I made scrapple yesterday.
Scrapple is pig meat mixed with cornmeal and spices and refrigerated until gelatinously sausagey.
I say pig meat rather than pork or ham, because I don't think what we used was anything like pork or ham.
I was off last weekend, drove down to Asheville, got some work done, and spent many hours strolling through the streets, browsing at Malaprops, drinking coffee, eating at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant, watching movies, just being. But back to pig meat.
I came home and on Monday morning when I got into the kitchen there were two big pots sitting on the stove. I opened the lids and...well, let me go back.
On Saturday, they killed George, the giant boar.
In one of the pots was George's skull. In the other pot were chunks of George's scalp, and whatever else came off his head. So George's boiled head was the kitchen project on Monday, with my delicately gentle vegetarian girl, and my highly squeamish Chicago girl.
Once sufficiently boiled we removed the skull which promptly fell into two pieces and shed teeth all over the table.
"Oh my god, what is that?" gasped S.
"Are those teeth?" whispered L?
"Okay you guys, I'm pretty much as grossed out by this as you are, but we have to get through this, so lets just suck it up and get it done."
We proceeded to rip into the skull and pull off as much meat as we could. Boiled for hours nothing resembled anything recognizable, so that was a blessing. Unfortunately L. started poking at an odd circular cavity and whatever was inside it.
"L, don't do that," said S.
"What is it?"
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..." chanted S.
L. jammed her knife into whatever it was and it wiggled at here, and started to come loose.
"Thats his eye" screamed S.
"No its not" I said, and poked at it myself, at which point it, and it was his eye,of course, flew out of the socket followed by a wormy trail of white solid mass, and rolled across the table.
"AAAAHHHH...." screamed S. and ran for the door.
"AAAAHHHH...." screamed L. running after her.
I started laughing so hard I almost fell down, and threw the eye in the pig bucket. I know, but where else was I going to put it?
But troupers that they are now, they reappeared and we finished removing the meat from the skull fragments, and then started on the horrid horrible smelling head flesh, which we chopped into smaller pieces for grinding into sausage. Then we poured the foul water into jars, which we labeled Head Juice to be used in sausage making.
Then we chopped the skull meat into tiny tiny pieces, seasoned it, made corn meal mush, threw the meat into it, put it in bread pans and refrigerated it.
That was the grossest thing I've done since being here, and that includes the great chicken rescue of September.
Everything is different.
They are capable now of so much more, so much more work, so much more bizarre activity, so much more pushing against their own boundaries. And they do it with so little complaining and, well, just buckle down and get on with it.
I don't notice it that much, because change is like shadows, like shading. Its around the edges and elusive, and vanishes so stealthily, but its there, sliding back, settling into place, breathing easy.
Tonight, as I was leaving, I was talking to PF, one of the ones who likes to call us Nazis, to decry that anything could be happening. We were chatting while he lay on his stomach on the kitchen floor, cleaning under the counter with a rag, getting ready for kitchen inspection. And the conversation went on about whatever it was about, but I couldn't help noticing that he wasn't noticing that he was carrying on a conversation while lying on his stomach on the kitchen floor. That lying on his stomach on the kitchen floor was no longer anything worth commenting on. He simply was doing what he was doing, but his mind was on what we were talking about. Its that kind of change. Things like that. I guess its impossible to describe isn't it?
Things they never imagined doing are now so easy as to not even be noticeable any longer. Well, except scrapple. That has to be noticed.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
The first meeting of the editorial department of Mountain Musings made up for a class of absolute ridiculousness.
I love when that happens, when I reach a point of total what the fuckedness with my students, that then I turn around and they exceed my expectations.
Eager, enthused, organized, on point, on target, ready to go and ready to create, that was my group of 6 oddly matched kids from every segment of our peculiarly factioned student body.
I'm gratified, and excited. I'm also tired and have to get up very early in the morning to show Larissa how to make hobo eggs. So I'm going to bed.
I love when that happens, when I reach a point of total what the fuckedness with my students, that then I turn around and they exceed my expectations.
Eager, enthused, organized, on point, on target, ready to go and ready to create, that was my group of 6 oddly matched kids from every segment of our peculiarly factioned student body.
I'm gratified, and excited. I'm also tired and have to get up very early in the morning to show Larissa how to make hobo eggs. So I'm going to bed.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
I can't quite get used to walking outside and having the air hit me like a wave of ice water. Don't know if I will. This below freezing stuff...not sure about that.
The kids came back, all but one. Then we lost two, so we're down to 16. It makes things easier somehow. No surprises on the losses, really. The two girls were on probation for prior ass hattedness, and then they went rebellious in the field, refusing to hike, refusing to start fires, refusing to cook...whatever they could refuse, they refused.
We picked them up out of the field, and sent them on their way. Thats that, and it really is just that. Gone, goodbye, good luck.
The group is struggling to find a way to coalesce around the absence; its peculiar because no one was sorry to see the two leave, and yet without them, without their presence to serve as a scapegoat, everyone is left with just themselves. It will take about a week, thats my guess, and then the void will be filled.
I'm teaching writing again. The challenge there is to convince the students that yes, they do have a voice, and yes it is their voice, and yes...they can use it. The reaction ranges from absolute terror of revealing something too personal about themselves, to outright refusal to create anything honest. I'm starting them on a simple memoir project, an excercise in writing honestly. They react like I suggested they should peel their skin off and hand it to me.
I did this last year and it went well, so I'm hopeful and optimistic, and eager to see what they do, and yet as a class, what has been interesting to observe is how deeply they are interested in their limitations. They like to discuss why they can't do things, why they can't create, why they can't come up with ideas, why the ideas they do have can't be used, etc...
That and the insistence on "Yes, I understand this is what you want me to do, but can I do this instead?" "I know you want us to write this, but can't I write a story about my favorite video game?" "Can't I just draw a picture of a character?"
Hmmmm...
I've also taken over the student newspaper, which is also the student blog. It was traditionally an assignment item, each student was told to write something and then something was put together. They didn't like doing it, and they didn't like the end result, so I created an editorial team from the student body to produce it. That was today...I envisioned one thing, got something else, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here. Could be a big disaster, in which case, well, we'll try again, but I'm hoping that its being a student run and written venture, it will become something they love, and something they want to do.
Maybe thats my problem. I want them to want what I want, which I think is that I want them to have a good year, to create, to evolve, to expand, to invest. Leading them to that point, well, thats my job...I hope I can do it.
The kids came back, all but one. Then we lost two, so we're down to 16. It makes things easier somehow. No surprises on the losses, really. The two girls were on probation for prior ass hattedness, and then they went rebellious in the field, refusing to hike, refusing to start fires, refusing to cook...whatever they could refuse, they refused.
We picked them up out of the field, and sent them on their way. Thats that, and it really is just that. Gone, goodbye, good luck.
The group is struggling to find a way to coalesce around the absence; its peculiar because no one was sorry to see the two leave, and yet without them, without their presence to serve as a scapegoat, everyone is left with just themselves. It will take about a week, thats my guess, and then the void will be filled.
I'm teaching writing again. The challenge there is to convince the students that yes, they do have a voice, and yes it is their voice, and yes...they can use it. The reaction ranges from absolute terror of revealing something too personal about themselves, to outright refusal to create anything honest. I'm starting them on a simple memoir project, an excercise in writing honestly. They react like I suggested they should peel their skin off and hand it to me.
I did this last year and it went well, so I'm hopeful and optimistic, and eager to see what they do, and yet as a class, what has been interesting to observe is how deeply they are interested in their limitations. They like to discuss why they can't do things, why they can't create, why they can't come up with ideas, why the ideas they do have can't be used, etc...
That and the insistence on "Yes, I understand this is what you want me to do, but can I do this instead?" "I know you want us to write this, but can't I write a story about my favorite video game?" "Can't I just draw a picture of a character?"
Hmmmm...
I've also taken over the student newspaper, which is also the student blog. It was traditionally an assignment item, each student was told to write something and then something was put together. They didn't like doing it, and they didn't like the end result, so I created an editorial team from the student body to produce it. That was today...I envisioned one thing, got something else, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here. Could be a big disaster, in which case, well, we'll try again, but I'm hoping that its being a student run and written venture, it will become something they love, and something they want to do.
Maybe thats my problem. I want them to want what I want, which I think is that I want them to have a good year, to create, to evolve, to expand, to invest. Leading them to that point, well, thats my job...I hope I can do it.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Tuesday, December 18 2007
And on another note, the latest entries on the FMA student blog are up at:
freedommountainacademy.blogspot.com
Check out our brilliant wonderful writers and all the great pictures as well. Comments are welcome, particularly from those graduates who have insights to share about their own FMA or AR experiences!
Cheers.
freedommountainacademy.blogspot.com
Check out our brilliant wonderful writers and all the great pictures as well. Comments are welcome, particularly from those graduates who have insights to share about their own FMA or AR experiences!
Cheers.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Snow.
And they're gone.
I hate that I've let this slack off, because its been a good month. Seriously, it has. In spite of its being a little nuts, its been good.
After Thanksgiving, I headed out into the field for a short expedition, my first, and I wish it had been longer. But it was beautiful and cold, and snowy and great to be out of the lodge and up in the woods with the kids. To sit around the campfire, steam coming off our boots as we stretched our legs towards the burning branches, and laugh about the day. To lie in my tent reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by candleight while snow crept over my tent fly like the light footsteps of a flock of birds. To drink coffee in the morning in the pitch blackness with numb fingers and warm palms. One girl tried to walk off the expedition after cussing out Kevin and slugging him in the face. I danced with her down the trail, with my hands in my pockets blocking her at every step until she punched me in the face too. It was an interesting excercise in passive intervention. I didn't touch her, I just didn't let her move. She finally collapsed and I sat with her on the side of the trail while she sobbed and sobbed and finally I got her to walk back to camp.
The kids are really fascinating right now. They're really split, our little student body, right down the middle with half of them hating every day and every minute of every day and every person who occupies every minute of every day, and every activity that every person forces then to participate in every minute of every day. And their hatred is a fierce commitment that they lack the ability to hold to, and slip in and out of conveniently at some moments, and seemingly against their will at others.
The other half embraces the experience they are having, grabbing it with eager hands and stuffing themselves full of it, and lining up to ask for more.
It really is that marked, and neither half has any use for the other. Not that both don't generate their share of drama. Oh, they do. They have their little intrigues and their romances, and their romances gone sour and their hurt feelings and their inability to be civil to one another.
After we got back from expedition, we only had two weeks left before break, and in that time, all manner of hell broke loose. One girl, an odious little spoiled brat of a girl decided to go on strike, refused to work, and was shut up in her room for about seven days. Not allowed to interact with the students, attend classes, etc...
All of the students were told not to communicate with her, but of course that got broken and half the girls ended up with severe consequences that had Mike and I getting up at 4:45 every morning and leading them in a conditioning hike, from which they had to immediately go to class. They had to take all their meals standing up outside against the rail. (I know I know it sounds really extreme, but it wasn't really...I know, I was there, I had guard duty) Their consequence was designed to allow them to work off their offense quickly so they could partake in the activities we had planned for the last few days. One girl caved half way up the first hill of the first morning of conditioning hikes and then refused the work option, so she ended up in room time as well.
Room time is one of those things I'm not sure how I feel about. I understand it, but I'm not sure how effective it is. The idea is that for certain violations the student has lost the liberty of socializing with the other students. They come to class, work chores, and meals, and during those times they are allowed to talk and interact, but in between, for example in line for meals, they are not allowed to talk, nor is anyone allowed to talk to them. If someone does talk to them, that person then gets their room time. That is like a virus and it spreads quickly and half the student body can end up on room time by the end of the day. In a sense its outrageously entertaining, especially to the students, and I guess thats where the effectiveness comes in. If its like a reality TV show with people getting booted, then does it really work as a consequence. Of course everyone hates getting room time, so I suppose it is, but they love to brush up against it and get away with it, so it fosters a game of risky subterfuge along the way.
So the last week rolled in with a big Hannukah feast on Sunday, followed by Christmas caroling to the neighbors on Thursday and our own Holiday celebration on Friday.
I finished up my class with a test on Monday, and then read to them from my cross country journal from last year for the final two nights. It was strange and gratifying how much they loved it, and I think it did actually make them think about ways to use their own journals.
The Christmas caroling was an adventure because Margaret had to get them past the idea of "Ok, I'll do this, but I think its lame, so I'm going to let you and everyone know how lame I think it is by participating in a way that makes fun of it, so you don't actually think I'm participating." This caused even further divisions between the student body, those that hate everything and those that love everything split down the middle on caroling as well. The haters got stupider and stupider and the rest got more and more irritated so that every practice session was a chorus of "shut up" "you're so stupid" "don't be an ass" etc...
But we all went, loaded up on the big yellow bus and out into the dark cold night and winding through the Tennessee hills stopping here and there and trouping up to doorways to sing Silent Night and O Holy Night and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and What Child is This and Joy to the World and all the rest. At the second house, a tiny little tumbling down pile of a place, the door burst open and a family of six, Mom, Dad, two tall beautiful girls, a young boy and a baby of indeterminate age, emerged smiling broadly. At every song, the father beamed like he was hearing it for the first time, and when we sang "What Child is This," the mother, who was holding the tiny blanket wrapped baby, wiped tears from her eyes. We got back on the bus and that was the end of the "I'm too cool for this" attitude for the rest of the night.
On Friday night we sat around drinking mulled cider and eating cookies while Dad read Stubby Pringle's Christmas and everyone exchanged their last secret Santa gifts. Then it was over. Just like that, all these months came to an end. At 4 in the morning half of them loaded on to the bus and drove away in the sparkling cold darkness. I climbed on board for the last few seconds and said goodbye, hugging and shaking hands and saying Merry Christmas and then went inside to start coffee.
By 9:30 am the rest of them were gone, picked up by wary parents, who greeted them nervously and stayed to get any last words of advice from staff. I hung out with my big boy, the cutter keeping him occupied so he wouldn't keep staring out the window at the empty driveway that didn't hold his Mom's car. I kept him busy, all the while sending out my own prayer that she not be too terribly late, and she wasn't. "That's my Mom" he yelled and headed out the door and down the steps and the car stopped and his little brother, all five years and three feet of him burst out the door and ran hedlong into his arms and they just stood there like that for minutes, hugging each other, and I had to walk into the pantry and stuff my fist in my mouth so no one could hear me crying.
So there it is. September to December, and the snow is blowing madly across the field in front of my house, and they are all home with their families and gone from us until January.
They have changed. They aren't where they will be, but they are on their way. When they come back, we will start over. I know they won't roll in, grateful to be back, happy to see us. They will come back like soldiers after a furlough, having had a taste of their familiar life some of them will hate us with a new passionate fervor.
But they are changing. And its awesome to be a part of that, and in the end, in spite of the early early mornings and the long long days, the attitudes and the resistance and the outright hostility, I'm grateful every day to be a part of this.
Happy Holidays FMA8. May your days be merry and bright.
And they're gone.
I hate that I've let this slack off, because its been a good month. Seriously, it has. In spite of its being a little nuts, its been good.
After Thanksgiving, I headed out into the field for a short expedition, my first, and I wish it had been longer. But it was beautiful and cold, and snowy and great to be out of the lodge and up in the woods with the kids. To sit around the campfire, steam coming off our boots as we stretched our legs towards the burning branches, and laugh about the day. To lie in my tent reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by candleight while snow crept over my tent fly like the light footsteps of a flock of birds. To drink coffee in the morning in the pitch blackness with numb fingers and warm palms. One girl tried to walk off the expedition after cussing out Kevin and slugging him in the face. I danced with her down the trail, with my hands in my pockets blocking her at every step until she punched me in the face too. It was an interesting excercise in passive intervention. I didn't touch her, I just didn't let her move. She finally collapsed and I sat with her on the side of the trail while she sobbed and sobbed and finally I got her to walk back to camp.
The kids are really fascinating right now. They're really split, our little student body, right down the middle with half of them hating every day and every minute of every day and every person who occupies every minute of every day, and every activity that every person forces then to participate in every minute of every day. And their hatred is a fierce commitment that they lack the ability to hold to, and slip in and out of conveniently at some moments, and seemingly against their will at others.
The other half embraces the experience they are having, grabbing it with eager hands and stuffing themselves full of it, and lining up to ask for more.
It really is that marked, and neither half has any use for the other. Not that both don't generate their share of drama. Oh, they do. They have their little intrigues and their romances, and their romances gone sour and their hurt feelings and their inability to be civil to one another.
After we got back from expedition, we only had two weeks left before break, and in that time, all manner of hell broke loose. One girl, an odious little spoiled brat of a girl decided to go on strike, refused to work, and was shut up in her room for about seven days. Not allowed to interact with the students, attend classes, etc...
All of the students were told not to communicate with her, but of course that got broken and half the girls ended up with severe consequences that had Mike and I getting up at 4:45 every morning and leading them in a conditioning hike, from which they had to immediately go to class. They had to take all their meals standing up outside against the rail. (I know I know it sounds really extreme, but it wasn't really...I know, I was there, I had guard duty) Their consequence was designed to allow them to work off their offense quickly so they could partake in the activities we had planned for the last few days. One girl caved half way up the first hill of the first morning of conditioning hikes and then refused the work option, so she ended up in room time as well.
Room time is one of those things I'm not sure how I feel about. I understand it, but I'm not sure how effective it is. The idea is that for certain violations the student has lost the liberty of socializing with the other students. They come to class, work chores, and meals, and during those times they are allowed to talk and interact, but in between, for example in line for meals, they are not allowed to talk, nor is anyone allowed to talk to them. If someone does talk to them, that person then gets their room time. That is like a virus and it spreads quickly and half the student body can end up on room time by the end of the day. In a sense its outrageously entertaining, especially to the students, and I guess thats where the effectiveness comes in. If its like a reality TV show with people getting booted, then does it really work as a consequence. Of course everyone hates getting room time, so I suppose it is, but they love to brush up against it and get away with it, so it fosters a game of risky subterfuge along the way.
So the last week rolled in with a big Hannukah feast on Sunday, followed by Christmas caroling to the neighbors on Thursday and our own Holiday celebration on Friday.
I finished up my class with a test on Monday, and then read to them from my cross country journal from last year for the final two nights. It was strange and gratifying how much they loved it, and I think it did actually make them think about ways to use their own journals.
The Christmas caroling was an adventure because Margaret had to get them past the idea of "Ok, I'll do this, but I think its lame, so I'm going to let you and everyone know how lame I think it is by participating in a way that makes fun of it, so you don't actually think I'm participating." This caused even further divisions between the student body, those that hate everything and those that love everything split down the middle on caroling as well. The haters got stupider and stupider and the rest got more and more irritated so that every practice session was a chorus of "shut up" "you're so stupid" "don't be an ass" etc...
But we all went, loaded up on the big yellow bus and out into the dark cold night and winding through the Tennessee hills stopping here and there and trouping up to doorways to sing Silent Night and O Holy Night and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and What Child is This and Joy to the World and all the rest. At the second house, a tiny little tumbling down pile of a place, the door burst open and a family of six, Mom, Dad, two tall beautiful girls, a young boy and a baby of indeterminate age, emerged smiling broadly. At every song, the father beamed like he was hearing it for the first time, and when we sang "What Child is This," the mother, who was holding the tiny blanket wrapped baby, wiped tears from her eyes. We got back on the bus and that was the end of the "I'm too cool for this" attitude for the rest of the night.
On Friday night we sat around drinking mulled cider and eating cookies while Dad read Stubby Pringle's Christmas and everyone exchanged their last secret Santa gifts. Then it was over. Just like that, all these months came to an end. At 4 in the morning half of them loaded on to the bus and drove away in the sparkling cold darkness. I climbed on board for the last few seconds and said goodbye, hugging and shaking hands and saying Merry Christmas and then went inside to start coffee.
By 9:30 am the rest of them were gone, picked up by wary parents, who greeted them nervously and stayed to get any last words of advice from staff. I hung out with my big boy, the cutter keeping him occupied so he wouldn't keep staring out the window at the empty driveway that didn't hold his Mom's car. I kept him busy, all the while sending out my own prayer that she not be too terribly late, and she wasn't. "That's my Mom" he yelled and headed out the door and down the steps and the car stopped and his little brother, all five years and three feet of him burst out the door and ran hedlong into his arms and they just stood there like that for minutes, hugging each other, and I had to walk into the pantry and stuff my fist in my mouth so no one could hear me crying.
So there it is. September to December, and the snow is blowing madly across the field in front of my house, and they are all home with their families and gone from us until January.
They have changed. They aren't where they will be, but they are on their way. When they come back, we will start over. I know they won't roll in, grateful to be back, happy to see us. They will come back like soldiers after a furlough, having had a taste of their familiar life some of them will hate us with a new passionate fervor.
But they are changing. And its awesome to be a part of that, and in the end, in spite of the early early mornings and the long long days, the attitudes and the resistance and the outright hostility, I'm grateful every day to be a part of this.
Happy Holidays FMA8. May your days be merry and bright.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
I feel like screaming. I feel like crying. I feel like quitting.
Its been such a helacious period since I got back. I'm back to getting up at 4am and being at the school non stop until 8 or 9. Poor me, right?
Here's whats problematic about this. I'm tired. Its really that simple. I get by on 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and the work is non-stop, and I absolutely positively must never let it show. I have to be on, available, ready at all times. Because the kids never stop waking up in the morning full of needs and questions and requests ranging from "I need an ace bandage" to "Can't we just play hangman in class tonight?"
And its not just that. I have to be available for the real stuff, like the girl who is curled up on the chair outside crying because she is just beginning to deal with the fact that her alcoholic mother who died in an accident might not have been perfect. The guy who is feeling totally isolated and alone because he doesn't really have any friends here. The guy who gets so far behind on his classwork that he refuses to get out of bed, and bursts into tears saying "I need to go home."
And there is the new crew. Just as I had one crew completely trained and fairly competent we switch crews just in time to pull together Thanksgiving dinner, a camp kitchen on mini-expedition, and all the Holiday special events coming up. Those questions are endless, and I have no answers because I'm just as much in the dark as they are.
Its weird how people see you. I'm pretty much a 100% right brain guy, and yet somehow my family who are my coworkers think I'm some kind of logistical whiz kid who can pull together pretty much anything out of thin air. Yeah, some things but not this stuff. How the hell do you prepare meals for 24 people over a campfire? Like full meals, not camp cooking. Here is the list, go to it. And while you're at it, yeah, you pretty much need to be making up all your own tests, quizzes and lessons for a class you've never taught, and which you really know nothing about, so learn it at the same time as the students and, hey, good luck with that.
I'm an addled, ADD ridden mess and the only way I get through this stuff is to buckle down and focus and concentrate and that is sadly not an option here, when for all the hours of the day saying "I'm sorry, I'm really busy" is not something you can EVER say.
So Thanksgiving was awesome in the end. All the kids got to get dressed up in their own clothes and we cooked all day and feasted until late into the night on Turkey and sweet potatos and stuffing and cranberries and potatos and four different kind of pie, and drank sparkling cider which danced and twinkled in the candlelight. They looked amazing, and beautiful and the food was incredible, and the atmosphere was dazzling. And my little motley crew of cooks who had a whopping two days of experience pulled it off with a little help from our friends on the prior crew. And they had a wonderful day. All of them.
My classes go on and on, and I have no end in sight, and I get up and I sing and dance in front of them, and entertain and make them laugh and try to figure out new ways to keep them interested but its not easy. Everything goes in ebbs and flows, and things happen during the day that I am unaware of that affect the mood and the tone of the class, and tonight was one of those nights. I've learned early on that I can't ignore the fetid air of dissilusionment that creeps in every two weeks or so with these guys.
After a couple of students who were collapsed over their desks in abject miserable funk made it clear that they were bored out of their minds, I told them how fun that was for me, to stand up here talking when they were making it very clear that I sucked. "I love that," I said."Thats great for me."
Late in the class I tried a new tact. One of the kids has been dying to start a slow clap, and after sending a couple of kids to the back of the room for talking, and looking around the room at people who were rambling on in their own universe, I tossed my chalk in the air, and said "you win, I'm out," and started to walk away.
They were really upset. That was so cool.
"No, no, don't be that guy" one of them quoted me back at me.
"We've already had that," another one said.
I started laughing.
"You're gonna have to get me back then."
So they slow clapped me back into class and I came back to the board and wrote CHIRO which is one of the roots were studying.
"Hand" they droned in abject misery.
"NO!" I yelled.
The fidgeted around in their notes.
"Chiro is NOT hand" I said loudly.
"Yes it is," one of the girls said back angrily, "Thats what you told us yesterday."
"Its not."
"Yes it is," they yelled.
"No, its not. Chiro is the leader of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" I yelled back.
"What?!" and then they started laughing, and kept laughing until we got things settled down and moved on to one girl's question about why Chiropractor uses the root for "hand" and I yelled at her, "BECAUSE CHIROPRACTORS ARE MONKEYS!"
It was time to end, so we talked about tautologies for a second or two, and then went our separate ways and I think they felt better, but I walked away still feeling tired and shredded and not ready for the next few weeks. Not even a little bit.
Its been such a helacious period since I got back. I'm back to getting up at 4am and being at the school non stop until 8 or 9. Poor me, right?
Here's whats problematic about this. I'm tired. Its really that simple. I get by on 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and the work is non-stop, and I absolutely positively must never let it show. I have to be on, available, ready at all times. Because the kids never stop waking up in the morning full of needs and questions and requests ranging from "I need an ace bandage" to "Can't we just play hangman in class tonight?"
And its not just that. I have to be available for the real stuff, like the girl who is curled up on the chair outside crying because she is just beginning to deal with the fact that her alcoholic mother who died in an accident might not have been perfect. The guy who is feeling totally isolated and alone because he doesn't really have any friends here. The guy who gets so far behind on his classwork that he refuses to get out of bed, and bursts into tears saying "I need to go home."
And there is the new crew. Just as I had one crew completely trained and fairly competent we switch crews just in time to pull together Thanksgiving dinner, a camp kitchen on mini-expedition, and all the Holiday special events coming up. Those questions are endless, and I have no answers because I'm just as much in the dark as they are.
Its weird how people see you. I'm pretty much a 100% right brain guy, and yet somehow my family who are my coworkers think I'm some kind of logistical whiz kid who can pull together pretty much anything out of thin air. Yeah, some things but not this stuff. How the hell do you prepare meals for 24 people over a campfire? Like full meals, not camp cooking. Here is the list, go to it. And while you're at it, yeah, you pretty much need to be making up all your own tests, quizzes and lessons for a class you've never taught, and which you really know nothing about, so learn it at the same time as the students and, hey, good luck with that.
I'm an addled, ADD ridden mess and the only way I get through this stuff is to buckle down and focus and concentrate and that is sadly not an option here, when for all the hours of the day saying "I'm sorry, I'm really busy" is not something you can EVER say.
So Thanksgiving was awesome in the end. All the kids got to get dressed up in their own clothes and we cooked all day and feasted until late into the night on Turkey and sweet potatos and stuffing and cranberries and potatos and four different kind of pie, and drank sparkling cider which danced and twinkled in the candlelight. They looked amazing, and beautiful and the food was incredible, and the atmosphere was dazzling. And my little motley crew of cooks who had a whopping two days of experience pulled it off with a little help from our friends on the prior crew. And they had a wonderful day. All of them.
My classes go on and on, and I have no end in sight, and I get up and I sing and dance in front of them, and entertain and make them laugh and try to figure out new ways to keep them interested but its not easy. Everything goes in ebbs and flows, and things happen during the day that I am unaware of that affect the mood and the tone of the class, and tonight was one of those nights. I've learned early on that I can't ignore the fetid air of dissilusionment that creeps in every two weeks or so with these guys.
After a couple of students who were collapsed over their desks in abject miserable funk made it clear that they were bored out of their minds, I told them how fun that was for me, to stand up here talking when they were making it very clear that I sucked. "I love that," I said."Thats great for me."
Late in the class I tried a new tact. One of the kids has been dying to start a slow clap, and after sending a couple of kids to the back of the room for talking, and looking around the room at people who were rambling on in their own universe, I tossed my chalk in the air, and said "you win, I'm out," and started to walk away.
They were really upset. That was so cool.
"No, no, don't be that guy" one of them quoted me back at me.
"We've already had that," another one said.
I started laughing.
"You're gonna have to get me back then."
So they slow clapped me back into class and I came back to the board and wrote CHIRO which is one of the roots were studying.
"Hand" they droned in abject misery.
"NO!" I yelled.
The fidgeted around in their notes.
"Chiro is NOT hand" I said loudly.
"Yes it is," one of the girls said back angrily, "Thats what you told us yesterday."
"Its not."
"Yes it is," they yelled.
"No, its not. Chiro is the leader of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" I yelled back.
"What?!" and then they started laughing, and kept laughing until we got things settled down and moved on to one girl's question about why Chiropractor uses the root for "hand" and I yelled at her, "BECAUSE CHIROPRACTORS ARE MONKEYS!"
It was time to end, so we talked about tautologies for a second or two, and then went our separate ways and I think they felt better, but I walked away still feeling tired and shredded and not ready for the next few weeks. Not even a little bit.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Elevation.
How to do it. What does it mean? Throw a rope into the mud or climb into the mud and show someone the way out? I am so over my head in this.
But sometimes I feel like what I am doing is being part of this big sprawling family. A family made up of far flung pieces tossed together onto this land. And my part is to be a generous part of that and that is all.
The kids got back from expedition yesterday afternoon, and all day, as I was thinking about them coming back I was kind of dreading it. And feeling like shit for dreading it. But then they came back and I was so happy to see all of them, and maybe for the first time, they were genuinely happy to be back. Thats a strange thing. Because they are so often not happy about being here, but yesterday, they walked in and clustered around drinking coffee and hot chocolate and the simple pleasures of being dry, of being warm, of being clean, for that moment it was being home.
So on expedition a group of the guys decided it would be a good idea to give each other tattoos using a battery powered tooth brush, a guitar string, and an ink pen. So colossaly stupid of course, and for a moment it seemed like this incident would color everything, but it managed not to veer off course and instead was dealt with by talking rather than shouting, by explanation rather than consequence, and by uplift rather than pounding. I don't know how that happened because I wasn't involved and I wasn't involved because I didn't need to be. Mike is pissed at Matt because Matt tried to make it into something bigger, and Margaret is pissed at Dad because Dad took over when it was really Mike's responsibility, but ultimately it was handled and that is good.
Margaret is down in South Carolina meeting Savannah's new baby who was born last night. Mom returns from California on Sunday. Mom needs more chemotherapy and that is something I can't quite get my head around just yet. Anyway, I think that all of that came into play today and everyone went their quietly separate ways dealing with the profound joy of birth and the profound disquiet of illness, and maybe because of that balance was achieved in other areas as well. I don't know.
This is a confusing, confused post because I'm all over the place in my head. I'm worried and happy and relieved and distressed in equal parts.
So I went to California, and came back and it snowed. Its cold and yes the week began in sunshine and warmth and sitting in a theater watching a horror film with Chris. The weekend was fantastic, spending time with Mom and watching her enjoy herself so thoroughly at the conference, chatting up the people she knew and making new contacts and getting such a kick out of all the giveaways. We ate Shabu Shabu at Koji's and room service breakfast and enjoyed ourselves quite muchly. Then she headed for Orange County knowing that she was needing minor surgery to remove one affected node and all was well and minor with that, and I headed off to do whatever. And now there are three and maybe more nodes, and she's coming home to have chemo to see if that can take care of it rather than surgery and suddenly its not so minor and I feel like shit for flying back here rather than staying even though on Tuesday morning when I spoke to her none of this was known, but I still feel like shit.
And I came back. And it snowed.
And they came back and today was normal business as usual with lots of flurry in the kitchen and birthday cake, and etymology by lamplight. And I left and Trey was sprawled in a chair reading the book his Mom sent him and Jeremy, Aidan, Brandon, Rob and Pat and the monster never ending game of Risk were rampaging steadily forward across the room and Chasity and Jamie were chatting and flirting in that way they do where neither of them know what they're doing and Mike was brewing coffee, and Jose was softly playing the piano and Sarah was bouncing around like, well, Sarah, and the fire was crackling in the fireplace and it...I don't know, it mattered.
Which all brings me back to what am I doing here? I am being a part of this family, the one that is mine, and the one that is forming on this property, and I'm holding my head up and moving through it trying to be the person I believe that we can all be. Because this is home, for Margaret and Mike, for Mom and Dad, for Matt and Allie, for all these kids who are just now beginning to feel it. And for me. But I'm wondering if thats even close to the point, and worrying that if I don't figure it out sometime soon, I might break something irreplaceable.
None of this made a lick of sense, right? I mean how could it? All I know is the ground below and the stars above, but everything in between is motion. God, how I wish I could say it was directed.
How to do it. What does it mean? Throw a rope into the mud or climb into the mud and show someone the way out? I am so over my head in this.
But sometimes I feel like what I am doing is being part of this big sprawling family. A family made up of far flung pieces tossed together onto this land. And my part is to be a generous part of that and that is all.
The kids got back from expedition yesterday afternoon, and all day, as I was thinking about them coming back I was kind of dreading it. And feeling like shit for dreading it. But then they came back and I was so happy to see all of them, and maybe for the first time, they were genuinely happy to be back. Thats a strange thing. Because they are so often not happy about being here, but yesterday, they walked in and clustered around drinking coffee and hot chocolate and the simple pleasures of being dry, of being warm, of being clean, for that moment it was being home.
So on expedition a group of the guys decided it would be a good idea to give each other tattoos using a battery powered tooth brush, a guitar string, and an ink pen. So colossaly stupid of course, and for a moment it seemed like this incident would color everything, but it managed not to veer off course and instead was dealt with by talking rather than shouting, by explanation rather than consequence, and by uplift rather than pounding. I don't know how that happened because I wasn't involved and I wasn't involved because I didn't need to be. Mike is pissed at Matt because Matt tried to make it into something bigger, and Margaret is pissed at Dad because Dad took over when it was really Mike's responsibility, but ultimately it was handled and that is good.
Margaret is down in South Carolina meeting Savannah's new baby who was born last night. Mom returns from California on Sunday. Mom needs more chemotherapy and that is something I can't quite get my head around just yet. Anyway, I think that all of that came into play today and everyone went their quietly separate ways dealing with the profound joy of birth and the profound disquiet of illness, and maybe because of that balance was achieved in other areas as well. I don't know.
This is a confusing, confused post because I'm all over the place in my head. I'm worried and happy and relieved and distressed in equal parts.
So I went to California, and came back and it snowed. Its cold and yes the week began in sunshine and warmth and sitting in a theater watching a horror film with Chris. The weekend was fantastic, spending time with Mom and watching her enjoy herself so thoroughly at the conference, chatting up the people she knew and making new contacts and getting such a kick out of all the giveaways. We ate Shabu Shabu at Koji's and room service breakfast and enjoyed ourselves quite muchly. Then she headed for Orange County knowing that she was needing minor surgery to remove one affected node and all was well and minor with that, and I headed off to do whatever. And now there are three and maybe more nodes, and she's coming home to have chemo to see if that can take care of it rather than surgery and suddenly its not so minor and I feel like shit for flying back here rather than staying even though on Tuesday morning when I spoke to her none of this was known, but I still feel like shit.
And I came back. And it snowed.
And they came back and today was normal business as usual with lots of flurry in the kitchen and birthday cake, and etymology by lamplight. And I left and Trey was sprawled in a chair reading the book his Mom sent him and Jeremy, Aidan, Brandon, Rob and Pat and the monster never ending game of Risk were rampaging steadily forward across the room and Chasity and Jamie were chatting and flirting in that way they do where neither of them know what they're doing and Mike was brewing coffee, and Jose was softly playing the piano and Sarah was bouncing around like, well, Sarah, and the fire was crackling in the fireplace and it...I don't know, it mattered.
Which all brings me back to what am I doing here? I am being a part of this family, the one that is mine, and the one that is forming on this property, and I'm holding my head up and moving through it trying to be the person I believe that we can all be. Because this is home, for Margaret and Mike, for Mom and Dad, for Matt and Allie, for all these kids who are just now beginning to feel it. And for me. But I'm wondering if thats even close to the point, and worrying that if I don't figure it out sometime soon, I might break something irreplaceable.
None of this made a lick of sense, right? I mean how could it? All I know is the ground below and the stars above, but everything in between is motion. God, how I wish I could say it was directed.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 9
it was strange, this thing. i ordered my soy latte and was standing around waiting while the barristas worked their way through the morning rush of orders, calling out "vente peppermint mocha for anne," and "tall caramel macchiato for larry" while i kicked absently at the counter. then she says, "grande soy latte for dan" and i wander over to the counter and stand there while she's putting the lid on the cup. i say "good morning" and she looks up and this big smile spreads over her face and she says "well, hey dan" like i was one of her best friends and i just happened by. I said "hey" back and she gave me my drink and we smiled at each other and she said "you have a great trip" and i said "thank you i will" and that was that. and it only totally made my morning. why don't i act that way with strangers more often? or why don't strangers act that way? when you think about it, we are all 99.9% identical or something like that, and besides we're all related on some primal level. doesn't that negate the idea of strangers? Well, hey? Right? Well, hey ya'll.
And another week snuck by. how did that happen? i am sitting in the atlanta airport sipping starbucks and getting ready to head west.
drove down out of the mountains last night, winding my way one one lane roads to the accompaniment of static-y NPR. Spent the night in a moldy horrid days inn by the airport. my room smelled like old pee, and it was cold, but i was afraid that if i turned the heat up it would awaken even more smells. i didn't trust the bedspread, so i couldn't use that for warmth. anyway, it offered a shuttle at 4 am, and i could park my car there while i was gone. those two factors were the entire sum of my decision making because with a 6am flight, you can't be too particular. i was only there for a few hours, so what the hell. Dont' stay there though. Seriously. Its gross.
Yesterday the cutter got a package from his Mom. Finally. No really, he's been waiting for it since he got here. He came running upstairs and walked into the kitchen where i was working.
"Look what I got..." he proceeded to unload his box on the counter. A new pair of running shoes, a book, some fig newtons, an army jacket with his name on it, a hat...
I couldn't tell you what was different about his face. I'd say he looked younger, but he's only 15 so he looks plenty young. I'd say he looked relieved but thats not even close. He looked happy, well yeah, definitely. What he looked like most was what I've seen a lot of. In everyone else but him. He looked like a boy who just got a package from his Mom who loves him.
You know what though? Some of these kids get packages from their Mom, and they sneer and they toss it to the side. Maybe they should be this kid, who waited two months for his package.
From his Mom who loves him. Finally. Thank God.
And another week snuck by. how did that happen? i am sitting in the atlanta airport sipping starbucks and getting ready to head west.
drove down out of the mountains last night, winding my way one one lane roads to the accompaniment of static-y NPR. Spent the night in a moldy horrid days inn by the airport. my room smelled like old pee, and it was cold, but i was afraid that if i turned the heat up it would awaken even more smells. i didn't trust the bedspread, so i couldn't use that for warmth. anyway, it offered a shuttle at 4 am, and i could park my car there while i was gone. those two factors were the entire sum of my decision making because with a 6am flight, you can't be too particular. i was only there for a few hours, so what the hell. Dont' stay there though. Seriously. Its gross.
Yesterday the cutter got a package from his Mom. Finally. No really, he's been waiting for it since he got here. He came running upstairs and walked into the kitchen where i was working.
"Look what I got..." he proceeded to unload his box on the counter. A new pair of running shoes, a book, some fig newtons, an army jacket with his name on it, a hat...
I couldn't tell you what was different about his face. I'd say he looked younger, but he's only 15 so he looks plenty young. I'd say he looked relieved but thats not even close. He looked happy, well yeah, definitely. What he looked like most was what I've seen a lot of. In everyone else but him. He looked like a boy who just got a package from his Mom who loves him.
You know what though? Some of these kids get packages from their Mom, and they sneer and they toss it to the side. Maybe they should be this kid, who waited two months for his package.
From his Mom who loves him. Finally. Thank God.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
So I spent the weekend holed up in a luxury hotel over in Johnson City, for no other reason than the luxury of being able to lie on my bed and read, go to movies and do other ordinary stuff. Rotating weekend off rotated back around to Matt, Allie and I, so I gave Matt my house for the weekend and headed off into the night with a stack of books, a little work, and a desperation for a long hot bath. All of which came to pass along with very nice meals from room service, a trip to Jiffy Lube, a car wash, and an amazing hour spent sitting in Barnes & Noble simply picking up and setting down books, working on my computer and sipping coffee. Ordinary thing things, the kind that only become luxurious when you just haven't had the chance to do them in awhile.
I popped off to see two movies, Across the Universe which oversimplifies kind of drastically towards the end, but which is immensely enjoyable for the first three quarters as the story unfolds through the music of the beatles reinterpreted by the characters. Musicals are problematic for me, but this one captivated. Part Moulin Rouge, part Hair, with the visual stamp of Julie Taymor and the music of Lennon and McCartney...you can't lose. Also saw Into the Wild which was just as gut wrenching and soul enriching as the book. I was nervous about it, because the book, well, its one of my top ten favorites of all time...so the idea of it being screwed all to hell was horrifying to me, and so it was a great relief to see it so well handled.
So I drove back to campus last night, coasting past the moon ruffled surface of Lake Watauga, over the bridge where below, deep under the water lies the sunken town of Butler, up the winding road into the hills of Appalachia, and down the long driveway to the school, where not much of anything had happened in my short absence. And as I drove the 50 or so miles in the darkness, I wanted to keep going, to turn back, to find someplace where I could, I don't even know, live somewhat less relentlessly? I felt as though I had learned in those short two days that I didn't want to be so far away, but I hadn't learned anything more about what I wanted to be close to. And knowing what you might not want is light years away from knowing what you want, and not a good basis for any decisions, I found myself grateful that for now, or until something like clarity, or at least something unlike murkiness arrives, I have this committment and just for today, thats all I need to know.
I popped off to see two movies, Across the Universe which oversimplifies kind of drastically towards the end, but which is immensely enjoyable for the first three quarters as the story unfolds through the music of the beatles reinterpreted by the characters. Musicals are problematic for me, but this one captivated. Part Moulin Rouge, part Hair, with the visual stamp of Julie Taymor and the music of Lennon and McCartney...you can't lose. Also saw Into the Wild which was just as gut wrenching and soul enriching as the book. I was nervous about it, because the book, well, its one of my top ten favorites of all time...so the idea of it being screwed all to hell was horrifying to me, and so it was a great relief to see it so well handled.
So I drove back to campus last night, coasting past the moon ruffled surface of Lake Watauga, over the bridge where below, deep under the water lies the sunken town of Butler, up the winding road into the hills of Appalachia, and down the long driveway to the school, where not much of anything had happened in my short absence. And as I drove the 50 or so miles in the darkness, I wanted to keep going, to turn back, to find someplace where I could, I don't even know, live somewhat less relentlessly? I felt as though I had learned in those short two days that I didn't want to be so far away, but I hadn't learned anything more about what I wanted to be close to. And knowing what you might not want is light years away from knowing what you want, and not a good basis for any decisions, I found myself grateful that for now, or until something like clarity, or at least something unlike murkiness arrives, I have this committment and just for today, thats all I need to know.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 30
So I blew up.
I should do this more often because I need the outlet, but I've been too tired at night to do it, so I haven't.
But I should.
Tonight in my class it was basically bedlam. My fault. I know that. I try to keep things light and fast in my class because the kids get yelled at enough. I don't want to be that, hell, I'm not that. I'm not that guy who yells to restore order, or at least I don't want to be. No, I'm just not.
But tonight I was. I blew my shit all over the place, because I had let the standards or whatever slip just enough that they felt it was totally okay to ignore me. To not listen, to talk, to argue, to do whatever they felt like doing.
So I yelled. I told them that if they wanted me to treat them with the respect they claim to want to be treated with, then they could bloody well stop thinking they could do whatever disrespectful bullshit they wanted. Now I feel like shit, I feel like whatever regard they might have had for me is out the door, out the window, out the fucking chimney. Its whatever it is, I suppose, its whatever it is. But I feel like crap.
I should do this more often because I need the outlet, but I've been too tired at night to do it, so I haven't.
But I should.
Tonight in my class it was basically bedlam. My fault. I know that. I try to keep things light and fast in my class because the kids get yelled at enough. I don't want to be that, hell, I'm not that. I'm not that guy who yells to restore order, or at least I don't want to be. No, I'm just not.
But tonight I was. I blew my shit all over the place, because I had let the standards or whatever slip just enough that they felt it was totally okay to ignore me. To not listen, to talk, to argue, to do whatever they felt like doing.
So I yelled. I told them that if they wanted me to treat them with the respect they claim to want to be treated with, then they could bloody well stop thinking they could do whatever disrespectful bullshit they wanted. Now I feel like shit, I feel like whatever regard they might have had for me is out the door, out the window, out the fucking chimney. Its whatever it is, I suppose, its whatever it is. But I feel like crap.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
A great silver coin of a moon emerged from behind the curtain of a stormy sky, standing stark and still as the clouds ripped past it. A massive storm front has blocked out the eastern mountains since five o clock, an apparent extension of the days of rain that have swept through the valley. I was teaching class and for a moment we all stopped and looked out the windows. The yard was a lake of reflected moonlight, the road a white blaze pointing east.
We were talking about journaling tonight, the act and the reason, the illumination that occurs when I examine my own life. The most important thing I have. We free roamed from topic to topic laughing and talking as the kerosene lamps flickered and the moon blazed through the windows. I talked about the most important journaling I've ever done, and how it allowed me to fully experience my life in ways I hadn't foreseen. I told them I hoped they would not cheat themselves of the experience, that I believed their lives to be important enough, that I believed each of them was interesting enough, and I wished they would come to see themselves the same way.
We'll see. Some will. Some won't. Thats okay.
One of the students walked with me down the driveway halfway to my house. He's been having a hard time fitting in. He tries to hard, and makes problems for himself because he can't keep his freaking mouth shut. I've told him and told him that in a place like this, whatever he says to another student will ultimately become known to all the others in a short time, so be careful who you gossip about and what you say. No one feels the need to spread compliments and respect, but say something bad about someone, or get in the middle of someone elses dispute and you'll be out in the cold within 48 hours. But he can't resist sticking his hand in the flame.
He talked to me about being talked about, gossiped about, being isolated. I told him that in the end he would be okay. I said, when I feel cut off, I turn around and I look at the people around me. So we turned, and in the yard a group was roughousing by moonlight, while two others played guitar on the deck. Through the window, a kerosene lamp floated by, carried by someone just out of view. Laughter rang out from the shadows, the kind of laughter that is happy and not cruel.
"We all have more in common than not," I said. "What divides us is much smaller than what holds us together. You'll come to know that by the end of the year. Its going to be okay."
I believe that. I feel the same way sometimes. With the staff, with the students, sometimes I feel like I'm knocked sideways to bounce into the corner and lie there unnoticed and gathering dust. Until I don't. And then its all okay again. Because in the end, even though we're all hard asses sometimes, we are beginning to like and respect each other, a tiny step at a time.
We talked for another few minutes, then I went on my way. I returned to my little house on the hill overlooking it all and walked to the other side, and stood looking at the moon, so that it could, in the end, be my moon too.
We were talking about journaling tonight, the act and the reason, the illumination that occurs when I examine my own life. The most important thing I have. We free roamed from topic to topic laughing and talking as the kerosene lamps flickered and the moon blazed through the windows. I talked about the most important journaling I've ever done, and how it allowed me to fully experience my life in ways I hadn't foreseen. I told them I hoped they would not cheat themselves of the experience, that I believed their lives to be important enough, that I believed each of them was interesting enough, and I wished they would come to see themselves the same way.
We'll see. Some will. Some won't. Thats okay.
One of the students walked with me down the driveway halfway to my house. He's been having a hard time fitting in. He tries to hard, and makes problems for himself because he can't keep his freaking mouth shut. I've told him and told him that in a place like this, whatever he says to another student will ultimately become known to all the others in a short time, so be careful who you gossip about and what you say. No one feels the need to spread compliments and respect, but say something bad about someone, or get in the middle of someone elses dispute and you'll be out in the cold within 48 hours. But he can't resist sticking his hand in the flame.
He talked to me about being talked about, gossiped about, being isolated. I told him that in the end he would be okay. I said, when I feel cut off, I turn around and I look at the people around me. So we turned, and in the yard a group was roughousing by moonlight, while two others played guitar on the deck. Through the window, a kerosene lamp floated by, carried by someone just out of view. Laughter rang out from the shadows, the kind of laughter that is happy and not cruel.
"We all have more in common than not," I said. "What divides us is much smaller than what holds us together. You'll come to know that by the end of the year. Its going to be okay."
I believe that. I feel the same way sometimes. With the staff, with the students, sometimes I feel like I'm knocked sideways to bounce into the corner and lie there unnoticed and gathering dust. Until I don't. And then its all okay again. Because in the end, even though we're all hard asses sometimes, we are beginning to like and respect each other, a tiny step at a time.
We talked for another few minutes, then I went on my way. I returned to my little house on the hill overlooking it all and walked to the other side, and stood looking at the moon, so that it could, in the end, be my moon too.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
So my computer tells me that 500 thousand people have been displaced by wildfires rampaging across Southern California. That Arrowhead is burning. Again. And Santiago Canyon. Again. And Malibu. Again. And again.
It seems horrible, it is horrible, I know what its like, and yet somehow in some strange way, it seems like part of the natural order. Okay, thats crazy, but because every time there are fires, and every time its these places, it just seems like another California autumn, when the hills go up in smoke. I hate that the cabins up Santiago are burning, that the houses in Running Springs are on fire, I even hate it, albeit slightly less, that the houses in Malibu are burning. Yeah, I know, but that part of me that believes in the idea of a communist utopia, or at least believes in the spirit behind it, can't help but feel some sense of...oh, never mind, it bites hard that houses in Malibu are burning, even though I always thought the castle was stupid and tacky.
Whats unremarkable about all of it though is its repetitiveness. Wildfires burn Southern California. That sentence is not a headline, its just a statement of the obvious, or at least thats how it has come to seem...
Okay, so drama...The kids have drama. Much drama. Isn't it amazing and weirdly affirming that even when they are yanked out by their roots, they still manage to create the same gossipy chatty high school musical meets the hills meets big brother cat fights they created at home. This person said he liked this person and then he said he never said that, so then lots and lots of talking has to occur about who said what to who and when and who is lying about whether or not so and so asked such and such out. No, really.
Out where? Seriously, OUT FREAKING WHERE?! You are in a small building, utterly and completely cut off from the rest of the world. In every conceivable way. If you ask someone out...what does that mean. We have a no dating policy but its more of a "yeah, um...you know you can't really date because a date implies the opportunity to do something..." rather than a hard and fast rule. And it happens, but really, under the circumstances, how serious can it get. Okay, yeah, some people can get pretty serious, but, oh I don't know...it seems hilarious to me.
So as I was walking in the door to teach class tonight I was accosted by two recipients of the latest gossip war. We sat down for a minute and I basically told them, hey you guys, you know what? In order for this to continue, it requires your participation. You don't participate it dies tonight. Your decision.
But but but but...they said, and she said to them, and then...
Yeah, and if you don't play, it gets real boring and real cold, and fades into nothing.
Then one of the chatterers came bursting out of the door downstairs yelling, "Hey _____, I asked her and she said she never said that!"
"Get up here," I ordered her.
"I was just..."
"Mind your own business, shut your mouth, and stop starting fires."
"I wasn't..."
"We're done. Conversation over."
"I..."
"Walk away."
She did. I turned back to my two drama addicts.
"See how easy that was?"
"But you can do that because..."
"Anytime you don't want to be involved in a conversation, you can tell the person that you dont' want to talk about it, that its none of their business, and you don't want to have a conversation."
"But..."
"Or you can stay involved and keep it alive...your call, now lets go to class."
And thats what I do, while California burns.
It seems horrible, it is horrible, I know what its like, and yet somehow in some strange way, it seems like part of the natural order. Okay, thats crazy, but because every time there are fires, and every time its these places, it just seems like another California autumn, when the hills go up in smoke. I hate that the cabins up Santiago are burning, that the houses in Running Springs are on fire, I even hate it, albeit slightly less, that the houses in Malibu are burning. Yeah, I know, but that part of me that believes in the idea of a communist utopia, or at least believes in the spirit behind it, can't help but feel some sense of...oh, never mind, it bites hard that houses in Malibu are burning, even though I always thought the castle was stupid and tacky.
Whats unremarkable about all of it though is its repetitiveness. Wildfires burn Southern California. That sentence is not a headline, its just a statement of the obvious, or at least thats how it has come to seem...
Okay, so drama...The kids have drama. Much drama. Isn't it amazing and weirdly affirming that even when they are yanked out by their roots, they still manage to create the same gossipy chatty high school musical meets the hills meets big brother cat fights they created at home. This person said he liked this person and then he said he never said that, so then lots and lots of talking has to occur about who said what to who and when and who is lying about whether or not so and so asked such and such out. No, really.
Out where? Seriously, OUT FREAKING WHERE?! You are in a small building, utterly and completely cut off from the rest of the world. In every conceivable way. If you ask someone out...what does that mean. We have a no dating policy but its more of a "yeah, um...you know you can't really date because a date implies the opportunity to do something..." rather than a hard and fast rule. And it happens, but really, under the circumstances, how serious can it get. Okay, yeah, some people can get pretty serious, but, oh I don't know...it seems hilarious to me.
So as I was walking in the door to teach class tonight I was accosted by two recipients of the latest gossip war. We sat down for a minute and I basically told them, hey you guys, you know what? In order for this to continue, it requires your participation. You don't participate it dies tonight. Your decision.
But but but but...they said, and she said to them, and then...
Yeah, and if you don't play, it gets real boring and real cold, and fades into nothing.
Then one of the chatterers came bursting out of the door downstairs yelling, "Hey _____, I asked her and she said she never said that!"
"Get up here," I ordered her.
"I was just..."
"Mind your own business, shut your mouth, and stop starting fires."
"I wasn't..."
"We're done. Conversation over."
"I..."
"Walk away."
She did. I turned back to my two drama addicts.
"See how easy that was?"
"But you can do that because..."
"Anytime you don't want to be involved in a conversation, you can tell the person that you dont' want to talk about it, that its none of their business, and you don't want to have a conversation."
"But..."
"Or you can stay involved and keep it alive...your call, now lets go to class."
And thats what I do, while California burns.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
So...they came back, life returns to normal...you know?
Anyway, for the past few days I've been working on a student blog, so instead of me writing about it, run on over here, and check this out...with photos and all, some changes still to come, but let me know what you think...seriously...let me know what you think!
http://freedommountainacademy.blogspot.com/
Anyway, for the past few days I've been working on a student blog, so instead of me writing about it, run on over here, and check this out...with photos and all, some changes still to come, but let me know what you think...seriously...let me know what you think!
http://freedommountainacademy.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Its quiet without them. The students headed out into the field on Saturday morning, returning Thursday. Farm chores are my mornings, Allie comes up to my house and we drink coffee before milking the cow, collecting the eggs, feeding the chickens, feeding the pigs. We have 70 little chicks to replace the broilers we killed last week. Something was eating them the first few days, we'd find two or three bodies each morning, partially eaten. It was horrible. I found the hole that whatever was coming through and patched it up, problem solved. The other day I fixed the goat's water, and they were happy. Then this morning, one of the baby goats was dead, just lying there on a little hillock, head downhill, peacefully dead in a totally undisturbed way that was completely disturbing. Allie and I buried him in a grave down by the end of the driveway.
On Saturday Margaret, the kids, Allie and I went to the Cranberry Festival in Shady Valley, bluegrass music and arts and crafts booths and fried oreos and stuff. It was blue skies and warm sunshine and browsing in the most quietly normal of ways. We watched Sweetland down at Mom's and ate leftovers. On Sunday I drove over to Boone, browsed through Earthfare for tea and good snacks, Mast General for socks, and spent too much money at Black Bear Books. But I don't regret it. A sliver moon danced over the road as I drove home, listening to a Spanish language music program on the local NPR station. I was passing through Valle Crucis when La Oreja de Van Gogh sang Rosas and I thought of my old friend Daniel back in LA, and things seemed close.
Last night we drove down to Johnson City to meet Leon and Mary for dinner. She was at a medical conference and staying at one of those nice hotels. I clutched at her as I was walking out. "This place reminds me of my life," I whispered, "Take me with you." She laughed. I don't think I meant it, but maybe I did.
My life is now troubled kids and dead goats and milk cows and chickens. Thats my life. Whatever. Its an adventure I guess. The other life was never as interesting, but it was more comfortable and certainly more familiar.
Today I finished up the next cycle of menus, and went to Sams at Exit 7 to resupply. $1400 worth of groceries crammed into the car and back home again.
Exit 7 is magic. All things I know, clustered one on top of the other. Urban sprawl at its most spastic. I feel at home there. I wonder when it will stop being remarkable to me that I am somewhere else.
I return to LA in November for a few days for an educuational conference. It feels to soon, it makes me nervous, makes me wonder that if a day on the streets of my world as it was will make me unable to return to the fields and the hills and the trees and the animals and the kids and the life that I am living that still doesn't feel like mine.
I need the students in order to feel like I'm here. Without them I feel like I'm nowhere. And yet I love the quiet days of not having them. I'm terribly confused I guess.
On Saturday Margaret, the kids, Allie and I went to the Cranberry Festival in Shady Valley, bluegrass music and arts and crafts booths and fried oreos and stuff. It was blue skies and warm sunshine and browsing in the most quietly normal of ways. We watched Sweetland down at Mom's and ate leftovers. On Sunday I drove over to Boone, browsed through Earthfare for tea and good snacks, Mast General for socks, and spent too much money at Black Bear Books. But I don't regret it. A sliver moon danced over the road as I drove home, listening to a Spanish language music program on the local NPR station. I was passing through Valle Crucis when La Oreja de Van Gogh sang Rosas and I thought of my old friend Daniel back in LA, and things seemed close.
Last night we drove down to Johnson City to meet Leon and Mary for dinner. She was at a medical conference and staying at one of those nice hotels. I clutched at her as I was walking out. "This place reminds me of my life," I whispered, "Take me with you." She laughed. I don't think I meant it, but maybe I did.
My life is now troubled kids and dead goats and milk cows and chickens. Thats my life. Whatever. Its an adventure I guess. The other life was never as interesting, but it was more comfortable and certainly more familiar.
Today I finished up the next cycle of menus, and went to Sams at Exit 7 to resupply. $1400 worth of groceries crammed into the car and back home again.
Exit 7 is magic. All things I know, clustered one on top of the other. Urban sprawl at its most spastic. I feel at home there. I wonder when it will stop being remarkable to me that I am somewhere else.
I return to LA in November for a few days for an educuational conference. It feels to soon, it makes me nervous, makes me wonder that if a day on the streets of my world as it was will make me unable to return to the fields and the hills and the trees and the animals and the kids and the life that I am living that still doesn't feel like mine.
I need the students in order to feel like I'm here. Without them I feel like I'm nowhere. And yet I love the quiet days of not having them. I'm terribly confused I guess.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Today I looked out the kitchen window as a shivering tree unloaded its leaves in a torrent of yellow, a scattering like yellow ashes blown before a fire, and with that came a realization of time passing. Short time, just a month really since this began, and I was struck by how much has changed in that month. My reality, uprooted and replanted, with a group of people who came into my life as names written with sharpie on bags of clothing, and who now occupy the biggest place in my life.
Its funny, how a month ago, as I struggled to put names to faces, I couldn't have predicted how important each of them would become to me. My crew, my class, the group of them who trust me enough these days to ask me to bandage their wounds, wrap their knees, who reveal themselves to me, sometimes overtly in the pages of their journals, who address me directly and ask me questions in their writing.
I talked to them about the passage of time last night, at the end of class.
"A lot of you hate it here," I said, "You have written that repeatedly, and I know its how you feel. If I were you I would probably feel the same way, but I'm not and I don't. Take a moment, just a small moment, to recognize all you've done in this month that we've been together. You've built a bridge, backpacked through the wilderness, you've collected eggs, and milked cows, and fed chickens. You've cut wood and built fences. You've cooked meals for close to 30 people, and you do it routinely now. You've studied history by kerosene lamps, you've been exposed to new ideas in your values class, you've written countless letters. You've made friends out of a group of complete strangers. I know this place is hard, and I know there will be things about it you will never come to love, but take a moment to realize and become more aware of all the amazing things you've done. You. You have done things you never imagined, and its only been a month. You are remarkable, and if you only look at what you don't like you will miss the opportunity to be amazed by yourself. Its the same in every way. If you look at yourself and only see what you don't like, you miss out on all the great things you already are. What good is achievement, what good is striving, if you never take the time to appreciate what you have done."
I ended my class on that note, and today there were several journal entries that addressed it. One said, "I don't hate it here, I hate being here. There is a difference." I'm still thinking about that one.
After class last night, the cutter walked out on to the porch with me.
"I dont' do it anymore," he said.
"Good."
"I haven't. And my asthma's gone."
"Thats fantastic."
"I just wanted you to know that. And thank you for helping me."
"It was an honor to be any part of that."
He went back inside. It made me feel good. It wasn't me. It was him. But it still felt good, just to know that he isn't in as much pain now. That felt good.
Today, I was walking back down the hill after running up to Margaret and Mike's, and two of the girls who were on work chores came running down the hill after me, and gave me the tiniest little bouqet of flowers they had picked. I put them in water in the kitchen. Its those kinds of things that make the hours worth it. They are changing, a little bit at a time, and it is most definitely an honor to witness it.
Its funny, how a month ago, as I struggled to put names to faces, I couldn't have predicted how important each of them would become to me. My crew, my class, the group of them who trust me enough these days to ask me to bandage their wounds, wrap their knees, who reveal themselves to me, sometimes overtly in the pages of their journals, who address me directly and ask me questions in their writing.
I talked to them about the passage of time last night, at the end of class.
"A lot of you hate it here," I said, "You have written that repeatedly, and I know its how you feel. If I were you I would probably feel the same way, but I'm not and I don't. Take a moment, just a small moment, to recognize all you've done in this month that we've been together. You've built a bridge, backpacked through the wilderness, you've collected eggs, and milked cows, and fed chickens. You've cut wood and built fences. You've cooked meals for close to 30 people, and you do it routinely now. You've studied history by kerosene lamps, you've been exposed to new ideas in your values class, you've written countless letters. You've made friends out of a group of complete strangers. I know this place is hard, and I know there will be things about it you will never come to love, but take a moment to realize and become more aware of all the amazing things you've done. You. You have done things you never imagined, and its only been a month. You are remarkable, and if you only look at what you don't like you will miss the opportunity to be amazed by yourself. Its the same in every way. If you look at yourself and only see what you don't like, you miss out on all the great things you already are. What good is achievement, what good is striving, if you never take the time to appreciate what you have done."
I ended my class on that note, and today there were several journal entries that addressed it. One said, "I don't hate it here, I hate being here. There is a difference." I'm still thinking about that one.
After class last night, the cutter walked out on to the porch with me.
"I dont' do it anymore," he said.
"Good."
"I haven't. And my asthma's gone."
"Thats fantastic."
"I just wanted you to know that. And thank you for helping me."
"It was an honor to be any part of that."
He went back inside. It made me feel good. It wasn't me. It was him. But it still felt good, just to know that he isn't in as much pain now. That felt good.
Today, I was walking back down the hill after running up to Margaret and Mike's, and two of the girls who were on work chores came running down the hill after me, and gave me the tiniest little bouqet of flowers they had picked. I put them in water in the kitchen. Its those kinds of things that make the hours worth it. They are changing, a little bit at a time, and it is most definitely an honor to witness it.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
If _____ farts in my class one more time I'm going to shove a cork so far up his ass its going to tickle the back of his throat. Its toxic, eye watering, horrible. The girls around him have to bury their heads inside their sweatshirts.
Its 9:30, I'm home grading tests. I'm going to finish tomorrow.
Today we killed chickens. I took the afternoon off from kitchen crew to help, and spent a few hours pulling feathers off decapitated chicken bodies. I also cut one head off when Mike was missing in action for a bit. We did about 20, and there are bout 30 more to go, but they go out in the field on Saturday, so the rest of my week is expedition prep. It was a beautiful day, and if I say I had fun, does that make me deranged. Whatever. It was a beautiful day.
Tonight I was thinking that I am overwhelmed by the idea that I might be affecting these kids. I know thats what I'm supposed to be doing, but the idea of a long term effect, the idea that they will remember me, all of that seems somehow intimidating, but its becoming more real. On one hand, how cool is that? On the other, its the kind of relationship I've skipped away from my whole life. Impactful. Too much. But for now its professional and that implies a commitment, and thats somehow unnerving.
But then again, what am I doing here if not that?
Good question. I have no answer. The kid who came late, the runaway, the flunky in the early days of my class, apparently listened when I told him that I could tell from our first conversation that he was capable of much more than he was showing me. He's bitten into my class in big hunks, studying, drilling, working with the other kids, and he's going to get an A on this latest test. It was him, but I think I had a part in it, and that feels good and yet...what right do I have to tinker around with these kids...? Writing that makes my palms sweaty. I will wake up to it later tonight. Who am I to be doing this?
Its 9:30, I'm home grading tests. I'm going to finish tomorrow.
Today we killed chickens. I took the afternoon off from kitchen crew to help, and spent a few hours pulling feathers off decapitated chicken bodies. I also cut one head off when Mike was missing in action for a bit. We did about 20, and there are bout 30 more to go, but they go out in the field on Saturday, so the rest of my week is expedition prep. It was a beautiful day, and if I say I had fun, does that make me deranged. Whatever. It was a beautiful day.
Tonight I was thinking that I am overwhelmed by the idea that I might be affecting these kids. I know thats what I'm supposed to be doing, but the idea of a long term effect, the idea that they will remember me, all of that seems somehow intimidating, but its becoming more real. On one hand, how cool is that? On the other, its the kind of relationship I've skipped away from my whole life. Impactful. Too much. But for now its professional and that implies a commitment, and thats somehow unnerving.
But then again, what am I doing here if not that?
Good question. I have no answer. The kid who came late, the runaway, the flunky in the early days of my class, apparently listened when I told him that I could tell from our first conversation that he was capable of much more than he was showing me. He's bitten into my class in big hunks, studying, drilling, working with the other kids, and he's going to get an A on this latest test. It was him, but I think I had a part in it, and that feels good and yet...what right do I have to tinker around with these kids...? Writing that makes my palms sweaty. I will wake up to it later tonight. Who am I to be doing this?
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Time off. Who knew a weekend could be so much bliss...?
Rotating weekends off have finally struck at FMA...Matt, Allie and I got the first one. I taught my class last night until 7, and then Margaret and the kids, Matt, Allie and I headed off to the Johnson County High School homecoming football game. We sat up on the amazingly steep hill overlooking the field and ate cotton candy and watched the Longhorns walk all over the Blue Devils. Then we ate pizza.
It was weird to wear my own clothes. Matt spent the night up here last night so he wouldn't have to come stumbling out into the common room while the kids were in class. We didn't wake up until one of the kids on morning work chores walked by my house yelling for the cow.
Tonight we drove over to exit 7, and saw Halloween, because why not. We stopped at the ATM in Damascus which talked loudly in a british accent which was so funny we had to stop on the way home and use it again. "Please entah your secret numbah..." which only goes to show that entertainment choices are limited here.
The rest of the week was fairly decent. Things are getting more real, which is both good and a little dramatic. The masks the kids have been wearing are starting to crack a little, and they've started going after each other rather than just us. Its ugly but necessary, and we have to put out a lot of little fires. "Mr Dan, would you please tell _______ he needs to take a shower. He smells so bad no one wants to sit next to him..." "Mr Dan __________ is trying to get kicked out of class so he can go relax in his room..." Yes yes, we know. Its all part of the curve. Thank you.
I talked to one of the girls yesterday morning, about some things she had written in her journal about how much she hated herself, and how no matter how hard she tried she would always be nothing. We talked about how perfection was unattainable, and not even really worthwhile. How the imperfections are what we notice, are what make the things we see worth looking at. How a perfectly symmetrical tree is never the one we pick out to admire. Notice the things you are, I said, not the things you aren't. Don't pick yourself apart. You are beautiful and smart and admirable and give yourself credit for that. Yes, aspiring for more is good, trying to be better is good, but if you never notice what you are, what is the striving worth?
What is that worth? I don't know. Like I've said before...I don't know the answers, I just want to be available in the ways I can.
She stood up after we were talking, and then she short of shifted from one foot to the other.
"Can we hug?" she asked.
"I'd love a hug from you..." I told her, and she threw herself on me. That was kind of great.
Teaching has become a more fluid experience. More give and take, more participation. But I've kicked a few students out of the class over the past few days for reading books in class, for completely ignoring the fact they should be taking notes. I put a student on room time for two days for walking off his job. I'm becoming more demanding as time passes and they know they are more capable. Not cruel, not adversarial, just more insistent on a higher standard. On Thursday, the girls left lamps burning in their bathroom. Without chimneys. Cranked way up high like tiki torches. What the hell were they thinking. They all ended up having to use the privy for two days. Much wailing and yelling about that. Except from the youngest girl who said "It doesnt' really bother me, except it smells, so I'm going to clean it..." Wow, okay.
The students are doing well in my class. Most of my Fs have worked up to C's, and are routinely getting A's on quizzes now. They are adamant drillers and studiers in my class because its fun, and because its fast, and because the rewards are immediate with two to three quizzes and one test per week.
We are getting to know each other better. And thats for the good.
I'm off again tomorrow. That feels great. Another sleep in, another day of relaxation, another day of catching up. Then another week, and then they head out into the field again. I guess I'm not going on this one either. Thats fine I guess. I hope it changes soon, but I get the need to not have the distraction of the laxest instructor on campus going along on expedition. Looking for change on that though.
Off to sleep and sleep some more.
Rotating weekends off have finally struck at FMA...Matt, Allie and I got the first one. I taught my class last night until 7, and then Margaret and the kids, Matt, Allie and I headed off to the Johnson County High School homecoming football game. We sat up on the amazingly steep hill overlooking the field and ate cotton candy and watched the Longhorns walk all over the Blue Devils. Then we ate pizza.
It was weird to wear my own clothes. Matt spent the night up here last night so he wouldn't have to come stumbling out into the common room while the kids were in class. We didn't wake up until one of the kids on morning work chores walked by my house yelling for the cow.
Tonight we drove over to exit 7, and saw Halloween, because why not. We stopped at the ATM in Damascus which talked loudly in a british accent which was so funny we had to stop on the way home and use it again. "Please entah your secret numbah..." which only goes to show that entertainment choices are limited here.
The rest of the week was fairly decent. Things are getting more real, which is both good and a little dramatic. The masks the kids have been wearing are starting to crack a little, and they've started going after each other rather than just us. Its ugly but necessary, and we have to put out a lot of little fires. "Mr Dan, would you please tell _______ he needs to take a shower. He smells so bad no one wants to sit next to him..." "Mr Dan __________ is trying to get kicked out of class so he can go relax in his room..." Yes yes, we know. Its all part of the curve. Thank you.
I talked to one of the girls yesterday morning, about some things she had written in her journal about how much she hated herself, and how no matter how hard she tried she would always be nothing. We talked about how perfection was unattainable, and not even really worthwhile. How the imperfections are what we notice, are what make the things we see worth looking at. How a perfectly symmetrical tree is never the one we pick out to admire. Notice the things you are, I said, not the things you aren't. Don't pick yourself apart. You are beautiful and smart and admirable and give yourself credit for that. Yes, aspiring for more is good, trying to be better is good, but if you never notice what you are, what is the striving worth?
What is that worth? I don't know. Like I've said before...I don't know the answers, I just want to be available in the ways I can.
She stood up after we were talking, and then she short of shifted from one foot to the other.
"Can we hug?" she asked.
"I'd love a hug from you..." I told her, and she threw herself on me. That was kind of great.
Teaching has become a more fluid experience. More give and take, more participation. But I've kicked a few students out of the class over the past few days for reading books in class, for completely ignoring the fact they should be taking notes. I put a student on room time for two days for walking off his job. I'm becoming more demanding as time passes and they know they are more capable. Not cruel, not adversarial, just more insistent on a higher standard. On Thursday, the girls left lamps burning in their bathroom. Without chimneys. Cranked way up high like tiki torches. What the hell were they thinking. They all ended up having to use the privy for two days. Much wailing and yelling about that. Except from the youngest girl who said "It doesnt' really bother me, except it smells, so I'm going to clean it..." Wow, okay.
The students are doing well in my class. Most of my Fs have worked up to C's, and are routinely getting A's on quizzes now. They are adamant drillers and studiers in my class because its fun, and because its fast, and because the rewards are immediate with two to three quizzes and one test per week.
We are getting to know each other better. And thats for the good.
I'm off again tomorrow. That feels great. Another sleep in, another day of relaxation, another day of catching up. Then another week, and then they head out into the field again. I guess I'm not going on this one either. Thats fine I guess. I hope it changes soon, but I get the need to not have the distraction of the laxest instructor on campus going along on expedition. Looking for change on that though.
Off to sleep and sleep some more.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
In what classroom is it considered appropriate for students to carry on conversations throughout the class period? That question does not include those classrooms where it is tolerated, but I'm just asking, when and where is it considered to be something where everyone says "Yeah, okay, I'll stand up here and teach and you guys can just go on talking if you feel like it."
That seems to be the item of major discord among our student body here, none of whom think that it is fair of us to ask them to shut their yappy pie holes while class is in session. Today Margaret had to endure an entire session in her class of discussion on this topic. No, strike that, she didn't have to, she allowed it, invited it, and then stood up there and took the hits and the barbs from the snarky little group of students who think that rules are okay for everyone else, but they shouldn't apply to them. It was disgusting, and it made me angry, and we were all accused of creating an environment where we treat them like children, or like wild animals, and that their astounding lack of behavioral standards are not something they arrived with, but are something that we are creating by our unfair discipline and demands on them. Sweeping statements about the staff were made, and then backed away from when specifics were asked for, or if Margaret said "when have I ever done that?" they would all quickly rush in saying "we're not talking about you..." blah blah blah...They also said she was the only one who ever allowed them to express how they felt about anything, and that it was unfair and that there should be a student/staff meeting to discuss the unfair way they were being treated.
So tonight, I volunteered also. I stood up at the beginning of my class and said, "here I am...hit me with whatever you've got. Tell me about the times i have treated you with disrespect. Let me know right now everything you don't like about my class, or my way of teaching, or my interactions with you, or whatever...you said you never get that chance, well here it is, and here I am and lay it on me."
"Oh no, mister Dan, you're cool, we like you, we love this class, you are the only one who..."
I wanted to just walk out at that point, but I didn't. I said, "Well this is different from what you were saying earlier, when you said all the staff does this thing or that thing or the other thing. So here it is. General sweeping statements are worth nothing. If you say it, be specific and back it up."
Then I taught class, and it was fine, and yet, and unbelievably, still they talked...
Tomorrow I am going to ask them if they somehow think that not talking for 55 minutes is going to cause them to die?
This place is great, and I really like these kids, but sometimes...oh man, do I just want to blast them to pieces. But heres the thing. Cutting them down to size, cutting them at all...not what we do, not what we're here for. So we suck it up, and we hand down consequences, and we remain consistent and we weather the looks and the talk, and the pushing and all of it, but sometimes you just want to scream...just yell at them and say "we are all here, getting paid next to NOTHING, getting up at 4:30 in the morning, and working and teaching alongside you all day, and then we go home and try to grade papers and plan for the next day, we are all living on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night, IF THAT, and you act like we owe you that. you are here because no one else wanted to deal with you anymore. you are here because you got yourself here. you are here because you ran out of options. you are here because you asked for it. and we have told you and told you what is okay and what is not, and we have told you the consequences. we have warned you and given you break after break. you have lied to us, skulked around glaring at us, bitched at us about how unfair every single thing you are asked to do is, and we have responded by smiling and encouraging you and continuing to work with you when all we want to do is keep your parents money and send you home because you are horrible. But we don't. So follow the few simple rules, don't screw up every single minute of the day, and thats all we ask. And for god's sake, stop complaining about how you don't want to be here. We know that. But we didn't send you here. So shut up. Suck it up. Man up. Get your head into reality, and fucking deal. God.
Okay, rant over. I'm done. Wah wah wah.
That seems to be the item of major discord among our student body here, none of whom think that it is fair of us to ask them to shut their yappy pie holes while class is in session. Today Margaret had to endure an entire session in her class of discussion on this topic. No, strike that, she didn't have to, she allowed it, invited it, and then stood up there and took the hits and the barbs from the snarky little group of students who think that rules are okay for everyone else, but they shouldn't apply to them. It was disgusting, and it made me angry, and we were all accused of creating an environment where we treat them like children, or like wild animals, and that their astounding lack of behavioral standards are not something they arrived with, but are something that we are creating by our unfair discipline and demands on them. Sweeping statements about the staff were made, and then backed away from when specifics were asked for, or if Margaret said "when have I ever done that?" they would all quickly rush in saying "we're not talking about you..." blah blah blah...They also said she was the only one who ever allowed them to express how they felt about anything, and that it was unfair and that there should be a student/staff meeting to discuss the unfair way they were being treated.
So tonight, I volunteered also. I stood up at the beginning of my class and said, "here I am...hit me with whatever you've got. Tell me about the times i have treated you with disrespect. Let me know right now everything you don't like about my class, or my way of teaching, or my interactions with you, or whatever...you said you never get that chance, well here it is, and here I am and lay it on me."
"Oh no, mister Dan, you're cool, we like you, we love this class, you are the only one who..."
I wanted to just walk out at that point, but I didn't. I said, "Well this is different from what you were saying earlier, when you said all the staff does this thing or that thing or the other thing. So here it is. General sweeping statements are worth nothing. If you say it, be specific and back it up."
Then I taught class, and it was fine, and yet, and unbelievably, still they talked...
Tomorrow I am going to ask them if they somehow think that not talking for 55 minutes is going to cause them to die?
This place is great, and I really like these kids, but sometimes...oh man, do I just want to blast them to pieces. But heres the thing. Cutting them down to size, cutting them at all...not what we do, not what we're here for. So we suck it up, and we hand down consequences, and we remain consistent and we weather the looks and the talk, and the pushing and all of it, but sometimes you just want to scream...just yell at them and say "we are all here, getting paid next to NOTHING, getting up at 4:30 in the morning, and working and teaching alongside you all day, and then we go home and try to grade papers and plan for the next day, we are all living on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night, IF THAT, and you act like we owe you that. you are here because no one else wanted to deal with you anymore. you are here because you got yourself here. you are here because you ran out of options. you are here because you asked for it. and we have told you and told you what is okay and what is not, and we have told you the consequences. we have warned you and given you break after break. you have lied to us, skulked around glaring at us, bitched at us about how unfair every single thing you are asked to do is, and we have responded by smiling and encouraging you and continuing to work with you when all we want to do is keep your parents money and send you home because you are horrible. But we don't. So follow the few simple rules, don't screw up every single minute of the day, and thats all we ask. And for god's sake, stop complaining about how you don't want to be here. We know that. But we didn't send you here. So shut up. Suck it up. Man up. Get your head into reality, and fucking deal. God.
Okay, rant over. I'm done. Wah wah wah.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 30 2007
Two years.
My whole body is responding to this right now. The screen blurs and clears and blurs again. Waves of grief and amazement. Tim.
Friday morning. Sun shining warm just like today. Bright through the windows, bathing all of us, all of us gathered together in a circle around my brother. Talking softly, touching, knowing, waiting, not believing the moment was moments away. Music. Sunlight. And then he was gone, in a sudden blast of love and release he was gone.
It still amazes me. He broke apart and flew away, through me and out and I felt him go and it took my breath and it broke my heart and filled me with a gladness for him and a strangling sense of loss for us. Tim.
I love you today as much as I ever did. You are with me as much as you ever were because I still can't believe you are gone. Every time I realize it, every time its like new. Every time its like it can't be, and I have to try and get used to the idea again. My brother, I want to drive the roads with you, to feel you sitting across from me, to hear your voice talking in the darkness as I watch the headlights cut through the night.
Where are you? The grass is fading to brown out my window, and the hills are becoming more yellow than green. The nights are longer, the mornings colder, the sun more satisfying on my shoulders. Do you feel it too? Are you amazed? Are you happy? Are you free? Have you been reborn? Who are you today? Will I meet you again?
Tim. Two years. Its amazing. I love you brother.
My whole body is responding to this right now. The screen blurs and clears and blurs again. Waves of grief and amazement. Tim.
Friday morning. Sun shining warm just like today. Bright through the windows, bathing all of us, all of us gathered together in a circle around my brother. Talking softly, touching, knowing, waiting, not believing the moment was moments away. Music. Sunlight. And then he was gone, in a sudden blast of love and release he was gone.
It still amazes me. He broke apart and flew away, through me and out and I felt him go and it took my breath and it broke my heart and filled me with a gladness for him and a strangling sense of loss for us. Tim.
I love you today as much as I ever did. You are with me as much as you ever were because I still can't believe you are gone. Every time I realize it, every time its like new. Every time its like it can't be, and I have to try and get used to the idea again. My brother, I want to drive the roads with you, to feel you sitting across from me, to hear your voice talking in the darkness as I watch the headlights cut through the night.
Where are you? The grass is fading to brown out my window, and the hills are becoming more yellow than green. The nights are longer, the mornings colder, the sun more satisfying on my shoulders. Do you feel it too? Are you amazed? Are you happy? Are you free? Have you been reborn? Who are you today? Will I meet you again?
Tim. Two years. Its amazing. I love you brother.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
I was talking to Margaret earlier this evening, after cleanup and the kids were all settled down watching a movie, and I was free to go home, and it was only 7, so I walked up the hill to her house and sat around chatting for a few minutes. As I was leaving I said, "I get to be lying on my bed by 8 tonight, that is so amazing." And then I said, "What kind of life is it where I'm celebrating the fact that I get to lie on my bed at 8 pm on a Saturday night?" And she said, "My life."
We had a school cookout tonight, big bonfire and cooking smokies over the fire, and lots of food, and hand cranked ice cream, and I guess it was good, although it wasn't in a sense, because by the end of the day the staff couldn't wait to get a way from the kids, so we kind of clustered at one end and they clustered at the other and we were all so fried, we just sat there and let them do their thing. Well, their thing according to our rules. And the whole time I was thinking "I should go mingle with them," and at the same time I was thinking "I have been mingling with them non stop for three solid weeks with virtually no breaks, I can't do it..."
I find myself sneaking out the door at meal times just to get away for a second to myself, and I don't want to keep doing that either. I worry I will lose these small connections I have made, and I don't want that. I'm working really hard to get to my new schedule, where I don't go in until noon, and then I stay until 7:15, but I worry about that lost opportunity in the morning, of seeing them when they get up, and seeing them when they do work chores, and seeing them in between their classes, but I can't keep working from 4:30 in the morning until 10 every night or I will drop from the exhaustion. I've been doing it for two weeks solid now, and even when they were out on expedition we were still going 100%.
Complain complain complain, thats what this feels like right now, but the need for balance and to not lose myself completely in this is really imperative. I have to focus on my writing as well and getting ahead with that. I had a two year momentum pushing me along, and a lot of great work, and I don't want to just let them screech to a halt.
And yet, being around the kids in such close proximity allows them to see me as a consistent presence in their lives, and their has been an impact as a result. Some of them are beginning to trust me, to open up, and I want that to continue. I want them to feel that the staff is going at the same level they are, that we are with them 100% all the time.
Thats where I am tonight...feeling like I need to put up some boundaries, but worrying about the lost opportunities as a result.
So, everyone likes me again for whatever that is worth. I guess maybe the fact that I never backed down, never let it show, kept right on being there, up in their shit all the time, laughing with them, talking to them, pushing them, I don't know, maybe they realized that I was on their side. And I am. Sometimes its hard, sometimes hearing my name called 100 times a day for 100 different miniscule reasons makes me a little nuts, but then again...when haven't I been nuts about something. Its past 8 now, well its past nine, I'm supposed to be lying on my bed.
Later
We had a school cookout tonight, big bonfire and cooking smokies over the fire, and lots of food, and hand cranked ice cream, and I guess it was good, although it wasn't in a sense, because by the end of the day the staff couldn't wait to get a way from the kids, so we kind of clustered at one end and they clustered at the other and we were all so fried, we just sat there and let them do their thing. Well, their thing according to our rules. And the whole time I was thinking "I should go mingle with them," and at the same time I was thinking "I have been mingling with them non stop for three solid weeks with virtually no breaks, I can't do it..."
I find myself sneaking out the door at meal times just to get away for a second to myself, and I don't want to keep doing that either. I worry I will lose these small connections I have made, and I don't want that. I'm working really hard to get to my new schedule, where I don't go in until noon, and then I stay until 7:15, but I worry about that lost opportunity in the morning, of seeing them when they get up, and seeing them when they do work chores, and seeing them in between their classes, but I can't keep working from 4:30 in the morning until 10 every night or I will drop from the exhaustion. I've been doing it for two weeks solid now, and even when they were out on expedition we were still going 100%.
Complain complain complain, thats what this feels like right now, but the need for balance and to not lose myself completely in this is really imperative. I have to focus on my writing as well and getting ahead with that. I had a two year momentum pushing me along, and a lot of great work, and I don't want to just let them screech to a halt.
And yet, being around the kids in such close proximity allows them to see me as a consistent presence in their lives, and their has been an impact as a result. Some of them are beginning to trust me, to open up, and I want that to continue. I want them to feel that the staff is going at the same level they are, that we are with them 100% all the time.
Thats where I am tonight...feeling like I need to put up some boundaries, but worrying about the lost opportunities as a result.
So, everyone likes me again for whatever that is worth. I guess maybe the fact that I never backed down, never let it show, kept right on being there, up in their shit all the time, laughing with them, talking to them, pushing them, I don't know, maybe they realized that I was on their side. And I am. Sometimes its hard, sometimes hearing my name called 100 times a day for 100 different miniscule reasons makes me a little nuts, but then again...when haven't I been nuts about something. Its past 8 now, well its past nine, I'm supposed to be lying on my bed.
Later
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Seriously, this has been a hard week.
I don't want to lay this on too thick, because I have worked hard to develop a view of the incidents that surround me that doesn't cast me as a victim or as a martyr, but the past three days have been really tough for me on a personal level. Jumping right to it, I got called a faggot behind my back during my class. No one has really owned it, but enough people have confirmed it, that I know it happened and I know it was one of three people. Hell with that though, I don't really care who it was specifically because it was an upswell that occurred during my class at a table of fuck ups, I guess its THE table of fuckups. No, it is. We all have a hard time with this group, like I said before, and its not personal, they are just really determined to let us know that they think we're full of shit, and desperate to maintain their identity as losers. I mean that, and it sucks, because they aren't. They're just these kids who have come to believe something about themselves that isn't true, but in order to not let it hurt them that the world they know has cast them that way or sees them that way, their defensive act is to prove it right. There isn't one of them I don't like on one level or another, although their put upon creepiness makes it hard. But I have to talk to them, and work with them, and teach them, and in the course of that, things shine through, so I can't just write 'em off. What made this whole thing tough for me was that I didn't see it coming. I don't know how I act, or how I behave, or whatever, because I don't act. There is no performance. And I don't intend to let there be one, and so I act as my best most authentic self, and whatever that is, apparently makes me a target. No, it doesn't, but thats how it felt. The whole thing, a five minute incident that I dealt with in the class, and the next day in pretty harsh terms, became, as it must and as those things do, a big topic of discussion. X called Mr. Dan a faggot. Y was making fun of him in class. Z was saying this, and A got really mad because she likes Mr. Dan and so they all ran off and told Mr. Kevin, who then showed up in my class the next night, and tonight. It was a topic of discussion at the first group class meeting the next morning, where I was present and got to listen to them talk about how they felt about people making fun of Mr. Dan because he acts different. Okay, great, what does that mean? Even the people who like me think I'm a little poofy? I don't know, and I don't care, and yet I do care about the fact that people I have gone out of my way to be kind to, to be supportive of, to listen to, to be available to, would respond in such a cheap shoddy way. That and the fact that when you're gay you can't be called a faggot like that without feeling like you've been punched in the gut. And the face. And then the gut again. And then kicked in the balls. And spit on.
So here's the thing, I can't change the way I deal with them one tiny bit. I came home yesterday afternoon, with an hour to hang out before my class, and I thought I was going to throw up the entire time. Then I walked back down the hill and into the classroom, in front of this group of people who had been debating all day about the merits or lack thereof of calling me a faggot and teach them. And interact with them. Including those who thought it was a good idea to call me a faggot in the first place. And that was really hard to do. I always start out my evening class talking about journaling because I'm the guy who has to make them do it, so I always start out talking about what I'm journaling about. So I said, I've been thinking a lot about words, and whether what someone says about me changes who I am in any way. And I said, that in their class meeting there were a number of people who had been nailed pretty hard. And that it was good to listen, and it was good to give someone the courtesy of expressing their feelings, and it was good to express your own, but ultimately, you have to know yourself, and that takes work. And when you do the work, and you really know yourself, than nothing anyone says can affect the true, authentic person you are. And of course I tied that into journaling because really isn't everything a teaching opportunity? Yeah, pretty much it is. And it sure as hell is a learning opportunity. So today, the fuckup crew have been journaling about how they never said anything and that Mr. Dan is a cool guy. Uh...yeah, okay. So I go on with it, and I deal with it, and I intercede and succesfully get the rest of the staff to drop it, leave it alone, let it go, and so now its another night in my house, and I'm alone with it, and it isn't making me want to throw up anymore. Tonight I'm just tired and sad and wondering why the fuck I would care about some group of kids who...oh never mind, because I do, and there you go. I'm a lame ass.
I don't want to lay this on too thick, because I have worked hard to develop a view of the incidents that surround me that doesn't cast me as a victim or as a martyr, but the past three days have been really tough for me on a personal level. Jumping right to it, I got called a faggot behind my back during my class. No one has really owned it, but enough people have confirmed it, that I know it happened and I know it was one of three people. Hell with that though, I don't really care who it was specifically because it was an upswell that occurred during my class at a table of fuck ups, I guess its THE table of fuckups. No, it is. We all have a hard time with this group, like I said before, and its not personal, they are just really determined to let us know that they think we're full of shit, and desperate to maintain their identity as losers. I mean that, and it sucks, because they aren't. They're just these kids who have come to believe something about themselves that isn't true, but in order to not let it hurt them that the world they know has cast them that way or sees them that way, their defensive act is to prove it right. There isn't one of them I don't like on one level or another, although their put upon creepiness makes it hard. But I have to talk to them, and work with them, and teach them, and in the course of that, things shine through, so I can't just write 'em off. What made this whole thing tough for me was that I didn't see it coming. I don't know how I act, or how I behave, or whatever, because I don't act. There is no performance. And I don't intend to let there be one, and so I act as my best most authentic self, and whatever that is, apparently makes me a target. No, it doesn't, but thats how it felt. The whole thing, a five minute incident that I dealt with in the class, and the next day in pretty harsh terms, became, as it must and as those things do, a big topic of discussion. X called Mr. Dan a faggot. Y was making fun of him in class. Z was saying this, and A got really mad because she likes Mr. Dan and so they all ran off and told Mr. Kevin, who then showed up in my class the next night, and tonight. It was a topic of discussion at the first group class meeting the next morning, where I was present and got to listen to them talk about how they felt about people making fun of Mr. Dan because he acts different. Okay, great, what does that mean? Even the people who like me think I'm a little poofy? I don't know, and I don't care, and yet I do care about the fact that people I have gone out of my way to be kind to, to be supportive of, to listen to, to be available to, would respond in such a cheap shoddy way. That and the fact that when you're gay you can't be called a faggot like that without feeling like you've been punched in the gut. And the face. And then the gut again. And then kicked in the balls. And spit on.
So here's the thing, I can't change the way I deal with them one tiny bit. I came home yesterday afternoon, with an hour to hang out before my class, and I thought I was going to throw up the entire time. Then I walked back down the hill and into the classroom, in front of this group of people who had been debating all day about the merits or lack thereof of calling me a faggot and teach them. And interact with them. Including those who thought it was a good idea to call me a faggot in the first place. And that was really hard to do. I always start out my evening class talking about journaling because I'm the guy who has to make them do it, so I always start out talking about what I'm journaling about. So I said, I've been thinking a lot about words, and whether what someone says about me changes who I am in any way. And I said, that in their class meeting there were a number of people who had been nailed pretty hard. And that it was good to listen, and it was good to give someone the courtesy of expressing their feelings, and it was good to express your own, but ultimately, you have to know yourself, and that takes work. And when you do the work, and you really know yourself, than nothing anyone says can affect the true, authentic person you are. And of course I tied that into journaling because really isn't everything a teaching opportunity? Yeah, pretty much it is. And it sure as hell is a learning opportunity. So today, the fuckup crew have been journaling about how they never said anything and that Mr. Dan is a cool guy. Uh...yeah, okay. So I go on with it, and I deal with it, and I intercede and succesfully get the rest of the staff to drop it, leave it alone, let it go, and so now its another night in my house, and I'm alone with it, and it isn't making me want to throw up anymore. Tonight I'm just tired and sad and wondering why the fuck I would care about some group of kids who...oh never mind, because I do, and there you go. I'm a lame ass.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
September 25, 2007
dislocation.
how much of who i am is determined by where i am? how much shifts, drifts away, fades to ash if i am not where i am reminded? is space or place important? am i so shallow that the self of me is affected, even altered by the where of me?
i have no idea. really. i'm just wondering.
today started again at 4:30, nothing out of the ordinary anymore...just a walk through the mist from my house on the hill, under a beaming full moon, down the driveway to the school to meet my morning kitchen crew member...and it was all fine, because thats the way it is, or the way i've learned, with a nudge and a push and an occasional but only occasional helping hand, things get done.
the students are tired, exhausted really, coming back off of expedition to early morning history class. nothing dire, only back to 4:45 this morning, and all future early mornings canceled in an act of amnesty...thank god. my littlest girl, the 14 year old who is always smiling and laughing, lost it during the afternoon, snapping at everyone until i took her aside, and just let her tell me how tired she was and how horribly she felt, and then i said "everyone is tired and you've gotten through the worst of it, so hold it together a little bit longer..."
what does that even mean? i just didn't want her to be a bitch.
this morning the cutter asked to talk to me...we sat outside as the sun burned off the morning mist and the valley came into view like a ghost of itself.
"I can't sleep, and I can't do my chores. I can't do anything," he said.
"Okay, tell me whats going on."
"I can't not do it."
"Did you?" I asked.
"No."
"Well then apparently you can."
"But I can't sleep and I can't think and..."
"You're getting through this by gutting it out and thats good, but its not going to be enough. Not for long. You're going to have to go deeper. What are you thinking about when you try to sleep?"
"Cutting."
"What are you thinking about right before you think about that?"
He didn't say anything.
"Try to remember what you were thinking about."
"My Mom, and everything. All the stuff I did. How I treated her."
His mom is sick, needs a kidney transplant, and there is a repetitive history of abusive husbands and ex-husbands who didn't limit their fists to just their new wife, but felt no compunction about beating the shit out of her son. I get pissed when I think of her, but he loves her, and she's his Mom, and there really isn't anything else that matters when you get down to it like that. But he doesn't know I know any of that.
"What did you do?"
"You know, staying out late, drinking, doing drugs..."
Ah...well yeah, like the reasons you are here. I didn't say.
"So you're feeling guilty?"
His head went down, his eyes on the gravel between his feet.
"Yeah. I guess."
"What do you think it would take for you to let yourself off the hook?"
He looked up.
"Your Mom is your mom, and you're the kid, and she is doing for you what she thinks needs to be done, and you're doing your part by being here. Thats all you can do for now. The rest of this is a heavy load you're carrying, and I'm going to ask you again, and you don't have to answer now, but I want you to think about it, what is it going to take for you to let yourself off the hook?"
His eyes went to the gravel, and the tears began, falling off his lashes down between his feet.
"You have to begin there. I want you to think about it, and I want you to answer it to yourself."
It was time for him to go to class, and I told him to go ahead and go.
"We keep you busy, and thats a good thing for you right now. But think about it."
He didn't really say anything, just wiped his eyes and nodded, and walked inside.
I ducked around the corner and let myself lose it for a second or two, and then went in the back door to the kitchen.
Tonight, after teaching my class, I was in the kitchen. He came in, carrying Milo, the cat. We didn't talk about anything in particular, he just stood there with Milo and talked about Milo. He shouldn't have been in the kitchen at all, its off limits, but its where he wanted to be. Milo shouldn't have been in there with him either. Then he set Milo on the counter and began feeding him a piece of bread. I leaned on the counter next to them, and we watched and laughed a little. It was against all the rules, but I believe really truly that right then this giant 6 foot 4 football player of a teenage boy just needed to feed a cat a piece of bread. I was the one who broke the rules I guess, and maybe I shouldn't have. But I did.
I went outside. The littlest one was sitting at the end of the steps by herself, looking up at the moon. I sat down beside her.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm okay. I'm just really homesick. But my Dad's in China anyway, so it doesn't..."
"I'd be homesick too." I said.
"I'm sorry about earlier," she said, "I was really missing my Mom."
Her Mom died two years ago. She's on my crew in the kitchen and whenever she cooks, she talks about cooking with her Mom, but she never talks about her being gone.
"I'm sure you miss her a lot."
She started talking about being at camp a few years earlier, and getting in a foodfight on her birthday. I sat in the moonlight and let her talk until it was quiet hour. I still needed to go to town. I'm so freaking tired I shouldnt' even be writing this. I don't know. I have to do these things I guess, sit down and talk when I see someone who looks like they need it. Anyway, I went to town, got the stuff I needed and came back to my house on the hill where the moon is shining brightly and the cows stand like silouhettes just outside my window.
I'm breaking rules left and right, I know that. I'd like to think I'm doing what needs to be done, but I don't know that. I'm playing it by ear. Does a homesick 14 year old trump my need to get my work done? Does a sad 16 year old's need to play with a cat in the wrong room trump the need for rigid guidelines? I have no freaking clue. None at all.
Class was better tonight, even though three or four of the guys at one table were talking and apparently making fun of me behind my back. I knew they were talking, but I gave them tonight to clean up their act. Its only really the second day of school. Tomorrow I kick them out of my class for a night or more. Haven't decided. As far as the making fun of me, yeah, it sucks. Makes me insecure on one level, but I read their journals and watch the other classes. I know what they are doing and saying about the other instructors. I'm nothing special, believe me, they are all getting the shit rained down on them. I just dont' want to be one of the yellers. I truly don't. So when I kick them out, I'll do it quietly.
Jesus, I'm tired, and I am going to bed. Now.
how much of who i am is determined by where i am? how much shifts, drifts away, fades to ash if i am not where i am reminded? is space or place important? am i so shallow that the self of me is affected, even altered by the where of me?
i have no idea. really. i'm just wondering.
today started again at 4:30, nothing out of the ordinary anymore...just a walk through the mist from my house on the hill, under a beaming full moon, down the driveway to the school to meet my morning kitchen crew member...and it was all fine, because thats the way it is, or the way i've learned, with a nudge and a push and an occasional but only occasional helping hand, things get done.
the students are tired, exhausted really, coming back off of expedition to early morning history class. nothing dire, only back to 4:45 this morning, and all future early mornings canceled in an act of amnesty...thank god. my littlest girl, the 14 year old who is always smiling and laughing, lost it during the afternoon, snapping at everyone until i took her aside, and just let her tell me how tired she was and how horribly she felt, and then i said "everyone is tired and you've gotten through the worst of it, so hold it together a little bit longer..."
what does that even mean? i just didn't want her to be a bitch.
this morning the cutter asked to talk to me...we sat outside as the sun burned off the morning mist and the valley came into view like a ghost of itself.
"I can't sleep, and I can't do my chores. I can't do anything," he said.
"Okay, tell me whats going on."
"I can't not do it."
"Did you?" I asked.
"No."
"Well then apparently you can."
"But I can't sleep and I can't think and..."
"You're getting through this by gutting it out and thats good, but its not going to be enough. Not for long. You're going to have to go deeper. What are you thinking about when you try to sleep?"
"Cutting."
"What are you thinking about right before you think about that?"
He didn't say anything.
"Try to remember what you were thinking about."
"My Mom, and everything. All the stuff I did. How I treated her."
His mom is sick, needs a kidney transplant, and there is a repetitive history of abusive husbands and ex-husbands who didn't limit their fists to just their new wife, but felt no compunction about beating the shit out of her son. I get pissed when I think of her, but he loves her, and she's his Mom, and there really isn't anything else that matters when you get down to it like that. But he doesn't know I know any of that.
"What did you do?"
"You know, staying out late, drinking, doing drugs..."
Ah...well yeah, like the reasons you are here. I didn't say.
"So you're feeling guilty?"
His head went down, his eyes on the gravel between his feet.
"Yeah. I guess."
"What do you think it would take for you to let yourself off the hook?"
He looked up.
"Your Mom is your mom, and you're the kid, and she is doing for you what she thinks needs to be done, and you're doing your part by being here. Thats all you can do for now. The rest of this is a heavy load you're carrying, and I'm going to ask you again, and you don't have to answer now, but I want you to think about it, what is it going to take for you to let yourself off the hook?"
His eyes went to the gravel, and the tears began, falling off his lashes down between his feet.
"You have to begin there. I want you to think about it, and I want you to answer it to yourself."
It was time for him to go to class, and I told him to go ahead and go.
"We keep you busy, and thats a good thing for you right now. But think about it."
He didn't really say anything, just wiped his eyes and nodded, and walked inside.
I ducked around the corner and let myself lose it for a second or two, and then went in the back door to the kitchen.
Tonight, after teaching my class, I was in the kitchen. He came in, carrying Milo, the cat. We didn't talk about anything in particular, he just stood there with Milo and talked about Milo. He shouldn't have been in the kitchen at all, its off limits, but its where he wanted to be. Milo shouldn't have been in there with him either. Then he set Milo on the counter and began feeding him a piece of bread. I leaned on the counter next to them, and we watched and laughed a little. It was against all the rules, but I believe really truly that right then this giant 6 foot 4 football player of a teenage boy just needed to feed a cat a piece of bread. I was the one who broke the rules I guess, and maybe I shouldn't have. But I did.
I went outside. The littlest one was sitting at the end of the steps by herself, looking up at the moon. I sat down beside her.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm okay. I'm just really homesick. But my Dad's in China anyway, so it doesn't..."
"I'd be homesick too." I said.
"I'm sorry about earlier," she said, "I was really missing my Mom."
Her Mom died two years ago. She's on my crew in the kitchen and whenever she cooks, she talks about cooking with her Mom, but she never talks about her being gone.
"I'm sure you miss her a lot."
She started talking about being at camp a few years earlier, and getting in a foodfight on her birthday. I sat in the moonlight and let her talk until it was quiet hour. I still needed to go to town. I'm so freaking tired I shouldnt' even be writing this. I don't know. I have to do these things I guess, sit down and talk when I see someone who looks like they need it. Anyway, I went to town, got the stuff I needed and came back to my house on the hill where the moon is shining brightly and the cows stand like silouhettes just outside my window.
I'm breaking rules left and right, I know that. I'd like to think I'm doing what needs to be done, but I don't know that. I'm playing it by ear. Does a homesick 14 year old trump my need to get my work done? Does a sad 16 year old's need to play with a cat in the wrong room trump the need for rigid guidelines? I have no freaking clue. None at all.
Class was better tonight, even though three or four of the guys at one table were talking and apparently making fun of me behind my back. I knew they were talking, but I gave them tonight to clean up their act. Its only really the second day of school. Tomorrow I kick them out of my class for a night or more. Haven't decided. As far as the making fun of me, yeah, it sucks. Makes me insecure on one level, but I read their journals and watch the other classes. I know what they are doing and saying about the other instructors. I'm nothing special, believe me, they are all getting the shit rained down on them. I just dont' want to be one of the yellers. I truly don't. So when I kick them out, I'll do it quietly.
Jesus, I'm tired, and I am going to bed. Now.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Yeah, so...
To start, we decided to give the chickens antibiotics. Because they were dying, and after hauling 15 corpses out in black garbage bags, it was either medication or sit back and watch the rest of them keel over. By that time they were so weak we had to pick every single one of them up and force dosed water into their mouths. Allie and I would walk into the pen, grab a chicken, bring it outside, hold it while Margaret injected a syringe full of water and antibiotic into its mouth, and then we'd toss it into the pen next door, and go back for another one. There were about 50 in total at this point, maybe a few more. Then we cleaned out the pen again, bleached it down and got it ready to do the whole thing in reverse later that day.
More chickens died, about 4 a day after the drugs, and the pens smelled so ungodly from this gross fluid they were choking up, and of course they all had diarhea, which is something you don't need to see ever. I forked all the straw out, and then leaned against the wall of the barn and retched for five minutes. Then we did the whole injecting water thing again, and removed more dead chickens,more foul straw, throwing both into a pile which we doused with gasoline and set on fire. It got seriously medieval after the first day, with a big stinking heap of smoldering corpses and rotten shitty straw, and more dead chickens but we got it under control and there were no new deaths today, and the number is about 40 still alive. The Chicken Rescue Squad as we named ourselves feels pretty good about our efforts.
The girl we took out on resupply got strep, and we had to go collect her, and the boy I took out on Wednesday night, ran away last night, so we had to go find him, and then they all came back today. The campus crew is exhausted and wondering what happened and why we didnt get any of the R&R we were expecting.
Last night Margaret and I got into it a bit about the way the runner was handled, not the outcome so much as the inter-staff lack of communication and how I felt that there was a heavy handed stepping in and taking over while I was in my opinion close to getting him to walk back up to camp, but then I'm the only one who feels that way and the bottom line is I have to learn to let that shit go and move on. And I did, actually pretty easily, although it kind of cast a little bit of a pall over the day today. But I was so busy getting stuff done for them to get back, I didn't have time to mull it over much, and thats for the good.
Anyway, they're back, and after we got dinner on the table, and a huge birthday cake out for one of the kids who had his birthday in the field, everything settled down, and pretty soon there were kids out on the deck in the dark, talking, and kids inside playing chess by candlelight, and another group lying around in the grass looking up at the stars. As I was walking home one of our troubled ones walked outside really fast, and just strode to the middle of the lawn and laid down in the grass. I was on my way home up the hill, but I couldn't just walk by. He's a cutter among other things and today was a rough day for him for reasons having to do with family. I walked over and sat down next to him and we looked up at the moon for awhile, and I told him that I had been a cutter also, and that I wanted him to know that the only way I knew out of compulsive behavior was sometimes one hour at a time, but that he didn't have to do it by himself, and that if he could make small commitments of time, manageable ones of only a few hours, that there were people here who would make themselves available to talk him through it. If he chose. Then it was quiet hour. We shook on a commitment that he wouldn't cut tonight, and he went back inside. For whatever thats worth. I'm not fooling myself, because whats the point, but I also can't just walk by when I see that. Because whats the point of that also? But I feel pretty small in the face of this and humble and...
What the hell am I doing here?
To start, we decided to give the chickens antibiotics. Because they were dying, and after hauling 15 corpses out in black garbage bags, it was either medication or sit back and watch the rest of them keel over. By that time they were so weak we had to pick every single one of them up and force dosed water into their mouths. Allie and I would walk into the pen, grab a chicken, bring it outside, hold it while Margaret injected a syringe full of water and antibiotic into its mouth, and then we'd toss it into the pen next door, and go back for another one. There were about 50 in total at this point, maybe a few more. Then we cleaned out the pen again, bleached it down and got it ready to do the whole thing in reverse later that day.
More chickens died, about 4 a day after the drugs, and the pens smelled so ungodly from this gross fluid they were choking up, and of course they all had diarhea, which is something you don't need to see ever. I forked all the straw out, and then leaned against the wall of the barn and retched for five minutes. Then we did the whole injecting water thing again, and removed more dead chickens,more foul straw, throwing both into a pile which we doused with gasoline and set on fire. It got seriously medieval after the first day, with a big stinking heap of smoldering corpses and rotten shitty straw, and more dead chickens but we got it under control and there were no new deaths today, and the number is about 40 still alive. The Chicken Rescue Squad as we named ourselves feels pretty good about our efforts.
The girl we took out on resupply got strep, and we had to go collect her, and the boy I took out on Wednesday night, ran away last night, so we had to go find him, and then they all came back today. The campus crew is exhausted and wondering what happened and why we didnt get any of the R&R we were expecting.
Last night Margaret and I got into it a bit about the way the runner was handled, not the outcome so much as the inter-staff lack of communication and how I felt that there was a heavy handed stepping in and taking over while I was in my opinion close to getting him to walk back up to camp, but then I'm the only one who feels that way and the bottom line is I have to learn to let that shit go and move on. And I did, actually pretty easily, although it kind of cast a little bit of a pall over the day today. But I was so busy getting stuff done for them to get back, I didn't have time to mull it over much, and thats for the good.
Anyway, they're back, and after we got dinner on the table, and a huge birthday cake out for one of the kids who had his birthday in the field, everything settled down, and pretty soon there were kids out on the deck in the dark, talking, and kids inside playing chess by candlelight, and another group lying around in the grass looking up at the stars. As I was walking home one of our troubled ones walked outside really fast, and just strode to the middle of the lawn and laid down in the grass. I was on my way home up the hill, but I couldn't just walk by. He's a cutter among other things and today was a rough day for him for reasons having to do with family. I walked over and sat down next to him and we looked up at the moon for awhile, and I told him that I had been a cutter also, and that I wanted him to know that the only way I knew out of compulsive behavior was sometimes one hour at a time, but that he didn't have to do it by himself, and that if he could make small commitments of time, manageable ones of only a few hours, that there were people here who would make themselves available to talk him through it. If he chose. Then it was quiet hour. We shook on a commitment that he wouldn't cut tonight, and he went back inside. For whatever thats worth. I'm not fooling myself, because whats the point, but I also can't just walk by when I see that. Because whats the point of that also? But I feel pretty small in the face of this and humble and...
What the hell am I doing here?
Monday, September 17, 2007
Monday, September 17 2007
Another day, another student.
Buck is still greeting me every day with his junk on full display and I'm really trying not to take it personally. But its gross. Really gross.
So this morning started out nice, did the farm chores, got some work done, it was all quiet and calm, and then I ran into Allie who told me that a parent had left a message at 6:30 this morning wondering if we could take her son. Which, of course we could. So this afternoon was about gearing up another kid, backpack, sleeping bag, buying boots, allotting clothes, the routine that has become incredibly familiar in a really short period of time.
Still, Allie and I got all three monster chest freezers inventoried and resorted which was cool. Then I got to hike in to tell the staff that I was bringing them in a new arrival this evening. That was the best part of the day, walking up alongside Gentry creek in the late afternoon, and finding our group heading into camp among the trees and giant rhododendrons.
When I got back to campus, I found out that we are experiencing a tragic plague of some sort in the chicken population. We had a whole flock all grown up and ready to slaughter next week, and today ten of them pretty much dropped dead. Well, first they upchuck about a tablespoon of vile goo, and then they drop dead. Its truly bizarre. In between everything else, Margaret and I hauled two garbage bags of dead chickens out of the coop.
After cleaning up from that, I headed for the airport to pick up the new kid, met him and took him right into the bathroom where I took his belongings, and gave him his new clothes. That always kind of freaks them out, the whole re-outfitting. I was fitting his boots when some dude walked in, and the kids says "This is what happens to you when your parents love you..." I almost started laughing.
He was very much not letting anything show, very cocky in a quiet shut down kind of way. He had been busted at school for carrying a butterfly knife, but that was just the last in a string of the usual. When he told me about that, I said "that's a day you'd probably do differently if you could, huh?"
"Why?"
"Well, you're here right?"
He didn't say anything.
I figured the cockiness would break away a little after we got off the freeway and headed into the mountains. I was right. As the road narrowed and twisted upwards through nothing but trees, he got very very silent. I pulled onto Gentry Creek Road and just let him sit, until we left the pavement and really hit the woods.
"I know this probably seems unbelievable to you, from the way your day started, to how its ending," I told him, "And I know that you're probably scared. I want you to know that the people who are leading you on this expedition have a lot of experience, and your equipment is good and in really good shape. Tonight will be be really long for you, but you're going to be okay. You might think you can't make it, but tomorrow when you wake up, you're going to be surrounded by a bunch of people who thought the same thing, and they've been out there for five days already. You'll be fine."
He didn't say anything for a second, and then very quietly I heard "thanks."
I figured since up until then his only answers had been "super" and "why" that it was some kind of progress.
We came into the turnaround and Mike was waiting. We got him loaded up and the last I saw of him was his back as he headed up the trail in the dark. He'll be okay, and I think I might be too. I actually think I'm damn lucky to be a part of this.
Buck is still greeting me every day with his junk on full display and I'm really trying not to take it personally. But its gross. Really gross.
So this morning started out nice, did the farm chores, got some work done, it was all quiet and calm, and then I ran into Allie who told me that a parent had left a message at 6:30 this morning wondering if we could take her son. Which, of course we could. So this afternoon was about gearing up another kid, backpack, sleeping bag, buying boots, allotting clothes, the routine that has become incredibly familiar in a really short period of time.
Still, Allie and I got all three monster chest freezers inventoried and resorted which was cool. Then I got to hike in to tell the staff that I was bringing them in a new arrival this evening. That was the best part of the day, walking up alongside Gentry creek in the late afternoon, and finding our group heading into camp among the trees and giant rhododendrons.
When I got back to campus, I found out that we are experiencing a tragic plague of some sort in the chicken population. We had a whole flock all grown up and ready to slaughter next week, and today ten of them pretty much dropped dead. Well, first they upchuck about a tablespoon of vile goo, and then they drop dead. Its truly bizarre. In between everything else, Margaret and I hauled two garbage bags of dead chickens out of the coop.
After cleaning up from that, I headed for the airport to pick up the new kid, met him and took him right into the bathroom where I took his belongings, and gave him his new clothes. That always kind of freaks them out, the whole re-outfitting. I was fitting his boots when some dude walked in, and the kids says "This is what happens to you when your parents love you..." I almost started laughing.
He was very much not letting anything show, very cocky in a quiet shut down kind of way. He had been busted at school for carrying a butterfly knife, but that was just the last in a string of the usual. When he told me about that, I said "that's a day you'd probably do differently if you could, huh?"
"Why?"
"Well, you're here right?"
He didn't say anything.
I figured the cockiness would break away a little after we got off the freeway and headed into the mountains. I was right. As the road narrowed and twisted upwards through nothing but trees, he got very very silent. I pulled onto Gentry Creek Road and just let him sit, until we left the pavement and really hit the woods.
"I know this probably seems unbelievable to you, from the way your day started, to how its ending," I told him, "And I know that you're probably scared. I want you to know that the people who are leading you on this expedition have a lot of experience, and your equipment is good and in really good shape. Tonight will be be really long for you, but you're going to be okay. You might think you can't make it, but tomorrow when you wake up, you're going to be surrounded by a bunch of people who thought the same thing, and they've been out there for five days already. You'll be fine."
He didn't say anything for a second, and then very quietly I heard "thanks."
I figured since up until then his only answers had been "super" and "why" that it was some kind of progress.
We came into the turnaround and Mike was waiting. We got him loaded up and the last I saw of him was his back as he headed up the trail in the dark. He'll be okay, and I think I might be too. I actually think I'm damn lucky to be a part of this.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Sunday, September 16 2007
The billy goat Buck is in a permanent state of arousal right now, and stinking like god knows what. So my day started feeding hay to a goat that was sporting a full hard on and musked the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
The new girl arrived at around 1 a.m and according to Allie who lives in the staff room across the girl's common area from her, she cried non stop until 3.
She was fine and relatively upbeat when I met her this morning and helped her get her pack packed.
Then we loaded up the resupply and tools and headed out in two vehicles to meet up with the rest of the students. It was great to see them, and joke around with them out under the trees, handing out food bags, and introducing them to their new classmate. They clustered around each of us in turn, showing off scratches and asking me what I was cooking for them when they get back. We strapped saws and axes on to their packs and sent them trekking back up the path to begin building their bridge. As they disappeared into the trees Allie and I climbed into the back of the pickup for the drive back down the logging road to campus. As we bumped along through shadows and scant sunlight filtering down through a canopy of leaves just beginning to turn with the fall, we laughed about how jealous we were, and how we wanted to follow them up the trail and into the woods for a few days.
Bridge building is a traditional early expedition excercise on Gentry Creek. Each year students have constructed a log bridge spanning the creek as the path crosses and criss crosses it on the way up to the falls. Its community service meets team building and we'll head up later in the week to check out their work.
Back at campus, it was a slow day of playing catchup on the projects we didn't get to last week when every day was about adding new student. I got the kitchen rotation done and planned the menus up to the next expedition.
Allie and I drove into town late this afternoon and bought bushels of junk food and brought it back to the cabin, and the evening was spent with Margaret, Allie, Liam, Aidan, Maura and I sprawled out on my bed watching The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe and eating crackers and spray on cheese and chocolate. About 15 minutes into the movie headlights came up the drive so the three of us left the kids and walked down to the school where we found Mike, back in from the field to pick up tampons (god almighty) and somethign else. While those were tracked down, I photocopied the new girls medical records for him to take out with him and then he headed back, and we went back to sprawling and now its after 11, everyone has gone to bed, and I feel wretched from too much crap food, but pretty satisfied in general with the day.
The nights are cold enough that you can see your breath, and even though Indian Summer will make it seem like August again, its clear that autumn has sunk itself into the ground and the air and somehow, that changes everything. I'm off to bed to pick candy wrappers and popcorn off my sheets...
The new girl arrived at around 1 a.m and according to Allie who lives in the staff room across the girl's common area from her, she cried non stop until 3.
She was fine and relatively upbeat when I met her this morning and helped her get her pack packed.
Then we loaded up the resupply and tools and headed out in two vehicles to meet up with the rest of the students. It was great to see them, and joke around with them out under the trees, handing out food bags, and introducing them to their new classmate. They clustered around each of us in turn, showing off scratches and asking me what I was cooking for them when they get back. We strapped saws and axes on to their packs and sent them trekking back up the path to begin building their bridge. As they disappeared into the trees Allie and I climbed into the back of the pickup for the drive back down the logging road to campus. As we bumped along through shadows and scant sunlight filtering down through a canopy of leaves just beginning to turn with the fall, we laughed about how jealous we were, and how we wanted to follow them up the trail and into the woods for a few days.
Bridge building is a traditional early expedition excercise on Gentry Creek. Each year students have constructed a log bridge spanning the creek as the path crosses and criss crosses it on the way up to the falls. Its community service meets team building and we'll head up later in the week to check out their work.
Back at campus, it was a slow day of playing catchup on the projects we didn't get to last week when every day was about adding new student. I got the kitchen rotation done and planned the menus up to the next expedition.
Allie and I drove into town late this afternoon and bought bushels of junk food and brought it back to the cabin, and the evening was spent with Margaret, Allie, Liam, Aidan, Maura and I sprawled out on my bed watching The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe and eating crackers and spray on cheese and chocolate. About 15 minutes into the movie headlights came up the drive so the three of us left the kids and walked down to the school where we found Mike, back in from the field to pick up tampons (god almighty) and somethign else. While those were tracked down, I photocopied the new girls medical records for him to take out with him and then he headed back, and we went back to sprawling and now its after 11, everyone has gone to bed, and I feel wretched from too much crap food, but pretty satisfied in general with the day.
The nights are cold enough that you can see your breath, and even though Indian Summer will make it seem like August again, its clear that autumn has sunk itself into the ground and the air and somehow, that changes everything. I'm off to bed to pick candy wrappers and popcorn off my sheets...
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Saturday, September 15
So one of the new girls refused to get in the car with her parents, so she may be arriving via escort, however we don't really know. The other one is arriving at around 1 A.M. Tomorrow is resupply, but I won't really be involved in that, which means a full day off sort of...as days off around here go.
Today I finished painting the cabin, well sort of, the main wall, in hopes that my belongings might arrive sometime this coming week. Or not. I assembled my rickety old Ikea bookshelves which have supported my growing collection of books in every house I have lived in in California, and that I couldn't bear to part with. Soon, the boxes will arrive and all my old friends will surround me again, and I will feel that much more at home. I can see into next week a little, and its going to be another hectic one.
My friend Julie's blog was all about the parrots of Pasadena today because she is visiting Southern California. She wrote about browsing the farmer's market, and suddenly all of the things I love seemed terribly terribly far away. And at the same time so much of what I love surrounds me every day. God, when will this confusing ambivalence begin to fade. When will I get to the point of not feeling pangs every time I wake up, and every time I go to bed. When, if ever will I stop feeling like my life is stuttering forward in some cantilevered crab like sideways motion?
I cleaned the chicken coop today. What does that even mean in terms of my life?
Today I finished painting the cabin, well sort of, the main wall, in hopes that my belongings might arrive sometime this coming week. Or not. I assembled my rickety old Ikea bookshelves which have supported my growing collection of books in every house I have lived in in California, and that I couldn't bear to part with. Soon, the boxes will arrive and all my old friends will surround me again, and I will feel that much more at home. I can see into next week a little, and its going to be another hectic one.
My friend Julie's blog was all about the parrots of Pasadena today because she is visiting Southern California. She wrote about browsing the farmer's market, and suddenly all of the things I love seemed terribly terribly far away. And at the same time so much of what I love surrounds me every day. God, when will this confusing ambivalence begin to fade. When will I get to the point of not feeling pangs every time I wake up, and every time I go to bed. When, if ever will I stop feeling like my life is stuttering forward in some cantilevered crab like sideways motion?
I cleaned the chicken coop today. What does that even mean in terms of my life?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
May you live in interesting times...
Whether or not this is the translation of a Chinese curse, or whether it is fictional, I've often felt that curse was the wrong word to apply...interesting times are what I've always wanted to have, and the last few days have been just that.
On Wednesday, the students pulled themselves together with the help of the entire staff, who prodded and cajoled and encouraged them onto the bus and out the driveway to their first expedition. It had been a harried and hectic three days since they arrived, and those of us left on campus, Margaret, Allie, Mom and myself all took several deep satisfying breaths as they disappeared down the driveway. Then we got to work on setting up for the resupply on Sunday, making trail mix, grinding copious amounts of peanut butter, making super fudge, compiling and bagging and labeling. As we were doing that, we acquired two additional students who planned to arrive on Saturday to go out in the field with the resupply. We spent the next few hours gearing them up, repairing backpacks, washing sleeping bags, and then I hit the road to get socks, and boots and various other items.
The next morning, we woke up to the news that the girl who had bolted the day she arrived had decided to bolt again, this time from the expedition. So Thursday was all about tracking her down, which should have been simple since she only had a three or four minute head start, but she hit the road long enough in advance that she hitched a ride and didn't resurface until she was 30 miles up the highway in Boone. Margaret and Dad trekked off the the police station to pick her up and put her back in the field, while Allie and I pulled together another set of gear for another new student being hiked out on Sunday, and also watered and fed the chickens, the goats, collected eggs and milked the cow. When Margaret and Dad got bolter one back to the drop off spot, they were met by bolter number 2 who had the bad luck to arrive at the road at the same time they were pulling up. With both of them reinserted, and darkness falling, I got home and stayed up a few hours working on student notebooks.
This morning it was absolutely pissing rain, so I did the chores in a state of increasingly sodden mess, then headed into Mountain City to pick up farm supplies at the coop, and get the salami for the resupply at Duffy's. When I got back, Liam and I headed to Boone in my truck, right behind Allie, Margaret, Mom, Aidan and Maura for another round of resupply shopping, this time for hiking boots, more socks, sock liners, towels, hiking pants, work boots, flashlights, and copies of the first literature book.
After a stop at Footsloggers for one set of boots, and a run across the street to Mast General for another pair, we then headed to Black Bear Books, and then met up with the group for Chinese food and then back to campus where Margaret and I just finished spending a couple of hours putting together a new bunkbed.
It was funny, on Wednesday, when I was at Mt Rogers Outfitters in Damascus dropping off an incorrect pair of boots and picking up liners and nalgenes, this woman asked me if it was for a group.
"Is it that group that was up on the Virginia Creeper Trail this morning? All with whistles around their necks?"
I laughed, "Yeah, those are our kids."
I thought about that when I was driving home a few hours later, blazing along through the trees, a V of Canadian Geese overhead, I thought about our group, these funny fucked up eager scared earnest angry confused sad excited teenagers trekking along in a line, under their heavy backpacks, in their new clothes with their whistles and compasses clinging and clacking around their necks, and you know, I just burst into tears. I really loved them in all their deeply ingrained imperfection, and when I got home I spent some extra time making things ready for the new ones.
The next morning, spending hours out on back roads searching for the runner, I didn't love them so much.
Then today, it was just sort of different, like I was in between. There is so much I don't know, so much I have to learn, so much I still feel horribly unqualified to do, so much I feel insecure about, so much I'm frankly scared about, that I felt like running too. I guess the bottom line is that whether they know it right now or not, they are trusting us to not drop them. And I'm a part of that now. And that part that I play in holding onto them scares me, but I also feel like I can't let go of my corner. So I won't. Not today at least.
And damn is it interesting. Yeah, it most definitely is.
Whether or not this is the translation of a Chinese curse, or whether it is fictional, I've often felt that curse was the wrong word to apply...interesting times are what I've always wanted to have, and the last few days have been just that.
On Wednesday, the students pulled themselves together with the help of the entire staff, who prodded and cajoled and encouraged them onto the bus and out the driveway to their first expedition. It had been a harried and hectic three days since they arrived, and those of us left on campus, Margaret, Allie, Mom and myself all took several deep satisfying breaths as they disappeared down the driveway. Then we got to work on setting up for the resupply on Sunday, making trail mix, grinding copious amounts of peanut butter, making super fudge, compiling and bagging and labeling. As we were doing that, we acquired two additional students who planned to arrive on Saturday to go out in the field with the resupply. We spent the next few hours gearing them up, repairing backpacks, washing sleeping bags, and then I hit the road to get socks, and boots and various other items.
The next morning, we woke up to the news that the girl who had bolted the day she arrived had decided to bolt again, this time from the expedition. So Thursday was all about tracking her down, which should have been simple since she only had a three or four minute head start, but she hit the road long enough in advance that she hitched a ride and didn't resurface until she was 30 miles up the highway in Boone. Margaret and Dad trekked off the the police station to pick her up and put her back in the field, while Allie and I pulled together another set of gear for another new student being hiked out on Sunday, and also watered and fed the chickens, the goats, collected eggs and milked the cow. When Margaret and Dad got bolter one back to the drop off spot, they were met by bolter number 2 who had the bad luck to arrive at the road at the same time they were pulling up. With both of them reinserted, and darkness falling, I got home and stayed up a few hours working on student notebooks.
This morning it was absolutely pissing rain, so I did the chores in a state of increasingly sodden mess, then headed into Mountain City to pick up farm supplies at the coop, and get the salami for the resupply at Duffy's. When I got back, Liam and I headed to Boone in my truck, right behind Allie, Margaret, Mom, Aidan and Maura for another round of resupply shopping, this time for hiking boots, more socks, sock liners, towels, hiking pants, work boots, flashlights, and copies of the first literature book.
After a stop at Footsloggers for one set of boots, and a run across the street to Mast General for another pair, we then headed to Black Bear Books, and then met up with the group for Chinese food and then back to campus where Margaret and I just finished spending a couple of hours putting together a new bunkbed.
It was funny, on Wednesday, when I was at Mt Rogers Outfitters in Damascus dropping off an incorrect pair of boots and picking up liners and nalgenes, this woman asked me if it was for a group.
"Is it that group that was up on the Virginia Creeper Trail this morning? All with whistles around their necks?"
I laughed, "Yeah, those are our kids."
I thought about that when I was driving home a few hours later, blazing along through the trees, a V of Canadian Geese overhead, I thought about our group, these funny fucked up eager scared earnest angry confused sad excited teenagers trekking along in a line, under their heavy backpacks, in their new clothes with their whistles and compasses clinging and clacking around their necks, and you know, I just burst into tears. I really loved them in all their deeply ingrained imperfection, and when I got home I spent some extra time making things ready for the new ones.
The next morning, spending hours out on back roads searching for the runner, I didn't love them so much.
Then today, it was just sort of different, like I was in between. There is so much I don't know, so much I have to learn, so much I still feel horribly unqualified to do, so much I feel insecure about, so much I'm frankly scared about, that I felt like running too. I guess the bottom line is that whether they know it right now or not, they are trusting us to not drop them. And I'm a part of that now. And that part that I play in holding onto them scares me, but I also feel like I can't let go of my corner. So I won't. Not today at least.
And damn is it interesting. Yeah, it most definitely is.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
It seems weird to have written that date.
Tuesday, September 11.
I remember waking up on Tuesday, September 11, the one we all talk about, the one we all remember. For some reason I didn't turn on NPR that morning, and I took my shower and got dressed, found my keys and walked out the door with no idea of what was already happening on the East Coast. I walked the street to where my truck was parked, and on the way I ran into my friend Mike, out walking his giant black lab Roger. I crouched down and rubbed Roger's ears and accepted some slobbery kisses, while Mike and I chatted about, well, who knows what. His boyfriend, my job, getting together for dinner, I don't know. As I left them and continued on my way, Mike said, "Oh yeah, by the way a plane flew into the World Trade Center."
"Really?" I said, "Thats weird, I hope not too many people were hurt..."
Then I got to my car, got in, turned on the radio, and life changed, and has never really changed back.
I count the ways in which that day didn't impact me. I still went to work, although I came right home because they closed the building I worked in. And for a few days, a week, maybe even two, I was dazed and sad and horrified, but I kept going to work, and coming home, and talking to friends, and eating dinner, and living.
The years went by, and everything changed and yet nothing changed at all. Our government went berserk, we lost chunks of our constitution, we were force fed an illegal war, and even those in power who opposed all of these things, have never raised a finger to turn the clock back, to dismantle the patriot act, to end the war, to do anything. A lot has changed, and yet, in my world, nothing has changed.
Over time, my life continued forward and I scarcely noticed or remembered all that was lost, the lives, the futures, the families, the rights, the laws, all of it, skittered by like bits of browning newspaper to little more than a "wait, what was that, oh its gone, nevermind..."
A whole cycle has gone around, and we are back to Tuesday, September 11, and here I am...far away, on my latest adventure, and I feel as though I should have noticed more, should have let it mark me more, and yet, its so easy to forget it ever happened. How can that be. The world has changed forever in a bad way, how can I so easily forget that?
Thus endeth my thoughts on that...
Today was markedly better. No less busy, crazy even...they head out on expedition tomorrow, and we were madly getting the food packed up, and still trying to get three meals on the table, well not trying, actually, doing. I worked this morning with a tiny sprite of a girl, barely over four feet, who is eager and happy to be here. At dinner I spent the whole time talking with another girl about how homesickness is natural, but that in a short time, she will get to the end of the day without having longed for home, and then after that, a few days will go by without it...Its true, that much I know for sure. Then I had to put the dish crew on silence because they were incapable after three warnings of working and talking simultaneously. Putting my foot down is difficult because I want somehow for them to want to be in the right. Then I realize that the only way they get to be that way is if they understand that being right brings better consequences. Oh, hell, I mean, I know that, and I do it without thinking. But still, there is sometimes the temptation to just look the other way because I don't want to be bothered, but then, being bothered is what I signed up for, so I bother. And I bother again.
Tuesday, September 11.
I remember waking up on Tuesday, September 11, the one we all talk about, the one we all remember. For some reason I didn't turn on NPR that morning, and I took my shower and got dressed, found my keys and walked out the door with no idea of what was already happening on the East Coast. I walked the street to where my truck was parked, and on the way I ran into my friend Mike, out walking his giant black lab Roger. I crouched down and rubbed Roger's ears and accepted some slobbery kisses, while Mike and I chatted about, well, who knows what. His boyfriend, my job, getting together for dinner, I don't know. As I left them and continued on my way, Mike said, "Oh yeah, by the way a plane flew into the World Trade Center."
"Really?" I said, "Thats weird, I hope not too many people were hurt..."
Then I got to my car, got in, turned on the radio, and life changed, and has never really changed back.
I count the ways in which that day didn't impact me. I still went to work, although I came right home because they closed the building I worked in. And for a few days, a week, maybe even two, I was dazed and sad and horrified, but I kept going to work, and coming home, and talking to friends, and eating dinner, and living.
The years went by, and everything changed and yet nothing changed at all. Our government went berserk, we lost chunks of our constitution, we were force fed an illegal war, and even those in power who opposed all of these things, have never raised a finger to turn the clock back, to dismantle the patriot act, to end the war, to do anything. A lot has changed, and yet, in my world, nothing has changed.
Over time, my life continued forward and I scarcely noticed or remembered all that was lost, the lives, the futures, the families, the rights, the laws, all of it, skittered by like bits of browning newspaper to little more than a "wait, what was that, oh its gone, nevermind..."
A whole cycle has gone around, and we are back to Tuesday, September 11, and here I am...far away, on my latest adventure, and I feel as though I should have noticed more, should have let it mark me more, and yet, its so easy to forget it ever happened. How can that be. The world has changed forever in a bad way, how can I so easily forget that?
Thus endeth my thoughts on that...
Today was markedly better. No less busy, crazy even...they head out on expedition tomorrow, and we were madly getting the food packed up, and still trying to get three meals on the table, well not trying, actually, doing. I worked this morning with a tiny sprite of a girl, barely over four feet, who is eager and happy to be here. At dinner I spent the whole time talking with another girl about how homesickness is natural, but that in a short time, she will get to the end of the day without having longed for home, and then after that, a few days will go by without it...Its true, that much I know for sure. Then I had to put the dish crew on silence because they were incapable after three warnings of working and talking simultaneously. Putting my foot down is difficult because I want somehow for them to want to be in the right. Then I realize that the only way they get to be that way is if they understand that being right brings better consequences. Oh, hell, I mean, I know that, and I do it without thinking. But still, there is sometimes the temptation to just look the other way because I don't want to be bothered, but then, being bothered is what I signed up for, so I bother. And I bother again.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Today was godawful. It had to be, there was no other way, its just the nature of the first few days. Its 8:00pm and I'm just getting home from a day that began at 4:00am. Had my first kitchen crew guy, who was great actually, from 4:30 am until 11:45 to prepare two meals, and then because of orienation, fire starting class, gear distribution, setting up tents, etc etc etc, I had no afternoon crew, but still had to bake another monster batch of bread for expedition, grind cornmeal, and make a meal for the gang all in about three hours, and then teach a class at 6:15pm. I'm so tired I'm almost in tears. The students are horrible, beyond horrible. Teaching them is like throwing sand into a boiling vat of fat. I know that doesn't make any sense, but thats what its like. I had to issue their journals (daily journal writing is mandatory) and then talk to them about what journaling is, some ideas on how to to get started, and some kind of inspiration to help them see that capturing moments of your life and how you feel about where you are right now is worthwhile, and all of its just sounded like bricks falling on asphalt, clockata clockata clockata...I hate them and I don't hate them in equal measure. Then I think about them individually and I kind of love them. They all wanted to know if they could use profanity in their journals. Yes, if you need to, but hopefully you will find ways of expressing yourself differently. Can we write whatever we want about the people here. Yes, you can, and probably must and will, but hopefully you will focus more on yourselves. Can I just go in my room and write obscenities on a piece of paper. Yeah, but why would you want to? Oh whatever, I'm too tired to even write...
Here is my cabin as it looks tonight, with me inside, sitting here typing, wondering how and why and what the hell was I thinking?
Sunday, September 9, 2007
September 9, 2007
Tired.
The students rolled in today, beginning at 9 and continuing until 3. One girl bolted as soon as the door opened, but was found and settled in by nightfall. Another was delivered courtesy of an escort. Both of them have wrapped themselves deeply in their I'm the one who doesn't want to be here identity, using it to keep themselves distant from what is happening to them.
Others leaped immediately into their surroundings, walking the campus, visiting the animals, lying on the sofas, perusing the bookshelves. They dropped their belongings, and put on the clothing they will be wearing for the next 9 months, and emerged in carhartts and work boots and t-shirts, gray, green or blue.
I baked enormous quantities of bread, and made spaghetti and salad and garlic bread for dinner, on a giant woodstove that smoked like a forest fire when i lighted it this morning. I met parents and kids and they all blurred somewhat, but I have my kitchen crew, four teenagers who will be my charges for the next 3 months. I will be in the kitchen at 4:30 tomorrow morning to meet my first one, and get coffee and tea ready by 5:30 for the 6:15 class. Breakfast by 7:15, dinner by 11:45 and supper by 5. I will make another batch of bread tomorrow to outfit them for expedition.
Tomorrow the students will be trained in fire starting and setting up tents and they will be issued expedition gear and get their first SMEAC for the expedition that starts on Wednesday. I won't begin really working with them or teaching the evening class until they return 10 days later.
They seem great, but they always do to me. I know that the idea is to take them from where they are and move them forward, undo some of the erroneous decision making that has led them to our door, and hopefully arm them with ways of making better choices in the future. Thats the goal. But mostly I just want to get through the day tomorrow with a modicum of success.
Bottom line is, that today went spectacularly well. They got here, we took over, and we stayed on schedule for orientation at 6:15. I stood up and introduced myself and told them that we would be spending a lot of time talking about words, as I was teaching them etymology, creative writing, journaling, and some literature. When I said that I realized that I could do this. I just wish I remembered more about etymology, but thats what the ten days is for. Lots of studying and preparing class notes.
Its funny because I just have to stay focused on the day in front of me, what is the agenda for this day and this day only. Today I did that, greet students, parents, and feed them. Tomorrow more of the same, with a bit of teaching them how not to hurt themselves in the kitchen.
God, this is so surreal to be writing this. I can't believe I'm doing this. When I sat down tonight and saw them all, the only thing I could think was "what the hell do I have to teach these guys?" I know how to talk, I know how to make them comfortable, but do I have what it takes to inspire them? I have no idea...
The students rolled in today, beginning at 9 and continuing until 3. One girl bolted as soon as the door opened, but was found and settled in by nightfall. Another was delivered courtesy of an escort. Both of them have wrapped themselves deeply in their I'm the one who doesn't want to be here identity, using it to keep themselves distant from what is happening to them.
Others leaped immediately into their surroundings, walking the campus, visiting the animals, lying on the sofas, perusing the bookshelves. They dropped their belongings, and put on the clothing they will be wearing for the next 9 months, and emerged in carhartts and work boots and t-shirts, gray, green or blue.
I baked enormous quantities of bread, and made spaghetti and salad and garlic bread for dinner, on a giant woodstove that smoked like a forest fire when i lighted it this morning. I met parents and kids and they all blurred somewhat, but I have my kitchen crew, four teenagers who will be my charges for the next 3 months. I will be in the kitchen at 4:30 tomorrow morning to meet my first one, and get coffee and tea ready by 5:30 for the 6:15 class. Breakfast by 7:15, dinner by 11:45 and supper by 5. I will make another batch of bread tomorrow to outfit them for expedition.
Tomorrow the students will be trained in fire starting and setting up tents and they will be issued expedition gear and get their first SMEAC for the expedition that starts on Wednesday. I won't begin really working with them or teaching the evening class until they return 10 days later.
They seem great, but they always do to me. I know that the idea is to take them from where they are and move them forward, undo some of the erroneous decision making that has led them to our door, and hopefully arm them with ways of making better choices in the future. Thats the goal. But mostly I just want to get through the day tomorrow with a modicum of success.
Bottom line is, that today went spectacularly well. They got here, we took over, and we stayed on schedule for orientation at 6:15. I stood up and introduced myself and told them that we would be spending a lot of time talking about words, as I was teaching them etymology, creative writing, journaling, and some literature. When I said that I realized that I could do this. I just wish I remembered more about etymology, but thats what the ten days is for. Lots of studying and preparing class notes.
Its funny because I just have to stay focused on the day in front of me, what is the agenda for this day and this day only. Today I did that, greet students, parents, and feed them. Tomorrow more of the same, with a bit of teaching them how not to hurt themselves in the kitchen.
God, this is so surreal to be writing this. I can't believe I'm doing this. When I sat down tonight and saw them all, the only thing I could think was "what the hell do I have to teach these guys?" I know how to talk, I know how to make them comfortable, but do I have what it takes to inspire them? I have no idea...
Saturday, September 8, 2007
September 8, 2007
The students arrive tomorrow.
I am just getting home after dinner and watching the dvd presentation of last year's group, and I'm really really tired, and I have a cold. Seriously, a cold. You have got to be kidding.
Here is what I know:
A dessicated mouse corpse when partially rehydrated smells like tuna.
It takes a long time to make enough granola for an expedition.
Consensus building is a novel concept here.
The last couple of days have been ape shit nuts, from tense staff meetings to incredinly long days that drag into evenings and you just can't stop because if you do, you'll just have to head downstairs tomorrow and sort pants and boots. I did put the idea of mandated staff weekends off up to a vote today, and it passed unanimously, which I thought was kind of incredible. I know, it sounds like "yeah, so what" but you have NO idea.
Everyone here is really gung ho for good stuff, but not all on the same page, or often even on the same chapter. It makes things odd, and uncomfortable,and hard to navigate. The good thing is that its all internal and doesn't carry over onto to the students, but as the new kid, its weird and awkward and huuuuhhhh?
But I drove over to Damascus today to get groceries, and stopped off at Duffy's and bought apples, and drove back looking at the sides of the Appalachian mountains, so green they look like they are running wet. The Virginia Creeper trail was packed with bikes, and AT hikers were milling around town. And I realized again, I'm in the right place at the right time, and that doesn't guarantee anything, its just a nice snapped in feeling.
I'm terrified that I'm going to be a giant fuck up. I'm terrified that no one is going to be able to stand me. I'm terrified that I will just lose my shit. Yeah, so...thats how I feel, not how I am.
So after a day of baking granola, and making applesauce, and cleaning, and shopping and unpacking stuff, and whatever the hell else, at around 6 I'm driving up the hill towards my cabin and a visiting father flags me down to ask me about my criminal record. Yeah, uh...no. But what? I mean if I looked in the mirror right now, who the hell is looking back?
I am just getting home after dinner and watching the dvd presentation of last year's group, and I'm really really tired, and I have a cold. Seriously, a cold. You have got to be kidding.
Here is what I know:
A dessicated mouse corpse when partially rehydrated smells like tuna.
It takes a long time to make enough granola for an expedition.
Consensus building is a novel concept here.
The last couple of days have been ape shit nuts, from tense staff meetings to incredinly long days that drag into evenings and you just can't stop because if you do, you'll just have to head downstairs tomorrow and sort pants and boots. I did put the idea of mandated staff weekends off up to a vote today, and it passed unanimously, which I thought was kind of incredible. I know, it sounds like "yeah, so what" but you have NO idea.
Everyone here is really gung ho for good stuff, but not all on the same page, or often even on the same chapter. It makes things odd, and uncomfortable,and hard to navigate. The good thing is that its all internal and doesn't carry over onto to the students, but as the new kid, its weird and awkward and huuuuhhhh?
But I drove over to Damascus today to get groceries, and stopped off at Duffy's and bought apples, and drove back looking at the sides of the Appalachian mountains, so green they look like they are running wet. The Virginia Creeper trail was packed with bikes, and AT hikers were milling around town. And I realized again, I'm in the right place at the right time, and that doesn't guarantee anything, its just a nice snapped in feeling.
I'm terrified that I'm going to be a giant fuck up. I'm terrified that no one is going to be able to stand me. I'm terrified that I will just lose my shit. Yeah, so...thats how I feel, not how I am.
So after a day of baking granola, and making applesauce, and cleaning, and shopping and unpacking stuff, and whatever the hell else, at around 6 I'm driving up the hill towards my cabin and a visiting father flags me down to ask me about my criminal record. Yeah, uh...no. But what? I mean if I looked in the mirror right now, who the hell is looking back?
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