Let Us Be Ourselves

Let us dig in our gardens and not be elsewhere;

Let us take long walks in the open air…

Let us bathe in the rivers and lakes…

Let us indulge in games…

Let us be more simple: simple and true in

our gestures,in our words,and simple and true

in our minds above all. Let us be ourselves.

-Robert Linssen

Missing Che

It's been three years since Che (short for Noche, rhymes with Ray), had to be put to sleep. I laid down with him, just like we are in this photo, and held him until he slipped away.

I have lots of Che stories. Dogs and kids, right? I'm thinking right now of when Claire was a baby. She must've been at least six months old; she could sit up by herself. We plopped her down on the tile floor, put peanut butter on her forehead, and let Che lick it off. It was her baptism, right there in our cozy kitchen. Maybe you're thinking, jeez, that's just a little gross. But every time I think of it, I grin. It was the perfect combination of things: dog as spiritual leader, brown-eyed baby girl, & a dollop of peanut butter placed strategically on her forehead.

In the summer, Che and I would go to the Delaware river and swim across to the New Jersey side. If I got tuckered out, I would grab a hold of his tail and he'd pull me along with ease to the sandy beach. He was my dog for almost fifteen years. Actually, he was more than a dog. Che had my back, as people like to say these days.

Now if I could just bury my face in his big, old, furry head.

What More Could I Ask For?

Dear Ms. Jackson,

I thought it would be boring at first, but it ended up being fun and unboring.

- Jack Reilly

I received this note from Jack, a seventh grader, whose class I visited last Thursday. It was a drop in the bucket kind of *day, forty minute classes of quick writing and improvisational theater games with kids I'd never met. But I gotta say, we definitely jumped in the river for those forty minutes. There's that river again. Some kids weren't sure if they even wanted to jump in with me; slightly manic, stand-up comic-ky woman who's nuts about writing and speaking up for yourself...But jump they did.

I remember Jack. His hair hung over one eye a little. The moment he sat down he wore a look that said, "Go ahead, try to make me like this."

Unboring? What more could I ask for?...

* See "Call Me Bubbles"

An Untroubled Spirit

So, it's been a crazy weekend. On Friday, Dad ran into a telephone pole because his blood pressure was like twenty over ten and he ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. The good news is, he had lots of people to talk to and got fed three times a day.

After two days of keeping it all together, I had a good weep after dropping him off at his house on the mountain. It was one of those moments where you're weeping and watching yourself weep, at the same time. All while driving a motor vehicle, which I was extra cautious about since I got a look-see at the cracked telephone pole that Dad had hit on Friday.

Anyway, tonight I ran away from home. I didn't go very far, only as far as the crow flies to the Deerhead Inn in the Delaware Water Gap. If I could figure out how to "link it" for you, I would, but it's late and I've had two glasses of wine, which is more wine than I've had in quite a while, so just go to www.deerheadinn.com to find out about great jazz and good food...and really nice people like Mary and Jenna, and Diane...and Denny, who's still healing from his new hip and is home watching PBS, maybe. Gary, yet another nice person, showed up and sat down next to me. We whispered about stone walls and how his mom and brother died two weeks apart (years ago). Gary said, your Dad's alive! You're alive! It was good to be reminded of that. We were talking while the music was playing. You're really not supposed to talk at a jazz club when the music's going on, but if you whisper, it's okay.

FYI: If you're a woman, the Deerhead is one of those places you can go by yourself and be just fine. Which is how I ran into Bonnie, my daughter, Jesse's, kindergarten teacher, (Jesse's twenty-eight!), and another woman, Gail, who moved up to PA to take care of her grandchildren. To top it off, tonight's music was a group of women called Three Spirit; they were soulful and joyful and... Okay, so women rock.

I've had my cup of tea and curled up with Claire in bed for a few minutes. I grabbed this quote off the fridge and thought I'd pass it on for this Sunday night. Even though I don't always practice it, I try...

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. ~ Marcus Arelius

Run Like Hell!

I was getting ready to make a batch of rice and beans around five pm. yesterday when the phone rang. It was Louise, a nurse in the emergency room at Pocono Medical Center. Louise was calling to tell me that Dad was there. He'd been in a car accident. He'd hit a telephone pole, but he was okay. She'd called earlier but didn't want to leave a message.

"I don't like to leave those kind of messages for people," Louise said.

"I'll be right there," I said, even though she said, no need to rush.

Claire and I grabbed our coats and hopped in the car.

People who work in hospitals are mostly wonderful, but I don't care for them. Hospitals, I mean. For some reason if I'm in one for too long, my chi drains right out my toes. It must be all the tubes and beeping things. I'm exhausted.

Claire and I spent over four hours with Dad, waiting for him to get admitted. People came and went, checking his vital signs; there we sat. To make things interesting, it was a bit of a shout fest because Dad didn't have his hearing aids in.

At one point, Claire and I went foraging for food. At the cafeteria we got the following items: french fries, a banana, and Cheerios, no milk. I had a cup of tea. Claire had pink lemonade. Does that cover the five food groups?

We talked as we inhaled the fries and Cheerios.

Do not try this type of food combining at home!

"You know, Mom, I feel lucky. I have a grandfather who doesn't slump, isn't depressed, and smiles all the time," Claire said.

If there was ever an odd duck, well, let's say, Dad qualifies. But I'm crazy about him, and Claire was right on all three counts.

Back in the ER room, Dad told us some jokes. I rarely remember jokes but this one stuck.

A priest was walking down the street and saw a little boy trying to reach a doorbell at a house. Wanting to be helpful, the priest went up on the porch and rang the bell for the boy.

He looked at the boy and said, "What do we do now?"

The little boy said, "Run like hell, Father!"

Some Things Take Time

I've been knitting the same green scarf for three years now. It's okay.

Some things take time.

Call Me Bubbles

I spent the day with over a hundred seventh graders and frankly, I'm flipping exhausted. Five periods, forty minutes a pop. This was my friend, Susan's Intro to German class so the name tags read Wolf, Eva, Heinz, Bruno. Some students wrote their English names as well, Michael, Rital, Achim, and others chose aliases for themselves; Lulu, Sir Peter, Mr. B, Klappy. Lulu was a cute boy with dark brown hair. One kid wanted to be called Bubbles. Okay.

What was my objective? To light a fire, the tiniest spark, under these kids. To help them find their own voice, through writing, with some improv stuff tossed in for the sheer fun of it.

Each class had forty minutes to make something happened. I said, "Write a name on your paper. No Lady Gaga, no video game heroes, no Sponge Bob. Now let's write, The first thing you should know about me is..."

Then the kids stood up in lines of five and we got to meet their characters.

Bruno stood up and said, "Hello, My name is Maggie. I like to juggle."

There was guy who carried a cat in his suitcase, the lady who watched Jeopardy on television every night, the man whose name was Shark Bait.

I asked them what came to mind when they heard the word, writing. We made a quick list, then went around the room shouting out a word (although a lot of these kids spoke so softly I could barely hear them.)...imagination, stupid, sentences, adventurous, stinky, poems, nervous, essay, discovery, boring, freedom. There were no wrong answers. I mean, let's face it, writing can be very stinky. But for me, it's always about freedom. And that's why I go to schools and jump around classrooms like a mad hatter to write with kids. And teachers too.

Writing is my cure for feeling weird. And I'm thinking that's a really useful tool to pass on to a group of seventh graders. Or seventy year olds. It works with anyone.

But here's the thing I'm thinking right now as I type this. There are people out in the world who still believe that teaching is one big cake walk, with summers off.

I just want to say, You're kidding, right?