Bogey

It is with great sorrow and regret that I must report, Bogey the beta fish has passed away. Nearly three years ago, my husband brought home two betas, one for each of our boys, and reviewed the basics--feed them three to five pellets of food once a day, change their water every seven to ten days, and they should live about six months to a year. I was on board because the two chores related to Bogey and Birdie were not mine. When Birdie passed away a year and a half later, my son was upset his little brother still had a fish, and he did not. Thankfully, Josh piped up and suggested he and Nate could now share Bogey. A few weeks later, my husband passed the task of cleaning Bogey's bowl to me, and for the past year and half I have cursed that stupid fish, threatened that stupid fish, and changed that stupid fish's water on a weekly basis. In the early fall, I noticed Bogey had a white spot on his back and a quick Google search revealed he had "Cotton Wool Disease"--common, treatable, and not necessarily fatal. Seeing as Bogey was living on borrowed time; he was an overachiever who had nearly tripled his life expectancy, we opted for no treatment. I felt it was the compassionate thing to do. Numerous visitors leaned against our kitchen counter, peered into the bowl, and suggested Bogey was dead as he lolled on his side near the surface, but a quick flick of my finger against the acrylic bowl sent him skittering about his tank-- no such luck. Knowing and hoping his demise was around the corner, we began to prepare the boys for his passing. "Bogey's not looking so good boys." "Do you know how old Bogey would be if he were a dog?" "Do you know how old Bogey would be if he were a human?!"

Early Saturday morning, I made some coffee and graded some assignments while the house was still quiet. The boys came down about an hour later and commenced their morning routine of playing on their Ipads. As I went to put Nate's breakfast in the toaster, I didn't see Bogey lolling on his side near the surface. My eyes dropped to find Bogey at the bottom of the bowl. My first thought was how excited my husband was going to be by this news. My second thought was how excited I was to clean that stupid fish bowl for the last time. And then I thought about how I would tell the boys, and then I wasn't so excited..

My boys have been insulated from death. By the time I was Josh's age, I had already attended numerous funerals and viewings with my parents who both hail from families replete with great aunts and uncles, first cousins and second cousins twice removed. My self-employed plumber father routinely still pays his respects for recently deceased customer's relatives, and having been a member of an age-diverse congregation during my childhood, I had seen elderly members succumb to illness and old age. Growing up in a tight knit, devout religious organization that routinely discussed death, I don't ever remember fearing it. I was frequently reassured by a promised resurrection at "the end of days" in sermons and at weekly Bible Studies. In my early twenties, when I left my faith behind, I abandoned most of my beliefs. And death just became the opposite of life-- like up is to down, light is to dark, near is to far. No concerns about an eternal reward nor an eternal punishment.

As of right now, we have made the decision not to take our children to church. The few times I have gone to church since leaving behind my faith, I find myself squirming in my seat. In our house, our "religion" is following the Golden Rule and doing good because it feels good. On the rare occasions, when one of our boys is physically hurt by the other and sobs about the injustice of being punched, the suggestion of an "eye for an eye" or more accurately a punch in the belly is met with giggles by the offended. Even at six and eight, they recognize the absurdity of cruel retribution.Our purpose in life seems solid. But what about death?

A few days before Christmas our friend, who my husband started his teaching career with nearly two decades ago, lost her mother. While my husband and I typically take turns representing each other on such occasions, we realized we both needed to go; we both wanted to go. I made arrangements for our boys to play with their buddies. As we drove the boys to their playdate, Josh, who knows our friend's daughters, asked, "Why did their grandma die?" 

"She was very old and very sick." 

Josh's voice filled with panic. "Am I going to die? I don't want to die. Mommy, I don't want you to die. Are you going to die?"

I quickly began to make promises I knew I couldn't necessarily keep--something I try not to do as a parent-- but I reassured Josh, "Mommy and Daddy are going to live a very, very long time. And so are you."

Josh pondered and then asked, "Well, what's going to happen to their grandma? Her body and all?"

I quickly ruled out talking about a coffin being buried in the ground--terrifying to a six-year-old. Cremation--equally terrifying. And so I said, "Well, Josh, some people believe the soul of a person, the part inside you that makes you who you are, goes to heaven." We talked a little bit about what heaven might be like, and Josh was tentatively reassured at the notion of heaven being a lot like earth. My girlfriend, who was watching our boys, lives only about a mile away, but we covered a lot of ground in roughly eight and a half minutes. For me, the idea of heaven, at least in terms of a place where a person's soul floats around making polite conversation with other souls while looking down as friends and family make foolish, disastrous choices without me being able to give my expert opinion does not sound "heavenly." But I appreciate the comfort found in believing in such a place, especially to a six-year-old.

In literature and life, I love looking at juxtapositions. When you place two objects, two ideas opposite to one another side by side. The longer you stare at them, study them, you slowly begin to see they aren't in opposition but rather connected. The black initially contrasts with the white--they are, after all, opposites. But then again the white isn't really white; it's actually a light shade of gray. For years, I have merely dismissed death as being the opposite of life. But now that I've stared at these two opposites for a long time, their meanings have mingled creating a new belief and maybe a new faith.

When I was sixteen, I traveled to England and France and toured many old cathedrals and churches. The tour guides always noted how the architecture draws one's eye up towards the sky, so one thinks of heaven. In the 1890s, William James, an American psychologist and philosopher, first wrote about his observations regarding eye movement in relation to memory. Depending on the location of the memory one is trying to access, one's tendency is to look up. Maybe for all those centuries those people sitting in church weren't so much looking up at heaven as they were perhaps thinking about, remembering, recalling those who were no longer physically present but not necessarily gone.

Last year, at a family birthday party, I had a conversation with my younger cousin. Separated by thirteen years, our shared memories are few. As we sat chatting, we started talking about our great aunt. As a little girl, I remember laying side by side with my great aunt on her living room floor coloring in a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book. I remember her laughing as I scrambled to put all the pieces of Perfection in the game board before it popped. And I remember the second drawer in her lower kitchen cabinet where I would find my favorite Keebler French Vanilla cookies. And after my conversation with my cousin, years after my great aunt's death, I know I'm not the only one who looks up to conjure the memories of my great aunt's kindness, her goodness and her warmth.

After I told the boys Bogey had passed away, my Josh asked with sparkling eyes and a husky voice, "Does it hurt when you die?" I reassured him Bogey wasn't in pain. He was just kind of sleeping. "Is Bogey in fish heaven?" I responded with my own question about what Bogey could possibly do in fish heaven. I've found when I ask the right question, my boys usually find the answer they want--the answer they need in the moment. Josh suggested swimming with other fishies, which we both agreed sounded like a lot of fun, and that was the end of the conversation. I packed Bogey's bowl away in the basement and feel my boys have already forgotten about him. They've moved on-- left him behind. And that's okay. After all, he was just a fish.

Life does end.

And life goes on.

And maybe in the business of living and dying--maybe where you go after your life ends isn't so important. Maybe it's the intangible parts you leave behind that really matter. But then again, maybe they are tangible--all you have to do is look up.

38

The thought of turning thirty-eight has left me feeling a little apprehensive and anxious the past few months. But it's not what you think. Many of my friends are steeling themselves for the milestone birthday looming ahead in the very near future and express their sorrow and despair about being "old." My prompt reply of "You're not old" or "I'm not old" is met with a smug smirk or an eye roll implying I'm delusional or in denial about just exactly how "old" I am.  While I've felt some apprehension about turning thirty-eight, my apprehension has nothing to do with the fear of being old.

I remember in 1988, when my father turned thirty-eight. I was ten.  I remember a similar feeling of apprehension and anxiety. My dad's father died at the age of thirty-eight, when my own father was only ten years old. Some people noted this fact--this similarity. While I knew my father wasn't sick, I still felt the anxiety creeping up inside of me. At ten, I remember thinking I was too young to be without my dad and twenty-eight years later that feeling hasn't changed. I remember feeling a sense of relief flood over me five months later when I turned eleven, as though some spell was broken. I'm not superstitious nor do I believe in ghosts, but I must admit I was spooked then. And maybe just a little spooked now.

While I don't know much about the days following my grandfather's death, I doubt the word "old" was ever used. More likely the refrain was "too young." My great grandparents were far too young to be burying their second grown child in a little over a year. My grammy at the age of thirty was far too young to be a widow. My father and his two younger sisters were far too young to be without a father. And at the age of thirty-eight, my grandfather was far too young to die.

Growing up, my grandparent's engagement photos were always on display. The double frame would migrate around our house from the piano to the shadow box to the coffee table. When I moved into my first apartment, my mother passed the photos on to me, and they have always found a new spot every time I've moved. Unlike many engagement photos today where the groom-to-be and bride-to-be gaze adoringly at one another in a "candid" moment, my grandparents were photographed individually. In the sepia toned photos, they look happy, healthy, hopeful, and most notably young. Looking at my grandfather's young handsome face, I struggle to even fathom how a little more than a decade later, he would be betrayed by his lungs-his breath and life taken away. I can't imagine the anger, the frustration, and sadness he must have felt at being denied the privilege of growing old. He never had the experience of proudly slinging his arm around his son's shoulders when he graduated high school or walking his daughters down the aisle on their wedding days or cradling one of his seven grandchildren.

Over twenty years after his death, my grammy married an exceptional man who was everything any grandchild could ask for in a grandfather. But I also remembered the void before him. When it was just my grammy alone in the house my grandfather built. I loved my step-grandfather, but I always called him by his first name because I knew the man in the double picture frame was my grandfather, even though I never met him.

This summer, I was struck by the following line from Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train. "I've come to think that's what heaven is a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on." But how do you carry the memory of a person you never knew? How do you remember someone whose only presence was an absence?

My first year teaching while prepping a poetry unit, I stumbled across a poem by Lucille Clifton called "the thirty-eighth year."  I was immediately drawn to the number. In the melancholic poem, Clifton contemplates her life and references her own mother's death at the age of forty-four. Clifton's sadness and regret is palpable as she considers how she has lived her life in fear and contemplates her own mortality. After perusing some of her other poems, I found one she wrote twenty-five years later which she titled "There is a Girl Inside."  She describes herself as "A green tree in a forest of kindling." I always felt a sense of happy relief noting her youthful vigor as she approached the late autumn of her life. Thirty-eight and forty-four weren't the end; they weren't inauspicious. They were just numbers.

While I'm in no rush to get old, I don't fear it either. In fact, I hope I'm granted the privilege of growing old-- one day. The alternative to not growing old holds no appeal. I hope to one day sling my arm around my boys' waists when they graduate from high school, hold tightly to their arms when they walk me down the aisle on their wedding days,  and one day hold my grandchild in my arms.

My grandfather may not have been physically present in my life, but I still note his presence, his importance, his impact. If heaven is a place in the living's memory, he's there. A few weeks ago, my father was driving past the cemetery where my grandfather is buried and noticed a woman walking near my grandfather's grave. He turned his truck around and parked in the church lot. At first he didn't recognize his cousin who he hadn't seen in years. She had decided to stop at the cemetery to leave some flowers on a few graves and one of them was my grandfather's.

His life, his presence remembered.

When I look at my son, I note how his ears stick out just a bit like his great grandfather's.

His life, his presence remembered.

As I begin to pedal on the elliptical machine, I enter my age- first a three then an eight- and breathe in and out deeply and think of my grandfather.

I think about what thirty-eight isn't. It certainly isn't enough. It isn't old. It isn't unlucky. And it isn't anything to fear. And then I consider what thirty-eight is. It is unfinished. It is young. It is a blessing. And it's just a number. 

White Space

Yesterday afternoon the boys and I took the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. We had spent a few nights with a friend in Rehobeth and then moved on to spend a few nights with a friend in Sea Isle City (I'm a shore whore, mooching off anyone who will have me). After the novelty of the ferry boat had worn off and my boys settled in with their gadgets, I contemplated what I should do for the next forty- five minutes. It is almost August, and I have yet to finish writing anything this summer. I guess I've been suffering from writer's block and as a result I've allowed some of my other interests and hobbies to crowd out writing. Reading a lot of books, drawing and painting a bit, scrolling through my Pinterest feed, attempting to participate in the world of Instagram, and reveling in the egomaniacal ruthlessness of the Underwoods, I've thought about writing, opened my Blogger account, looked at the three unfinished posts and thought, perhaps I could better use my time playing around with the column widths and background colors to maybe make my blog look semi-respectable. I know writing is good for me, just like running and broccoli. And I honestly enjoy all three. But sometimes when you give up exercise or eating right for a week or two, you "forget" how good it feels to do those things and are content to lounge on the couch and eat brownies, and ponder how writing is good but not writing isn't really all that bad either. I even gave myself an ultimatum last week, no new novel until I finished at least one post. As I sat on the ferry boat, I thought about finishing up No Country for Old Men-seeing as I caved on my idle threat.

When I used to take art classes, my art teacher would always note my ability to overwork a piece. Poised to add another paint stroke or preparing to lift some pencil marks to create more contrast, my art teacher would say, "I think you're done."

I seldom feel satisfied with any of my own work--there's always room to make it better. I am constantly making mental notes and sometimes literal ones on how to improve my work. This past school year, my House Council co-advisor and I organized the school talent show. As I sat in the rear of the cafetorium getting ready to activate our polling system on my laptop, I opened a document and started listing all the improvements we needed to make for next year.

For the past four months I've been looking at three unfinished posts. Unable to really form them into something I deem worthwhile yet unwilling to move past them. As I sat on the ferry boat, looking at my bookmarked novel, I decided to go back to one of the drafts to tinker, to edit and to overwork. Navigating on my small phone screen, I highlighted a few sentences to move, in hopes to somehow correct the flow or create a flow. In the midst of cutting and pasting, the Wi-Fi connection cut out for a moment and then returned, and the next thing I knew Blogger was now saving a blank white page.

Mother effing pus bucket!

I violently tapped the undo button to no avail. It couldn't be undone. What was done was done.

I was pissed. For the past four months, I've been fiddling with that piece of writing or more accurately that piece of writing has been fiddling with me. I thought back to a painting I started and nearly completed many years ago. One evening, as my art teacher stood behind me silently scrutinizing my work, I began to complain about how much I hated my painting. She responded, "Paint over it then." I turned around and looked at her in disbelief. She knew how many hours I had already invested in this painting.  Shouldn't she be encouraging me to finish my work or showing me how to fix it? But she had noted my half-hearted effort for weeks and knew I just wasn't into it. And soon I realized she was right. The next week at my art class, I applied a thick coat of gesso over the canvas obliterating the physical representation of hours of my time. I think about how my teacher could have just handed me a new canvas, but she recognized the importance of me covering over my work. As I painted over the little girl standing near a lake in a half finished field of flowers, I didn't feel a sense of failure but a sense of relief, and two months later I finished a new painting on that same canvas.

After completing a Google search on how to retrieve a lost draft from Blogger, which I learned was impossible, I looked at the white space, the clean canvas, and started over. After about thirty minutes of nearly continuous writing, I was already happier with what I now read on the screen.  A technical glitch had saved me from myself.

While I truly value hard work and perseverance, there are times when it's good to give up, move on and start fresh. If you are a stubborn, persistent borderline perfectionist who sees asking for help as a sign of weakness, well, you need to take a step back and consider whether pushing through is going to leave you feeling happy and satisfied or just frustrated and fruitless.

Photo Story

I just finished reading The Giver with my eighth graders which sparked some great thought provoking conversations about memories. When I started the unit, we watched the music video for Jamey Johnson's "In Color."  In the song, a grandfather and his grandson are having a conversation about three pictures from the grandfather's past which tell the story of his life. As he discusses the photos with his grandson, he notes the feeling of fear he felt in each photo. While the song at first seems melancholic, the fear the grandfather felt in the final photo led to the proudest moment of his life. Since we spent so much time discussing the importance of memories, not only as individuals but also as a community, I tasked my students with finding three photos to tell a story about their life. The three photos needed to share a common theme or motif and reveal something or someone important to them and serve as an inspiration for an original poem. Whenever I ask my students to be introspective or reveal something personal, I likewise participate in the challenge. I feel it's only fair and helps my students feel more comfortable. So, I took a little trip down memory lane and culled through my own photos to give them a few examples.

The first story I shared centered around cars. I started with my first car, a Volkswagen Golf, which my parents bought for me when I was sixteen. I loved that car because of the freedom I felt driving it. I remember tacking up glow in the dark flowers on the ceiling to keep the sagging upholstery attached to the roof, how the handle use to come off in my hand when I moved the front seat forward for my passengers, and losing a hubcap at the end of one brutal winter when I hit a humongous pothole. The two Volkswagen Jettas I owned afterwards were certainly nicer, which was blatantly obvious from the photos, but neither of those cars ever attained the level of sacredness of my first, crappy car. Thinking about all the memorable, and sometimes foolishly dangerous, times spent in that car with friends or the summer nights driving home from my job listening to music and being alone with my thoughts as the warm night air rushed in through the sun roof under the star-filled sky leaves me feeling nostalgic.

In the picture of me with my first car was also my little Lady--our miniature poodle who was a member of our family for nearly twelve years. I showed my students the dog we owned before Lady, our Westie Jordan, who was hit by a truck on our dead end road only a year after we adopted him. I then shared a photo of Aztec, the greyhound we adopted when I was a teenager. Those three dogs were not only a treasured part of my childhood, but they all taught me important life lessons about love. While I felt heartbroken after Jordan died, I learned we don't just get to love one person or thing in this life and with time we can open ourselves up to others. A few months later, we adopted Lady who was so easy to love because she trusted people implicitly and always picked up on people's feelings. I remember one afternoon crying on the couch, and she hopped up beside me and put her little paw on my leg.  Her sweet disposition made her the most reliable, lovable companion. After we rescued Aztec, she often barked at me and would shake in fear when I wore a baseball hat. When we adopted her, we knew she had been abused at the racetrack, and we quickly came to the conclusion she was most likely beaten by either a teenager or young adult. Months passed before Aztec felt comfortable with me.  I had to work hard to gain her trust, but she eventually came around and would nuzzle her delicate face in my lap as I affectionately stroked the soft, silky fur in the folds of her ears. Those three dogs helped me learn in my formative years how to cope with heartbreak, how love and trust go hand in hand, and how lucky we are to not have just one love in this life, but many different experiences with love.

The next series of pictures I showed them all included my father and tractors. In the first picture, I'm probably five-years-old sitting on my dad's lap on our Cub Cadet riding lawnmower. It's winter time, since we're both bundled up and the trees in the background are stripped bare. I then showed my students a picture of my children sitting with my dad on his blue Ford tractor. It's summertime as I noted the contrast between the rich, swarthy hue of my dad's skin next to my boys' pale soft skin. The final photos were taken on a brisk spring day, and my boys are riding on the toy pedal tractor my father bought for them as he amiably walks beside them.

My father has always loved tractors and work. He is the hardest working man I know. After working a fifty hour week, his idea of relaxing, his hobby, is working on his farm. As a little girl, I was pretty girlie-- I loved Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies, and Fashion Plates. I don't ever really recall my dad playing with me and my girlie toys. What I do remember is working with my dad. I remember bumping along in the trailer behind our riding lawn mower as we rode into the neighboring woods to cut down trees for our wood burning stove. I would explore the woods as my dad's chainsaw whined its way through a tree trunk or would enthusiastically bellow "timber" as a tree collapsed to the ground. After my dad cut up the tree, I would collect the smaller pieces of wood and logs and load them into the trailer. We sometimes would stop to collect the sap from the trees we tapped in the woods and bring it home to boil on the wood stove leaving a heady scent of nature in our basement. I remember going to work with my father after he broke his foot. As a self-employed plumber, if my dad didn't work, he didn't make any money. His broken foot could only be a minor inconvenience as he figured out ways to still do his physically demanding  job. I still recall my muscles straining as I helped my dad mix the concrete to pour the steps leading up to our front door and wonder if my little hand print can still be seen more than three decades later. I cherish those times spent with my dad, and once again learned many important lessons. I learned about the satisfaction that comes with completing a job especially a physically taxing one. And even though I was very much a "girlie" girl, I learned from my father there's nothing wrong with a little dirt--it washes off. I also learned I was capable of doing anything. I remember one Saturday afternoon helping my dad on a job, and he patiently showed me how to solder a plumbing joint, carefully guiding and instructing me as I held the flame in my hand. While he knew I never would be a plumber, I think my dad wanted to show me I could do anything. In high school, I was the only girl in my drafting class, but I never doubted my place nor my abilities in that room nor any room mostly because of those experiences with my dad. In my own way, I hope to instill the same confidence in my children, showing them their capabilities and the pride found in hard work.

My students shared their photos and their poems with one another this past week. While all their stories were different, they were also the same. They wrote about family, friends, animals, vacations, birthdays, hobbies and all the complex and sometimes simple feelings associated with them. It was a great lesson about the importance of not only holding on to memories but also sharing them.

What's Your Jam?

For the past few months, my older son has been pestering me to buy him earbuds so he can listen to music on our old iPod. This summer we will be driving to Tennessee for a family vacation, and during our nine hour drive, I'm sure both of my boys having their own headphones will lead to a slightly more pleasant road trip. Last weekend, I bought them each earbuds, and both boys have been listening to music on the iPod or my phone, and my younger son Josh has turned into the Verizon man, as he shouts periodically, "Can you hear my music now?"

As I was making dinner the other night, Josh was lounging on the couch with my phone crooning, "you're wonderful, flawless, oooh you're a sexy lady." Yep, that's my five-year old innocently singing along to some "racy" Bruno Mars' lyrics, but then again, that's nothing new in the Reagan house.

My children's needs and desires supersede mine in almost every aspect of my life. Most evenings, I prepare two entrees for dinner. I have given up trying to watch the news or any TV program I enjoy. I willingly play endless board games, at bed time I read the same book over and over for weeks on end, and play outside with my boys in subarctic temperatures. But, there is one area I refuse to concede or compromise on--music.

If I am ever interrogated by the CIA, they can skip the waterboarding and just play Kidz Bop for roughly seven and a half minutes and I will cave like a house of cards. Whatever you want to know, I will tell you. Just stop the insipid children's music! My children have no idea who the Wiggles are nor have they ever heard a catchy tune by the Fresh Beat Band because "Mommy, don't play that." I loathe rousing Disney power ballads. One of my proudest moments was when my son Nate came home from school complaining about the awful song "Let It Go" that all of his classmates were singing.

Since they were babies, my children have always listened to Mommy's music whether we were riding in the car, cleaning the house, or jumping into pillow piles in the living room. And with the exception of a few Jay Z and Eminem tracks, I seldom censor what we listen to in our home and car. Before starting preschool at the local church, the teachers asked us to fill out a paper listing  the boys' favorite food, color, activity, TV program, and song.  As Nate and I worked one afternoon filling in both his form and Josh's, who was two-and-a-half at the time, I asked Nate about his favorite song, or I should use the correct terminology in our house, "What's your jam?" He promptly responded, "Drink in My Hand." I smiled as I wrote down the song title and felt it rather fitting since the singer's last name is Church. I fist bumped Nate and said, "Fill it up/poor it down/ I got forty hour week worth of trouble to drown." I then asked Nate about Joshie's jam. He promptly responded with the "X-box and Atari" song. I grimaced and asked Nate for another suggestion, seeing as I didn't feel it entirely appropriate to write down that my two-and-a-half year old's favorite song was CeeLo Green's "F*** You (Forget You)." Nate's next suggestion was "The Underwear Song" otherwise known as "Sexy and I Know It." Nope, couldn't write that one down either. We finally decided on "Fruit Loops," the Blake Shelton cover of the classic Kenny Loggins' "Footloose." Once while watching Josh, my best friend gave him a bowl of Cheerio's after he requested "Fruit Loops." He was a little perplexed.

Yes, my children listen to and sometimes sing inappropriate lyrics, but before you go judging me, I would like to point out my children are almost completely unaware of any inappropriate words and their meanings. When Nate came home a few months ago and told me one of his friends said the "s" word, I asked him, as I braced myself for his first step towards a loss of innocence, what the "s" word was that his classmate used, and he whispered, "Stupid, and that's not a nice word." I replied, "You're right. That word isn't very nice." Likewise, the "h" word and the other "s" word, "hate" and "shut up," are also off limits.

Growing up, I only recall listening to The Beatles, Beethoven, The Rolling Stones, The Four Tops, Journey, Linda Ronstadt, Prince, Frank Sinatra, and The Doors--no kids' music. The first time I heard Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven," I immediately was taken back to riding in my mom's Thunderbird listening to The Police's "Roxanne."  Probably the same age as my Nate, I remember loving how Sting rolled the initial consonant sound. If you asked me then what the song was about, I wouldn't have known. Even if I had paid attention to the lyrics, I probably would have guessed Roxanne was a crossing guard, and the singer was in a rush to get across the street, so "put on the red light, Roxanne." When Nate finally figures out what "Locked Out of Heaven" is really about, I doubt he's going to feel comfortable having a conversation about how smart and subversive Mars is comparing carnal knowledge of a woman to a religious experience, especially not with his nerdy English teacher mom who will go on and on about the irony, metaphors, and diction. For right now, we both just enjoy the "Oh, Yeah, Yeah" song.

While the excitement of our new earbuds has already begun to wane, I know their love of music will only continue to grow.

Best.Weekend.Ever.

Two weekends ago, we took our boys to Great Wolf Lodge. We had planned the same trip last winter which was foiled not once but twice by ear infections. So it was no surprise on Saturday afternoon, when my older son began to complain about his ear. After a visit to the Urgent Care, we managed to get the antibiotics he needed to halt the ear infection in its tracks. We departed Sunday morning; my brother-in-law's family following us on the highway. About an hour into our drive, my husband seemed agitated as he pulled off the highway. He wasn't feeling well and wanted me to drive the rest of the way to the resort. Twenty minutes later, he was heaving out the window of our car onto the highway. Hoping it was something he ate, we took our boys to the water park, but a few hours later it was painfully clear, my husband was the victim of an evilly, ill-timed stomach bug.

While I do not believe in Hell, if Hell does exist and I end up there, I guarantee Hell is not going to be hot. Nope, Hell for me is two things--cold and moist. As I stood in the wave pool, my eyes nervously darting back and forth between both of my boys, shivering in my bathing suit, trying to convince myself that I was not taking a communal bath with the hundred other people in the wave pool as band aids swirled in the water, I contemplated switching places with my husband.  When it comes to the stomach virus, I'm Katniss Everdeen. I volunteer as tribute for the Reagan District. I feel I handle the stomach flu with relative grace and appreciate the slimming effects of a good stomach bug. After eating at the buffet and dropping forty dollars in the arcade in less than an hour and coming away with a slap bracelet, bouncy ball and three Tootsie Rolls, I couldn't wait to crawl into bed and watch the Oscars to see the winners from all the movies I hadn't seen. Just as I settled into bed, my husband resting peacefully after a tumultuous afternoon spent in the hotel bathroom, my boys began to complain from the pull-out couch that they couldn't fall asleep because of the light from the TV. I settled for reading about the Academy Awards via social media. A few hours later, I was awakened by the restless flopping of my younger son and discovered him shivering, the covers wrapped around his older brother who was laying horizontally across the bed. I moved my younger son into my bed and spent the remainder of the evening dozing between kicks. The following morning, I returned to the cold, moist wave pool but enjoyed a short reprieve when my two-year-old nephew's warm urine trickled down the side of my body.

In contrast, this past Saturday, before seeing a matinee at the Walnut Street Theater, I enjoyed a pleasant lunch with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at Talula's Daily. Post show, I met my husband for dinner at Maggiano's, and then we met up with some of my husband's work friends for drinks and enjoyed some live music performed by one his colleagues. In the morning, as I chatted with my hairdresser and enjoyed a Dunkin Donuts coffee, I contemplated how I was only a book and a three mile run away from the "Best.Weekend.Ever."

At Maggiano's, my husband and I talked about the family style dinners we had once enjoyed there with our friends before any of us had children. I thought about all those weekends we spent eating and drinking at non-chain restaurants, seeing the majority of the films nominated for Academy Awards outside the animation category, and blaming a bad night's sleep on too much wine. Those were the days.

But those days pale in comparison to my son's expression of joyful disbelief as we entered the water park, prompting a stranger to say, "That face is priceless." Those days pale when compared to the squeals of delight as my boys bobbed gleefully through the waves. And as we pulled out of Great Wolf Lodge on Monday afternoon, and my son uttered an unsolicited thank you for a fun trip, well, I guess it was a fun overnight with a few minor hiccups. And those hiccups make for a better story and ensure we'll never forget the perfectly imperfect "Best.Weekend.Ever."

My Ridiculous Fear

Yesterday, I circulated around my classroom to see my seventh graders' selections for their third marking period Independent Reading Project. I allow my students to read whatever they want in hopes they will read a book they enjoy. I smiled as I noted copies of John Green and Mike Lupica books and sighed when one of my student's held up a copy of Of Mice of Men already bookmarked. I squealed with delight when I saw Pride and Prejudice and told my student she was going to meet and know my all time favorite heroine in literature, Elizabeth Bennet. As I walked past the last grouping of desks, one student proudly held up her book and said, "This is the third time I'm reading this book." I frowned and asked, "Why don't you pick a new book? Maybe one by the same author?" With the exception of the books I teach, I rarely return to books I've already read. Mostly because there are far too many books I want to read and not nearly enough time. I have multiple lists of books I want to read on Amazon, Pinterest, and in my library account, and as an English teacher and former English major, I have an ongoing mental list of "classics" I have yet to tackle.

I know this may sound ridiculous, but another reason why I don't revisit books is out of fear. When I was in tenth grade, I read Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. It was the first book I read that made me realize the power of words. Albert Camus said "Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth," and To Kill A Mockingbird revealed many truths to me. Whenever someone asks me what inspired me to become an English teacher, my experience with that novel is one of them. Last summer, I finally forced myself to re-read it. I found the same copy I read when I was in tenth grade; its yellowed pages only amplifying my growing fear. What if the book I so loved at fifteen turned out to be overhyped and mediocre? As I read the first few chapters, I felt anxious. It was good, but worthy of inspiring my future career? I was nearing an existential meltdown, worried my life was based on a a lie. But a few chapters later, I remembered what I felt over twenty year ago and closed the back cover a few days later with my truths in tact. When asked why she never wrote another novel, Lee responded, "I said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again." Perhaps Harper Lee and I share some similar fears.

I did recently re-read, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar for my book club. I did not feel the same sense of trepidation I felt with To Kill A Mockingbird, but I did spend a lot time reflecting on my previous two visits with Esther Greenwood. I first met Esther when I was twenty years old while vacationing with three of my friends in Ocean City, New Jersey. After my friend finished reading the book, she passed the novel, sodden with sand, off to me in the middle of our trip. As I lay on the beach, I felt a close connection with Esther. While I did not relate to Esther's battle with depression, I completely related to her feeling stifled. Like Esther who excelled at academics, I too had excelled as a model member of my religious community, but like Esther, I began to question my motivation.  Was I motivated by faith, or perhaps just by my own intrinsic desire to excel? Like Esther, I balked at the expectations of my "society" to get married and then be in subjection to my husband. Like Esther I wanted more than a Buddy Willard telling me my opinions were foolish and worthless while raising his children. Like Esther, I felt limited by the "infinite security" set before me.

Five years later, Esther and I met again. She had remained the same, but I had not. After making some difficult choices, I was finally hitting my stride as a teacher and one of my new students who had already read The Catcher in the Rye felt she wanted to read something different for our "Coming of Age" unit. I suggested we do an Independent Study on The Bell Jar together. As we read the novel and discussed Esther's plight, I believe she found a truth in the novel which I hope she still carries with her.

My most recent visit with Esther will most likely be my last. The Bell Jar isn't exactly middle school material. But as I finished reading The Bell Jar for the third time, I thought about the person I was and the person I am. More than fifteen years later, I still loathe Buddy Willard. I still feel an immense compassion for Esther and the polarizing literary figure who created her and was her. And I still remember thinking of that moment at the beach, as Esther contemplates drowning herself in the ocean, she hears her heart beating "I am I am I am." And I still remember thinking in that moment "Who I am" and all the infinite possibilities.

Even though there are too many books and too little time, I think I will be overcoming my fear and dusting off a few book jackets to remember who I was and who I am.

This I Believe

As I was scrambling this past week to create a writing assignment for my eighth grade students, I weighed my options. Option #1 was yet another five paragraph essay. While my students can certainly use the "practice," I sometimes fear I may single-handedly destroy what little enjoyment they may find in writing. Option #2 involved my students writing short stories which I fear would single-handedly leave me hating short stories for the next few months. As I racked my brain for ideas, I remembered a writing assignment a former colleague of mine gave her seniors. I vaguely recalled the assignment, but with the help of Google, I quickly found the inspiration--This I Believe. In the 1950s, during the height of the Cold War, Edward R. Murrow, the famous radio broadcaster, solicited his listeners to write essays about their personal beliefs, "the rules they live by," in an attempt to overcome the pervading feeling of fear that seemed to have permeated America. These essays became a beacon during those days of fear and reminded Americans of the goodness in our world. In 2005, NPR revived the program for a few years, and now there is a website devoted to the idea called This I Believe.

Whenever I give my students writing assignments, I always contemplate how I would write the assignment. When it comes to five paragraph essays analyzing a piece of literature, well, I could write one in my sleep. But as I contemplated my own response to my latest assignment, I couldn't formulate my response on the spot. I quickly recognized the assignment requires thought, self-reflection, and sincerity which make me feel a little uncomfortable-- or maybe a lot. And in all fairness, when I ask my students to write about a topic which makes them uncomfortable, I feel it's only right and fair I participate.

I began to ruminate on what I believe and made a mental list. I believe everyone can and should be a little kinder to one another. I believe any action movie where Liam Neeson maims and kills terrorists, criminals, or bad guys is going to be spectacularly entertaining. I believe I would be much happier if I were ten pounds lighter. I believe brownies are the best food EVER. I also believe my belief in brownies may be (in)directly responsible for my inability to achieve the happiness of being ten pounds lighter. While I probably could easily write about all of these topics, I don't believe any of them truly reflect my core belief.

So what do I believe?

This I Believe--I believe in rainbows after the rain. And I believe sometimes those rainbows take years to find, but they eventually appear. In 1993, shortly after Thanksgiving, my grandfather was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. We had the fortunate blessing of having a few weeks to say our good-byes, and two days after Christmas he passed away. Up until that time, I had never experienced the grief of losing a close relative, and seeing my luminously, radiantly happy grammy crushed by her loss made it doubly heart-wrenching. Although my grammy learned to cope with the loss of her second husband and managed to gain back her optimistic outlook, her joy and enthusiasm for life never quite returned to the vibrancy she had while he was alive. The morning of his death, my grammy asked me to take down the decorations on the Christmas tree. As I carefully took down the ornaments and lights, I asked my grammy how she wanted them organized. She told me it didn't matter; she would never put up another Christmas tree. 

The pain of losing my grandfather lessened, but December 27th remained an inauspicious day until 2012 when my beautiful nephew was born. As a mom, I can honestly say the depth of love I feel for both of my boys is boundlessly equal. But as an aunt,while I love all four of my nephews and would do anything for them, I absolutely favor my nephew Gavin. Last month, we went with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and my nephews to cut down our own Christmas trees. As we slogged our way through the muddy, waterlogged tree farm, Gavin tripped over a tree stump and face planted in the mud. Covered from head to toe in mud, he pathetically raised his arms in the air and cried, "Up, please." I didn't hesitate for a second to scoop him up.  Had it been one of my own boys, I most likely would've have felt annoyed pressing his dirty coat against me or have made him walk, but not my little Gavey. Perhaps my affection for him stems from the afternoons I spent snuggling with him on the couch after my sister-in-law returned to work. Perhaps my undying affection stems from his charming, endearing spirit. But I think on some subconscious level, he is my favorite because he is a rainbow after the rain.  

While my grandfather's life may have ended on December 27th, the love I felt for him did not. I still carry the memories and the affection we shared for one another and count it a great privilege to have known and cared for such a kind, wonderful loving man. Although it may be a coincidence that my nephew was born on December 27th, the significance and implications of this coincidence remind me of what is important in this life--to continue the cycle of love.

My grandfather was a farmer his entire life and attuned to the natural world. He respected nature and the beauty of its cycles. After the Winter Solstice, he would always cite the old weather proverb, "As the days get longer, the cold gets stronger." The winter he passed away was one of the coldest with 93 days of continuous snow cover. For my family, the coldness of that particular winter had nothing to do with the temperature. But eventually, the light eclipsed the cold, spring came, and my grandfather's orchard burst with blossoms, despite the harsh winter.

December 27th is no longer a cold day for me. It's a beautiful reminder of the cycle of life and the importance of loving people as well as one can while one has the opportunity. And in December, when rainbows are scarcely seen, I can always find one.

Brought to You Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

This past week at school, a colleague of mine asked me if I was bothered by a student in his homeroom who questioned why we said the "Pledge of Allegiance." The student quipped,"When you say it every day, it doesn't really mean anything." I immediately responded, "Yes," which is ironic, given that in my thirteen years of schooling, I never once said the "Pledge of Allegiance." The average public school student theoretically recites this pledge over 2,300 times during his or her thirteen years in the system.  But being raised a Jehovah's Witness, I never participated in this daily ritual because I could not pledge allegiance to any government aside from one established by God. In grade school, on the first day of school, I would sheepishly sidle up to the teacher's front desk with my first day of school paperwork along with a handwritten note from my mom explaining our religious convictions and thanking the teacher for her anticipated cooperation. While most public schools expect students to recite the pledge every morning, the Supreme Court ruled that no student is required nor can be punished for not saying the pledge. Each morning at school, I would politely stand, hands by my side, as my classmates recited the pledge. As a child I was incredibly shy and obedient, and drawing attention to myself on the first day of school to break a "rule" was mortifying. When I entered fifth grade, my parents didn't write me a note but rather told me to proudly share my convictions with my teacher, Miss Brown, who routinely wore army fatigues to school. I can only imagine what she thought as I told her I wouldn't be reciting the pledge. As I matriculated from grade to grade, my abstinence from this morning routine became less and less noteworthy as my own classmates' enthusiasm for reciting the pledge waned. By my senior year of high school, my classmates' ennui for the pledge was palpable. After graduating high school, I knew I would never be placed in this awkward position again. Until I decided to become a teacher. When I did my student teaching, I informed my homeroom students they were required to say the pledge, but I would be refraining from doing so because of my religious beliefs. My students looked at me in confusion, but fortunately, they had already been exposed to the hypocrisy of their parents and other teachers and agreed to "do as I say, not as I do." Every morning, I prompted them with a nod of my head to stand for the pledge while I stood respectfully, hands by my side.

On my first day as a "real" teacher, a student announced over the PA system to stand for the pledge at 7:35. I stood with my students, placed my hand over my heart, and recited the words in a loud clear voice. Seeing I had listened to the words over 2,300 times, I had no trouble keeping up. Was it a life-changing moment? Not really. I did feel a little relieved. After thirteen plus years of having a spotlight on you every time those words were uttered, it took some time to overcome the Pavlovian response of my stomach churning with nerves. My first principal at that particular school felt strongly about students respecting the flag and the pledge. I remember being told to stop any student in the hallway to promote a sense of respect. We wanted the student body to respect their country and the opportunities afforded them by that country, namely the guarantee of a free education, but how introspective are teenagers at 7:35am?

One morning I do recall reciting the pledge was Wednesday, September 12, 2001. After watching the second airplane hit the World Trade Center on live TV with my eleventh graders the day before, I remember the heaviness in the air and my heart. As we stood and recited the pledge and paused for a longer moment of silence, I remember the co-mingling of sadness, fear, and anger. As we stood in solidarity, I reminded my students the best way to counter these attacks was to go about our routines and not allow the terrorists to instill us with terror.

Do I reflect as I say the pledge every morning? Many a morning I am caught off guard in the middle of my frenzied, frazzled dash to get ready for the school day as we are asked to rise.  Nevertheless, I try to set a good example by enthusiastically reciting the pledge while my students shuffle to their feet and half-hardheartedly recite the words. Some mornings I do think about the people who enable me to stand in that classroom. As I look at the flag, I consider my brother-in-law who has spent the past two decades in the Air Force, former students of mine who serve their country, and countless other individuals who would promptly protect our freedom, our liberty. Some mornings I ponder my grandfather, a straight A student who had to drop out of high school to help support his younger siblings, a relatively common injustice during his lifetime. I like to think that no student, straight A or not, would have to give up schooling without a fight today. I ponder the Life Skills students in our building who fifty years ago would have been denied an education and most likely institutionalized. I'm fortunate to have one such student in my homeroom. As we reviewed his spelling list on Friday morning, he told me he was going to fail his quiz with a glimmer in his eye. I quizzed him on all twenty words, he spelled all twenty correctly, and we both beamed with pride.

I contemplate the greatness of a country that aspires for liberty and justice for all. We are given the liberty to believe whatever we want, and in our schools, we encourage our students to be free thinkers. I recently just finished reading and discussing "The Flight of Icarus" with my seventh grade students. We considered the moral Greek children were to take away from the story--always listen to one's elders and respect the gods. They all nodded their heads at this sage advice. The next day, we then discussed  a poem about Icarus which suggests he rightfully tested the boundaries, pushed himself to his limits, overcame ignorance, and, yes, plummeted to his death. How could his father Daedalus have given him wings to fly and then tell him not use them? My students smiled and nodded as they contemplated the idea of pushing themselves to their limits and "breaking the rules" when they saw injustice.

In eighth grade, I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank and contemplating how fortunate I was to live in a country that granted freedom of religion. Jehovah's Witnesses were targeted by the Nazis during World War II and nearly 1,500 Jehovah's Witnesses died in concentration camps or were executed. They could have simply signed a paper renouncing their faith to escape this fate, but for many, their beliefs were more important than their liberty. While I may no longer share those religious convictions, I recognize the importance of respecting and protecting people's beliefs.

In an attempt to heal a nation torn apart by a Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the shortest and most powerful speeches at Gettysburg to unite a country and grant liberty to people who had been enslaved. He famously uttered our country is a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" and as I "pledge allegiance" every morning to that country, I like to think I am making a pledge to myself to foster liberty and freedom in my students. Encouraging them to not only be free thinkers but consider the responsibility and respect implied with that freedom. While they may not consciously think about the meaning of the pledge the 2,300 times they say it, just like they don't think about breathing in and out 23,000 times over the course of the day, I hope at least once they pause to consider how fortunate they are to not only be alive but more importantly free.

The Road Taken

Even though a part of me believes, the universe will send you where you are meant to be, I strive to teach my children and students the importance of good choices and exercising your free will. In my life, I can certainly identify choices  that have "made all the difference." Shortly after graduating college, two schools in the Philadelphia suburbs offered me the opportunity to interview for teaching positions. I conveniently scheduled them for the same day. The first position was a long term sub in Delaware County. I felt I had a great interview, and the principal informed me the long term position would most likely lead to a contracted position the following year. I left the interview feeling elated knowing the job was mine, and pulled out the directions for my next interview. When I reached the junction of 476  near Plymouth Meeting, I got turned around and ended up on the Northeast Extension. I panicked knowing I had gone the wrong way. I knew by the time I turned around at the Lansdale exit and drove back to King of Prussia, I was going to be late for my job interview which is probably the worst first impression to make as a teacher whose life is dictated by the ringing of bells. I seriously contemplated just bagging the interview since I felt  confident I was getting a job offer. Nevertheless, I turned around at Lansdale, sped back down the Northeast Extension, and arrived at Upper Merion High School breathless and seven minutes late. Fortunately, they were running late too. I began my interview by relating the story of my awful sense of direction and two weeks later accepted a full time position at Upper Merion. I like to think the universe pushed in the right direction that day, since that one decision has led to some of my greatest blessings in life. Eight years after accepting that job, I made the choice to leave my position to stay home with my boys. Probably many would consider that a foolish mistake especially if they saw Upper Merion's pay scale. But I don't regret for one moment the the years I spent with my boys, and the universe nudged me once again last year in a new direction, and while the pay scale isn't quite as impressive, I couldn't ask for better students or coworkers who make me laugh, sometimes uncontrollably, each day.

But for this post, I wanted to take the time to reflect on a decision I made six years ago. Being a stay at home parent can be one of the most tedious and monotonous jobs replete with dirty diapers, vomiting, endless crying peppered with soul crushing moments of beauty. When my oldest son was nearing eighteen months, I decided we both needed a little more socialization. While it felt a bit contrived, I decided to try out a MOMs Group. I began to do a little research to see what groups were in my area. Who knew these clubs had "boundaries" and other rules? I discovered I lived within the "boundaries" of the MOMS Club of Collegeville and attended one of their monthly meetings. The women seemed friendly enough, so I filled out a waiver, wrote a check for $25, and hoped to make a friend or two. I requested to be put in a playgroup. Since most groups were either full or too old for my eighteen month old, I was told I would probably have to form a new group. I was given the name and email of another new member with an eighteen month old who lived in my townhouse development--our backyards less than 500 yards from one another; although, our paths had never crossed. We set up a time to meet at the playground in our development, and I remember feeling so nervous. It was like going on a first date. I tried my best to be funny and witty and keep Nate's finger out of his nose. After our first playdate, we decided each other was normal enough or maybe dysfunctional in the same way, and set up another time to get together. A few weeks later, another member of the club decided to join us and six months later our foursome was complete. For nearly four years, we met up once a week to play at each other's homes and that day was often the highlight of my week. We commiserated over the joys and trials of our calling, jokingly complained about our wonderful husbands who indulged the financial folly of our chosen vocation, and bonded over our shared love of coffee, raunchy TV, and most importantly our children.

Whenever we were approached about adding another mom to our group, we always deferred saying our group was full since three of the four of us lived in townhouses and our combined eight children were a force of destruction ransacking our respective homes until every toy was strewn across the floor. I think we all felt protective of our bond and worried the comfortable ease of our group might be disturbed.

Along with our weekly play dates, we often met up at the playground, Dunkin Donuts, Chik Fil A, and other child friendly places so our children could play, and we could chat. We planned Valentine'sparties for our little ones, setup a Christmas exchange, and celebrated all our kids' birthdays. One of my fondest memories from our playgroup days include the summer we planned a Summer Camp for our kids. During our four weeks of camp, each of us planned crafts, activities and a field trip which kept our kids busy and gave us a little break from being a mom for the morning. We also looked forward to our monthly "MOMs Night Out" where we could really relax without our children. I still smile when I think of one particular MNO when I arrived home to my husband sitting on the couch at 2:30am feeling like a guilty teenager who missed curfew--sometimes you just lose track of time and your phone.

It's been over eight months since I've attended a MOMs Club Event. My babies aren't really babies anymore. I received my last "Weekly Update" from the club since my membership expired as of September 1st which made me a little emotional. In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, Willie's wife Linda tells him, "Life is a casting off." A profound, sad and accurate observation of the human experience. With the passage of time, we change, grow, and evolve and unfortunately leave things and sometimes people behind. It's time for me to cast off from a group that helped fill some lonely days and keep my sanity.

I no longer see my playgroup friends on a weekly basis. Our daily lives are now busy with school, work, soccer practices, Girl Scouts, homework, and figurative and literal laundry lists.  But we still manage to stay connected, and I'm always impressed how quickly we can return to that comfortable camaraderie we once shared. We periodically share photos on Facebook of our babies when they were babies, and we all feel a little weepy. We send a quick text to wish one another luck as we
embark on a new life journey or just to make sure the kids had a good first week at school. This morning I smiled as I watched my boys play with two of their playgroup friends who slept over last night and left the floor littered with toys like the good old days.  I like to think the universe would have found another way for me to meet these wonderful women, but I'm glad I made that choice six years ago.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Whenever I hear Andy Williams velvety voice enthusiastically bellowing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," I don't think of Christmas; rather, I think of the Staples commercial with a father joyfully skipping down the school supply aisle as his children trudge behind him with a sense of impending doom. I know some of you may be disturbed by this but the start of the school year for me is as exciting as Christmas, maybe even more exciting. Fact Number One: I am a big nerd. Fact Number Two: I love school. As a kid, I loved going shopping for my new school supplies. I could spend hours looking at mechanical pencils, debating the pros and cons of erasable pens, and fawning over notebooks with lilac paper. The smell of Mr. Sketch Markers and Sharpies, the only high I craved. I sometimes feel a little guilty that I enjoy my job too much. I sometimes want to be like the other "cool kids" and nod my head in solidarity that this "working for the man" is totally lame. And while I sometimes feel school administrators* try to suck my joy and overwhelm me during our opening in-service week, I have perfected my selective hearing skills which enables me to start the year with my joy and excitement mostly intact. I've been thinking about what I am most excited about as I start a new school year. I'm excited about having my own classroom this year. Last year, I floated through four different classrooms which was a new (and enlightening) experience for me as I learned to use the bare essentials. I'm excited to meet my new students and see some of my seventh graders from last year in my eighth grade classes. While last year proved to be a challenging year for me for many different reasons, I honestly adored my students and had one of the best years in my career thus far. But for those of you who know me best, I am probably most excited about getting to wear my cute clothes--both old and new.

Clothes. Call me vain. Call me superficial. I love pretty clothes. I attribute my love of clothes to my wonderfully stylish mother. As a little girl, I remember trailing my fingertips over the clothes that filled her closet and marveled at how she carefully curated her wardrobe. My mother worked as a bank teller before bank tellers had to wear those awful sweater vests and oxford shirts, and a significant amount of my mother's part-time job earnings fueled her penchant for clothes and her ultimate Kryptonite--shoes. Every day she went to work, she meticulously selected her clothes which she always capped off with a great pair of shoes. Growing up, my mother and I bonded over shopping. I loved nothing better than a day spent trying on clothes and the high of finding a great deal coupled with a brief stop for a slice of pizza from Dino's at the Wyoming Valley Mall. At least once a year, we would head to the Tannersville Outlets for the ultimate binge shopping extravaganza usually in preparation for the upcoming school year. We had a budget and a mission to find the best deals, and typically left after a day of shopping feeling exhausted and satisfied.

Do clothes make the man or woman? No. But to me clothes are important. I still associate clothes shopping with those wonderful days bonding with my mother not only looking for good deals but spending time with my mom.  While I always felt the genetic pool had denied me the code to my mother's beauty, I did inherit her innate sense of style. Through my awful, awkward, chunky, crooked-teethed pre-teen and teenage years, I seldom felt pretty, but I at least felt a little more confident armored in my clothes which concealed my all too real and sometimes perceived flaws. I may not have been cute but at least I was wearing cute clothes. While some women expend their energies trying to impress the opposite sex with their clothing choices or other women, I am mostly trying to impress myself. I spend many evenings scrolling through Pinterest to decompress, mostly looking at clothes, and I came across the following quote in my feed, "Beauty is being the best possible version of yourself  on the inside and out" and thought this quote succinctly encompasses my attitude towards fashion and myself.

As I prepare for my first day of school with students on Monday, I have been busily prepping my new classroom. I also have started the process of prepping new curriculum for my classes which has left me feeling slightly stressed. When I feel stressed, my two best stress relievers are running and shopping. So on Wednesday, when I felt overwhelmed at my curriculum meeting, I opted for what I like to call a "working" lunch and went in search of an H&M skirt I had scoped out in a magazine a few weeks ago. Alas, the store in the Exton Mall no longer carried the skirt, but have no fear, I scored a different skirt, okay maybe two, and went back to my meeting feeling a little happier after my retail therapy. I'm still vacillating between the H&M skirt or the cute brown dress I picked up a few weeks ago for $14.99 at the Outlets for the first day of school? Yes, it's the hap-happiest season of all.

*Note: When I reference "school administrators," I am not referencing my wonderful building principals. They put the "pal" in principal.

Summertime And the Livin's Easy?

Tomorrow marks the start of week three of Summer Vacation, and I finally feel like I've found my stride. After a rather harried nine months of teaching four preps, selling our house, and moving into a new house, I spent the first few days of summer vacation not knowing what to do with myself. No papers to grade, no lessons to plan, and our home improvement projects put on hold until Painter John could squeeze us in to his busy schedule, I felt a bit "lazy" reading for pleasure, catching up with old friends, and making a dent in our summer bucket list. Have no fear, I am adaptable and have shifted gears into summer mode--eight full weeks of nothing but Saturdays is not the reason why I became a teacher, but it's one awesome perk.

As we prepped to head out on our first of three mini-vacations this past holiday weekend, I reached in to the pocket of my wall calendar and pulled out the ominous paper that appeared in my mail a few weeks earlier from the Montgomery County Courthouse with that filthy five letter word written in all caps set against a red background--JUROR. Bloody hell, I have Jury Duty. My initial instinct was to vent my "outrage" at being selected for jury duty on Facebook, but I refrained. Whining about jury duty is so cliche. It's been a few years since I've turned 18, and this is the first time I've been called on to serve--not too shabby. It's summer, so I can't complain about the inconvenience of missing work or finding child care for my children. And when I received the summons, I immediately recalled my friends and neighbor who were all called to "serve" and never had to report. On Thursday after 4pm, I pulled out my laptop, logged on to the website, typed in my Juror ID Number and Electronic Signature and in the spirit of a contestant on Press Your Luck silently chanted "No Whammies! No Whammies!" WHAMMY! YOU ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT for jury service. My eight weeks of Saturdays interrupted by a "Monday" of jury duty.

I am hopeful tomorrow I will be deemed too smart, or I'm even okay with being deemed too much of a simpleton to serve on a jury. I selfishly would rather finish reading The Book Thief in the Montgomery County Courthouse versus listening to attorneys prattle on and on. I am imagining most trials fall short of the excitement of all those John Grisham novels I devoured as a teenager and lack the entertainment value of The Good Wife or even Law and Order.  Although after having taught 12 Angry Men for eight years and given my current consumption of Orange is the New Black, I feel I am an expert in the nuances of my civic duty and crime and punishment. Maybe if I vehemently highlight these "qualifications" I will ensure my exclusion from any jury panel.

Here's to hoping I get to read my book, enjoy lunch at Taco Mike's a few blocks down from the courthouse tomorrow, and continue my "livin' easy" summer. But if this is not the case, I will hopefully leave the courthouse with an entertaining story to share.

Screw You Mother Nature

The past few weeks, my life has been consumed primarily by the following: working on cleaning and painting our new house, packing up and clearing out all of the "stuff" we amassed over the nine years we lived in our townhouse, poorly planning my boys' birthday parties, and trying to keep the interest of 125 middle schoolers as summer looms just out of their (and my) reach. In all honesty, I have been doing a mediocre job at best, which when you factor in my optimistic viewpoint, in all reality means I've been doing a pretty terrible job in every facet of my life.  And in case you hadn't noticed, I haven't written a post for my blog in roughly three weeks. So much for my goal of a weekly post through the end of the school year. Yes, I am a slacker with a capital "S". 

As I looked at my Facebook feed Sunday night before bed, I felt depressed--a failure at life. As all my "friends" were out enjoying the beautiful weather-- running or enjoying time with their beautiful children doing fun, whimsical activities, I contemplated what I had accomplished over my weekend. I attended three baseball games in less than 24 hours, worked the hot dog roller in the Little League Snack Stand, and finally scrubbed the shower in our new home to the point where it no longer feels like a frat house shower. Not exactly sucking the marrow out of life, but rather, feeling like a pretty sucky parent and participant in life in general.

As I contemplated what would make me feel less sucky, I decided the best way to lift my spirits and improve my mood was to go for a run after work on Monday. Now that we've moved, if I bolt out of school at the end of my day, I have about thirty-five minutes until Nate gets dropped off by his bus at Josh's day-care to squeeze in a run. As I set out on the trail, I reflected that it had been almost three weeks since I had run. Granted I've been working out plenty by painting, scrubbing away at two years of dirt left behind by the generous tenants who use to occupy our house, carrying boxes upon boxes, and running up and down flights of stairs in a whirlwind of purposeful, organizing fury, I haven't taken the time to go for a run to not just burn some extra calories but more importantly to clear my head. As I set out on the trail listening to my Eric Church playlist, I felt the stress and tension leaving my body and marveled at the beauty of the wild blue bells creating a purple carpet in the woods surrounding the trail.

After this ridiculous winter, I smiled to think how at least in my estimation Mother Nature had finally redeemed herself. I recently wrapped up a unit on Greek Mythology with my seventh graders, and we discussed how the Greeks used their gods to explain the natural phenomena around them. The Greek gods used their powers to rule the universe and primarily acted selfishly,cruelly and vindictively. Several times this past winter I have pondered what exactly have we done to make Mother Nature so angry and vindictive? Was it the pact I made with my fellow colleague not to wear a coat to school for the entire winter? Was Mother Nature just doing her best to garner our attention and remind us how powerful she is? Perhaps Mother Nature was pulling one from Fatal Attraction's Alex Forrest--"I'm not going to be ignored."  After my run, I inwardly acknowledged how the beauty and splendor had restored my spirit and soothed my soul. Thank you Mother Nature.

A mere two days later though, as I drove in the torrential rain and arrived home to find a gaping hole in the basement wall exposing the hairline crack in our foundation where rain water was steadily seeping in to our finished basement--the crack the contractor was scheduled to come and fix the next morning, I thought, "Mother Nature, why do you have to be such a bitch?"

Home Sweet Home

Last Saturday, we celebrated Nate's birthday at our townhouse for the last time. One of my very best friends asked me as she dropped off her son how I was feeling about this being the last party in our townhouse. Did I feel sad? I smiled, shook my head, and laughed, "Not really." I feel a little guilty about not feeling sadder. My poor townhouse. She's been a good house. I recognize she has no feelings; although if she did, she would obviously be a girl. While she has been a good home, I always knew this relationship wasn't meant to last. While I did love her when we first moved in, I always knew we would leave her.

We purchased our townhouse in May 2005. Knowing we would like to start a family and feeling pretty confident that I wanted to stay at home for at least a few years with our future children, we opted for a modest starter home. When we were moving in, I was most excited about having our own washer and dryer on the second floor. After nearly six and a half years of begrudgingly sharing a laundry room with inconsiderate apartment dwellers who often left their unmentionables for far too long in the washer or dryer, I was delighted by the prospect of doing laundry whenever I felt compelled without trudging up and down several flights of stairs. What can I say, I'm a simple girl.

Over the past nine years, we have completed a lot of home improvement projects and done our best to make this house feel like a home. As we remodeled room after room though, my thought process was always, "What would be the most cost-effective, universally appealing way to improve this room?" Given our townhouse sold in less than a month, I think we did a pretty good job.

So what will I miss about 110 Pin Oak Court? I asked my husband this question last week, and he paused to think for quite a while before responding, "Having trash pick-up twice a week?" He has been carefully plotting our escape plan and dreaming of a two car garage, bigger yard, and a shed for more than a few years. He also isn't the most sentimental of men. What will I miss about our first home? I will certainly miss a few of our neighbors. I will most certainly miss the beautiful Perkiomen Trail which runs through the middle of our development. Over the past three years, I have fallen in love with the two and a half mile stretch that I sincerely never grow tired of running. While some may find it boring to run the same stretch of trail, I am completely enamored with its ever-changing beauty. I marvel when the buds first gather on the branches in early spring, the lush canopy of trees provide a welcome respite from the summer sun, and in the fall, how could a person not be impressed by nature's autumnal show? I must admit, I'm partial to the winter trail. I love running in the invigorating cold, and the woods that surround the trail remind me of my childhood when I would help my dad cut down trees for our wood burning stove and tap maple trees for syrup.

I can muster a slight twinge of nostalgia for our little townhouse, when I think of when we brought our little babies home from the hospital and officially became a family here. But as I marvel at how much my boys have grown over the past seven years, I know the time has come for our family to move on to a bigger home with a wonderful driveway for playing basketball, a cul-de-sac for street hockey, and a sloped yard that should be absolutely perfect for an awesome slip n slide. I am so excited to start making hopefully decades of memories in our new home.

In two weeks, we will officially say good-bye to 110 Pin Oak Court. She has been a good home, and I hope her next owners treat her well. While she was not our one and only, I will do my best to respect her and remember her fondly.

Stardust Memories

Sixteen years ago today, my amazingly spectacular grammy passed away. My earliest clear memory from my childhood was at the age of four when my grammy married my step-grandfather. If I close my eyes, I can perfectly recall the white dress with the tiny pink, blue and yellow flowers all over it, the accordion pleats, and the way the skirt would lift as I twirled around. On the morning of her wedding, my grammy gave me my first pair of diamond stud earrings. They were chips, but I was dazzled by the real diamonds which my grammy always chirped, "were a girl's best friend." On my mantle is a picture of me wearing that dress photobombing before there was such a thing, as my grammy and grandfather cut their wedding cake.

My grammy by no means was a traditional grandmother, and I loved her all the more for it. She wasn't a very good cook, baking wasn't her thing, and the words shit, damn, and hell often fell from her mouth over the course of the day. She typically followed up her verbal slips with a sly smile and with a twinkle in her eye she would say, "Pardon my French." I always knew such words were off limits for my own personal vocabulary. 

My grandparents owned an apple orchard, and many of my memories are tied to the farm. Growing up, I spent plenty of time helping out on the farm. In the late spring and early summer we picked strawberries, blueberries, and attended to my grammy's extensive herb and vegetable garden. In the peak of summer, we picked peaches, pears, and prunes, and when those late summer days were tinged with the cool crispness of the impending fall, we began the ongoing task of harvesting the different variety of apples they grew in their orchard. During the summer, I spent at least one day of the week with my grammy and on weekends it was not uncommon for my entire family to lend my grandparents a hand. I was not always overly enthusiastic at the start of the morning when my grammy would run through our "Plan of Attack" for the day. It almost always involved outdoor physical labor until lunch time followed by a short rest and then usually working around the house. My grandparents didn't have cable and using the bunny ears on top of their TV, they could sometimes get a clear picture from one local affiliate and the local PBS channel if the wind was blowing in just the right direction, so TV viewing was never really a viable option, but I honestly didn't mind. My grammy made work fun. She could make anything fun. Her enthusiasm for life was contagious. From an early age, she taught me the value of hard work by paying me 50 cents for dusting or $1.00 for picking apples. She kept a running tally on a slip of paper of the money she owed me in her cookie jar, and when I went on vacation or wanted to buy a new book, she would pay me my hard earned salary. She also encouraged me to cultivate my own interests and hobbies by signing me up for a summer French class and art lessons. I wasn't a fan of the French, but I loved taking art classes, which became one of my favorite hobbies. She always reminded me of the importance of being smart and doing well in school. I can still recall the summer between second and third grade writing my times tables ten times each as she made lunch for my grandfather and her quizzing me periodically, "What's seven times seven?" Those sevens tripped me up for a few weeks, but by the end of summer, I knew all my multiplication facts up to twelve times twelve.  

I always loved when I would go to my grammy's on Fridays. Fridays were typically "delivery days" which meant we would ride around in her station wagon in the mornings, and there was the possibility of us spending some of the spoils from the deliveries. We would deliver fresh herbs and fruit to some local grocery stores and restaurants, which was one facet of my grandparents' livelihood. After deliveries, my grammy would sometimes treat us to lunch, and on many occasions, we stopped at the local dairy to pick up milk and two chocolate peanut butter ice cream cones which we enjoyed as the breeze blew in the windows of my grammy's station wagon as Doris Day sang in the background.

My grammy almost always had a smile on her face and a zest for life, which I loved as a child and have a greater appreciation for now as an adult. My grammy found herself a widow at the age of thirty with three children after watching her husband defeated by his illness. While my grammy did have the support of family, her life was by no means easy during this time which could have easily left her bitter or unhappy for the rest of her life. From personal experience, I have seen others allow their lot in life lead them to live a life of negativity and question "Why me?" But, instead, she made the choice to find the beauty in life and made the choice to be happy in spite of sadness. 

Shortly before my sixteenth birthday, my grammy and my great aunt took my cousin and I on a terrifically memorable trip to London and Paris. We strolled through Harrad's, and my grammy's eyes were like saucers as she looked at the decadent desserts in the bakery. Her lunch that afternoon was comprised entirely of desserts. In fact, several meals my grammy enjoyed were almost entirely comprised of desserts. I remember after we touched down in Paris in the late afternoon, my grammy insisting we go steal at least a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower even if it meant we were late for our dinner reservation. Her face lit up as she gazed at it for the first time, and the following day we enjoyed the breathtaking view of Paris from atop it. We later strolled around the gardens at Versailles, and my grammy jokingly contemplated how she could replicate the same garden in her side yard. While those grandiose gardens were spectacular, I know she was supremely satisfied with her own simple flower garden and the flowers she plucked from it which often graced her kitchen window sill. No matter how great or small, the beauty and joy in life could always be found.

In the late summer of 1997, almost four years after burying her second husband who succumbed to cancer, my grammy wasn't feeling well. Completely out of character for her, she didn't have the same energy she once did, and her back was always aching. After having her gall bladder removed with no significant improvement to her discomfort, we began to worry. My grammy never complained about anything, so we knew something was seriously wrong. My brother, mother and I took her to a medical center in Hershey for some tests, and the doctors discovered she had pancreatic cancer. The oncologist's prognosis was two to four months without treatment and four to six months with treatment. After a few treatments and suffering from the debilitating side effects, my grammy opted for quality over quantity. 

Knowing her days were numbered, we all made the most of the time left. Juggling my eighteen credits, tutoring at the Writing Center, and working fifteen hours at my part-time job, I would make a point of stopping to visit my grammy before dinner almost every day. I would stop by to check in to see if she needed help and fill her in on the happenings of my day which she listened to attentively. Her physical deterioration progressed; although, she did her best to stay positive. I remember stopping one afternoon when she was particularly weak, and her asking me to help her get in the shower. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea, especially since the trained nurse would be there in the morning to help her. I felt terrible denying her request, but I honestly didn't think I had the physical strength to help her. My grammy was tenacious, and she was going to take a shower with or without my help. As she tried to lift her body off the couch, I conceded and supported her weight. As she slipped out of her clothes, I felt the tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I, of course, knew my grandmother had lost a lot of weight as her clothes now hung from her frame, but seeing the shriveled body of a woman who was once so robust and full of life, my heart sunk. As she showered and supported her weight against the wall of the shower, she heaved a great sigh of relief.  I wrapped her lovingly in the towel which engulfed her frame,and as she turned around and met my gaze, she said, "I feel like a new woman ready to face the day." I smiled and thought about it being 4:30 in the afternoon, the day almost over. But something as simple as a shower could lift my grammy's mood.

Another afternoon while visiting my grandmother and talking about school, she casually mentioned how if she had had the opportunity to go to college, she had always thought she would've been an English teacher. Nearing the end of my junior year of college and knowing I would be student teaching the following year as an English teacher at a local high school, I looked at her with a watery smile.

On Saturday, March 21, 1998, she took her final labored breaths as her first born son and first born grandson held her hands. A week later, we mourned her death with friends and family, which she specifically told us not to do, but we also respected her wishes to celebrate her life and toasted her with the case of champagne she bought shortly after she learned of her terminal illness. We shared stories about her beautiful spirit, and I will always remember a neighbor who said my grammy had the ability to make you feel like the most important person in the room. I count that among her many gifts.

Sixteen years have passed. I can't recall the cadence of my grammy's voice anymore. I yearn for her physical presence, but that of course, isn't possible. Seldom a day passes I don't think of her. She would've turned 84 this past New Year's Day, and I always thought she would have lived well in to her 90's given her spirit.  I am grateful for all she taught me. In the deck of life, everyone is dealt varying degrees of heartbreak, sadness and challenges, which may make us feel powerless, but we can always control what we do with those cards. Happiness is always a choice a person can make even in the most difficult of situations. I also learned it doesn't so much matter where you are in life, as much as it matters who you are with. When you are standing beside someone you love, care or respect, the job you're doing doesn't quite matter as much. My grammy told me that when she was a little girl, she told her own grandmother who made her pull weeds in the garden that when she grew up, she would never pull weeds. Her grandmother responded, "Audrey, you know what's going to happen to you? You're going to fall in love with a farmer." My grammy married not one but two farmers. I know she enjoyed working outside, but she more importantly enjoyed working side by side with my grandfather. Likewise, I would gladly go back to the late afternoon in Paris when we spied the Eiffel Tower for the first time, but I would honestly be equally happy to just sit at my grammy's kitchen desk writing my multiplication tables if I could spend just one more afternoon with her. 

I feel particularly sad when I think that starting this year, I'll have more years of memories without her than with her. But when I miss her especially, I will wear the earrings she gave me the day she married my grandfather and the beautiful diamond pendant my grandfather gave her as a symbol of how precious she was to him. After all, "diamonds are a girl's best friend." Although, it was always clear who was her best friend. I will think of her when I eat chocolate peanut butter ice cream and when I look at my toes. I remember when my mother pointed out years ago, I had my grammy's feet, I certainly didn't view it as a compliment. But now when I look down and note the shape of my toes, I think of her and the connection and grounding we share. In one of my favorite essays, "Writing Three Thank-You Letters," Alex Haley writes about a letter he wrote to his own grandmother one Thanksgiving while he was in the service where he thanked her for having "sprinkled [his] life with stardust." I am so thankful for all the stardust my grammy sprinkled on my life.