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.

October 6, 2008 - After "Church"

Today is one of those brilliant fall days in the upper 60's. The smell of pencils, forest, maple, and cooking food floating around my music filled head. Everyone is lost in it, smiling, happy to be part of something so beautiful. Sometimes I look out my eyes and nothing seems like it is related to the me I've been thinking was me all this time...like it's someone else watching everything through my sockets. It feels like that right now. My hand is mine, moving around on this page, but it feels like my eyes are watching it, with this little book on these denim legs, this chest -- with the iPod cord linking a pocket to something the eyes can't see -- moving up and down as this body breathes with the gentleness of the tree's fall bouquets rustling in the mini-breeze. Whose is this experience? The watcher is curious about this attention it is getting here on this paper. It is not missing this moment. Where is Gina? Can we let her go? Can we connect her again, over and over, to Everything? To this observer?

I let the watcher guide, and little Gina sort of evaporates...is that the right word? and unfolds into big me, into Everything, into rightness...not to be confused with rightousness...which is for little me only. 

September 27, 2008 - Song by Leonard Cohen

On this day, I copied a poem by Leonard Cohen that I fell in love with:

Song

I almost went to bed

without remembering

the four white violets

I put in the button-hole

of your green sweater

and how I kissed you

and you kissed me

shy as though I'd

never been your lover.

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This poem still fills my heart with a rush of love mixed with nervous, sensual excitement. How do words do that? Thank you, Mr. Cohen. I've remembered to remember many beautiful moments because of your song.

September 9, 2008 - God as Stem Cells

The book I'm reading describes God as undifferentiated stem cells that can individuate into anything all-at-once...the MOTHER of all stem cells. This makes some sense to me especially because of the way my own cells understand what God isn't. My cells understand God-lies the same way they detect bull shit and creepiness. The first time I felt the positive of this nagging negative was when my cells decided on their own to do a week long service project with my dad and our church youth group at a time when I spent hours scheming to get away from both. I was asked to describe the experience in front of the church the Sunday after our return. I said...without any idea I was going to say it..."I felt God alive in all my cells." And I did. I did not find God at church, in anyones good deeds, on TV, or even in the bible. I found what I finally FELT was God right inside my own being. I found God being ridiculously beautiful in the matter all around me. The following is an incomplete rendering of when I notice that same gorgeous feeling:

• On and off throughout my experiences with the Appalachian Service Project
• When I get it right in the classroom  

• When I provide guidance to someone seeking it from me
• When I prepare for, and really mean what I am saying
• When I hang out with my sisters
• When I walk with my iPod
• When I am noticing something special in nature and sometimes with people 
• When I give something away
• When I see and hear birds

• When I am creating a gift
• When I am composing a greeting card
• When I get a clear rush of Bob's love and/or admiration
• When I'm dancing

                               

• When I spread my arms wide when walking
• When I'm riding Sissy 

•  When I'm beating Joe at poker
• When I'm reading spiritual stuff that makes sense 
• Almost every time a breeze visits me

• When I smell big, hot rushes of Lily or Lilac or Lavender
• Sometimes when I'm writing, or when I get a strong sense that I should be writing
• When I talk with Jenny on the phone in the morning
• When the scenery around me is so big it shrinks me out of my self

• When I hear a natural water source...brook, stream, rain, waves, the clunk-bloop of a docked boat rocking, the slow quiet laps that move around a body entering a pool during the night, the swish of a watery-duck-landing. 

• When I hear live music in an unexpected place
• When I am loving someone unselfishly
• A few times during meditation
• After the initial anxiety of being miles outside my comfort zone subsides, and I get to see something new about me
• When I see the glow of honest happiness on someones face and/or hear it in their voice
• When I can let go of judgement of another and any personal intention for another

• When I am around others who have no intention for or judgement of me
• When I see God godding

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When do you feel God alive in your cells?