Marble Glass and Railroad Tracks ~ A Memoir

    Woooo-ooo! Woooo-ooo!  The train sounded its horn in the distance and as the lights began to flash and the alarms of the signal rang the cross bar lowered.  I slowed my Buick Terazza mini-van to a stop and as the engine of my van quietly hummed the train’s engine roared louder and louder as it loomed closer and closer.  The horn blared again and my eyes focused down the railroad tracks at the oncoming train, the train came into focus, crossed in front of my van and my vision blurred as my memories came flooding back of marble glass and railroad tracks.

     As a young girl, my parents would take us to Cairo, West Virginia each summer.  We visited my Uncle “Junior” and Aunt Catherine.  My cousins, Paul and Mike, were much older; therefore, my sister and I were often left to find our own entertainment on these annual visits.  The railroad ran through the town of Cairo.  My aunt and uncle lived about 50 yards off of the railroad tracks and directly across the tracks was The Heaton Agate Company marble factory.  If I had not seen a marble factory with my own eyes I would have imagined it to be a lovely place that looked like a magical castle with beautiful flowers and giant sized marbles sitting on top fence posts that surrounded a world where fanciful balls of glass in a myriad of colors with no two alike were crafted out of fire and melted glass.    

     But, the marble factory that I knew was nothing like one would imagine such perfect treasures to be crafted—treasures that would be carried in the small hands of children, tucked inside their pockets, buried in a sandbox as hidden treasures and eventually lost only to be found by some other lucky child to become their treasure to behold.

     Having grown up visiting Cairo, West Virginia, I learned that a marble factory is really a small, square building with dirty broken windows and a flat roof.   On the outside, mountains of broken green, brown, clear and blue glass lay in heaps near the walls of the building.  Overgrown weeds and tall grass so high that it looked like a miniature jungle surrounded the marble factory where the stray cats that made their home there must have certainly pretended to be the king of that jungle.  The marble factory in Cairo, West Virginia looks as if it could have been condemned.  Even though, as a child, I always thought a marble factory should have been a far prettier place, I realize now just as we should not judge a book by its cover, we should also not judge a building by its exterior.  The marble factory in Cairo truly shows that beauty and the treasures one has to offer comes from the inside.

     As I sat in my van that morning, the train cars a blur in front of me, my mind took me back to those railroad tracks that ran alongside the marble factory.  One of the few things I looked forward to on our annual summer trips to West Virginia was scavenging the railroad tracks for marbles.  For some reason, I never really understood why, marbles would end up along the railroad tracks.  My sister Elana and I would spend at least a couple hours a day digging through the rocks along the tracks in search of those precious colorful balls of glass.  We’d start closest to the marble factory.  That was always the easiest place to find them.

     “I found one!” one of us would shout.  The other one would come running over to see what it looked like.  If my sister found one first, I always asked, “What color is it?” as I scampered along the tracks toward her.  “Let me see it!  Can I hold it?” I would beg her eagerly.  There was always something special about the first marble found.  Maybe, it was simply because in finding one, I knew they were there to be found again each year.  Not knowing why they were there to begin with was such a curious mystery to me. “How did the marbles get from inside the building to alongside the railroad tracks?” I wondered to myself.  There was no road that led there.  There was no path-- just that thick jungle of weeds and tall grass.  I suppose from one year to the next, deep down I was always afraid that we would go to visit Uncle “Junior” and Aunt Catherine and those beautiful balls of colored glass, the treasures along those B & O railroad tracks would not be there anymore.

     My sister was braver than I.  She often ventured into that jungle of weeds and tall grass.  I hung back at the tracks teetering on the rails looking for her as she searched the lower canopy for marbles.  I clung to the safety of the perimeter where the bugs and other weed and tall grass critters could not get me.  My sister often found some spectacular marbles on those missions.  Well, they seemed spectacular to me, perhaps in part because she obtained them through bravery which I lacked, but also because those marbles were sometimes a salmon pink colored one or even a two-toned aqua and blue combination—both marbles which were rare.  “Can I have that one?” I had asked desperately wanting the salmon pink one.  “No,“ she said, “Finder’s keepers, loser’s weepers.”

     My hopes often rested in the chance that when Mom took us walking up the railroad tracks later during our visit, I would find some special marbles of my own.  Usually by the end of the first day of our visit, I had asked her the required 1572 times for Mom to finally say, “Yes.”  The three of us, Mom, Elana and I, would start walking up the tracks shortly after dinner.  Usually, I would skip along the railroad ties when we first started out on our journey. I could afford carelessness in the early parts of our walk because it was in those segments of the track that I had already scavenged for marbles.  The railroad ties were not evenly spaced.  Sometimes my legs could stretch from one tie to the other, my toes barely reaching.  Other times, I had to take a small leap and landed with perfect ease.  Arms outstretched to my sides like a bird in flight I would from tie to tie until suddenly there was a tie too far to reach with ease and grace I would propel myself forward not wanting to break my record of how many railroad ties in a row I had skipped across without touching the rocks in between.  Sometimes I landed on that just-out-of-reach tie and other times I crashed into the rocks that filled the gaps in between the ties skinning my knees.  Mom would stop and use a napkin she kept in her pocket (probably in anticipation of this event) to wipe the blood from my knee and another one to dry the tears from my eyes.  Once, my knee and my pride seemed healed enough to continue, we continued up the railroad tracks, the three of us side by side.  Inside my mind, I decided that a new game was to count how many railroad ties I could not touch.  Once we entered newer territory, I slowed my pace, often balancing on the rail of the track as if I were a gymnast on a balance beam.

     Some of the marbles I found were barely peeking through the dirt at the base of the Appalacian Mountains, the sunlight hitting them just right so that the light reflecting off of them was just enough to capture my eye.  “Look!  I see one!”  I’d call and dash off toward it as my sister would follow behind asking, “Where?”  Sometimes, I’d get really lucky and as I dug through the dirt with my small eager hands working their fingernails to uncover that one small piece of treasure, I would actually find two playing peek-a-boo.

     As if the fact that marbles seemed to mysteriously get from inside the marble factory to along the tracks outside of it was not curious enough, that marbles could be found as far away as a quarter mile of that marble factory was even more puzzling.  Marbles would be scattered along the railroad tracks lying at the base of the mountains.  I wonder if someone put them there on purpose just for children like us.  Maybe he knew there were kids who liked to search for hidden treasures.  Maybe he knew that there was a girl like me who would grow up to think back fondly on those beautiful balls of glass.  Maybe they were put there for just the right pair of eyes to see.

     By the end of each visit, my sister and I were usually lucky enough to have collected a small Zip-loc bag containing about ten marbles each.  Occasionally, one of us would find a shooter.  Quite often, we would sit on Aunt Catherine’s sunlit couch and look at our marbles trying to decide which one we liked best.  Perhaps we might even work out a trade between ourselves.

     The train cars in front of me passed by in a blur and as the caboose went by, the signal alarms and lights turned off, the crossbar raised and my mind refocused.  I shifted my van into drive and slowly accelerated.  As I drove, I thought of those marbles I found as a child and how I wish that I still had them.  But, perhaps they are in the hands of a child or in a pocket, or in a sandbox as a buried treasure.  Maybe the marbles I uncovered as a child have been uncovered countless times since then in countless other places.

     I may not have the marbles from my childhood to remind me of those family trips to visit my father’s family, but I do have something else that may be just as good.  My father moved back to Cairo, West Virginia when I was 30.  Eventually, he bought the house that was next to the marble factory.  When visiting my father, he and I would sit on his back porch around which chunks of red and yellow swirled marble glass dotted his flower beds.  Because my father was an alcoholic and he and I did not have a close relationship those talks were some of the best we’d ever had.  On his mantle sat a small jar of marbles.  Prior to his death, my father asked me what I wanted of his.  The only thing I told him that I wanted was the marble glass from his flower beds and the jar of marbles from his mantle-- raw marble glass like the mountains of broken glass outside of the marble factory and beautiful, perfectly round treasures.  Together, perhaps, in my mind, they represent that the beauty that lies within.  And even as I write this, I have to wonder, if somehow the raw marble glass and the jar of beautiful, colorful marbles somehow represent my father and me…

http://video.answers.com/the-marbles-making-in-cairo-west-virginia-259884824

Dumped for a Lunchable- A Man is Still a Man Even if He is Just Three

Today, my student "Kirby" who has claimed me as "his" in many was DUMPED me for an Oscar Mayer Lunchable.  After three year old Kirby pee'd on my feet, told other kids who tried to touch me "No, Mine" and physically removed their hands from me, proclaimed his love and adoration for me daily for months...decided that a Lunchable was much more powerful than the love he had for me.  He told his mother he did not want to go see Miss Rosie today because he wanted to eat the Lunchable she had in her car.

The question left in my poor broken heart...was this just a regular Lunchable I was getting dumped for or did it at least come with a drink and  Reeses cup.  I mean... I would hope I would get picked over a regular Lunchable...I can let the issue go if there was a Reeses cup involved...

But (sniff, sniff) I knew all along the fastest way to a man's heart was through his stomach so when it came to Miss Rosie vs. the Lunchable...there could only be one clear winner...

A Bridge of Trust ~ A Memoir

Grandma and Grandpa Amstutz are “one-of-a-kind” grandparents.  At least to me they are since I didn’t really grow up with any.  All but one of my grandparents had passed away before I was three and the only living one, whom I only saw once in awhile, died when I was in high school.  Yes, Grandma and Grandpa Amstutz are special.  They went out of their way to make family more than just a group of people connected by blood but gave the word “family” meaning by giving the people in their family attention, love and time.

     Grandma and Grandpa Amstutz wanted to share themselves with the people in their family.  When Dave, my husband and their first born grandchild, was growing up they would spend weekend days together walking the quiet wooded trail of the College Farm woods looking for birds and grasshoppers, picking up leaves and sticks, and crossing the swinging bridge to the other side of the river. When Dave and I had children of our own Grandma and Grandpa Amstutz often talked about their desire to take Noah and Nicholas on the same walk, wanting to create in them a similar memory as they had done with Dave and his sister Jennifer during their youth.

     The summer that Noah was five and Nicholas was 2 1/2 Grandma and Grandpa finally got their wish.  Dave, Noah and Nicholas and I headed to Bluffton one Sunday morning.  I was filled with anxiety during the entire hour and twenty minute drive north up I-75.  So many questions ran through my busy mind. “What if Noah ran off from them during the hike?”  “Could Grandma and Grandpa handle all of Nicholas’ hopping?”  Nicholas hopped everywhere instead of walking.  “What if Grandma had an asthma attack of Grandpa fell—the boys wouldn’t know what to do?”  I was truly a nervous wreck inside.

     You see, the thing that made me the most anxious was that Grandma and Grandpa wanted to take this walk with Noah and Nicholas without Dave and I—well, more accurately without me.  I always was in control of my kids and in the span of that walk, I would have no control.  Having a son with a developmental disorder and a hippity-hoppity toddler on a walk in a place I had never been—especially a place where they would be crossing a swinging bridge (and I remembered many swinging bridges from my own childhood and that gave me even more cause to be anxious) frightened me.

     Nevertheless, after hugs, kisses, and a  delicious family dinner, Grandma and Grandpa set off on their walk with Noah and Nicholas—water bottles and frozen Snickers bars packed in a thermal lunch bag.  Dave and I drove our tan Dodge Caravan around to the back side of College Farm to meet them on the other side to the point that would be the end of the hike.  Dave and I walked to the arranged meeting point— the other side of the swinging bridge.  As we were walking towards it, I could hear the happy sounds of my children’s voices off in the distance and the voices of their loving great-grandparents asking them questions and talking to them gently as they approached the swinging bridge.

     A wave of relief washed over me as I realized that for one of the first times since Noah was first diagnosed with a developmental disorder I could turn over some control to others for at least a little while and that everything would be o.k.  As Dave and I stood on one side of that swinging bridge and watched Grandma and Grandpa Amstutz take Noah and Nicholas’ little hands and walk across that swinging bridge, not only were special memories formed that day for the boys and their great grandparents, but a bridge of trust was also built.  This bridge of trust was built between them and me.  Trust is something that I do not give easily and on that hot day in that wooded area called College Farm in Bluffton, our bridge of trust was built at that swinging bridge.

     After Grandma and Grandpa and the boys arrived safely across the bridge, we  hugged and kissed.  I took a photo of the four of them to commemorate this occasion when great-grandparents and great-grandsons took a walk down memory lane.  An occasion where grandparents shared with their great grandsons a piece of their father’s history and made new memories for themselves.

     Afterward, we spent time exploring the old building that existed on that side of the bridge and drank water from the old well.  They boys took turns pumping the handle to bring forth water letting Grandma and Grandpa lean forward and quench their thirst just as if they were children, too.

     We shared a lot of laughter and made memories in those woods that day.  I often wonder what kinds of things Grandma and Grandpa told Noah and Nicholas about when I was not there with them.  But, that is special between them.  They built their own bridge of trust that day too.

I'm From

I’m From…

I’m from Crystal Lakes,
last house on a dead in street with a metal cable that separated “us from them”.
I’m from a house with a curved driveway and a front porch with a black scroll supports I loved to climb and a bedroom I shared with my sister, beds bumped together.
I’m from a red brick house with a breeze way, a flower planter and a large cement patio where we had picnics and parties on the outside and danced to my father’s old LPs, watched Little House on the Prairie and roller-skated in the basement on the inside.
I’m from a white brick ranch house down a long gravel lane on six acres of land in the country.
I’m from many houses but not one single home.

I’m from yards with rock gardens and flower beds with a rainbow of colors-- yellow daffodils, red tulips, orange poppies with bright black centers, and blue hyacinths.
I’m from vegetable gardens, hands in the soil planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering, hoeing, harvesting—sweet corn, green beans, sugar snap peas, ripe plump tomatoes, bibbed lettuce, radishes, carrots, rhubarb and more.
I’m from canning-- podding peas, stringing beans, cutting corn off the cob, skinning tomatoes, peeling apples and pears—making dilly beans, salsa, bread and butter pickles, tomato juice, and applesauce.

I’m from riding lawn lawnmowers on hot Saturday afternoons with birds circling overhead, swooping and diving down dangerously close wasting their efforts to protect their field nests as I listened to the cassette single of “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette on my Sony Walkman.
I’m from a barn with a covered patio and a porch swing from which I swung back and forth as I smelled rain thicken the air, watched dark clouds loom in the distance, heard the rumble thunder roll in and felt the first drops of rain as Mother Nature unleashed her anger during a summer night’s thunder storm.

I’m from baby dolls—Rub-a-Dub Dolly, Baby Sneezes, Jackie, and the “Giant Baby”, too, but the best doll baby of all was “Pouty Baby”—I loved her so much my mom bought me two.
I’m from Barbie Dolls and Barbie clothes (some store bought and some homemade) which I spent endless hours playing with in my own land of make believe.

I’m from springs spent riding my red bike down the street wind in my face, trying to beat my sister to the stop sign.
I’m from summers spent playing kickball and baseball in the neighbor kid’s yard with “ghost man on third” when we were a few players short of a team.
I’m from autumns spent carefully selecting new school supplies, shopping for new school shoes and clothes, happy to be back in school after a summer at home missing my “school friends”.
I’m from winters spent wishing for a white Christmas, snuggled deep under layers and layers of mom’s warm hand-made afghans fighting off the chill of a house heated by the heat of only a kerosene heater.

I’m from delivering newspapers with my mom out of our blue Dodge Aspen station wagon on hot summer days halfway through which we’d stop for a Fago and chips at Notter’s market.
I’m from bussing tables at the Amateur Trapshoot Association cafeteria for two weeks each sweltering August for two summers where I gave the aged shooters my time and a listening ear for the stories of their youth.

I’m from after school guitar lessons with Sister Anne where I traded finger nails for calloused fingers so that I could make music, live music, and feel music and not just hear music.
I’m from first chair clarinet in the junior high band, delicately blowing life into my instrument to play the sorrowful tune of “If” by Bread.
I’m from talent shows singing “Out Here On My Own” and “The Rose” – both songs having a heart tugging meaning to them then and now.

I’m from an alcoholic father and a mother who stayed with him, choosing that life for her daughters, too.
I’m from wanting children of my own to perhaps I can have none.
I’m from “congratulations you have a son” to “we think there’s something wrong with him.”
I’m from mother of one son to mother of two sons.
I’m from “it’s my fault” and “God made a huge mistake when he gave him to me” to “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.”
I’m from feeling weak because I cry and because I’m tired to knowing that I cry and I am tired because I have been fighting the fight and in doing so that is strength—giving up is weakness.
I’m from knowing that we only become courageous by being tested and I have never really quit, I just had to rest for a bit.

I’m from the movie Pay It Forward where the idea of doing a good deed for nothing in return but having it spread forward  like a beautiful infection infected me.
I’m from the movie Signs where the lesson I learned was that if we truly opened our eyes we would see the things and people God put in our lives to answer our prayers, to guide our ways, to give us the tools we need, to show us our purpose.
I’m from the movie All About Steve where Mary Horowitz taught me that simple things like red boots can remind me to be happy when inside I really feel like crying and where the power of words, the spoken word, was said so profoundly when she said, “There are meaningful words, there are pointless words, and then there are words that hurt!”

I’m from dandelion wishes and day dreams longing for better days.
I’m from reflecting and remembering and not letting go.
I’m from knowing that “knowing” is one thing but unless I can “be” that all the things that I know really make no difference when the challenges face me.
I’m from reading and writing and thinking deeply, trying to make sense of what I can to learn the lessons from both the good things and the bad.
I’m from many things, many places, many memories, but most of all, I’m from God and in Him I need to have more faith—because trust is belief in someone, but faith is acting on that belief and I know I gotta have more faith to get to where I want to go because I come from where I’m from.

Inches Above Me ~ An Autobiographical Excerpt

Water is such a wonderful thing.  Listening to the sounds of water flowing whether be it from a babbling brook, a softly flowing stream a raging river or from one of the many beautiful waterfalls of the Earth, the sounds of water calm us and bring tranquility to us in time when we need it.  Water is changing.  It takes the form of its container or even no shape at all.  Water.  Actor Bruce Lee says, “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

     When we need to clean ourselves, we use water to wash away the dirt from a day’s hard labor.  When our bodies ache, when they are weary, or when they are in need or relaxation or play, we turn to water.  We submerge our bodies in a bath or in a swimming pool.  When we thirst, we turn to water.  When our bodies are hot with sweat, our mouths dry, we take a glass full of ice and water and fill our mouths with water and use it to cool us, fulfilling our bodies need to replenish what it has lost.  It refreshes us. It nourishes us.  It sustains life.

     Water is a wonderful thing.  It soothes our souls, it cleanses, refreshes, it sustains life.  But, it can also take away life.  And that is what almost happened to me on a hot summer day in my seventh year of life.

     Swimming lessons were always something my sister Elana and I looked forward to each summer.  They were one of the few things we actually got to do “for fun” since neither of us took any other type of lessons like some of our friends did.  I had always been envious of Missy Witte and her fanciful sequined and beaded dance costumes.  Her parent’s let her take not just one type of dance lesson but THREE:  ballet, tap, and jazz.  I was so enthralled with her dress-up wardrobe of old dance costumes it made it difficult to ever take them off.  There were even times when I would put two or three on at a time.

     But, swimming lessons were what I got to do and I would have to be grateful for that.  Each summer, my mom would take Elana and me shopping for a new swimsuit and towel for swimming lessons.  I can’t specifically recall what my swimsuits were like from summer to summer but I do know that I always picked a swimsuit that was pink because pink was my favorite color back then.  And, I am sure that I tried to pick out something as fancy as possible—something with lace, sequins, or fake rhinestones (Better yet, all three)—just like my friend’s dance costumes.  I am sure that it was a one piece swimsuit.  Mother never let my sister or I wear anything other than that—it would be indecent to have done so.  My mother went to Catholic schools in the 1930’s and 1940’s when the nuns were indubitably strict and she still clung to those “old-fashioned values” often reminding Elana and I that back then if girls did not wear skirts or dresses that covered their knees they were just “asking for trouble” and telling us stories about how in those days when she went swimming, girls only went with other girls so that no parts of their bodies were exposed to other boys.  However, Mother also recognized that we were now living in the 1970’s and change was constant but uncomfortable.  So, she took us to swimming lessons, in our one piece swim suits and I was happy to go even though I still wished I could have dance lessons because I would rather have had beautiful satin and sequined dresses with tulle, lace, and fringes.

     The summer when I was seven, I swam one level below my sister’s level.  This put me two summers away from getting to jump off the diving board…the grand prize of swimming lessons.  Being in the highest level, you got to swim in the deep end and jump off the diving board.   I remember my sister and me longing for the day when we would get to jump off the diving board like the big kids.  I was two levels away and my sister was one level away.  I always felt one step behind my sister but that summer, I had my shining moment!  My swim instructor thought I was so accomplished in my level that she decided to promote me early.  I didn’t have to finish out the summer where I started but got to move up to my sister’s group!  I was so excited!  To be two years younger than Elana and in the same swimming level was a big deal to me.  “I’m not the ‘little sister’ as far as swimming lessons are concerned,” I thought to myself.  I was so filled with pride.  But one must be careful of pride.  With it comes a price.  “The only problem is that my feet barely touch the bottom of the pool here but over in the other area my head stayed above water easily,” I worried.  For me to stand in this area, I had to stand on my tippy toes.  I could barely touch bottom.  Despite my excitement over thinking I was my sister’s equal in one way, I knew she stood inches above me.

     One particular day, we were practicing a back stroke.  Those of us waiting for our turn hung onto the side of the pool bobbing up and down while we half paid attention watching the swimmer practicing and half giggled and played amongst ourselves dipping our heads under water and popping back up again as if our heads were bobbins and our bodies fishing hooks with giant worms attached.  It was a fun time hanging on the wall and popping up and down having wet hair come down over my face clinging like a damp curtain.  The water ran down that curtain, down over my shoulders, rolling in streams and in beads back into the basin from which it came—the pool that soothed and relaxed me, that gave me pleasure, that game me my first time of being  “my sister’s equal.”

     My turn finally came.  I held onto the wall with my wrinkly fingers and my toes curled, knees bent, face to the sun. I pushed off the wall.  Arms and feet kicking, each stroke took me away from the wall of security where I had just bobbed like a fishing bobbin close to the shore of a lake.  Now, I was propelling myself into the middle of the pool but what I didn’t know, what I could not see with my face to the sun, the sun that was warming me, was that as I swam my strokes took me towards deeper waters.  When I heard my swim instructor call from the edge of the pool, “Ok! That’s good work!” I stopped my strokes.  I lowered my legs. I tried to stand on my tippy toes like I always did in the newer area of the pool where I was my sister’s equal except for that she stood inches above me.  But when my feet touched bottom, my head was well below the surface of the water.

     My heart started pounding.  I felt my pulse race as the blood pumped faster through my veins in my panicked state.  I pushed myself up with my toes from the bottom of the pool and when my head popped through the surface of the water, I yelled, “HELP!” but it did not come out that way because as soon as I got to the top, I was going down again and as I went down, mouth open from my plea for help, I took in a mouthful of water.  I touched bottom again.  Panicked still, I pushed up again!  Again, I yelled, “HELP!”  . But the same thing happened, I inhaled and swallowed mouthful after mouthful of chlorinated water into my lungs and stomach.  I yelled for help while under water.  Those cries for help were muted by the water.  Fear and panic was overtaking me.  On one trip to the surface of the water, I could hear someone shout, “She’s drowning!” and I turned my head to see my mom standing up putting a newspaper down.

     My arms and feet kicked and flailed and from the first moment my feet touched the bottom with my head inches, maybe even feet—I really don’t know—under water, I forgot everything I knew about swimming and I knew I was not my sister’s equal because the inches she stood above me in that area of the pool made all the difference in the world in that moment.

     No one bothered to try to save me that day.   No swim instructor.  No lifeguard.  No mother.  No other adult.  I saved myself.  My pushes to the surface launched me towards the edge of the pool.  Maybe they didn’t try to save me because they could see that I was making progress on my own—but I didn’t know that.  I was seven. I was scared. I thought that I was drowning. I thought I was going to die.  And, I was waiting for help—help that never came.
When I made it to the edge of the pool, I climbed out, exhausted, gasping for breath.  I sobbed, “Why didn’t you help me?”  When I said “you” I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular but to everyone—everyone who stood by and watched—everyone who I thought should have helped me.  The swim instructor.  The lifeguard.  My mom.  Other bystanders.  I was seven and I was alone in that pool and I was drowning and the only one I had to count on was me.

     After that day, I went back down to my previous level of swimming.  I was not going back to that group again.  I wanted to be where my feet touched the bottom because I would never be fooled into thinking I could trust anyone other than myself to save me if I ever needed it again.  With some things, it only takes one time to destroy trust and feelings of abandonment when I thought I was going to drown were a deal breaker for me.

     I never went back to swimming lessons after that summer.  I never did fully lean how to swim.  I don’t like to get my face wet anymore—not even in the shower.  As soon as my face gets wet, I immediately grab a towel and dry my face.  I refuse to go in water deeper than my shoulders without holding on to the edge and taking a cruise for a vacation is not an option.

     That summer the water which nourishes us, relaxes us, gives us a place to enjoy our hot summer days—that water gave me my first opportunity at being equal to my sister and it took it away.  But when it took it away, it also took away bits and pieces of trust that I had in others.  It took away trust I had in the way I thought things were supposed to work.  From fancy dance costumes that I wanted to a one piece swimsuit that had to substitute for those costumes, I started to lose my trust in others the summer my sister stood inches above me.

Inside Me

Inside me I am the little girl who knocked out her two front teeth when she was three.  For years I was teased that all I wanted for Christmas was my two front teeth.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that good things come to those who wait, that the best gifts aren’t always wrapped in fancy packages, and Christmas isn’t about what we want but what God’s Son came to Earth to give to us.


Inside me I am the little girl who wanted to be a mommy, ballerina, a fashion designer, a rock star, a veterinarian, a teacher, and a doctor.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that I did not lack ambition to achieve all of my goals, but rather with exposure to new information and changing life circumstances, I was better able to choose my path along the way of this journey called life.


Inside me is the 7 year old little girl who still grieves from being locked out of the house because she didn’t come home when her mother asked, finding her favorite nightgown with the tiny pink rosebuds and the pink satin bow neatly folded with potted plant and a note reading “since you like it better somewhere else, you can find a new place to live.”

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who recognizes that her mother struggled with an alcoholic husband and in doing so feared her daughters probably did prefer other peoples’ homes where the aroma of liquor was not in the air and the nightly arguments did not fill the rooms with frightening sights and sounds sending her daughters huddling behind the red rocking chair clinging to each other crying. Inside me is a woman who recognizes that this was a desperate mother’s attempt to keep her daughters at home even if it was by scaring them or making them feel guilty.


Inside me is the thirteen year old girl who starved herself till she turned blue by eating only 200 calories a day for four months so that she could get thin quick and so that the kids at school would not have a reason to call her “buffalo butt” anymore.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who believes that unpleasant words and unpleasant behavior is far worse than an unpleasant outer appearance.  Inside me is the woman who knows that we never know what a person is dealing with when we look at them.  The things we say to people and the things we do to them may seem trivial or small, but when added to what they are already coping with, it may be the one thing that causes their cup to run over.


Inside me is the sixteen year old girl who dumped her alcoholic father’s booze down the drain and then tried to rouse him from his face down, passed out state in the drive way only later to be told to go away and die.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who is told by some people that it was the alcohol talking when he said that. But, I wonder if there was ever a time when my father thought about saying he was sorry, thought about putting his daughters before the booze, or if he ever thought about me at all.


Inside me is the twenty year old who lived out of her car for a summer because her college roommate bullied her so severely, living out of laundry baskets and looking for a couch to sleep on was better than living with cruelty, intimidation, and fear.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who realizes that houses aren’t always homes, sometimes a place you visit feels like more of a home than the place you call your own, not everyone who says they are your friend means it, and having courage—not running from adversity but challenging it --is very important.


Inside me is a woman in her early thirties, mother of Noah.  It took five years of fertility concerns to have him.  Noah’s preschool teachers said there is something wrong with him.  The children in class did not play with him.  We did not get invited to the mother-child play groups or birthday parties.  We wanted the neighborhood kids to play at our house.  They stopped riding their bikes in front of our house just to say, “We’re not going to play with you, just so you know.”  I rearranged my living room furniture so I did not have to watch them play outside through my front window but when that didn’t work, I put up blinds and kept them closed all the time.  It hurt too bad to know my son was not included in their play.

Inside of me is a 40 year old woman who still lives on that same street and realizes that the pitfalls that Noah had socializing in the neighborhood and my emotional reaction to them robbed Nicholas of his opportunity.  Because of that, Nicholas suffers from loneliness … having a brother who is not neurologically available as a playmate and neighborhood kids who are established in their social groupings.


Inside me is a woman in her mid-thirties, mother of Noah and Nicholas, soccer coach, president of the PTO, Scholastic Book Fair Chairperson, Cub Scout Den Leader, Soccer Coach, Autumn Harvest Carnival Chair Person, substitute teacher, reader and researcher about all things Asperger’s Syndrome, provider of at home speech and occupational therapy services, and holder of in-home whole class social events.  I tried to create a safe place for my son and for myself.  A place where no one would know there was anything wrong, where people would think my son just had some quirks.  But the kids at school said, “No one in class really likes Noah” and my best friend said, “So, you had to go off and drag my kid down with yours” when  I asked the scoutmaster to put one of my sons so-called friends in his patrol as he became a boy scout.

Inside of me is a 40 year old woman who realizes that it is not my fault that my son has Asperger’s Syndrome and that despite all the efforts that I made to help him and me, the only person I had control over in the end was me.   My son is always going to do and say things that may lead other people, no matter who they are, to say things that, while ignorant, will leave scars on my heart.   The grief a mother of a child with a disability has never goes away for with each unkind word, each eye roll, and each sigh of exasperation from a so-called friend or teacher rips off the scab where any healing had begun to occur and the bleeding begins again.


Inside me is a woman in her late thirties who after seventeen years of working for the Federal Government was once again let down by the system and not made a permanent employee after another promise was made.  This was the time when it mattered most.  My family needed the benefits for security.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that settling into a job and working hard does not guarantee you anything but your own pat on the back.  I know that even when you settled for less than what you deserved for 17 years it is never too late to start to establish boundaries for what you will accept.


Inside me the woman in her late thirties, after so many disappointments, finally broke. I quit.  I pulled out of living my life.  I withdrew from friends, family and work.  I quit.  I cried.  I slept.  I breathed.  I wrote.  I got by.

Inside me is battle raging every day.  Sometimes it is a battle between a 7 year old and a 40 year old.  Other days it is a battle between a 16 year old and a 40 year old.  And still others, it is a thirty-something year old and a 40 year old.  Some days, the battle rages all day long.  Other days it is just for a moment at a time.  There are times when the battle seems rage on for days or weeks.  And, there are times when there is calm before the storm.  But the battle is there, nonetheless.

Inside me, this battle rages to find a way hold the memories in place without re-living them when they come to haunt me.   And, perhaps if I can hold them in place, I can make peace with all of the pieces that are inside me.

WhenI Decided to Become a Teacher

  Knowing what it felt like to wake up and go to a place where I could be happy every day…losing that…that was what it took for me to know that I had to become a teacher.  For years, I had wanted to.  But, I was pushing 40. Maybe substitute teaching was good enough.  I thought that maybe the teachers in the teacher’s lounge were right when they said that it is different when you have your own class because you have to deal with the parents.  I thought that maybe they were right when they said I was lucky I didn’t have lesson plans to write and papers to grade.  But now, I knew better.  I had a taste of what being a teacher was like when I substitute taught a kindergarten class from the start of the school year through the end of January.  The regular teacher had taken off to battle cancer and I was asked to fill in at the last minute.
      I actually worked two jobs during this time--my regular job at the Veteran’s hospital where I had worked for 16 years and this ½ day kindergarten teaching job.  The days at the VA were dull, unfulfilling, and meaningless and lacked any pleasure.  For 16 years, I served at the VA and had never been made a permanent employee.  The lack of benefits was taking a toll on my family financially and the lack of respect was taking a toll on me emotionally.
     When I was teaching every day, I knew what it felt like to get up and be happy every day.  I would wake up before the alarm went off.  I wanted to go to work.  None of the things the teacher’s said in the teacher’s lounge before made teaching full time less appealing to me.  I collaborated well with parents.  I developed a family atmosphere within my classroom…we were a community of learners…they learned from me and I learned from them.
     But at the end of January, I lost that happy place and those happy days.  The regular classroom teacher came back.  I am glad her battle with cancer was successful.  But for six months, those children were mine.  For six months I got paid in smiles and hugs every day.  For six months I got pictures and notes to hang up on my refrigerator at home.  For six months I got told I was the best teacher in the world.  For six months I got to watch my efforts help my students become readers and writers.  For six months I got to know what it felt like to get up to be happy.  And now, I was going to have to go back to forcing myself to get up and go back to the VA hospital every day where I knew no matter what, nothing I did was going to ever matter to anyone because for 16 years it hadn’t.
     On my last day of teaching that January, I did not get the opportunity to say good-bye to my kindergarten angels.  We had a snow day.  I went to the school and cleaned out my desk as tears streamed down my face.  My throat closed off as I tried to hold back the sobs while I put the book that I had written for the children in their cubbies.  I had wanted to read it to them...it had a picture of each student and a few sentences about how uniquely special each one of them was to me.
     I felt such tremendous loss of losing my students before the year was out... wanting to see the year through with them was my dream.  I felt such overwhelming despair at having known what it felt like to get up and be happy that returning to the emptiness I had before forced me to realize that decision regarding whether or not to become a teacher was not something I had to think about anymore.  It had been made.  When I came home from cleaning out my classroom that January day, I applied to graduate school at the University of Dayton.  Being a teacher was not a decision I think I made.  I think I was a decision that was made for me by God and I just had to find the path to it.

Classroom Community....The Child's Perspective Matters Too

In my writing course, we were asked to think about three questions.  I answered them from the perspective of what it may mean to the child.  Who are we there for anyways?  All the get to know you games, team building exercises, models of teaching and tricks in the world won't matter if YOU the teacher don't stand for and DO what you preach.  YOU are your student's primary role model.

What is a classroom community?

When considering my answer to this prompt, i googled the question to see what other people online had to say about what a classroom community was.  Oddly enough, the search engine did not deliver results for an answer to the question but rather information on how to develop one.   I did find an article by Mishael Hittie that stated "By definition, a community is a group of people who work with one another building a sense of trust, care, and support. This means that in our classrooms, part of our job is to provide opportunities and structures bywhich students can help and support one another. It also means that we provide explicit instruction and support so that students learn how to do this."  The ideas and tips presented ranged from getting to know you games to teaching models (cooperative learning).  While all of those things are good, having a child with an autism spectrum disorder has given me both the parental and educator's perspective of just what a classroom community means to THE CHILD.  We as educators can think all we want that we are doing a great job for the class as a whole but if we are missing what is best of fair for one child, we do NOT have a classroom community (my opinion).  The definition of fair that I use is that from Rick Lavoie who says that everyone gets what they need...not that everyone gets the same thing.
One example that I like to use is that of a child who is overly active, or even a child who is on the spectrum and we are seeing an impending "meltdown".  Quite often, these children get into trouble, are seen as odd, poorly behaved, and usually end up "having all their tickets pulled" or are "on red" at the end of every single day.  My suggestion has been over and over that these children be given socially acceptable tasks to alleviate their need.  So, if a child needs to move, give them a job where they can move.  Have them return a book to the school library, take a message to the office or a teacher next door...even if it is something that is not truly necessary...perhaps a pre-arranged task will alleviate the classroom disruption, allow the active child the physical outlet he or she needs (or allow the child on the spectrum some cool down time).  This will keep the child out of the "red-zone" and not put a target on the child's back.  Children who are often in trouble a lot end up getting tattle-taled on by their peers, particularly in the younger grades.  In the older grades, they may socially withdraw or deliberately disrupt the class because they don't stand a chance anyways.

Another example.  I knew a student who was suspected to have Fetal Alcohol effects.  He displayed some severe behavior disorders in the classroom and one in particular was improper use of scissors.  This was a kindergarten classroom and the scissors were kept in group supply boxes at each table.  This student was eventually removed from a group table and sat at a desk by himself.  Considering that he was ALWAYS in trouble, his peers ratted him out on everything he did, how was this teacher helping to facilitate the classroom community?  I was friends with her and my suggestion to her had been to remove the scissors from all of the tables, put them in a bin and only get the scissors out when the students actually needed to cut so they were not available to him on a constant basis.  Her response was that she was not going to do that the she had taught for 30 years and had never had to do that before and he needed to learn.  But...the thing is...we KNEW his brain was NOT normal!!!!  What if he was not capable of learning...or just not capable of learning then?  So he was isolated from his peers and a bull's eye on his back.  Shameful.

Sometimes, looking at things from each CHILD's perspective and giving each CHILD what he or she needs individually can make a classroom community for the ENTIRE class.  That is truly no child left behind.  All the getting to know you games in the world will not accomplish that.

Why is it important to promote classroom community?

Failure to promote classroom community can be a life or death situation.  Having been involved in education for 6 years as a substitute teacher (two years of which i was attending graduate school), I have had one student commit suicide who had Asperger Syndrome....the same diagnosis as my son.  I am not saying that his suicide is the result of failure on the educator's part because I do not know all that transpired in the classroom and between the parents.  But, I do think that there was failure somewhere when a 14 year old kills himself by hanging himself in a tree.
What else can happen if we fail to promote classroom community?  During my student teaching, I had a student who was on the spectrum but on no IEP.  His teacher was so bothered by him, she sat him as far away from her as she could.  Again, a student always losing all of his "tickets" and being "on red".  Classic case of a teacher demonstrating to the class just who the "problem child" is and therefore he was shunned by his classmates.  No one would play with him at recess.  Children said out loud to him that they were not going to play with him, they did not want to sit by him.  During my 10 weeks of student teaching, the behavior of the student did not improve with her behavior management system but worsened.  He began to retaliate against other students.  Additionally, two students bullied him at recess one day...on the merry-go-round, one of them pried his hands off the bars while the other shoved him off of it while it was moving at high speed.  How old was this child?  Six.  One day, he said to me, "Mrs. A, I hope those two ladies don't hurt my feelings ever again and I hope Mrs. X (name withheld) dosen't hurt my feelings again either."  He was talking about his classroom teacher, the intervention specialist and the principal.  He had become fixated on the fact that another first grade classroom did not have a tornado drill sign and only a fire drill sign.  Instead of the teacher in the room doing what was best for the CHILD (making one up quickly so he could relax) and the others in the room (she would have been able to focus her teaching time back on the group instead on him), she kept having to tell him to sit down and do his work for 20 minutes.  Afterwards, he got berated by his homeroom teacher for 15 minutes....and a week later boisterously reminded of his misbehavior in front of the class.  What this shows me, is that children with autism disorders may not DISPLAY emotional feelings but they HAVE them.

Failure to promote classroom community from the CHILD's viewpoint...it hurts self-esteem, sets a precedence for how others in the classroom can treat another student and can lead to bullying.

What can we do in general as teachers to build classroom community?

Think beyond the normal.  Think CHILD first.  Think about what you are saying to parents.  I have lived the life of a parent who picked their child up every single day to hear what my son did wrong at school today.  Silly, ridiculous stuff...he dumped over her pencil cup...ok...he has 10,000 things he has to work on.  Can YOU the teacher solve ONE by putting your pens and pencils in your desk for a year?  The answer I got was no....he had to learn and none of the rest of the kids in the class had the problem.  Did I feel  like I and my son were a part of the community?  No.

Think about how each child feels at the end of every day.  Evaluate whether THEY feel a part of the community.  All of the tips, games, tricks, teaching models in the world are meaningless if there in ONE in the class who is hurting.  Figure out what YOU need to do, change, rearrange, communicate to reach that ONE child.

Integrate community building through critical literacy.  Many wonderful books are available especially for junior high students including  Missing May by Cynthia Rylant, Rules by Cynthia Lord, A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine and so many others.

Lonliness

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”  ~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Alone is being in a place by yourself.  But loneliness is a whole other story.  You can be in a crowded room with your closest family and friends and be so lonely it hurts to breathe.  That is lonely.  Loneliness is…

… standing in the preschool corridor talking to all the moms and when class dismisses realizing that all of them are going to a play date while your child was not invited because he is “different”.  We wanted friends, too.

… being told that no one in class really likes your son.  Being, told you son is dragging down someone else’s.

… living on a street where the children stop riding their bikes just to tell you that they are not going to play with your autistic son while you are sitting and playing with your children under a tree in the front yard.  Hurting so badly, you rearrange your living room furniture so you can’t see out your front window and when you still can see out walking by, you purchase blinds and keep them always closed for 10 years.

… knowing that your younger son doesn’t have playmates on your street because of what happened with your older son.

… sitting in a college class with what you thought was a group of colleagues and realizing that at least half of them are sitting there just biding their time.  It is disappointing to yearn for stimulating conversation about what you are interested and passionate about and to know that people would rather you not talk in class so it will get over faster and they can go home.

… being told that you make other college classmates look bad because of the quality of work you produce.  Even though I know it is not true (I choose to perform at my ability level while some choose to do what they need to do to get by—their choice), it still put me on the outside because majority rules.  I decided I did not want to be in that majority so then I was not just lonely but also alone.

… having your father quit drinking when you are an adult and expecting the father daughter relationship you always wanted but instead having the same father you always has just without the alcohol.

… being blamed not once, but twice, for your “recovered alcoholic” father’s drinking binges.

… watching your father be the kind of grandfather to your children that you wish he was a father to you.

… having your father die and the only thing you have to grieve is the loss of hope that one day you would have had the relationship you wanted.

… having a mind that thinks deeply and in layers.  It is lonely not having anyone to talk to who appreciates depth of thought or who can challenge me to think even more deeply.  I used to have a friend like that but life got busy and now I don’t have that person anymore…that is achingly lonely.

Yousuf Karsh says, “I've also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.”  Maybe that is part of my problem—I do have very high standards.  Regardless, Dag Hammarskjold said, “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.”  I hope that I can do that.  I believe that I am on the right track now and that I can take all of the things that have caused me pain and use them for something good in the future.

Planting a Flower Garden With Our Words and Deeds

Our words and deeds can build or destroy.  They can grow or kill.  They can help or harm.

When children come to me and tell me that a classmate has said something unkind to them, I think to myself, “You have a whole life ahead of you where people will say unkind things to you or about the people you love, get used to it.”  And, quite honestly, that is the sad and ugly truth for most people.

But I have always been one to live with my silly “rose colored glasses” where I think I can change the world even if it is with just making a difference to one person in one way.   And so, I have often told the children I’ve taught that with our words and deeds, we can grow flowers or plant weeds.  I often start by asking them if they like flowers.  Most, if not all of the children say “yes”.  Then I ask them if they know what weeds are and in answering, we discuss why weeds are not good for a garden of flowers.  I tell the children that our good words and the good things we do are like flowers and that every time we tell something nice, we are planning a flower.  When we say something or do something unkind, we are planting a weed.  I ask them what would happen if we had too many weeds in our garden….our flowers would die of course.  The bad would overtake the good.

To help create a visual reminder for this, I create a bulletin board display with the children’s pictures as the centers of the flowers and important facts about them on the flower petals.  As we do and say good things, we add additional smaller flowers to our garden and our garden grows.  When students are caught saying or doing unkind things, I simply ask them if they were planting a weed or a flower.  They are able to identify which, tell me what they did and how they need to change the situation to plant a flower.

Having taught this before in a religious school, I was able to tie it to the parable of the Sower and the Seed from Luke 8:4-15

The Parable of the Sower
4 And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. 8 But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

The Purpose of Parables
9 Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”

10 And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that

      ‘ Seeing they may not see,
      And hearing they may not understand.’[b]

The Parable of the Sower Explained
  11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14 Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

I have hoped that what I have taught them is something that has “stuck” and that they often think back to me and think of planting a garden of flowers and not weeds.  I think it is sad to think that the cols slap of reality that “people will say many things about you and your loved ones your whole life” is something we should accept.  I really do think that if we all thought of planting flowers with our words and deeds instead of weeds, maybe, just maybe, the whole world would be a beautiful flower garden of people.

Suffering

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint.  - Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491 - 1556), Memorial Day July 31

A friend of mine posted this today to which I responded “interesting.”

Suffering is such a broad word to use.  It means many things to many people.  Some of us think of suffering from financial strains, but when compared with the poverty and famine in third world countries, do we really suffer here in the United States when most of us really live beyond our means and have many things we do not need but want.  That is not suffering from anything but our own poor choices.  The people in the third world countries suffer in ways in which we cannot imagine.  There are many more examples of suffering that are beyond our control compared to suffering that we bring upon ourselves by our poor choices.

I think that when we think of suffering with respect to this statement by St. Ignatius, we need to really examine WHO is responsible for our suffering.  I do think there are circumstances which make us likely to be inclined to remain in bad situations which cause of to appear to choose suffering…being raised in a poor home environment is highly detrimental to children and they have absolutely no control over that. Actual neurological changes happen to the brain and nervous system as it develops in children and that cannot be undone.  Those things impact personality, coping skills, and decision making.   I think we DO have the power to make the choice to remove ourselves from that suffering, but it is just not as easy or natural as it is…it is genuinely nerve-racking.  So, it is like two kinds of suffering at once.

Anyways, my friend said, “I think we (if we wish) can learn to become better people because of the events of our life whether it be bad (suffering) or good (laughter).   As Mary said in the bible she kept all of these things in her heart pondering them. We ponder on the things that happened and we can then make the best of them. These are the things that move us the deepest.”  I agree.  I write about many of them in my life. I always try to find the messages. I think if we can find the messages in the bad things, then we can at least make something good out of the suffering. Sometimes, we have to really look hard and sometimes, it takes time and distance to allow for the reflection to occur because while in the heat of the suffering, our minds and hearts are clouded with pain. Sometimes distance and time gives us what we need to see things more clearly and quite often, we add to our understanding of something as time goes on.  And maybe one day, we can truly find peace.

Patience on the Journey...Goals Part III

“Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” ~ Joyce Meyer

In “Choose Your Own Adventure: Goals Part II”, I wrote about life’s journey being like a choose your own adventure book were the reader (journey taker) is exposed to information and then at the end of the chapter (checkpoint), the individual makes a decision about the new direction the adventure should take.

Today, I am thinking about how sometimes, the choices at the end of the chapter are not necessarily anything we would prefer but the only things available to us.  Or perhaps, they both seem good but once we make them, as the journey unfolds, things don’t turn out as well as we may have hoped with the choice we made.  A third option, is that there is one clear choice to make but once the journey unfolds, the other choice although less appealing back then would have been the wiser one in the long run.  So many possibilities.

The story may not be as pleasant as we thought it would be but we have no choice but to see it through to the next check point.  Some chapters may be longer than others and they journey may seem painfully slow in getting to the next checkpoint…the next place in which we can choose what to do next.   If we rush ahead, we may miss out on relevant details or make mistakes that could impact things in the other lives—the people in OUR lives.  The decisions we make impact those around us who move in the same journey space as us.

Life’s journey has many paces from checkpoint to checkpoint.  Some chapters are longer than others.  Some are not as exciting as others.  Some are full of difficult plot lines.  The long ones, the less exciting ones, the difficult plots lines—those are hard work.  Sometimes we choose wrong.  In a choose your own adventure book, the reader has the freedom to go back and make a “do over” but in life, we don’t have that option.  We have to see our decisions through to the next checkpoint.  There is no going back.

I think that one of the most difficult things in life is having the patience to get from checkpoint to checkpoint when we are not satisfied with where we are in the moment.  It takes a great deal of will power to not look back at what we miss from our past or what we might have in our future. It also takes a lot of work to find the good things when things seem so dark but it has to be done because if it is not, the passage of time to the next check point just seems that much longer and painful.

Always Room for One More Dream

"There are several stages in the evolution of a garden and gardener. It is only when the last stage is reached that all this material is seen as color on a palette with which to paint a picture, a picture never quite finished, but always having room in it for one more dream." ...Marie Aull

Gardens and gardeners...flowers as paint on a palette with which to paint a picture...one that is never finished...a beautiful thought Marie Aull gives us when thinking of gardens as palettes with which to paint pictures with room for dreams. I was there yesterday..in Marie Aull's garden..and I felt as if I had walked into my dream.

Wanting to be a writer, I always imagined my writing place as exactly that. Behind the bench in the photo, a stream runs...listening to the soft sounds of the water flowing...water is soothing, healing. A canopy of trees provides shade from the heat of the sun just above the bench while sun is allowed through in the grassier areas of the gardens. Flower beds are in areas and blooms can be seen in all four seasons of the year. Her home sits upon the hill to the right of the bench overlooking the gardens. Windows surround the home so she could enjoy her garden view. Marie lived to be 105.

I think that perhaps a writer is somewhat like a gardener...the book is the garden...words are the flowers....and the picture is the story. And even though a book has and ending, the story does not necessarily end...the characters live on. Books also can have an impact on the reader that never ends... And as for dreams...Marsha Norman said that "Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."

So, I do think that gardeners/gardens are like writers/books....and I do think that Marie Aull's garden is a place where there is not just a wonderful palette, but a breath taking studio with which to paint pictures where there is always room for one more dream.

 

It's Nice to be Missed

“It is nice to be missed.”  Someone used to say that to me when I would tell them I missed them…  Telling someone you were missed lets them know so many things.  It tells them that they are important to you, their place in your life holds meaning and that during time apart, there were moments when that vacancy was felt.  The feeling we get when we miss someone is inside of us.  It is only us who know it is there.  It is not until we verbalize those feelings to the other person, the one whom we are missing, that we have unleashed the positive energy from the feeling of missing someone.  If we never tell them they were missed, how do they know they are important?  A person’s importance and value to us should never be left to assumptions in my opinion.  I myself am so full of doubts, I tend to think if I don’t hear it said, see it in writing, then I am inconsequential…that, I know has a lot to do with my past…  My friend is right…it is nice to be missed.  I think the ones who know they are missed are lucky to know it—it gives them value and people need to feel a little bit valued from time to time.

Overachieving vs. Exceeding Expectations

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”  ~ John Quincy Adams

“You are an overachiever.”  I have heard it a thousand times.  It is as if it is a dirty word.  It is as if it is a bad thing.  And to be honest, I just don’t even understand the word and I really don’t understand how what I really think it is .is a bad thing.

According to the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, achieving means to carry out successfully and the appropriate usage of over in this case is “beyond some quantity, limit, or norm, often by a specified amount or to a specified degree. ”The dictionary defines overachieve (according to dictionary.com) as:

1.  to perform, especially academically, above the potential indicated by tests of one's mental ability or aptitude.
2. to perform better or achieve more than expected, especially by others.

I suppose it is possible for one to derive those definitions when combining the meanings of the definitions of achieve and over. Definition two here, though, hits the nail on the head when it states “especially by others.”  The problem with the word overachieving is that it is often used to criticize others in the academic field and the basis for judgment of whether one has overachieved is external not internal.  Just who is anyone else to determine where someone else’s level of achievement should cease or end is?

I say that the word overachieve is used to criticize others in the academic field because in my experience, it has never been said to me in a positive way.  It often comes from peers and in a snide and critical manner accompanied by rolling the eyes and some other comments about the waste of time I put into my work.

Personally, I think that my work is a representation of my ability and anything less would be me underachieving.  I am not quite certain why I should let the expectations of someone else limit my ability.  I would like the work that I do display what my potential is and that is not always what is expected by our professors, teachers, or bosses.  So, I may just be mincing words, but I would prefer to say that I have merely achieved to MY ability while I may have exceeded someone else’s expectations.  I would like to be the one to determine what my ability is.  It is after all what I am capable of and I can’t seem to fathom how anyone else can determine if I have gone “over” my own ability.

Truly, I thinking ability is ability and it can improve with education, practice, time, patience, dedication and choice.  Any level of achievement we reach, if we try our best, is our true level of achievement…we go “over” nothing.  We just exceed expectations of requirements placed by others.

We never hear of Olympic track athletes who break Olympic records or world records being snidely called overachievers when all they had to do is win the race to earn the gold medal.  We recognize their efforts and dedication for training and now they have a new level of achievement.

It is a different story in academia, however.  I can’t help but think that in some cases, those who use the word overachiever in a negative way (I am not sure that it is truly intended to be used only in such a way) do so to help relieve themselves of feeling guilt for perhaps not having chosen to do their personal best or just not doing the work at all the way it was intended to be done and “faking it.”

I think that in everything we do, we have to examine the expectations put before us and determine if we want to use them as the bar at which to represent ourselves.  Achievement is something that is determined by us and should therefore be measured internally…not externally.  No one has the right to say that we have overachieved.  Only we can determine what we are capable of achieving.  Expectations are set externally…we can exceed them.
I am just an achiever…I choose to achieve to my ability.

Little Things...Big Message: Opening Eyes and Minds to SEE Them

Every day, we walk through life with our eyes open.   Passing perhaps hundreds and sometimes even thousands of people a day, we have an opportunity to see things and make meaning from them.  But for many of us, in our fast paced lives, we just look…we do not see.  Looking and seeing are so very different.  When you see something in the way I am talking about, you attach some level of meaning to it.  You can look at people and see the shell.  If you see people, you see more to them than just the outside.  You notice the details of their behavior, their personality, and perhaps you make a connection to them—even if it is someone you may ever know personally.

Last year, I went to the Indianapolis Zoo with my sons.  While waiting for the dolphin show to start, I was people watching as I often do.  A father and daughter caught my eye.  The daughter was approximately 1 ½ to 2 years old.  She leaned in and kissed her father and he kissed her back.  I had a difficult time not watching them further.

What I found so entrancing about them was that the daughter had Down Syndrome and the father was so proud of her.  The image of them has stuck with me for so long and I have told so many people about it…what I saw when I looked at them was a lesson to everyone there but maybe I am the only one who saw it.

That father was amazing.  Having grown up a child of an alcoholic who never held or kissed his little girl—one who tried to do everything perfect, one who did not have the disability of Down Syndrome—I never got what that little girl got—hugged and kissed by my father, a father’s love.  They say that God gives us only what we can handle…and that father showed that crowd how to care for his daughter with love and grace.  I wonder how many fathers there do not show their children the affection they need.  When so many parents have the gift of children put before them, blessed with children who have no disabilities, those children are cast aside entirely too often.  This father, a father of a child with Down Syndrome displayed a remarkable connection to his daughter--one I admire and perhaps even envy.

What I saw when I watched the daughter was a gift.  Her life, their life, will not be easy.  But, I see a girl who has made a difference.  That day, and for many days (now at least a year) after, I still think of her and I wish that she and her father and mother knew that she has made a difference-at least to one person, even if it is just me.  This is how…

There are many times that I am tired and exhausted.  Having a child with a disability myself I know that it is very trying to always be on your best game.  I have a son who likes to give me hugs all the time…so much so that I often want to avoid them just to have some space.  As I watched that father and daughter, I reflected about my father and also that my son has a disability.  I admired so much how that father treated his daughter.  I realized then, that even though I may be tired and want space, I did not want my kids to feel like I did not want to have them near me.  That is never the case.  I knew that somehow I needed to figure out a way of meeting my kid’s needs and mine as well.  Virginia Satir, a family therapist, tells us that “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”

That girl and her father, what I saw…it was just not a hug and a kiss.  That one little hug and kiss...it was a BIG lesson.  It only takes a hug, a heartfelt and warm embrace, to change the lives of others.  And in this case, her hug…the one she gave to her father…it changed my life, too.

Wishing Flowers

Wishing Flowers…Lately I have been thinking a lot about making wishes upon flowers.  When I was a young girl, I would pick dandelions that had gone into seed, make a wish and blow the seeds into the wind.  And wait and wait for my wishes to me true.  Or, maybe, I would find a patch of clover, lie in the grass and search for a lucky 4-leaf clover.  I also remember pulling the petals off of daisies one at a time.

Wishing flowers have been on my mind for about a month…ever since I saw the movie Gnomeo and Juliette.  In that movie, Juliette replies to a character who called dandelions weeds.  She says, "Those dandelions aren't weeds, they're wishes."  I have not been able to get dandelions out of my mind ever since.  Actually, I do think of dandelions often.  A few years ago, a Boy Scout leader said that God’s favorite flower was the dandelion because he made so many of them and put them in so many places.  Of course, he may have been joking (or maybe not).  But, since that movie, I think about how we work so hard to get rid of the dandelions out of our yards.  We think of them as unsightly to our beautiful lush green lawns.  And actually, it is all a matter of perspective.

If dandelions are wishes, we are killing our wishes.  If God put dandelions here to give us wishing flowers…to give us hope, then we are killing them with our weed killers.  In our desire to have the most lush and beautiful lawn in the neighborhood (as was done in the movie Gnomeo and Juliette), are becoming so arrogant that we are stripping of the joys we had as children from our own children?  Why do we want to give up such a wonderful thing as wishing flowers?  I have been thinking that if Dandelions are God’s favorite flowers, perhaps, he meant for us to make wishes on them, or to maybe go to him with our worries.  Maybe, they are prayer flowers.  Not that I think that when we pray (talk to God) we should go to him with a list of wishes, but perhaps it is a nice thought if God did put dandelions here as a reminder to talk to him, to release our burdens by blowing them away with our breath.  I still have wishes and I ache to blow them into the winds on a dandelion seeds.

I have a friend, a very good friend, who had taught me many things.  I spent many hours with this friend and during that time, this friend taught me about ruach.  In the Tanakh (The Jewish Bible), the word ruach generally means wind, breath, mind, spirit. In a living creature (nephesh chayah), the ruach is the breath, whether of animals (Gen 7:15; Psa 104:25, 29) or mankind (Isa 42:5; Ezek 37:5). God is the creator of ruach: "The ruach of God (from God) is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3). In God's hand is the ruach of all mankind (Job 12:10; Isa 42:5). In mankind, ruach further denotes the principle of life that possesses reason, will, and conscience.

So, when I think of blowing on dandelions with my breath, it is my ruach.  And the seeds are blown into the wind…God’s ruach.  It is a mixing of breath and wind (both ruach) through some form of prayer.  To me that is a beautiful thought…one worthy of keeping dandelions in my yard.

During the past few weeks, I spent time student teaching in a pre-school special needs setting.  I was immensely blessed to be with children who picked me dandelions on the playground and handed them to me with their small hands.  Every time, tears came to my eyes as I thought of their innocence and the special meaning of the dandelion to me.  I think that dandelions are children’s favorite flowers, too.  They are the perhaps one of the only flowers that adults let them pick without scolding them, so they happily pick a whole bouquet when given the opportunity and present it to someone with love.  Jesus let the children come to him.

A pre-school student of mine asked me this, “Do you think wishes really do come true?”  I told him, “Yes, I do.  I think that sometimes it just takes a really, really long time for them to come true--much longer than we want it to take.”

My student would not understand this, but I also think that sometimes when we make a wish, or pray for something, that wish is often granted or that prayer is often answered, not in the way we thought we wanted when we wished or prayed for it, but in the way that God knows is best for us.  There are often many solutions to a problem…and what we have in mind may not be what we get,  but in the end, what we get may be the answer to our prayers, a wish granted.  So, yes, I do think wishes do come true…it just takes a very long time sometimes and we have to keep our eyes open to recognize that they did come true.

I would like to have the innocence of wishing flowers…I would like to feel the ruach (Spirit of God).  I will always love a dandelion given to be by a small fisted child and I do believe wishes come true…eventually.