Zora Travels

Bubbling Characters

I had this vibrant image this morning as I wheeled my teacher cart down the sidewalk, bumping over cracks and dancing around sloshy mud puddles.  I imagined that I was a novelist, with words flowing from my fingertips.  The words bubbled on the page.  I had imbibed such life and luscious detail into the characters, that they took physical shape.  Pealing from the pages...moving into the room with breath and body.  My characters entered my life.  I smiled as we met.

Now, this fanciful walk was surely inspired by the gritty base tones of Toni Morrison, whose voice had filled my car yesterday evening as I drove home in a miserable clusterf--k of traffic.  She was reading from her new novel out next month, A Misery.  I ached to read about Florence and the Dutch trader who purchases her.  Toni scraped my soul in college.  She singed characters into my memory, most of whom have now joined hands with others from Jhumpa, Arundhati, Rohinton, Alice and Zora.  I can isolate a few of her moments of poignant humanity...which for my mind, is a total victory of literary genius.  Tiny babies slain before slave masters arrive, an old man jumping from a roof, a little girl playing with her blue-eyed doll.

Daniel struggles lately to unravel himself in his personal essays for grad. school applications.  I told him to simply "be natural" and to "write without trying to hard."  Yet, do I not sit here with my little blog and labor over each sentence?  Taking what starts as an energy-soaked kernel and overwatering or sunning it into a faltering sprout.

I laughed aloud last night as I curled on the couch, sipped warm Gewurztraminer with ice-cubes, and watched Smart People.  How does a writer pluck such succulent morsels of our common experience and portray them so artfully?  The cantankerous professor, the miserable Young Republican daughter, the poetic biting son.  It was a wonderful film that left my mind spinning with ideas of both how to raise a child that is equally brilliant with words (as the daughter is in the film) but also fluid within relationships.  A child that relishes the tickle of the SAT without scratching it raw.

Our eventual parenthood is often a topic of discussion.  It seems to creep into our thoughts after any time spent with the beloved children in our lives.  On Sunday, I slid, sang and smiled with my nephews in San Diego.  Trevor, a brown-eyed dynamo and Caiden, his mellow blue-eyed brother.  How can two siblings be so different?  Personalities that squish out from their very first faces and continue to spread wings that don't resembe one another.  Heather, their mother and my step-sister, had this book on "strong-willed children" and I found it riveting.  As her and my mother diced onions and carrots for the turkey soup, I soaked in passages that were completely opposite of every pedagogical article and text I've read of late.  "Be firm, do not offer options, do not praise proper behavior, enforce the rules, never back down, always battle in cases of disrespect and defiance."  I wondered how this would work in my classroom.  I wondered how this would work with some of the children I know...with the ones I may one day have.  Will I be as tough as I think?  Will I have children that don't interrupt, show respect as they enter and exit a room, use inside voices, and follow the rules?  Will they fear me?  Will I fear them?  Will they look back on their childhoods and be happy I was their mother?

Those are a lot of questions for someone with a bare finger and a pill popped religiously at 8pm.

A weekend which started with touching airy moon jellyfish in the bay, ended with kissing a monkey and an ultimate fighter.  Halloween with all of its candy, chocolate, candled pumpkins, and costumes will soon be here.  My mouth waters with the prospects of all the "borrowed" candy I'll pilfer from pillowcases and bowls.  Mara's children, lacking the raging sugar tooth of most youth, are always such easy and sweet victims.

My October wheel....eject, eject!

October is a long month in the land of teaching.  It is a month parched of relaxation and calm, prickled with countless lessons, grading, and mid-terms.  Since mid-August, teachers have been in "the zone," thus, as October comes to an end, it marks 10 weeks of an almost constant whir in our minds, students occupying our thoughts, lesson creation and essays spilling onto our laps in the evening, parent emails questioning our judgment, painful meetings of pedagogical theory, weekends layered with homework and grades to input.  Most years, I would have taken at least one delicious personal day.  A day to soak in the bright sun of fall, enjoy a hot coffee while mulling over the paper...but this year, I have no personal days.  I am the sub.

So, I find myself eating my way to the end of this brutal stretch.  I explained it to Daniel last night and his face looked so truly perplexed.  It's like a gigantic wheel that I climb onto; I strap in and it takes quite a jolt to eject me.  I am eating, guilting, weighing, eating, guilting, weighing...over and over and over again.  This is a cycle I know.  It is what has comforted me since the first time in childhood when things dramatically changed.  A mother always home, open and available for conversation, walks outside, countless recipes unfolding inside, reading stories at bedtime--- suddenly disappears for what seemed like years (head buried in nursing books, bone naming flashcards, and late-night study sessions). Leaving behind a bitter father who warmed up tv dinners; the loneliness crowded out by fried chicken and the isolation sweetened by apple pie mush in the tin corner.

My immediate reaction to the potential of change has always been food...when I start to vex about finances, moving, storage, living with my Mom again, going on our travel/linguistic adventure, going off to D's grad school of choice, leaving my family and friends, finding a new job, do I still want to teach?...I eat.

I recognize that I'm on that wheel again.  I thrust out my hand out and feel the wind press me back.  Seeing the wheel, knowing I'm in the midst of the cycle is important.  Now, can I just find the eject button?

tick, tick, tick...

My friend Beth showed up at work the other day.  It was lunch; all of us teachers huddled around our tupperware, heating, stirring, and scarfing our food down during our scant student-free freedom.  Then enters Beth.  Radiant face, curly black hair, svelte outfit, marvelous earrings (her jewelery collection is the most inspiring I know), and a megawatt smile.  And wrapped to her chest with a bald sweet head, chubby cheeks, and a toothless grin was Sierra.  Beth didn't need to tell us that staying at home to care for her daughter was amazing; it oozed from her.  Similar to Kaitie, the other work friend who is at home with baby Owen, they both exude such peace with their munchkins.

Both mothers confirm something that I've always suspected.  Staying at home to hold, carry, and observe your baby...not just in the mornings and at night...but all day, is an incredibly rewarding job.  I hope that Daniel and I can truly swing our plan of me being at home.  I hope that my mind doesn't scramble for adult conversation, work stimulation, and daily time away from the baby.  And if it does, I hope I can smile about these moments; as Beth does, and realize it comes with the territory of also being the one that gets to catch every utterance that slips closer and closer towards a bonified "Mama" and every scoot that inches towards a crawl.

I came home on Monday and asked Daniel if we could get married in January and get pregnant while in  South America.  His face puckered slightly and I knew that pushing up the phantom date was undoable...his economics thesis being our main culprit.  I hate to say this; it is beyond cliche, but I have a clock that ticks.  A clock that clamors loudly with my aching heart to have a baby.  Perhaps I am so often dipped into the honey of friend's pregnancies, births, and children, that I myself am now sticky.  But this is my reality; a sense of urgency and desire that I consistently stifle and ignore...but I know there's logic to having a plan.  There are timelines that make more sense and moments that will indeed come.  I'll be patient and just gently keep rocking to the steady pulse inside my mind.

Cheers!

It's not often that I enjoy cocktails during the week.  And not just one, mind you, but four...in the afternoon....on a Wednesday.  Sara had orchestrated a wee bit o' drinking at Tantalum in Long Beach.  This restaurant, although you are slightly aware they are trying, pulls off the Asian-fusion look with overt style.  Perched on the corner of two canals; luxury yachts anchor both sides; a striking sun bathed in red streaks, sets behind a miniature Indonesian fishing boat at the bar; and you nestle up to a table bedecked with bamboo candle holders and twig-like silverware.  Dark colors, accented with splashes of vibrant color, swirl within the tapestries, chairs, and food.  But best of all, tropical flowers float atop organic pear martinis and palm fronds dance out of hurricane glasses of sweet acai liquor cocktails. 

I felt very loved on my birthday.  I suppose I've never had an "unloved" birthday; but this one, cast in the middle of a ho-hum work week, was slated to be a "delayed" celebration-type day.  Instead, from my morning desk adorned with an orchid and bottle of wine, to the afternoon cocktails and gold-flecked cake, and finally to decadent cupcakes and ice-cream enjoyed at Mara's, I went to bed smiling and tipsy.  A sugar-induced coma and Daniel's kiss sent me to dream land within seconds.

The montage below has some snazzy photos of the fun day!

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33 today

I'm 33 today.  Officially in my "mid-thirties."  I'm wearing a furry pink robe, sniffling from Santa Ana wind allergies, and listening to the wall clock above the wine rack steadily tick.  My father made me this card.  He actually rifled through boxes of old slides, had them developed, cut the images out, glued them down and then drove all around the Wenatchee Valley getting the signatures of my family.  When you open it, it plays a LOUD blues song.  I love imagining my father driving from house to house with my birthday card on the front seat or hunched over photographs, snipping away my brother's genitalia and replacing it with a star sticker. 

I hear a motorcycle wine up 4th street as my bloodshot eyes focus on the screen.  Last night, I was enthralled by the Obama/McCain Frontline episode.  As the time line of their dual lives unfolded,  I remembered back in 2000 when I respected McCain for his "mavericky" ways and for a brief moment forgot that he has chosen such an unqualified VP.

This election makes me nervous.  I want Obama to win.  I have these strong visions of seeing his family on the White House lawn on Easter Sunday, children scrambling between the shrubs for hidden eggs; their daughters in velvet dresses in front of the Christmas Tree; Barack saving the turkey on Thanksgiving and standing in front of wreaths on Memorial Day.  Foreign dignitaries embracing the Obamas on the porch of Camp David.  I realize that these visions don't touch on the issues.  And the issues are important to me; however, there is something about my own future as a mother of children with caramel skin that caused tears to flow when I watched Michelle speak and then be joined on stage by her daughters at the convention. 

I drink in the paper each day while on the elliptical trainer at the gym.  The economic articles intimidate me but I'm flowing at this point with "liquidity," "paper market," and "leveraging."  I think I lose some concentration on the text whilst juggling the weights, the handles, the ipod, the water bottle...but it is my retreat into current affairs each day.  A chunk of time that I crave.

Well, my day holds coffee, gym, half-day of work, lunch with friends, cocktails with friends (+Daniel), and finally Sara's cake at Mara's house.  I have cards and songs and photo albums for which I'm grateful...and incoming calls that will surely make me smile.

Eat less & move more....yeah, yeah

The weather has changed the last few days.  The down comforter drenched in faux green suede, (mistake purchase) that had been folded in the corner for months, has found its way spread across the bed once again.  Slippers lie open with gaping mouths and a furry pink robe is necessary for even a simple traipse down the hall.  I wish I could proclaim my inner-soup-maven has come out and suddenly crocks bubble with butternut squash, chicken noodle, or cream of potato soup...but, alas, I did buy a carton of squash soup from Trader Joes.  I am quite certain that within a week I'll have a hankering for a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of this boxed soup.

Speaking of hankerings, I've had many of late.  This has led to an additional seven pounds of plumpness. I feel it in my waist bands, as I lumber onto the machines at the gym, as I struggle to touch my toes.  I suppose I'll have to revamp that whole "writing things down" plan that worked so well for me before.  I can only imagine if the prelude to the holidays has me up by this much...how much the actual birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's blitzkrieg would bring if left unchecked.  So, I'm going to go and grab my WW writing journal....right now.

Okay, okay.  The journal is in hand.  Marked lovingly with my favorite inspirational catch phrases and a polite 179.6 scrawled at the top.  It is week #1 of getting back on track.  Not eating just because I'm tired, burned out, thinking: "when do we move?, what's in the garage?, how's the budget?, will I ever get PAID?, where are we going exactly?, will we learn Spanish?"... but because I need the sustenance and I am accounting for it in my journal.  It is a sickeningly simplistic formula.  Put less in your mouth and move your body around.  I know that this Wednesday I'll indulge....and probably Friday and Saturday, too; however, there are 18 meals between now and Sunday night, 4 of them will be splurgy and 14 of them can be balanced and light.

Oh, it was ever so nice eating Turkish pizzas in the morning and quesadillas every afternoon for a snack.  I am often under the impression that if Daniel doesn't see me eat it...it's like it never happened.  I love that theory!  Oh, how I broke off chunks of Sara's pumpkin bread yesterday and enjoyed Alyce's chocolate chip almond cookies last week with reckless abandon.  But I need to rally like the stocks on Wall Street, invest in myself, and recognize that I always feel better when my clothes aren't squeezing my internal organs.

Watching Claire

Claire flew in from Chicago this weekend...bringing with her a dazzling smile, a longing for Southern California, and one handsome husband.  The Boose's came to frolic with all their West Coast fans.  Those of us who would have been bridesmaids, fingered her dress, helped her bustle, spread out her veil, and watched the wedding DVD (numerous delicious times).  I felt that a little of the momentous day was recreated and I loved seeing the two of them emerge from Lien's mini in Santa Monica.

 

 

 

Watching Claire miss Los Angeles, the sunshine, the canals of Venice (shown here), the streets and shops...made me realize just how much I may soon be in that same position.  Missing the bright consistent warmth of Southern California while wandering the fog-laden hills of San Francisco or traversing a snow-covered intersection in Ann Arbor.  There are other cities tucked into our possibilities; however, these are the top two. 

3.5 months from now, I'll be walking along a beach in Costa Rica, having just finished a day on the organic farm, ready for a splash in the ocean before a fish dinner washed down with rum.  Life will be in a state of tropical relaxation for five months as we salsa dance through Central and South America.  3 weeks from now, I stop being a full-time teacher.  I want to soak in a daily yoga bath, take long walks, drink my coffee really slow while reading the paper, and enjoy the ocean breeze.

So many changes are coming.  So many adventures, sorting, packing, cleaning, moving, and deciding lie on the horizon. 

Seven minutes

Living for the present moment, not dwelling in the past and planning for the future.  These ideas are integral components of mindfulness...the type of thinking that takes root in the mind with practice, focus, and meditation.  Some mornings, like this one, I squeeze in seven minutes of focus (that's how long my meditation song is on youtube)...and even though it's just seven minutes, I find my mind racing into various topics, as the bells chime and the music ebbs and flows.

Today's mind ticklers:

1.  I can't wait to see Claire tonight.

2.  When will Daniel ever be done with his grad. school apps and thesis?

3.  I hope I get paid on Friday.

4.  Why did I eat those gorgonzola cheese fries and buffalo wings washed down with beer?

5.  Do I really have to teach that book I loath because Kaitie is extending her leave?

6.  We have a mountain of dishes in the sink again. 

7.  Are Claire and Greg going to want to come by our house on Friday, if so, I have to clean Friday morning before work?

8.  Why do we always say we're going to plan a romantic vacation, take a walk, make a plan for a special outing, and rarely do it anymore?  Are we that busy?

9.  Are we really going to move in with my mother around the holidays?  At the age of 33.  Sleeping in my mother's guest room....not quite my life plan, but I'm grateful.

10.  Is Obama going to pull this off?

Anti-balls

It's always exciting to be invited to a ball.  You get dressed up, sip wine, and socialize with other teachers who have also lost the frantic scurrying "bell's about to ring" look.  So, when our school district invited us to this year's ball at the bargain price of $300 per ticket, I chuckled and thought, "Hmmmm.... they must really hate teachers."  Which is unfortunate, since they rely so heavily upon our work. 

Weeks pass, not a single colleague claims to be attending the grand ball.  Is it possible that the $600 pricetag for us and our loved one is a bit much....during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, for three hours on a Monday night, with 200+ teenagers awaiting us the next morning?

"Special Invitation: ONLY $100 per ticket" read the second email.  Still a bit pricey but at least they're moving in the right direction.  Interesting that all the well-paid downtown bureaucrats are going for FREE.  (Meanwhile being a lowly sub, I've not been paid for six weeks.....yup, not since August!!!)

So, when your school district has turned into everything you thought you'd left behind... you have brilliant co-workers who plan an "Anti-ball."  A catered affair with an open bar, a light spirit, and all of the colleagues you wish to see after work (and even some of the ones you don't; however, you've been drinking and they've been drinking and you can see the red wine stains on their teeth and it makes you smile because you're drinking white wine and thus, have no stains...and then you play Taboo and they're not so bad after all).

  I wish I felt confident that at my next place of employment I would find the caliber of educators and friends that I have now.  Every day at lunch as we all rotate through the microwave, fridge, and doors...I am grateful for this brilliant group of women.  They have listened to my blather for years...they wait in nearly as much anticipation for "the question," they plan lovely birthday cocktails next week, and they always inspire me to be a better teacher.  Daniela brings spicy gourmet dishes, Sara enjoys gigantic tomatoes and bakes delectable treats, Alyce and I trade similar Trader Joe frozen tid bits, and Lorraine (not shown in the picture) shows solidarity with the uber-carb school lunch.

I know that next school year, I'll look at my mini-fridge, perhaps shared with no one, and long for our lunches again. 

P.s.  "Special Invitation: 30 FREE Tickets for the Ball" read the last email from downtown.  Bummer for the few teachers who actually bought tickets...and just think, they didn't even get to play Taboo.

Capsizing & chocolate dipping

On Saturday, I attended my first baby shower with dj's.  Thick pulsating reggae, hip-hop, soul, and funk shook the naked and faded blue wood floors at Mara's house.  Ginny's friends had come to celebrate the November arrival of her son.  This autumnal boy shall soon frolic in a vibrant home filled with carved Guinean statues, turn tables, crates of old records, and a cat named Bunny. 

So how does one throw a baby shower for a momma-to-be who's a reggae dj and a dancer?  Well, first, you pile gifts into Ethiopian-hued bags; red, yellow, and green tissue paper gush between binkies, towels, and tiny onesies.  Then, you invite people of both genders and all ages, to sip sangria and Red Stripe from green cups.  Filipino flan, lumpia, rice, and salmon jockey for position amidst pita chips, hummus, salad, and fruit.

And of course....you have a chocolate fountain.  I was thrilled for the second time in my life to put my fountain to use.  This little number was on super-sale just in time for my 30th birthday...and got pulled from the darkness of our garage for this occasion.  Skewers of dried fruit, marshmallows, creme puffs, and bananas bathed in creamy dark chocolate streams.  It was a big hit with both young and old.  I felt it my obligation to dip everything in...for quality assurance purposes.  Daniel seemed doubtful of my need for such thorough testing and somehow, at his every turn, I was forever wiping cocoa from the corner of my lips.

This celebration came on the heels of a morning spent in the bay kayaking.  We are taking a two week class and in the midst of our premier paddle through the serene canals of Naples, I challenged Daniel to a race.  We dug in and paddled wildly towards the next bridge...passing pirates, duffy boats, and luxurious homes.  A few feet away from certain defeat, I dug deeply on the right; I felt the kayak twist into the water...and spilled right out into the foulness.  Now, it's key to mention that this water is gnarly.  Boat bilge, suspicious foam bubbles, floating masses, and strong odors hover in the canal water.  Yet, there I was, dumped out, kayak filled with water, chapstick floating towards a dock.  I remembered my training from several years ago and managed to scamper back into my kayak after a few tries.

Slightly embarrassed and really wet, I paddled for another hour.  Enjoying the serenity of slicing a feathered paddle into the water, cutting along the surface with a smooth sun glistening overhead.  It was a beautiful morning filled with laughter, surprises, and a well-deserved hot shower upon returning home.

On Sunday, I found myself focusing on mindfulness and breathing in another of Sasha's yoga/meditation workshops.  Mara had gifted me a lovely afternoon of peace and reflection for my upcoming birthday.

And so it is....I slid into my week.  A week that holds anti-balls, Daniel's flight to visit Berkeley, dinners with Claire's girls, wedding celebrations for the Boose's, and perhaps a Rolling Stone documentary viewing at my mom's.

***Below is a photo montage from Ginny's baby shower.

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