I was feeling badly for you guys. Really - I totally was. Because tonight? I was going to write a very unprofessional yet highly spirited (!) review of the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, I'm With You. It was going to be so very good and awesome and totally uninteresting to 99.9% of my peeps. But I'm going to have to hold off on that because a reader left me an incredibly heart-felt and detailed comment with many questions regarding my last post about homeschooling and so I'm going to be hitting on that, instead. But the Chili Pepper review is coming and c'mon...you know you're gonna read it. You read my erotica critique, after all. Don't deny it. House of Holes in is in your Kindles.
OK. So my reader has a blog and I checked it out and she has a couple of adorable kiddos she's considering homeschooling. And can I just say, Dear Reader Considering Homeschooling, that we have the exact same picture of not quite exactly the same kid with the hair done up in the tub like a narwhal or a unicorn? Made me chuckle.
So, the reader had this to say (and I'm going to interject my comments and answers in italics):
I'm strongly considering homeschooling my kiddos due to the deplorable state of the public schools in this city (some of the worst in the nation) and the high cost of private ones.
Many (most) people strongly consider homeschooling for the same reason or some similar and very specific reason. There is A Reason...mine was a child with learning disabilities....that serves as a catalyst for this monumental decision. What I have found (and don't let this discourage you) is that The Reason, at some point, ceases to become "enough" if the lifestyle of homeschooling is one that is at odds with the family's structure. Basically, what I'm saying is that tons of people choose to homeschool for This Reason or That Reason and then a year later you run into them and their kids are in school and it turned out to not be so horrible after all....because homeschooling, for them and their expectations, Just Plain Sucked. So - good reasons you have there - but unlikely to sustain a long-haul experience in homeschooling unless, at some point, you find yourselves doing it because you love it and would do it even if good schools were available. It has to become a lifestyle you cherish or you can't keep it up. That's what happened for us. Obviously, not all of my kids are learning disabled - yet they are all homeschooled (except for the one currently in college).
My main misgiving isn't that my kids would turn into those *weird home schooled kids* or anything like that.
Good! Because I'd really hate to go all judgemental on your ass - but ahem - it would be hard because I'm pretty sure I worried about my kids becoming weird homeschooled kids at one time or another when I was agonizing over this decision myself so....yeah. All I can say is this: Good for you for not worrying about it....we know some spectacularly awesome and brilliant and smart and sweet and kind and incredibly loyal weird homeschooled kids. I love them and their quirky selves to bits. Also? I have as Asperger's kid who might very well qualify for this....and Jasper definitely seems to be headed in the weird direction. But I do know how the stereotypes and That Family You Saw At The Park That One Time can send chills through your body when you consider your own children forced into wearing tube socks and jogging shorts with polo shirts tucked in...oh and the tube socks are worn beneath sandals, by the way...while talking about Star Wars for twenty-nine billion consecutive hours. I GET IT. But - those kids are being themselves. They are grateful for the opportunity to do so - they will accept your kids and their possible quirks without the slightest hesitation - and they will probably grow up to invent something quite amazing that you might be able to ride at Disneyland or watch in the movie theater or use to control the environment of your eco-bubble. Also? There are weird kids in school. They were there when I was in school - and they're there now. Often they're bullied and humiliated and depressed instead of doing all the awesome things they would be doing if they were homeschooled and not bullied and humiliated and depressed. Alnd? You can make your kids be cool with Peer Pressure. That's how we do it over here. Of course, in order for this to succeed, you yourself....must be cool.
There are a lot of social options for home schoolers around here.
Yay! There are around here, too. Our house is as full of cheap and meaningless trophies and ribbons as anyone elses. All the museums and nature centers and art places and dance and music schools offer homeschool classes. There are homeschool groups out the wazoo and they are all taking field trips (I HATE FIELD TRIPS but a lot of folks enjoy them) and performing musicals and other such nonsense and forming co-ops and there is absolutely no reasons for homeschoolers to sit around at home unless they want to.
I'm mostly concerned they wouldn't respect me/listen to me like they would *a teacher.*
Talk to a teacher and ask them how much respect they're getting in their classrooms. Also? When I talk like a teacher to my kids they don't tend to listen to me for very long because I become boring and I begin to spoon feed them information they do not find relevant or are not interested in. I know this happens because I am driven to do it several times a year for reasons I do not understand but am pretty sure have something to do with a past life as a one-room school teacher. In fact, Laura Ingalls was in my class and my name was Miss Beadle. I have strong urges to ring bells on church porches and to whack kids across the knuckles with rulers. Most of the time I can resist my urges, but sometimes I cave and put on my homespun dress.
I'm already noticing this attitude from my toddler.
Did you say toddler? That means she's developmentally RIGHT ON. Good for her! The more egocentric she is at this age, the more capable an adult she will be. The smart ones look out for Numero Uno - it's encoded into their survival DNA. They will continue learning how to advocate for themselves and devise ways in which to meet their needs unless this instinct is effectively stamped out by well-meaning adults....who will then later complain that kids don't know how to be independent.
She knows what makes me tick. She knows which buttons to push to drive me insane.
I knew it! She's a smart one. Good for you - you should be quite proud!
She knows that she can ignore me or be mean to me and I will still love her. 19 months old, and she knows this already.
This warms my heart. She has a good mama. Do not fret about this, my friend.
I have a feeling we would get into far more "battles" on a day to day basis than she would with an outsider.
Now I feel we might be getting into parenting issues rather than educational ones - and here's my revelation that we practice Attachment Parenting and subscribe to Unconditional Parenting. *Read Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn for more info.* But, that aside - you are absolutely right. Your child will and should have more battles with you than an outsider. If a child trusts an outsider with her emotions as much as she does a parent - there is a severe disconnect. You don't want to have the same level of trust and intimacy with your child as a stranger would. This means, a child is going to trust you enough to argue with you, to make her demands known, and to become extremely upset when her efforts as communication fail and she doesn't get her way or doesn't understand your reasoning. (Until the Age of Reason has been reached - Parenting is Pretty Much Hell unless you accept the fact that you're dealing with a tiny person who meets all the clinical requirements of Actual Insanity and adjust your expectations.) The battles can be quite trying and stressful depending on the nature of the child and your relationship, and honestly, if it is too difficult - the break that school provides is welcomed by most parents and rarely results in the Actual Ruin of the Child.
My mom taught me the violin for 16 years of my life. I hated/loathed/etc. playing the violin. I learned in spite of that and became quite good at it too, but I didn't develop a passion for it, mostly because I felt like my mom forced it upon me all those years.
I'm truly sorry this happened to you - not uncommon for parents to wish certain things for their children thinking they have their best interests at heart - only to discover they didn't know what their best interests were. We do not force our children to do anything. Force doesn't play into our relationships at all - unless we're talking safety (they must wear seat belts, etc) and they are generally cooperative because they have so much control over their lives in other areas. My daughter plays piano - she debuted with a major metropolitan symphony as a concert soloist at the age of 16 and is now studying Piano Performance in music school. She had her first lesson at 11 - loved it - and we've invested much time and effort and $$$ into this pursuit of hers. And just recently, when she was joyfully complaining about how much work it all is, I told her again..."You're not a prisoner of your talent. Walk away at any given time and nobody here will blink an eye. You have ONE LIFE." She knows this - but I still like to remind her that she's in charge of her life - the last thing in the world she needs to consider when deciding what to do with it is whether or not she will disappoint someone else, who has their own life to worry about.
I'm intrigued by unschooling. It seems very logical to let a child drive his/her own learning in order to prevent the dying of passion. Similar to the Montessori method in that it allows a kid to just become fully immersed in a topic and direct his/her own learning without the distractions of the traditional schooling environment. Love that thought. On the other hand, what do you do when the kid shows absolutely NO desire to learn a particular topic that's super important to know in order to function in society?
I want to be frustrated by this question but again - it was one that I had - and one that I felt was never adequately explained to me. I once said to an adamant unschooler (before I homeschooled) - "But they can't learn calculus from gardening or cooking experiences!" To which she replied, "Most people don't need to know calculus." She was right, of course, but I remained unconvinced.
However, now that I can look at this from the other end of the rainbow - I can see just how ridiculous it was to worry about if they'd learn what they needed to learn. We all learn what we need to learn. If there's a particular topic that is super important to know in order to function in society - we learn it. Maybe we don't learn it in 1st or 3rd grade....but eventually, we learn it. Back to calculus - my oldest daughter took it. She didn't need to know calculus in order to play the piano....so you might be wondering how it made it on the list of Things Super Important to Know. Well, she needed to go to college or conservatory, and we knew this, and so we checked to see what was required by the colleges to which she might want to attain entrance. There were a lot of things on their lists that my daughter then studied in order to gain admittance to the colleges - because she saw a reason for it. In fact - she was accepted into some very good schools because of her coursework and her SAT scores.
My 16-year-old just registered for an online distance learning biology course, he's taking algebra, and although he's unlikely to NEED these things in order to write storyboard animation scripts (what he plans to do with his life), he WILL need them if he decides college is in his future - a possibility he has not completely ruled out. Again - he sees the need for this. Now my 7-year-old? Doesn't see the necessity of knowing anything other than really long complicated dinosaur names. At some point, I'm quite certain, that will change and he'll learn the things that are necessary for his particular life plan. With the exception of the 12-year-window known as formalized education - that is how and why we all learn things.
I was a writing tutor in college and it was mind-boggling how many college students didn't know how to follow basic grammar rules. Their sentences were a mess to the point where I felt like I had to hire an interpreter to understand them sometimes.
And had these other college students been homeschooled? If not - it's obvious that having been enrolled in institutionalized learning environments didn't amount to success in this area. As a writer, I feel your pain. When I was in college (back in the day), I was also amazed by the lack of writing skills of my fellow students. I continue to be amazed by the lack of writing skills of adults I interact with (oops! I ended my sentence with a preposition!!!). Anyway - another reason to homeschool!
I recall learning grammar through pure repetition/ritual back in gradeschool. The teacher *made* us do "easy grammar" worksheets where we had to underline the subjects, double underline the verbs, cross out the prepositional phrases, put the implied "you" in commands in parenthesis, etc. We even had to memorize the most common prepositions. "Busy work," yet so invaluable.
Here's the part where Real Radical Unschoolers call me a fraud. Are you ready? I freaking LOVE the Easy Grammar Systems curriculum. We go through spurts where we actually do this stuff! We have the Daily Grams (takes like 5 minutes) and my 9-year-old eats it up. She goes through periods of whininess where she does not eat it up - and then we just don't do it. But often she is quite happy to sit at the table for a few minutes doing these things. She can string a sentence together and is already ahead of 60% of the average incoming college Freshmen LOL. (*I just typed LOL - shoot me now.) Early Intervention is simply not necessary. Let me give you a lovely little example.
We sometimes participate in a very loosely run and somewhat insane small family co-op. I use Great Books Foundation to teach the teenagers how to think and how to write (the program requires them to record their thoughts in the form of essays). I had a delightful unschooled 15-year-old boy who had never written a word in his life....(he's at Rice University now, having earned an impressive academic scholarship). He read a lot (I've yet to meet unschooled kids who don't love to read) and he was good at organizing his thoughts. There were, however, a few grammar issues. "Galen," I said...(I just outed him on my blog, didn't I?)...."You should begin your sentences with a capital letter and you should end them with some form of punctuation."
"Okay," he said.
And from there on out, he did. The next grammar class he took was a college course. I know! You people are kicking yourselves now for all the hours spent trying to teach a 6-year-old who wasn't listening to you that he needed to start a sentence with a capital letter while wishing that someone was pulling your fingernails out with a rusty pair of pliers instead because it would have been so much more enjoyable!
My 16-year-old and my 13-year-old do NOT care for doing any kind of Easy Grammar work and they rarely, if ever, cooperate with me on this. But recently my college kid said, "Hey, when did Jules learn to spell and use punctuation? I noticed on facebook that he's like almost literate..." And he is! In fact, compared with his peers (many of them in school) he writes like Hemingway on the F-Book. "Hey mom!" he called from the study. "When do you use the too with two o's? I'm writing a status update!!"
"Double o's are used when the word means ALSO or in front of the word MUCH."
"Okay - thanks!"
The end. Once we get down the concept that "there" and "they're" and "their" are not interchangeable - he's ready for the Big Leagues.
In short, I'm curious how you teach a kid to write properly if they show no interest or motivation in wanting to take on that goal themselves. Is there a point at which you just go "it's too bad you don't want to do this. You're doing it anyway" or do the child's whims reign supreme i.e. if they don't want to do it, you can't make them do it?
I do not say, "Too bad," to the 7-year-old - or even the 9-year-old. And I don't even say it to the 16-year-old, preferring instead to be passive-aggressive and say things like, "Don't blame me when you're rotting in jail because you had to resort to ripping off liquor stores in order to provide for all of your illegitimate children...." Like I said, with goals in mind - the kids simply WILL do the things they need to do in order to meet those goals. They might not be doing it in elementary school - but by about the 7th grade - they have some loosely formed dreams and ambitions and it is super easy to get on the Internet and Google "What Kind of Education Does One Need to Become an Anthropologist?" and then devise a road map.
In summary, I'd like to point out that, as a society, we only approach education as an All or Nothing on a Timeline for twelve years. It is a hysterical 12-year-window and we've convinced ourselves that it shuts and then we're ruined for life if we didn't get through it in time when in fact, the average human lives to be what....80? Don't you think that if everything we need to know about life and general subject matters could be compressed into twelves years it would be a very sad state of affairs? The reality is: We learn new things and utilize that knowledge to better our own lives and the lives of others from the day we're born until the day we die. The 12-year-window of opportunity can be completely ignored with the same (or better) results.
I liked answering these questions! Should I do it regularly do you think? Let's try it out occasionally. If you have any questions pertaining to Unschooling, Attachment Parenting, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers - send them my way! I will now take your questions.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Naysayer Numbness
It's that time of year.....that Back to School time of year....and each year it becomes less and less noticeable to us. This is our tenth year to homeschool. I can't believe it. By the end of this school year we'll have been at this nonsense for an entire decade! A DECADE!!
What a journey it has been. Not just the homeschooling - the whole shebang. Because I don't know if I've mentioned this....I think I might have once or twice....but Ellie is now settled into college life. On a full music scholarship that had nothing to do with me as I can't even play Chopsticks BUT what I might not have mentioned is that she also received an academic scholarship that almost covered the full tuition. And I am taking credit for that. Now then, you might be imagining me standing before the kids....chalkboard behind me...some sort of book in my hand....but honestly - we unschool. I don't "teach" and they haven't been "taught." So what do I do? I encourage learning. I show them how to find information. I help them set goals. I help them devise road maps for meeting those goals. I drive them places and buy them things and make sure they have what they need to get where they're going. I talk to them, ask them questions that make them think, and most importantly, discover and learn new things right along with them. I will take credit for raising kids who know how to learn, and who can figure out what to learn in order to do the things that are important to them.
When we started this whole Homeschooling Business there were many naysayers. Naysayers you say?? Yes I say!! Naysayers! People saying, "Nay!" We heard it all, let me tell you.
You have a learning disabled son - don't you think he should be in school with professionals who can help him?
You have a *GIFTED child* - don't you think she should be in school so professionals can challenge her?
You have Jules - don't you think he should be in school so you don't kill him?
Addressing these issues one by one:
There are professionals at the school. Many are dedicated and want to teach. Most are overworked, stifled, tied up and pushed down, and basically unable to teach the way they want. They're using their own money to buy things for their classrooms, which are overcrowded. Some are talented at teaching "the middle" while simultaneously keeping the go-getter challenged, as well. Very few have the time or resources to deal with the one who just isn't getting it at all - due to normal developmental variances or do to some sort of undiagnosed learning disability. Pretty much everyone knows that this is what the schools are like...and yet....all I heard (and sometimes continue to hear) was Don't you think the school would do a better job? Ummm....maybe if I were Actually Dead.
Joel made it through first grade and on his last day the Entire Institution breathed a big old sigh of relief. His teacher was so thrilled to say buh-bye that she was literally tossing free stuff at me and giggling like a little girl as she ushered us out the door. I think it was the first time she'd ever actually smiled at Joel - but what a smile it was! "So long!" she shouted. "You'll do great!" That was my one big vote of confidence and it was really just giddy hysteria. *Before you think this woman might be a horrible person, let me just share something Joel recently (he's almost 17) said to me about his first grade experience.
"So like there were a lot of kids in the classroom and some of them were up in the front of the room and The Lady was like doing stuff with them and talking to them. I just sat in the back with my buds peeling the paper off crayons and tossing them at people. I really didn't think what was going on up there had anything to do with me at all."
There you have it. But let me just add that Joel was doing this out of boredom, not out of any sort of longing to start a life of crime and corruption. He was later diagnosed with four learning disabilities, one of which makes it hard for him to understand English - (I'm not kidding) - and so the kid was just trying to entertain himself because he was stuck there for 7 hours, after all. He was pulled out of the "regular classroom" several times a week. This confused the heck out of him and did nothing to address his specific learning issues. The woman who was in charge of helping him read (something he didn't do successfully until he was ELEVEN and that was with a ton of help from a whole bunch of us non-professionals pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into it) was mean. Plain and simple. I haven't met many mean teachers - but I have met a couple and she was one. So he went to her for reading because he was "slow" and she basically did nothing to help him. In fact, she kept him in at recess to "write lines" and then became angry when he couldn't do it (he couldn't write his name at that point, much less I will listen in class.....). He also went to Reading Fluency because his reading speed wasn't up to benchmark standards. The fact that he couldn't read at all, much less quickly, didn't figure into the equation. So he went to Reading Fluency where two professional women who may or may not have finished high school timed him as he sat quietly not reading. He also went to speech, where he told the therapist he "wuved" her. Because he did. And she was a doll, although he continued to say "wuv" for many more years. The one place he almost never went - was the playground. Because he was constantly being punished for not understanding what someone had said to him, or for not being developmentally able to cooperate with their demands. People would listen to all of this and then say, "But there are professionals there...you don't know what you're doing..." and I began to get suspicious that the institutions of learning were actually factories of stupidity.
Ellie made it through third grade. She made it through third grade because she did, in fact, have some truly wonderful teachers. But by the time she entered fourth grade - Joel was being homeschooled and it just seemed a natural progression for her to come home, too. Since she was bored out of her mind and not quite getting it in the social arena - it wasn't hard to convince her. Four years later she was taking college courses through community college - banging away on the piano for six hours a day - and the rest is history. And yet, throughout it all, people would say, "But don't you think she'd be doing EVEN better at school with the professionals?" It was as if she were learning in spite of the horrendous circumstances of her homeschooling. I couldn't win the naysayers over because they had been quite successfully brainwashed and were unable to form logical conclusions. So I quit trying and we just quietly went about our business.
Even now, when met with skepticism....if I point out that Ellie is in college (as are all of her other homeschooled friends) I am told that she must be an exception because Ignorant People Are Trying To Teach Their Kids At Home!! "You're obviously not ignorant! You know what you're doing! You got it goin' on girlfriend!!" Okay - they don't actually say that last part - that's just the little voice in my head. But they do say the other things - and that's without having any idea of how I teach, if I teach, whether or not I know what I'm doing or the fact that I am, indeed, ignorant about any number of things.
Jules simply could not have survived school with any sense of self intact. I knew that before I knew he had Asperger's. He would be one heavily medicated kid in school, and I doubt he would be learning much at all, because he has very specific ways of learning - none of which involve sitting down or being still. Who was going to read to him while he spun in circles with a light saber held triumphantly above his head in school? What professional person was going to be ABLE to do that for him? "But there are professionals in the schools who attend WORKSHOPS in order to know how to deal with spectrum kids! Don't you think he'd be better off with someone who has attended a workshop?" Right here - at this point - I'm not even going to comment.
Camille and Jasper have never attended school. Camille, I'm quite certain, would love it. She's right smack in the middle of the learning curve, loves Justin Bieber and knows How To Dress (it's a recessive gene apparently). But she's doing great at home - she has a gaggle of girlfriends who are also homeschooled. They do fashion design together. They sing together. They giggle and put on make-up and paint their nails. When Joel sees them he usually likes to comment that they could pass for school kids.
The one thing Camille would not be doing if she were in school is receiving 6 or more hours of classical dance instruction per week. And Camille simply must dance.
If Jasper had been placed in school he quite possibly could have ended formalized education as we know it, leaving the whole mess in an even bigger pile of ashes than it already is. That's just the way he operates. Your logic and reasoning mean nothing to him. One of his favorite comments is, "What's that got to do with me?" And usually, he's right. What does it have to do with him? Luckily for him, his idea that the rest of the world doesn't really relate to him or necessarily require any contribution on his part....well, this doesn't bother me in the least. He's rocking awesome and I wholeheartedly support him in his eschewing of well.... Basically Anything Anybody Wants Him To Do. My little man can just keep on keeping on. Sometimes I get the feeling that he's the only person on Earth who sees things as they really are. He's the dude who notices that the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Nobody likes that dude - he makes us all feel stupid. It's frightening to think of what he'd be like when faced with the day to day Obvious Insanity of Mindless Busywork. They'd have to invent new workshops to deal with The Clarity That Is Jasper.
All of my kids can read (even though Jasper has tried really hard to Not Get It and when he does get it he refuses to say it out loud). All of them can write (even though Jasper has tried really hard to Not Learn How), and most importantly, they know stuff. Important stuff that they find relevant.
So let's summarize, shall we?
I'm a Success.
The End.
What say you? Yea or Nay?
What a journey it has been. Not just the homeschooling - the whole shebang. Because I don't know if I've mentioned this....I think I might have once or twice....but Ellie is now settled into college life. On a full music scholarship that had nothing to do with me as I can't even play Chopsticks BUT what I might not have mentioned is that she also received an academic scholarship that almost covered the full tuition. And I am taking credit for that. Now then, you might be imagining me standing before the kids....chalkboard behind me...some sort of book in my hand....but honestly - we unschool. I don't "teach" and they haven't been "taught." So what do I do? I encourage learning. I show them how to find information. I help them set goals. I help them devise road maps for meeting those goals. I drive them places and buy them things and make sure they have what they need to get where they're going. I talk to them, ask them questions that make them think, and most importantly, discover and learn new things right along with them. I will take credit for raising kids who know how to learn, and who can figure out what to learn in order to do the things that are important to them.
When we started this whole Homeschooling Business there were many naysayers. Naysayers you say?? Yes I say!! Naysayers! People saying, "Nay!" We heard it all, let me tell you.
You have a learning disabled son - don't you think he should be in school with professionals who can help him?
You have a *GIFTED child* - don't you think she should be in school so professionals can challenge her?
You have Jules - don't you think he should be in school so you don't kill him?
Addressing these issues one by one:
There are professionals at the school. Many are dedicated and want to teach. Most are overworked, stifled, tied up and pushed down, and basically unable to teach the way they want. They're using their own money to buy things for their classrooms, which are overcrowded. Some are talented at teaching "the middle" while simultaneously keeping the go-getter challenged, as well. Very few have the time or resources to deal with the one who just isn't getting it at all - due to normal developmental variances or do to some sort of undiagnosed learning disability. Pretty much everyone knows that this is what the schools are like...and yet....all I heard (and sometimes continue to hear) was Don't you think the school would do a better job? Ummm....maybe if I were Actually Dead.
Joel made it through first grade and on his last day the Entire Institution breathed a big old sigh of relief. His teacher was so thrilled to say buh-bye that she was literally tossing free stuff at me and giggling like a little girl as she ushered us out the door. I think it was the first time she'd ever actually smiled at Joel - but what a smile it was! "So long!" she shouted. "You'll do great!" That was my one big vote of confidence and it was really just giddy hysteria. *Before you think this woman might be a horrible person, let me just share something Joel recently (he's almost 17) said to me about his first grade experience.
"So like there were a lot of kids in the classroom and some of them were up in the front of the room and The Lady was like doing stuff with them and talking to them. I just sat in the back with my buds peeling the paper off crayons and tossing them at people. I really didn't think what was going on up there had anything to do with me at all."
There you have it. But let me just add that Joel was doing this out of boredom, not out of any sort of longing to start a life of crime and corruption. He was later diagnosed with four learning disabilities, one of which makes it hard for him to understand English - (I'm not kidding) - and so the kid was just trying to entertain himself because he was stuck there for 7 hours, after all. He was pulled out of the "regular classroom" several times a week. This confused the heck out of him and did nothing to address his specific learning issues. The woman who was in charge of helping him read (something he didn't do successfully until he was ELEVEN and that was with a ton of help from a whole bunch of us non-professionals pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into it) was mean. Plain and simple. I haven't met many mean teachers - but I have met a couple and she was one. So he went to her for reading because he was "slow" and she basically did nothing to help him. In fact, she kept him in at recess to "write lines" and then became angry when he couldn't do it (he couldn't write his name at that point, much less I will listen in class.....). He also went to Reading Fluency because his reading speed wasn't up to benchmark standards. The fact that he couldn't read at all, much less quickly, didn't figure into the equation. So he went to Reading Fluency where two professional women who may or may not have finished high school timed him as he sat quietly not reading. He also went to speech, where he told the therapist he "wuved" her. Because he did. And she was a doll, although he continued to say "wuv" for many more years. The one place he almost never went - was the playground. Because he was constantly being punished for not understanding what someone had said to him, or for not being developmentally able to cooperate with their demands. People would listen to all of this and then say, "But there are professionals there...you don't know what you're doing..." and I began to get suspicious that the institutions of learning were actually factories of stupidity.
Ellie made it through third grade. She made it through third grade because she did, in fact, have some truly wonderful teachers. But by the time she entered fourth grade - Joel was being homeschooled and it just seemed a natural progression for her to come home, too. Since she was bored out of her mind and not quite getting it in the social arena - it wasn't hard to convince her. Four years later she was taking college courses through community college - banging away on the piano for six hours a day - and the rest is history. And yet, throughout it all, people would say, "But don't you think she'd be doing EVEN better at school with the professionals?" It was as if she were learning in spite of the horrendous circumstances of her homeschooling. I couldn't win the naysayers over because they had been quite successfully brainwashed and were unable to form logical conclusions. So I quit trying and we just quietly went about our business.
Even now, when met with skepticism....if I point out that Ellie is in college (as are all of her other homeschooled friends) I am told that she must be an exception because Ignorant People Are Trying To Teach Their Kids At Home!! "You're obviously not ignorant! You know what you're doing! You got it goin' on girlfriend!!" Okay - they don't actually say that last part - that's just the little voice in my head. But they do say the other things - and that's without having any idea of how I teach, if I teach, whether or not I know what I'm doing or the fact that I am, indeed, ignorant about any number of things.
Jules simply could not have survived school with any sense of self intact. I knew that before I knew he had Asperger's. He would be one heavily medicated kid in school, and I doubt he would be learning much at all, because he has very specific ways of learning - none of which involve sitting down or being still. Who was going to read to him while he spun in circles with a light saber held triumphantly above his head in school? What professional person was going to be ABLE to do that for him? "But there are professionals in the schools who attend WORKSHOPS in order to know how to deal with spectrum kids! Don't you think he'd be better off with someone who has attended a workshop?" Right here - at this point - I'm not even going to comment.
Camille and Jasper have never attended school. Camille, I'm quite certain, would love it. She's right smack in the middle of the learning curve, loves Justin Bieber and knows How To Dress (it's a recessive gene apparently). But she's doing great at home - she has a gaggle of girlfriends who are also homeschooled. They do fashion design together. They sing together. They giggle and put on make-up and paint their nails. When Joel sees them he usually likes to comment that they could pass for school kids.
The one thing Camille would not be doing if she were in school is receiving 6 or more hours of classical dance instruction per week. And Camille simply must dance.
If Jasper had been placed in school he quite possibly could have ended formalized education as we know it, leaving the whole mess in an even bigger pile of ashes than it already is. That's just the way he operates. Your logic and reasoning mean nothing to him. One of his favorite comments is, "What's that got to do with me?" And usually, he's right. What does it have to do with him? Luckily for him, his idea that the rest of the world doesn't really relate to him or necessarily require any contribution on his part....well, this doesn't bother me in the least. He's rocking awesome and I wholeheartedly support him in his eschewing of well.... Basically Anything Anybody Wants Him To Do. My little man can just keep on keeping on. Sometimes I get the feeling that he's the only person on Earth who sees things as they really are. He's the dude who notices that the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Nobody likes that dude - he makes us all feel stupid. It's frightening to think of what he'd be like when faced with the day to day Obvious Insanity of Mindless Busywork. They'd have to invent new workshops to deal with The Clarity That Is Jasper.
All of my kids can read (even though Jasper has tried really hard to Not Get It and when he does get it he refuses to say it out loud). All of them can write (even though Jasper has tried really hard to Not Learn How), and most importantly, they know stuff. Important stuff that they find relevant.
So let's summarize, shall we?
I'm a Success.
The End.
What say you? Yea or Nay?
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Look at Her Go! She's Really Fast!
The day had finally arrived. Ellie was leaving for college. I'd lamented this moment - the moment of my abandonment - for an entire year. And now it was time to say goodbye - to finally kick a kid out of the nest.
And she was ready to fly.
We took photos of everyone hugging her goodbye. Here she is with her good friend Hannah - who stayed behind to man the fort with my other kids, which was no small or easy task. Joel is in the background trying to make a stupid face because he likes to ruin landmark family pictures.
And here she is with The Boyfriend and she looks like she might cry but really she's trying not to laugh because I'm fussing at her dad who is in the background making a stupid face because he likes to ruin landmark family pictures.
Jasper refused to pose for a picture. Ellie tried to explain to him that she was leaving. She said I'M NEVER COMING BACK TO LIVE HERE EVER EVER AGAIN. Jasper just shrugged, but I fell completely apart.
We arrived at the college town, and checked into a hotel. We went to dinner, went to a movie, and then Ellie stayed with us that first night. The next morning she'd check into her dorm.
I don't tend to sleep well in hotels, and this night was no exception. I dreamed a lot. I dreamed I'd given birth to a perfect baby. She was all adorable and the word perfect kept coming up again and again when people looked at her and I was all impressed with myself for having had such a perfect baby. Then I left her in a parking lot. It was an accident, of course, and upon realizing my mistake I rushed back to the parking lot hysterically.....shouting to everyone, "Have you seen my perfect baby? Remember the one? You were all so impressed with her and I drove off and left her in the parking lot!"
They pointed to the dark scary woods and said they thought they'd seen her head off that way. They acted as if this were the most natural thing in the world and weren't concerned about it in the slightest. I took off for the dark scary woods. "Where's my baby?" I screamed repeatedly. Finally, I saw something disappear around a tree trunk.
Other people were around, calmly commenting that they'd also seen her disappear around the tree trunk. "Look at her go!" they said in very pleased tones.
"What? Where?" I asked. I looked but could see only darkness. I took off running. Finally, I came to a little red fox sitting peacefully licking its paws.
"There she is," said a man, pointing at the fox.
"What? That's not my perfect baby!" I said. "That's a FOX!"
The fox walked right up to me and I thought I saw a little smug glint in its eye. It looked vaguely familiar.
I picked it up, and it started struggling to get away.
"Really?" I said. "This is my perfect baby? How did this happen? She's turned into something else entirely and all I did was leave her momentarily in the parking lot when I got all busy doing other things..."
"Yeah. They do that," the man said. "She's a cute little fox. You should be quite proud."
The little fox wriggled free from my grasp and jumped down. She took off in a blurry flash....bushy little tail disappearing through the woods.
"Look at her go!" he said. "She's really fast!"
The next couple of days were spent shopping for last minute dorm items and taking care of things like registering, textbooks, obtaining studio keys, dropping one class and picking up a harpsichord class...figuring out how to gain access to the scholarship money...how to use the meal plan. She loved all of it (except orientation which she deemed a complete waste of her time). She familiarized herself with the Steinways in the practice rooms. She ditched us and our hotel room and spent her first night in the dorm. She woke the next morning to the sound of a lone tuba...the second morning it was drums. She was home.
"Hey, can you drop me off at the practice rooms on your way out of here?" she asked. On your way out of here....now please.
"Sure," we said. Like we were leaving anyway.
When we got in front of the practice building there was a line of cars behind us. She couldn't get the van door open - it has a tendency to stick. She struggled while horns honked and Jeff fussed. I sat quietly, listening to the last echo of Normal.
When she finally managed to extricate herself from the vehicle, she sighed and stomped off down the sidewalk. She didn't look back. The last thing I heard her say was crap.
As we pulled away to head home without my firstborn, I turned to look out the window, just as she disappeared around the corner of the building.
Look at her go....that was really fast.
And she was ready to fly.
We took photos of everyone hugging her goodbye. Here she is with her good friend Hannah - who stayed behind to man the fort with my other kids, which was no small or easy task. Joel is in the background trying to make a stupid face because he likes to ruin landmark family pictures.
And here she is with The Boyfriend and she looks like she might cry but really she's trying not to laugh because I'm fussing at her dad who is in the background making a stupid face because he likes to ruin landmark family pictures.
And here she is with Camille, the most enthusiastic sender-offer. Camille is going to miss her sister. I had to take 3 pics to get one of Ellie with her eyes open. She was wincing in the other two. People often wince around Camille. It is a protective measure as she is rarely still and usually hopping and jumping and screeching and occasionally she'll accidentally get you with a knee or elbow or even the top of her head when you bend over to kiss her and she picks that moment to JUMP (!).
And here she is with The Joels. I won't go into how she and Joel were the best of friends, how they used to sleep in the top bunk together because it was their pirate ship, or the bathtub tea parties, or the forts and hideaways and endless lining up of the matchbox cars....I won't go into that or I might start crying.
Jasper refused to pose for a picture. Ellie tried to explain to him that she was leaving. She said I'M NEVER COMING BACK TO LIVE HERE EVER EVER AGAIN. Jasper just shrugged, but I fell completely apart.
We arrived at the college town, and checked into a hotel. We went to dinner, went to a movie, and then Ellie stayed with us that first night. The next morning she'd check into her dorm.
I don't tend to sleep well in hotels, and this night was no exception. I dreamed a lot. I dreamed I'd given birth to a perfect baby. She was all adorable and the word perfect kept coming up again and again when people looked at her and I was all impressed with myself for having had such a perfect baby. Then I left her in a parking lot. It was an accident, of course, and upon realizing my mistake I rushed back to the parking lot hysterically.....shouting to everyone, "Have you seen my perfect baby? Remember the one? You were all so impressed with her and I drove off and left her in the parking lot!"
They pointed to the dark scary woods and said they thought they'd seen her head off that way. They acted as if this were the most natural thing in the world and weren't concerned about it in the slightest. I took off for the dark scary woods. "Where's my baby?" I screamed repeatedly. Finally, I saw something disappear around a tree trunk.
Other people were around, calmly commenting that they'd also seen her disappear around the tree trunk. "Look at her go!" they said in very pleased tones.
"What? Where?" I asked. I looked but could see only darkness. I took off running. Finally, I came to a little red fox sitting peacefully licking its paws.
"There she is," said a man, pointing at the fox.
"What? That's not my perfect baby!" I said. "That's a FOX!"
The fox walked right up to me and I thought I saw a little smug glint in its eye. It looked vaguely familiar.
I picked it up, and it started struggling to get away.
"Really?" I said. "This is my perfect baby? How did this happen? She's turned into something else entirely and all I did was leave her momentarily in the parking lot when I got all busy doing other things..."
"Yeah. They do that," the man said. "She's a cute little fox. You should be quite proud."
The little fox wriggled free from my grasp and jumped down. She took off in a blurry flash....bushy little tail disappearing through the woods.
"Look at her go!" he said. "She's really fast!"
The next couple of days were spent shopping for last minute dorm items and taking care of things like registering, textbooks, obtaining studio keys, dropping one class and picking up a harpsichord class...figuring out how to gain access to the scholarship money...how to use the meal plan. She loved all of it (except orientation which she deemed a complete waste of her time). She familiarized herself with the Steinways in the practice rooms. She ditched us and our hotel room and spent her first night in the dorm. She woke the next morning to the sound of a lone tuba...the second morning it was drums. She was home.
"Hey, can you drop me off at the practice rooms on your way out of here?" she asked. On your way out of here....now please.
"Sure," we said. Like we were leaving anyway.
When we got in front of the practice building there was a line of cars behind us. She couldn't get the van door open - it has a tendency to stick. She struggled while horns honked and Jeff fussed. I sat quietly, listening to the last echo of Normal.
When she finally managed to extricate herself from the vehicle, she sighed and stomped off down the sidewalk. She didn't look back. The last thing I heard her say was crap.
As we pulled away to head home without my firstborn, I turned to look out the window, just as she disappeared around the corner of the building.
Look at her go....that was really fast.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
My Fellow Americans
So this post attracted the attention of Unity Productions Foundation, and they have asked me to share some information about a project of theirs called My Fellow American. According to their website, "My Fellow American is an online film and social media project that calls upon concerned Americans to pledge and spread a message that Muslims are our fellow Americans. It asks people of other backgrounds to pledge, and share a real life story about a Muslim friend, neighbor, or colleague that they admire. Using the power of social media, My Fellow American seeks to change the narrative – from Muslims as the other, to Muslims as our fellow Americans."
What a lovely idea and worthwhile project. After watching the shenanigans in Iowa over the weekend and listening to Michelle Bachman talk about Real America, I have to wonder, where would Muslim Americans (and Jewish Americans, Gay/Lesbian/Transgender Americans, Atheist Americans, or anybody other than the White Straight Christian Americans).....where would they fit in? Just something to ponder.
Unity Productions Foundation is a "501©3 media and education non profit organization. The mission of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) is to create peace through the media. Founded in 1999, UPF produces documentary films for television and online broadcast and theatrical release, and implements long-term educational campaigns aimed at increasing understanding between people of different faiths and cultures, especially between Muslims and other faiths. We are convinced of the power of media to empower citizens with greater understanding and to nourish pluralism in America."
Pluralism? Where would pluralism fit in with Michelle Bachman's Real America? Hmmm....it didn't fit into
Anders Behring Breivik's Real Norway.
The emerging Nationalism in America, where are we really wanting to go with this? I've said it before and I'll say it again - If America is a Christian country...what does that mean for me? I'm not a Christian. What does it mean for you? Even if you're Christian, are you the Right Kind of Christian? You should find out, don't you think? Because Real Americans have very specific ideas about this, you know. The Club will start out large because there will be all these non-Christians to deal with. But once they're gone...The Club will focus on itself and it's parameters are certain to narrow. If you're Catholic or Mormon or Jehova's Witness.....I'd be a trifle worried.
Do you know any Muslim Americans? Jewish Americans? Buddhist Americans? Atheist Americans? What place do you see for them in Real America?
What a lovely idea and worthwhile project. After watching the shenanigans in Iowa over the weekend and listening to Michelle Bachman talk about Real America, I have to wonder, where would Muslim Americans (and Jewish Americans, Gay/Lesbian/Transgender Americans, Atheist Americans, or anybody other than the White Straight Christian Americans).....where would they fit in? Just something to ponder.
Unity Productions Foundation is a "501©3 media and education non profit organization. The mission of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) is to create peace through the media. Founded in 1999, UPF produces documentary films for television and online broadcast and theatrical release, and implements long-term educational campaigns aimed at increasing understanding between people of different faiths and cultures, especially between Muslims and other faiths. We are convinced of the power of media to empower citizens with greater understanding and to nourish pluralism in America."
Pluralism? Where would pluralism fit in with Michelle Bachman's Real America? Hmmm....it didn't fit into
Anders Behring Breivik's Real Norway.
The emerging Nationalism in America, where are we really wanting to go with this? I've said it before and I'll say it again - If America is a Christian country...what does that mean for me? I'm not a Christian. What does it mean for you? Even if you're Christian, are you the Right Kind of Christian? You should find out, don't you think? Because Real Americans have very specific ideas about this, you know. The Club will start out large because there will be all these non-Christians to deal with. But once they're gone...The Club will focus on itself and it's parameters are certain to narrow. If you're Catholic or Mormon or Jehova's Witness.....I'd be a trifle worried.
First they came for the Communists,
And I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist
Then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist,
Then they came for the Jews,
And I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew,
Then they came for me,
And there was nobody left to speak out for me
Pastor Martin Niemoller
Do you know any Muslim Americans? Jewish Americans? Buddhist Americans? Atheist Americans? What place do you see for them in Real America?
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Whereby I Wait, Flounder, and Critique Erotica. Of Course.
Dog days of summer, man. So smurfing hot. And I'm bored. And drifting. It's not that I don't have anything to do...it's that I don't feel like doing any of it. Because I'm floundering. And this floundering is taking up all of my time and energy.
I've been reading while floundering around....sweating in the heat and nervously awaiting the inevitable change that is upon me. I'm stuck in la-la land until the girl finally leaves. And I'm waiting...waiting...and so is she. We will all feel better when she's gone and we're not waiting anymore, just because it is difficult to be in the place of waiting. She's checked out but she's still here, her bags are packed but she still needs a toothbrush every night, we're tired of saying goodbye and we'll miss you and ready to get on with things. I'm sad because she's leaving, and that is precariously close to being sad that she's gone, and entirely unfair, since she's still here. We should be either:
a) Spending lots of fun time together while we still can or:
b) Missing her because she's gone but managing well enough. As it is, we're stuck with:
c) Not really having fun because we know she's leaving and not being able to move on because she technically hasn't left.
It's a weird place to be and since I'd rather not be here, I've been removing myself from reality with the endless reading. Dang, but having a Kindle has made it all entirely too easy. I about died when I recently saw how much money I'd blown on Amazon. Yesterday, I went to order a book and saw that the Kindle edition was $14.99, and I said screw it.
Screw it, I said! I shall reacquaint myself with the library. I'll request this book online and wait patiently for it to arrive. My Kindle laughed in my face as I said this. Really? he said. You're going to WAIT? Once you've had instant gratification, baby, you can never go back.
Yes, that's right. My Kindle calls me baby.
Yes, I can go back, I said. Just watch me! Someone (pardon me...someTHING) was getting just a tad bit overconfident.
I logged into my library account. And, as soon as I logged in I saw that I had zero books checked out. I was freaking flooded with relief. Usually it says I have several books checked out that nobody in this house has ever heard of. Did you check out the book about 19th century pottery-making??? No? What about the one on spiritual dance as a way to cleanse the soul of psychic toxins?
ANYWAY, so I logged in, saw that my alternative self in my alternative universe had not been covertly checking out books without consulting me, and I attempted to request a book like other people who are not missing library books they apparently checked out while sleepwalking. I felt very confident as I clicked on "request a hold." But then it said, "Request cannot be processed due to a problem with your account." Turns out I owe $13.96 for a book (probably about the origins of metalsmithing or something equally ridiculous) and I can't request another book until I pay up in person. Paying up in person would not normally be a problem, but since Camille is out of dance for the week I'm not going to be in the general vicinity of the library and just can't justify spending $25 in gas to pay a $13.96 library fee when I could freaking have the book in my possession Right This Minute for a mere $14.99. What a deal! What a bargain!
I told you, doll face, smirked my Kindle. You can't resist me so don't even try.
God, he's so sexy when he talks that way. And he's right, too. I can't resist the pull of instant gratification. The book in question? Is awful. It's by Laurel K. Hamilton and it's the latest in the stupid vampire porn series that I quit reading over a year ago...had seriously kicked the embarrassing habit...but then my Writer Friend (and she knows who she is) said, "Oh you really have to read the latest one. They're still awful but really good." Since that made perfect sense to me, I set off to get the last book only to discover that there had been 2 BOOKS published since my having kicked the habit (quantity versus quality) and so I had to start where I'd left off. While reading these books (the Anita Blake series) I like to text my Writer Friend to make fun of how badly written it is. Because that's what bitter unpublished writers do for fun. Anyway - the books are classified as paranormal romance but really they're just vampire smut. Read them if you dare, but don't say I didn't warn you. Now I must redeem myself. On my Kindle I've also recently read:
The Help. Sometimes I like to follow the masses. Actually, a lot of the time I like to follow the mass. In fact, I suspect that I am, in fact, a part of the masses. I loved the book. I know there's controversy surrounding it but I honestly don't know why. Maybe I'm being insensitive. If I am, I don't know it. That's how insensitive works, after all. I've read that people are upset by the heavy dialect/accents/speech patterns used by the Black characters. I noticed it, but it didn't bother me. I'm used to reading books or watching movies or television shows where Texans are depicted with the most ridiculous and unreal accents imaginable. The characters were 1960's Mississippi Jim Crow Times Black Characters...and I'm not saying their dialects are expressed correctly in this fictional representation - I'm just saying that some of the people doing the criticizing probably don't know, either. Anyway - I do plan on seeing the movie. See? One of the masses.
I also read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. It was one of those amnesia stories - but I loved it. The character, Alice, wakes up on the floor of a gym, where she had passed out. She doesn't know why she's in a gym (she hates to exercise), she doesn't know why her friends look so much the worse for wear, and she thinks she's pregnant and happily married - because ten years before - she was. She's lost ten years of her life. The story doesn't go on and on about what happened during those years like a lot of amnesia stories - it just throws her right back into her life only she's a different person. She's still fiercely in love with her husband....yet she's in the middle of a divorce and custody battle with him - which is strange because she doesn't even know why they're getting divorced in the first place, and since none of the things that stressed their marriage have even really happened in her mind, she sees things from a very different light than her non-amnesiac self. It was really very interesting. It was a good read with a satisfying ending. Who was I ten years ago and how would that person do if plopped down right here right now in what I currently call my life?
I'm currently reading Spinning by Michael Baron and I honestly don't know how I came to have heard of this novel. I have notes jotted down everywhere with novel titles on them. Anyway, it's too soon to say whether or not I like it. The dialogue seems awkward and unnatural and I'm also having trouble with the believability of the main character at this point. It could be it'll turn a corner very soon and I'll end up being enthralled. After all - I am The Person Who Is Apparently Reading The Entire Anita Blake Series.
I'm waiting to read two books (already on the Kindle!) by authors I heard interviewed on NPR. I always listen to these interviews with the full intention or getting my hands on the books but then I can't remember the titles or the authors or I forget that I ever heard the interview because the only time I ever listen to NPR is in the car. But this time - with my handy Kindle - voila! Instant books. So I'll soon be reading The Family Fang: A Novel, by Kevin Wilson. And no, it isn't about vampires.
The other book is called Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. I didn't actually hear Pollock discussing this novel. He was discussing his latest novel, Devil All the Time. But it isn't available on Kindle so....I bought an earlier novel of his that is. I liked how his interview went - I liked HIM. He is an older writer. I appreciate that. It gives me hope.
I'm also (ahem) currently reading a bit of erotica. I read a book review in Slate about an erotica author and the review was good and strange and I liked the language of the excerpt and I picked up my Kindle and BINGO! Erotica at my fingertips. The author is Nicholson Baker - he's written other novels I haven't read because, believe it or not, my bookshelves are not overflowing with erotic fiction (unless you count the vampire porn and I'd really prefer that you not). If my bookshelves were overflowing with erotic fiction, by the way, I wouldn't admit it. But they're not. We're still somewhat of a family show over here in The Can. In fact, were it not for my sexy new Kindle, I doubt I would ever have purchased Baker's newest novel, House of Holes, at all. But I do have a sexy new Kindle and I did order it. Wow! Did you hear how much I defended my purchase. Me thinks she does protest too much...
I'm only partway in (that sounds bad considering the subject matter and the book title, but truly, it was unintentional or possibly a Freudian slip), so the jury is still out on whether or not I LIKE it. I mean, the story is weird and the sex is not sexy sex or romantic sex or hot sex. It is just extremely strange and rather unemotional sex. So I don't know for sure whether or not I like it. But do I like the writing? Yes! Very much! He says the strangest things...you can't just read along without being very aware that you're reading because the sentences never take you where you think they're going. I love delightful surprises in the details. You know who this author reminds me of? Haruki Murakami (my all-time favorite author). It is just the kind of erotica Murakami would write if he wrote erotica.
It's as if the guy writes his novels using Mad Libs.
Check this out:
...he wanted to meet a nice, smart, sexy woman, so he went to a lecture on the history of the municipal water supply... Don't you think that's delicious? See how he dumps little surprises into your lap while you're sitting there totally not expecting it? I was like, "Municipal water supply...that's hilarious!"
...and sat down on a folding chair next to a woman with mustard-colored stockings. Again - just knock me over with a feather there have been no mustard-colored stockings in the history of colored stockings. He could have said ANY color on the planet. He had the full color spectrum to choose from and chose MUSTARD and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that.
...such a beautiful boy - ascetic looking, with a shy large toothy smile and high cheekbones and large bony knuckles and heartbreaking shoulders. Heartbreaking shoulders. I had to read it three times at least because I loved the idea of heartbreaking shoulders so very much. I wish I had thought of heartbreaking shoulders but most people just don't think that way. I am very much like Most People and I really hate that about myself.
Nicholson's characters speak in the same clipped, blunt manner as Murakami's characters. One character will say something supremely strange and the other character will respond in a delightful ho-hum manner, as if they heard things like that every day. That kind of quirky dialogue is a trademark of Murakami's.
Let's see...I've pulled a Murakami novel off my shelf, Kafka on the Shore. Now I've just randomly opened it up to page...let's see...247. And aha! Let's just look at this dialogue, shall we?
I turn red. "I can't really explain it," I reply. "It's complicated and there's a lot of stuff I still don't get."
"But you're probably in love, probably with Miss Saeki?"
"Right," I say. "Very much."
"Probably, but also very much?"
I nod.
"At the same time it's possible she's your mother?"
Another of my patented nods.
See what I mean? This is on every page.
Baker's characters do it, too. One character, Shandee, is having a relationship with the disembodied arm of a man named Dave. She refers to the arm simply as Dave's arm. She and Dave's arm have ended up traveling through a porthole to the House of Holes, where Dave is supposedly running around without an arm, having exchanged it for a larger penis, of course. And she meets a young man who entered the porthole through the pierced ear hole of a girl he met. And here, she's introducing Dave's arm to the young man, who acts as if it is perfectly normal to meet an arm.
"Dave's arm, meet Ruzty. Ruzty, meet Dave's arm." She held Dave's arm out.
"Hey, dude," said Ruzty, and gave the arm a thumb-to-thumb handshake. He smiled at Shandee - dazzling teeth. "Good for you to travel with somebody who is a friend."
"That's very true," said Shandee.
It could be that you're reading this and thinking, "Wow, that Sardine Mama is quite strange." It could be that you're reading this and not getting the slightest bit enthusiastic about clipped dialogue that takes you down rabbit holes, or unexpected details like mustard-colored tights. It could be you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of jumping onto Amazon and buying either vampire porn (and I really suggest you don't), erotica or Japanese sci-fi based on my less than professional critique, and are, in fact, thankful that you are the master of your own Kindle and can avoid erotica and Japanese sci-fi, entirely. And if that is the case, that means I am sometimes a part of the masses, and other times.....not so much. And if that is the case, it makes me perfectly happy.
I've been reading while floundering around....sweating in the heat and nervously awaiting the inevitable change that is upon me. I'm stuck in la-la land until the girl finally leaves. And I'm waiting...waiting...and so is she. We will all feel better when she's gone and we're not waiting anymore, just because it is difficult to be in the place of waiting. She's checked out but she's still here, her bags are packed but she still needs a toothbrush every night, we're tired of saying goodbye and we'll miss you and ready to get on with things. I'm sad because she's leaving, and that is precariously close to being sad that she's gone, and entirely unfair, since she's still here. We should be either:
a) Spending lots of fun time together while we still can or:
b) Missing her because she's gone but managing well enough. As it is, we're stuck with:
c) Not really having fun because we know she's leaving and not being able to move on because she technically hasn't left.
It's a weird place to be and since I'd rather not be here, I've been removing myself from reality with the endless reading. Dang, but having a Kindle has made it all entirely too easy. I about died when I recently saw how much money I'd blown on Amazon. Yesterday, I went to order a book and saw that the Kindle edition was $14.99, and I said screw it.
Screw it, I said! I shall reacquaint myself with the library. I'll request this book online and wait patiently for it to arrive. My Kindle laughed in my face as I said this. Really? he said. You're going to WAIT? Once you've had instant gratification, baby, you can never go back.
Yes, that's right. My Kindle calls me baby.
Yes, I can go back, I said. Just watch me! Someone (pardon me...someTHING) was getting just a tad bit overconfident.
I logged into my library account. And, as soon as I logged in I saw that I had zero books checked out. I was freaking flooded with relief. Usually it says I have several books checked out that nobody in this house has ever heard of. Did you check out the book about 19th century pottery-making??? No? What about the one on spiritual dance as a way to cleanse the soul of psychic toxins?
ANYWAY, so I logged in, saw that my alternative self in my alternative universe had not been covertly checking out books without consulting me, and I attempted to request a book like other people who are not missing library books they apparently checked out while sleepwalking. I felt very confident as I clicked on "request a hold." But then it said, "Request cannot be processed due to a problem with your account." Turns out I owe $13.96 for a book (probably about the origins of metalsmithing or something equally ridiculous) and I can't request another book until I pay up in person. Paying up in person would not normally be a problem, but since Camille is out of dance for the week I'm not going to be in the general vicinity of the library and just can't justify spending $25 in gas to pay a $13.96 library fee when I could freaking have the book in my possession Right This Minute for a mere $14.99. What a deal! What a bargain!
I told you, doll face, smirked my Kindle. You can't resist me so don't even try.
God, he's so sexy when he talks that way. And he's right, too. I can't resist the pull of instant gratification. The book in question? Is awful. It's by Laurel K. Hamilton and it's the latest in the stupid vampire porn series that I quit reading over a year ago...had seriously kicked the embarrassing habit...but then my Writer Friend (and she knows who she is) said, "Oh you really have to read the latest one. They're still awful but really good." Since that made perfect sense to me, I set off to get the last book only to discover that there had been 2 BOOKS published since my having kicked the habit (quantity versus quality) and so I had to start where I'd left off. While reading these books (the Anita Blake series) I like to text my Writer Friend to make fun of how badly written it is. Because that's what bitter unpublished writers do for fun. Anyway - the books are classified as paranormal romance but really they're just vampire smut. Read them if you dare, but don't say I didn't warn you. Now I must redeem myself. On my Kindle I've also recently read:
The Help. Sometimes I like to follow the masses. Actually, a lot of the time I like to follow the mass. In fact, I suspect that I am, in fact, a part of the masses. I loved the book. I know there's controversy surrounding it but I honestly don't know why. Maybe I'm being insensitive. If I am, I don't know it. That's how insensitive works, after all. I've read that people are upset by the heavy dialect/accents/speech patterns used by the Black characters. I noticed it, but it didn't bother me. I'm used to reading books or watching movies or television shows where Texans are depicted with the most ridiculous and unreal accents imaginable. The characters were 1960's Mississippi Jim Crow Times Black Characters...and I'm not saying their dialects are expressed correctly in this fictional representation - I'm just saying that some of the people doing the criticizing probably don't know, either. Anyway - I do plan on seeing the movie. See? One of the masses.
I also read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. It was one of those amnesia stories - but I loved it. The character, Alice, wakes up on the floor of a gym, where she had passed out. She doesn't know why she's in a gym (she hates to exercise), she doesn't know why her friends look so much the worse for wear, and she thinks she's pregnant and happily married - because ten years before - she was. She's lost ten years of her life. The story doesn't go on and on about what happened during those years like a lot of amnesia stories - it just throws her right back into her life only she's a different person. She's still fiercely in love with her husband....yet she's in the middle of a divorce and custody battle with him - which is strange because she doesn't even know why they're getting divorced in the first place, and since none of the things that stressed their marriage have even really happened in her mind, she sees things from a very different light than her non-amnesiac self. It was really very interesting. It was a good read with a satisfying ending. Who was I ten years ago and how would that person do if plopped down right here right now in what I currently call my life?
I'm currently reading Spinning by Michael Baron and I honestly don't know how I came to have heard of this novel. I have notes jotted down everywhere with novel titles on them. Anyway, it's too soon to say whether or not I like it. The dialogue seems awkward and unnatural and I'm also having trouble with the believability of the main character at this point. It could be it'll turn a corner very soon and I'll end up being enthralled. After all - I am The Person Who Is Apparently Reading The Entire Anita Blake Series.
I'm waiting to read two books (already on the Kindle!) by authors I heard interviewed on NPR. I always listen to these interviews with the full intention or getting my hands on the books but then I can't remember the titles or the authors or I forget that I ever heard the interview because the only time I ever listen to NPR is in the car. But this time - with my handy Kindle - voila! Instant books. So I'll soon be reading The Family Fang: A Novel, by Kevin Wilson. And no, it isn't about vampires.
The other book is called Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. I didn't actually hear Pollock discussing this novel. He was discussing his latest novel, Devil All the Time. But it isn't available on Kindle so....I bought an earlier novel of his that is. I liked how his interview went - I liked HIM. He is an older writer. I appreciate that. It gives me hope.
I'm also (ahem) currently reading a bit of erotica. I read a book review in Slate about an erotica author and the review was good and strange and I liked the language of the excerpt and I picked up my Kindle and BINGO! Erotica at my fingertips. The author is Nicholson Baker - he's written other novels I haven't read because, believe it or not, my bookshelves are not overflowing with erotic fiction (unless you count the vampire porn and I'd really prefer that you not). If my bookshelves were overflowing with erotic fiction, by the way, I wouldn't admit it. But they're not. We're still somewhat of a family show over here in The Can. In fact, were it not for my sexy new Kindle, I doubt I would ever have purchased Baker's newest novel, House of Holes, at all. But I do have a sexy new Kindle and I did order it. Wow! Did you hear how much I defended my purchase. Me thinks she does protest too much...
I'm only partway in (that sounds bad considering the subject matter and the book title, but truly, it was unintentional or possibly a Freudian slip), so the jury is still out on whether or not I LIKE it. I mean, the story is weird and the sex is not sexy sex or romantic sex or hot sex. It is just extremely strange and rather unemotional sex. So I don't know for sure whether or not I like it. But do I like the writing? Yes! Very much! He says the strangest things...you can't just read along without being very aware that you're reading because the sentences never take you where you think they're going. I love delightful surprises in the details. You know who this author reminds me of? Haruki Murakami (my all-time favorite author). It is just the kind of erotica Murakami would write if he wrote erotica.
It's as if the guy writes his novels using Mad Libs.
Check this out:
...he wanted to meet a nice, smart, sexy woman, so he went to a lecture on the history of the municipal water supply... Don't you think that's delicious? See how he dumps little surprises into your lap while you're sitting there totally not expecting it? I was like, "Municipal water supply...that's hilarious!"
...and sat down on a folding chair next to a woman with mustard-colored stockings. Again - just knock me over with a feather there have been no mustard-colored stockings in the history of colored stockings. He could have said ANY color on the planet. He had the full color spectrum to choose from and chose MUSTARD and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that.
...such a beautiful boy - ascetic looking, with a shy large toothy smile and high cheekbones and large bony knuckles and heartbreaking shoulders. Heartbreaking shoulders. I had to read it three times at least because I loved the idea of heartbreaking shoulders so very much. I wish I had thought of heartbreaking shoulders but most people just don't think that way. I am very much like Most People and I really hate that about myself.
Nicholson's characters speak in the same clipped, blunt manner as Murakami's characters. One character will say something supremely strange and the other character will respond in a delightful ho-hum manner, as if they heard things like that every day. That kind of quirky dialogue is a trademark of Murakami's.
Let's see...I've pulled a Murakami novel off my shelf, Kafka on the Shore. Now I've just randomly opened it up to page...let's see...247. And aha! Let's just look at this dialogue, shall we?
I turn red. "I can't really explain it," I reply. "It's complicated and there's a lot of stuff I still don't get."
"But you're probably in love, probably with Miss Saeki?"
"Right," I say. "Very much."
"Probably, but also very much?"
I nod.
"At the same time it's possible she's your mother?"
Another of my patented nods.
See what I mean? This is on every page.
Baker's characters do it, too. One character, Shandee, is having a relationship with the disembodied arm of a man named Dave. She refers to the arm simply as Dave's arm. She and Dave's arm have ended up traveling through a porthole to the House of Holes, where Dave is supposedly running around without an arm, having exchanged it for a larger penis, of course. And she meets a young man who entered the porthole through the pierced ear hole of a girl he met. And here, she's introducing Dave's arm to the young man, who acts as if it is perfectly normal to meet an arm.
"Dave's arm, meet Ruzty. Ruzty, meet Dave's arm." She held Dave's arm out.
"Hey, dude," said Ruzty, and gave the arm a thumb-to-thumb handshake. He smiled at Shandee - dazzling teeth. "Good for you to travel with somebody who is a friend."
"That's very true," said Shandee.
It could be that you're reading this and thinking, "Wow, that Sardine Mama is quite strange." It could be that you're reading this and not getting the slightest bit enthusiastic about clipped dialogue that takes you down rabbit holes, or unexpected details like mustard-colored tights. It could be you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of jumping onto Amazon and buying either vampire porn (and I really suggest you don't), erotica or Japanese sci-fi based on my less than professional critique, and are, in fact, thankful that you are the master of your own Kindle and can avoid erotica and Japanese sci-fi, entirely. And if that is the case, that means I am sometimes a part of the masses, and other times.....not so much. And if that is the case, it makes me perfectly happy.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Lamenting and Smurfing
So, the lamenting about the this and the that and the other thing over there has got to stop. I have become a bore. BUT - for the 3 of you who commented? Wow! Awesome, Long, Amazing comments. And Mark - I know how hard it was for you to write so many words all at one time....and I even suspect you had read my entire post! You guys were great. Thanks for taking one for The Team!
I was going to write something all happy and inspirational - really I totally was - but then....just as our co-op meeting was starting, Camille came in saying she had fallen. And I took one look at her and said, "What did you break?" And she said, "Nothing. But I fell on my back."
I knew she had broken something. She had that shocky look - big eyes - pale face - rubbery vibrating quality to her. But obviously, it wasn't her back that was broken. She was holding her wrist.
I am not good with Broken Things. If something breaks around the house I just want a new one....I am turned off completely by anything that dares to be broken. Now if you add humans to the list of broken things I am more than turned off - I become downright disgusted, nauseous, and depending on whether or not there is blood involved - quite useless. So it was with great trepidation that I looked at her wrist, and I had one foot halfway out the door when I did it. That's right. When things are Really Bad...I run. My kids will tell you that they were often amazed when on the playground, kids would fall and get injured and their moms would run TOWARD them instead of AWAY. If my kids really needed my assistance, they had to catch me first. Stop bleeding and we'll talk! I'd yell.
The wrist didn't look bad. There was no bone poking up through the skin, there was no bone sticking up almost but not quite through the skin, and nothing was bent the wrong way. I relaxed. But I knew it was broken - because we were literally covered in the broken bone fog - that feeling that something is not right and is, in fact, broken. Do you feel that fog when something's wrong? Maybe I'm just special. Anyway - I was all Mature and Adult-Like in front of the other mamas....getting ice, settling her on my bed, etc. I didn't rush her to the hospital right away because I really wanted to wait and see if maybe I was wrong - maybe in 30 minutes or so she'd be right back out there trying to get in the tree (that's how she fell). After co-op, however, her wrist was swollen and she was still quite content to lie in my bed, which is very unusual for this kid. Joel The Lifeguard looked at it and pronounced it sprained. He asked if she needed a floatation device.
We had about 2 hours until we needed to leave for Ellie's Un-Graduation party. Dang! I threw her in the bus and we headed to the ER - where she was pronounced the happiest patient they'd had all day. The idea that she had broken a bone (her first) was quite thrilling for her. She's my little attention-hog. We were seen quickly - it was deemed quite broken - and we see an orthopedist we keep on retainer on Monday. (He's seen 3 of my kids in the past few months - remember Jules' broken hand that happened that weekend we tried to leave to celebrate our anniversary? You know the weekend - the one where Ellie wrecked the car while we were gone trying to celebrate our anniversary? Yeah - THAT WEEKEND.)
I'm sorry! I'm still lamenting, aren't I? You didn't come here for lamenting! So here's some pics from Ellie's party. It was a nice little group shot and then Jeff jumped in at the last minute. He looks like an axe murderer who's about to start picking these kids off one by one.
I was going to write something all happy and inspirational - really I totally was - but then....just as our co-op meeting was starting, Camille came in saying she had fallen. And I took one look at her and said, "What did you break?" And she said, "Nothing. But I fell on my back."
I knew she had broken something. She had that shocky look - big eyes - pale face - rubbery vibrating quality to her. But obviously, it wasn't her back that was broken. She was holding her wrist.
I am not good with Broken Things. If something breaks around the house I just want a new one....I am turned off completely by anything that dares to be broken. Now if you add humans to the list of broken things I am more than turned off - I become downright disgusted, nauseous, and depending on whether or not there is blood involved - quite useless. So it was with great trepidation that I looked at her wrist, and I had one foot halfway out the door when I did it. That's right. When things are Really Bad...I run. My kids will tell you that they were often amazed when on the playground, kids would fall and get injured and their moms would run TOWARD them instead of AWAY. If my kids really needed my assistance, they had to catch me first. Stop bleeding and we'll talk! I'd yell.
The wrist didn't look bad. There was no bone poking up through the skin, there was no bone sticking up almost but not quite through the skin, and nothing was bent the wrong way. I relaxed. But I knew it was broken - because we were literally covered in the broken bone fog - that feeling that something is not right and is, in fact, broken. Do you feel that fog when something's wrong? Maybe I'm just special. Anyway - I was all Mature and Adult-Like in front of the other mamas....getting ice, settling her on my bed, etc. I didn't rush her to the hospital right away because I really wanted to wait and see if maybe I was wrong - maybe in 30 minutes or so she'd be right back out there trying to get in the tree (that's how she fell). After co-op, however, her wrist was swollen and she was still quite content to lie in my bed, which is very unusual for this kid. Joel The Lifeguard looked at it and pronounced it sprained. He asked if she needed a floatation device.
We had about 2 hours until we needed to leave for Ellie's Un-Graduation party. Dang! I threw her in the bus and we headed to the ER - where she was pronounced the happiest patient they'd had all day. The idea that she had broken a bone (her first) was quite thrilling for her. She's my little attention-hog. We were seen quickly - it was deemed quite broken - and we see an orthopedist we keep on retainer on Monday. (He's seen 3 of my kids in the past few months - remember Jules' broken hand that happened that weekend we tried to leave to celebrate our anniversary? You know the weekend - the one where Ellie wrecked the car while we were gone trying to celebrate our anniversary? Yeah - THAT WEEKEND.)
I'm sorry! I'm still lamenting, aren't I? You didn't come here for lamenting! So here's some pics from Ellie's party. It was a nice little group shot and then Jeff jumped in at the last minute. He looks like an axe murderer who's about to start picking these kids off one by one.
These boys posed to show off their new aerodynamic looks. Between the 3 of them, I'm thinking they've recently cut over 20 inches of hair off. Austen (middle) is missing his dreadlocks!! They hardly recognized each other. And that's my Joel on the right - I TOLD YOU he cut his hair!!
And here's The Joels.
No pics of poor Camille - she was busy being propped up on pillows and pampered at my dad's house. Jasper was at the party - no pics, though. He never slowed down long enough. But if you want to know what he looked like just imagine him drenched in sweat, covered in ice cream, and fueled up by All Natural Soda. Got that image? Good.
It was something like 104 when we arrived at The Cove, where we'd reserved the outdoor patio for the event. We did that several months ago, when it was in the mere lower 90's or so...and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Rick Perry has been praying for rain and it hasn't been working. We've still got The Gays and a Middle Class, too. So he's just not praying hard enough.
That reminds me. When we were in the ER, the doctor told Camille to put her hand on her chest like she was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. And then he said, "Oh, that's right...they don't LET them do that in school anymore, do they?"
Now folks - I was tired. I was cranky. I was wondering if Jules last MRI had finally met our freaking deductible. And so before I knew what I was doing, I had opened my mouth and said, "Did you hear that on Facebook? Huh? Because it's WRONG. They not only still say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.....they ALSO say the Pledge of Allegiance to TEXAS and the Republicans for which IT stands." I didn't actually say the Republicans for Which it stands...i mean...i said it right now...to you...but not then because i didn't think of it until just now.
"Really?" he said. "I didn't think they let them do that anymore."
Who the smurf is THEY? I saw what was coming next....because you can't mention how they stopped the Pledge of Allegiance without going into how they won't let the kids pray in school. So before I could stop myself, I had cut him off by saying, "And they follow all of the pledging up with a moment of silence. So kids can PRAY if they want to." Which most of them smurfing don't!! I remember School Prayer. At times, I LED School Prayer because I was on the student council or whatever. It was a little written-down thingy that was read (badly) with no thought or emotion over the crackly intercom while 90% of the kids picked their noses....God is completely beside himself now that this tradition has been removed from public schools and replaced by a moment of reverent silence. I mean, He's so mad about it he's apparently trying to kill us with a drought!! But that's okay because Rick Perry and His Friends are Talking to God RIGHT NOW and trying to distance themselves from the sin and debauchery (not climate change) that has led to this punishment. Like God is gonna fall for that! But it's a Genius Plan because eventually - it's gonna rain - and then Perry can take the credit.
Oh wow! I didn't see that coming, did you? I had no intention of talking about any of that at all. It is just crazy how things come out when I blog. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Since I am obviously still lamenting instead of inspiring or informing, let me lament about how, despite Rick Perry's efforts to save us, we are all going to hell in a hand basket. We really are. How do I know this? Because I saw the Smurf Movie. You read my earlier post about how I was feeling all Lame-O, right? This spurred me to travel to our small downtown theater with the little people and suffer through the Smurfs. This particular movie caused all kinds of Special Suffering....it was really THAT BAD...as in even worse than Mr. Popper's Penguins. God, you don't have to punish us with a drought. Really. Mr. Popper's Penguins was enough! Stop! I'll stop coveting, lying....um....what else do I do on that list? Oh yeah....I'll stop dishonoring my poor dad by writing a blog....I'll do just about ANYTHING if you could just stop allowing idiots to create children's movies!! I'll even stop CURSING. Oh! Cursing! That's where this was all going. I knew it was going somewhere.
The Smurfs cursed. A lot. Not with Real Curse Words. With SMURF. And I found it unbelievably smurfing offensive. I was like, What the smurf, Smurfs? And then I was like, REALLY? Did you really just say "Smurf yourself?" and "Kiss my smurf"? I was completely stunned. And let's face it kids, I curse like a sailor. WHY DOES THIS BOTHER ME SO MUCH? I mean, it really really really bothers me. I've been known to substitute the word "freaking" for the word "fu*king" and I don't think I'm fooling anyone. In fact, I'm sure I'm not. When I clutch my shin and scream, "Why can't anyone in this freaking house close the freaking dishwasher door???" I think it's pretty obvious what I'm Actually Saying. And I'm not defending myself. But at least (here's where I defend myself) I don't use the word FREAK as a VERB. As in, "Go freak yourself." Or, "Freak it...I'm just gonna do what I want." Or "Freak me." Or "Freak you." You know...there's just lines you don't cross when you Fake the F-Word. Unless you're writing the script for a CHILDREN'S MOVIE using little tiny blue cutesie creatures. OR, as I recently discovered, furry little high-pitched sounding cutesie creatures. Wanna hear about the latest Chipmunk movie? (I swear to God if you said yes to that you deserve to have God dry you up in a drought.) Just go to http://www.munkyourself.com/. That's right! Munk yourself!! This verbiage is coming soon to a toddler's mouth year you. "Munk you mama!" Very cute. Also? For the record? When I dropped my 16-year-old off at the pool where he works and he saw all the daycare vans parked in the lot and said, "Mother-smurfer?" I was not amused. And he hasn't even SEEN the Smurf movie. There's a Winnie-the-Pooh movie out and nobody's telling anybody to go Pooh themselves. You know why not? Because Pooh's got class, that's why. SOCIETY IS DOOMED. Smurfing doomed, I tell you.
I've worked myself up into a smurfing fit here. I need to let off some steam. Maybe I'll just go munk my husband. And yes, I know that was a tacky and offensive thing to say. That's my point!
I think my work here is done.
Signing off as the Smurfing Sardine Mama
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Regrets: I've Had A Few
Do not read this if you're Mark from Our Simple Lives sensitive and emotionally drained and somewhat bored with my going on and on and on about The Kid Leaving.
Sigh.
My life is such utter chaos right now that you'd think maybe I wouldn't have time to be so singularly focused. I mean, Jules' tumor grew, JOHN FRUSCIANTE GOT MARRIED, and I still have two little people doing all sorts of things requiring my Direct Involvement. And yet....it all comes down to Her. Leaving.
Yesterday she loaded up her two youngest siblings and headed into the city with them. She took them ice skating and to the movies. Her movie of choice? The Winnie the Pooh movie. The stories of her own childhood. She'd deny it - but I think she's missing her childhood, too. Or at least, remembering it.
Anyway - so she took the two littlest because she feels she really hasn't spent all that much time with them during the last couple of years. She's been super busy being her Big Non-Child Self to worry with the siblings who are still busy being their child selves. I think she's kind of hoping that after she leaves, all their little minds will eventually remember is that they had all kinds of crazy fun with their big sister doing things like skating and movie-watching. She's trying to trick them. I know where she's coming from because that was my Official Plan with HER.
I was going to spend these last two weeks together doing all sorts of crazy fun things with her. Of course, it hasn't worked that way. For one thing, her idea of having crazy fun rarely requires my presence. She's been hopping around from one friend's house to the next....up to Bandera to visit her boyfriend....Mom, I'm LEAVING soon and I have to spend time with these people!!
Before you get all teary-eyed imaging me sitting here in her path of destruction - just sitting here all lonesome -like and ignored while she visits with Other People Who Are Not Me...let me just say that I have been running around like a crazy person and wouldn't have had time to give her if she'd wanted it. I've had no sense of a relaxing summer at all - and now it's all over and done with. Next week is Ellie's official last week here before college - and I'll be driving Camille into the city every day for her Dance Intensive Workshop. And taking Joel to work. And picking Joel up from work. And getting our co-op going again. And doing a million other things. I won't know whether I'm coming or going. The one thing I know I will NOT be doing is sitting around waxing nostalgic with Ellie while bestowing womanly words of wisdom. I'm pretty sure she has a schedule planned for herself....I've heard her talking to friends....so she's not all worked up about the lack of Mother/Daughter Time, believe me.
Recently, Ellie performed at the McNay Art Museum with her Aloegretto Quintet as part of the San Antonio Cactus Pear Music Festival. (That's her on the very end - far right.)
It was a great concert and a rousing success for these kids. Here's a pic of my dad and Ellie's best friend, outside on the grounds of the McNay after the concert. Hey! Ellie's Best Friend!! Ellie's leaving and I'm going to be All Kinds of Needy!! Come see me!!
The museum sparked a little panic. As we were leaving, I was overcome with REGRET! I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of regret about all the things I thought I'd do with Ellie and haven't. I mean, when she was a little baby - I had all these big plans, see? And most of them have not happened.
"Ellie!" I said.
"Oh my god, Mom...WHAT?" She's cute, isn't she? The way she always thinks I'm overreacting and hysterical when in fact, I'm just using a normal tone of voice (in my head).
"I never took you to an art museum!! Like, ever!! Why didn't I ever take you to an art museum? I've had almost 19 freaking years to take you to an art museum and I never did! There are all these things I haven't done with you and now it's too late!!" (Notice the exclamation points!! That's how I'm feeling ALL THE TIME!!)
"Mom, you would HATE walking through an art museum." Ellie loves art museums.
"I wouldn't HATE it. And even if that were true, I should have taken you. I have totally sucked, haven't I?"
"Michele took me. Papa took me. And they enjoyed it. You wouldn't have enjoyed it."
"But that's not the point! The point is we have things to do and no time to do them! I never took you to the symphony! Oh my god, you're a classical pianist and I never even took you to the symphony."
"You took me that one time I performed with the San Antonio Symphony," she said. With a smirk. "And Other People took me."
(I'm totally whispering here)....I don't like classical music. Whenever we attend a recital or performance, Ellie always feels the need to apologize to me. "What are you talking about?" I'll say. "I love this!" She'll snort or something. The truth is, I love it when she is playing. I more than love it. I can't even think of a word to describe what I feel when she plays. I'm completely absorbed by her, mesmerized by her, in love with her, when she plays. But when other people play? Even the really good and famous people? Well, it's kind of like T-Ball. Have you ever had your kids in T-Ball? It's Crazy Exciting when your kid is batting. The rest of the time...not so much. I'm embarrassed by this analogy, believe me. But it works.
One time we sat down in a recital hall to listen to a concert pianist and Ellie skimmed the program. She did her snort-sound.
"What?" I said.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "You're just going to die, that's all. Well, maybe this song and this song....hmmm....the rest are going to kill you."
"Are they all really slow and really long?" I asked. She just smiled as the lights dimmed.
I survived that recital and countless others. In fact, I more than survived. I enjoyed them. Because I was with her.
On any given evening, I'd rather sit through a piano recital with my kid than do any of the million things I love to do. Because I like her. A lot. Have I mentioned she's leaving for college in two weeks?
When she was little I took her to the aquarium with friends. And we were both filled with all kinds of awe when we walked through the doors into that underwater world. We stopped at the first exhibit and I read all the plaques and signs to her. Then I tried to move along. She didn't want to move along - she wanted to ask endless questions and have the plaques and signs re-read. Finally, we moved on to the next exhibit. Repeat. Next exhibit. Repeat. The magic of the underwater world was quickly losing its appeal for me, especially when Ellie wanted to hear all about things like plankton and ocean current patterns and oh, I don't know, the mating habits of shrimp. "Come on!" I said. "We've been here 2 hours and we haven't even seen the sharks, yet!"
That was when my friend, Ann, took Ellie's hand and said, "I'll read you the signs. Your mama just likes to look at the Big Fish."
I don't think that was meant to be a summation of my entire personality, but it kind of is. I am a Big Fish Girl.
Ellie has always been more of a Microscopic Sea Creature Girl.
She liked jigsaw puzzles. I never did one with her....even though she begged. I cheated in board games or surrendered, entirely. Whatever would get it over with the quickest. I slept through countless children's movies. I never strung beads, tie-dyed, or played Barbies. UGH. I have regrets, people! I do!! But am I transferring these feelings to the current Little People Living in my House? The ones who are not too old to play games and string beads? Nah. Not really. I'm entirely focused on my failures with the oldest kid! One at a time, people. Get in line.
Regrets, regrets, regrets. I didn't sing enough lullabies. I didn't pack good lunches. I was never prepared and never organized and her entire life has been a helter-skelter mess of us running around like chickens with our heads cut off. What will she remember of her childhood? If I took her to the art museum tomorrow - do you think maybe time will all run together-like and possibly convince her that her childhood was filled with trips to art museums? Can a lovely little fog descend where she'll remember a mom who worked puzzles and painted tea sets for hours on end?
I doubt it.
I'm afraid I've missed so much by only looking at the Big Fish. And now it's too late to go back and slow down and enjoy instead of sighing and tapping my foot as she lingered here and there and everywhere. I linger in my mind, I linger between words on a page, but I don't linger at the physical places...the places where I could have held a tiny hand and clung to it with the knowledge that it wouldn't stay tiny forever...those physical REAL places where we could have stood side by side looking at seaweed and sandcrabs. In the physical world, the REAL world, I am often in a hurry to get it over with. And what have I missed? Too much to contemplate.
Will she remember me that way? hurry up, let's go, why are you stopping, how long are you going to take....
I'd like to wrap this up with something catchy, at this point. I know you think I'm leading up to it. And don't think I haven't tried. I've been sitting here for ten whole minutes thinking...and that is a long time for me. But the truth is, I don't think she's spending a lot of time contemplating my parenting skills. I think she's pretty busy being herself, which is something I've always encouraged. Is that my legacy?
Recently, I was looking for a very particular post I wrote years ago....a post about Unschooling. I couldn't find it but I did find a post I'd written when Ellie was maybe 15 or so. I was talking about how I had been a little blue - feeling that I was losing her (if I'd only known then that I wasn't losing her because I am FREAKING LOSING HER NOW and there is a big difference....exclamation point) and how I'd arrived at my dad's house and looked in my mom's desk drawer for some reason....and my mom had been dead for several years. I missed her dreadfully and wanted to tell her how my baby was pretty much refusing to stay a baby and how it was dreadfully inconsiderate of her and it never occured to me that my mom's baby had done the same thing to her. And I found something in the drawer that seemed to have been left there for me to find just that very moment.
I found a poem, tucked away in her drawer.
Here's what I wrote:
My dad noticed I was kind of blue. I tried to explain to him what I was blue about but I could tell he didn't get it. Male minds are not tuned into the subtle nuances of mothers letting go of daughters. I felt the need to talk to my mom - which is a frustrating need since she is dead. I walked back to the bedroom and for some reason, opened the drawers of my mom's desk. I don't know why. I wasn't snooping - just trying to find her, I guess. I needed to touch her things. Inside the drawer I found a little journal. My mom kept a journal? I hadn't known about that. It was mostly empty, except for two entries. The date was October 30, 1990 - two years before Ellie was born. Glued to one of the pages was a copy of this, by Kilil Gibran:
Your children are not
your children.
They are the sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you;
And though they are with you
yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love
but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies
but not their souls.
For their souls dwell
in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not
to make them like you.
for life goes not backward
nor tarries with yesterday.
The funny thing is, I had forgotten all about this post. And then today I found it while looking for something else. Like it was left there, just for me to find, at this particular moment.
Thanks, Mom. You were a Microscopic Sea Creature Girl who raised a Big Fish Girl. And I turned out okay. Thanks for reminding me of that.....just now.
Dang! I almost made myself cry. I wrapped this up quite nicely, after all.
Here's the Aloegretto Quintet performing something classical by Brahms :). Ellie's on the piano, of course!
Sigh.
My life is such utter chaos right now that you'd think maybe I wouldn't have time to be so singularly focused. I mean, Jules' tumor grew, JOHN FRUSCIANTE GOT MARRIED, and I still have two little people doing all sorts of things requiring my Direct Involvement. And yet....it all comes down to Her. Leaving.
Yesterday she loaded up her two youngest siblings and headed into the city with them. She took them ice skating and to the movies. Her movie of choice? The Winnie the Pooh movie. The stories of her own childhood. She'd deny it - but I think she's missing her childhood, too. Or at least, remembering it.
Anyway - so she took the two littlest because she feels she really hasn't spent all that much time with them during the last couple of years. She's been super busy being her Big Non-Child Self to worry with the siblings who are still busy being their child selves. I think she's kind of hoping that after she leaves, all their little minds will eventually remember is that they had all kinds of crazy fun with their big sister doing things like skating and movie-watching. She's trying to trick them. I know where she's coming from because that was my Official Plan with HER.
I was going to spend these last two weeks together doing all sorts of crazy fun things with her. Of course, it hasn't worked that way. For one thing, her idea of having crazy fun rarely requires my presence. She's been hopping around from one friend's house to the next....up to Bandera to visit her boyfriend....Mom, I'm LEAVING soon and I have to spend time with these people!!
Before you get all teary-eyed imaging me sitting here in her path of destruction - just sitting here all lonesome -like and ignored while she visits with Other People Who Are Not Me...let me just say that I have been running around like a crazy person and wouldn't have had time to give her if she'd wanted it. I've had no sense of a relaxing summer at all - and now it's all over and done with. Next week is Ellie's official last week here before college - and I'll be driving Camille into the city every day for her Dance Intensive Workshop. And taking Joel to work. And picking Joel up from work. And getting our co-op going again. And doing a million other things. I won't know whether I'm coming or going. The one thing I know I will NOT be doing is sitting around waxing nostalgic with Ellie while bestowing womanly words of wisdom. I'm pretty sure she has a schedule planned for herself....I've heard her talking to friends....so she's not all worked up about the lack of Mother/Daughter Time, believe me.
Recently, Ellie performed at the McNay Art Museum with her Aloegretto Quintet as part of the San Antonio Cactus Pear Music Festival. (That's her on the very end - far right.)
It was a great concert and a rousing success for these kids. Here's a pic of my dad and Ellie's best friend, outside on the grounds of the McNay after the concert. Hey! Ellie's Best Friend!! Ellie's leaving and I'm going to be All Kinds of Needy!! Come see me!!
"Ellie!" I said.
"Oh my god, Mom...WHAT?" She's cute, isn't she? The way she always thinks I'm overreacting and hysterical when in fact, I'm just using a normal tone of voice (in my head).
"I never took you to an art museum!! Like, ever!! Why didn't I ever take you to an art museum? I've had almost 19 freaking years to take you to an art museum and I never did! There are all these things I haven't done with you and now it's too late!!" (Notice the exclamation points!! That's how I'm feeling ALL THE TIME!!)
"Mom, you would HATE walking through an art museum." Ellie loves art museums.
"I wouldn't HATE it. And even if that were true, I should have taken you. I have totally sucked, haven't I?"
"Michele took me. Papa took me. And they enjoyed it. You wouldn't have enjoyed it."
"But that's not the point! The point is we have things to do and no time to do them! I never took you to the symphony! Oh my god, you're a classical pianist and I never even took you to the symphony."
"You took me that one time I performed with the San Antonio Symphony," she said. With a smirk. "And Other People took me."
(I'm totally whispering here)....I don't like classical music. Whenever we attend a recital or performance, Ellie always feels the need to apologize to me. "What are you talking about?" I'll say. "I love this!" She'll snort or something. The truth is, I love it when she is playing. I more than love it. I can't even think of a word to describe what I feel when she plays. I'm completely absorbed by her, mesmerized by her, in love with her, when she plays. But when other people play? Even the really good and famous people? Well, it's kind of like T-Ball. Have you ever had your kids in T-Ball? It's Crazy Exciting when your kid is batting. The rest of the time...not so much. I'm embarrassed by this analogy, believe me. But it works.
One time we sat down in a recital hall to listen to a concert pianist and Ellie skimmed the program. She did her snort-sound.
"What?" I said.
"Oh, nothing," she said. "You're just going to die, that's all. Well, maybe this song and this song....hmmm....the rest are going to kill you."
"Are they all really slow and really long?" I asked. She just smiled as the lights dimmed.
I survived that recital and countless others. In fact, I more than survived. I enjoyed them. Because I was with her.
On any given evening, I'd rather sit through a piano recital with my kid than do any of the million things I love to do. Because I like her. A lot. Have I mentioned she's leaving for college in two weeks?
When she was little I took her to the aquarium with friends. And we were both filled with all kinds of awe when we walked through the doors into that underwater world. We stopped at the first exhibit and I read all the plaques and signs to her. Then I tried to move along. She didn't want to move along - she wanted to ask endless questions and have the plaques and signs re-read. Finally, we moved on to the next exhibit. Repeat. Next exhibit. Repeat. The magic of the underwater world was quickly losing its appeal for me, especially when Ellie wanted to hear all about things like plankton and ocean current patterns and oh, I don't know, the mating habits of shrimp. "Come on!" I said. "We've been here 2 hours and we haven't even seen the sharks, yet!"
That was when my friend, Ann, took Ellie's hand and said, "I'll read you the signs. Your mama just likes to look at the Big Fish."
I don't think that was meant to be a summation of my entire personality, but it kind of is. I am a Big Fish Girl.
Ellie has always been more of a Microscopic Sea Creature Girl.
She liked jigsaw puzzles. I never did one with her....even though she begged. I cheated in board games or surrendered, entirely. Whatever would get it over with the quickest. I slept through countless children's movies. I never strung beads, tie-dyed, or played Barbies. UGH. I have regrets, people! I do!! But am I transferring these feelings to the current Little People Living in my House? The ones who are not too old to play games and string beads? Nah. Not really. I'm entirely focused on my failures with the oldest kid! One at a time, people. Get in line.
Regrets, regrets, regrets. I didn't sing enough lullabies. I didn't pack good lunches. I was never prepared and never organized and her entire life has been a helter-skelter mess of us running around like chickens with our heads cut off. What will she remember of her childhood? If I took her to the art museum tomorrow - do you think maybe time will all run together-like and possibly convince her that her childhood was filled with trips to art museums? Can a lovely little fog descend where she'll remember a mom who worked puzzles and painted tea sets for hours on end?
I doubt it.
I'm afraid I've missed so much by only looking at the Big Fish. And now it's too late to go back and slow down and enjoy instead of sighing and tapping my foot as she lingered here and there and everywhere. I linger in my mind, I linger between words on a page, but I don't linger at the physical places...the places where I could have held a tiny hand and clung to it with the knowledge that it wouldn't stay tiny forever...those physical REAL places where we could have stood side by side looking at seaweed and sandcrabs. In the physical world, the REAL world, I am often in a hurry to get it over with. And what have I missed? Too much to contemplate.
Will she remember me that way? hurry up, let's go, why are you stopping, how long are you going to take....
I'd like to wrap this up with something catchy, at this point. I know you think I'm leading up to it. And don't think I haven't tried. I've been sitting here for ten whole minutes thinking...and that is a long time for me. But the truth is, I don't think she's spending a lot of time contemplating my parenting skills. I think she's pretty busy being herself, which is something I've always encouraged. Is that my legacy?
Recently, I was looking for a very particular post I wrote years ago....a post about Unschooling. I couldn't find it but I did find a post I'd written when Ellie was maybe 15 or so. I was talking about how I had been a little blue - feeling that I was losing her (if I'd only known then that I wasn't losing her because I am FREAKING LOSING HER NOW and there is a big difference....exclamation point) and how I'd arrived at my dad's house and looked in my mom's desk drawer for some reason....and my mom had been dead for several years. I missed her dreadfully and wanted to tell her how my baby was pretty much refusing to stay a baby and how it was dreadfully inconsiderate of her and it never occured to me that my mom's baby had done the same thing to her. And I found something in the drawer that seemed to have been left there for me to find just that very moment.
I found a poem, tucked away in her drawer.
Here's what I wrote:
My dad noticed I was kind of blue. I tried to explain to him what I was blue about but I could tell he didn't get it. Male minds are not tuned into the subtle nuances of mothers letting go of daughters. I felt the need to talk to my mom - which is a frustrating need since she is dead. I walked back to the bedroom and for some reason, opened the drawers of my mom's desk. I don't know why. I wasn't snooping - just trying to find her, I guess. I needed to touch her things. Inside the drawer I found a little journal. My mom kept a journal? I hadn't known about that. It was mostly empty, except for two entries. The date was October 30, 1990 - two years before Ellie was born. Glued to one of the pages was a copy of this, by Kilil Gibran:
Your children are not
your children.
They are the sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you;
And though they are with you
yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love
but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies
but not their souls.
For their souls dwell
in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not
to make them like you.
for life goes not backward
nor tarries with yesterday.
The funny thing is, I had forgotten all about this post. And then today I found it while looking for something else. Like it was left there, just for me to find, at this particular moment.
Thanks, Mom. You were a Microscopic Sea Creature Girl who raised a Big Fish Girl. And I turned out okay. Thanks for reminding me of that.....just now.
Dang! I almost made myself cry. I wrapped this up quite nicely, after all.
Here's the Aloegretto Quintet performing something classical by Brahms :). Ellie's on the piano, of course!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
