Discovering Kansas City

Last month, I attended the first annual pre-writing conference for Louder Than a Bomb, Kansas City. My small learning group from GKCWP planned this during the summer and then actually carried it through. It was a little scary and honestly, Paul Richardson from Washington HS did most of the work, but I did my part. We had 32 kids from all over the metro show up to talk about social justice. Primarily the racial divide in KC, MO engineered by developer J.C. Nichols that included restricted convenants designed to keep his new developments white.  We took a bus tour of those areas of development and the differences were reflected in architecture, upkeep and businesses offered. It was striking to see. After we returned from the bus tour, students (and adults) were given time to write in reaction to what they'd seen and read about (an excerpt from Tanner Colby's book Some of My Best Friends are Black). The following is what I came up with:

My white world was buried in potatoes

Rocky Mountain high and Wonder Bread

in all the glorious shades of white;

ecru, beige, ivory and milk.

Wonder Bread peanut butter sandwiches with no crusts

because my mother cut them off for us

as we ate around the table

at six p.m. every night; my father saying grace.

My white world was religion if you count

Nazarine and Mormon.

Missionary pairs striding streets with purpose

in stiff new suits on shiny new bicycles.

Glossy blond and brunette heads leaning together

to share with you the WORD so they could go to

heaven with their seven wives

who’d be pregnant forever.

Northwest Nazarine College, where I walked the

graduation stage and knew nothing more about

them except that they were all white like me.

My white world was high school football on a Friday night,

homecoming dances with a live band

wood shop, home ec, drama, jazz band, art club

All of us bouncing off each other like billiard balls,

making short, sharp connections and

returning quickly to our assigned corners

where we waited for instruction and gossiped

with each other about each other and

all the gossip sounded the same.

My white world was a microcosm of snowflakes.

No two alike, but all from the same sky on the same night

and up in the mountains the neo-Nazis shaved their

heads and howled at the moon and did whatever they did

and we did not hear them. Or pretended not to.

They were not part of my white-bread world.

They were the crusts my mother cut off

of the peanut butter sandwiches we ate around

the dinner table at exactly six pm.

My white world was moved 500 miles and suddenly

shaded with off-white, tan, chocolate, almond, mocha

which at first were sipped, slowly and carefully.

Fear and wonder mixed at all that had been missed.

I had not realized that Wonder Bread was not the

ONLY bread and that sometimes the best part

is the crusts my mother used to cut off.

22 is half of 44

I turned 44 this year. They don't make fancy balloons or party decorations for the 44th birthday. It's not anyone's milestone but mine. This birthday means that I have spent exactly half of my life married and half as a single person. This feels deeply significant to me in ways I can't yet explain.

I tried to think back to when I lived alone and discovered that I never really did--unless you count the one semester I had my own room in college. I got married while I was still in college and I went right from my parent's house to college. During summers I had roommates or stayed with some family or other. Even when I went overseas, I went with my best friend from high school and then later with my husband.

Never have I been truly alone in the world. This is a good thing. Right? I've had plenty of experiences that have been uniquely mine within my family--going to Mexico and later to Germany, teaching, taking a scuba diving class. But I've never really been alone, even when I was doing unique and wonderful things. Always with my family of one type or another.

There's nothing inherently bad about never having lived unaccompanied, but I have a longing for being alone that can't always be satisfied with an hour or two at home. It seems silly to wish for anything when I am so blessed in my life--husband, kids, home, car. Indulgent, even. I feel guilty even writing about it--like the guilt I feel when I take a bath sometimes, only magnified. I would, of course, never want to leave what I have--it's absolutely not about that. I've only been reflecting on my life so far and have found it lacking in little ways. Things I should have/could have/would have done had circumstances been different.

Sometimes reflection just shows your own face, looking back at you. Not always a good thing.

Cigarettes

This poem was written in response to a spoken word poem I used in class the other day. It's called "The Gun" by a poet named Diego. Below what I wrote as a sample to my students.

Watch me, watch me get pulled deep into lungs
and breathed out in wreaths of smoke.

Watch me get sold to minors across the counter.

Watch me light up like the devil’s eye
as a 12 year old pulls me in for the first time.

Can you see me? Can you see me in the ad with the legless man,
victim or freak?

Can you see me in your daddy’s pocket as he reaches for another puff?

Can you hear my cellophane crinkle
as my momma opens a new pack?

Inhaled en masse at an AA meeting, multiple red eyes winking.

The crispy crackle of a dying man’s lungs.

The wheeze of the stoma that replaced my mother-in-law’s larynx

The hacking morning cough of every long-time smoker

Can you feel me? Cheap paper wrapped around too many chemicals to count.

Can you feel me? Yellowing teeth and fingers and skin.

Clothes heavy with smoke because I am inhaled death.

I am a cartoon apocalypse on a cowboy horse,

come to take your daddies, mommies, aunts and uncles.

Can you feel me deep in the spirits and souls of every city, every state, every nation?

Can you stop me?

Can you stop me?

A crisp snap of the breaking cylinder,

Pinkness returning to the lung,

A cough silenced, a world of scents returning.

Can you stop me now?

Vacuuming Makes Me Angry!

Dear vacuum-designing engineers,

When I first got married 20 some-odd years ago, we purchased a Hoover vacuum from the Salvation Army store for $15.00. It worked tolerably well, which is to say that it sucked up dirt. The noise it made was tremendous, but maintaining it was simply a matter of changing the bag and replacing the belt. I never put any thought into the vacuum cleaner. I just vacuumed.

Present time: me vs. the vacuum cleaner. The cord (of the newly purchased, guaranteed no-loss-of-suction machine) has apparently been engineered to twist and kink with increasing fervor after every use. There are no hooks to attach it to the vacuum cleaner body after use, so I am forced to wind it awkwardly around the handle where it invariably falls off sometime before I vacuum again. Instead of simple-to-use dust bags, I now have to take the guts of the vacuum out (granted--this part is easy) and take it to a trash can and empty it without re-introducing the dust I just vacuumed up into the air.

Confession: I have a dog. She has hair. She sheds. So, on top of dust, we have dog hair lurking in every corner that must be eliminated if we don't want it to appear as if we are living in a cave. As I suck it up in the vacuum, it becomes trapped in the inner workings of the the guts of the vacuum. This necessitates a vacuum gut-ectomy wherein I have to unscrew various parts to shake the offending dog hair out, trying to aim for the trash can so I don't have to repeat the process.

If that weren't enough to anger the average American house-person (who also works full-time as a teacher, let it be known), I also have to periodically wash the guts of said vacuum as they become encrusted with the very dust they are supposed to be cleaning out of my house. Now the machine that is supposed to make my life easier has become its own chore.

In short, dear engineers, please go to your own house, let a dog and two or three children run around for a week, then vacuum. Do that every week (or twice a week as is your standard) for 20 years. Then design me a vacuum that I could be happy about. With a cord that doesn't tangle, with a belt that's easy to change, with a non-dirty, truly easy-emptying dust canister or bag or something. Oh, and it still needs to suck up dirt. This is exactly the kind of challenge that our schools should be training you for--so go out and conquer!

Thanks.

Thinking About School. . .

Teaching is a strange career. I came to it later in life after having spent 20 years denying I was going to employ my (super-useful) English degree to become a teacher. So here I am, going into my eighth year of teaching and realizing that I never cared this much about any of my other jobs. I would liken teaching to pastoring in that teachers and pastors both spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about the people they work with/for. Both professions (this may apply to nursing/doctors too--I'm not close enough to either of those to say for sure) are singularly concerned with the well-being of others. One educational, one spiritual.

My father was a pastor for nearly three decades and although he is still working to serve people, he doesn't fulfill that role as a pastor. Why? Well, I think for the same reasons that so many teachers leave the profession within the first 10 years. It wasn't the needs of the congregants per se, but the politics behind the scenes and the overwhelming worry of not doing enough good for enough people.

I know when I reflect over the year that has passed, I look with sorrow at the students that I know have slipped through the cracks. Maybe they were the ones who were middle of the road and didn't improve their writing/reading skills the way I know they could. Some were the highly intelligent kids who did the work, sat quietly and were never challenged (ie: bored). I hate that students would pass through my classroom and be bored but I don't know how to overcome the constant behavioral issues and political demands that sucked time away from these awesome kids.

When good professionals leave the field that they've chosen and trained for and invested so much time in, there should be a riot. There should be a public outcry. People should stand on the streets with signs and chant loudly from the Bible or from the works of Dickens. Instead there's only the question--what more could they have done?

For me, eight years has slipped by so fast it hardly seems real. I imagine I'll look back after my 25-30 years of educational service and have many happy memories of my professional career. I can't let those who give up, are worn down or run out dictate my choices. I intend to stay.

Getting Ready to Start . . .

I love that feeling when things are getting ready to start. School will be starting in a mere two weeks, but my duties start next week with a pre-camp for our incoming ninth graders. I've been thinking about school all summer and collecting useful ideas, articles, etc as I do every summer. Just lately I've been working on lesson planning and organizing for the upcoming school year because when they (adminstration) say they'll give you time to plan, what they really mean is they'll give you time for more meetings.

Nevertheless, the sense of anticipation that I have is a nervous, excited, stomach-blender sort of feeling that makes me happy to be alive. Having a purpose is why the relaxed (?) days of summer are so sweet. It's that light to the dark, salty to the sweet--the career balances out everything else. As much as I love being with my kids and being able to read or watch a movie or go shopping whenever I want, I also love the work. Even my name means "hard worker," so I guess it was pre-ordained that I enjoy working.

My classroom is sitting empty (and dusty, no doubt) and all my stuff is in storage in the teacher's work room, just waiting for me to come and get it. I'm full of nervous energy, waiting for it to start, wanting to GO!!! But still enjoying the summer too. I have plenty of projects to do at home, but then I always do. Soon it will be time, but for now I need to sit back, breathe and enjoy the time I have with my kids and husband.

Boundary Street, 1980s

Home smells like cinnamon, dust and fresh-cut grass.

Maybe a little sweat.

Every day there’s something to do so that the house

Shines like a good Sunday school student.

Daddy preaches, teaches, talks and smiles

Momma cleans and teaches, talks and preaches,

Buries her dreams in the dirt of the garden.

We gather in church basements, casseroles

and old lady smells with their blue hair

and their crinkled eyes

and I don’t know any of their names but they all know mine.

Boundary Street because it marked the end of the town as it was

Cornfield on one side, city on the other,

Which made us a little bit country

A little bit rock and roll.

Or really just in between both, but not enough of either.

At 10pm on a Saturday night there is no sound but snoring

Then the gentle slide of a window as my sister sneaks out

To meet someone on the dusty path between city and country

So they can go and be one thing

Or the other.

We don’t use slang in our house,

we speak as the scholars my parents want us to be,

We children daring to use “darn” and “jeez” in silent cursing

That will be punished with nothing.

We fear another load of zucchini

miraculously appearing in the trunk of our car

Because there aren’t enough recipes in the world to use it all up.

But it is a sign of the love church folk have for their pastor

And sometimes the only gift they can give.

We hope that when Daddy goes on reserve (cause he’s Navy too)

We’ll get to go out to eat at a fancy restaurant

Like A & W

Where you can order from a telephone right at your booth

And when dad comes back, he’ll have tiny treats!

Little bottles of soap and shampoo and tiny slivers of soap

wrapped like presents,

which we three kids will fight over

and use to the last drop, then recycle the bottles for

play.

My parents, who let us know that

Living on the Boundary

Was neither good nor bad,

It just was

A state of being that existed,

Like lines drawn in the sand,

Like words written on the garage in spray paint

That my brother had to scrub

With harsh soap and a brush

Until the doors were white

And sweat dripped into his eyes.

The View from River Market

-->

June 21^st at the River Market

It’s the first day of summer, warm, about 90 degrees, but nice in the shade of the River Market awnings. The birds are having a lovely time singing and occasionally foraging for nesting materials from their perches in the support beams. They are a natural backdrop to the oddly concrete venue of the farmer’s market. Maybe once upon, people walked or rode their horses or drove their wagons to the farmer’s market to sell what they had, buy what they couldn’t raise and talk with their neighboring farmers. Now we drive our SUVs and luxury sedans across town so we can experience the same things our great-grandpas and grandmas took for granted.

Leaning low over a bin of loose spices, I inhale the densely packed granules of garam masla and admire the tight coils of cinnamon stick. Words are not an adequate expression of the information my nose gives me. Could it really be comfort, love, excitement, mystery? Yes and more and more until my nose shorts out and my brain says, “Move on, remember, move on.”

There aren’t many people here of a Friday afternoon. After all, it’s just turned summer and most vacations are still a dim red “x” on the calendar—longed for but not close enough to be real yet. Older couples, college students, some stay-at-home-moms with their kids. And vendors. They watch the shoppers with that finely tuned sense that shopkeepers all seem to possess. That person can be trusted, but THAT person, I need to watch her. Some of them try to advertise their wares and some just confirm what you already know from reading the signs. “Yes, the grapes are 1.99 a pound. No there aren’t any purple ones, just green.”

There is an expectation here—fresh, farm grown produce sold at very little profit to the farmer. When I look at the lemons, I wonder where the lemon tree is, here in Kansas, that produced such lovely little yellow fruit? It seems strange to offer grocery story produce here when you can find it in any industrialized cinder-block building flooded with fluorescent lights and drowning in musak. Oh, that’s why.

The birds are getting braver now, coming down near my table to peck at crumbs left from beignets, or cinnamon rolls or whatever it is they are selling at the store with the Sanskrit. I cannot read it but I feel as if I should be able to. Above the flowing script, in small letters, it says helpfully “Middle Eastern Cuisine.”

A couple about 10 years older than me holds hands as they put their purchases in their car. They stand apart from each other so that their hands are the only point of connection between them. With packages stowed, they walk away, the man with his hand placed gently on the woman’s back as if guiding her, again just the one point of tenuous connection. You can tell they are a couple because they seem to exist simultaneously apart and together. I wonder how my husband and I look to other people? Is it possible to tell how two people feel about each other looking at them from outside their relationship? Things always look different from the outside.

The arrival of a UPS truck stops the birds for a second. Or maybe I can’t hear them because the noise of the truck engine drowns them out. As soon as he shuts off the engines, they are there again, their lives uninterrupted by the intrusion of something they cannot possibly understand. They have no schedule, unlike the UPS man, their only imperative is to follow their natural instincts; to fly, to perch, to eat, to mate, to nest. If interrupted in their course, they simply resume. They are not and cannot be bothered.

Tomorrow, none of the cars will be in this central area—it will be filled with booths and people and things grown or made. But today it is a strange mixture of organic and inorganic, natural and man-made. Yet the music made by people is no less natural than that made by the birds still singing in the awnings. They, like us, are communicating in the only way they know—by being present in the moment, by making those small connections, by singing out what we feel compelled to sing out.  How seldom it is that we truly employ our five senses to be present in the world. What could be gained if we could stop our self-manufactured busy-ness and just listen, look, smell, taste, feel? This is my lesson to myself today—be like the birds. Follow your own biological, natural imperative. And don’t forget to sing.

Lives Lost

This has been an extraordinarily difficult weekend. On Thursday night  (March 7, 2013) as we were all getting ready for bed, my daughter came to me in distress and asked for help with her pet rabbit, Thumper. He was in the corner under her bed and wouldn't come out to go to his cage for bed time. I moved the bed and found him lying unresponsive. His eyes were open and he was panting shallowly but did not move as I lifted him to the bed. We've had the rabbit for about 10 years and he was several years old when we took him home so we knew this was coming. I had hoped that he would go quietly while my daughter was at school. However, in death as in life, he commanded attention until the end. He was petted, adored and exclaimed over until he began to convulse and to scream and then my son and I just held him down while my daughter and husband left the room. Life and death are both very messy affairs.

On Saturday evening (March 9, 2013) I was downstairs doing the laundry when my daughter came down and asked me to hurry to her father. He was in tears when I got there. His sister had just discovered the body of their brother. She called 911 and then she called us. He was cold when she arrived so there was nothing she could have done. My husband and I drove to his apartment to offer moral support while the police investigator took pictures and talked to my sister-in-law and to their brother's soon-to-be-ex-wife. We were not allowed into the apartment during the investigation (thankfully) and instead stood outside and explored the should-haves that all survivors do.

As we were standing there, the neighbor who had been "helping" my brother-in-law came to talk to us. She described how she fed him, emptied his trash, got his mail and generally acted like his maid. That was strange enough, but she seemed to want our validation, or forgiveness or comfort and hugged all of us several times though we had never met her before. She offered (several times) to let us use her bathroom or get a drink or use the phone. Then she continued to talk  . . . and talk . . . and talk. The picture she painted of my brother-in-law was not a flattering one but reflected more of herself than of him. Clearly, we were all too polite for our own good.

When the police were finally through and the coroner had retrieved his body, we were allowed into the apartment where we found the TV still on, a great quantity of empty liquor bottles and not much else. He'd recently moved out of the home he had shared with his wife and four children and he had accumulated very little.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

-->

NOTE: I wrote this during our district training the week following parent/teacher conferences (what we call Family Advocacy Day). Our job was to use a mentor text to duplicate style, tone or content. The mentor text I used was "Why Daddy Can't Write" from the Sports Illustrated archive. 

Family Advocacy Day was last week, so I took my laptop and my student work samples to school. Because who doesn’t want to stay at school until 7:00pm?

Maybe I thought that parents would be lined up at my door, desperate to talk to me about how to improve little Johnny’s grade.

Uh, nope.

It was a lot of conversations like this:

JOHNNY’S MOM: My son is failing your class.

ME: Yes, he is.

JOHNNY’S MOM: My little sugar-bear tells me that he never has homework, so when he’s playing his X-Box I check on his School Loop and see all the zeros and I’m so confused.

ME: I only give homework when a student doesn’t finish their work in class.

JOHNNY’S MOM; So you never give homework? I always had homework when I was a kid! I don’t understand why you wouldn’t give him homework!

ME: We generally complete assignments in class, but when a child doesn’t do the assignment, they must complete it at home.

JOHNNY’S MOM: So you don’t give homework? Then why is my angel failing your class? You should give more homework!

ME: Mrs. Johnny, your son does not complete his work in class, so his job is to finish it at home. This is homework.

JOHNNY’S MOM: I thought you said you didn't give homework?

ME: I said students may have to finish assignments at home if they don’t complete it in class.

JOHNNY’S MOM: Is that the same as homework?

ME: Yes

JOHNNY’S MOM: So you do give homework?

ME: Yes ma’am.

JOHNNY’S MOM; So why is my darling dumpling failing your class?

Thinking About My Dad

I've been thinking about my relationship with my father. He is one of the most influential people in my life and has taught me so much but I miss hearing those three little words from him. I worked on this poem yesterday about how I felt.

-->

Three Little Words: Dedicated to my Father

by: Amelia Grissom

2/7/2013

Three little words,

You share them with

that big, slobbery Basset hound,

wiping her chin gently with the

handkerchief you always have

in your back pocket.

Three little words,

I see them in the way

you dig out each individual dandelion,

on your hands and knees

in the Navy pants you’ve been wearing

for 27 years.

Three little words,

I feel them in your eyes

when you talk about helping those

who can’t help themselves

as a pastor, as a social worker, as a mentor

for as long as I’ve known you.

Three little words

Three powerful words,

Your father never said to you,

But meant.

Your mother never said to you,

But didn’t.

Three little words,

They surround everything

You say and do,

Why, when I say

Those three little words,

Can’t you?

 

Thinking about Poetry

Can't. Lesson. Plan. Any. More.

So, I'm thinking about poetry--specifically the Third Thursday coming up at the YMCA  (sponsored by Youth City Network). Just today I had two different (former) students come by to read me poetry that they had composed. I'm encouraging them to read it at the Third Thursday event. I attended last time and it was wonderful to see local teenagers so excited about sharing their talents with each other.

Poetry is an intensely personal art form, which is why it's so perfect for teenagers who feel that everything is happening to them for the first time ever and in the most extreme way ever. Poetry allows them to share those strong emotions and to connect with others who are feeling the same. I'm really looking forward to seeing our school represented and to hearing what others have to say.

In related news, I just received "Louder Than a Bomb" from Netflix. Recommended by fellow English teachers and poetry buffs, it's an account of a poetry slam/competition and follows a Chicago team as they prepare. I'm hoping to screen it for the club during the February Third Thursday. The truly exciting thing is that it's coming to Kansas City in 2014. How great is that?

Novels and other distractions

Love Christmas break for the chance to really dig into some good books! I just recently finished "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn and couldn't put it down. It was very twisty--in a good way--and even though there was  a dearth of sympathetic characters, I still cared enough to find out what happened to all of them. I'd highly recommend it if you enjoy murder mysteries with a serious twist!

We purchased a refurbished (new to us!) computer just around Thanksgiving time, so the kids have really enjoyed the faster, easier interface and the ability to use their game Skyrim. It has great graphics, but is not something I could get into--the storyline requires you to kill people and other beings and steal their things. Not my kind of thing. I have enjoyed using it for my games and for sending e-mail, which I can't seem to do on the Apple when using Yahoo. A bit frustrating. My work e-mail functions, of course. Yay.

I also got around to cleaning out the basement (donating a bunch of toys that hadn't been played with in some years, but that the kids weren't ready to let go of), getting family pictures taken and getting several doctor's visits out of the way. Also been thinking about lesson planning and have devoted several hours to that as well. I think for teachers that every holiday is a busman's holiday--everything we run across is fodder for teaching at some point. That's probably a good thing but sometimes it feels a little too busy.