IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

In a Cambria fog and dreamland. I feel misplaced here- but more than grateful for the feeling that I’ve left Earth.

When I twisted downstairs to make the coffee I found a little deer friend from the kitchen window. He was spying in on me- big ears on my inside movements. We stood still listened, watched each other, looked for the smallest queues.

We are going on a run through the ranch and along the coastline in a few hours and I can’t help but think it will be the perfect medicine for a residue of rush and worry left splashed and soaked into me from life back in the real world.

These fingers must be tired. After all, they’re dipping themselves into realities throughout the globe. I am getting biofuel from Chino. Eating vegetable from California. Applying for a life-long credential in California. Traveling to Guatemala. Doing webquests with teachers from Hong Kong. Buying crafts from Holland. Keeping in touch with a friend in Chicago.

The world is connected. Sometimes it freaks me out, sometimes I feel comforted by the reminder that we’re all in this together. Some say there’s power in numbers.

After viewing a video on Urban Homestead (www.urbanhomestead.org) it occurred to me how strange it is that I eat fruit that is out of season. Just the other day I ate an apple. It was waxy and hard. I must admit it was delicious. And it made that crunch I find irresistible with fruit of their kind. But thinking about it I know that apple had to travel a long way and most likely pumped with innumerable steroids before it reached my neighborhood grocer.

This does not settle well with me.

In fact, many things about the status quo– so numerous I have no idea where to start the conversation– have been keeping me up at night (yes, literally– the other night I had a dream that George W and friends began drilling in my backyard. Needless to say we lost our pampered tomato garden). GW was wearing a cowboy hat and rode into my backyard on a bucking bronco.

I am a firm believer in what I’ve heard Ben Harper quoted saying many times before, “what good is a cynic with no better plan?”… I know that if you sniff around long enough there are options. It’s easier today to be eco-friendly than any other time since the Industrial Revolution. And honestly, I am inspired by that. I am also overwhelmed. I look at projects like Urban Homestead, which fill me with hope… but also make me a bit sad (not “sad” per se, but I couldn’t think up another word to express that emotion) because I know that living sustainably in Southern California is a full-time job. Combine all the mad-rushes in history and you’ve marked the trail of tears that lead us to the So Cal we know today: oil dependent, market driven, inward-looking, low social capital and uncivic minded.

So, I’ve decided to take a deep breath and start with one step. I’ll take one healing action (for the earth, for the people around me, for my stranger) each six months– a commitment that will take a great deal of ruthless accountability. The wound is exposed, my mind has seen it, my heart has felt it… time to do the dirty work! No more “once I’m done with school” excuse anymore, cause I AM done with school!!!

By the end of next week I should have my biodesiel lab set up and running in my garage. Those of you that are interested, please stop by and check it out… I’ve also got a good mechanic from (formerly from Lovecraft, now runs his own shop in Pas). I can refer you.

This is my first day of summer. I woke up to light outside my window and a cool breeze sifting through the blinds.
I couldn’t decide what props I wanted to celebrate so I chose the porch position with my camping chair, a strong cup of coffee with Bailey’s, chopped up fresh strawberries and ice cream, and Innocence Mission playing from its place on the ipod stand.
I am so happy to be done. I know I will miss my class eventually, but today I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted. They were known, by their previous first, second, third and fourth grade teachers as “a stubborn group of kids,” who presented the greatest challenges. “I was so glad to say goodbye on the last day of school!” the fourth grade teachers told me. It makes me laugh, and it’s just like God’s usual mark of humor in my life to have me hit the ground running. The truth is, in the last ten months I have never been more disrespected, doubted, unappreciated, and challenged from the pit of my character. During one three-hour long meeting with an angry parent and the Principal I was expected to maintain professionalism and a least keep my hands to myself while the mother unloaded with attacks that were aimed to prove my racism and partiality. I was put on trial… in my own classroom. Because her son received C’s on his fifth grade report card, I was being called racist and what’s more, uncaring. The most I could do was hold my tongue that whole three hours and hope to God that I wouldn’t snap from my submissive state of tears and apologies, reach over to the other side of the table and latch on to that woman’s throat.
Her words weren’t the offensive part– it’s the attack on my effort to love, care for and nurture all twenty students in my class to the end of the year.
It was the year of many lessons. I was disciplined to love the unlovable: students, parents, hands-off administrators. Much of it hurt. I made many, many mistakes. And I too, was more than happy to say goodbye on our last day, in fact I rejoiced with a little leap of excitement in my head when I hugged that last student.
Another wave of emotion will come in a few weeks, when I realize that the students I loved so much are no longer with me. I will find them next fall; older and even more awkward looking, baby fat melting away, new backpacks stuffed with supplies, middle school insecurities breathed into them from the minute they open their locker, shuffling into their sixth grade classrooms. They’ll come by to say hi or they’ll ignore me in the halls, they’ll tell me how much they miss fifth grade, they’ll recall memories.
And I… I’ll have my new class; eager little angels in that first couple weeks, ready to learn. At this point, they’re all my fans or undecided, but there are not yet opponents waiting to go home and twist stories for mom and dad who load ammunition. They love their new, young teacher. But I know the other side, the rocky road to be traveled after the first report cards. But for then, that crisp, fresh week in early September, I’ll stand before their clean faces and begin again, hoping that this year I could be better.

Sometimes I am a good cook. Sometimes not.

I am trying to free myself from the habit of thinking of cooking as a task. It isn’t working very well. I want to enjoy cooking. And sometimes I do, but I get my feelings hurt so easily when things don’t go right. In an effort to make something delicious for the staff meeting at work tomorrow I decided to go with the treat that everyone loves the most– The Chocolate Chip Cookie. Who can resist? Anyone can make them and everyone loves to eat them. For various reasons, very clear to me at the time, but unknown now, I chose to forsake my mother’s killer CCC recipe and go with one of Emeril’s. The ingredients and methods looked infallible. And I succumbed to the temptation trying to receive the glory by being the one who didn’t just make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, but exotic, mouth watering morsels. As you can see, I was brought down a notch or too as soon as I opened the oven door and looked inside to see a cookie casserole. Guess I’ll have to stop by Pavilions on my way in tomorrow. Maybe I’ll disguise the whole store-bought thing with a hand painted dish? So smooth Jen.

Everyone has a wisdom teeth story. And now I have mine. Some things I came away with:
1. It’s not as bad as they say. I didn’t leak blood all over my pillow at night. I didn’t get dry socket. Not yet at least.
2. Variety in a diet has a regulatory effect.
3. In the same way the restroom at a restaurant speaks to the cleanliness of the kitchen; everything from the Italian leather couches to posh decorative vases correlated with the quality of care I received. They even gave me laughing gas because I was nervous about inserting the needle for anesthesia! Yea buddy.
4. I love Vicodin (as well as the other narcotics my dad picked up from a friend with back pain when those ran out. They became a source of worry for my boyfriend when I started slurring my speech and whispering sweet nothings into his face at random, like “Today is the day you hate me. You decided to hate me today didn’t you, baby?” [ass grab])
5. I refuse to terrify others with my wisdom teeth extraction experience. Call it pseudo-lying, but it’s my prerogative. Maybe I’m the type that’d rather be “in the dark” than loose sleep the week before thinking the experience would be comparable or “worse,” as one mother swore up and down the night before relaying her story at Open House, than birthing pains.
6. Despite the anxiety I feel over needles and blood loss, I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance.
7. I was confronted with my need for others. There are those rare, but true times in life when the pain comes on so strong it wakes you from sleep and the only relief comes in the form of having someone lie awake with you and play with your hair just so you don’t have to feel like you are suffering alone.

It’s my place in this world. Welcome, come on in. Curl up on my bed with your cup of tea, try on my jewelery and scarves, look out the window, find a poem and read it aloud.

As another training season rises to swallow me whole, I can’t help but doubt that I’d like to do this again. Can I do this again? I went running this evening– up to the top Baranca, to the Garcia trail head. I stopped about 6 times total and barely made it home once I passed Rosedale, the new track house development overlooking the city. I was so down on myself the whole time for my heavy breathing, off kilter rhythm and dehydration. On the sixth stop I berated myself, “didn’t you just run a marathon a couple months ago???” Then I hung my head and felt sorry for myself while I caught my breath at the light. “But it’s really hot…and my ankle… and the air quality…” I tried to reason. When the light turned I bit my lip and began to “sprint” (9 minute mile have you) home in a last ditch effort to preserve my dignity. We can be so hard on ourselves sometimes.

So here I am this May, twenty-four years young, half runner girl, half hard-headed go-getter, bracing myself for The Pain in November. The time will go by so fast, and like that, I’ll be at the starting line with thousands of other Pasadenians with tingling toes of nervousness, ready to embark on a battle known as “twenty miles of hope, six miles of truth.”

Dear Parent,
I love your child. Trust me, you are not the only one. I’ve spent countless hours catering to their education. Because I care. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here and I certainly wouldn’t lead four day field trips and make as many weekend soccer games and softball tourneys as I could. I am serious about my job because I know that I have a few, short, 10 months with them and those months have got to count. Otherwise, all the stress and agony of putting up with your innumerable demands wouldn’t be worth it. Your dear, sweet, perfect and perpetually innocent child spends more time with me, than with you, and therefore, I feel that I am fairly aware of his or her needs. Stop placing the blame, and if you must, limit your emails to one a day. Here’s my automated reply: I am one part of the puzzle. Please help them succeed, by limiting television, video games, after school language acquisition classes, karate, and harmonica lessons. Don’t make things harder on them by filling their lives with calendar events– teaching them that life is stress. Let me take the time to tell you that life is not stress… that life is beautiful and great things happen in it… if you create the free space necessary for development and growth. Let there be silence occasionally. Turn the noise off and listen to what they have to say. Stand still and let them come to you. They look up to you. They will learn from you more than they will learn from me. So, be their hero. Live the life they are looking forward to. Partner with me. Don’t teach them disrespect through your own disregard for others. You want your child to love others? Stop being hateful. You want him to tell the truth? Be honest and vulnerable. Squash pride, admit when you are wrong, it doesn’t make you weak in their eyes- only stronger. Build barriers of protection around them by establishing boundaries. Don’t give them everything that comes up… they will ask for it all, it’s their nature, our nature. But keep to that inner voice that cherishes innocence, simplicity and humility. Give them the gift of strength through love. Love, love, love; nothing more, nothing less. It’s a short time and will all be over in the blink of an eye.

Miss Thompson

I squeezed the juice out of the day. The total amount it had to offer. My thirst for a good day manifest itself into raw need at the end of a week marked by disapproval.

So he picked me up and took me to a plot of nature, knowing what would ease me. And when we arrived I found that there were others– LA natives– executives, work-a-days, blue collars, white collars, pink collars, who had come. Like wildebeests they were drawn to a water pool in the death heat of the Savannah. It was purity they were searching for, I was searching for it too. All that is clean and cool had been lost somewhere to this week of business, traffic, pavement, corporate, smog, time, noise. The stark alternative of what this nature plot has to offer in the midst of a land carved up and spit out by its inhabitants, seemed to be calling, like the Sunni bells that resound the Islamic call to prayer. All who could hear came in a trance. As I surveyed the eager caravans of families and friends unpacking themselves in the parking lot, gearing up for a day of dreamy rest among rose gardens and bamboo forests, I was reminded of these familiar words of refuge, nature herself was calling:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I sit on the porch, in my chair that is for camping.
The blog I come across (by no one I actually know… at least very well…) depresses me. And although sometimes I depress myself, I can’t help but identify these sentiments as a true let down. The writer writes from a Christian perspective; and the writer complains that the world is messed up.

And I feel my heart break a little when I ration these thoughts with my deep seeded conviction that God is in this world, deeply loves this world and is here with us, with it, within, without, through and through, every moment, everyday. We are his beloved and by “we” I mean humanity. He cannot separate himself from us and we were made to find him irresistable. To say that this world is “bad” is a shallow assessment. God created us and therefore loves us– no amount of modern new-ageism, sexualized media, materialism, greed, war, violence and technological dependency can separate us from the love of God. He redeems, not just individually as we’ve heard it preached many times before, but collectively. Despite popular (Christian) belief, we ARE of this world. We are made up of the very dust and bones as our fellow man, as our atheist neighbor, as the pedifile down the street. We need to stop being afraid of devience and start trusting the Holy Spirit– healer and reconciler of all things. The author of the future, he sees us alongside a vision of our intended state, and knows that us getting there is not only possible, but destiny.

I pray that one day I’d see the world for it’s destiny, like He does.