Blessings in Advent

The stockings are hung, the tree is aglitter, and the fourth Advent candle has been lit. The first has burned almost down to the nib. Christmas is only a couple of days away.

Christmas this year feels a little different than Christmases past. The biggest difference is that not all of our kids are home. Our second oldest, who is studying architecture in Rome for the year, stayed in Europe to travel and is spending Christmas with his aunt and uncle and cousins in Germany.  The house still feels a little empty, even though we were happy to welcome home the two other college boys and add some people to the table. The four-year-old has been ecstatic to have them home and has kept them busy playing restaurant and reading to her and being another audience for her knock-knock jokes.

Another difference is that we are not traveling this year at Christmas or hosting family.  Aside from the two years we lived in Guam, we have always either traveled to see family over Christmas break or welcomed my parents or the cousins here. Since we just visited with everyone in October, we aren't making the trek across the country, nor is anyone coming here. When we first decided to stay put, it seemed like a good idea, but now I'm feeling a little nostalgic. And knowing how happy I am to have my big boys home, I now have more sympathy for our parents' desire to be surrounded by family during the holidays. Having the kids home is part of the reason we decided to stay put, although there is still a part of me that wishes we were going to reconnect with all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

Despite having a quieter Advent, it seems that I still haven't managed to do the things I meant to. What's that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?   I feel like I've been laying down a ton of bricks on that road lately.  I don't know if it is just because I am getting older, or because I am torn in too many directions and end up stalled. But I had the best of intentions to do certain things this year, this month, this week, yesterday, that never happened.

Many of those things didn't happen because I started working.  As I suspected, preparation, grading, and reading for this class took about 10 times more hours than I spent in class. And the work of taking care of the house and kids always take more time than I think it will. I never fully account for the amount of time it takes to interact with people - parenting, socializing, wifing. When I read that book, I Don't Know How She Does It, I noticed she didn't really include enough time for those relationships - or maybe I just didn't multiply by seven.

Time seems especially scarce this time of year. I had really good intentions of reading the Jesse tree book and talking about the stories as we hung ornaments with the four-year-old. I even meant to remake the sorry little ornaments I made years ago. The Jesse tree is still in the box. The Christmas book box is out in the living room, but only a few stories have been read. The Christmas cards still need to be addressed. The shopping isn't finished - I need something for the stockings.  No cookies made for the neighbors - although the girls have been baking and baking and giving cookies to their friends. We didn't make it to the caroling service or the hanging of the greens at Church. I fell far short of my intention to go to morning mass more often during Advent. And of course, I haven't been the loving, quality-time mom doing fun things like making new ornaments, ice skating and watching Christmas movies and crafting that I meant to be.

Sigh. I'm heading out to shop more in just a minute because I have visions of the kids being sad after they open their presents - which will be mostly clothes and a book because they are teenagers. Every year I overestimate the importance of presents. They need a new toy! They need more boxes! And I buy too much and take it back after Christmas.

On the positive side, the four-year-old has excitedly opened the chocolate Advent calendar every day and shared the chocolates and kept track of whose turn it is to light the Advent wreath. I remembered to get out the readings for the O Antiphons on time. We all made it to the Advent penance service. I may be able to finish Christmas shopping today and be done before Christmas Eve.  After hours and hours of grading, I turned in grades early and only three students (out of 40+) emailed to ask if there was anything they could do to change their grade after they saw it posted. One asked if I could just round up 2%.  Our Christmas party for my husband's work was a success, although exhausting.  And we finally went to a celebration of Las Posadas at a nearby church - it didn't involve costumes and a miracle like the Tomie dePaola book, but it did have pozole and tamales and horchata with red and green fruits afterward. We delivered gifts to the family we helped sponsor - my friend bought them a real dog after checking with the parish that they really wanted one, and it wasn't just the 8-year-old's impossible dream.

And the house is festive: Decorations and lights are up. We decorated the tree the night the college kids came home. They've been a big help in adding to the Christmas spirit, although the absence of our second oldest has dampened it a bit in my heart. I am happy he is spending Christmas with my brother-in-law and his family in Germany, but I wish we were all together. I really wish we were all together there. And I understand better my mother's (and my grandmother's before her) desire to have everyone home for Christmas - if only we lived just a few miles apart, and not a few thousand.

Mrs. Claus needs a tangle brush

Smiling faces from Christmas past

Other smiling faces

ND undefeated again

Wreath laying at Rosecrans National Cemetary

Lights in the darkness

Crafts gone wrong: 4 year old left unattended

There have been many bright lights in this Advent season - literally and figuratively. I love seeing the church full, and our pew almost full. I love seeing all of the babies at church. The readings at Mass remind me to focus on all the sources of hope and joy- instead I tend to focus on what should be instead of what is. I think this has been a New Year's resolution before, and should be again. Or maybe I'll just tell myself that it's the thought that counts...

Thinking about Mass reminds me that there is that other meaning of intention - the petitions we pray, the intentions we hold in our hearts. I looked up the difference - one is a prayer of asking, the other is a prayer for a reason - like praying the rosary for people who are suffering. Those intentions are a road that leads in a completely opposite direction than the proverbial one. And so this Christmas, may I offer the missed opportunities and mistakes up for those who are suffering real pain, and ask for God's love to cover all those we love who are far from us physically but near in our hearts.  Peace and joy to all.

A note of gratitude

Last week at Mass, my seventh grader leaned over and whispered, "Is it marriage day or something?" Not that I know of, why? I respond. "There are so many young people here," she pointed out.

I looked around. There were a quite a few young couples in the pews. In front of us was a tall couple, stylishly attired, probably in their mid-twenties. The wife had a very cute, very prominent pregnancy belly. Another young couple behind us had a tiny newborn with lots of hair. Scattered around church were a number of young families, young couples, college kids home on break.  My heart swelled with happiness.

These young people are a sign of hope. The faith lives and flourishes despite scandal and all the distractions of modern life. I was asked to be a confirmation sponsor by one of the young moms in our co-op. My husband was asked by my nephew to be his sponsor for confirmation.  I invited my friend over for a playdate and conversation yesterday, and we sat on the floor and talked about how she first felt at home in a Catholic church when she went inside a random church after a disagreement with her mom a couple years ago. Her husband is Catholic, and in the Navy, and she didn't think much about agreeing to raise their kids Catholic until they had a little girl. Now, with her husband frequently gone, she realized she better learn about the Church in which she agreed to live. She grew up nominally Unitarian but rarely went to services. She is not yet sure she will be confirmed this Easter, but I am so flattered to be asked by her to be her sponsor. I sent her home with George Weigel'ss Letters to a Young Catholic. 

Hearing her story and seeing all these pretty young faces at Mass is cause for Thanksgiving.  We celebrated the holiday with my husband's brothers' family in Ventura, where burned hills still testify to the raging fires last year at this time, but normal life seems to have resumed around town.  My brother-in-law surprised us by flying home our 18-year-old for dinner, so although we were a smaller group around the table, our hearts were full.

I am also thankful that in just a couple weeks two of our three college kids will be home. I bought the plane tickets for Christmas break last week. I am grateful they can travel home and spend time with us, especially after hearing the stories about the poor students who can't return home after the Thousand Oaks shooting.

Our third son will stay in Rome for the year.  I am extra thankful we are going to see him in February - just in time for his 21st birthday! We are taking all the kids because I found such a good deal on plane tickets and because my husband convinced me that this will be their religious education program since they go to public school.  Almost my entire income for teaching this semester - maybe more - will go toward the trip, but I am thankful we are able to do something like this. My younger kids may not realize what a privilege it is to take a trip to Europe since they live in a community where people fly around on vacation everywhere all year around, but I hope they will remember something about it. (I need to remember my plan to get some videos about Rome and Italy from the library and to rewatch the Italian sections of Bishop Barron's Catholicism series over Christmas break)

We have many so many reasons to be thankful, yet of course, I am usually preoccupied with how I can never get done what I want to do, or irritated by the small inconvenience (traffic!), or nagging at the kids to do homework, read, get off the computer, clean up, help out, straighten up and fly right and all that.

I started writing this shortly after Thanksgiving, and now two weeks have gone by. Yesterday the bridge was closed for several hours while emergency response teams tried to convince a man not to jump. This time they succeeded, thanks be to God. Many people were sharing stories of their traffic nightmares, but there also was a general sigh of relief that a life was saved.

Last night we had the biggest downpour we've had since living in California - a verifiable storm. The power went out just before dinner. We lit candles and ate homemade chicken noodle soup with Reames egg noodles, my favorite comfort food, although not as good as my mom's. The kids laughed, told ghost stories with candles under their faces, and read by candlelight. We all went to bed early. It was great. And it reminded me this morning, as I'm up early, to give thanks for the little blessings of these moments, and for the unbelievable gift to have these blessed souls and bodies in my care, when I'm tempted to bothered by petty concerns.  God is good.

Reading in Review

October was a month of company - good company, all of it. Our friends who sing, my in-laws, my parents, their friends, my brother- in-law and friends from Ventura County who came for the Notre Dame- Navy game the last weekend of the month (they recently have had to evacuate because of fires, so we invited them back, but they are staying closer to home for now) all brightened the month with conversation and conviviality.

Because of all the fun, I had little time for reading and writing, but I did finish a few books surprisingly.  The best of them was Rumer Godden's Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, which was my book club pick. It was so, so, so good. I didn't want it to end, and if I wasn't playing catch up right now, I'd pick up another Rumer Godden book and read it all the way through. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy covers some of the same territory as the beloved In this House of Brede, but with a very different twist. Elizabeth Fanshawe, aka Lise, aka Sr. Marie Lise, enters the convent after having been an orphan, a prostitute, a brothel madame and a jailbird. The story is told backwards and forwards, so details are revealed slowly, just as they are when you get to know any close friend. And that's how you feel at the end of the book, as if Sister is your friend. You feel her pain and her love.  I admit, I found it hard to understand how she could love her antagonist Vivi as much as she did, but that is a part the reader accepts as the story goes on. Love is inexplicable in so many ways, especially parental love, which forgives everything, much the way that Sr. Marie Lise did for Vivi.

Rumer Godden's writing is so clear and free from showiness and sentimentality. Her writing for children might be a little too sweet, but her novels always surprise me with how much I enjoy them.I handed this one to my dad, and he loved it, too - proof that it is not too feminine. And it was an overwhelming success at book club. 

We almost picked another Rumer Godden book for November, but instead we read The Great Divorce, another C. S. Lewis book.  I misled one of my book club friends by suggesting Evelyn Waugh's Helena which has been on my shelf for ages, but I started it and kept envisioning British people in togas. Called her back, and said let's stick with Lewis, even though this is our fourth Lewis for book club in three years.  He doesn't disappoint, either; even though his allegories aren't books that I push into other people's hands and say, "here, read this," I always enjoy them and feel the prick of conscience when he reveals the sins of the ghosts at the anteroom of Heaven.  I wish I had finished it before I talked about purgatory in CRE on All Souls Day (using my usual explanation of it being a place where we get washed and dressed up for the big party in Heaven. Our priest described it as a long plane ride to paradise.) And here Lewis has it as a grey, dreary place where souls get on a bus to be offered the opportunity to reject their sins and join the souls in Heaven where reality is more real. This grey place becomes Hell when sinners reject the offer of grace. I meant to write up a schema before book club about what the sins the ghosts represented- the ones I remember are intellectual sin, the sin of making an idol out of  a child, the sin of pride, of desiring fame, of vanity, of materialism. Only the sinner with the lizard (lust?) is able to reject his sin and leave purgatory/hell behind. Lewis suggests that purgatory becomes hell when sinners fail to let go of their sins even when confronted with the beauty of Heaven and welcomed by a guide who tries to help them see the errors in their attitudes. The narrator, a Dante figure, watches these sinners reject offers of salvation over and over before he wakes up and is compelled to share his vision. The memorable line about "Those who say to God "Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done'" reminds us of the danger of loving ourselves and our pleasures and pursuits more than God and neighbor. Humbling.

I also read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood for the first time. The professor who taught the nature writing class before me assigned this to her students. I have never really been a science fiction fan or an Atwood reader, and am glad I didn't follow the syllabus of this fellow professor and assign in. This dystopian future novel follows the movements and meanderings of the last human being left living, as far as he knows, after a disaster caused by an infection in a future in which bioengineering is creating new species and eliminating aging. Oryx and Crake are the two people who mean the most to the main character, who is sort of a simpering, unlikable person. An unlikable narrator is always a big hurdle for me in a book. Atwood's future where scientists live in compounds and invent crossed species and anti-aging pills and other ways to manipulate pleasure and the avoidance of pain is another sort of warning different from Lewis's and somewhat compelling - particularly the addictions to drugs and pornography that the people in this society resort to. Overall the story seemed underdeveloped - I'd probably have to read the rest of the books in the MaddAdam series to really understand, but I just don't care about the narrator, whose name I can't even remember right now, and  it didn't really seem related to "Nature Writing" enough - even though it is a future divorced from nature and reality - to spend time with.

I also picked up Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I grabbed the Atwood book because I've never read it. It was more entertaining science fiction than Oryx and Crake, but I set it down and forgot to read it again until I got the email from the library about it being due. I can understand why it is a cult favorite, but skimming it was good enough for me to say, ok, I don't need to spend any more time with this.

Meanwhile, I'm still diving back into Walden as I read over papers. I'm working my way through Lawrence Buell's critical work The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture, but I'm afraid I didn't succeed in helping many students understand Thoreau's project. They write that he goes to woods to find himself over and over. I'm not sure they see the value of trying to discover principles of living and living in accordance with them -- Thoreau isn't asking "Who am I" but "How do I live." I went back over that, but the idea of "finding myself" is strongly rooted. My two favorite student essays so far have been one response paper about the costs of a college education vs. the free education Thoreau receives in the woods and another about the way a student from a rural area feels stressed at her urban school, but finds peace in the woods - a well-written reflection.  I find myself most convicted by his defense of living simply, free to have time for reading, observing, and visiting, probably because like most parents, I find myself stretched in so many directions. The New Republic and the New Yorker published a couple of entertaining essays from 2015 defending and defaming Thoreau: found here and here.

Now I need to find something new to read. 

Skimming and diving

Since the class I'm teaching is something of a survey course, I have told my students that they can skim some essays, but then dive into others. Billy Collins uses a similar metaphor in his poem, "Introduction to Poetry" (I  think I have shared this before):

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46712/introduction-to-poetry

Most of my students aren't beating anything with hoses. The second quad started a few weeks ago, and my class size tripled from 14 to 44.  I thought with more students in the class, I might hear more opinions, more connections, but instead of more conversation in a large class, we have decidedly less. Fourteen is preferable not just for making it easier for me to learn names and grade papers, but also for making it easier for students to talk out in class. But despite their silence in class (We read an essay by Meriweather Lewis, so I asked about the purpose of Lewis and Clark's journey ... crickets....), I think they are thinking about some of the readings, at least based on their journal posts. I've had several really good submissions. I think what I need to do is call on these students by name. It's intimidating to speak up in front of a group.

The content of this class is not everyone's favorite genre. I recognize that some of these essays and poems are going to be boring for a good number of people, especially since none of them are literature majors, so whether they learn to love Wordsworth or Wendell Berry is not really a goal of the course, although that would be a nice outcome. I just hope I am helping them appreciate literature, which perhaps is harder than teaching about Wordsworth. Most of the students signed up for this course because it is a general education course that fits their schedule.

What can I do to make these readings more interesting to students who don't really like to read?  Sing and dance?  I've started to present videos of the bobolink singing (the chorister in Emily Dickinson's "Some keep the Sabbath"), images of Walden Pond now and then (and a story about how it is being polluted by swimmers peeing in it), and photos of my parents' farm in the fall, of our own trip to the desert, etc. I'm hoping that the visual imagery will capture their imagination, help them connect to what they read. Maybe by the end of the term, the students will not only recognize the names of some authors and be able to identify some of the different trends or tropes in nature writing, but also find a handful of authors they really like.

I probably am assigning too much to read, but it is a survey course. Since I recognize they won't read all of the essays, I give them permission to skim and dive - to pick a couple essays to browse and one or two to spend more time with - skim some, dive into some.

This term I am trying to be a little more systematic in the way I present information: I start class with reminders and announcements about assignments and upcoming events (Exciting news here: One of the design professors is redesigning Pope Francis's Laudato Si to make it more appealing and visually meaningful.  See a prototype here: https://issuu.com/seabrightstudio/docs/now-more-than-ever_prototype-draft07218 )

I've also started having them write down the answer to a question relating to their lives - for instance, last week I asked if anyone knew what ballot measures are coming up that relate to the environment. (I tried to use polleverywhere - an online survey program - with mixed results.)  The class before I asked them to write a short description of their favorite place and then share.  The day we discussed Walden, I had them add up all the costs of owning a car (like the cost chart Thoreau creates for building his house), and figure up how many hours they had to work a year to pay for it if they made $20/hour. (The average cost was about $4000 a year, by the way, 200 hours of work.) But then I lecture for an hour, and I see the phones being checked surreptitiously under the desk. I figure they are young adults, so I'm not confiscating phones, but perhaps I need a stricter policy on that because it seems to be a contagious activity. In the smaller class, this didn't happen quite so much.

At any rate, I enjoy what I'm reading. I get bogged down in finding interesting side notes sometimes, prepping for class, so it takes too much time, but I do recommend rereading Walden and skimming and diving through the Norton Anthology of Nature Writing. Which reminds me that now it is time to go outside.

Indiana farm in early November

Joshua tree late October

Keening

The story of the most recent mass shooting has hit close to home. Wednesday night twelve people died in a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, which is about 45 minutes from where we used to live.  One of those killed was a young man from our town who graduated from the local high school in 2014. His sister, a friend of one of our sons, was also there. They both worked at the bar, which was close to their school, California Lutheran. He was a bouncer and helped teach line dancing. He had just finished a dual degree in criminal justice and music.  My daughter said teachers at her high school were in tears all day. He had been a well-loved student, the school mascot, a lifeguard, a talented musician, and a friend to many. His father was retiring from the SEALS this weekend. A friend who has a son with special needs has shared some touching stories about his friendship with her son and others with special needs. She also shared a beautiful video of him singing "How Great Thou Art" on Facebook. I'm not sure the link below will share the video, and I feel torn about sharing it on Facebook because I don't know the family. But from what others have shared, it is obvious he had a beautiful voice and a kind and joyful spirit. These stories give a face to the tragedy. He will be missed by many.

I did not know him or his family, but his mother has been in my heart all day.  I want to say I can't imagine what she is going through, but I do imagine it. Like all mothers, I am haunted by the fear of a call that comes one night to tell me of a child's accidental or tragic death. Seared in my memory is the sound of the crying of a friend who lost a son to suicide. I had come to bring her family food a couple days after his death, and she could not prevent a deep, brutal wail from erupting.  Although surrounded by family and friends who loved her, she was destroyed by his death and died from an overdose the next year.

May the mother of this young man take comfort in the knowledge that her son died trying to save others, that his memory is cherished by so many people, that his story is an inspiration to countless others.

A local newstory:
https://fox5sandiego.com/2018/11/08/coronado-remembers-man-killed-in-thousand-oaks-shooting/

I ended up sharing this video on Facebook, even though I didn't know Justin. It's not my story, or my personal loss. But I would want my child remembered, especially doing what he loved and bringing joy to others. And perhaps, maybe, putting a face on this act of violence will prevent some future loss...
https://www.facebook.com/hannah.karzin/videos/2122304821155173/

Now parts of Thousand Oaks and the surrounding area are on fire. We have some friends who have evacuated - their daughter's high school is burning - and the Navy base at Point Mugu has been evacuated, and my husband's office is on high alert.  This part of California may not have tornadoes and ice storms, but these fires are just as destructive. And yet, wildfires can also be lifegiving - necessary for some species to survive.

Music and dancing

A lesson I keep relearning: Say yes to hospitality. Say yes to offering hospitality; say yes to accepting hospitality.

I don't really have trouble with the second part. If someone invites our family over to dinner, we are usually happy to show up ready to eat and enjoy. Party? We'll be there. Meet for coffee? Sure thing! Unless we really have a conflict, we rarely say no to an invite - especially if it means no dishes...  And I think most people feel the same way. People love a personal invitation.

The exceptions are the invites from an organization, or a fundraiser, or someone we don't really know. But even then, if we have time to go to the meet and greet for the Boy Scouts, or the fundraiser for the school arts program, we usually attend. I like going to hear speakers at church or getting dressed up for a good cause or going to events in the community, like the recent book festival. I went by myself, selfishly, so I could hear the speakers and linger at booths thinking about buying books and adding to my TBR lists.* (book post to come) Sometimes I am hesitant to go along to events for my husband's work where I may not know anyone, but at the last few events (where I dragged my feet out to the car because I was expecting to have to work hard to make small talk) I've found kindred spirits with whom to talk books or gardening or education. The end of the party came too soon.

Harder than just showing up at something is hosting.  We love having company, and living in a tourist mecca just 15 minutes from the airport means we get to see lots of farflung family and friends who come to town for vacations and conferences and sometimes just to see us. But I do worry about entertaining, having enough to eat and drink, keeping all the guests happy, scrubbing mold from my shower, and swabbing the window sills. Then people arrive, and I remember that none of that really matters. People just want to hang out and be a part of the crowd.

Two weeks ago we had friends call up from our old community to let us know they would be in town and would be happy to do a house concert for us. This family has a gift for music. They play multiple instruments, can play folk music and 70s guitar rock by ear, and write their own songs based on medieval lyrics or Robert Frost poems, etc.  In the three years since we moved, their boys have developed their talents even more. I knew they were talented, but we procrastinated briefly before saying yes for a couple reasons. 1. We were thinking about going to the Matt Maher concert after the Padres baseball game (for which I hadn't bought tickets) and 2. I didn't want to clean house.  And really, I was kind of afraid of what if other people didn't like their music as much as I did. Nonetheless, we love this family, and they have been so generous to our family, so we sent out an email to invite some other friends.

Here's where the other part of the lesson takes place: I hesitated about inviting too many people, so my initial email list was just my book club. But many of those families already had plans for the evening, so I sent another invite out to more people, and then a few more. What I realized is that it doesn't hurt to invite more people than you think you can manage. It all works out. People brought snacks and beers. Some other old friends came whom we hadn't seen in three years. Other friends brought their friends who were wonderful people.  Not everyone brought their kids, but the ones who came played nicely together and got the adults to dance.  It ended up being one of those evenings where everything went well, and everyone went away happy, grateful for the fellowship and the food and the music.  And the music was so, so good.  It made me wish we had more opportunities to do things like house concerts or poetry readings or impromptu happy hours on the front porch.

So, note to self: Say yes to hosting and to being hosted. Let the people come. Give thanks for easy snacks, decent wine, good beer, and bad lighting that doesn't show the dust. Don't let a little bit of work or fear of awkwardness prevent the event.

(Moment of truth: the poetry reading only happened because my husband has a co-worker who has a lot of exuberance for performing. Sadly, he is now at another command and a difficult family situation has dampened his spirit, so we'll probably never have a reprisal of that event.)

And then some

Every Monday and Wednesday night for the past six weeks I have been up past midnight, sometimes past one, occasionally past 2 am.  The fear of failure - and the stimulation of a glowing screen - have my eyelids peeled back; my heart rate is a bit accelerated with adrenalin and caffeine. Every night, I think I'm going to do this earlier next week! I'm going to prepare ahead of time. The devil of procrastination plus the inspiration of a deadline equals late nights.

I have been laboring over mini-dissertations on nature writers, ecoliterature, ecocritism, ecotheology, ecocentrism, lococentrism, anthropocentrism, the Anthropocene era, regionalism, bioregionalism, shamanism, pantheism, ethnobotany, etc.

I search websites and databases, get bogged down in reading interesting biographical facts about authors, unusual habits and habitats, critical dissent, pertinent data on consumption, water rights, logging and other environmental issues, and details about context, timelines, settings, and references.

I prepare powerpoint slides of flowers and natural parks and kinds of trees and rates of carbon consumption; make lists of links, copy and paste interesting facts and really good quotes onto word documents; then pick up the anthology of readings and think why am I doing all this research and not focusing on the text?!?

So next I make lists of page numbers to reference, bend corners of the textbook pages, note pertinent details, and finally go to bed.

In the morning, I can't remember anything until I open the book again. For instance, this morning I knew I had just read all these reviews and criticism of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but I couldn't remember what essay I assigned my students by Annie Dillard.  Open Norton Anthology of Nature Writing to p 880: it was "Total Eclipse," a hyperbolic account of the 1979 total solar eclipse she experienced in Washington state. She talks about being in a suspended state of reality as the eclipse is occurring, like a time warp tunnel, a conflation of time and eternity. This is in between accounts of reading about miners, reflecting on a scary clown picture in the hotel room, followed by memories of a trip to a diner after the eclipse. The intentional juxtaposition of mundane and sublime is supposed to reflect the process of remembering and storytelling, I suppose.  I didn't assign it because I thought it was such a wonderful essay, but because it was short, self-contained, and related to the recent solar eclipse last August. My students could relate to Dillard's experience in a way they can't relate to Muir's swinging through pine trees during a hurricane just to be close to Nature. And, you know, being relatable is key to these kids.

I am afraid I am not relatable. Or maybe they are not relatable. I say something about Emerson or ask who wrote Moby Dick, and they can't respond.  They weren't sure about Robert Frost. Even Huck Finn is confused with Tom Sawyer. I thought they would get who the Beat poets were when I brought up Gary Snyder because they are from California - the land of pot and road trips and performance art. But no. One student did know that the Beat poets had something to do with some kind of music.

They do relate to the story of Sharman Apt Russell's toddler melting down in a tantrum in the Gila Wilderness because she cannot ride in the front on the saddle horse. They like Thoreau's comments on getting rid of clothing. They mourn Aldo Leopold's dying green-eyed wolf. They appreciate Rachel Carson's fear of a silent spring even if they didn't read the prologue, which is all I asked them to read. They can imagine seeing Eiseley's raven eating a dead baby bird and the mourning cries of the songbirds arising as it gulps the young thing down. They can share their own stories of encounters with black widows when we talk about confronting mortality and give detailed memories of grandfathers and grandmothers when we talk about the wisdom of the elders in conjunction with Snyder's eulogy to the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.

So I am taking notes about how to back off about 50 degrees from what I'm trying to cover. I keep cutting essays, even though I have a hard time not adding reading assignments because there are so many good, good writers, and so many essays about Important Things.  I want my students to hunger for these essays. I want them to be curious and enthused about the authors and the movements and the context. I want them to speak up about issues and observations they have made or heard in the news. Ask questions, make connections.

I do have a few students who read and think and realize it really isn't that hard to make a connection with these texts, even if it's "I just don't get why she brought up the scary clown." Excellent! Let's make some educated guesses!  And I do have a few students who will extemporize about "How then shall we live?" or "What value do we give to people and old growth forests?" "How do we balance the needs of the human community, the need for more space, fewer insects, more food, with limited, fragile, natural resources?"  These questions and ruminations don't need the support of the text to get the conversation going, which is better than no comment at all.

By 1 pm on Tuesday and Thursday, I am wiped out.  I question my existence, my choice to do this. Maybe I'm not a very good teacher after all. My teaching method is to throw a bunch of information out and hope some of it sticks. It is a "filling the pail, not lighting a fire" approach, although maybe some detail, some phrase will light a fire? I wonder if maybe I will not teach next year. I will stay home and homeschool the youngest. We will spend lots of time together in nature instead of reading about it.  We will simplify, simplify, simplify, and march to the beat of a different drummer. I won't be beholden to a boss, to a class of sleepy eyes. 

But then 10 pm Monday night rolls around again. I am balancing the text on my lap, peering through my reading glasses at the screen, thirty tabs open, a word document minimized, and a sheet of paper with scribbled thoughts on the desk in front of the keyboard.  I fold down the corner of a page, search for an image of the brush box tree. And I think, I love this...and this... and this...

And in other news. . .

On the anniversary of 9/11 last week. the campus where I am teaching now had small flags set up in the quad to memorialize those who had lost their lives. Because this is an evangelical Christian school, the campus ministry team emailed some prayers to be read in class. I am thrilled to begin class in prayer - "Come, Holy Spirit," being the one I have used, not sure of the theology of the Holy Spirit for my students, but going with it.  We had a moment of silence, and I read the prayer, and then asked who remembered 9/11.  Only 3 of 16 raised their hands - two were seniors, so they were toddlers when it occurred, and one was a nontraditional student who spent time in the Marines before returning to school. He was 11 in 2001. They shared their stories of what they could recall. One of the seniors remembered his dad packing up his family from southern Mexico to come to America because he still had a visa and was afraid the borders would be closed in response to the attacks.  They never went back to Mexico.  The guy who was 11 watched the news in his middle school classroom - and saw the people jumping from buildings on TV in school.  The third girl with memories of the event remembers it as a movie - something not quite real. To the rest of the students, this event is a part of recent history, much the way I remember Jimmy Carter being president and lining up for gas.

My own memories of 9/11 I  think I have shared: That morning I was, as usual, not paying attention to news until my mother-in-law called me. At the time we kept our TV in a closet because our tiny house in the northern suburbs of Chicago had no space. But I pulled it out and watched TV as much as I could with three toddlers the rest of the day.  Disbelief was my primary emotion.

We have been talked about defining moments of history in class - the fall of Rome, the shift from an earth-centric to a heliocentric understanding of the solar system, the revolutions of the 18th century, including the revolutionary ideas of Lamarck and Darwin. 9/11 surely marks a shift in worldview. Terrorism, domestic and international, has become a defining fear; has increasing secularism been a response?   These students of mine have never known a time when America was not involved in the middle east as a military presence. What a change in the military community 9/11 created.  Day to day life may be relatively little changed for most people, but the inconveniences of security checks, the very real disruptions of IAs, PTSD and deployments have restructured this generation's experience of military service. I wonder if it is just that I am more aware of suicide since 9/11, or if it continues to rise because of the trauma of that event and the corresponding reactions to it.

What will be the next defining event? The church is obviously going through a period of disruption. What should have been ended half a generation ago is still festering. A Catholic friend of mine, also in a military family, suggested that perhaps the Church needs to follow the example of the military. When mistakes are made, the commanding officer has to take responsibility at some point.  Some early retirements, if not public confessions and offers of restitution, should be made. I don't know how far up the canker reaches, but it must be very firmly rooted if it is still erupting so widely.

But it makes me tired to think of that, and many other concerns are more immediate.

For instance, how to teach about symbolism. Apropos of it all we read Blake's "Sick Rose" in class Tuesday - the worm imagery perhaps could represent this scandal in the Church, the sickness in our culture, in our love affairs, etc., etc . . .

O Rose thou art sick. 

The invisible worm, 

That flies in the night 

In the howling storm: 

Has found out thy bed 

Of crimson joy: 

And his dark secret love 

Does thy life destroy.

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For a few days I was spun up because our priest had a question and answer session during Mass about the scandals. I heard about it beforehand and expected the worst. I even went so far to send him an email to see if the rumor was true and to express my hope that the Mass wouldn't be interrupted by angry people venting. In a gesture of attention, he called me to confirm the rumor, to say that the idea had come to him in prayer, and to mention that there is a tradition of questions and answers during Mass (cf school masses). The call just made me sad.  I both was glad and regretted that we were out of town for that Mass.

Happily, my fears of the worst were unrealized, and it sounds like most people appreciated the opportunity to ask questions. They also appreciated our pastor's openness about the issue.  Perhaps the lesson for me is that I shouldn't expect people to behave badly.  I'm afraid I do tend to expect people to behave worse than they usually do in reality. Thus, I am usually happily surprised, instead of disappointed by their behavior. And perhaps that's why I don't feel tempted to leave the church. Priests and bishops, kings and presidents, and all other types of human beings have been acting badly since the beginning of time.  The hypocrisy of the leadership burns worse than anything. It is easy to imagine that Hell exists for this reason.  Who is Lucifer eating in the lowest ring of The Inferno? Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, backstabbers all.

At any rate, our parish also had a holy hour on Friday evening that week. We went, released the kids after 20 minutes of silence to go play on the playground across the street, where the sounds of toddlers and middle schoolers created a sound track for the time of prayer.  I wish more people would have come to share in the /silent/ hour of reflection. This is why our pastor wanted to meet the people at Mass instead of planning another event. Most people just don't come to church other than on Sunday morning.  They want to talk, not sit in silence and pray.

***************
Speaking of hypocrisy, my freshman son has to read Catcher in the Rye this year.  Anthem of adolescent discontent.  Back to school night was this week. I almost didn't go but decided to catch up with what the freshman needs to keep on top of. I really wanted to go to my junior daughter's teacher's classes, especially her English teacher, because I like him, even though I don't love all the books he assigns (Candide the primary offense). Despite my wish that the kids were at a Catholic school, I have to admit I like their teachers - pretty much every one of them, excepting a PE teacher. I loved the previous principal who left to go be principal at an elementary school, which will free her to spend more time with her three young daughters. She was an English major. I miss seeing her around campus - I felt we connected, even if she made everyone feel that way.  After living in the community less than a month, I felt like she knew our name and our high school kids. After living here for three years, I'm not sure the new principal, formerly the vice principal here, has any recognition of us or our kids.

*******************
Meanwhile, I thought my students would appreciate another anthem of youthful ideals, Walden, but most of them seemed to think Thoreau was preachy and unrealistic, which he is, but still. They also thought the book was boring - accounts of how little can be spent on nails or how deep and wide Walden pond is don't interest them. I can see their point, but I also am a bit disappointed in how few of them seem inspired by his call to freedom from stuff.  Then again, I am inspired but unable to detach.  I understand the liberating effects of his minimalist existence, the joy of traveling lightly through the world, but still I hang on to clothes from 1997 and have trouble letting go of books. Our most recent book club book was about decluttering. It claimed to be about making room for God, but I found the spiritual element to be lacking. Thoreau is more convincing in his linking detachment to freedom, but his is more an Eastern viewpoint; he isn't advocating for spending more time in prayer. The book club book might have been more memorable if it had given more attention to the idea that we briefly discussed after reading Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness. This is the idea that if we own more than we need we are taking from our less fortunate brothers and sisters in Christ.  The author really didn't really delve into the sins that lead to clutter - greed, covetousness, vanity, selfishness, a lack of trust in God's providence, etc, etc. Combining these two ideas - generosity and overcoming sinfulness in relation to stuff might be more convicting.

Not laboring

These photos are out of date, but I have been sorting through photos and trying to get rid of "digital clutter" because our hard drive is full, so I thought I would share some. 

Labor Day weekend we traveled up to our old stomping grounds in Ventura to meet up with my husband's brother and his family. He has a friend who has a boat, a really nice boat, who was going out to Santa Rosa Island for the day, so we got to ride along. The boat had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen - the kind of boat you could live on.  Many of the boats docked near this one were people's homes, at least temporarily. The weekend gave us a little sneak peek into another subculture that we don't get to see very often: the life of luxury boat people. 

The ride to the island took just over an hour. The ocean was fairly calm, but we didn't see any dolphins or other large marine mammals, aside from sea lions. A pod of large flying fish entertained us on the way home. Once we reached the island, the boat owner anchored in a cove and preceded to get out the boat toys: A giant floating mat (the lilypad), kayaks, paddle boards, snorkel gear, the dinghy. The rest of the afternoon we played in the cove. I don't have many photos of the time in the cove. I was either in the water or reading a book in the sun, so the day wasn't well documented.  We had brought our wetsuits and snorkels and masks. With my wetsuit, I was warm enough in the water to stay in for a while. The four-year-old snorkeled around with a lifejacket on, too. Not a lot of color and variety, like in the coral reefs around Guam, but we did see some bright orange Garibaldis, a number of bat rays, and lots of colorful urchins and kelp. Lots of little fish that I don't recognize also, the nameless gray fish that are everywhere. 

The best part of the day was the slowness of time. We had no schedule, nothing to do but enjoy this moment and explore this spot. We kayaked to the island's rocky shore, but there wasn't really a beach, nor was there easy access up the cliffs surrounding the cove to hike inland. The point was to be on the water anyway.  I tested my fears by kayaking into small sea caves, imagining the fate of that soccer team in Thailand the whole time. Then I paddled out of the cove around the edge of the island into the bigger waves of the ocean. For quite some time I paddled along the coast before beginning to think about paddling back against the current. The current actually wasn't that strong, but the unknown was intimidating enough to make me turn around. I did challenge myself to take the kayak through a small natural bridge, even as I envisioned a wave pushing the little boat into the rock wall and scraping all the skin off my knuckles.  I find myself more fearful as I get older; is this because I have heard more tales of death and disaster or because my physical abilities are fading along with my eyesight and hair color (actually that is artificially bright right now, to my frustration.) ?

At one end of the cove there was a large rock island where a whole troop of sea lions were playing. They slid off the rocks into the water, played in the waves, barked at each other, circling around in their games before ooching back up the rock to rest in the sun. That's mostly what our kids did, too. They jumped in and out of the water, off the lily pad and off the decks and roof of the boat, and explored the sea caves in kayaks. They ate and rested in the sun to warm themselves like the glistening, lazy sea lions before sliding back into the water to play some more.

When it was time to return, we felt glutted with sun and salt, and memories of a day of freedom and energy. We planned to sit around the fire that night back at the cousin's house, but instead we all fell asleep early while the kids watched Moana, dreaming of island life. 

Morning light

The littlest one still creeps into bed with us sometimes in the middle of the night. I wake up and she is there, close to my face, breathing faintly from half-open lips, her nose dotted with freckles, her round cheeks smooth as cream. One morning, she opened her eyes and caught me studying her.  She took my face in her pudgy hands, and said, "Mommy I don't want you to get old."

Perhaps she recognizes that her mom is more worn out than other children's moms. I remember being proud that my mom was young and beautiful, and I pitied the other kids whose moms were shapeless and gray. Now my meanness is coming back to haunt me.  Poor child. She will never have a young and pretty mom.  The young moms at our park wear yoga pants and tank tops, their biceps defined, their curves firm, their skin tan. They have long shiny hair and faces unmarked yet by years and cares. Little girls are attentive to what is pretty and sparkly. I must seem more like the grandmas and nannies at the park in their orthotic sandals than these lithe, athletic young moms.

Maybe I am just a little bit frightening in the early morning sun, with my wrinkles deeply creased, dyed roots and grays showing in my messy hair. When her older siblings were small, I was young. She has this strange privilege of not having to share me very much with other children. My bed in the mornings was like a nest of mouselings rolling about when her oldest sibling was her age.

Perhaps she is just recognizing that these mornings when we nestle under the covers a few extra minutes before getting up, the sweetest time of day, won't last. Her older siblings don't climb into bed with mom and dad. In the past few weeks, many things have changed; her brothers left for college, the other kids went back to school, she started a little preschool program, I have been distracted, busy. I am not young and fun and carefree. She asks me often, "Why are you making that face, Mommy?" I will then realize I am squinting or grimacing or chewing on my cheek.

What lesson this? Only that time passes. I have been revisiting the poetry and literature of my college years, revisiting places, revisiting old photos and old books looking for something. As I prepare for teaching a new class, I realize how long ago it was when I first encountered Keats encountering Chapman's Homer.  The son who is newly away at college has been discovering the pleasure of reading Homer with a group of students who are interested in talking about it. Each time I talk to him he has a different idea for a major, or he has just returned from some study session. He is thinking about trying out the Great Books program that was my major.  Delighted that he is relishing his college experience, while also missing his chatter around here. Trying to remember 18 years ago when it was his tiny face smiling at me during that sweetest time of the day.

Summer slips away

Although the sun is still warm and golden, summer vacation has ended here. The beach crowd is thinning.  The middle and high school kids returned to classes yesterday. The college kids have moved back on campus. On Monday, our second son left for a year in Roma to study architecture. I started teaching my composition class at the Navy base last night, and my new class in Nature Writing starts next week.  

This shift to another school year has arrived all too soon, and the deluge of paperwork that accompanies back to school season has begun. School registrations, sports sign ups, syllabus sign offs, CRE registration, emergency forms all have to be signed and submitted. New shoes and school supplies have been purchased.  I bought some colorful Sharpies for myself to update the calendar, but the idea of color coding kids' schedules has already evaporated.

I have fewer schedules now to coordinate. Three have flown the nest now. Our house has suddenly shifted dynamics from being a "boy house" to being a girl led house.  Only one son is left to argue for action movies with his three romance minded sisters.  The quantity of meat and milk I will have to buy will decrease. 

Even with four still at home, it seems quiet around here.  The two high schoolers are playing fall sports, volleyball, and football, and so dinner is late or just a few of us are eating together. One of our bedrooms is now empty of regular occupants; the bunk bed is stripped down, and the mess is finally off the floor - mostly hidden under the bed and in the closet, to be sure, but some of it was actually discarded  I feel lonely for the big kids who were good company this summer and handy to have around the house for helping out with chores and babysitting.

Summer's end was marked by the blessing of spending our last full week of vacationtime in Indiana with my folks on their farm, where the summer heat intensified the smell of clover and growing corn. It rained the first half of the week, which delighted the four year old who hasn't ever played in the rain because here in southern California we haven't had enough rain to make puddles since she could walk.  She donned oversized rain boots and twirled an umbrella and delighted in the summer showers. The twelve year old played outside a little bit with her and with her best friend who made an extra special trip from Maryland to see us since we were somewhat "close." We had a steady stream of visits from my siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and old friends.  One day we spent in Kentucky at my aunt and uncle's beautiful farm, which they are selling because of health concerns that come with age.  Life is passing by too quickly. I'm almost tempted to have another baby to stall time. Or perhaps just put on black to mourn the passing of youth and childhood and ideals that have vanished or faded as my children move on into adulthood and my parents' generation slows down in retirement. Tempus fugit. 

Captured moments that exist only in the digital world or memory:

Big cousins and little cousins

The weekend's entertainment: driving the Polaris

Sunrise

Night visitor

Rain dance

Ice cream for all

College send off

Prayers for students

Double rainbow promise

After the rain

Checking on the cows

Chicken dance

Ironweed - remind me to teach my kids the names of these plants so they aren't nature know nothings like the WSJ points out

Garter snake

Zinnias in bloom

Dying sunflowers

Bittersweet

Sulfur butterflies

The harvest from my pot

Back in CA: passionflower blooming