alive to hear it: they hunker in and lean back, drawing you in, gesticulating grandly, their intonation ringing through your laughter.  The consummate Storyteller then ties it all together, lifting you out your reverie to remember that you needed to learn something from that story, and because of that, you are now part of it.

Alan Campbell is my Mark Twain and Howard Frank Mosher packaged somewhat messily into one ornery but big hearted ponytailed Scotsman.  With wit and compassion, his stories have told me why I am at Profile, and have helped make it why I love it here.  He is the living history of this place, and with every story, he shares a piece of it with us.  Just as a good Storyteller should.