walking where I (don't) belong

My Wednesday walk takes me past all the old New England families that turned this town from woods and fields to fields and farms. Fletcher, Kimball, Prescott, Ward, they all lie here, in Fairview Cemetery, their monuments erected to keep their names alive.

I like this cemetery. It has great little hills, a manageable challenge that makes me feel as if I am truly working out. And the repetition of names is comforting and quirky. So many families named their daughters Lila in this town. Beside our old labradoodle, I don’t know anyone with that name now, but it was the Ashley or Jessica of its time around here. But then there’s this guy called Ivan that makes you think, “Wait, what? Where did he come from?”

But I also don’t like this cemetery. When I first started writing today, I was going to say that I feel comfortable here, like I belong and lately I don’t feel like I belong in this town at all. But, I don’t belong even here. When I visit my parents in the Lowell Cemetery, there is always someone around walking a dog, taking a jog. I used to bring my own daughters here to collect colorful leaves and hunt for acorns still wearing their hats in fall. We visited in spring to see if they had released the lion from his acid snow protective box yet and to add our own dandelions to his bouquet. Even before my parents were buried there, when it was just my estranged brother’s grave that I would walk the girls past with stories of his mistakes, and long before that when I would wander through just because it was beautiful, I knew I belonged in this cemetery. And so did everyone else. But here, in Fairview, in the town where I live now, which is not a city, which is not Lowell, even here I feel out of place. I hate to see a car pull in and brace myself to be told that it is inappropriate to walk for exercise through a cemetery. I don’t know why I feel like I’ll get this response except that in all the times I have walked through here I have never seen anyone else do the same, not so much as cut through with a dog on a leash. The closest I came was running into a few students one day who had been assigned to locate certain information for a history class. (To confirm the suburban stereotype, I ran into just as many parents as students.)

This is a lovely spot, green and well-treed, that calls out to be walked through. And so on Wednesdays, when I drop my daughter off for her horseback riding lesson across the street (yes I know, more suburban stereotype) I spend a half hour reading off the names as I walk past granite monuments to a rural past and sweat up the hills and limp back down. I imagine that one of those Lila’s had the same feeling of displacement here and longed to work in a mill in Lowell and join the girls at their Thursday night lectures dreaming of the excitement of a factory strike. I hope she made it and got to tell her grandchildren that she heard Emerson speak and attended a labor meeting with immigrant women from Lawrence. And I’ll tell my grandchildren that once I didn’t live in Lowell, that the dead of the other place welcomed me but the living had their doubts. More to the truth that I was the only one with doubts, I know, but it’s my story and I’ll likely be telling it as I walk my grandchildren through the Lowell cemetery, making a bouquet of orange leaves to place in the paws of the old stone lion before he’s put into protective custody for the winter. And I won’t care who drives by.

Not my brother - the people you meet

My brother just walked into the cafe. No, not really. My brother has been dead for over 20 years. It's just the kind of guy that reminds me of my brother. I see him all the time.

He looks unnaturally skinny but with a small paunch hanging over his belt. Unhealthy looking. It's a fairly warm day but he wears a long-sleeved button up shirt. Maybe it's unfair, but I assume he is wearing the shirt to cover the track marks on his arm rather than because he felt chilled when he got dressed. Maybe it's both. His black canvas bag looks designed to hold a laptop, which my brother never had. But I imagine, were he alive, my brother would have, like this guy, adopted headphones and smartphone as a way to block out the world.

People behind the counter know the guy, at least enough to greet him by name. He's quiet though, a word no one ever used to describe my brother. My brother's voice carried, whether it was appropriate to be loud or not. This guy seems like he's better able to regulate his voice. He can't stop his leg from bouncing, though, and his hand shakes as he raises the sandwich to his mouth. It's a Friday afternoon and he's not at work. Of course, neither am I, neither are most of the people here. But since this guy is my brother I imagine he doesn't have a regular job to go to.

The book I saw sticking out of his back jeans pocket turns out to be a thin black and white composition book, folded in half so it will fit. Yeah, my brother would do something like that, get a free left-over book from some organization and use it to death. I don't think my brother ever wrote. Maybe he did and his words were lost to the trash when he wasn't around to advocate for their preservation. I know he was a reader. This guy is reading the newspaper, left behind by another customer. Free. I bet he has a beaten up paperback in that black bag.

I'd probably enjoy a 15 minute conversation with this guy, get his take on Game of Thrones or Mr. Robot, then never see him again.

I like his face.

He reminds me of my brother.

Not my brother - the people you meet

My brother just walked into the cafe. No, not really. My brother has been dead for over 20 years. It's just the kind of guy that reminds me of my brother. I see him all the time.

He looks unnaturally skinny but with a small paunch hanging over his belt. Unhealthy looking. It's a fairly warm day but he wears a long-sleeved button up shirt. Maybe it's unfair, but I assume he is wearing the shirt to cover the track marks on his arm rather than because he felt chilled when he got dressed. Maybe it's both. His black canvas bag looks designed to hold a laptop, which my brother never had. But I imagine, were he alive, my brother would have, like this guy, adopted headphones and smartphone as a way to block out the world.

People behind the counter know the guy, at least enough to greet him by name. He's quiet though, a word no one ever used to describe my brother. My brother's voice carried, whether it was appropriate to be loud or not. This guy seems like he's better able to regulate his voice. He can't stop his leg from bouncing, though, and his hand shakes as he raises the sandwich to his mouth. It's a Friday afternoon and he's not at work. Of course, neither am I, neither are most of the people here. But since this guy is my brother I imagine he doesn't have a regular job to go to.

The book I saw sticking out of his back jeans pocket turns out to be a thin black and white composition book, folded in half so it will fit. Yeah, my brother would do something like that, get a free left-over book from some organization and use it to death. I don't think my brother ever wrote. Maybe he did and his words were lost to the trash when he wasn't around to advocate for their preservation. I know he was a reader. This guy is reading the newspaper, left behind by another customer. Free. I bet he has a beaten up paperback in that black bag.

I'd probably enjoy a 15 minute conversation with this guy, get his take on Game of Thrones or Mr. Robot, then never see him again.

I like his face.

He reminds me of my brother.

writing bravery

My birthday is a few days away and I have decided to give myself a present. I have decided to write. I was going to say that I would give myself the time to write, that I would take the time from my busy day, stealing it away from my family and other responsibilities but the truth is I have always had the time to write. If I said to my husband and the girls that I was going to take a few hours to sit at the computer to write and please don’t bother me they would say “great!” and my sweetheart would probably quietly refill my coffee cup with only a briefly distracting kiss on the neck. If I got up an hour early every morning, or took an hour after dinner every night or otherwise scheduled daily writing time, they would be on board, enthusiastically on board. So, I don’t have to give myself the gift of time; my family would give that gift happily. What I need to gift to myself is bravery. 

Writing scares me silly. I doubt my abilities, doubt the value of my voice. I worry what people close to me will think, even those generous and loving supporters who would rally behind my efforts. Will I be discovered to be a faux intellectual fraud? Will my version of events be challenged, or cause pain? Will I disappoint myself when, after three days I no longer have anything to say?

I’ve been back on track with daily writing for about a month now, after a long silence. When I look back on the difficulties I had this year I think there has to be a connection between my struggle to understand and deal with the complexities of life around me and my lack of writing. Writing is thinking for me. And that in itself makes it scary to share. Writing is thinking, processing, coming to an understanding. There is value in sharing this process. But sharing also inspires me to polish it up, to make my thinking clear to other than my own cluttered brain. In my job, as in most, clear communication is crucial (alliteration just plain fun). Giving myself the gift of writing, and sharing my writing, will help me in the process of becoming a better teacher and choosing the path to follow. 

But its much more personal than that. Writing is a spiritual process, and here is a statement that requires lots of that bravery I mentioned so I hope my birthday gift arrives on time. Writing is spiritual. I have long been reluctant to talk about my spiritual journey with anyone, have barely recognized the existence of a journey. It's a topic that makes me feel like a new-age poser even though I admire several writers who took the time to tell about their own journeys, and gained so much from their sharing. Spirituality is deeply tied to my thoughts on writing.

I grew up Catholic and we went to church every Sunday and “day of obligation.” I attended Catholic School through 8^th grade and in high school, as a sort of self-imposed penance for some missteps, I taught Sunday School to young kids. My family was “openly religious” but we didn’t really talk about spirituality. There were a few religion classes at school, especially with Sister Roberta who had me thinking about becoming a nun in 7^th grade, where we talked about the joy and mystery faith but for the most part it was all about obligation. I’ve struggled with finding my spiritual path as an adult. I’ve attended a few Sunday ceremonies at different churches and have been drawn in by some of the ritual there. I was incredibly moved by my mother’s funeral mass, filled with familiar prayers and songs, but when I attended my father’s anniversary mass, a regular Sunday with intentions for his soul, I was angry by the time I left at all the changes which felt like change for change sake because frankly I hadn’t been a part of the church or the conversation around making them. That mass was a betrayal to my memory but more importantly it separated me from the spiritual comfort of mass at a time when I thought a move back to church might become part of my haphazard spiritual journey.

Wait. This is not how I envisioned this post about giving myself the gift of writing courageously.

What I really want to say, to myself since I am my only guaranteed reader but here in public so I can feel as if I’ve made a commitment, is that I am going to write. I am going to write at the risk of becoming a disappointment, of being disappointed. I am going to take the time to be brave.

Happy Birthday to me.

end of the year motivation

The 1 1/2 week break from school, and all the hype around the New Year often inspire me to do a lot of writing and work on projects I have only thought about in the past few months. 
This morning I spent an hour in Panera watching my daughter struggle through a section of her fiction she didn't quite know how to write. She interrupted her sister and I at our reading to pose questions and lay out possible scenarios and then pounded out her ideas in that one-handed way of hers. A frown of concentration and dissatisfaction never quite left her face. 
My own hands itched to type.
That itch felt good. I had left my laptop at home since it has been a long time (a really long time) since I had written so much as a journal entry. I have restricted my writing to lessons and report card comments and email, so focused on the work of teaching 4th grade that I neglected the work of me. 
So, that divine combination of break time and New Year's Resolutions means scratch the itch. And maybe even schedule in some writing time for the next few months so I don't forget that I want to be a writer when I grow up.

Happy Thanksgiving

My mother’s spirit woke me at 5:00 on this Thanksgiving morning reminding me to put the turkey in the oven. It’s just a 5 ½ pound turkey breast that we’re cooking for sandwiches later, not the 30 pounder she would put in her oven the night before, but still she knew I should get it in there before the bustle of the day. Our tradition includes getting the girls to school to prepare for the game, spending some time in the stands to watch the half-time show, then rushing over to the lake to have dinner with the Andersons. Later, we’ll be back at our house to host some Lamarres for soup and sandwiches and dessert. And, because of my mother’s thoughtful spirit, I am up recharging in the quiet of my house, the turkey in the oven my coffee hot in my mug, being alone the way I need to be before a crowded day.

I am thankful.

scenes from a birthday

My baby turned 15 today. She is both excited to reach this milestone, and frightened by what it implies. Growing up isn’t easy and it can stress teenagers out to think about fast-approaching adulthood. So, when asked how she wanted to spend her day, she fell back on some old standbys – out for lunch and sitting in the bookstore for as long as we can. It’s a ritual that brings us back to when they were little and I could spend the day with them all the time. Still, here in the truth of the day, teenager interests were ever-present. We shopped for fun clothes and new bras, the girls checked out all the cool stuff at Newbury Comics, and she is now listening to pop music while reading fan fiction on her phone.

It was great to be able to skip school together today and enjoy her day, doing all the little girl and teenage things she wanted to do.

Of course, this is how I still think of her . . .