March 6, 2009 - An Unexpected Dance

74 degrees. Sunny. I'm sitting outside Rush Hospital Professional Building waiting for mom's urology appt to be over. The smell of this day alone is enough to fill me with God. Mom is getting her dialysis port redone. It's taking longer than expected, and I am taking advantage of the time the wait is giving me to be outside in this day.

I talked to Zack yesterday. He sounds great. He talked so nice about Bob and how Bob has been great to talk to lately. I also took the twins to Aurelios with Dana and Sarah. That was something special. Kody said he's been feeling "really peaceful and Zen lately."

I just caught a whiff of Polish hot dog with onion. Oh, lord, that smells delicious. I am in love with this moment. The world and its people around me are aligning, as usual, with the sassy French music on my iPod. It is downright adorable. It kinda looks like this: walk, walk, walk, -- sit and put some makeup on in a pretty ruffly white blouse, -- chitter, chatter, giggle, -- walk, walk, walk -- look up at the birds flying by -- take a bite of fruit-in-a-cup -- breeze blows bangs to the side and straightens them out again -- walk, walk, walk -- smile -- hard hat guy less stressed on this God Day -- shade your eyes and look at something -- hair bouncing and flowing -- walk, walk, walk in twos and threes and onsies, tinies and talls -- doctor smocks and pretty lips and my shoe sticking out, wiggling to each new beat in my lucky ears. Fill me with your grace. You fill me, and I will try to be aware of everything you show me.

February 5 thru 15, 2009 - The Blessings Around the Tragedy

2/5
Rush Hospital  ER with Mom. Her potassium is too high. Renal Failure. I'm missing parent/teacher conferences. We are waiting for a bed in the main hospital. Her muscles in back of her neck, tailbone, and butt keep spasming...around her ears, too. The heart seems to be ok. Very low pulse. She does well with some poking and prodding. She only does the heartbreaking, moaning thing when her muscles or her tummy cramps up. She is a warrior. Tonight I feel silently connected to her.

ER to ICU. I let Dad drive me crazy with talk of his hospital stay in Luisiana and then his blatent nurse stalking even as mom struggles beside him. Ugh. We are there from 5 til 11ish. Mom is so sick, and we are a little scared.

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2/6 & 2/7
At Jen and Joe's B & B. I got to walk yesterday and today. It's been sunny and warmer. 60s today. I took the last of my bags of change to the bank to pay off part of those plane tickets to see Renee and meet Isabella. Then I went for one of those long walks where it occurs to me that it feels inside me like I'm taking God out for a walk...for a new experience or just to take it all in...what we do, how we live, what it feels like to feel a breeze on our face, what a bright red cardinal looks like against a clear blue sky, see the man playing his harmonica while pacing in front of that house, notice how folks decorate their windows and porches and back yards...we watch squirrels build their tree complexes, we watch leaves dance and run, bouncing and spinning to the music we are listening to on Nano...we laugh out loud when splashed with muck from an over zealous St. Bernard and his Sheepdog buddy. The muck is beautiful, and it reminds us of those early Spring days that carry a special kind of freedom that promises even greater freedom in days to come. It makes us think about those walking days that preceded our driving days that ended our walking days...until now... These walks make me, make us, clear out the fear and saddness and make us ready to go back to mom.

Jen and I go to see mom at 3. Mom wants fruit, so I packed her some strawberries, pear, grapes, and a rice pudding snack pack. She was not talking much - very tired and seemed out-of-it. We finally got her eating, and not long after, she was full of life and laughter...out-loud-big-ole-laughs from her belly. That's when I stopped being scared. It was very hard to leave her.

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2/11
Miracles that came to be since mom went to the hospital:

• baby Bella arrives from Port Townsend and mom gets to meet and kiss and hug and smell her first Great Grandbaby.
• Quadruple sister power fills our world with love.
• Dana gets hired and gets $$ for doing what she was made to do.
• Of their own volition, third period prays for my mother in a great, gentle circle of love and light, and then they pray no one finds out we prayed in school. 
• Dr. Tez comes to town to heal and delight everyone around him.
• Wendi rediscovers how very much she loves and needs momma.
• Jenny lives out her dream of being a ballerina in a grand room 748 performance.
• Danielle gets to see Renee's roots and gain some love and understanding.
• We get to see Nick as a beautiful daddy...filled to overflowing.
• Mom gets her sister back.
• Steven finds a new calling as caretaker.
• Mom's procrastination with dialysis turns out to be the best thing because the cancer was discovered and dealt with. That would not have happened in a non-emergency situation. Whew.
• Mom finds friendship with Dr. Rodby is recipricol.
• Bob's heart opens up and he graciously takes care of all the quiet background stuff at our now crowded house, and he learns (I think) that having a full house can be tolerable, and even kinda fun.
• Mom and Renee witness Bob's sweetness and see more clearly how and why I love him so.

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2/15

"Bob made Pomodoro Primevera and it was Popovichalicious!" ~Renee on the phone, to Jenny

January 31, 2009 - Birthday Weekend

Leg 1 - Popolano's in Chesterton for Bloody Marys and the Giant Doughy Cheese Weinie. It is Birthday-girl weekend and Justin the bartender is treating us fabulously. We are downright silly and there is no other moment more important than this one we are in right now.

Leg 2 - Drunken shopping. I practice not buying anything. I was awesome!

Leg 3 - Danny O's for more drinking and pool playing. It was super GROSS smelling...smokey yuckiness. I go for a walk. I am happy with myself for listening to my body. I fell in love with a ribbon twisting and dancing in a slow sunny winter breeze.

Leg 4 - Liquor store - Franzenskaner and other necessities - more utter silliness.

Leg 5 - Spring House Inn to wait for Wendi. Sheryl, Laura, and Jessica pick up Wagners. We eat and enjoy and laugh and enjoy.

Leg 6 - Drunken-fireplace-storytelling-fun ensues while the girls take turns getting Birthday massages. Every moment is exactly perfect. Wendi is exceptionally, hysterically, lewdly entertaining.

In the morning I pack up my car and take a stroll around the grounds. The birds are all out - the Cardinal, the Woodpecker, a variety of chatty chirpers, and one lone goose crying out in desperation...as though left behind. I cry. It is beautifully sad. I am full of gratitude for my flock all around me.

January 26 & 30, 2009 - The Push and The Pull

Today I reserved 6 flights to Seattle so we can go meet Little Miss Isabella Luna, who was born two nights ago. I love her so much already, and I am BURSTING with good looking-forward-osity. So far it looks like Mom, Wendi, her 3 boys, Jen, Shan, Zack, Heather, Renee, Nick, Danielle, and Steve will all be spending 3 nights at Crescent Lake (the place that calls my soul) to bask in new baby joy!

--- Mom, Wendi and boys did not end up going. There will be more to come on this glorious adventure.


I am in love with this human experience - even when I'm at a BORED meeting. Bob is at home making lasagna as I sit here listing my joys instead of getting aggravated. I need to find ways to love him better. I also noticed today that I better drop my icky uneasiness about a couple of my classes. They feel it, and it is beneath my capacity for love.

A few days later -

At Aurelios - dropping off notebooks for Dana to grade. She is all gooey with love and adventure and plans for the future. She is glowing and spilling over with I-miss-you-alreadys for her California Dream.  So so so sweet. I can't stay sad that she is leaving for long.

p.s. I am falling in teacher-love with my students again -- even the ones who challenge me, and the ones who get all sassy, and the cheat-sheeters, and those quiet withdrawn ones, and the ones who never stop talking or singing or "crackin" or tapping. I just love them and all their securities and insecurities, their dramas and isms and hang ups, all their tries and their give-ups, and put downs and lift ups. They fill me up and fill my life up with interest and challenge and amazing young-people-magic. I am so lucky to be so right-where-I'm-supposed-to-be.

January 8, 2009 - Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe

It is 6 p.m.-ish at Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe - a discovery from PBS's "Check Please."

The stew is strange but good. The crab cakes are very nice. The company (my love) is the best part so far... although we are waiting for dessert. We will see if he holds up.
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Dessert was mixed berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Bob didn't stand a chance. Wow-wah-wee-wah!

January 5, 2009 - Standing in the River

I started the pledge of success with my students. It needs work.

I'm feeling especially worthless as an English teacher today. My views and values are in flux - it's all a flowing stream, and I can't grab it and hold it. It is ridiculous for me to try, yet I'm feeling bad inside because I can't get ahold.

Can I just learn to let it all slide through my fingers and run around me and be satisfied? Can I enjoy how refreshing that is? and how beautiful it is to be standing, raw, in the middle of it? having the slightest influence on the direction of that flow? Yes. Now I can. Awareness is magic.

November 7, 2008 - Challenges, Small Heartbreaks, and Scoops

41 degrees. Rainy but pretty.

Ruby wants to quit school. That news hurt worse than I would have guessed. I had a weird crying-in-front-of-Mr. Surina-moment when I walked her back to chemistry class.

Max, Cody, and Dana's sister Sarah joined us at school today. The boys read a story and I was amazed at their reading ease and capacity for understanding stuff my sophomores struggle with. They also learned to serf the net with Google. They looked up images of sea turtles, sharks, lions, tigers, and a host of other strange and wonderful sea and land creatures. They called it "logging on to" whatever page they discovered. "Dude, I'm logging on to tigers." "No, log on to penguins, you have to see this." "Aunt Gina, can we come back here another day to log on to stuff?" It was scoops-adorable!

The dead mouse is still in the return vent in my classroom. This is day 3 of rotting animal corpse smell. The maintenance guy tells me it cannot be removed, and that it will stop smelling in a week or so. He called that "good news." I'm still trying to see it that way.

We all sit now at Aurelios waiting for our pizza and salad. Dana is taking great care of us. The whole place smells like God.

November 1, 2008 - At the Speech Tournament

I just saw a little speechie's face burst with joy over the shape of a pretzel.

Later- Wow, Shaniece's speech was about the importance and beauty of, and necessity for SILENCE...about the forgetting to be silent. She is a beautiful poet being born in that precious space.

Even later- Zack sends me a text picture of Heather's hand with an engagement ring shining proudly on her ring finger with the message "she said yes!!"

How many joys can pile into this day?

All of them.

October 28, 2008 - The Greatest Show on Earth

Two weeks ago Jen, Susan, Kathy, Sharon, and I were driving around farmy-Fennville during our girl's weekend when something glorious happened. As we were heading past a Methodist church on a lonely corner, four little people were waving us in with frantic joy. Jen turned into the lot and asked, "what are we pulling over for?" and the response flew out of all four grinning mouths simultaniously in a way that suggested we should have already known... "A TALENT SHOW!"

Now, coming from a deep history of talent-show-fever, Jen felt absolutely compelled and excited and filled with supportive talent-show-nurturing, so she pulled right in and parked.

We were then treated with the Greatest Show on Earth going on at that moment. If you were not there, then you missed God godding all over that churchyard. First, Jujuan gathered his crew into a huddle to go over the plan. There were orders given and ideas changing furiously and then, wow, Jujuan flipped and flew frontwards and backwards over bicycles and bodies that formed sloppy-cute pyramids. There were clumsy cartwheels and the proudest smiles on diverse and dirty faces. What a show! Jen took down their names with the hopes of employing them all someday at our dream farm. They would have signed contracts if she had them.

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When I offered a small collection of cash to Jujuan, I learned something about ego. Jujuan was hurt by the offer. He said they were not trying to get money, they just wanted to show us what they could do. I made an assumption that subtracted something from their innocent pride. I made it about us feeling good giving which stole from their good feeling of sharing. Sometimes it's really not about the money.

October 27, 2008 - The Six Word Memoir

"and they call that a tree"

Student teacher and wonderful new sister-friend Dana Comiskey assigned students a six word memoir. The idea was pillaged from a Smith Magazine project. Smith was inspired by a legend that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. His response was, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." The Smith Magazine website now contains and shares hundreds of thousands of six word stories written by as many authors. Dana's assignment inspired my own tiny collection of favorites by friends, family, colleagues, students, and a few of my own:


Mine

• "and they call that a tree"
• Married the best man I know
• Outside I am inside a church

Dana's

• I wear sweatpants whenever I can
• Wore fake glasses over contact lenses

Bob's

• I'm what they call man pretty
• sports trivia run by me first

Student favorites

• Found true love lost my soul ~Stacey Fox
• Truth outside my heart lies inside  ~Shaniece Wells

Jenn L's

• A lot I wish I was
• I didn't need to be Mrs. Badonka-donk
• There's nothing I won't say publicly

Joe D's

• Tried everything, liked some, loved few
• I have no moral center, biatch

Ken W's

• I always do it my way

Dakoda M's

• Will be the world's best baller

Mary-Tina's

• Fro it up like I do

T.J.'s

• Make every day a circus day

October 18, 2008 - Karaoke Cool

Saturday night karaoke at the Crow Bar, downtown Saugatuck - crazy, smokey goodness. I am loving Susan L. who sings one of the sexiest renditions of Hanky Panky ever. She is adorable-sexy-nervousness. We are all dying for a chance to come out of our self-conscious disguises. We want to break free through karaoke, or any other way we can find to throw our egos aside and connect ourselves, to REconnect ourselves to everyone and everything else around us. That connectivity is the energy behind the music-the life force that makes the movement happen. I am fascinated by music's capacity to change energy. It is great? (totally inadequate)...sweet? (not right either but that's part of it)...what is it? Magic?...yup, that's it...it's energy magic the way each song climbs onto everyone, moving them through love and sex and drama and sadness and sweetness... and the ones that make us laugh...mouth-wide-open, cheeks-sore, throat-scratchy...bringing us... dragging us back to high school freedom and silliness. These are my favorite! I miss NOTHING. It is all here right now in this perfect moment.  Thank you, universe, for giving us music.

October 18, 2008 - We Put Our Pants on When We Put Our Pants On

Another of Jenny's book ideas...

We Put Our Pants On When We Put Our Pants On:

Lessons from Little People

It would consist, of course, of big life lessons from the little ones in our lives. This was inspired by one of Wendi's twins saying this, all matter-of-factly, to Jen when she was worrying about timing. She, of all people, should know better because no one I know has more perfect timing. The whole universe aligns to make sure timing is exactly right for her. She is usually quite aware of this and trusts it completely. This day she was worried, and Kody or Max said to her, "Don't worry, Jen, we put our pants on when we put our pants on." This made her smile and put everything in perspective. She stopped choosing stress and embraced the flow of the day.

Three year old Maggie, after watching Cinderella, told her mom "Cinderella's step mother and sisters are mean because they don't get enough love." This lesson goes along with one of The Four Agreements: Don't Make Assumptions. Maggie was not willing to hate these women as we were all so quick to (myself with great fervor). She did not assume they were just plain mean. How many times have our paradigms shifted around someone we assumed was "just plain mean?" There is always a story under the mean. All people want to be loved. When are we ever going to learn this?

Jen took four year old Cortez to feed her neighbor's cat, as they were away on vacation. When they got there, Cortez asked, "Doesn't this cat have a human?" This, in no uncertain terms, defines the reality of the cat-human relationship. 

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I love this book idea and think we should keep it going, here, with more stories of kids getting it right. Then we can share it for free...which is how Jen would want it anyway. Or we could publish it together and collect a gazillion dollars to use for vacations! Jen would like that, too. 

October 17, 2008 - Morning Glories

Before sunrise, Em and I get up and walk to town for coffee and tea. Everywhere is quiet and ours. Back at the Tin Roof, (the name of the vacation rental) Sheryl and Laura are up and out front when we return. They are fresh-morning-girl-weekend-day-one-beautiful. My heart warms seeing them. The birds are late sleepers in this vacation town. I am on the patio in back now--waiting for their songs and the sun. Morning-cornflower-blue-glories surround this space and down surrounds me because it is chillicious. The girls inside the main house are telling stories and laughing big, gorgeous HA HA HA's. Laura is extra animated, true, completely, to her perfect self. Sheryl, content to be entertained and loving a good story, sits under the lamp with her latest expression of the divine that spills from her always. I also hear girly-girls talking upstairs. Jenny just "wooo-woooed!" I love right now. I love these women and everything they teach me, and every way they love me and themselves and each other. They are warm and honest and tolerant and creative and interesting and funny and happy and FABULOUSLY-FORMED-EXPRESSIONS-OF-DIVINE-BEAUTY.

No one wants to join me out here...yet....they will come with the sun. Oh! There is the Blue Jay whose song is an umbilical cord to this town's part of me. My eyes are doing that thing again - where another presence is using them - curious and enormous. You can stay. I am quite sure I don't mind. What blessings surround us...just like this down blanket, the raucous Blue Jays, and (as suspected, right along with the sun) all these morning glories:

This is a page from my notebook.

October 16, 2008 - I Don't Make Lunches, and I Won't Dust Your Bobble-Heads!

I was recently (yesterday, 6/25/12) out to dinner with my sister's friend, Jean, and we were discussing girl trips and the way women can always find things to talk about. Jean was telling me about how this raised the curiosity of her husband, and that he couldn't figure out how we could still have things to say to each other after many days of togetherness. Well, this one's for him...
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This year's Fall Girls Trip brings together a new group. I suppose it has every year. This year, we have the special treat of JENNY, who I got to ride up with. Driving up with Jen was a JOY. We were thinking aloud about how we overuse the word "awesome" and we were trying on some replacement words. (These are our beautiful problems. We need to say "awesome" too often.) I decide the word "scoops" is fun and different and pretty freakin awesome.  We can then say, "that was a bowl of scoops," or "that was two scoops!"...we joked about "wild asses" and "having nuts all this time." I am in love with this day. I am in love with this sacred time. I am in love with how Jenny "love, love, loves" her patients, and how she makes you feel like all your cazy ideas are two scoops.

We met up with Jen's friends Susan, Kathy, and Sharon for lunch on the way to Saugatuck. We discussed very important things we will and won't do for the men in our lives. Susan proclaims emphatically, "I don't make lunches, and I won't dust your bobble-heads." This makes us laugh until it hurts. I'm in love with laughing til it hurts.

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So there you have it, Mr. B. The secret is out. We women folk get together and make each other laugh. We support each others crazy ideas. We inspire each other to think. We create a safe place for stupid. We discuss and respect and break down each others boundaries. We learn how to be many different kinds of kind. But, mostly, we make each other laugh.