mammaries of mine

First of all, no, those are not mine. If I were not a public school teacher, I would easily post mine here for all the world to see. I have no qualms about being naked in hot springs or while strolling down Zipolite beach in Oaxaca, or at the Oregon Country Fair, but sorry, not here. I just thought a lovely picture might entice you to read this post, which isn't necessarily going to be lovely.

They are, after all, only boobs. Behind and beyond the painful adolescence, the sexual pleasure, and the miracle of mother's milk, lies the simple fact of biological life.

And death.

"The envelope" arrived for me today from Memorial Hospital. If you have ever had a mammogram, you will know this letter. It has pink paper showing through the cellophane address window, and your results are held within. I have always hated the color pink. Ever since I watched my mother survive with and die from breast cancer, I have despised it.

About two weeks ago I went for my annual mammogram. I arrived, I filled out the form, I read an AARP magazine. All was just dandy until I was walking down the hall toward the waiting room and read a sign that said "Mammography Seating". I'm not sure what happened next, but my chest tightened and the tears welled. I felt my breasts tingle and became painfully aware of them, almost like the "let down" feeling of milk coming in. Suddenly, everywhere I looked there were breasts. I noticed the old ones and the young ones. I watched the soap operas on TV, and couldn't follow the story because I was so busy staring at their breasts! Magazines, too. Boobs were everywhere! I felt like I was going insane.

Suddenly, I realized that this must be what it feels like to be a man. And I got it. I really, really got it.

The actual mammogram was uneventful, if you consider having your tender breasts squished to within an inch of their lives in between two pieces of plastic while holding your breath uneventful. And I never know where to look. At the wall? Down at my squished boob? At the other one hanging out in space? At the machine?

Anyway, it really was fine, even with all the manipulating and squishing and holding breath and making small talk with the tech.

It's just that while I'm there I want to rant and whine to somebody, anybody who will listen:

"You know what? My mom survived breast cancer for five years, and this is my first mammogram since she died, and I'm terrified about the results, and what do you think about genetic testing, and doesn't cancer just SUCK!?!"

But I don't say any of those things. I just stare down at my naked torso in the dressing room after it's all over, cup my breasts in my hands, and murmur gently to them, "Please don't betray me. Just don't. Not now. Not ever. Please."

Today at the Chinese Buffet, my fortune cookie read, "Don't be afraid of fear". But how can I not live in fear of my mother's fate? It is not death I fear, not even an early one. It is the long slow cancerous journey to get there that terrifies me, filled with smocks and needles and smiling nurses and greeting cards from my friends and worst of all, having to embrace the color pink. I mean, can you really be a breast cancer survivor and fucking HATE the color pink?!

While sitting at the registration desk, a pink-cheeked, pink-collared old lady smiled knowingly at me from across the registration area. I smiled back, but what I really wanted to do was scream at her, "I will never, ever be YOU!"

But I might.

Only time will tell.

Today, the pink letter from Memorial Hospital informed me that my mammogram showed no signs of cancer. And so today, I love my breasts. They nursed my first baby for 14 months and my second one for just over two years. For that, I am most grateful. They are the perfect size proportionally for my body. They still make my husband want me when he glances at them.

And yet they hold this deep, dark, terrifying secret. This potential poison. Knowing that I could lose them, knowing that they could betray my love at any moment, knowing that they could one day end up killing me......

Well, it's a love/hate relationship of the purest kind.

ancient secret

i cry
these two thousand suns of my bitter bed
from ache to mother
from shadow to lie
and
remembering
still
a sad garden goddess
chanting
her love symphony to all the ugly girls
drunk on music
each one
a staccato in her own space
not
spread out
like a concubine’s arms and legs
her head
screaming
still
keeping time

[1996]

something to love

by someone i love.....

Twin Form by *Margherita45 on deviantART

derby dames

I have the utmost respect for these girls. They take their sport seriously, and are the hottest things on four wheels that I know of in this town.



"In Segment 119, Springs Culture Cast reporter Sue Spengler talks with a few of the Pikes Peak Derby Dames All Stars after their win against the Houston Hard Knocks."

(If the video doesn't seem to load, you can watch it here: Derby Dames!

But perhaps most importantly, happy first birthday to Springs Culture Cast, which posted the very first segment today in 2007.

Amazing. I like anniversaries and birthdays because they naturally inspire your mind to wander to the place of, "Hmmmm... where was I at this exact time last year....?"

Look how far SCC has come in one revolution. Look how far we have all come.

And where were you, this time last year?

number 71

Poetry was meant to be read aloud.

And so, at the end of it all, nearing one a.m., with eight girls piled onto my king-size bed, I read this:

stand with your lover on the ending earth-

and while a( huge which by which huger than
huge )whoing sea leaps to greenly hurl snow

suppose we could not love,dear; imagine

ourselves like living neither nor dead these
( or many thousand hearts which don't and dream
or many million minds which sleep and move )
blind sands,at pitiless the mercy of

time time time time time

-how fortunate are you and i,whose home
is timelessness;we who have wandered down
from fragrant mountains of eternal now

to frolic in such mysteries as birth
and death a day( or maybe even less )

e.e. cummings

Read it. Aloud. To someone. Now.

how to train future english teachers

Bedtime conversation between my 8-year-old son and me:

"On papers that I corrected, you can write 'corrected by Grant' when they put them on the computer, ok?"

"Ok, bug."

"And on papers that you corrected, but I found even more mistakes, you can write 'recorrected by Grant'."

"You bet, kiddo."

"I only have three papers left. Can I keep them up here by my bed and correct them in the morning?"

"Of course."

"Ok. Good."

It all started earlier this evening when I was helping him with his report on the Ordovician. Yes, the Ordovician! If someone would have asked me, even a month ago, what Ordovician meant, I probably would have told them it was some kind of cream for bald men to make their dreams come true.

There he was, sitting at his desk, trying to finish his homework (writing questions about The Ordovician) as quickly as possible. When he was finished, he asked me to look it over. I pointed out to him (lovingly and kindly, of course) that he needed to put question marks at the ends of all of his questions. You would have thought I'd asked him to kiss a girl! He got all bent out of shape and almost lost his mind (the way one might, I suppose, after they've snarfed down way too much candy from Valentine's Day and you've already bugged them one too many times about "Allison").

Finally, after a battle of wills over a few question marks (I won), I noticed that he had written "contents" when it should have been "continents", and I asked him to correct that as well. More anger, more opposition, more defensiveness.

Ugh.

Then I glanced over and saw my manila folder filled with papers waiting to be edited on my desk, and decided to illustrate the issue rather than continue to harangue. About half of them had already been edited.

"Take a look at these. My students are all learning to write in English, and so I help them by correcting their stories. I put in punctuation marks and fix their spelling. They want to know how to do it right, so I show them. That's all I'm trying to do-help you become a better writer, too. That's my job."

Then something miraculous happened. He stared hard at all the red marks on those papers. (I usually use green or blue for editing, but being Valentine's Day, I had decided to use red for a change). His mind began to race. He wouldn't give them back to me. He sat down right there and started editing with my red colored pencil! And he wouldn't stop!

He changed "persons" to "people". He repaired comma splices. He placed periods appropriately in run-on sentences and began the next sentence with a capital letter (I showed him how to put three lines under the letter you want capitalized). He changed "agree" to "agreement" and "finded" to "found". But it wasn't the fact that he "finded" these errors that astounded me; it was the obvious LOVE and OBSESSION with which he did it.

Finally, after the lights were out and I was scratching his back:

"Maybe you'll be an English teacher someday, bug."

"Yeah, I think I'd like that."



P.S. My adult students are publishing their stories on their very own blogs. You can read the stories my son edited here:

Freedom of Voice

and here:

The Beginning Writers

and leave a comment or two over there for them if you will. All writers like to know that they are being read. It means a lot to them.

mar adentro

The Sea Inside. Where was I in 2005?  How the hell did I miss this?



Just put it at the top of your queue.  Trust me. And don't forget the tissues.

Ramon Sampedro: "Only time and the evolution of conscience will decide one day if my request was reasonable or not."

Let us hope, someday soon, that the courts of law and the hearts of men decide that it was.

My mother also had some words to say about death with dignity.

fire horse +

The Chinese New Year turned my mind 'round to a really simple and fascinating chart that I found in The Litterbox (don't ask, just go) a few weeks back.  I liked it because it had not only the animals, but also the elements and whether or not it was a yin year (-) or a yang year (+).

I am a FIRE HORSE +. Yikes! Look out world! I love this kind of shit!

My husband is an EARTH DOG +. I can't think of anything more true than this: "The Dog can be happy with the Horse who will let him get on with his causes in exchange for a little independence."

                           What are you? Does it fit?

(P.S. When I first typed that title, my fingers managed to leave out the "r" in horse, thus making me a fire hose. Hmmmm.....)

temptation

Somebody sent in my secret for me.
Weird.
I always want to jump-
not because I want to
die,
but because I want to
know what it feels like to
fall.

Maybe somebody sent in yours: Post Secret

in uncharted waters

in uncharted waters,

when the horizon
pulses too orange
the sky horribly vast 

and gravity 

both pushes and pulls
when drowning 

becomes a choice better than swimming 

and
even treading water is too strenuous --

i seek anchorage

a comfortable circumference 

security in hemp
plenty of fish 

and 

a small craft in which to catch my breath 

cry a few salty tears of relief

when the anchor
becomes a dutiful cross 

too heavy to bear 

and i (noose-clad, choking in my own martyred creation)

am struggling in circles --

i long for the horizon

pounding heart in search of waves
paddling frantically 

waiting for the crack to open between sky and sea 

fierce and romantic
like an 8-year-old girl
with a brand new bike
and 

everywhere to go

[2007]

"hope" is the thing with feathers

I had never caucused before tonight. I had no idea what to expect. But here it was, Democracy in Action. DIA. It was fascinating! A small, diverse group of people, standing around in a semi-circle, speaking frankly about their candidates and their issues. It was insane in its provincialism, and beautiful in its simplicity.

I'm not sure what I liked most about my Precinct 50 caucus. Perhaps it was.....


The gray-haired man holding the little baby girl in the red velvet dress declaring that the only candidates saying anything reasonable about "his" issue: pot smoking, were Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. Several of us hollered in communion.



Raising my hand for John Edwards in the straw poll.



Watching my husband raise his hand for Joseph Biden in the final poll. Integrity and pride he has in no small measure.




Listening to my neighbors' and friends' impassioned voices about health care and education. We put forth six resolutions! The cynics among you can say, "Yeah, like they'll ever get to Washington." But you see, that's not the point, really. The point is that people are thinking and caring and wanting and hoping and trying.

"Aren't there any other feminists in the room?!" (Most, if not all, of the Hillary supporters appeared to be women over 50)

Joking about where the Precint 50 after-party was going to be, and wishing we would have asked Guillermo at Cucuru to host it.

Finding a 15-year-old boy who wants to babysit who only lives three blocks away!

Taking dictation from our local friendly 24th street drunk who said, "The cost of living raise for people with disabilities should keep pace with the cost of living", and helping him sign his name to the resolution. It passed.



Meeting an 18-year-old young man voting in his first presidential election.

It was a strange thing that happened tonight. Magic. I knew half of the people in that room. Another quarter I met. It wasn't just a vote. It was a community-building exercise. I'm not waxing sentimental here, folks. At one point, in the middle of all of our discussion about resolutions, I simply said, "Why don't we just put down, 'Save the World'". Laughter. Because we know we can't. Because we know the forces we are up against. And yet...... I saw our small pathetic caucus, imagined thousands of others like it across America tonight, and felt power in words and hands.





And at the end of the night, I raised my hand for Obama, knowing simply this: his presence in the race is what had brought most of us out of our houses, children in-tow, curious about the process of the caucus for the first time in our lives, to stand around for one-and-a-half hours while our feet began to ache, to try and make the world a better place.
And that counts for something.

a nickel and dime

Expose Yourshelf now has 15 posts! What is most interesting to me, and what I never anticipated, is that it has become as much about the process as the product. Meeting new friends, friends of friends, and strangers.... all this has been incredibly rewarding in a personal, relational kind of way that I hadn't expected. I also know that the simple act of taking the photos has been meaningful to many of you in some way, and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in my project so far. And if you haven't sent me your bookshelf pic, please do. Here are the rules.

not just another day

Today is a rather auspicious day, equidistant between two points:

One year ago today
and
One year from today

It's my blog's birthday. I've been anticipating it for the past week. Or two. I mean, what does one do for one's blog after it circumnavigates the sun for a year? Bake it a cake? Give it a new template?


Carry its home (my beloved imac) around a sun candle, a la the Montessori tradition, while telling stories about it?




I want to do something special- I've always been partial to birthdays, remarkable moments that they are. It has always seemed to me that we don't celebrate them like we should. Birthdays, as you will note if you have been paying any attention at all to this blog, have always figured prominently.

To make another trip AROUND THE SUN is no small feat.



Do other people feel this way about their blogs, as if they are an ethereal, yet actual, entity? Something you think about when you should be thinking about something else? A good friend whom you depend upon? A third party in a relationship perhaps? I'm concerned I might be losing my mind. I'm a Capricorn, married to a Capricorn, and my blog is a Capricorn too, and I'm wondering-- just what is the prognosis for a Capricorn threesome?!

Anyway, in honor of my blog's birthday, I have decided to give it something that we all wish we could have in this life: a vacation. At least three weeks. But first, I am going to post a host of photos/events that I meant to post at various times during the past year. Old business, as it were. Time to get on with new business.

To protest the St. Patrick's Day parade being moved from Old Colorado City to downtown, the 24th street gang decided to make its own:


I read Peter Pan to the boys and became enamored with the Lost Boys and Neverland, and especially Tinkerbell. I discovered my brother drives around with her on his dashboard:


My friend Jene is writing a book. It's complicated to explain, but I helped her with some mid-life "research" by going to dance clubs and strip bars with her. I'll let you know when the book comes out. Here I am just before we left for Denver to go to The Church:


Some things bloomed, eventually, despite the odds against them:

My brother and I went to Oregon in October. We visited our mother's cubby and spent some time on the coast with our father, where I got to show my new tattoo its home:




Bennett with the camera. I have a gazillion of these, which I never know about until I upload my photos; they fascinate me. Here are just a few:







One of my co-workers received this letter, telling her that she had to pay a $25 "fee" to the Colorado Dept. of Human Services, because, get this, she is a single mom who received over $500 in child support last year! WTF!?


The boys wanted to hang this poster over their window because there was no space for it anywhere in their room. I said no. They did it anyway. It's beautiful, and it made me think: What if we turned science into stained glass?



It ain't the Olympics, but I won a gold medal in the giant slalom race at Ski Cooper. There were only three women in my age category, but hey, I smoked 'em all! G and B also finished gold and bronze, respectively. This day marked a first: Grant's time was better than mine.... it's the beginning of the end! I wanted to write something about the zen of ski racing, but that'll have to wait:



So there you have it.... I'll see you all in a few weeks. Until then, send me your bookshelf photos!

what book are you? round two, just for fun, if i don't like oprah

You're Lolita!

by Vladimir Nabokov

Considered by most to be depraved and immoral, you are obsessed with
sex. What really tantalizes you is that which deviates from societal standards in every
way, though you admit that this probably isn't the best and you're not sure what causes
this desire. Nonetheless, you've done some pretty nefarious things in your life, and
probably gotten caught for them. The names have been changed, but the problems are real.
Please stay away from children.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

what book are you?

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

hmmmm......

all i want

I realize it's not exactly humble to ask for birthday presents from close friends and far away friends and blog friends and complete strangers, but that's what I'm going to do. Today is my birthday. I'm 41. And all I want are two things. Number one: what I have right this moment - a husband cooking spaghetti, two boys baking brownies, and a trip to see The Water Horse with my family later. Number two: what I hope to have after you read this - a photo of your bookshelf.

I first attempted to spell out my brainstorm here. And then I actually started up the blog here.

Now all it needs is you. Click on the link to find out the details. I can't wait. Thanks. And pass it on.

present for john, part 2

This is The Delusion, a 10-masted glow-in-the-dark ship that we actually DID get John for his birthday.


It's all part of their latest obsession. I love to watch and listen to them play, but have absolutely no desire to try and figure out the complicated rules and strategies. It definitely falls under the guy-geek-game category, which is fine by me. On Tuesday evenings, they pack up their ships and sail downtown to Compleat Games and Hobbies to play with all the other geeky gamer guys. I can see our life savings slowly widdling away as our house becomes overrun with pirate ships!

The Delusion in its non-glowing mode:

funny things you hear when you raise your kids without christianity

Grant, whispering in my ear during a flute concert at the Broadmoor Community Church: "Why is there an upside down sword on the wall?"
Bennett, while admiring the gingerbread village at the Broadmoor Hotel: "Why is there a letter t on top of that building?"

present for john

From the deck of the Bonhomme Richard, John Paul Jones shouted to the English captain of the Serapis, "I have not yet begun to fight."

If I could, I would get you the real one
or a replacement
it suits you
fight on

happy birthday, m'love!

on being chosen

As a young girl of about seven or eight, I loved browsing through the Illustrated Children’s Bible in the waiting room when I went to get my weekly allergy shot. One picture I remember vividly: a darkened room, a boy in his bed, and a glowing Jesus standing in the middle of the room, arms outstretched. The boy was peering out from under the covers at Jesus, slightly afraid, or perhaps in awe. I never bothered to read the story on the page opposite the illustration; all I knew was that I wanted Jesus to come into my room like that. I wouldn't be afraid. I would crawl into his welcoming arms and rest there awhile, knowing he came just for me. I had faith, but I needed proof. I didn’t know then that faith was what you had when you didn’t need any proof.

At night, I would wait for Jesus under my pink gingham sheets. I would whisper under the covers, “Jesus, if you are really real, you will come into my room this night.” (I tried hard not to sound demanding or desperate or doubtful, but it never worked). I prayed. I made deals. I begged. Night after night. He never showed. I was raised to believe in miracles: Lazarus, loaves and fishes, the meek inheriting the earth (ok, this one hasn't happened yet, but I believed, and still believe, it will). I fully expected one to happen to me. I'd like to say that this was where my doubt in religion began. I'd like to say I was one of those wise-beyond-her-years characters in a novel. But instead of doubting Jesus, I doubted my own power to make him show up. As if making Jesus appear in my bedroom at night were actually something I had any control over!

The conclusion I drew was a sad one: obviously, I was not good enough, not pure enough, not worthy enough, for Jesus to come into my room at night.

About this same time, I saw the movie Escape to Witch Mountain. That's it! I was to be chosen not by Jesus, but by Magic. I had abilities far superior than the average child! I was a witch! I just knew I could make those sturdy books fly across the room and into my hands with sheer willpower. And so I sat on the sofa and stared across the living room at our bookshelves. Day after day, I applied myself to my new task. I concentrated. I focused. I almost passed out. Sometimes I swear I saw a book jiggle a little, especially the ones on the top shelf, but nothing ever came of it. And my doubt in my own power grew. Because I still believed in Magic.

I wonder how many kids today lie awake at night on the eve of their 11th birthday, waiting expectantly for an owl to show up.

Next it was the extraterrestrials. Fed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET, my mind raced with the idea that aliens, surely, would see my desperate plight. During warm summer nights, my mother would let my brother and I sleep in the backyard under the stars. Staring up at the night sky, I waited for friendly aliens to come and carry me away to another, better place. I sent frantic, telepathic messages into the worlds beyond... Pick ME! Choose ME! I had no fear of them, just as I had no fear of a strange glowing man in my room at night. I knew they would come for me. I was special.

You know the ending.

Eventually, fundamentalist Christianity came along. Picture, if you will, a 13-year-old girl in the throes of puberty, lost in a spinning dance outdoors at the Jesus Northwest Festival. Somewhere in the middle of that crowded field, I met the holy spirit face-to-face (it was red, all red), fell on the grass, and, to this day, still don't know whether I laughed or wept. I hadn’t been chosen by Jesus or Magic or Aliens, but by God Himself! I’m still not exactly sure what happened to me that evening, but I do know that my body was aroused, my mind was open, the music was loud, and I felt, for the first time in my life, unconditional love.

I gave up on organized religion shortly thereafter, realizing hypocrisy at the ripe old age of 15 or so. At least I can say my foray into the born-again realm was short-lived. But the intensity of that evening has never left me. I have recreated it at other times in my life, with Dead shows or drugs or dancing or sex, but nothing has ever come close to that first time.

People who don’t understand evangelicals have never had this kind of experience, I would presume. They dismiss with disgust the swaying worshippers in New Life with their hypnotic music, hands in the air. I don’t laugh at them because I understand their desperate need to belong, to know someone loves them, to be chosen.

The thing about fundamentalists of all religions is that they KNOW they are chosen, and there is something powerful and soothing in that. And terribly, terribly frightening. If you believe you are chosen, you have all things instantly: faith, purpose, meaning, and all the right answers.

All this leads me to my own young children at this time of year, so willing to believe in Santa. Santa tells you that you are special... he reads YOUR letters, comes to YOUR house, knows just what YOU want. He feeds an ancient, holy, human need. For my older one, it is almost a desperate need. It seems as if he is clinging to his faith in Santa, even though he knows the truth already.

Younger: “I don't get it, I mean how do the reindeer actually FLY? And how does Santa get EVERYWHERE in one night with all those presents?"
Older: “Duh!.... MAGIC!” This one, he has all the answers. No questions asked. He believes fervently in dragons, ghosts, monsters, and magic. He believes all movies are real, no matter what we tell him to the contrary. He would believe in God so easily, if we just let him.

What I feel compelled to do now, more than anything, is to let people (my children, my students, random strangers on the street, my beloved few readers....) know that they are chosen. Maybe not for something great, but at least for something important. Something good, with meaning, that is ultimately larger than themselves. We cannot hope or pray or wish or will things into existence. We cannot make others come to us. We may have been abandoned, or we may just feel abandoned, but we can choose as well as be chosen. With this knowledge, comes power.

And what I know so deeply and painfully in my heart is this: If we don't let our kids know each and every fucking day of the year that we CHOSE them, that we love them NO MATTER WHAT, then SOMETHING ELSE WILL! It might be fundamentalist religion or a sexual predator or the wrong kid at the wrong time or shopping or addiction. Because to feel powerless and unloved in this world will make you a victim.

“Pick ME! Choose ME! Love ME!” Meredith pleads, begs, wails to McDreamy somewhere during the second (or third?) season of Grey’s Anatomy. Because it sucks not to be the chosen one.