Tag Archives: time

Indirectly

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My Dad was an incredible storyteller; when he was dying, nurses at the hospital would ask my brother and I if the stories he had told them earlier were true. One asked, “did he really jump out of planes?”. After he died, we received card after card after card telling stories or sharing condolences about the loss of him, and the loss of his stories.

My brother and I always said that we knew that parts of the stories were true, but we never knew how much, or if some of them were real. Turns out that he spoke around a core truth, a center story, about which we only learned three years after his death.

Before he died, he said to my brother and I a great many things. Just before he went into a coma, in which he laid for 9 days, he told both of us individually that he wasn’t afraid to die and he knew this was the next step in his life, in his journey. This conversation, to both of us, was comforting and I think it was to him, too. He repeatedly told us that we had to take care of our mother.

One of the common themes of his stories was his time in Outward Bound, both teaching in Devon and helping boys of under-resourced backgrounds who had gotten into trouble, known as “Borstal Boys”, and trying to get another school started with little success. We always assumed the school he wanted to start was also in Devon. He spoke about it and told us that it was his biggest regret that he didn’t just try harder, that he was sure that it would have worked eventually, but that he felt that he had to earn more money, and so he eventually abandoned it.

It turns out that there was a story at the core of this story, and probably, at the core of all the others, too. It turns out that he was married in 1966, had two twin boys in 1967, and somehow left that relationship and his sons by 1971. He never told my mom this, or my brother, or I, and his family kept this secret until this last October.

This has been so hard for me to write about, despite peoples’ suggestions that it will help. For some reason, writing about this has been difficult because it scares me. My brother and I found our half-brothers (we think) and last week, sent them handwritten letters asking them to speak with us. They are 58, we are 44, and 40. Writing the letters was hard, and putting them in the mail required a lot of energy and focus, Why? I cannot tell you, although all I know right now is that I feel that knowing this story, and sending the letters, put something in motion that I now can’t take back.

When my Dad got together with their mother he was around 24 years old. I can’t even imagine my Dad as a 24 year old. For some reason, he was always old. Like my brother says, he will be 50 in our minds forever. But he was 24, and then he got married when he was 26, and had two boys when he was 27. Just like my husband Cody did. Just like so many people did. And then 4 years later, he no longer had them, had left them, and had asked his whole family to keep the secret, which they did.

For about a month, I was really mad about this. Sometimes, I still am. Right now, though, I think – why? And I know that there must have been a reason why. Tragical romance? Raising twins as babies gone awry? Lack of involvement in child raising on the part of my dad who was a rig worker and was 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off? Parents didn’t like him? All of the above and so much more?

This is the first time I am writing about this. I keep having emotional outbursts that are inappropriate. I keep thinking about my Dad. I have so much compassion for him now; more so than I ever have. I also want to shake him sometimes and I wish I could talk to him. Somehow I feel that this is the core issue that the whole family rotated around, even though we didn’t know what it was. Years ago, in 2017, I asked my aunts (his sisters) if there had been something that had happened that stopped him from having a close relationship with his family, and especially his mother. They told me it wasn’t their story to tell. Now I understand that, and they were right to tell my mom first. But, I feel somehow ok, good, accepting, forgiving, and curious about how I knew something was off.

For years, my heart has ached at my lack of family. I always wondered why we moved to Texas in 1983, and why we never went back to England. Now I know. I feel like I knew about my brothers even before I knew who they were or what they were to me. It’s as if their absence was a presence in my heart, all along.

I hope to write more about this and explore how it is changing my perspective toward myself and my dad and my place in the world. It is wild. I just turned 44, and I have decided I will live to 88. This means that my life just started its second half; just started over again. Right now I feel so sad sometimes, so angry, so confused; what am I supposed to be doing? Where am I supposed to be? But I suppose Destiny interjected the need for me to know the answer to the big question. The answer is: two brothers, twins, born in January, fellow Capricorns. I hope they want to speak to us.

Magnifying Glass

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There is an old, leather-wrapped Jefferson Magnifier that years ago I stole from my parents and use it to read words and letters largely from time to time. As the moments pass and we get closer to the inauguration of the 47th President, I keep thinking about magnification, this time of ideas, rather than random passages in old books.

I wonder if the new strategy is to employ loyalists who won’t say much against, well, anything, and to wear down the resolve of those of us who still believe in parts of the government as good, functional, useful, purposeful, and necessary for our mutual survival as a country. I am consistently reminded, also, of the Batman movie in which Christian Bale is Batman and Heath Ledger is The Joker, and Alfred reminds Bruce Wayne that “some men just want to watch the world burn”. It could be that, too, I suppose.

I wonder how does someone advocating for the slashing-and-burning of the FBI impact me? Does it? What if the Department of Education is dismantled to pre-1979 laws. Would they go after those laws, too? What about IDEA? What about school lunch programs?

I wonder.

When I pull back on this philosophical magnifying glass, I see that this is both a detail and a long-term strategy that started way back when I was little and Reagan was president. So many big ideas had been codified into law during the 1940s-1980, and his administration wasn’t able to do much about it. But what about this one? 40 years later and a whole lot more vocal and indignant.

I hope that the federal government is not changed to a point where we can’t recognize it. I don’t know what that would mean for most people, especially young people and poor people and unhoused people and immigrant people. This last week’s news was emotionally draining for me, but I am trying to read the news about once per day. I do want to know about as much as the media will report. I hope they continue being brave and sharing details. Without them, I am not sure what might happen. I do remember that there were no press briefings during his last administration. Will that happen again?

This all so strange to experience, this shift in the United States. The shift is so dramatic as to be alienating and exciting but not in a happy way. The other side I think probably feels the same way except they are excited in a good way. This is so tiring; I hate that I am feeling so tired by all of it and I feel like my writing is not as clear as normal. But that is ok. Like one of my best friends said today, “it is all so fleeting”.

Control Issues

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Why is it so hard?

Today, I found myself holding my head in my hands whilst standing at the counter full of gold jewelry. I was thinking about being a public school teacher for 20 years and how the president-to-be wants to eliminate the Department of Education. I was thinking about life and careers and goals and how maybe, it’s just not all that important.

I listened to sad music for awhile, made jewelry for awhile, and then proceeded to watch my dog barf and poop in various spots throughout the gallery (really hope I found all of them!) for the rest of the day. He even pooped in front of two customers. Yikes.

Then it got dark, and the moon ascended and when I got outside it was bright white-yellow and the clouds were just covering its glow and they were blue and grey and it was magical. It was so damn dark for 5:05, let me tell you.

Then I came home and cried for a while and talked with my husband and then talked with my cousin and they both told me to look around and stop being such a sad sack. OK they were nicer than that, but they did tell me to look around at all the good stuff.

Why do we spend so much time on the bad? Is it because so much of the bad is flying at our faces at any given moment? Why isn’t the good flying at our faces?

My friend Kevin is telling me to think about things that are in my control versus things that aren’t. This concept is my new personal project. Control is an illusion but it is so deceptive, so slippery – I want to try to hold onto the smoke of it so much!

This post is a bit of a ramble. Kevin also asked me what will I do if the worst case scenario happens? I don’t have an answer to that at all. What will I do?

Cool Breeze, Bright Stars

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I was just outside, eating leftovers on my front porch. The house, when it was for sale, advertised said porch as a “farmer’s porch”. I am uncertain what that means. It is stained this bizarre burnt-orange UT color, which contrasts terribly with the sage green of the house. I hope to change it sometime soon. But I really hope to shingle the house soon, so that the color of the farmers porch doesn’t matter as much.

I was just talking to the stars, as I do. I was talking to my friend Mary Ann, too, about how much I miss her and wish I could talk to her. I wish I could talk to her about how weird everything got after she died and what bitches her friends were to me and to a couple of other friends. It was a mass disintegration and reorientation around a small crew of rich bitches. I guess it was inevitable. I asked the stars tonight: did I move to Maine, change my life, sell my house that I loved so much, because I hated my job and my best friend died?

The answer: not exactly. When I left Maine last time, it was like I left my art here. I still did art in Texas, but not to the same caliber or with the same intensity or regularity as I do here. Texas moves so fast and there are no seasons and there are so many highways; it is easy to just go with the flow and not examine yourself all that much. Also, in rapid fire over the course of three years, Cody’s grandma moved in with us, she died, there was a global pandemic, my dad died, and then Mary Ann died. This summer, Kate died and a few months ago, Michelle died and so did Brian. It has been terrible….let me rephrase. It has been bewildering to me. What happened that made Brian and Michelle so sad that they chose to leave us when they had taught me so much over the years? I can see Michelle smiling at me across a table, laughing, tossing her pretty blonde hair, laughing to keep from crying. Brian I can see spinning in a classroom, sharing music and asking us to think more deeply, to see connections. I remember the night he showed us True Stories when I was 15 years old, and didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand alot of what he taught us til I was in college. I have been listening to lots of Stars of the Lid and I feel that lessons are held within those songs, too….lessons to slow down and think. Think, and then do.

So Texas moved too fast, and Maine is so slow. We are changing into the fall and the air tonight is chilly and brisk and beautiful. The stars twinkle; there is a special fall-winter sharpness to the starlight that I love.

I am so thankful to have this time to investigate and think about what is going on with me. I am thankful to be able to ask myself: why am I so sad right now? Today I told my best friend that maybe I can’t be happy anywhere and he laughed and said something about how our dopamine levels are probably off or maybe we were both born in bad moods.

I think my new question is where the sadness is coming from; what is its origin story? Can I find it? I am sure I can. For so long, for years, it was my abortion that happened when I was 15 and the guilt I felt around it. I no longer see it that way; I now know that it was the right decision at the time. My new task is to examine these feelings of now and figure out where they come from. I think they have something to do with my job two years ago at Booker T Washington Elementary and working with two very challenging children. I didn’t know what to do, I am afraid that I hurt them, and I know that they hurt me, physically and mentally. I don’t even know how to describe those experiences yet, but am looking forward to working through some it with my therapist this fall. Cody says it wasn’t my fault and that I did what I was told to do and what I thought I had to do. I remember though, many moments when I just wanted to run away, to hide, to close my eyes and have it be over. Unrealistic.

I wonder what trauma response that experience touched on; it pressed a button to be sure. Lately I have been so interested in epigenetics and how sometimes our responses are not ours, but learned and coded in our genes to predispose us to bad moods, sadness, depression, anxiety, etc. I need to read about it. I am convinced there are generations of sad, scared people inside my soul. I have to tell them that they need to stay in their time period and let me explore mine.

I have been listening to old music, too. I wonder what is happening. What is the journey in my mind? I am hoping to remember to write down as much of it as I can.

Son, can you play me a memory?

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What makes me so afraid? Who is the one who is scared?

I have been thinking a lot about genetics and memories; how many of our memories are ours? I don’t mean remembering your kindergarten teacher, but rather, the memories that trigger our responses to things. How do I deal with change? How do I deal with control and the fear of the future?

Please forgive me as I wax poetic a bit here; it may be too many episodes of Northern Exposure, or too many trees, the way the light looks on the water each day, or the way the light itself is changing as we make our way out of summer. Hard to say.

I want to make this big change in my life. I want to quit my teaching job and get a new job and become an art therapist, even though I am already an art therapist. I want to learn more about it so that I can do it more meaningfully. I want to volunteer/work for hospice and talk to people who are dying, and their families. I want to work with kids who are on the autism spectrum. I want to work with people who have cancer, brain injuries, who are old and who are young.

In about a week or so I have to make this decision and pull the trigger of stability and quit the job that the school district so graciously gave me back in April or May. I feel sort of guilty about this, but not really. I feel that all of us who serve others understand the spirit of a calling; something that tugs at your heartstrings so hard you’d be a fool to not pay attention.

Part and parcel of this desire, though, is this fear. It is REAL. It is fierce. It says: what if you end up under a bridge? What if you can’t find a job? What if you can’t pay your mortgage? What if you disappoint everyone? Isn’t that interesting?

Last night was my mom’s 73rd birthday and I concocted a whole plan for her birthday: fancy dinner out at a fancy restaurant. Within about 20 minutes I recognized that this was all about ME and not anyone else. My mom was answering texts about real estate on her phone, River and Maddy were talking about whatever it was on their phones, Cody looked uncomfortable, my brother and I were just sitting trying to make it all tolerable and workable. We went to the Claremont, which is so pretty, but we stood out like sore thumbs in our lack of pink wealthy Hawaiian print and Indian block print dresses. Cody felt that everyone was looking at him; I knew better. They wanted us to look at them. Dinner was delicious if not exciting, but it was insanely expensive and so, yet again, I learn a lesson by it literally being charged to my bank account. $410 for 6 people seems, even for Maine in July, a bit much.

WHAT AN IDIOT – I said to myself all night, not sleeping. I said it all day, too.

I am about to go to bed now, and try to let it go. An expensive lesson, but a good one. My mom doesn’t care. We could have gone out for ice cream. I so desperately want her to be happy that I spent $410 on that hope; in vain. She isn’t happy, she doesn’t want fun. She is who she is.

Gah.

OK so maybe I am not an idiot, perhaps I am a deluded hopeful person (not much difference there). My mom is definitely at the forefront of my mind’s eye when I think of quitting my job and starting something totally new. I want her visage to go away. I don’t think it’s really real.

So who is afraid? Is my grandma? My grandpa? My father? My nana? I dedicate the next few days to that exploratory mission.

Good night.

The Grasping Hands of Primates are an Adaptation to Life in the Trees

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There was the first spring, when the roses bloomed in February – or perhaps it was even January – I have forgotten. In the front of the garden lay the double pink and the yellow roses, standing stalwart against the North wind. A late February ice storm beat them back to the ground; I almost thought they were lost, but no, roses are strong.

The second spring came similarly; why were all the storms so strong now, as if sending us a message from on high, something we were supposed to notice? There was the hail storm that felt as if someone was pouring golf-ball size hail from the roof amidst a green sky like one of a tornado. The tornado came later, and we all learned that the scariest parts of tornados is that they are invisibly powerful as they tear off your roof.

My roof remained unscathed; my friend sent me a photo of the tornado traveling just above our house on its way out of town where it wrecked a fine line of homes and barns in a path of destruction.

The changes happen slowly; perhaps we should have known this. I should have known this, as an armchair scientist and teacher of critical thinking, discernment. How could it be fast like in so many stories? It was slow.

I often wonder about princesses in carriages; gazing out the windows at the landscape. What did they think about? Were they in conflict with their material possessions in contrast with the lives of their people? My doctor said to me two weeks ago: we all had gotten way too used to all the Amazon, click-a-button and have it shit, it was time for a change.

A change is here; I feel it settling around me and I am trying to choose how to respond. I keep planting trees. I have planted six so far. My husband said last night, “I will be working in the garden on the day they blow the world apart”.

Could it be? Every day I go into a classroom and turn on lights, log into the internet, kids come in and go and get breakfast and later, lunch. We walk up a green hillside dotted with dandelions and if we have time, go into the woods to walk the trails. Children are friends, get mad at each other, stare into their phone screens, cry, laugh, and make fun of me. I love it. The children everywhere are the best part of the gig. I think every day about children in Israel, Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia, the Congo, the Sudan, etc. and I wonder do they get to walk into a classroom?

I remember teaching in Philly 12 years ago and how surprised I was at the world within the world I was then a part of. The other day there was an article about that same neighborhood in the New York Times and it made me so sad. Why? I think because I know now that it is worse than it was when I was there, and that fact is so shocking to me. I remember walking to the Dominican restaurant down the block to get lunch or to the little shops under the El to get candy or cookies for kids. There were no homeless people sick from drugs then; there were simply drug markets selling the drugs that would then populate all the blocks, all the corners. I remember taking a photo of a vacant lot with a hurricane fence, overgrown with weeds and wondering why there were no trees there.

For me, peace is coming in tiny moments and I have to actively pursue them. Dusting furniture, looking at the ocean, cooking dinner, planting a tree, refilling a bird feeder; all are tiny moments that are expanding into a greater peace. I look at the pine boughs in late afternoon sun and the way clouds look early in the morning and remember that we are all so tiny in this cosmos, and it will continue long after we are gone, whether through simple mortality or grave human error.

During the eclipse, I watched with awe the power of the Sun, and thought, without that one thing, all is lost! How amazing. We used to think that we were so powerful, before. Now we understand that nothing is certain, clear, or real. Perhaps it is time to jump into the unknown? Perhaps it is time to recognize that our hands are empty, but when we reach out to grasp another, the grasp and the hand are real.

Good night.

I love you, Michelle!

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With her goddess-like beauty (blonde wavy smooth 1920s hair with her beautiful bod! Her smile! Her laugh!), immeasurable intellect, wittiness, caring heart, and a little bit of sass-spice-wicked-impishness, I say goodbye to my friend.

She was lost in the blink of an eye, just. like. that. Gone.

The last two days I have been remembering Michelle and mostly what I find so funny and graceful and beautiful is that I can see her smiling and laughing across a table, like we are sitting at a diner. Her sister today asked me to say a prayer for her and I said I already was: prayers upon prayers upon thoughts and memories and pictures in my mind of her. When I was 18 years old, I thought Michelle was the coolest girl I had ever met. I had met her a few years earlier but actually became friends with her when I moved to Austin. She lived with her smart, cool boyfriend who I had loved and respected for years as one of the good guys in speech and debate. Their apartment was in West Campus, in a small building with a central atrium, open to the elements. They had a patio that looked out on it, and we sat out there and shot the shit. One night she taught me how to make everything I baked vegan by using a banana and some flax seed powder in the place of an egg. Her apartment was painted in all these amazing ways including a room that was matte light blue and metallic silver vertical striped.

Like all of us, there was tragedy as well as success and hilarity. I am beginning to wonder so much about our generation and our tendency toward a) having a history of traumatic childhood experiences b) coupled with addictive tendencies for alcohol, drugs, relationships, etc. There seem to be so many of us that struggle with these two issues, and I suppose that the addictions are the coping mechanisms for the childhoods. I hate to blame the parents, but there is something in our generation; kids raising themselves as parents were absentee due to work or their own addictive tendencies or whatever it was. Parenting now, speaking as a parent myself, is so different than the parenting that I remember experiencing.

Michelle was one of the first people who encouraged me to say “fuck off” to parents who said hurtful, shaming, or mean things to their kids. She was an advocate for the no bullshit philosophy that many of us now understand is this thing called “having boundaries” and “standing up for oneself”. In the 90s, this wasn’t common especially among women who had grown up in the South (or in English-Texan households, like myself). Her attitude of being ok with who she was was inspiring to me as a young adult, and I wanted to be just like her. She took me in like a friend or like a little sister, showed me a world that was new, and was always loving and laughing.

A few years ago she asked me to go to breakfast with her at Kerbey Lane, a small cafe in central Austin that used to be so easy to get into, and now, like everything else in that super-saturated town, is impossible. But Michelle was worth it, so we went and we talked about divorce and how terrible it is, about bad boyfriends and husbands (turns out that the smart, cool college boyfriend became a not great husband (there’s so much of that, too, but that is a meditation for another time), and about what we do next once we learn all this information. That was the last time that I saw her, and she looked great with her beautiful blonde hair and her smiling face and her laugh and her true beautiful self. Since then, we have talked alot, consistently every few weeks, chatting here and there about things both meaningful and not.

In August we lost another mutual friend who I wasn’t as close with but still respected as another one of the good guys of debate (they were few and far between), the person who introduced me to David Byrne and the Talking Heads, Henri Foucault and disciplinary power, the importance of developing our own mechanisms for complex, critical thought and the role that music and art have in helping us find joy and calm amidst desperation. It is terribly hard to know that Brian died the way he did when so many people loved and respected him. It is terribly hard to know that Michelle died so randomly, so quickly; we still don’t know her cause of death, but I know what I want to say to her.

Dear Michelle,

I am so thankful for the people who gave me the time of day when I couldn’t see anything clearly. Now, being older, I realize that I know very little except the importance of being available and loving to others. If I could say this to you in person, I would. I want to tell you how formative you were to who I am now and how thankful I am for that and all these years in between. When I found out that we had lost you in a moment that no one planned for, no one could have expected, all I guess I can do is pray and hope that wherever you are, your energy is at peace. I love you.

Love, your friend, Patience

I hope to take more time to pay attention to my life and the friends in it, spending the time wherever and whenever I can. The one thing I do know after living these last 5 years is that life is so precious and it can be taken away in a moment, a day, a few weeks, a month. You never really know. Grief-love is our ultimate learning experience, I think. That’s all for today.

A 2024 New Year Love Letter

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Maxfield Parrish “Hilltop Farm, Winter” 1949 – he just ***knows*** winter light so well

[I am loving this new album by Andre 3000]

January.

Today I spent the day watching snow fall, steadily, increasingly fast, then slowing down to a peaceful stop around sunset. I took my dog out for a walk in the half-light; everything was cast in blue and so quiet, as it is after it snows.

This is a new year, one that comes after many hard ones. There has been so much LIFE in these last four or five years. Starting with taking care of my husband’s grandma in the summer of 2019 followed by a global pandemic, Masters degrees, the death of my father, of a dear friend who was more like a brother-father than a friend, and the passing of one of my best friends. Add to the mix, changing jobs, confronting a school system that I found morally injurious, navigating the first few years of marriage to a wonderful guy, getting a sweet little dog, selling our amazing magical house, and moving here to Maine.

Maine is calm and quiet; every night I look out the window at stars (as long as it isn’t cloudy) that hover above the tree line. We have no visible neighbors here, but do hear the sounds of cars passing on the highway. Our house is peaceful and warm and cozy and laid out so well; we each have space to be and to do, and I love the kitchen.

Lately, I have been thinking about my thought processes and where I am in my life. I have been asking myself: am I happy? Will I be happy? Is this happiness? What is this all about, anyway? I have watched so many people that I love go through so much during these pandemic years. We are all changed. But we would be even if there hadn’t been COVID. Perhaps it has helped a lot of us get somewhere? I know it has helped me.

For most of my life I have struggled with staying in one place. My father was a ramblin’ man to be sure; he was a traveler who worked internationally and never wanted to be in one place, I don’t think. I have said many times that I am glad that he had my brother and I, but that he wasn’t really cut out for family life. Even when my brother and I were alive and growing up, it seemed to be painful for him to be with us and be a father who helped our mother with all the things that are necessary for a life in America at the time they were trying it out. When he died, I sat with his body in the hospital and held his hand wondering where he was. I knew that he was somewhere fabulous, somewhere in the world of memory that he lived in. I am sure he was drinking really good booze and eating really good food while wearing a fancy pair of shoes and a glittering wristwatch. He had such good taste in things.

I think I inherited so much from my dad; my temperament, my intelligence, my fear of staying, my fear of disappointing everyone. For many years I was worried that if someone knew my inner persona that they would know I wasn’t worth knowing; poor little girl inherited that from somewhere. It was an idea plucked from the ether of family and history and had/has no bearing on reality. I came to that conclusion after many years of therapy and talking with friends. I don’t think my dad ever felt he could do that. I inherited my anxiety from him, my emotional temper that (luckily) very rarely shows up. With him, he wore it on his sleeve and it was almost ever-present. Last semester, when I was trying to decide to leave a job that was not right for me for so many reasons, I was consumed by worry and I immediately thought of him and wondered if that was why he seemed so angry all the time. I feel relief that my journey with these feelings has been different.

I have realized since starting my new job last week that I do not want a stressful job, maybe ever again. It is wonderful to be in a positive environment where things are easy going and most everyone is happy enough. I go at 7:30 and I come home at 3. The ease of it is helping me process the lingering stressors and confusions that still swirl in my mind; it is also helping me figure out what I want my future to look like.

Choosing stability when one has grown up without it is very challenging; I inherently am distrustful of myself and my decisions, despite how they look from the outside. I can look at myself rationally and say: you have done a very good job in being a grown up. I can look at myself emotionally and say: but it doesn’t feel right (the problem being I don’t know what does). In times like this I am so thankful for my husband and his family and their constancy with each other and their normal behavior with each other and with me. They have showed me what it can be like. So have my friends and their parents.

The snow fell and I was sewing a quilt for my son and meditating on trust. Trusting myself, trusting others, trusting the process, trusting that life will unfold. I was reading a new year meditation today, one of those goofy ones on Instagram that flash by your eyes in an instant but nevertheless make a mark. It asked: what if what you wish for comes true? What if it all works out? My stomach hurts when I think of things this way as there are deep-seated core cells of my body that don’t trust that these things could ever be true, despite all the hard evidence to the contrary. As I was sewing his baby blanket into the back side of his quilt, I thought about how he is in college now, and starting his life, and I remembered when I was his age, starting mine. It was so long ago now: 25 years ago. A quarter of a century ago, I was a baby grown-up.

In Maine right now I am a long-term substitute teacher who makes quilts and who is brainstorming a line of jewelry for 2024. I am helping my friend with an online quilt class she is hosting which is incredible and is using my Masters degree, which makes me happy. I am cooking in a kitchen that is so well set-up for me. I am dreaming in a king-size bed with a dog, two cats, and a sweet husband, who, I am sure, is going through the same wending thought processes as me.

My goals for the year are to stay in the present and to worry less. I hope I can do this, with the help of more therapy, which I just re-started with a therapist I know and trust who I can see in person. I hope to focus on my own creativity and developing my skills at sharing it with others as well as building a career integrating technology with the arts and using the internet as a meaningful teaching avenue for myself and others. I want to keep the slow pace. I want to spend time with friends and let people in to who I am without being so scared all the time. I want to stay grateful and do what I want to do because I want to take advantage of every moment that I have on this beautiful earth. So many times I think Mary Ann is sitting in the back seat of my car as I drive around, or is standing behind me when I am doing something. Sometimes I feel her poking me gently in the right shoulder blade, reminding me to BE ALIVE, BE ALIVE, BE ALIVE!

Everything is brand new, and yet familiar. Happy New Year.

Maxfield Parrish, “Birches in Winter”, 1946

Midnight in an Imperfect World

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I feel this intense sadness as I sit here, right now, listening to the rain beat on the roof of my school. The sadness comes from many corners of my emotional life; the loss of a best friend in November, the many issues at my school that all stem from a lack of organization and care for its most vulnerable children, the process of clearing and sorting and packing and selling of my home so that we can relocate. Grief is complex, and for me, extremely so.

Yesterday I sat here, in my office, and asked myself why it is so hard to let all of this go (the job), even though I have already resigned and am content (if not happy) with that decision. A friend of mine told me it is because I care so much, and that is most likely true. I wonder if caring so much is a bad thing when one is in the midst of a perfect storm of state-sponsored destruction of public schools, high poverty, a pool of inexperienced or low quality candidates, and district-level administrators who are cut off from the issues at the campus level.

I don’t know.

As the end of this year approaches, and fast at that, I find myself again in a position where I feel I know less than I thought I knew before the year started. I always keep the faith that people truly care for children and know how to treat and interact with them. I have learned this year that that is not true. I always keep the faith that people in positions of power and influence want to exert that power and influence to better the lives of children and improve the outcomes of schools. I have learned this year that that is not true, either. Sometimes people get in those positions simply because they want to be in them, whether it be for money, title, or lack of responsibility/accountability.

Working within a system that has no true sense of accountability for employees coupled with a lack of incentive for improvement can lead to pits of complacency. This feels especially true in schools and districts that are under-resourced and have parents who are less involved. Parents often trust the schools entirely, or distrust them entirely; there is little in between. Unlike wealthier districts in which parents feel entitled to advocate for anything they feel like they or their children deserve, districts that are under-resourced do not have demanding parents hammering at the schoolhouse door; they therefore can hide many things from parents who really need to know that there is no research-based curriculum, ineffective district-level administrators in programs like special education and bilingual education, lack of effort toward building inclusive, positive campus culture, responsive education, and trauma-informed practices.

I am about to step away from public school, again. I did this once before in 2012. Here I am again in 2023: time for a break. Time for some reflection and repair of my heart space. So many times this year I have felt my heart break, for different reasons. I have felt my soul tug at me; saying, what are you doing here? I am thankful to say that I have a new opportunity at a wonderful, small, experimental, place-based school where we are moving. There is a stream through the property, a learning forest, a barn in which middle schoolers learn, and a view of the ocean.

Time to heal, to read, to write. I wish Texas schools all the best.

Love Rising From the Mists

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When I tell you this story, there are some of you who will hear, some will listen, and some will know.

I feel that I am at the beginning of grieving the loss of my friend Beth. When I think of her lately, I can feel her hair in my hands; at the end of her life, her hair grew back as she wasn’t on chemo anymore. Her hair was brown and short and stuck up and out in places, but she still looked so cool with her yellow beanie. When she died, we realized that one of the colors was always yellow.

When we went to the doctor on October 4, her longtime doctor and trusted caretaker told her that she had lived well with cancer for a long time and that now she would not live well with cancer anymore. Her liver was failing; destroyed by chemo, it had changed from the soft sponge of bodily fluid filtration to a hard rock that didn’t let much in or out. Her tummy filled up with liquid and she felt ugly. She wasn’t, of course.

During that doctor’s visit, every experience that we had had together flashed before my mind. I thought of Port O’Connor, and Angela, apartments in Dallas, plastic jewelry, my first marriage, Cecile’s old apartment, and when she decided to marry “a rich guy”. I thought of searching for dead things and going out to Sunday Beach with Angela’s high school crush (or perhaps she was his?) and his two children. His son looked like a Troll doll and we loved him. He covered us with mud. We escaped without sunburns. I thought of walking through the Albert Memorial near Buckingham Palace, and traipsing past Embassies and through the city at night. I remembered getting dizzy in the jewelry room at the V&A and eating sandwiches on the lawn, watching naked British children bathe in the pool.

When we were told that it was the end, I remembered all the lived experiences; so much life! That is of course what I learned the most from Beth. I learned about LIFE. We once found a beautiful coffee shop with a caravan in the front garden in Port Lavaca; it was an old Victorian house and we never found it again, but that one time we found “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay and she told me about how and why Louise Hay wrote the book. On one of her last days, she said to me, “I wish my body could heal itself!”

During that last month, I spent most of my time with her massaging her and talking with her. She was in so much pain, although I suspect she didn’t admit the true force of the pain because she didn’t want to be woozy with Dilaudid. I massaged her because I wanted to keep her energy moving; keep her chi zipping around her body and soul. I spent a lot of time rubbing her perfect feet and legs and the middle of her back; this is where most of the pain was. I would also rub her face and her head and her shoulders. I would try to move the energy around, hoping it would keep her with us for longer.

One night I was staying with her and I looked at her in the half-light of the lamps. She was so tired but kept saying thank you, kept saying thank you and I love you. I went outside and called our friend Vivien. I said, “Vivien, I am worried. Her eyes look funny.” It was as if they couldn’t focus properly, or wandered when they shouldn’t. I remembered Maw Maw and how fast she slipped from us once she started. I will never forget her sleeping in that big bed with its white sheets and its golden light, falling asleep at about 7pm after I cooked us a dinner of lamb chops.

I have heard a theory of grief that I like and can attach to; the pain we feel is an alternative experience to the love we feel for the person. When my dad died last year, I felt like I was falling off a cliff into some bottomless space; there was no anchor. Slowly though, I found my footing again and realized that I must make my own anchor and remember all the tools he gave me, despite our many fraught years. This is different.

As I said above, when I think about Beth, really think about her (because I avoid it in my conscious mind sometimes), I can feel her hair in my hands, I can feel her hands, her shoulders, her tiny arms, her beautiful legs, and perfect feet. I can hear the sound of her moving in her hospital bed. I can see her eyes clouded with ammonia toxicity. I can see her moving around and saying thank you to me. I can hear her talking about cheese and visiting Italy. It is like she is becoming a part of me, of my body, as I feel all the parts of her. It is like she is right here, an ethereal version of a very real person. I think that this means that I truly love her, and she loves me, and this feeling, this painful transformation, is the process of grieving her loss. From now on, there is the Patience that lived when Beth was alive, there is the Patience during this grieving process, and there will be the Patience after.

Due to her immense grace, humor, love, and understanding, I suspect the Patience after will be a better person who is more in touch with faults and feelings, and with the preciousness of the moments.

When we went to the doctor on October 4, how would we have known she would die less than one month later, on November 2? She had lived so well, for so long. I wish I could hug her. But I can, because when I think of hugging her, I can feel her hugging me; I can feel her tiny body that cancer just ate up. I can see the light in her windows and the green of her houseplants. I can think of how great a hostess she was, and how she loved drinking dandelion tea those last few weeks to help her liver.

Beth, I miss you so much. I know you are here, in your own way. As Lilian said the other day, it’s like you are everywhere!