An Unvarnished Good

13 Friday Aug 2010

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Everyday life is good.  Though using the word “good” to describe aspects of my charmed existence often feels inadequate.

But as I think back on the week and today in particular, I’d like to add at least  a “very” or a “really” to give my “good” a little extra ‘umph.’   But I won’t; if the word “good” was good enough for God in Genesis, then I’ll keep my good just as it is, unvarnished by fillers and exclamation points.  I think God only allow Himself one ‘very,’ and that was when he was describing how very good we, his people, were.

Sometimes I wonder about that ‘very.’  If I’m so ‘very’ good, why did it take me three months to make good on my final project for my spiritual direction coursework?    For now, I’m just relieved and happy that my obligation is fulfilled.  No longer must I avoid it, as I did last week.  It’s done and I feel good about what I wrote.

As I attached the file to the email this afternoon, I wrote a cover page thanking my instructors for the grace period they gave me after Daddy’s death.  Then I gave them permission not to read it.  I felt it more important for me to write than for them to read.  “Why drudge through reading this,” I wrote, “when there are far better works to read?”

It’s what I plan to do more myself — read for the pure pleasure of keeping company with the well written word — with no deadlines, no analysis and no expectation.

It won’t be too much longer before Sis’s farmhouse is finished too.  Then I’ll be reclaiming two more days to read.  And maybe if I play my cards well, as the days grow cooler, Sis will let me read on her front porch swing.  With a symphony of crickets to keep me company, this pleasure might rise to a very good.

The Kindergarten Groove

10 Tuesday Aug 2010

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Every year, for the last five, I’ve driven the short distance to the elementary school where Kara teaches kindergarten.  She likes me to come help prepare for the new year and I’m honored she asks.

I have a very important job.  I erase the names from last year’s students and write a new crop of names in their place, using my “best kindergarten” print.  I always have to relearn kindergarten print, because my own writing is a custom mix of cursive and print.  It helps that Kara has cheat sheets tacked on the wall.

Over and over and over I write, until I find my kindergarten groove, until my too small and illegible letters transform into nice tall letters that fit snug in solid and dashed lines.  By the time I’ve finished writing the list of names five or six times, I begin to wonder what the student’s faces look like, what kind of students they will be, whether they will have first day jitters or whether Kara will (from their being in her class.)

Today being my fifth take and all, I’d graduated to being left on my own, while Kara attended a teacher’s meeting.  I had planned to arrive by 8:20 but of course I was late.  I called — told her it would be more like 9:00  — but after stopping at Sonic for the required Vanilla Coke, I was running 15 minutes late on late.

It’s my fault I arrived to a dark silent room.  Tuning on the lights, I spotted the list on the table, right next to the teachers U-shaped desk.  Item one:  “Erase old names.  Write new names.” I looked around, saw the new class roster and the pile of names to shuffle.  Item Two:  “Add new names to Leader Caboose.” My eyes dart around looking for a train.  What’s a leader caboose?  Have I ever seen this?

It’s funny how the combination of not knowing the “right” answer and being in Kara’s classroom sent me back to my own first grade jitters of trying to guess what the teacher wanted.  I never ever knew.  First grade was an absolute Mystery.  The only thing I knew for sure was Mrs. Randall did not like me.

I picked up my journal to capture my experience.  As I write, in walks Kara.  “Hey, Mom.  I came in earlier but you weren’t here.  Thanks for coming.”

“Hey, what’s a leader caboose?” Kara points to the wall by the door.  There’s no train.  Just two vertical columns of nameless cards.  The cards keep track of turns for girl and boy leaders for each week’s kindergarten caboose — I’m guessng the student caboose travels between various school destinations — bathrooms —  music lessons —  recess — lunch.

With one mystery solved, I point to the other wall and ask Kara about her “Monster Of The Week” spot, recalling again my own first grade teacher’s dislike of me .  “Honey, I’m not sure whether your students will want to win this award.  Who wants to be the class monster?”

Kara laughed.  “Oh, it has nothing to do with the students being monsters.”

But back at home and way out of the kindergarten groove, I still haven’t a clue what monster-of-the-week is all about.  And now I’m beginning to wonder whether Mrs. Randall liked me after all.

Diving in the Gene Pool

05 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Writing

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I didn’t go to Iowa to write about Daddy.

Yet writing memoir in a fiction class worked fine since similar rules apply.  While the learning  challenged me, the hardest part of Iowa has been returning to the real world where distractions exist and writing deadlines don’t.

Those who know me will attest I’m kindred spirits with the White Rabbit, as I’m always “late for an important date.”  I put off to the last-minute what I can and fill in the space with the rather-dos of life.   When desperately into avoidance, I settle for rather-not-dos.  Today, for instance, I weeded my front garden and my neighbor’s garden next door.

While I’ll not name my avoidance du Jour, I’ll confess ancestry research has become the mother lode of all distractions.  From the comfort of a computer chair, I swirl around in a digital whirlpool of documents.  Old census reports, immigration records and phone books, as well as a treasure chest of old newspapers for the entire state of New York.  It’s hard to come up for air when diving in the old gene pool.

Hours pass with nothing in hand.  Then, with a click of my mouse, I run across a rare find — a prominent 1943 newspaper article in the Schenectady Gazette featuring my Greek grandfather and his second wife.  The story is full of facts like their marriage date, where Papa and his wife had lived the week before, where Papa had parked his two children — my dear father and aunt.  Running across this jewel kept me going for another five hours straight in the hope of another big find.

While I didn’t go to Iowa to write about Daddy, I began my gene pool dives to feed my story of Dad.  My first day back from Iowa, I wrote this in my paper journal:

“I must not put away Daddy’s story.  It was alive Thursday night as I wrote it and Friday afternoon as I read it aloud to my review partners. So here are the things I will do to feed “it”.  I wrote of my desire to visit with Aunt Carol each week to record her’s and Dad’s story in detail.  I wrote of converting home-made movies my parents took from 8mm film to DVD.  I believe both will help ripen Dad’s story within me, while ancestor research will help fuel talks with Aunt Carol.

Today I pulled that old photo of my young grandfather with his sister Mary and brother Theo — the bookend at the top of this post. Lying beneath it, was another old photo of my young mother standing at a trade show booth, while three others sat beside her.  Had I not pulled out the top photo, I would never have known of one hiding beneath.

This sandwich of old photos becomes good analogy for what happens when writing memoir…or for what happens when diving in the old gene pool.  You begin with one photo or story and end with another.   Neither is more valuable.  Both work to tell the story.