Caught Up in My Feelings

Close your eyes and listen as I recite this poem.  Really imagine that you can hear me laying in on the hissssssssssssss of the sibilant “s”, and the frrrrrrrrrrrr fricative sound of the “f”.  Think about snakes, the steam of ice hitting something hot, cold so very cold, like Dante’s 9^th circle of hell, so cold and thick it’s painful to the touch like dry ice…  Ssssss, ffffffff, steam, bang, boom!  The sounds made in this poem through the use of consonance and alliteration also support its meaning.
 

Fire and Ice

                            ~Robert Frost

 

                      Some say the world will end in fire,

                      Some say in ice.

                      From what I’ve tasted of desire

                      I hold with those who favor fire.

                      But if it had to perish twice,

                      I think I know enough of hate

                      To say that for destruction ice

                      Is also great

                      And would suffice.

I have been thinking about this poem a lot lately as I watch the news.  I’d like to walk you back in time to when I used to teach this poem, and share with you some of what we discussed in class, all of which is sadly still relevant in our society today.  Robert Frost really hit the nail on the head with what he implicitly says about human nature.  One of the ideas in this poem that we discussed dealt with the idea of there being a thin line between love and hate.  On the board I have a line segment, labeled “love” on one end and “hate” on the other end.  I ask my students, “What is the opposite of love?”  They all reply in unison, “Hate.”  Wrong! The ABSENCE of love is the opposite of love.  Both love and hate are very powerful emotions, and they are really close to each other in feeling.  How so?  Go back to the line on the board.  I take the ends of my line segment and make a special line that has no end—a circle.  As the ends of the line segment, love and hate, come together and connect their ending points, it is very easy to “see” how close love and hate are to each other, not opposites at all.

We take pause to think and write before we continue to discuss the poem.  The playlist for this poem at times has included The Persuaders’ classic, It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Rick James and Teena Marie’s Fire and Desire, and Macy Gray’s Strange Behavior.  Thin Line… and Strange Behavior both speak of situations where love has gone bad, jealousy, cold-heartedness, the love of money—all examples that we could talk about in terms of themes and symbolism represented in the poem.  Students could use Fire and Desire to brainstorm symbols of both love and hate, and jot them down to help them think when writing.  Both their essays and the art work that resulted from writing workshops were amazing and well thought out.  They could talk about how love and hate, both powerful emotions, can lead to great destruction if taken to the extreme, like “being laid up in the hospital, bandaged from feet to head…”, as the song by The Persuaders croons when the lady’s heart can take no more cheating and creeping by her husband.  There were plenty of examples from the news at the time… Raven Abaroa, who murdered his wife in 2005… Eve Carson, who was killed in 2008 (in Advisory, my homeroom class made hearts that they decorated and wrote condolences on as they talked and grieved about her death)… Shaniya Davis, who suffered an unspeakable sexual assault and death in 2009… 

Studying this poem helped students to have an outlet for the things that were happening in their world, and they always liked how we could talk about things and still be on topic for what we were studying.  I never told them, but that is exactly one of the desired outcomes that I had in planning my lessons, that students have plenty to think and talk about as they read, reason, and write.  It’s called learning, and such conversations are the scaffolding to help students unleash great writing!  Aha, I believe wholeheartedly in using music, writing, and art to maximize learning in the language arts classroom.  I always wanted my students to be critical thinking, logical, compassionate students.  In becoming critical thinking, logical, compassionate students, I always envisioned them growing up to be young adults with those same qualities. 

I thought about this lesson in particular while watching the story about Glenn Miller, whose hatred for Jewish people (and African-Americans, Hispanics, anyone he considers not pure white, different, or somehow “other”) ironically killed a grandfather and his grandson, and another lady—William Corporon, Reat Underwood, Terri LaManno (remember them in your prayers)—Christian, not even Jewish.  Most disturbing though, three innocent people are dead because of someone’s extreme views, whether love of one’s race gone twistedly, evilly wrong, or a clear-cut case of extreme, icily ignorant hatred.  I pray that love will extinguish hate with love.  I say extinguish hate with love because all hate does is exascerbate more hate.   Love is the answer, the karma, that wins.  Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing a Little Crowing

Today I am doing a little crowing for reaching my goal—success in cooking my first pot of turnip greens!  One thing I have learned since MS slowed me down is to set small, attainable goals and celebrate their success when achieved, even if it is just feeling happy about the sense of accomplishing something, and build on that feeling.  So, hooray for me; I accomplished what I set out to do!  My dad wants turnip greens for Easter Sunday dinner, which I agreed to prepare, and I do not want to be embarrassed over cooking a dish that tastes terrible, and has the potential to be added to the “remember when you tried to cook…?” stories.  There is one story about a cake that I made as a part of a 4-H project on cooking dishes from all across the world that I will never live down, lol.  Mommee tried to tell me that I was cooking it too long, but I insisted on following the recipe’s instructions to the letter.  The result was a doorstop that still gets a hearty round of tear rolling laughter when joked about these many years later, and will probably come up again in a couple of weeks.  That culinary bomb is a legend on Uncle Juba Lane!  No such disaster this time, however.  As evidenced by the empty pot, filled only with a spoonful of greens left in the “potlikker”, as the old folks say, I put my foot in ‘em, all the way to the kneecaps.  My fledging pot of greens was a hit, and after Duke fixed his lunch for Thursday, a spoonful was all that was left.  I ate that spoonful, feeling very happy and pleased as punch with myself.

 I don’t really care for turnip greens because they tend to be bitter.  When the spirit hits me to fix a mess of fresh greens, it is always collards, which I really like a lot better.  My collards are okay, not as good as my dad’s even though I use his suggestion of chicken broth instead of just plain water, but they do satisfy my taste buds.  I have been meaning to ask him to tell me exactly, step by step, what to do to make my collards taste as stellar as his do, so I can write it down to add to my collection of family recipes.  Duke has been asking me to get that secret, along with Daddee’s recipe for his crackling cornbread, which I have only eaten, never made; Jiffy cornbread is just too quick and easy, and we have no complaints from the knees parked under our table.  In fact, Jalen will eat an entire pan of cornbread if we are not vigilant and paying attention.  “What happened to the cornbread”, and then we espy him wiping crumbs from his greedy little lips, haha. 

 Back to the turnip greens, since I didn’t want to ask my dad about the how-to directions, I began searching for a recipe online, first looking at a southern cooking blog, The Southern Lady Cooks, which I love.  When I am hankering for something with that down home flavor, especially a dessert or an easy meal for the crock pot that Jalen can help me get going before school, Southern Lady is my go-to site.  I have never been disappointed in any recipe followed from the site, and neither is the family.  I liked the recipe that I found, but decided to click on one more blog, Deep South Cooks.  Hog heaven, chitlin’ city—Jackpot!  I found exactly what I was looking for—southern style cooking, not too many ingredients (none hard to find or overly pricy, either; had most of them on hand in my well stocked pantry), an anecdotal recipe with helpful hints, like how to circumvent the bitter taste—perfect.  Even the accompanying picture looked like what I had in mind.

 When I cook these days, I need assistance, a pair of “legs”, to make it easier and safer for me to accomplish the task.  If the kitchen set-up were more handicap-friendly, I could be more independent, but “it is what it is”, so I am letting things “do what they do”.   I don’t fry anything anymore; Duke handles that form of cooking when we are craving some good fried chicken or an occasional pork chop.  Before Jordan went to college, I had groomed him so that he cooked dinner most of the time with little help from me other than some instructions, a wonderful blessing.  Jalen is learning to cook a little, and likes to fry hamburgers on occasion, with supervision, of course.  I have become an excellent prep chef, and can peel, dice, grate, chop, season, and put together the meals I prepare from the sofa, using a lap board for a flat surface, which helps me preserve my energy so I can get a meal to the table.  My roasting pan and my crock pot are my very best friends in the kitchen, and with someone willing to bring me the ingredients, utensils, bowls, and other essentials, I am still able to be feel like I am cooking for my family, which I love to do.  Duke and I joined forces in our tag team effort to fix the greens.  What he does to help me after working hard all day is truly a labor of love that I feel so blessed to have in my life.  He washed them well and cut away the great big stems and ugly parts of the leaves, and got the salt pork (suggested in the recipe instead of jowls to stave off the bitter taste) and water ready for the stock pot.  He also brought me the things I needed to finish culling through the greens and chopping them up for the pot.  While I was doing that, he also added the other seasonings and things I asked him to put in the pot, including some beef broth, which I used instead of the beef fat or bouillon called for in the recipe.  I used what was on hand in the pantry, and added a few things of my own that I knew would taste good. 

 It is an understatement to say that I was pleased with how they turned out.  My greens were banging!  Duke said they were really good, and when I tasted them, I thought the same, noting how they were not bitter at all.  The salt pork, cubed according to the recipe, did its job.  Wednesday night’s dinner, along with a chuck roast with gravy, onions, and Yukon Gold potatoes, was delicious and satisfying.  I even saw Jalen, who “didn’t want any greens”, going back to the pot for a second generous helping.  I did not say one word. I just smiled to myself.  My turnip greens could stand on their own for a meal, with just some cornbread, onions, and hot sauce, just like was suggested in the picture on the blog.  Hooray!  I had achieved my goals.  I did not have to ask Daddee for help and I will not be embarrassed to set this dish on the sideboard on Easter Sunday.  The only thing I need to worry about is making sure I fix enough.  With only three people, the pot was empty much sooner than I thought it would be.  I’m not sad though; that just means the greens were good, and that my test run turned out to be a winning hypothesis.  On Easter Sunday, I am hopeful that I will hear my dad say, “I like your turnip greens.  They are really good.” 

 Fait accompli!  The little girl in me is smiling.    

 

The Legend of Uncle Juba

Maybe you know who Uncle Juba is, or perhaps not, but when I was little and spent time at my Grandma Jordan’s house in Oxford, NC, my aunts, especially my Aunt Rita and Aunt Cat, made sure that my cousins and I knew who he was. They made Uncle Juba sound so scary, and when they wanted us to be quiet and quit running around the house making noise during soap opera time or when they wanted quiet to rule the roost, they would call upon the spirit of Uncle Juba. “Uncle Juba… Uncle Juba, where are you?”, my aunts would summon in a low, mysterious voice, calling him like mystics to come get these bad little children who didn’t want to listen. “Uncle Juba’s gonna get you”, my Aunt Cat or my Aunt Rita would say, their voices and faces deadpan serious. All of us rambunctious nieces, nephews, and cousins—Jordan, Terry, and Campbell, the whole motley crew—were quickly reduced to mute little couch potatoes, all sitting in a row on the couch and in the chairs. All feet were still, whether they touched the floor or dangled off the edge of the seat, and hands were neatly folded in our laps. We would get restless rather quickly, and would try to amuse ourselves by sneakily, and hopefully silently, getting each other in trouble, trying to make each other laugh or make noise, move or somehow get off of the seat. Then you were in trouble and subject to incur the wrath of a switch, or at least the threat was severely implied. Even when we got old enough to know better, the implicit rules in conjuring up Uncle Juba worked as reminders that we were pushing the envelope of getting into some sort of trouble with swift speed.

I was a little awed and simultaneously tickled when I learned about Uncle Juba’s existence a short distance across the Atlantic waters of the antebellum triangular trade of rum, slaves, and molasses, that he is alive and well in Trinidad, part of the Caribbean culture. I was taking a graduate course at ECU in multicultural literature, and read the book, Crick Crack, Monkey, by Merle Hodge, to complete a book report assignment, when I ran across the story of Uncle Juba. (I wish that I knew how to link the Powerpoint to this post.  It’s a little heady with research, but very interesting.) According to the legend, the grownups warned that Uncle Juba is a bad spirit that will come and take away the bad children, and the children would scare and tease each other, just like we used to do, even down to the hurtful name calling as a part of signifying. I found this a really cool and interesting connection to the collective histories of black people, spread across the globe by English colonization and American slavery. I wonder if my aunts realized how they were perpetuating history in trying to get us to be quiet and behave. LOL

Today, Uncle Juba is still alive and well, living in Carrolltown. I don’t know where my dad got it from, but he mounted an African looking, metal mask to one of the trees in the front yard, and the first time that you notice him, it may be a little startling. “Did I just see a face looking at me, hmmm”, as you are walking by the grotesquely smiling tree spirit, sort of reminiscent of the evil tree in the Wizard of Oz that threw his apples at Dorothy and The Scarecrow. When they were little, the first time Jalen and my nephew, Alex, saw Uncle Juba they burst into tears and ran into the house screaming bloody murder. With that discovery, we milked their fear of Uncle Juba for all it was worth, reminding them when it was dark outside and it was time to come in that if they lingered… The mysterious intonation of “Uncle Juba… Uncle Juba…” began to arise from our lips, and two sets of legs would come flying by us, straight into the house, without fail. All of us grownups in the house, now “in the know”, complicit in the game, would wink at each other and crack up with laughter. We had come full circle, my sister and I, using the same tricks against our children that our aunts used on us to gain our compliance. With the help of my Uncle Ed, my dad’s only brother, one year my sister and I gave Daddee one of those private road signs to be mounted at the end of the driveway, Uncle Juba Lane. The legend of Uncle Juba, at least in my family on the Jordan side, remains alive and well.

 

 

 

Living in Love and Fellowship

Getting together for family fellowship and fun is a longstanding tradition on Uncle Juba’s Lane, the name given to the pathway that leads to my dad’s house, our family “Home Place”, where love and rejuvenation of spirit are always guaranteed.  Birthdays and holidays are especially important, and such occasions call for the sideboard to be laden with a cornucopia of savory dishes—family favorites, staples from the garden cooked to perfection, delectable desserts—general good eating.  Doggie bags are a must, and a good time is always had by all.  If it’s your birthday, a birthday cake is always warranted, along with Breyers ice cream.  My mom and dad both planned and executed great family gatherings, where the menu and all preparations were filled with love, fun, and a long legacy of family tradition.  The legacy continues with my dad, the patriarch of the Jordan clan, and a wonderful dinner planned for Easter Sunday.

My mom set the example for being the quintessential dinner party hostess and left huge apron strings for us to tie.  One of her last missions before she passed was to have a birthday party to celebrate Jalen’s 3^rd birthday.  She was determined that that was what she wanted to do for him even though she was very sick (none of us, including her I think, truly knew just how sick at the time).  One of the things she was determined to have was a birthday cake that looked like a fully rayed, bright yellow sun.  My sister said that getting the cones iced and arranged around the cake was the dickens, but the cake was awesome.  It was sunny yellow, with a huge happy face and candles.  I smile as I remember how in the primary grades, all of the suns that Jalen drew had cool faces—great big balls of orange and yellow with long rays and an impishly mean smile if he was having one of his “mad, bad, most horrible days”, or the huge, open smile with the big teeth and Blues Brothers-styled sunglasses on a happy day…  Jalen’s suns were really cool, and perhaps one of the happy memories his young mind associated with his grandma.  At least that’s the way I like to think about how the legacy of love rolls in the deep, to borrow from Adele.

When we get together now, my mom is still present in our hearts and touches of her are gathered together around our table.  She is always in our conversations between bites of food and guffaws of hooting laughter, and she is also there in loving, purposeful ways, like the place setting with the tea cup, plates, and charger all inverted but set grandly with all of the accoutrements, or a simple arrangement of tea roses from Mary’s Garden (the garden my dad grew for her one year as a Mother’s Day gift) in her favorite tea cup as the center piece.  She even shows up on the sideboard in the bowl of turnips sitting there, that none of us eat but my dad prepared because they were one of her favorites.  It is a legacy to her, a tribute of our love for her that will never die, the indelible lessons that she carved into our hearts and souls in her undying love for her family, which she valiantly and fiercely fought to share until the end of her days on this Earth.  It is this spirit that fills the kitchen as we cook, nibble, dice, mix, and laugh about the good old days as we prepare to sit down to feast.

When we sit down to dinner in a couple of weeks, we will share in a traditional Jordan-style, Easter Sunday repast planned meticulously by my dad. My sister and I will be helping him so that he will not have the burden and labor of having to fix everything, even though in his plans he has taken on the bulk of the meal—baked ham, a baked hen with gravy and dressing, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, and a lemon Bundt cake.   Yes, my dad can burn in the kitchen, even in his golden years, 78 moons strong (I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing that tidbit of information, but such a long life is a wished for blessing by many, one to always celebrate with abundant thankfulness.).  To add to the feeling of fellowship, the dinner menu and the recipes used to prepare the dishes often come from my mom’s cookbooks, equally shared between the two of them throughout their marriage.  My dad has his clipped recipes and handwritten notes for things that he cooks tucked right along beside her notes and concoctions for family delights at the dinner table.  I am already thinking about the bomb diggity macaroni and cheese my dad makes from a recipe that he got from G. Garvin’s cooking show, “Turn Up the Heat”.  Bam!  My taste buds are already piqued in anticipation.

My dad sent us a letter with all of the menu needs, along with his notes and suggestions.  According to his instructions, we divvied up the remaining dishes.  My sister is preparing a sausage queso dip with some Scoops chips, fresh cut pineapple chunks, and cantaloupe or honey dew slices as the pre-dinner nosh.  She also is fixing deviled eggs, following our mom’s recipe, always delicious and presented beautifully with the paprika sprinkled on top, each one neatly nestled in Mommee’s pretty white dish with the gold colored stripe around the perimeter, made just for deviled eggs.  My mom was always one for elegant touches and flourishes, and my sister carries on her tradition well, even donning one of mom’s aprons while she is in the kitchen.  My sister is the neat, dainty one, just like my mother, while I tend to be like a bull in a china shop as I cook, mixing, pouring, and spilling just as easily as I “put my foot in it” as I whip up my contributions to the feast.  I am forever the clumsy one, always electrified around the edges, laughing and joking, and keeping the kitchen lively.   But as I clean up my prep scraps and wipe away the things I spilled, the aroma of what I have prepared will fill the house—an old-fashioned corn pudding, a pot of fresh string beans, turnip greens (which I have never cooked before), and my famous fancy punch, so easy to make and always swilled to the last punch bowl drop.  We gave the easiest task to my brother, Patrick—bring the Sister Schubert rolls, which are a good, but paling-in-comparison compromise to the homemade rolls that traditionally have graced our table.

I am kind of nervous about the turnip greens, which I confess I don’t like as much as collard greens, but it is what Daddee wrote as the menu choice, and my sister and I did not deviate from his instructions, not one iota.  I started to call him up and ask him how to fix them, as I have never cooked turnip greens before, but instead I decided that I will try to surprise him and prepare them without having to burden him with having to fuss with giving instructions to me over the phone (as our phone conversations go with him straining to understand me as his hearing wanes, hence the ease and practice of the art of letter writing).  The little girl inside of me forever wants to please her father in return for all that he has always selflessly given to me.  I think that I have found a recipe online, on a deep southern cooking blog site that based on the directions, ingredients, and accompanying picture, is going to give me a dish that I will not be ashamed to put out on the sideboard.  The recipe does seem very Southern and down home, and looks like it will fit in well with the Jordan style of cooking.  We will be having a test run for tonight’s supper, to see if my turnip greens will be up to snuff to be presented on the Jordan sideboard with the other family favorites.  If my turnip greens do not turn out well, then I will be swallowing my pride, and calling Jordan, who serves as an acoustic conduit for Grampa’s phone messages, for him to get the family recipe for me to follow to the letter.  The legacy of love and fellowship on Uncle Juba’s Lane is alive and well, blessed with love and filled with fun. 

I close out today’s post with a song, traditionally sung as a part of the devotions and prayer that begin our Jordan family gatherings:

                                                   Blest be the tie that binds,

                                                   Our hearts in Christian love.

                                                   The fellowship of kindred minds,

                                                   Is like to that above.



 

 

 

 

Filling My "Whine" Glass

When I began teaching at RM Prep, I was a kindergarten teacher, and we were a K-5 school.  Each year a grade level was added, and as the grade levels were added, I moved up in the grade levels as well.  First was third grade, not my choice but I rolled with the punches and ended up loving it, wondering why I had resisted (perhaps because I felt moved like a piece of furniture).  But when I moved into the middle school, to teach 6^th grade, it was by mutual choice, the best of all possible worlds to me, teaching language arts and history.  And by the time we were a K-8 school, I was exclusively an 8^th grade language arts teacher.  I was also in the midst of graduate school, and had to solidly commit to my intended program of study: language arts or social studies.  I was equally split, but leaned towards the original love my English and humanities teacher/mother gave me—the gift of words, music, and storytelling—and I became an 8^th grade language arts teacher, one many times wooed to come to the high school, but one who staunchly resisted and sought to make herself known as one loyal to the cause, development, and heart of the middle.  I loved teaching 8^th grade!  I remember 8^th grade as my toughest year when I was in jr. high school (not middle school grades 6-8, but grades 7-9 in the days of yore), trying to navigate between being a kid and a young adult, the clumsiness, fear, and inquisitive wonder of it all, and that is the point upon which my students and I could meet.  We could laugh, never at each other, always with each other, and know that we could support and learn from each other—safely, abundantly, and without fear—in Mrs. Bunting’s Literature Heaven, Room 507 (at times Rooms 510, 509, 505, and 603 were all my teaching homes, too).  But Literature Heaven, Room 507, was where I lived, loved, and taught when I created the wikispace with that name for posting digital class projects and conversations.

I believe strongly that learning should be fun.  Having a sense of humor (never at the students’ expense, however) helped to diffuse many situations in the classroom, and generally brightened the hour that was spent in class together each day.  How can you stay mad with someone who genuinely cares for you and smiles when you are being a Joe or Joe Ella Knucklehead, coming back the very next day, still being nice and smiling—“Good morning, class”?  Kill ‘em with kindness, get more with honey than vinegar, temper it well with firmness and high standards—“I laugh and joke, but I don’t play”.  My students know that about me—that I was demanding and I had high expectations of them, but I was also caring and known for being kind, having a smile on my face, and creating a good laugh.  One lighthearted prop I was known for was my “whine" glass (perhaps not as famous as my coffee cup), pulled out on occasion when my students were whining and complaining about things we could not change, like, “Why do we have to wear uniforms?”, or things we had to make the best of, like the thermostat being out of whack and the room was too hot or cold.  The complaints, distracters from learning, get old really quickly.  Sooo… out comes a cheap little Family Dollar put-together champagne glass that I had from a New Year’s celebration.  I would set it out on my podium, pull out my air violin to serenade them with sad, classical music, and give instructions to commence to whining, get it all out in the next minute, so that we can get down to business and start class.  “Whine, whine, whine, whiiine…”  For the next minute, I fiddled, they whined, complaints burned…  “Okay enough of that.”  Laughter ensues as I put the glass away.  “It’s time to get to work.”  And life, lessons, and learning march onward.

Well, I need a minute or two to do a little whining about something that I cannot change, but need to get off of my chest—dealing with the battle scars of MS.  I am feeling in the mood for a good glass of whine, perhaps even a real glass of a potent potable as I watch the NCAA final game tonight.  But to the point, tonight my whine glass needs to be generously filled to the brim with all of the angst and self-pity that I feel for having to deal with this MS fiend, robbing me of my joy, and making me feel like not wanting to do anything.  Moving is so difficult, and I have been feeling quite stressed about it lately.  My muscles have been especially tight and heavy, so every movement is a graceless act, a chore that must be struggled through just to get up off of the couch to go to the bathroom.  I have to slide myself down to the left end of the couch, brace my arms just so against the left chair arm and the right side of the couch seat, and literally will myself to rise.  I talk to myself for encouragement, “Think up, Jan.  Just move in one big motion.  Raise your arm into the air and think, “And still I rise, I rise, I rise”.  You can do it.”  Awkwardly, looking just like the spectacle you imagine, I steady my nerves and rise, only to get halfway up and fall back down, two times, three, four, five…  By the time I get up and get to the bathroom, I’ve been holding it so long that I can’t go, and I have to sit there until I relax again, and then my legs have fallen asleep.  Just thinking about fixing myself something to eat seems so difficult my shoulders start to droop as I envision the short walk, because the kitchen, only a few feet from the den, seems a mile away.  Trying to take a heavy pot of leftovers out of the fridge is a very awkward act, performed with bated breath, praying I don’t drop it before getting to the stove so that I can fix myself a plate and pop it in the microwave. Usually, after my morning cup of coffee and breakfast, consumed when Duke leaves for work (around 4 a.m.), I do not eat again until 4:30 in the afternoon when Jalen gets home from school.  I have taken a couple of spills in the kitchen before, and thankfully someone has been there to help me up, even catch me once or twice.  I fear falling so much and lying there helplessly on the floor, unable to get myself up because there is nothing to hold on to, that I weigh very carefully whether or not I have the strength and the means to make it to the kitchen and back.  Most days, I wimp out on trying to get to the kitchen, like I have done for the last two weeks, and just sit all day in hunger.  A second cup of coffee in the mid-morning is out of the question because I have no way of getting it back to the couch without spilling it, so I can sit back and savor it, the way coffee is supposed to be enjoyed.  I can bring a plate or bowl of something back on the seat of my walker, place it on the couch, and then come around to sit down and eat.  I can’t do that with drinks.  So I just wait.

Most of all, the exacting toll of my puffing laborious movements depresses and steals the joy that I feel, or could feel, from spending time with my family and friends.  This weekend, I passed on another chance to go visit at my brother and sis-in-law’s house.  The fact that I expend so much effort to perform the simplest of tasks makes me tired, and for the last few weeks I have been exhausted, not even wanting to move.  Just thinking about wrestling with stairs, getting in and out of the car, struggling to walk with my raggedy cane through the narrow spaces where my chair won’t fit makes me tired just thinking about going anywhere.  That’s after fighting with my energy zapped self in the shower, and weakly, just barely vanquishing the consequent struggle to get dressed.  Already tired, by the time we would have gotten there, I would have been so tired that I would have been ready to come home in a couple of hours max.  So rather than spoil everyone else’s fun, I missed out, yet again, and stayed home alone, resting and able to put my legs up and massage them whenever they cramped, but childishly mad because I was home alone, missing out on all of the fun, pouting by myself.  Whine, whine, whine…  Very silly and shallow, I know, but tonight I just felt like whining.   I needed to “wallow with it” (to the tune of The Wobble song, hahaha) at my own little pity party for a bit. Thank you for your continued patience and understanding.  I do feel a little better.  And now I say to myself, as I used to say to my students, “Okay, enough of that. It’s time to get to work.”  And life, lessons, and learning march onward.

 

Looking Back to Find Myself

Flipping through my journal, I ran across this entry, “Looking Back to Find Myself”.  I wrote these words December 15, 2012, a day after the horrific shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.  Looking at the constant stream of news stories on such an incredibly senseless loss of life, love, and innocence, I started thinking about how important it is to try to live each day with a sense of purpose.  My goal in writing that day was to find myself, a happier self, the self that was becoming more reclusive and sad with each passing day.  Over a year has passed, and I realize now that resetting one’s course takes time and will occur gradually at its own pace; such a change does not happen neatly, all at once, in a nice, tidy package.  It takes the body, mind, and spirit working in concert, believing in each other and supporting each other, and the only person who can manipulate those forces into being for Jan is Jan.  It is April 2014, and perhaps it is fitting that it is the spring season, the time of year when seeds, buried and germinating all winter, feel the sun’s rays and begin to awaken.  New life springs forth, fresh, green, and alive, and that is how I feel today, fresh and alive.  My passion for writing is a seed that has been in a siesta inside of my soul for far too long.  I am awake after a long slumber and I am happy.  I am finally setting my life back on the tracks, which was my goal for 2013, to find myself again, and find that sense of purpose that makes living worthwhile.  My journey is not yet complete, but my focus is clearer, and my goal seems attainable, less of a wistful fantasy of mere wishing, now driven by the grit to succeed.  I think I’ve got my “BE” back!  Keep reading, you will see what I mean.

 

Looking Back to Find Myself

 

June 2012 was a devastating month for me.  Life as I knew it, my plans for the immediate future, and a lifetime career and love that I swore I would never do—teach—yet did well for 23 years, were all decimated within 30 days.  I had no clue that the rug would be swept out from under my already clumsy, off-balanced feet in such a quietly unobtrusive, yet stealthily calculated manner.  To this day, I do not know the official cause of this destruction to my life, but I do know that MS was a compliant accomplice that abetted my dismissal from the school and life I loved.  Twenty-three years of obsessive love and devotion to my craft, honed and driven by a commitment to lifelong learning and professional development, a master’s degree, and a fervent desire to make a difference in the lives of young people—gone in a puff of smoke as we hauled the last of my classroom away on the back of my brother’s old but sturdy farm truck, a week after my 19^th year wedding anniversary.  Never was there even so much as a hint of what was to come, even though it was known how hopeful I was of returning to the classroom, my teaching career unceremoniously ended.  The smiling faces I saw that day said nothing, and let me prattle on cheerily about my plans and preps during the interim of my sick leave.  But by June 30, 2012, a day that will live in infamy in my life, I heard an indelible clank of the bars as the day dawned on my loss.  An expired contract, unrenewed, expendable, non-tenured with a proven track record of success with students—terminated…  Just like that.  The resonance of those words is still deafening.

 

How do I recover from this?  I don’t know; I still am in recovery.  Today is December 15th, a day after the most horrific event a parent can ever imagine—sending your child to school never to come home, hug or kiss again—and I am attempting, finally, to write about my life.   After bouts of frequent crying and raging, suppressing my feelings and sobbing in silence, playing online Scrabble and watching TV all day, every day, I finally feel strong enough to try to find myself again.  Facebook is my steadfast friend and outlet to the world.  There have been weeks at a time when I do not leave the house, don’t even know what day it is really.  I’ve missed out on so many crisp, sunny, gloriously beautiful days of autumn, my favorite season.  After making sure that Jalen, my youngest son, gets off to the bus stop on time, my day is pretty much over in terms of having a sense of purpose.  But six months of a life with no meaningful, self-fulfilling purpose is driving me insane.  I have got to find a way to check back into life, find a renewed purpose and means to give of the one thing that I think God put me in this world to do—be my creative vibrant, know-it-all, teacher self.  My goal for 2013 is to get my “BE” back, and in doing so, find myself again and straighten my reeling life back on the tracks.

 

The verb “to be”, such a nondescript, impassive infinitive, yet so powerful in defining self, is a verb that I have lost in my life.  How do I define myself?  For so many years, I proudly said, “I am a teacher.”  What is my “I am” now?  How can I be a teacher when I have no students to teach?  It is like a tree falling in the forest, and no one is there to listen—does it make a sound?  Depending on how you look at it, yes it does, but does it really matter?  I have always strived to matter, not just be decaying matter in the forest, whose only point in life is to provide sustenance to vampire plants who need the symbiotic sucking of life from you in order for their own survival.  One of the greatest components of teaching is the relationships that a teacher forms with students.  Each year, never the same, but always rewarding, those relationships, each and every one of them, including the ones that never worked out the way that was desired, was always special.   (No matter what you do, not every student is going to like you…) God is the great “I am”; I know I need to look to Him more as I travel this journey, but my “I am” is missing.  I want to “be” a dynamic force again, not a softly atrophied shell of my former self.  I am very “squishy” as Jalen says when he playfully pokes me in my arms, as having no means of safe mobility through the house has rendered me soft and rather fragile in my physicality.  It’s amazing how many things can’t be enjoyed in a wheelchair unfriendly environment!  More to come on this frustration later in my story…   Back to my obsession with “being”, African-American dialect notches up the imagery of “I am” into “I be”, as in Stevie Wonder’s “We be jamming” riffs pulsating the soul to dance in freedom.  That power, that freedom, that side of my self that causes me to revel in my being and be so content, my “BE”—that is what I am desperate to find and redefine.  By looking back on my life, and trying to reconstruct what has been desconstructed and cast aside, I will be able to emerge from my self-imposed chrysalis still beautiful, energetic, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, engaging… but different.  And it will finally be okay, because I will have a purpose in life to carry me to the end of my journey in this life, and I will be…

 

Blessings and Perspective

The adjustments in my life from living on Social Security have been tough for me, but I have persevered through the shock and severity of the initial blow.  I have gone from a twice a month salary and the strength and ability to work part-time to earn extra cash when needed, to a once a month fixed amount, about half of what I used to bring home.  Things got really rough for awhile, us always bickering about bills, the refrigerator and pantry looking incredibly lean at times, no allowance money for Jalen, nothing much to send to Jordan in college for spending money…  Sometimes I wondered if we would make it, and I would sit up and cry at night while everyone else was asleep.  We had had a big slice of our collective income slashed from our grasp, but the stack of medical bills and monthly bills was the same, if not a little taller at times with field trips and other unplanned incidentals, lunch money, back to school needs, birthdays, holidays, you know—life.  But underneath it all, I knew that somehow we would make it work.  Neither the Buntings nor the Jordans are quitters.  We both are made of stronger stuff, plus if we fell apart, who would be there for our boys?  We tightened our belts, pared down as much as possible, learned to do without, and determined ourselves to be happy with what we have.  In the process, I began to realize how good fortune has smiled on me, even now in the midst of the struggle.

I was reading something that I wrote a little while ago as an outlet for my feelings of sadness and anger while adjusting to these lean times, and I realized in a major way how blessed and lucky I really am, that I am rich in the things that money can’t buy, especially family and friends who love me.  I also realized that as hard as my struggle may be, there are people who are waging a war against much harsher situations than I am.  I may not have the house that I want, but we still have a house to live in.  That is the biggest blessing of all, having a safe haven and shelter, and not having to use a rock for my pillow, or sleep out under the stars, under a bridge, or in my car.  There may be periods where my stomach may rumble, or I don’t have my favorite snack of late (Wavy Lays Roasted Garlic and Sea Salt chips), but the receipts that I maintain for a record of how I spend my Social Security let me know that we are far from starving, and Jalen can fix himself a healthy lunch for school each day, including the snacks and fruit choices that he likes.  Those two things right there are reasons for high praises and gratefulness.  I get down sometimes, as you will see from my free write on poverty, but I have learned that counting the joy in my life helps me weather the stormy patches.  I also realize that I have been spared much of the depths of despair that I fear when I start obsessing about things (thanks to that infernal mind of mine that never sleeps).  I know what it feels like to have to go without, and it makes me appreciate what I have so much more when life is more giving, which is a beautiful blessing.   Goethe was right—what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger.  I am a little stronger, a little wiser, and a little better for the wear.

 

 

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UNDERSTANDING POVERTY

 

Understanding poverty means being hungry.

 

Understanding poverty means worrying about everything.

 

Understanding poverty means trying to figure out a way to pull oneself up with dignity.

 

Understanding poverty means being wiped out after you pay the rent.

 

Understanding poverty means adjusting sometimes to only one meager meal a day, but never losing much weight because the cheap food choices pack unhealthy pounds.

 

Understanding poverty means having to tell your child, “No, you can’t go/have/get…” every day, all the time, and every month, including Christmastime.

 

Understanding poverty means watching the resentment grow in your child and praying that he will not give in to illegal means to get the things he wants.

 

Understanding poverty means that you wait on your disability check earned after 31 years of payroll work, and by the end of the day of receiving it, most of it is gone and there are at least 29 more days in the month left to survive.

 

Understanding poverty means that the reason you no longer have that money is not because it was spent frivolously, but was spent on necessities—rent, food, utilities, gas, and a slew of past due medical bills.

 

Understanding poverty means that your wish to go out to dinner or to a movie means that you have to cancel those plans so much that they just become empty promises, pleasantries to be shared under the illusion of happier times.

 

Understanding poverty means that you are sick and disabled, with no way to work, drive yourself anywhere, or even go to the doctor because you have no insurance and can’t afford any of this.

 

Understanding poverty means that you suffer headaches every day because you are hungry, which also makes your illness worse and should be avoided, but can’t because it’s the end of the month and the refrigerator is filled with a box of baking soda, condiments, and a jug of water.

 

Understanding poverty means that you consider going to the soup kitchen but don’t because you realize that you haven’t really eaten for one day but there are some who have had practically nothing to eat for one week.

 

Understanding poverty means that you understand that you may never be able to get a house of your own for less than what you are paying someone else in rent to live in their house and pay for their vacations, knowing that moving to a cheaper rental will take 2-3 months rent to move and you just don’t have it, so you have no choice but to stay put.

 

Understanding poverty means that your oldest son may have to leave college because you don’t have the money to send him back after spending your money foolishly on house and home, and that pile of medical bills, the sad reminder that you are sick and disabled, and likely to stay that way until you die, if you are lucky.

 

Understanding poverty means watching your son wear shoes with holes in the soles and clothes that are pushing the edges of being too small because he keeps growing but your money stands still.

 

Understanding poverty means watching your son awakening into a preteen, with all of the uncertainties and inadequacies that raging hormones bring, and knowing there is not really a damned thing you can do to assuage his feelings other than remind him how much you love him as your words fall on ears deafened by the words “I don’t have the money, baby”.

 

Understanding poverty means feeling guilty as you watch the rest of the world moving on and participating in life, and feeling sad that all you can do is to sit on the sidelines and wish, dream, and fight the feelings of jealousy that you feel as others seem to enjoy life.

 

Understanding poverty means understanding that there are many faces of poverty, yours included, but not giving up because you have had and believe in better days, and believe that one day things will be better.

 

Understanding poverty means understanding my story, his story, her story, their story, and knowing all of our stories deserve to be heard.

 

Understanding poverty means being brave enough to tell your story.  I just told you mine.