Everyone loves a good cat story and my friendly writer from Norman, Oklahoma, likes to publish her feline companion tales wherever they are needed. Her stories are little bright spots in my world of climate change, disruptive people problems, and political faux pas, and her kind and gentle nature is a contrast to my often misinterpreted academic style, an issue I am too adrift to work on.

She is no slob behind the pen, so I am including her thoughts on what it means to become a fully invested and devoted writer. First, lighten up with her little cat musings. It's a hot Sunday afternoon on a summer day. It's a day for the porch, iced tea, and cool chicken salad sandwiches on white bread.

Why not read something?

...

Who ever sent me the book about the naughty cats that are trying to bump off their owners, this story is for you. Since the book's arrival, You-You, the cat, has arisen from his deathbed inspired with new ideas. As you know, he delights in tormenting me, but has slacked off due to infirmity. Now, he simply contents himself with lying on the kitchen floor wherever I need to be. For example, if I am cooking, he sleeps in front of the stove. If I'm washing dishes, he camps underneath the sink. So far, I haven't stepped on him.

Yesterday, I set down piddle pads on the floor for him to use. (He is in the pee-off-the porch-level of old-cat-man decrepitude.) Suspicious that he would be complying with any idea about using piddle pads, I followed him and watched in horror as he lunged toward a cell phone that had somehow fallen on top of the pads. I only managed to whisk the phone away before the great cat deluge began.

To my horror, I discovered that it was my phone that he had nearly deactivated by drowning. I was so angry that I cursed, especially, when You-You stood on the pads but aimed his stream at the carpet. Over my shouting, I could hear Lee, my husband, calling from the other room, telling me to calm down before I had a heart attack.

Yes, the book worked. It gave You-You a new reason to live. He is outside now, happily lounging on the porch, revived by my near brush with death of his own creating. Bless his evil cat heart. I love him so. ~Jennie

 

Writing, In a State of Flux

A few days ago, acclaimed Native American mystery novelist, Sara Sue Hoklotubbe, shared a great meme with fellow writers. It said, to wit: “To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself. At the end of the day, every single thing that you, the rhetorical you, put down on paper is a risk. You risk making a fool of yourself, you risk rejection, and you risk failure.” The former is valuable wisdom, as stated by the late, great Ann Rice, noted Vampire lady, and her warning resonates--with me at least. My family is distantly related to Edgar Allan Poe, and I was warned by my own mother to never put anything down on paper. Looking back on Poe’s private life, I’ve often wondered what in particular prompted her to say that—but then, as an artist, Poe had a lot of baggage to work with. However, as Poe is relevant to this day. It seems that all the very best artists have had issues! We see that working through one’s issues through the written word may lighten the burden for others who are overwhelmed by their journey.

As for myself, I plan to just keep on writing. I figure that, since I make a fool of my own self at least nine or ten times a day anyway, all without really trying, I might as well make a career of it. Indeed, Anne Rice’s insights into both human and vampire nature warns that I will probably indeed make an ass of myself. Therefore, I will giddily take my MILWAUKEE INKZALL, ultrafine, black, red pen to hand, and throw caution to the winds. (One wonders, is that popular term a repeatable idiom or verboten cliché?) I will defy my parent’s attempt to shield me from ridicule and prove Rice’s theory correct. In retrospect, I’ve made a fool of myself many times before. But I have always survived the humiliation, and, so, will you.

We bravely say that writers write to encourage others on, however, why would any relatively sane individual offer up their private thoughts on paper and open themself up to public derision? In short, just why do writers write? We write because we love to write, and, because, I fear, that we have a compulsion—a creative compulsion—that’s almost bipolar in nature. The sheer act of creating is a joy—giving character’s being and words and a destiny is heady stuff. Sadly, this high is followed by the “drop”, where you release these creations upon the world. It is probably called the drop, because your insides fall to the floor and turn flipflops like a fish out of water, while you are waiting for validation or lack of it. (Again, I love me some good cliches, can I use fish out of water as a metaphor?)    (Oh, wait, I already did.)

Believe me, I’ve asked some trusted sources and the drop provides the same traumatic experience for successful authors and unpublished writers alike. So, here we are angsting, after releasing our child of the mind into the void. We experience the dark night of the soul as our characters did, while we breathlessly wait to find out, as in the words of songwriter Celldweller, “Am I in Sync?” Here, the artist anxiously questions if anyone else out there will “get” him? In Celldweller’s case, many do. Celldweller’s personal voyage through pain and despair gives others courage to pull the stake out of their own heart and place it firmly through their tormentor’s. Celldweller’s words take away his abuser’s power to harm him. If you read the comment lines on his releases, there are many people who appreciate the singer-songwriter giving their personal trauma validation—yes, they’ve been unfairly victimized and they’ve been through something. No, it wasn’t easy surviving. However, these victims are slathering lotion on scars, they haven’t been silenced, they are still here, their feelings’ matter, it is not a pity party to embrace personal pain, and damn all the condescension from those compassionless judgers, who have never suffered, straight to hell.

But, now you say, “So, catharsis is well and good, but, why should I bother to write at all, when the world is literally and figuratively melting around me?” Just like in Run The Jewels’s musical offerings, Indie-musician Blue Stahli’s anthem, “ULTRAnumb,” or Miyazaki’s movie, “Nausica,” the atmosphere quivers with fury. Everything is polarized and vice versa: right is angry with left, left is angry with progressives, this religion is angry at that other religion, vegetarians despise omnivores, mask objectors hate mask wearers, yin is yang, and, etc.

However, humanity is self-aware. We anticipate that the end is coming. We are threatened by the existential doom of our way of life that so many politicians and business people happily destroying along with the resulting wild ride to destruction. Writing can help you make sense of your OWN life and not be at the mercy of every nutjob that comes along touting a baseless conspiracy designed to hold you sway. Behold, the great and powerful Oz! But, pay no mind to that man lurking in the shadows behind the curtain!”

Now, back to that end of the world thingee that I mentioned before. Let it bring out the best in you; we are a mortal species that have always lived under the specter of death. It’s a given that nothing lives forever, and even our sun will go nova one day. Nothing is different, except for the rate of change, which has sped up to an astronomical mind-bending rate, on our self-inflicted pathway to extinction. Perhaps, this is what the song of the whales’ mean—death is coming for you and me, lets pause and enjoy our cool blue sea, let us celebrate our mutual beautiful company. Existential threats serves to make everything, somehow, more poignant, more meaningful, more bittersweet than ever before, and writing provides a sea anchor to slow us down on our way over the abyss’ edge and into the unknown, much as the blue whale stands on tail and pours his heart out to his lovers in the sea—“Whales Weep Not”.

So, by now you are pouring yourself a good stiff drink or something of that nature. Fine, the relaxation might provide you some unique insight to put into your project. Strange times call for even stranger measures, so, I will call upon the notorious legacy of actor, author, and screen writer Ed Wood Jr. for inspiration. Ed Wood, tortured creator of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, admonishes new writers to “Just keep writing.” He says that your story may not get any better but you will. It is reported that Ed Wood’s death mask expression looked as if he had seen into the pits of hell.

Sadly, Wood led a tortured existence and I guess that he wasn’t quite through wrestling with his private demons before he jumped onto the next phase of his karmic wheel. However, we are still on this mortal plane, where writing is the preferred method of demonic wrestling. I would recommend it to the real thing--having done that in a dream, I must warn you that those little devils can inflict a lot of physical pain on your way to the truth. Sadly, you most likely will need to wrestle your demon, in order to get at the truth of what you are trying to say and a writer should always tell the truth--no matter what.

At this point, you are saying, “but, I’ve got nothing important to say; I personally don’t care to wrestle with demons, and, everything is going to hell anyway, so what’s the point?” Before you give up writing to take up drinking on a full-time basis—remember, that the “truth will set you free.” Consider this nugget of advice offered up by poet Sarah Webb.  Out of an outpouring of compassion, Webb has declared that a writer should keep on going, because there may be someone out there who needs to hear just exactly what you have to say.

Dr. Webb is an author who walks her talk (Oh, oh is that slang, an idiom, or a cliché?). She reaches out to fellow victims, by publishing a poetry book, that describes how she finally found the strength to walk away from the man, whom should have cherished and protected she and her child and did anything but. Sarah’s confessions are some of the bravest things that I’ve ever read, and I admire her sacrifice completely. She put the complete truth out there for the entire world to benefit from her experience.

You might ask yourself, why would anyone deliberately put themselves through all that emotional pain again just to tell their truth? Certainly, purging oneself of haunting memories is healing. However, the poet could have just as easily journaled her experiences and then burned the papers that they were written upon and experienced catharsis just the same. I believe, the poet shared her pain, because, of her unique gift—the ability to weave a story that lifted others above their own trauma and allowed readers to also heal. We writers can explain that there are many who have suffered, and when their readers learn that they are not the only one to be degraded, then, perhaps, they can rise above the shame that their abuser has used to control them, and spring others out of their eternal hell, too.

Writing is a paradox; by showing ourselves at our most vulnerable, we can achieve Maat. The willingness to go on in the face of adversity, the nobility of sacrificing ourselves for others is strengthening. The bravery to spit non-existence in the face and say that though we are winding down the path of entropy, though, the moon is full of grief, and the birds no longer sing, though, the sun who gave us life will mean our death, the human condition is sacred. We are meta. We acknowledge and value our beautiful place in the universe. Our souls are full of love for our fellow man. When we overcome our differences and hatred, we will mirror and pour our beauty out until the end of our time. My friends, take hold of that universe and wrestle it into being.

~ Jennie

    Today a Porsche SUV parked in the way of my garage on a street where parking is forbidden, and I asked the lady to move. Wait! I write at least one lousy essay everyday, so now I should just try to back up and provide context. This is really a story about a man-child, and the people that own the place next door are even lousier parents than I am. Their son, hereafter referred to as man-child, got them into this financial mess, an unaffordable town home, and no one wants to buy it because they are asking way too much for the place. They need somebody to blame. Instead of looking at their son for the answer, they are over here today doing work to fix the place and took out time from that to threaten me because  "[I] scared their buyer off"! Okay, so the over privileged piece of fluff buyer in the SUV felt insulted because I pointed out that she blocked my driveway. The realtor, another unwitting victim of the parents in crisis, parks in front of another neighbor's driveway. I pointed out that they were blocking the drive and kindly added the additional information that they could get towed. I suggested, quite nicely, that the parking lot is a brief fifty feet away, an easy walk. I am so confused. The realtors were driving a Tesla. Weren't they green thinking people?

    I guess since the parent threatened me, he became paranoid and called the Sheriff's Department. First, they sent the mental health people, and then the real sheriff came because I told the mental health people about the threat. In the meantime, this other gossipy guy that lives on this street allowed his cleaning crew to park in the way of my garage. I don't know why he did that, but he's moving away--Thank God! At one time this afternoon they had four cars parked on the street, all up and down because people are too lazy to walk fifty feet from the lot. Okay, that's fine. Laziness is whatever. But I've been tolerating a lot of garage blocking.

    This retired CTE teacher threatened me today with the words "be careful with what you say" attempting to mark her territory (she's big on proclamations), and show me that she knows I was rude enough to tell people not to park behind my garage. She never shuts up when you talk to her anyway, which is one reason why I avoid her. It's always "I taught school for 31 years" and "I'm a teacher." How is this productive, threatening a fellow teacher? I don't even talk to her, but she spends most evenings sitting around with that guy that is moving away. I guess I'm the bad person because I want people to follow the parking rules. And a few times she used a micro-aggression on me, but I'll save that for my next lousy essay.

    The situation is truly ironic because when the HOA started to enforce the parking rules, I resisted and complained. Then the board president made a good point about emergency vehicles. Some days you could barely drive a sedan down the streets because cars were parked on both sides of our skinny road. No meat wagon or fire truck getting through there. I saw the light, especially when I couldn't get out of my own garage safely, or return back to my garage at night. I couldn't do it because of the parent's man-child. His women were allowed to park behind my garage. I was asked to wait. Time and again, believe it or not, I was made to wait in my car while he socialized. While he swapped out kids and all that.

    I tried for two long years to be nice. I really did. As you can see from the photo, I really tried. But when I'm tired after working all day, I am told, "they will leave soon." I'm told this in different ways by different people from that house, continuously. I was so happy when they moved, but now I'm dealing with the man-child parents, their misguided and misdirected anger. They try to rationalize rather than call to account. That's on them.

Click the image :)

My big sister, 13 years my senior, provided little in the way of soft and fuzzy physical enchantments. Certainly, in those many moments of family grief, she probably wished I hadn't been born. My brother became one of our biggest contentions, but as the years following his death slipped away, I could see that she became closer to my way of thinking, especially as it concerned his mental health and substance abuse issues. It's impossible to understand any of us if you know nothing about our brother and our father, men that failed to completely recover from different wars: World War II and Vietnam. None of the men in our family shrank from civic duty, and their legendary courage and military successes were a matter of family pride.

The stressful incidents became routine, first with Dad, and then later with our brother. My sister tried to shield me from the ongoing chaos, but ultimately she left home for a different life. I felt compensated watching her move forward, first with a career in cosmetology that supplemented college, and later as a certified public accountant. Her resilience made me feel inadequate and underachieving. I read everything anyone handed me, and I listened to my brother's long rants about politics and the military industrial complex, his ideas on philosophy and history. While only a dilettante, my brother's insight still caused all of us to become skeptics and critics, especially myself as I studied his state of mind. I knew the war caused him to come back changed. For me, the loss felt horrendous and unacceptable. During that time, we didn't have a name. Now the name is PTSD. My father suffered from PTSD. My brother died after a lifetime of trying to self manage something he had no way to understand, something that no one knew to help him with--PTSD.

Watching my big sister evolve out of the chaos of our home made me a better person. Over time, I took on adult responsibilities and tried to become independent and skilled. My work took me out of Oklahoma and the world opened up for me. Because of my fractured childhood, I managed to learn more out on the road than in a classroom. Finally, after a couple of decades of living life like a vagabond, I felt the urge to return to school. My sister encouraged and supported me, even if my choices were not perfect. Her own achievements were something I could aspire to, her years attending college, the obtainment of a professional license, and the way she managed her life.

The pain we grew up with caused us to feel incredibly sensitive around each other. Spending time together meant facing reality, the reality of our shared trauma and pain, the disappointments we shared, and the inconvenient, and often terrifying, memories. The differing points of view interfered in our ability to communicate effectively, silencing both of us. We disagreed on points about our mother, our brother, and especially our father. When he left the country for the last time, she was twenty and on her way into a better life, and I was only 7 and terrified. This contributed to our differences. I became isolated at home with our mother, an angry person that rightfully felt abandoned and disappointed, a single, older mother struggling financially and emotionally. I can barely remember those years.

My sister recently died. Her death was sudden and inexplicable, a pain unlike any other. Her death was completely preventable. She left behind beautiful grandchildren, a successful son and devoted husband, and most importantly, at least in my mind, she left me at my most vulnerable, when I really needed her. Like two points of star light from opposite sides of the universe finally conjoining after trillions of years in space, my sister's beliefs about my father, brother, and mother aligned with mine. We became friends. We made plans. And now she is in the spirit world.

Big sisters challenge our beliefs, make us better people, and watch over us. We don't need to live in their pockets to feel their presence, to feel their disapproval, or to access their wisdom. My sister was a gift. I will always miss her.

My sister and me (1962).

I teach my students George Orwell's classic essay Politics and the English Language because he attacks lousy, pretentious prose with comedic indirect satire that is largely dead in modern writing. The writing of today typically dips into sarcasm, an easy below the belt tactic that contributes to the death of civil discourse in professional life. No manager or supervisor should confuse poorly toned writing for professionalism or leadership. Typing out a poorly constructed directive in all caps and sending it out to team members at an inopportune time illuminates nothing in the workplace except the sender's lack of expertise. Poorly timed, poorly toned messages disappoint dedicated people and destroy emerging relationships.

One year during the pandemic on Thanksgiving day, I sat across an old friend in a dilapidated easy chair, and while watching television, the email on my phone dinged. A smart person might have ignored the dinging, but it was Thanksgiving day. I assumed an emergency happened at my work, maybe to a fellow colleague. Instead, this message asked me to verify someone's classroom attendance. This kind of thing can't be fixed during a holiday break. It is the sort of message that scheduled for a Monday morning delivery, might have been more digestible. All writers and professionals should know that the timing of your message is almost as important as the tone and content.

I love the way Orwell addresses the issue with tacked on phraseology. Right now I have a 'hen house' phrase that I am sick and tired of hearing: "That being said."

Anywhere you go, in any setting, you will hear or read some pretentious attempt at professionalism, but the aforementioned phrase above reduces whatever the writer or speaker is trying to say into a pile of meaningless rubble. Orwell, if he were here beside me today, would likely wish he was back in India working as a cop again rather than listen to the lousy prose present in 21st century mass media. He lists out "operator, or verbal false limbs" in his characteristic indirect satirical style without mercy or embellishment. Phrases such as, with respect to, the fact that, in the interests of, with respect to, and so on, exemplify what he means by "tacked on phrases" that convey nothing to an audience.

Many times my students try to write with pretentious diction. Sometimes the results are funny and charming, but overall this kind of writing will not assist the student in any academic or business venture. And people posing as professionals ought to write clearly and with empathy, timing messages with care, rather than trying to dictate to others as if they exist on a royal pedestal when, clearly, in today's society, anyone is replaceable.

I made a major mistake last year when I bought the Super Note A6X because the screen is not quite big enough for serious writing and thinking. Last month I chanced upon an opportunity to buy the A5X open box, which meant that I could somewhat afford to invest again. Now I am unsure of what to do with my A6X, but I might give it to my son to write his music on and make drawings of his projects. 

Now that I have the A5X, I am totally in love with the way it works. It is the size of a piece of paper without margins...it's wonderful. I downloaded my teacher planning portfolio onto it, and I also geared it up with a bullet journal, which I am using to record personal plans and activities. I created another folder to write in for random thoughts and content ideas. The teacher planning kit and the bullet journal are both Etsy purchases from a guy named Brendan, and I couldn't be happier. I had a download issue, and Brendan responded within the hour with the solution even though the problem was not related to his product. Now I don't know what to do with the tons of notebooks and planners that I have at home that now seem so juvenile and wasteful, but I don't want to throw them away because they are full of writing ideas, especially from all of those boring meetings and useless trainings that I've had to endure over the years. While other people are trying to get me to work in an uncomfortable and awkward situation, my thoughts wander off in compelling ways, often forking over into banality and sometimes forking over into comedy. You just can't put a value on observations like that--they are priceless. 

If you feel serious about writing and you want the freedom to create content on a luxury device that is more intriguing than a paper notebook, splurge on the A5X. If you feel as if you want to write occasionally, and you aren't super serious about your output, just do the A6X Super Note. It will fit in a bag or in the palm of your hand like a greeting card. You will love both of them for different reasons. You will especially love the feel of the device, the way it writes. And it does come loaded down with an array of templates that you can use to create wonderful pages and documents. 

SuperNote Link

Members of my family used to give me ride alongs in their big trucks down to the Houston Ship Channel to dump massive loads of grain for export. A skinny and long-legged preteen, my biggest joy was to wake up with the seagulls and step out into the gravel-like oyster covered parking lot and go into the cool air conditioned ambience of this one particular Greek restaurant on Clinton Drive. I never knew what entree to order, but I'd always start with the salad, fresh and cheesy, cold, vinegar based, with tons of olives and cucumber.

I remember eating my salad with some kind of fish, and I'd drink glasses of iced tea, and then force whatever family member it happened to be to splurge on coffee and Greek pastries. The place is long gone; the building stands empty; but the decor will live forever in my memory. Painted statues of Greek goddesses, topless, with scenes of the Mediterranean behind them guided you through a maze of columns covered in ivy to the main dining hall where rows of tables dressed in white linen and Greek inspired flower arrangements provided luxury in a neighborhood of trucks, ships, longshoremen, and an assortment of other working people, both good and bad. I continued to visit this restaurant into my adulthood, when in the late 80s it suddenly closed.

After I moved to Saskatchewan in the 90s, I found another wonderful Greek restaurant. It was inside of a mall, and what it lacked in decor it made up for with cheesy and hot delicious food, fabulous intricate desserts, and, of course, the staple of my life--Greek salad. The people that owned this place catered a dinner for me, and if I wanted to meet someone in that end of town, I would always ask to meet in my special place knowing I could always count on a table and be treated to a first class experience.

Now, everywhere on every corner, a Greek restaurant awaits. I could choose from at least half a dozen within a few miles of my Houston home, but I often attend the same one, a chain store offering both Greek and Turkish cuisine that in some ways perfectly overlap in flavor and texture. I am okay with their kabobs and pistachio covered desserts, the array of hot vegetables and the pita bread. But, for various reasons, the Greek salad comes out limp, without a fresh and crunchy texture, so I have to eat that in another place down the road. Now that I am an old lady and completely deserving of something special, I can't have my salad with my fish. But I'm not complaining. I am happy with my memories of my Greek places. I love them.

Months into a record breaking heatwave and drought, the drunken sots behind me run a lawn sprinkler morning and evening; I suspect because neither one of them are employed or employable, so I think they sit there in the misty rainbow hoping they don't have to cool the house. The water runs down the street 100 feet around the corner to a parking area and ponds on the hard pavement. The water puddles around day and night, the only water that is wasted in the entire community, but nothing is done about it even though we are asked by the county officials to save water, even though we have elderly people living in our community on a fixed income, even though none of us have a water meter because the community water bill is shared by all and comes out of our monthly HOA fees. The drunken sots are renters, so they don't care.

Someone threw a bunch of bricks and other trash into the storm drain 40 feet from my front door, maybe the same guy that runs a chop-shop-style-fix-it-up place out of his residential garage 60 feet from my front door, forcing all of us to endure the noise, the unsightly scene, and the assortment of junk cars that rumble in and out. I wonder if when he goes to dump the chemicals, oils, paint thinners, and compounds if the clown in the storm drain issues him a receipt. 

When I walk around the bayou, I see the beauty. I wonder how a man, a stooge really, could be so indifferent to our natural world, after all we have been through: Harvey, heatwaves, Memorial Day flood, tax day flood, Ike, and so on. We already endure smog and chemical fires, noise, and traffic beyond belief. How can a grown man trash our little get-away village?

We live around an assortment of mentally ill gossip types, but one stand out case is the broad that walks around here with a hat on her head straight out of the Handmaid's Tale. She definitely puts the P in superficial because she lives in this pretend type world were popularity means something, as if she is still in high school, and lies and innuendo are a weapon of power and prestige. She will run up to another resident and go off about how much someone else is disliked and hated, as if that is what makes her feel in touch with her humanity, the deprivation of someone else's reputation or likability. 

But on these hot summer nights, as the water seeps down the road into people's driveways and under the tires of their cars, a few positives remain. A menagerie of honestly good people still live here: the board president unafraid of taking on a difficult hands-on task; the retired teacher that fussed enough to get us a streetlight; my neat-as-a-pin neighbor with the beautiful life on the seas, constantly sailing and sailing; the man across the way battling a vicious illness but working long hard hours; the fellow dog walkers; the elders on fixed incomes watching the water evaporate into nothingness; and the handsome young men with their wonderful wives and girlfriends. 

Maybe, when the next bill comes, the water will finally be turned off.

Sunday, time to reflect on the things that make your life worth living. I don't know what floats your boat, but I am happy to see bees in my garden. There is clover growing in sunny spots in the yard and the bees are visiting there. But what makes me especially happy is to see the sweet, little visitors sipping from a bowl of water that I provided for them to hydrate.
I learned from FB friends that along with planting bee-friendly flowers and clover you should provide drinking water. The bee friends recommended using a small bowl. I filled ours up with pretty things, for us humans to enjoy, but which provided a safe place for bees to land upon. For there, the bees can safely drink the water and not drown.
I took a bowl, thrown by one of Lee's former students, that we had previously used for smudging, and I filled it with colorful marbles, rose rocks, tiger eye, and a hag's stone. What is wonderful about the hag's stone is that they are deemed to hold powers of protection, which can be invoked against all forms of negativity. This particular stone--I can't remember where it came from-- has two holes, one on each end of the rock.
To my delight, when I was watering the flowers yesterday, I saw where thirsty bees actually stood upon the hag stone and sipped the water seeping into the holes. It is almost like the stones were designed for the bee's hydrating pleasure. Seeing the little creatures about is mine.

Random musing on a HOT May afternoon.
Damn it's hot!
It is really hot!
It is really very hot!
It is way too damn hot for this time of year.

The planet and peoples' tempers are boiling.
All the time, I see verbal dueling with pro-right-wing-freestyle--gun-toting fb NRA lovers. When anyone says, let's have us some commonsense gun control, then there is a great wailing, weeping, and gnashing of teeth followed by the thunderous rhetorical cry of , "but who else will stop a bad guy with a gun but a good guy with a gun. "
Now, in Buffalo, we see yet another needless tragedy involving innocents and a gun toting lunatic. A brave police officer did his best to put the assailant down, but, instead, he lies dead--a hero. He gave his life for others, but, to our horror, couldn't stop the carnage from being inflicted upon innocent shoppers.
Looks like, a good-guy-guard with a gun didn't have a chance against a racist, hate-filled guy with a bigger, more expensive gun and Kevlar and rantings that inflamed his brain.

Too bad, Americans can't pass laws that will keep her civilians safe, because there is profit in death to be made.
Pray for me, I'm an American and I'm going to go grocery shopping on an unseasonably hot afternoon in a trigger-happy state, with everyone carrying on cranky.
What could go wrong?

I'm tan. It's true. This is January, but I have a golden blush on my skin, and I'm worried.

Even though I live in a warm zone, I'm not supposed to look like I've been vacationing in Mexico, so my tan feels and looks unnatural to me. I don't mean Donald Trump orange, but I mean out of season, like wearing a floral boho dress in winter instead of plaid or muted colors. It's really worse than you think because I've been wearing shorts nearly every day for two weeks. Today was the first time I pulled on a warm sweater and leggings, the first time I've seen ice in my bird feeder, the first time I grabbed socks and not flip flops, the first time I made pumpkin spiced tea and pancakes. 

My little dogs quietly snooze on their new Christmas fuzzy blankets, all peaceful and warm. 

Henry David Thoreau, the poetic naturalist from the Transcendental movement, would certainly think a winter tan odd. And even though Transcendentalism faded away into the opulent glamour of the great Gilded Age, remnants of it hibernated within other more modern social and philosophical movements; and now, thanks to the pandemic, it seems reengineered into a full-blown revival.

Outside we go! Once again, elitist progressives become selfish of their leisure time, ponder and reflect on personal decisions and the meaning of life, reflect on brash behaviors, and attempt to make distance between the artificial and the natural. Elitist bigots, conservatives, and supremacists, engage in their own version of adverse Transcendentalism by "rolling coal" and "attempting a "coup d'etat." No matter what poison you ascribe to, conservative or progressive, Henry provides us all with a lesson on health and living well. He died at the age of forty-four of tuberculosis. As you know, tuberculosis continues to spread because no effective vaccine exists to eradicate it. Henry, from a young age, knew he was living with a disease that would end in suffering and death. He also knew his quality of life depended on him remaining physically active and out in the fresh air as much as possible. He appreciated the nurturing aspect of nature, and he accepted the cruel passage of time:

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate" (from Walden Economy).

However you interpret Thoreau, whether you appreciate him for his anger over injustice and slavery, whether you appreciate him for his loyalty to his beliefs and his love of nature, or whether you read him for his complex syntax and artistic descriptions, he certainly becomes more relevant with each passing year. As we journey into the Anthropocene, as we ride our planet into unknown territory, Thoreau's writings return us to a time when nature seemed on the verge of becoming predictable and possibly controllable. Darwin published after Thoreau, even though Thoreau seemed to already be aware of natural selection. The idea that the laws of nature were incontrovertible, that we, egotistical little humans, could harness this power like a work horse pulling a plow, is what got us into this ridiculous mess. 

Instead of putting nature first, as the Transcendentalists attempted to do, we corrupted our own menagerie of systems. Not one natural system remains intact thanks to human activity. Until we accept our failure and begin to dramatically change our oppositional handling of nature, we will continue to get these winter tans. And, as you already know, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, a winter tan is out of season.

It is impossible for me to quantify the many various ways that Bard College IWT has helped me become a more effective teacher. In the past, I participated in three week-long summer workshops on their campus that guided my pedagogy and introduced me to a bevy of other teachers from around the world that shared their own best practices and innovations. Today we did several activities that will inform my future teaching, including a loop writing activity that I must admit that I have neglected to incorporate into my own classroom. 

The theme for this workshop is "margins" and "centers," a confusing concept for someone that might not teach. But for me this poses a true reality as I think about what exists in the margins of my classroom and what exists in the center. I decided to share, verbatim, a couple of excerpts from my loop writing from today because I want you to possibly use this technique to improve your own classroom or workspace.

My teacher asked us to write about what is in the center of our classroom. 

The students are at the center of my classroom because, of course, I am a student-centered teacher. I want every student in my class to feel valued and appreciated so that they can have enough self-esteem and confidence to forge ahead and become happy, productive members of society. The goal, in my case, is to make my students be able to yield power in nonviolent ways by using the pen instead of the sword. I think humanity is tired of the sword.

One of our team members attending from Israel had an interesting response to this question. He wrote that the text is the center of our classroom, the reason we meet at all. I think we both gave pretty good answers. A class needs cohesion, so this emphasis on fragmentation, lit circles if you will, interferes with advanced interpretation and significantly reduces the possibilities of creating a valuable community in a challenging environment. A shared text brings the class together.

My teacher asked us to write about what is on the margins of our classrooms.

I am on the margin of my classroom because this is my students' high school experience. Even though I advocate for them whenever possible, I want them to solve their own problems and be active learners. That can't happen if I don't step into the margins. I don't want my students constantly looking to me for the answers. I want them to take my guidance and then create their own compositions based on what they believe to be true about the text, or I want them to be able to use style and voice to explain what they like or dislike about the text. I want argumentation and persuasion, and that takes confidence.

We did several more loops today, and then we used a metacognitive strategy to analyze what we had written. 

The loops gave me a way to visualize the interplay between myself, the students, and the materials presented. This activity also enabled me to visualize strategies used by my workshop colleagues as we shared our writings. The loops served to fine tune my planning--helped me access those murky spaces in my pedagogy.

We analyzed a visual. I am sad to admit that this has always been an area that I ignore or only briefly examine. My teacher used a photo that had meaning to me personally. Of course, my teacher doesn't know me, so he couldn't have known that this visual would lead me into some interesting ideas...in short, this activity is going to help my students on their exams. This activity is going to help my students with inference, symbolism, and interpretation. 

The pandemic created a climate of confusion and distraction for almost everyone. Thanks to Bard, I am finally breaking out of my cycle of confusion and distraction that haunts me continuously and rediscovering my ability to get in the zone and write.