Christmas Stew

It's the end of another week-long family Christmas, and tomorrow I head home for a week of grading essays so I can wrap up 1st semester grades by the 11th.  I always wonder how many people have Christmas weeks similar to our family's, a thick, messy mixture of projects, meals-in-shifts, contrasting agendas, rowdy games, and at least a little drama.  Usually, at least one story evolves that will live an unnaturally long life, much to the dismay of the person at the center of it, "it" almost always being a joke.  If this yearly get-together were a soup, it would be jambalaya:  a bizarre mixture of stuff that would seem unrelated, but generally works together.  Like jambalaya, it's not for everyone.  Like jambalaya, it's got a little kick.  Like jambalaya, you have to be careful with your ingredients, or you might get more than you bargained for.

Dad's agendas are the spice in the stew.  They rule the time we have together, and his agendas are driven by time and weather.  This Christmas Eve, he spent the biggest portion of the day freaking out and trying to get everything in order in case we got the blizzard-like weather that was predicted.  He, my brother, and his boy Chris readied a tractor and a Bobcat to be able to move snow that we all, frankly, were praying for.  With most of the ponds on the place completely dry, any moisture would be a blessing; our only concern was for my sister and her family, traveling back home from her in-law's place in Texas.  Of course, we didn't need to prepare---no one saw a flake of snow.  But that didn't mean Dad ran out of projects.  There's always equipment for my brother to work on, cattle for my sister and her husband to tend to, and citrus business for mom.  This year's special project was to get the hot tub out of the basement; the two-year drought has caused the house that I always thought indestructible to settle so much that the basement's concrete walls are cracking, and the hot tub only made it worse.  It took an act of Congress, seven members of our family and a neighbor, and removing a patio door to get it out, but it's done and loaded to go to South Texas when Mom and Dad head back to the grove in a few days.  This sort of thing isn't even unusual.  Our parents have spent the better part of the spring through the fall building an apartment to stay in when they're here, which is about six or seven months a year.  Whoever came around, Dad generally enlisted their aid for some part of the project.  This in no way implies that he pawns things off on people.  I have never known, and will never know, a harder worker, even though he 73 and in so much pain from arthritis and a hard ranching life.  In our jambalaya, he is unmistakable, a little much, an acquired taste---and as necessary as water is to life.  Dad keeps everything bubbling by hopping around fanning the flames, making sure everyone is moving.

If he is the spice, Mom is surely the substance.  She's earthy and comforting, the veggies that balance the spice.  And she. does. it. all.  Running errands, prepping meals, doing chores (both inside and outside), watching kids, and running a citrus business that would, by itself, be more than most people would want to take on, from customer calls to bagging and delivering fruit:  she's a world wonder.  I can't even try to keep up with her, but I try to be at least a little like her.  Like the veggies, she tries to keep everyone's perspective healthy throughout the days together, to smooth over a little extra sting here, to give the weaker portions more substance there.  If she feels her role is diminished, she doesn't complain of it, any more than those sustaining substances do.  I can't imagine our family gumbo without her.

The adult children---my brother and sister, their spouses, and I---could be considered the roux that binds it all.  We each have our parts we play:  brother the reserved, sarcastic wit; sister the dramatic, high-energy, obsessively neat hostess; I the non-ingredient that works with everyone.   I don't get to see enough of either of them, since they're often at the helm of a big project, and I am only working in the house from time to time, usually cooking or taking care of a kid or three.  When we do sit down to talk, we're much more civilized than we used to be---we seem to be silently preparing ourselves and each other, because we know that the more time passes, the closer we inch toward the cataclysmic day when we must rely only on each other as heads of our family.  I don't know if we'll have anything even similar to the same consistency when that day comes, but we're keeping the recipe on file.

And lastly, the six grandchildren---what part do they play in our jambalaya?  Oh, of course, the meats, the true nourishment, the tidbits we search for and don't want to do without, for they are the true flavor.  Chris, the oldest at 21, is just starting out to become his own man, and yet is so much like both his dad and his papa, such a hard worker blessed with common sense.  Nolan and Logan, 18, brilliant, funny, and talented, but both are distinct individuals.  Emeri, now 10, came to us at 6 and brought an immediate joy to our lives with her loving personality and exuberant ways.  Katie was the first girl grandchild, born eight years ago with a personality as big and ever-changing as the South Dakota sky that nourished her.  Little Allie, just a year old, her father's miniature in person, her mother's miniature in personality---she's the last dash of pepper that finishes off our gumbo-like family holiday.

No doubt there are a lot more elegant things to compare one's family time to, but not one occurs to me right now that represents our clan so well.  It is NOT for the faint of heart.  It never turns out the same way twice.  I don't know if any other families are crazy enough to deliberately set out to spend just a little too much time together.  But I do know they are missing out if they don't.  And here's the oddest bit:  I don't even like jambalaya or any form of Cajun gumbo.  Spiritually, I would starve, though, without a Welker Christmas week cooking up at the end of each year, sending me fortified into the next year, knowing I make sense with at least one recipe out there, that I'm as necessary as the other 12 ingredients for it all to come together.

Your Holiday Field Report

Dateline:  12/22/12, 23:00 hours; This, the Holiday Season
Location:  Embedded in the 'burbs;  top secret designation

Reporter shellshocked from doing all gift shopping between 12/17 and 12/21; blames school administration for imprisoning faculty with adrenaline- and fudge-fueled teenagers until mere moments before Santa is scheduled to land in not-very-Green Country. 

Yesterday was biggest shopping day planned.  Plan goes south when reporter finds suspected gates of Hell hidden in a vortex at 61st and Mingo.  Billions of vehicles circle the intersection, making random turns and reversing paths to escape the swirl and then complete stoppage of traffic in every direction.  After 45 minutes, reporter is pulled from the whirlpool by a smoking, wheezing Toyota of indeterminate age, who allowed her to pull in to traffic ahead and return to the east, following that Holy Star, the shining beacon of economic prosperity, the radiant blue, gold, and white of the Wal-Mart Supercenter sign.  Remaining gifts must come from this great Asian marketplace, purveyors of everything Sam Walton despised.

Zombified shoppers, driven by the tick-tick-tick of the clock counting down the hours of the last workday before the holiday, shuffle through the aisles pushing carts laden with toys, trinkets, and enough paper goods to host a national disaster.  Entering grocery section only slightly less ambitious than storming the beaches at Normandy.  Expecting medal ceremony to be announced shortly.

Random forays into baking aisle provide enough candy-making supplies to complete usual projects.  However, reporter and various others discover covert action has removed ALL raw peanuts from this site.  Roaming bands of would-be brittle-making grandma types seek even one lone raw Spanish goober, but fail.  Will continue to search for materials at Atwoods, where gift idea for reporter's father will, with any luck, conk her in the noggin and knock her out until all the work of the next few days is done.

Return to base at 2000 hours, earliest all week, allowing one fudge-making session before reporter collapses in preparation for today's heat of laundry, phone calls, cooking, dishes, more candy-making, and prep for leaving two bored teenage cats alone for the week.  More behind than ever and too tired to worry about it.  Santa should be this busy.  Reporter will pray for elves and angels to finish up and pack while she attends church in the a.m. in hopes of some time to just sit still.

Time for reflection of joy and memory making with family scheduled to begin at 1800 hours, Christmas Eve.  Until next holiday season, then, readers, make much of your merriment and
enjoy your people.  And stay away from 61st and Mingo if you value your mortal soul.

There with Them

I am more than a passing fan of words.  They are my children and my currency, the only lasting things I can leave to the world, the only power I can wield.  Yet there is a time when there are no words, none that can do justice.  We call that time "unspeakable" not figuratively, but literally.   For what can be said to explain or justify the horror of 20 murdered children?   What consolation and encouragement could possibly assuage the grief of the families of the children and the teachers who died with them?   Never would I presume to know what those loved ones feel, so how can I offer words as a balm to their souls? 

No, tonight I write for me and for you, because you know who I am.  You know me, or your child knows me---the great majority of my friends who read this are those I've gained because I am a teacher.  That profession is the only thing that gives me authority to speak here. 

The classroom has been my wheelhouse all my adult life, going on 27 years.  It is the only place where I feel supremely comfortable and confident.  I spend more waking hours there than in my own home and take a corresponding pride in it.  So it only makes sense that I want my students to feel that way as well.  Parents, too, should rest easy that their children are welcomed into a clean, safe environment in every classroom in this country.  But at moments such as yesterday in Connecticut, many members of society lose hope that schools can ever be anything like comfortable, clean, and peaceful ever again, let alone safe. 

I assure you they are; they are all those things because a teacher wills it so.   A teacher makes it happen there with students with a resourcefulness few can match.

A teacher is there early to start the day smoothly by being prepared and visible and available to her students.

A teacher is there consistently to observe everything that is taking place.

A teacher is there to ensure that things are placed appropriately and put away so no one can injure himself.

A teacher is there to enrapture a crowd with examples, stories, and explanations that make even the driest of subjects sparkle and sing.

A teacher is there to know who is normally in the building so that strangers may stand out.

A teacher is there to greet his students with a smile or a kind word as they arrive.

A teacher is there to commiserate over a skinned knee, a sprained wrist, a broken heart.

A teacher is there to discipline her students so that they may do better.

A teacher is there to sacrifice his own time if a child needs tutoring before or after school.

A teacher is there to love even the most unlikable child. 

A teacher is there to think and act quickly for his students' best interest.

A teacher is there....always....to take the fall, take the responsibility, take the high road, take the time.

A teacher is there---never doubt it---to take the bullet. 


No matter where you are tonight, friend, know that every single person in this country represents any number of schools who got it right.  Multiply that by the numbers of good teachers they might have had who represent the qualities above, and the numbers grow exponentially larger.  The children of this country are as safe at school as they are nearly anywhere else.  You can still take comfort in that, even as we grieve with our fellow citizens. 

Conversations with God

The Muses, it seems, decided not to bless me this evening.  I wrote four painful paragraphs of blah before deciding that topic wasn't going to work out.  That brought me to this crossroads of 10:12 p.m. and nothing cohesive in mind for a full blog.  What to do, what to do?  Ah, this:  I have a running, changing list of questions I plan on asking the Big Guy when I get to heaven.  I bet you do, too, readers.  Here's a sampling of my intended conversation starters with God:


Wasn't it possible to make broccoli taste like chocolate cake and cooked spinach as creamy as Edy's ice cream? Couldn't fish have been as appetizing as pizza?

Why spiders?  Why TICKS?!  What were you thinking!?!

What's the timeline on finding cures for cancer and diabetes?  I have more than a few horses in this race, and I'd sure like to get a hot tip on this one.

Am I completely justified in hating hot weather?  Doesn't that just say that I have an instinctive understanding of why to turn away from hell? 

Other than having to flood the earth to start over and all, what's your worst mistake? 

I know you have a great sense of humor.  Who's your favorite comedian?

What's your thinking on separation of church and state, just for the record?

Are the special-needs people in the world the normal ones, and the rest of us the special ones? They sure seem to have the better outlook on life, and much better dispositions. Or, possibly, are they the angels?

Who you feel more leniency toward, the Christians who have mistaken passing judgement on their brothers for Godliness, or the Christians who don't work hard enough at calling others out over their sins?

Do things like the current Mayan end-of-days craze piss you off, or do you just wave it off as another of man's daily foibles?

Don't you occasionally get tired of the incessant prayer requests and just turn off the line for a while, or do you hand it over to Michael or Gabriel?  Someone should invent an app for that.   

And right now, the question uppermost in my mind:  will inspiration return to me in time for next week's work here?   Please?  Just a tiny bit of supplication while I have your ear. 


I sure hope it does.  And even more, I hope God really does have that excellent sense of humor, or I may be in a little hot water here. 

What's Your Sign?

Last night I stayed in the pool after our usual deep-water aerobics class was over to do some extra strength training.   It was fairly quiet, since it was Friday evening and the weather had been nice; there was just one woman there with three little ones in the shallowest quarter of the pool.   After a very irritating day, a good workout in the almost-too-warm water had left me feeling energized but too relaxed to get right out and drive home.  It all made for the perfect circumstances to spend a little longer working on getting stronger.

 I kept to the opposite end from the family, close to the swim lanes, next to those odd little diver's blocks that the competitive swimmers use.  Working with weights and foam noodles in the water requires an odd bit of concentration for me.  Though I am still relatively flexible, I'm neither athletic nor graceful, so I find myself staring unseeing at some focal point while I "fix" the move in my mind.  Once I have it down, I snap back to reality and sometimes surprise myself with what I've been looking at or thinking about.  Something like that happened last night.  With noodles on each foot, I set myself into cross-country mode; I like this move and will keep up with it as long as I can keep the noodles down.  It only took a moment to get going, and click!  I realized I was looking at my own name up on the wall, on a white board with the other names of the swim team, their best times in each style, and the training instructions. 

But no, it wasn't quite my name:  "Cathy W." is what I saw, but why?  There were probably 25 kids' names there, in very small writing on a huge chart, all done in the same blue Expo marker.  Why had I seen my own name out of everything else on that board?   In fact, why had that same kind of thing happened over and over?  I know, readers, that you've had a very similar experience---you're driving down an unfamiliar road and see your nickname on a place of business or a billboard; you come across your full name unexpectedly in a book or newspaper; you do a double- or triple-take thinking someone has called out to you in a busy mall or stadium or theater.  Each time, there's a little thrum of anticipation across the top of your brain, as though the universe has just casually but clearly recognized your existence, no matter how briefly.  Validation:  this name has meaning and power and purpose in the world.

In our frappaccinoed/blendered/technologized society, we've added on to these purposeful, simple monikers a selection of pictographs that are meant to represent us with little or no words even necessary.  Check your name at the door; just show us your icon or a tagline.   We only have to look at the popularity of tattoos to see how prevalent the idea is.  This icon phenomenon worries me somewhat.  Could it mean we're evolving backward, back to the hieroglyphics used by ancient man, before written or even spoken language?   Most of the time, though, I'm like most people---it's just fun to think of alter egos, pseudonyms, pictures, and cartoons to stand in for us when we'd rather remain to some degree, a little or a lot, more anonymous. 

If you'd asked me what represented me from the first time I could articulate it, all the way up through my early 20's, it would have been music notes, or something close to that.   One would think it would be books, and I did indeed always have a book somewhere close by.  But music was the foundation of all my love of the arts.  Then for a rambunctious decade, my icon would have been those ridiculously long 120 cigarettes I smoked, so nice for brandishing about with a drink in one hand in an elegantly estrogen-washed persona of Ernest Hemingway I liked to play at, but never could fully pull off.  And then, for a glorious dozen or so years, a head of wildly curly, long, full hair: that was truly my motif, the one I most happily chose.  The curls were always there; I just fought them until they came in fashion in the 90's, and then embraced them with joy until, mysteriously, I lost most of my hair.  In fact, it's still that 30-something girl waving that silly smoke around and pulling up her hair in a ponytail that I picture in my head, when I picture myself, and it's a shock to realize that it's been a decade since anyone knew me with long, full hair.  For most women, we have some icon of personal pride that revolves around our style or our looks.....and it's a cruel thing when it doesn't represent us anymore, no matter how plain or pretty the rest of the world saw us to be. 

I don't comment on websites or have a lot of personas with pseudonyms out there on the web, just here and on Facebook.  In both cases, I find that my taglines and my photo icons almost always have one theme anymore:  home, family, which are synonymous to me.  I have a photo here of me walking along the old railroad bed that bisects the family ranch, taken back in the summer by my sister.  On Facebook, I almost always have a photo with one or more of my nieces in it.  I'd have my nephews if they'd sit still for it.  Teaching has always defined me;  I could have a teacher icon with a book and a purple pen---that's what I grade with---but I know that in a few years I'll have to find something to replace that with as retirement approaches. 

It's an interesting place to be in the world:   to wonder what will next represent me in this life.   On one hand, I have the comfort of knowing that Cathy W. or C. Welker or CJ or CJW will always be recognizable to my mind's eye.  On the other, there's excitement for what I can choose as my motif for the future. 

And how about you, reader?  What's your sign?

Is Print Dead, Really?

The end of another school break is looming.  Looking back at the week, I realize that I've spent quite a bit of time reading, especially during a short stay in Branson with my sister's family.  I took along a stack of magazines to catch up on, some dating as far back as May, as well as a couple of books.  The magazines were all, in fact, my beloved Newsweek, which recently announced that it would be no longer produce print copies after the end of this year, to my horror.  Truly, I felt as if a good friend were dying.  Though it will live on in digital form, I don't plan on renewing my subscription.  Reading a magazine is meant to be a tactile, mobile experience.  And no, I don't have a laptop or Ipad.  I prefer my reliable desktop.  So goodbye, Newsweek. 

I've heard "Print is dead" as far back as one of my favorite movies, The Big Chill, using the line in the early 80's.  I couldn't understand why anyone would say such a thing then---but I was in the middle of earning a couple of degrees in English at that time.  The politics of media not only were of no interest to me; I didn't in the least understand it all then.  Even now, I'd be hard pressed to articulate the issues.  I just knew that I loved books, as did a fair number of people in the world, so how could print ever be dead?  I just blew it off as some self-important Hollywood posturing.  Today I wonder if they knew how prophetic that line would be.  Thirty years of home technology have made it a virtual certainty.

When e-readers arrived on the scene, I reacted on a gut level....literally.  My stomach would clench up like a street fighter ready to take all comers at the very mention of a Kindle, and I would make the same silly statement each time:  "They'll pry my books from my cold, dead hands!"  Melodramatic much?  Well, yes.  But it was no less heartfelt for being so....cliche.  If anyone was willing to listen, I would try to appeal to the sensory pleasure of reading:  the weight of the book, the smell of the pages, the sound of turning each page in anticipation while reading in my grandmother's lap, or alone in a quiet house, or in front of a fire, or up in my dry, hot summer bedroom in the South Dakota house.  All my life, I've never been far from the comfort of a book I was reading, and the thought of not having one to retreat to is, to say the least, unnerving. 

Yet some of my friends who are devoted bibliophiles have converted to e-readers, up to and including our semi-retired school librarian, who will extol the virtues of books at any time, but who is no snob when it comes to technology, either.  She encouraged me for years to listen to audiobooks on my commute and has been working on my attitude toward e-readers for quite some time now.   She knows my objections....and also where to hit me so it counts, having recently pointed out that I can have thousands of books on a reader, but I can only carry around so many at a time.  Ha:  my rotator-cuff-cranky right shoulder can't manage the giant purses I used to carry around, stuffed with junk and at least one or two books.  Yes, Joan knew that the book-glutton brain I function with would sparkle with excitement at the idea of having any book I wanted on my person at any time. 

Still, I can't see how we benefit as a society without hard copy books.  Even my students know that.  In the last couple of years, it has become apparent that eventually school textbooks are going to be viewed as insupportable and completely cost-ineffective compared to on-line textbooks.  They'll become dinosaurs; it's just a matter of when.  Our administration has been pushing in that direction for a couple of years, and I've voiced my opinion many times about what a bad choice I believe it to be.  This fall, they asked us to review some new free/low-cost on-line books and to feel out how the students viewed the idea.  I didn't even get a chance to bring up the discussion; that very morning in my first class, one girl mentioned off-handedly that she didn't like reading on-line (I think it was regarding a little research project they were doing), and when I asked them about the idea of on-line texts as a follow-up, they practically shouted me down.  According to them, they couldn't see as well on a computer, it was harder to read for a longer period of time, and many of them don't have internet access at home. You can imagine that I was gratified by their response.....especially so, since I found five errors in the very first sample sentence I read in the grammar text, proving another cliched adage:  You get what you pay for. 

With all that said, I must make a confession.  I noted I had issues of Newsweek to read going as far back as May, although in truth, it was just one random copy that somehow got thrown aside and overlooked.  Most were from the last three months, maybe five issues.  With the up-to-the-minute reporting it's known for, you might wonder why, if the mag is so important to me, I had them piled up like that.  Yes, I'm busy, but I do have maybe an hour or so an evening when I could be reading.  Why don't I read them then?  Oh, well....it's because.....I'm usually on the computer, or maybe watching a show I DVRed earlier. 

That's right.  The e-reader snob doesn't read anymore because she's spending her time with technology. 

And the reason I WAS reading this week (though I didn't realize it until later)?  I was away from home....and my computer.....and my DVR.  I fell back on my print habit because I had no technology.

Ironic?  Yes.  But at least I learned the meaning of irony by reading books:  gloriously heavy books full of pages and inky words and that dusty feel of the paper, the smell of libraries and coffee and cigarettes faintly tracing the margins, the crinkling onion skin or sandpapery heavyweight deckle edge replying to our thoughts at each turn of the page.  That's reading; that's a book. 

Enough

Like many of you, I've been trying to focus on gratitude this month.  I try to live my life by that standard, but too often I slip into cranky, snarky, tired, jealous, or down-right mean.  So do we all, I suppose, but I want to believe that most everyone tries to be their best selves the majority of the time.  All I can really do is to try to hold myself to that standard without being a self-congratulatory twit.

The gratitude posts on Facebook, which I'm doing for the first time (at least, I think so---I don't remember doing them before), have had me thinking about my concept of gratitude when I was younger.  My siblings and I were not handed a lot of material stuff, because we had some very, very wise parents.  We had all we needed and some things we wanted, but by no means everything.  I don't recall ever feeling that I was deprived.  But like most kids, I had a few things that were perennially on my list of burning desires in life.

My number one was not the same as most little girls' number one dream; I did want a horse, but it was not at the top.  What I really craved was a pool, preferably an indoor one so that I could swim year-round.  I simply loved the water from my earliest memories.  This wish held on so long, however tenuously, that when my mother called me up before Christmas about 12 years ago and told me to bring my swimsuit with me when I came home, I lost it for a minute, accusing her of fulfilling my heartfelt desire nearly 20 years after I left home.....before I came to my senses and said, "You got a hot tub, right?"  Right.  And that was great for them, great with me.  That little-girl fantasy would always be firmly in the realm of fantasy.  Yet there was more to it than that.  I never had that pool at my disposal---but I probably swam in more than half of the man-made lakes west of the Mississippi, all of the three ocean borders of our country, a wide variety of streams and rivers, and dozens of snow-melt lakes in the American and Canadian west/northwest, because the one great luxury my parents did believe in for us was the benefit of travel.  All those trips would have, no doubt, paid for a pool a few times over.  But I had more natural pools than one could ever wish for---and that was enough.

There's no doubt in my mind that I owned store-bought clothes when I was a kid, but I don't recall getting a store-bought dress until I was about 10.  I remember picking out a church dress, maybe for Easter, from the Montgomery Ward catalog:  an apricot dress with a yoke in front outlined in white lace, with a white Peter Pan collar.  Why does this make such an impression?  Because I had a seamstress mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who were geniuses at their crafts.  My grandmother even worked in the field professionally at the Cherokee Togs factory in Pryor for more than 30 years.  Having homemade clothes was not that unusual then, but they did go beyond the pale.  My three older cousins and I, if memory serves, all had matching quilted coats that Grandma sewed for us from leftover scrap material from the factory.  She and my great-grandma pieced quilt tops and hand-quilted the quilts; only they would have had any idea of how many they might have done, but it was enough that Grandma's two children and all seven grandchildren had many quilts apiece.  I don't think I ever felt any remorse about having homemade clothing, but I surely didn't act properly grateful.  Those clothes, coats, covers, all were things I took for granted then---and they were enough.

To my child's mind, there was only ever one profession that lay down the road for me:  I would be a country-western singer.  I literally cannot remember ever NOT wanting to be a singer.  When we kids would sing little songs for the congregation on Sundays at church, even before I was in school, I would be looking for a way to stand out so I could sing by myself a little.  I truly don't remember if that was consciously borne out or if I started singing first and got attention for it, so I played it up.  But I was up there singing my little attention-monger heart out, more and more on my own as I got older.  That I wasn't really good enough to be professional was probably in the back of my mind as I hit high school. but I could still dream.  When college arrived and a more practical plan had to be put into place, through a convoluted and absolutely nonsensical series of judgments, I wound up in education.  It wasn't clear to me until I stepped into that first classroom that my stage was set, waiting there all along.  It was not at all what I was expecting---but it was enough.

They say the key to being happy in life is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.  I say, that is simple, everyday gratitude, a most essential part of being both happy and useful in the world.  I know that having what I want is not always feasible, but wanting what I have---being aware of, and gracious about, the gifts life has given me---is enough.  It's more than enough.

S.P.I.C.E. It Up

This afternoon, a few lines from a poem I love, "Barter" by Sara Teasdale, went tripping through my head:  "Life has loveliness to sell/ All beautiful and splendid things/ Blue waves whitened on a cliff/ Soaring fire that sways and sings...Music like a curve of gold/ Scent of pine trees in the rain/ Eyes that love you, arms that hold..."   Oh, you could argue that it's not great poetry, but I disagree, and it often runs through my mind on days like today.  I was watching the burnished red Bradford leaves out my dining room windows as I was grading essays, marveling that even in this infernal, endless Oklahoma wind that I dislike so much, there is something to be pleased by:  the sight of those shiny leaves tenaciously clinging to the branches, performing a whirling-dervish dance goodbye---bartering for a little more time in their short lives.  That's the very thing Teasdale was encouraging.

But then I also thought of what was ahead for my evening:  the yearly S.P.I.C.E auction in Locust Grove.  Special Partners in Children's Education is a local foundation that our community formed about 16 years ago to support the four schools in the LG district.  Specifically, they raise money and award grants to teachers each semester.  I know that there are foundations of this sort in many communities, and certainly the cities have them---I wouldn't have been fortunate enough to receive my Fund for Teachers grant three years ago if not for the Tulsa community foundation.  But I can't help feeling amazed at what this group does in our rural town with limited local businesses. 

Every fall, the S.P.I.C.E. auction is held on a Saturday evening, featuring a dinner and a dessert contest for starters.  The auction always has a theme, and table decorating contests help take the burden for decorating off the foundation and add to the fun.  Donated items are offered in both a silent auction and a live auction.  The live auction items are much too big for me to bid on:  chainsaws, SEC game tickets, Reba tickets, huge themed baskets, toolboxes, small furnishings or large home decor items.  But I usually get something in the silent auction; last year it was a massage from Stacy, my usual massage therapist.  I've gotten a book basket before, and tonight I won a custom bling t-shirt (I've been coveting that for a while now).  I've been fortunate to benefit from S.P.I.C.E. grants several times for technology, and just last year, Robin Pendergraft and I received a large grant to purchase new MLA books for the juniors and seniors.  It's safe to say that our schools would be much less advanced without the hard work that all these local volunteers do. 

But what does it really add up to?  How does $17,000 sound?  That's how much was awarded just tonight, every cent of it RAISED by this foundation, every cent going directly to classrooms and students---no administrative costs, no salaries.  Every grant award was given to a teacher who went proudly up to pick up the award letter that will advance his or her classroom.  I knew almost all of them, and had taught at least one, so I feel safe in saying that that money is in good hands, open hands poised to do just a little more, just a little better, for the children they teach.

In the spring, a similar round of grants will be awarded; the average per semester is about $15,000, the last that I heard.  That means the total dollar amount raised and awarded over the years is in the hundreds of thousands by now---I don't know an exact amount, but, gosh!  In a two-stoplight town, who would have expected it?  And remember, there's no corporate grandaddy handing this out:  it comes from a cafetorium full of teachers and community members who know that without a strong, progressive local school, there's no town left.  Small towns don't let that kind of thing happen.  We go have dinner together, razz each other about our bids, hoot and holler while Ronn auctions, circle the silent auction table like vultures at the last seconds, elbowing each other to get the last bid in, and stand in line to pay our bills, chatting about the recent election, who was the last victim of middle school principal Clint Hall's tricks, which building will win the contest for most teachers in attendance.  And we applaud every teacher who goes forward to pick up those grants. 

If that isn't loveliness, I don't know it.  If it's not goodness, there is none to be found. 


The last stanze of "Barter" is the best, and it's perfect for this evening's events:

"Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be. "

 

A little too feverish, perhaps, but simply put:  Invest in whatever it is that you love, and don't look

back.  How fortunate I am to work in a place where there are people who understand the power and

joy of investing in young people, making their educational experience the best it can be.  That they

are willing to work so hard, to "Barter" for the betterment of many, many children that they may

never know, is a loveliness almost too beautiful to comprehend. 

 

Time Again

You can tell me the truth, kiddoes---you hate this night.  You know:  Fall Back.  It doesn't matter to most people that we gain an extra blessed hour of sleep tonight.  It's giving up an hour of precious daylight at the end of every day for the next four months that puts so many in ill humor.  I'll confess; I love it---it suits the dark side of my nature.  I was actually mad when they pushed it back until after the first of November a couple of years ago.  But I know you're (mostly) sane out there, not given to late nights and sad songs like me.  For you on the sunny side, let me give you a few reasons to like the evening a little better this season.

First, you have a good reason to settle in at home with your people a little earlier, to enjoy evenings over a family dinner (nearly unheard of these days, and so strange to me---we grew up eating all our meals together).  There's actually time after dinner to sit down and watch a movie or play games together, even on a weeknight.  You could even bring back family reading, sharing a big book that you read to your kids or they read with you.  I've been reading all my life, but one of the most enjoyable experiences I had as an 11-year-old was when Vonnie Robbins read Treasure Island to her daughters and me over several evenings one summer.  You think your kids won't appreciate it?  They might not, not today, anyway.  Soon, yes.  Soon, a once-a-week family evening will become a part of their own family fabric, and you've started to reshape the broken landscape of what made our lives seem so much better when we were kids.  What a gift to give our children! 

What do you do with those dark hours if you have no kids at home?  Turn off the TV and talk to your "other."  Ask the kinds of questions that can lead a discussion in a million different directions.  Better yet, do a little project or take a class together that keeps the brain active and the heart open.  It doesn't really matter, as long as you're spending the time together.  Why is this so hard for so many couples anymore?  Ah---it's all those daylight hours when everyone gets out to do things in the evening time that families used to spend together---games, shopping parties, drinking, whatever-it-is that people get up to, then wonder why their relationships fall apart.  Well, here it is:  the four month challenge to save your marriage.  Not that I know a damn thing about marriage, but common sense says, if you spend those evenings together this winter learning more about yourselves together, instead of chasing your own interests all-l-l the time, you're more likely to fall together than fall apart.

I can only really speak knowledgeably about family time and alone time.  As a single person living alone, far from hating more evening in the winter, I love it.  It does make it a little harder to get around in the evening after the gym and drive home from Pryor to BA, but that's a small price to pay for the extra-relaxed time when I get there.  Instead of rushing around feeling like I've got to beat the sunset to get things done, that moment has passed before I even get out of the pool.  I can get home, eat a quick dinner, and be hunkered down for a little reading or TV and therefore ready to sleep when it's bedtime.  I have a hard time winding down most longer days, but not so much this time of year.  Even better, on the nights I don't go to class, I have a long evening for reading or movie watching or researching/playing on the computer.  If I go out to meet friends for dinner, most of us are comfortable to relax for a good visit---no one rushing to get home and work in the yard or finish up some project.  There's NO time that I have trouble filling; even when we were snowed in for two weeks in the 2011 blizzard, I was perfectly content at home alone.  It's always completely mystified me how people can get bored.  There is SO MUCH to read, to learn, to see, and the computer is the window into anyplace or anything we want to get to anymore. 

What I love best about early evenings in the winter is a weekend, preferably cloudy, cold, and windy, when I can cook something all day in the crock pot while I grade papers, and about dark, pack things up for the day, and maybe do a little writing, journaling or otherwise, that will lead me into something new---a new idea for school, a memory I want to record that I'd forgotten, a fresh poetic phrase to save up for inspiration down the line. 

Probably you won't be inspired by the darkness the same way I am, but there are good things to be gained from these longer, colder evenings in front of the fire or under a lap quilt.  Put your shoulders back and breathe deeply, letting it settle you, if only for a while.  If it doesn't sit well, remember that it's only four short months until you can play beat the clock every evening again, squeezing out every ounce of sweetness from that evening sun.

This Is Not a Blog

Repeating, this is not a blog.  This is an outpost from the wilderness of contamination.  It's a twirling headspin if I look at the screen too long.  It's a confusion of monstrous headache and shallow breath.  It's a long tunnel of dark and gray, with nameless, faceless drifters looking up and down.  Normally that would terrify me, but I'm too exhausted to care.

All right.  That's enough whining.  I truly can't get a whole blog out tonight, due to pneumonia taking up residence in my lungs.  But it bears reflection on what got me this sick.  I am blessed with an extraordinary immune system; the last time I was this sick was on 9/11, the only time I've ever missed school two successive days for being sick, as opposed to recovery from surgery.  I know why I got so ill then:  I had floated the Illinois the weekend before and inadvertently took a big gulp of that nasty chicken-contaminated river water.  Voila!  Pneumonia. 

So what's the culprit this time?  I have a couple of suspects.  My nose is always dried out, making it less effective at preventing germs to get in the airway.  My C-PAP machine is not working right, so I'm not getting good breath at night anyway.  I'm in a public pool several days a week.  And I'm running at absolutely top speed this year, working non-stop.

Oh, I forgot the most likely culprit:  I had fun things planned with friends both tonight and tomorrow.  That NEVER happens.  There it is, right there. 

Eh, who knows?  I'll take my pills, drown my sorrows in water and OJ, and sleep all I can.  Next week, hopefully, I'll be back in full form. 

Not In My Space!

These are the things to which I must say, "Not in my space":

• Cooked green vegetables. God meant for us to eat all of 'em (except green beans) fresh and crisp or not at all. When cooked, they taste like dirt and are way too squishy or slimy. I realize this is a childish attitude to have. Just bring me a corn dog and shut up about it already.
• Rap, emo, screamo, death metal, Justin Bieber. These are not music; they are the most effective form of torture known to man. Don't believe me? Remember Manuel Noriega? Don't tell me that they wouldn't have used Justin Bieber to get him out of the house, if Bieber had been more than a gleam in his daddy's eye back then.
• Constant technocrats. In fact, I'd just like to rid the world of the Smartphone, period. It's beginning to look like the Smartphones are really going to be smarter than the people, and then what?  There are already countless movies out there speculating on what happens when.....but it ain't none of it pretty.
• Anything scented with lavender or patchouli.  I love them both; my brain does not.   These are the migraine triggers (along with lilies and other strong flowers) that make the right side of my head go BOOM! and then it's Custer's Last Stand trying to calm the battle in there. 
• Loud unexpected noises.  They make me want to react the way some startled dogs react:  snapping at the first moving person they see.  I've told my kids this at school, and I'm not quite sure that they don't believe I really MIGHT bite someday.  It keeps them in check, at least.
• Children out past 9 p.m.  I want to slap the snot out of people who are out and about late at night with little ones who are weeping fit to beat Jesus, because they are so clearly exhausted.  Babies belong in bed, not in Walmart, after dark. 
• Loose, yapping dogs.  The most mild-mannered dog will come after me like Cujo.  I've been told countless times that either (1) This is because they know I'm afraid of them, or (2) It's a very bad sign of my character.  The first may be true, but if you think a dog is a good judge of my character, you both need to be locked up.
• Creepingly slow drivers.  They must recognize my eminent domain and pull over to let me by, or risk being passed in a cloud of exhaust and curses. 
• Itchy clothing.  And wet clothing.  Oooo---they make me shiver just to think about them.  Double yuck.
• Alarm clocks.  I have three.  I use them all during the school year.  The first thing I'm going to do when I retire is either have a sacrificial burning of them, or just take them out in the pasture back home and shoot 'em down.  Or, no!---I'll just go all Office Space on them!  Who hasn't wanted to bash something to bits like that?  Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!  (If you've never seen the movie, just ignore that.  I can't possibly explain it.)
• Disrespect, lies, hate, racism, superiority complexes, and general a--hole-ish behavior.  Wouldn't it be a better world if we all acted like our grandmas were looking over our shoulders all the time? 

This list isn't all-inclusive, but it's a good start.  Before you think ill of me for my negative attitude, think of your own list.  Not so negative now?  Good.  Now get AWAY from the computer and go talk to a live person! 

Rock-a-Bye

There's not much in the world that can repair or heal a fragile or damaged spirit the way rocking a baby can, is there?

This week was as busy and challenging as all of them have been---even more frenetic, if possible, because I was battling technology, which makes me absolutely insane.  (That is not new in the computer age; I remember feeling deep hatred for the sewing machine back when I still sewed in high school, when Mrs. Barrett's most frequent words to me were, "Rip it out.")  But things reached a fever pitch on Thursday, when a student confessed something to me that was one of the most horrifying things I have heard in my 25+ years in education.  I couldn't react outwardly in that moment, but I remember clearly what went through my mind: "I want to hold Allie and rock her to sleep, right now."  Allie, if you aren't aware, is my baby sister's one-year-old.

That's what I did tonight, after spending most of the afternoon here on the ranch talking to Sheri and playing with Allie, having dinner with my parents and both siblings (since my brother is here from SD for a couple of days), and then giving Allie her bath.  She put on quite a show after bath time, making a circuit of the room giving everyone kisses, which she's usually kind of stingy with----she's kind of fallen in love with Uncle Bo and was probably trying to impress him.  It was obvious that she was also fighting off sleep after a fairly sleepless day today.

Soon enough, we went upstairs with her cup to a book and her blanket.  I thank God she loves books.  She would go through every book on the shelf if we let her.  But we looked at three, and then she played the stick-my-fingers-in-your-ears game she likes and let me sing a little to her (She loves music, too; we started learning "The Rains Came Down" while it stormed outside today).  Then she snuggled down and we rocked and rocked.

I rocked long after she fell asleep.  I always have a hard time putting her down, though; it's hard for me not to stare at her when she sleeps, just as all her cousins before her.  But tonight, I prayed that her life would be as untouched by the grim, brutal ugliness of the world as possible, that we would all be wise in protecting her, that her home would be as safe with her in it as it was when we were growing up here.  I prayed that we would know how to judge all the people and things that would come along to influence her and guide her accordingly.  I prayed that she would always feel as comforted and comfortable as she did at that moment, sleeping trustingly in my arms.

And I feel better.  I can do another week because I held that Allie-shaped bundle of balm, soothing my spirit and my mind, wiping away what went before and planning something more for her life because we all---her parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousins---would do anything to protect her.  In a few years, she'll know that love very distinctly.  For now, she simply exudes it from her baby skin, innocent eyes, ornery grin, and those rambunctious kisses.

Movin' On

More than once, my late best friend, who knew all of my immediate family, observed that we all ran on a different speed than the rest of the world. Her summation was that we are "go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-stop. Gooooooooooooooooooo-stop." It never occurred to me that there was any other way to be; in fact, I never knew until I was grown that we were different from anyone else in that way---I thought everyone worked 12-15 hours a day. I figured out pretty early that the worst thing you could call a Welker is "lazy." Most likely, it would be pretty inaccurate, too.

At 73, Dad is the hardest worker I know. I don't mean he was; he IS. I've known no one yet, of ANY age, who can put in more hours in a day than he does, and we're not talking about long days at a desk. He's been working with animals and field equipment since he was a child....and he's paying for it physically. Just a few weeks ago I saw him climb over the pipe fence behind the house so nimbly that you'd never know he has wrenching osteoarthritis and trashed rotator cuffs. He just does not know when to quit. Try to tell him to rest, and his response is, "Oh, no, can't do that! People die in bed. Don't you know that?" He's only half joking. But again, I didn't even know his work hours were unusual when I was at home. I thought everyone's dad worked until dark, no matter the season, and after dark or even all night if it was harvest season. He never even got sick very often, it seemed. That work ethic was part bluff, and part self-preservation: he just was too hyper to be sitting around. My sister and I both got that demeanor, she more than I. He's found more enjoyment in listening to music in the last few years and will be still for that these days, and I'm grateful he's found that. But I take a lot of pride in the fact that the man can, literally, still, work anyone else under the table.

Mom is in no way a slacker, either. When we were all at home, she could and did put in a full day's work every day in the house, in the field, in the office, in the pasture----often all of the above. Yes, four full days of work in one, like many mothers in the world. Time, life, and Dad have all given her more to do each year. I have seen her bake the flakiest pie crusts, rewire a lamp, work cattle, rock babies (yes, plural, at one time), build fence, repair plumbing, sew upholstery, hang wallpaper, cross-stitch, mud Sheetrock, plant vegetables, work ledgers, and I don't know what-all. She is fearless and tough and absolutely unstoppable. Unlike Dad, she can be still, to sit and visit with a person for a while without practically twitching to get up and get to work, but not for long periods of time. When she used to stay with us, when Laura was ill, it wasn't unusual for me to come home and find her working on a project, like taking our vertical blinds down and scrubbing each one. She can pace herself to just about any task, whether it's quick and repetitive or slow and methodical. More and more, I see her style in my brother's life and work. I wouldn't trade her, or the example she set for me, for any price on earth, but I'd pay anything I could for her to rest more often.

Our parents' examples for us made certain that we three kids would have excellent work ethics, too. That's always been my best characteristic. As I said, the worst thing you could call any of us was "lazy," and it certainly isn't true. But I feel like the laziest person in my family because they all work so hard physically. I work indoors, and I often have to sit because of my feet, teaching from my tall barstool at the podium. However, anyone who has taught even a day of school knows that it's physically exhausting, practically putting on a song and dance for six or seven class periods per day. That energy is much like adrenaline pouring through an athlete's system, an accompanying "high" when you hit the perfect rhythm. It's never failed me----but I think it might be waning.

A couple of years ago, I noticed that my usual quick march all day at school was slowing down, that it left me absolutely exhausted to keep up my normal pace. I observed to my doctor that I couldn't seem to go up and down the halls several times a day at school anymore without feeling like I was walking through mud at the end of the day. He gently observed, "Well, you ARE a 47-year-old woman now; you aren't going to feel like you did at 27." It was not the same as calling me "lazy"; in a way, it was worse. I was just slowing down, and there was not much to be done about it. At the time, I hated that most for my personal life. Who WAS I if I didn't run on a bottomless well of Welker energy? I used to get three or four hours of sleep a night when I was in grad school, working two jobs and loving it, having a good time. Even when I left higher ed and got into secondary ed, I almost always worked two jobs and lived a complex life, friends and family scattered away, requiring weekend trips to be able to spend time with anyone, while still getting all my grading and prep work done. I could teach all day, teach a night class two nights a week, grade and do all kinds of fun things on weekends, and still have energy to burn. But now..... Once in a while, I have dinner during the week with friends or family members, but most nights I'm not up for anything. If I get together on weekends, it's during the day, or staying overnight at the ranch.

This school year seems to be even more of a challenge. I started in July with a driving intensity to overcome my worries about so many changes taking place, which worked well for me for a while. I felt that I was doing a pretty good job as a mentor and a department head, and inspiration set me off on a couple of new projects to revamp my curriculum for the Common Core State Standards (eduspeak---there's sure to be more on that another time) that are looming in the wings. Technically, I was starting the year with five lesson preps per day, but effectively, one of those would be a separate lesson prep for each student, since it was testing remediation class. I didn't even feel particularly intimidated by that---one bonus from years of experience. And I would be keeping last year's after-school plan, holding after-school detention for the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, tutoring on Wednesdays, and working at school every day until about 5, then going to water aerobics in Pryor from 5:30-6:30, showering, and returning home to BA by 8. Thirteen hours a day out of the house should be absolutely NO problem for me.

It is. It's become a problem. I work as briskly as I ever have all day; I even work at my desk through lunch each day, which I have never done for more than a couple of weeks, believing that teachers need peer time.  I bring home stacks of work each weekend but don't get through half of it. On Saturdays, I always have a schedule. Keeping a planned day in my head is as instinctive for me as breathing; more than one friend, from college onward, has joked about my regimented times for working. Now...well, those schedules are useless.  So far, most Saturdays I sleep. Not all day---I'll get up in the morning and watch something on the DVR (because I can't stay awake during the week to watch anything anymore!), but within a couple of hours, I'm on the couch napping. I wake up, fix a bite to eat for lunch, watch something else or look at a magazine----zonk! I'm back asleep on the couch. By 6 or 7, I'm thinking about the blog that I should have written days before, one I've been thinking about specifically or which idea I want to choose, and I spend the rest of Saturday night writing these novellas that I almost always intend to be much more concise. Then I wind up eating dinner so late---often after midnight, because I have to post by then---that I can't go to bed until 3 a.m. If I'm too tired to roll out of bed at 8 a.m. for church, I lose half the day. By Sunday night, I have a little work done, am somewhat rested, have good intentions to do better in the coming week....and immediately start withdrawing from my energy reserves by watching British sitcoms on PBS until midnight.

This is not how I want to expend my energy for the entire school year. I don't feel like I am ever anywhere close to being on top of things at work, let alone ahead of the game, and I hate wasting every Saturday sleeping so much, even if I DO need it. Unlike Dad, I can't access the endless reservoir of energy I need. Unlike Mom, I'm not pacing myself well.  Unlike myself, I don't feel my mental runner's high, the rhythm of my work flowing through me.  With nearly my whole self-esteem coming from my work, it's not possible to let this go on.

Self-assessment tells me my current energy reserves aren't right for me; they aren't even in my DNA.  I haven't found the energy to search out the resolution yet, though.  I keep hoping that perhaps I'll dream it, receive a flash of inspiration, or even hear it on NPR.  In the meantime, I'm going to keep on moving, whether it's at a crawl, a steady stroll, or a lively stride.  I've got a lot more "go-go-go" to go.

The Best Measure

Periodically, I find myself in little "disagreements" with God.  Oh, it's not that I find myself having whole arguments with Morgan Freeman's voice in my head; I just struggle with assimilating my experiences with my beliefs, or what the world believes.   All truly spiritual people are compelled to examine and analyze their experiences in order to make sense of them in light of our beliefs, whether they be religious, moral, social, or political.  In the last few months, I found myself somewhat troubled in trying to resolve some observations of the world around me with the principles that I hold, quite literally, sacred.

My experience centered a great deal on the fact that it's been a distastefully explosive political year, going beyond mere political posturing and into the realm of sickening hate-mongering.  Combine that with the fact that I'm both very committed to the idea of equality for all but still evolving in my understanding of our government, and I wound up with a perfect storm of disillusionment on my hands.  This is so complicated that I don't even have a clear place to start in the narrative, except for the one event that polarized my spiritual and moral standards:  that Chick-fil-A brouhaha this summer, when CEO Dan Cathy made anti-gay statements in a radio interview and as a result, demonstrations supporting both sides of the argument were staged at the company's stores. 

I had, to be honest, an immediate disdain for Mr. Cathy's remarks, not only because I considered it bad business practice, but also because I adamantly support equal rights for all, including same-sex marriage.  In fact, I have so much to say about that issue that I'll have to make it another blog, or several blogs, entirely.  But this summer:  Mr. Cathy made his statements, more as an individual than as a CEO, and got raked over the coals for it.  The cyberworld went BOOM!, and next thing we knew, there was a day of chicken feasting to support the company, and a subsequent day of picketing.  I thought they both were pointless.  These two sides are not likely to ever convince the other.  But then, my brother and I never give up arguing our different views of the political spectrum, knowing full well that we'll never turn one red or the other blue.  I think we do it out of love, hoping the other will at least scoot a little in our own direction, bringing us closer to a shade of purple we can both live with.  Maybe a similar kind of love is the reason the same-sex marriage/anti same-sex marriage proponents keep at each other, believing there is grounds for a compromise everyone can be happy with-----but no, I don't really believe that.  I wish I could.  And that wish gone awry, like Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred," is where I found my feelings surfacing during the demonstrations this summer. 

Bluntly, I felt somewhat sickened at the sight of people lined up to buy chicken sandwiches in the name of their religion.  It seems so far off from my understanding of Jesus, and of the Christianity that I have always practiced.  But my reaction alarmed me for the same reason.  I am fully convinced of God's love for me----and for every other person on the face of this planet, even those who never hear the name of Jesus between the cradle and the grave.  To me, that show of support of Chick fil A was demonstrating the exact opposite:  that Christ's followers (and therefore Christ) considered themselves better than others.  And THAT, I know, is not the message of Jesus.  I vowed not to do business with them until I had resolved my thoughts and understanding of the situation to my own satisfaction.  But when the picketing of the restaurants took place a few days later, I had a similarly discontent reaction.  While I believe whole-heartedly in the American right to demonstrate peacefully, I had, literally, a visceral reaction to the whole mess.  I said before I felt sickened, and I meant truly, physically sickened.  How could we put our beliefs on display, either side of the argument, over something as ridiculous as chicken?!  I did my best to put it all out of my mind.  It didn't stay gone very long.

Only a few weeks later, I was in Mardel's one evening buying school supplies.  For those who don't know, Mardel's is a Christian bookstore owned by the Mart Green family in Oklahoma City, the same people who own Hobby Lobby, which is closed on Sundays like Chick fil A.  (I've always admired that practice to, as both businesses say, "promote family time," even though it inconveniences those of us with limited shopping hours.)  The Green family is also the group that bailed out Oral Roberts University a few years ago when it was insolvent and in crisis.  I haven't looked deeply into their business philosophies or religious practices, but the items Mardel's carries lead me to believe they support prosperity theology.  I can't logically or theologically get behind that; everything I've seen in life demonstrates that God doesn't reward us financially for following Him.  But that, too, is another blog.  The point is that I probably wouldn't shop at Mardel's very frequently, except for the fact that they have a great school supply section.

That evening, I wandered into the t-shirt section, a huge selection of t-shirts with Christian themes, to look for some gifts.  There are two walls covered with designs, probably numbering over 150, not to mention others hanging on rounders most of the length of the store.  I read each one, craning my neck back to scan from the ceiling on down.  After a while, I began to feel a little light-headed from the looking back and forth, up and down, as well as the fact that I hadn't eaten much that day because of the relentless heat.  The t-shirts on the rounders provided a little distraction for a while, so I went back and forth between those and the wall.  I began to notice the few shoppers in that section, and they seemed so....distant, maybe even unfriendly.  Now I know logically that I might have just had low blood sugar at that point, even though I wasn't shaky or clammy.  But I suddenly felt just as put off as I could be by the in-your-face-ness of everything in that section, as though everyone there felt just a little superior to me, that you had to shout your beliefs from your clothing, not just the way you lived your life.  And if I tell the truth.....I felt as though none of them could or would think for themselves, which is to say, I felt a little superior to them, too. 

It was a bitter, terrifying moment. 

I paid for my purchases and left as quickly as I could.  Once I was in the car, I picked up the phone a couple of times, thinking to call Mary Beth, my dear friend from church, who has a gift for seeing right into the heart of a situation and making it make sense.  What held me back was the inability to even explain what I was feeling.  It was a cumulative effect from both experiences, and it felt as though I was rejecting not just the American version of Christianity, or prosperity theology, but that I was questioning Christianity as a whole.  If you think horribly of me for that last sentence, know that I thought no less of myself when I wrote it;  I've been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to go on.  To reject Christianity would be akin to negating my whole life, from a blessed childhood with my parents' upbringing rooted in church and high moral values, to my own career, which I claim as a calling from God. 

My terror at the feelings I experienced that night did not go away.  While I wasn't living in a state of shock or coming apart at the seams, it was not a good time.  I was facing the beginning of a school year like no other, with many extra burdens and the loss of two peers in my department.  I flung myself into those tasks and those changes with more energy than I've used to get going in any year I can think of, and that turned out to be a blessing.  The challenges took my mind off my crisis of belief, and the time I spent working left me little time for ruminating on the significance of what was going on in the world around me.  I even stopped listening to NPR for several weeks in order to stop the flow of any political information related to religious ideologies.  Instead, I reverted to my drug of choice when I'm feeling overwhelmed by the world:  country music.  I quickly learned the most popular songs on the radio and spent my 45 minute morning and afternoon commute singly along mindlessly.  It should have been no surprise to me when that same country radio provided me with a resolution to my crisis. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was driving to the family ranch after school on Friday evening, headed over to help my mother care for my sister's baby girl for the weekend while she and her husband took a little trip for their anniversary.  I was tired but looking forward to time with Allie, my god-daughter and main source of enjoyment this past summer.  As I find myself on the road a lot at sunrise and sundown, I love both times of day, and evening is when I am most contemplative, resolving events in my mind.  That evening was no exception; I was parsing the week as it grew closer to sunset.  When I was approaching the turn from the two-lane highway to the backroad, a Keith Urban song that is popular right now came on.  It had annoyed me before---he's not one of my favorites---but I'd not really paid attention to the words, either.  Suddenly, I DID hear what he was singing about, a soldier on a battlefield, questioning whether he had made a mistake: 

"And the answer rang out clear from somewhere up above

No greater gift has man, than to lay down his life for love.

And I wondered, would I give my life?
Could I make that sacrifice?
If it came down to it, could I take the bullet?  I would,
Yes I would, for you."

I don't know why everything coalesced around that moment, and around song lyrics that were no great poetry, but as quick as a lightning strike, it all did.

...The baby of the baby sister I've always said I could defend to the death with my bare hands.

...The family I belong to that tried always to live by a good moral code.

...The Christianity that fostered that moral code.

...The God who called me to teach.....and to teach and treat everyone equally.

...The students I've vowed to protect with my life, who, when they asked, I've told, "Anyone who comes in here looking to hurt you will have to go through me and every other teacher in this building." 

And I knew, at once, that there was no way I was turning away from my faith.  I knew---I remembered what I have believed for many years---that I only have to concern myself with  my own faith, not anyone else's, nor anyone else's concept of mine.  It was a palpable relief I felt, reminding myself that I would, like the speaker of that song, do whatever I was called to do, and that I would do it not just for those who believed the same as me, but for all of my students. 

That's the best measure of Christianity I know of.  Perhaps demonstrating by choosing a certain day to shop at a Christian-owned business is what others know as their best measure.  Maybe it's wearing blingy crosses or praying in the streets.   For some, it might be giving away all the money they make or feeding and clothing the disenfranchised.  But all I have to worry about is whether I'm living by my lights, whether my conscience is clear and my heart is right with God.  For tonight, at least, I will sleep soundly---I am right with God, and with myself.

Home Matters

What is the mythic hold that "home" holds over us?  Is this a development of the modern era, or does it go all the way back to the caveman?  Did coming back to that rock abode and the lingering smell of last night's dinner roasted over the fire inspire the same sense of comfort and safety in those family members that stepping in the back door to our favorite Scentsy aroma does now?  I don't see how it could, but then, we all have a concept of what home should be like, from our own frame of reference.  I think, however, that it must be part of the human condition to crave a domestic haven from the vagaries of life.

Forty years ago this past June, our family moved into what has remained home base for us all.  It was two years in the making, because Mom and Dad were determined that everything down to the last nail would be paid for before it was put in.  I might be wrong, but I think they met that goal.  It's not a terribly remarkable house, but to me, it's an icon of peace.  The story of it is almost as much a part of me as are the sights, sounds, and smells I associate with it.

This pinkish-brick split level stands at the corner of the section my great-grandfather John Welker acquired when he traded the land he staked in the Land Run, somewhere in Payne or Noble county, just a short time after the Run.  The house was built by Henry Martin and Ted Osborn, highly skilled homebuilders and craftsmen who were also neighbors and customers.  Dad asked Henry several times to build the house, but he had too much on his plate to work it in.  But a freak hailstorm wiped out his wheat crop, and he took the job to make up for that loss.  I don't know the time frame for sure, but that must have been around 1970.  And another local, Loyd Wilson, built all the cabinetry for the house.  Mom and Dad did and still do take pride in doing business locally whenever possible, a policy they passed on to us all.

The thing that amazes me the most is that Mom stained and varnished almost every square inch of the woodwork in the house---cabinets, paneling, baseboard, EVERYthing.  That includes two full bathrooms and two half baths, a paneled kitchen and family room, half-paneled hallways, built-ins for a sewing counter, the office, and a rec room, and partial paneling in the basement, plus the doors for three bedrooms, the office, three pocket doors, and nine closets....a virtual lumberyard of wood that looks as beautiful today as it did when we moved in.  She cared for it religiously; that might have been our best lesson on why we don't let things get torn up or trashed.  I would feel physically ill if I ever did something to damage that golden-brown evidence of her painstaking care and pride of her home.  Of course she painted, but I've also seen her fix plumbing and electrical issues, large and small.  There well may be many other things she did as part of creating this home; her father was a carpenter, and she knew a lot from him, as well as teaching herself.

Grandad was still working when this house was built, and with Pryor 100 miles away, he wasn't able to do a lot, but I recently learned of a contribution he made that solved a mystery for me.  The main level is the only one with floor joists; everything else is concrete.  But that main level is just as sturdy as the rest, producing almost no noise, even though several of us walk very hard on our heels.  At Christmas, my brother told my brother-in-law that the floor joists were 3" x 16".  Now I'm no craftman, but I've seen a little bit of carpentry done over the years, and I didn't even KNOW such a thing existed.  They don't;  these mammoth slabs of wood were part of the old powder plant at Pryor, where Grandad worked during World War II, and they came to us through him.  No one knows how he got hold of them----maybe he helped with the demolition of the plant or got them from a friend.  However it came about, those massive planks, which took several men to move, have left that floor as strong and level as it ever was.  If I didn't have a terror of damp, dark, close spaces and the critters that lurk there, I'd love to crawl up under there to see them.

Another feature I find unusual, and unusually comforting, is the concrete floor upstairs----of course, that means it's practically a concrete bunker down in the basement.  That basement is partially above ground, with windows at ground level, and a patio door at the end, but I've never felt afraid there during a storm....and out there on the eastern edge of the open plains, we've had more than a few brushes with tornadoes and ferocious straight-line winds.  I don't know exactly how Dad managed to get this cement ceiling done, but he's a master of plotting, planning, and devising.  Bo says he remembers it, and that there were posts all over the basement holding up some kind of forms or framework they used to pour the cement in.  And he would know:  he was a busy little boy, just four years old when we moved in, and he had spent his days down there during the previous two years, tinkering and building and telling wild stories that even now Henry will smile and shake his head at when he recalls them.  My clearest memories of those two years were pushing a chair up to the sink when I got home from school to wash Mom and Dad's lunch dishes (which were really pretty minimal) and standing on the back patio, possibly singing and dancing, a pasture of cattle for an audience.  I might have just dreamed doing that, but I have a sharp vision of standing on that patio imagining I finally had a real stage, consciously thinking it would be a great place to perform from while I waited for a glorious career to arrive. 

I remember, too, the first meal we had after moving in that June: we had hot dogs from our microwave, the likes of which I'd never seen or heard of, but was in awe of.  And we got to watch _Gunsmoke_ on our brand-new color TV while we ate.  It was maybe somewhat less than miraculous, but if I remember it so well after 40 years, how can I overlook that?  How can I put aside all that house came to mean to me?  The smell of the air conditioning in the summer was and still is unlike any other on earth.  The sound of the back door and how we jerked it closed, or the muffled sound of the grinder at the elevator on Saturday mornings from my childhood bedroom;  the texture of the wallpaper Mom and I hung in the entry, up the stairs, and in the hall when I was 16 (and that I threatened to run away over because she's such a perfectionist); the long-outdated but still functional green kitchen countertops----I could identify them all, anywhere they were presented to me.  I spent God only knows how many hours practicing at that piano in the corner of the living room, where my 18-year-old nephew Logan has plunked, then played, then performed as he grew up.  Every once in a while, I look at the marble hearth in front of the fireplace and can remember standing at the teller counter in the old First National Bank building in Pawnee, where that marble came from when they tore the building down.  I remember Dad and I sharing a nightly popcorn ritual, popping it up in a Wagner Ware saucepan, never asking if the other wanted it, just wordlessly presenting the other with a bowlful passed through the cabinet window into the family room.  There is no way to separate all that from my person----or from my home.

When Mom and Dad announced a few years ago that they were moving out and that Sheri would be living there permanently, that they would mostly live in Arkansas, I was devastated.  I think my exact words were, "But I won't have a home anymore?"  definitely stated as a question.  One of them, I don't remember which, said, "You have a home.  Your home is in Broken Arrow."  Logic was not what I was after----I just wanted to know that I had the home base I had come back to all my life.  I needed the safety of that physical place, but also the feeling of "home" by having everyone there together.  I've learned to live with the reality that we haven't all been together on a regular basis in 25 years except at Christmas, and that what home represents isn't something that changes just because the situation is a little different.  I sleep in a different room when I visit---but that was true long ago.  My sister and her husband are so gracious with me, letting me come to stay whenever I want, that I haven't felt as torn as I was afraid I might.  Our figurative campfires are still lit, and I am still welcome.  That's more grace than many people ever get, and I've had it all my life, and I am so thankful. 

I. O. U. .....

....and I owe myself one official blog.  But a real, thoughtful blog won't be happening tonight.   I just returned, at 10 to midnight, from the emergency room at the Claremore Indian Hospital, where I spent 6 HOURS to get a full leg brace (that I can't get in the car wearing, and it slides down anyway) and 4 painkillers (identical to the ones I have for migraines) for a left knee that has gone completely wonky.  This started earlier in the week when the first major rain front in about 16 years rolled through, and it was so bad last night that I couldn't walk without holding on to the walls and the furniture.  I still couldn't really walk on it today, so off I went this afternoon to get some help.

Strangely, in much the same way that taking a car to a mechanic magically "fixes" the problem so that the owner looks like a nervous Nellie, I am able to move my leg better now after sitting in said ER for 6 hours.  I just wish I'd not had to waste that time there.  And oh, I am so grateful for Indian health and would be destitute without them, and certainly less medicated---but this may be the only fringe government agency that is forced to do more with less to an even greater degree than educators.  What worries me the most is that I truly believe in the Affordable Care Act, that universal health care should be a right, not a privilege, yet I see what happens in almost all of the IHS agencies and how overwhelmed they are, and I can't help but think that we'll face those same problems in medical industries when the ACA goes into effect.  I still know, because of my own experiences, that ACA is the right thing to do, but I wonder how many of these bugs will be worked out ahead of time, and how many will have to be growing pains we all suffer through together.

But that's a problem to unravel sometime when I'm more clear-headed and less frustrated, and AFTER a nice hot meal, which I haven't had since 10 a.m.  

I feel like I'm cheating with such a short blog.....but not too much.  After all, I was nearly wild to get out of there in time to get home and post before midnight.  While blogging shouldn't be uppermost in my concerns right this minute, I'm GLAD the worry is there, because now I know----I'm in this thing.  I've made a habit, and for once it's a good one!

Single and Loving It

There's a fact I love to stun my speech students with every year:  all research confirms that up to 80% of the message we convey is NON-verbal information.  It's not what we are saying that counts the most; it's the body language, facial expressions, and emotional impact that an audience remembers.  Any teacher knows this well.  We can, with practice, give a pretty accurate rating of how much any given student is paying attention to and processing what we're doing in class.  The posture and eyes are the giveaways.  Really, don't we all do that?  Maybe it's a girl thing, but I know I'm accustomed to looking for messages that people don't even know they're sending. 

One that I'm especially used to interpreting is the "Why are you single?" look:  a head tilt, eyes cutting sideways with a little squint.   Depending on who I'm around, I sometimes don't even have to read it----it's a straight-out question.  I find it odd, because if I were to ask most people "Why are you married?" they'd be pretty insulted, and rightly so.  "Why SHOULDN'T I be single?' is the only logical response, but it doesn't satisfy anyone.  At least as I've aged, I don't hear the question as much.

I heard some surprising statistics this summer about how many more single households there are now than just a few years ago.  I don't remember which website I saw it on originally, but I did find a pretty good summary on CNN Money:  "Only 51% of adults today are married, according to census data. And 28% of all households now consist of just one person -- the highest level in U.S. history.... Until recently, no culture in human history had sustained large numbers of people in places of their own. Today more than 40% of households have just one occupant in cities..."  Ah, now there's a large part of why I have long been put on the defensive about my choices---I have, with the exception of the one year in Austin, always lived and worked in small towns.  Even now, though I have a Broken Arrow address, I don't consider myself a city dweller, since I live far enough out that I don't even have to go through a light to get out of my neighborhood onto the Creek Turnpike and speed off to Locust.  Small towns are full of families, extended generations living on adjoining property, and, I fully believe, far too many marriages of all sorts of unhappiness, from silent despair to angry strife and beyond.  So why, WHY, is this something I need to subscribe to? 

The question, then, is really "Why NOT be single?"

Why not?  Because I am shy and awkward and don't meet people easily?  Yes, that's true, but nothing hinges on that.  I've even dated several men who talked with me about marriage---and that was pretty much always the moment that I was done.  Not that I went running, but I really had to examine the relationship and whether I could see it being enough to sustain me for the rest of my life.  No, never.  I just never bought in.

Why not?  Because I am a control freak?  Maybe, but I don't think people see me that way unless they've been teenagers in one of my classes, where I know I can be one rigid bitch about how things get done.  No, it's not the control-freak issue that keeps me single, but something close:  I am totally and completely capable of handling my life.  I don't need anyone to do that for me.  That, unfortunately, is not a very attractive quality to high-quality men (and I will NOT have any other kind!).  They want vulnerable; they want the drama and the romance of playing the superhero.  Even more unfortunately, a capable woman IS attractive to a variety of sub-par men who need or want someone to drive their lives FOR them.  I'm not going to regale you with any tales about Peter-Pan never-grow-up men, but BELIEVE me when I say, their numbers are legion.

Why not?  Because I've never been in love?  Definitely not so---See my Learning through the Ages blog about that one.  I just seem to have remarkably bad taste at choosing that one, who may or may not have been in love with me, but who was never actually in the running.  In the bitter duality of most true, real, raw life experiences, I know two things:  I wouldn't trade that time in my life for any price, but if I had married that one, I might well have wound up dead or in prison.  It's a ridiculous statement when I read it----and still I resolutely stand by it.

Why not?  Because I don't fit the American standards of beauty?  I've been convinced of that, oh, only my entire life.  Though as I've grown older and seen myself age, I've realized that I DID have some good qualities to work with. I was just never easy with myself and able to see them until I was LOSING them.  So I not only didn't have the right qualities, but I was so self-conscious and awkward that I projected no confidence at all---oh, confidence:  the best of beauty, by any standards, in any age. 

Why not?  Because I never saw a lot to envy about marriages?  This---this!---is possibly the kicker:  I've come to the (very dangerous) conclusion that marriage is not very advantageous to women in general, and that it's possible that humans aren't meant to mate for life.  That may seem like a wicked, immoral idea, but it's not about the morality, just the facts.  How many marriages are deeply satisfying in the everyday sense---a true partnership, deep affection, enduring passion, continuing interest in discovering life together, common values and goals?  Not many.  I can name the ones I admire on one hand.  Not more than five!  What does that SAY about the venerated institution?  It leaves me somewhat breathless to think of so many people joining up with the team, having never really thought about whether they truly want to join, or just think they have to join and play. 

Why not?  Because I have standards that are too high?  No.......I don't even know what I'd want, except in a very generic sense.  He must be of the best moral fiber and willing to do right.  He must have a job that I can respect him for, hopefully one that feeds his soul.  He must be smart, wise, but humble in spirit.  He must be kind and open-minded, but also confident and capable.  He must love the good in not just me, but everyone, without having to criticize every flaw.  He must be my best friend, an equal partner in everything----but willing to be my fortress in times of difficulty.  And---oh, please, ye gods!---he must have a sense of humor.  I suppose all these things may add up to standards that are too high.  But to buy in for a lifetime---yes, they are more than reasonable. 

I'm a comfortably single person.  I like to do my errands alone; I get them done much faster that way.  Going out to dinner by myself is a TREAT, just me and a book and my own thoughts.  I don't have any worries about pleasing anyone else's tempermental tastes, and I can stay up all night if I want, peace and solitude both inside and out.  That peace is worth more than a lifetime of unhappiness, bound to someone less than the best.  I'm VERY proud of the fact that I haven't been divorced, simply because I thought I "had" to be married to be counted as something in the world.  I AM something:  I'm a Single Person, happy and complete in that, and open to what life brings.  I'm absolutely confident I've made the right choices for my happiness.  I hope you are, too, dear reader. 

Blog Cheat (poem)

So far, I've done all my blogs in one sitting, the night I posted them, and published them with a quick review, though they were basically rough drafts.  This week, I knew what I wanted to write about and that it would be complex and layered, and I wanted it to be just right.  I started working on it last night.....and I'm still only on paragraph #3, barely started on the content, and stuck.  Now I have to punt.  So I'm pulling out one of my old pieces of poetry, one of the very few that I'd ever share with the world, to keep me on the Saturday-night posting deadline.  Even as important as that goal is to me, I'm having trouble clicking that "publish" button; I play my life with a game face, and putting my poetry out there feels dangerous, like I just showed my cards.  But here it goes....


Witness

I bow down at the Church of Words;
Strong nouns and verbs are my prayer.
With precise adjectives I'll win their souls,
And the Host will heal all split infinitives.

I lead a choir of vivid characterization.
We praise the fresh and beautifully spoken.
On our altars we light flames of feeling
And lay wreaths of shining phrases.

I carry the cross of words.
Pain is my rosary, passion my crown of thorns.
The poems pierce my hands and sides
But I fear only a wordless God.

                 cjw 1996

Bucket List #1

Oh, it's become way too fashionable and trite to have a bucket list, but I've never truly written one.  I have a lot of things in my head, most of the time, that I plan on, or more often wish I had the opportunity to do.  It won't take me long to fill up a short list, making up for the incredibly long blog I had last week (sorry about that, but it was so cathartic).

Here's what could pass for a rough draft bucket list:

1.  Drive the PCH.  I am a Welker, after all, and we love the challenge of a scenic road, any road, really. Having only been from LA down to San Diego, I feel like I missed out on a big part of what California is all about, especially from the northern part of the state.  Slipping up that highway would be a one-time thing I could not pass up.

2.  See Paris and Italy.  The rest of Europe would be great, too, but I know the chances of that grow less and less likely with every passing year. 

3.  Publish some piece of work that I'm really proud of.  Heck, just publishing anything should satisfy me----but no, I want it to be something I'm proud to have other people see.  I don't really count the blogosphere, since this mostly is a lot of self-indulgent navel-gazing.  (That's not something weird!  It just means being way self-absorbed---guilty as charged.)

4.  Live in some little dump in NYC for about 6 months or so, working a temp job or something small like ushering in one of the theaters, so I can have ample time to go to all the museums and historical sites during the day that I'd like to see.  And this time, I want to be there in the spring!

5.  Speaking of, I want to really experience those cherry blossoms in DC.  I've not been there at all, and I'd need time to do it right, to see all the historical sites.  I am eligible this year to compete for another Fund for Teachers grant, and I just may do it for this trip.

6.  This is a huge bucket list item, and probably just as fantastical as the others here:  to get off the majority of the medications I take.  I don't resent them, but it's financially debilitating.  I've gotten off some in the last few years, replaced a few with vitamins, but it would be sooo sweet to throw away the old-lady pill box forEVER.

7.  Find some of my extended relatives from both sides of my family, from the Cherokee heritage and the Yates/McCoy/Brown families on Mom's side, and from my great-grandad John Welker, who came to OK in the 1889 land run after fighting in the Civil War. 

8.  Learn to eat realllly healthy and love it. 

9.  Provide something wonderful (God knows it won't be money, but it could still be fantastic) to each of my three nephews and three nieces. 

10.  Anonymously leave a $500 tip somewhere that the person truly needs it.  Just being able to leave the tip is the bucket list item---but I crave the chance to make it count for someone who is down.

I could keep going for a long time on this, so there'll probably be another Bucket List on down the line.  For tonight, though, I need sleep.  More sleep----now that's a bucket list item I really need to get behind!