Moving (right?) Along

I'm sitting here watching the local news waiting for weather and to see if there's anything important to know when I get the relentless "Tuesday is the anniversary...." In case you've  been living in a hole, a year ago a couple of kids blew up the Boston Marathon and I think I can finally say, "I'm not OK."  More than that, I don't need a whole day of coverage It is punctuated with stories of people who didn't finish last year's race and how they're coming back this year to remind me of how much I'm still hurting over everything.

I tell people I chose not to volunteer because I know people need to do something and let them jump in this year and I'll come back next year.  The truth, I don't know if I can stand there the way I always have without crying early and often.  I didn't go to the photo shoot yesterday because, even after 5 years of supporting runners at the mile 18 water stop, I don't feel like I belong in that photo shoot.  Leave it for the real runners, like my brother who will run his 32nd Boston this year.  It's a decision I made, in spite of being a Boston runner, and I'm good with that call.  I know not all people gave it that much thought or came to the same conclusions I did, and I'm good with that as well.  We have to do what works for each of us.

Last year I went to the gathering at Newton City Hall to acknowledge what happened and ran into an old student.  She hugged me and said she was worried about me because she thought I might have been running instead of working the marathon.  (Me?  Run a marathon?  Not likely.)  I was nervous wearing my jacket on rainy days because I didn't want to upset kids.  Recently I realized how much everything hit me because I just can't wear the 2013 jacket comfortably, so I've fallen back to my 2012 jacket as my default and the other previous years when that one's in the laundry.

More stories about increased numbers of police, check points and increased surveillance doesn't make me feel safer.  It makes me afraid.

So what would it take to move forward for real?  Normal would make me feel a lot better.  Not these acts of sadonecroequinebeastiality (beating a dead horse) to tell us we're "Boston Strong."  We're not, we're still Boston under siege.  Boston Strong is giving the middle finger to those that would harm us and celebrating our bandits in costume and other characters who are crazy enough to lace up their sneakers and run 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston on the third Monday in April.  It's not clamping down on the weirdness, it's celebrating it and embracing it as something that makes us who we are.

That siege mentality has crept in around us and we're wrapped up in it without realizing it and people like me keep feeling hobbled by it all.  So Tuesday, I will acknowledge my feelings.  Like far too many people, I will head into Copley Square to leave something that marks the end of my mourning.  After Tuesday I will be able to comfortably live again without fear and remind myself that Boston Strong isn't just words written on a ballplayer's cleat that triggered a slogan that carried us through the darkness, but it's now time to step back into the light.

I hope others follow me.

Clean Body, Clean Mind... Take Your Pick

This morning is the second week I got up to walk up and down the flights of stairs at Harvard Stadium with the November Project folks.

This is normally a summer activity; however, I recently altered my work schedule so I would have time to get back into things before July.  In fact, my goal is to reach a full tour (all 37 sections) by the time in July I'm normally getting started again.  But I'm about 30 sections away from that goal right now.  Last week I was content to do five sections and stop just as I got jelly legged.  As a result, I was sore the next couple of days, but I wasn't a hurting pup like I usually am when I start up.  I am trying to be realistic in terms of my approach at the stadium in that when I get jelly legged, no more than one section beyond where I am and stop.

This morning I made it 7 sections in.

Not bad, not good but not bad.

So why is this here instead of over on my working out with Tek blog?  What does it have to do with writing.

People always ask about why do I join up with Nanowrimo each year if I'm not going to publish what I write?  For the same reason I haul my rather large posterior up and down the stairs at Harvard: because sometimes you need to make yourself get back in the habit of doing something that might be painful at times but good for you in the end.

I'm 16k into Camp Nano - over halfway to my goal and about 5 days ahead of myself and a funny thing happened, a story began to emerge.  It's not the one I loosely planned.  It's not the style I've been focusing on at any level.  It is; however, a story that wants to be told and may be the base for a decent YA fantasy novel.  It started its life as something else but quickly wanted to be more.

I know it's a YA novel because it's not particularly clean enough for middle grade fiction - which is my comfort zone.

Is it because I hauled my but up a bunch of flights of stairs while rocking out to Balkan Beat Box (who are sampled in a current Hip Hop song... so weird to hear a favorite of mine, "Hermetico," in the middle of the song "Talk Dirty" - and I recommend people look up the original by BBB)?  Perhaps.

Perhaps that's what's clearing my head for the story to jump up and down yelling, "I'm over here!  Time for you to write me down!  You're cleaning up your body, so it's time for me to muck up your mind until I'm out of your head!"

It happens.  Maybe by the beginning of July, I'll not only be able to do a full tour of Harvard Stadium but maybe Ailish and Aidan will have fulfilled their destiny in the deserted town on Achill Island in Sliabh Mór, County Mayo in Ireland.  You never know.

1400 Down 28600 To Go

I started off my morning writing.  The story unfolded itself between 5:30 and 6:30 am and I realized where it was going to go.

It is also what happens when you fall asleep on the couch with the news on.

Had you asked me a couple of days ago about what my story was going to be about, I would have told you about the dream that woke me up at 3 am and I wrote down before it could leave.  This morning, fingers to the keyboard, it became something entirely different because yesterday there was a local car jacking that spanned several communities and a variety of cars.  It was coupled with "Why I am running the Boston Marathon" this year stories and a set of stories about two firefighters who died in Boston last week - one of whom was someone my son knew.  A bit of discussion in there recently about Amanda Palmer's views on the bombing with a pinch of a viewing of "Frozen" yesterday and... well, ding fries are done.

Somehow all those things swirled together in my sleeping brain and came up with the story of a young girl who deliberately puts herself in the line of fire and how that changes the lives of the community around her and how she comes to see exactly who she is as a person.  I'm not sure of the ending yet.  I think I know what it will be, but I know it will be unexpected.

Either way, 1400 words this morning (400 over goal) and counting.  I may write more if I finish up my last paper and lesson plan drafts - we'll see.  However, I'm off to a good start and now my day is calling me.

Have I not been writing?

I have been writing, it's just been a tough writing season for me overall.

About a week ago I said to someone that I lost my dad in January.  It didn't fully register with them and they asked, "Where?"

"Um, it's not like I turned around in Sears and he was under a clothing rack saying, 'Pick me!' to freak out shoppers.  He died suddenly."

Let the awkwardness commence in 3, 2, 1....

See my dad was on peritoneal dialysis for almost 8 years.  No matter how careful you are with these things, there is always a risk of infection and a high density, quickly moving staph infection in his catheter gave him two choices: hemodialysis or death.  He swore up and down several times in the past he would never, ever, ever go on hemodialysis again.  We all figured he'd change his tune when he saw the other choice.

We were wrong.

While his last 4 days on this planet were surrounded by family and deeply moving for all of us, it is still a tough one for me to process.  I don't know if I fully will process losing him, but I"m grateful for those last days both on his behalf and for me.

Add a tough semester of grad school requiring far more "small" writing (3 page paper here, a lesson plan there), well, writing hasn't been so much on my radar this time through.  Then the other day I subbed for a fourth grade teacher and had to teach a lesson on opinion writing.  Like most kids, they were trapped in "The first reason I feel..." "The second reason...." "and a final reason...." without understanding that opinion writing - like any writing - is telling a story.

Watching their frustration at knowing what they were doing wasn't what they wanted it to be, I read them an old piece of mine called "Why Baseball." (Because they are kids and I was reading, I substituted "cold beer" for "cold drink.")  I then asked if someone could tell me the reasons I liked baseball and they should too.  They could list them.  I then asked what made my piece different and one kid said, "It was really persuasive, but it was like a story."

I called, "Bingo!"  I then told them that their piece, using the proper transition words and "So What" wrap up for why the evidence supported their reason should read like a story as well.  It doesn't happen overnight, it takes time but they can do it and they should stop seeing adding a quote or dialogue to support their opinion as something dry but as something that enhances it.  When I'm done reading about why gymnastics is important, I should be convinced that the camaraderie of teammates is something all of us need in our lives or that when my fish bumped his head against the fish bowl as an invitation to play, it was not only something that would brighten my day but remind me I'm loved in unexpected ways and everyone should have a Beta fish to make them feel that way.  Sell me without letting me know you're selling me.

It was then I knew I was ready to write again.

I signed on to Camp NaNoWriMo (yeah, the national novel writer people) to jump start myself.  It couldn't come in a worse month.  April is the wrap up of the semester, Passover and a million and one other things.  On top of all that, last winter I signed up for a half marathon in June because, you know, when anyone's stressed out they do stupid things. So why do this?

Because life has to go back to normal.  I have to write or I'm miserable trying to face everyday as more than a chore.  I reduced my word count and set myself up to write short stories - flash writing - so I can just be as random as I need to be.  Perhaps I'll focus on my dad one day and running another.  I don't know.  I don't so much as have a plan as I have a big, blurry picture... and that's OK.

But one thing is sure, I need to start writing more than 3-5 page papers about Piaget's theory of disequilibrium as a method of processing learning and teaching place value to elementary school kids.  I need to tell real stories again.

I love smart asses

As someone who works in education, I have to say that I truly love when people start posting smart ass responses to test questions.

Perhaps it's because I used to do that kind of stuff. (Anyone from SHHS or BLS remember my 1,000 word essay on responsibility that included directing the teacher to be responsible enough to not throw out my essay but to at least recycle it as toilet paper?  Enough people copied it word for word because it was filled with that lovely high school snark kids love.)

But this one struck me this morning.  I love the literal snark and wonder two things: what does it say and does the teacher read Chinese?

If you need a good laugh, there are tons out there but here's a link to some of my favorites: 25 great test responses.

Go have a laugh, I have lesson plans to write and will probably look for more of these later when I need a break.

Goodbye Nelson Mandela

I first learned about apartheid from Gil Scott Heron as a white suburban girl in the mid-70s, long before most Americans had heard of Nelson Mandela or cared about the legalized abuse and segregation of an entire race.  I first heard the song "Johannesburg" in the mid-70's on WBCN.  I heard the reports about reporter Steven Biko, a white reporter who was killed in a police station in South Africa for reporting to the world about Apartheid and what was happening for real in South Africa, from Danny Schecter (the news dissector).

The world went on until the declaration, "I ain't gonna play Sun City," the South African equivalent of Las Vegas, echoed through the rock and roll world.  Paul Simon performed with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and taught the US that there was an injustice in the world that, tragically, made the worst of the Southern Jim Crow laws look like amateur hour.  Students began to demand divesture from South Africa and "shanty towns" appeared on college campuses.

In it all, Nelson Mandela was the shining light on the hill of dignity under the most extreme duress.

When he was freed from his 8x8 cell after 27 years, he did something even more amazing: he forgave.  Not a mumbled kid apology of convenience, he truly forgave and encouraged the rest of the world to do so in an effort for all of us to move on.  Right up until his end at the age of 95, he kept telling people to love and fight for justice.  He inspired, he uplifted and he did all the things a good and just human being should do in this world.

But he didn't do it as "look at me, I'm such a great person."  He did it as, "you can do this too."

One of the quotes that has stuck with me since a major speech he gave early on after his freedom has always been, "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural.  It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."  I humbly try to remember that and do what I can, when I can to work towards that goal.  When people ask me why I am so critical of "christians" (small c intentional here), it is because they don't live it.  Being a Christian means more than constantly posting "like if you love Jesus, share if you want his blessings, ignore if you want to go to hell...." type messages.  They teach their children that prayer is like throwing a coin in the wishing well - G0d will answer your prayers if you just  r e a l l y  believe.  They want to cut social aid in favor for less personal taxes because, well, if you don't want to be poor get off your ass and work.  (While ignoring that the stats on the working poor and working homeless are growing at alarming rates and justifying it as there are people who cheat the system and they don't want to support those people.)

I hope a new generation will learn about Mandela as a result of the publicity in the aftermath of his death but it is hard to explain to kids how things used to be when they only know what is now.  Perhaps part of my desire to teach is to address just that issue with kids - how to build on what went before to be even better.  I hope to buy a copy of the beautiful tribute Peter Reynolds posted this morning that I have on my page now to hang up in a classroom one day.

The headline at the Onion yesterday said goodbye declaring he was the one politician that would be missed.

They were, sadly, correct.

My take on this week's hot stove news.

I'm a Red Sox fan and have been for as long as I can pretty much remember.  I have seen players come and go over all those years and the best advice I can give someone is: get a grip.

Great players leave.  Lousy players leave.  No one in sports lasts forever.  Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Yaz, Cal Ripken, and so many more have come and go over the years.  Some stick with a team their whole career and others move around - it happens.

Like a hair cut, no matter how good or bad it is, your hair continues to grow and you'll have to get it cut again.  Same with sports.  Bobby Orr eventually retired as did Bobby Hull.  Larry Bird and Dr. J are known for a rivalry that was for the ages and is long since retired and a memory or point of history for kids today.  Sammy Sneed?  Ben Hogan?  Who are they?  Arnold Palmer, he's the ice tea guy right?

You get my point.

So when a kid at school asked me how I felt about Ells going to the Yankees, I shrugged and said, "He'll probably end up riding the pine pony on the DL next to Youk."

He smiled and said, "Yeah, probably.

My love affair with Ells ended the season he spent the whole summer at home in Arizona recovering from injured ribs.  It was the same season two other team mates taped up their ribs and went out and played and another team mate, Dustin Pedroia, sat on the field in cast over a broken foot practicing fielding from sitting and kneeling positions.

Ellsbury, in my opinion, is a lazy crybaby.  He gets a hangnail and he's out a game.  He stubs his toe in the clubhouse, better get the back up utility fielder suited up fast because he's playing at least one or two games.  So go let him be New York's expensive problem, the same way Wade Boggs, Johnny Damon, Kevin Youkilis and so many others have become.

For those of you who hate the Yanks for snagging Ells, get over it.  If you do a happy dance when we snag a player from them, remember turn about is fair play.

Right now I'm sitting here on a gray December day dreaming of April, the smell of the freshly mown grass and the call of, "Play Ball!" knowing that whomever the Sox field on that day will be worthy of play.