There's a vampire movie paused on my TV, and I'm anxious to get back to it. This immediately follows my first viewing of The Blair Witch Project---yes, I'm only about 15 years behind. The best thing I can say about that movie is that no one will ever, ever remake it (though the current trend is to remake EVERY movie more than 10 years old).
Now, if you knew me when I was under 30 or so, you might be a little surprised that I'm watching witch and vampire stuff. Frankly, I'm a little surprised myself.
I was known---WIDELY known---all the way into adulthood as the most chicken-shit spooky movie watcher in the world. There were a few people who took a great, terrifying pleasure in scaring the hell out of me when we watched anything that could be considered scary. I was easily spooked even when the movie wasn't scary! Notably, I remember when my cousin Bettina and I saw Beverly Hills Cop at the Allred Theater in Pryor when I was about 20 or so.....and I screamed (loudly) when Eddie Murphy got shot. Bettina slumped down in her seat like overcooked spaghetti; it was her hometown, after all, and she knew quite a few people there that night. Come to think of it, I'm not sure we ever went to a movie together again after that.
My nervous-Nellie-ness goes waaay farther back than that, though. I don't know what tipped her off, but my mother didn't let me watch anything, ANYthing, the least bit scary. No, that's not true: I do remember her and Theda Rae, the neighbor who babysat me, watching a scary movie on TV one night when I was very young. I remember sitting on Theda Rae's lap for part of it. The movie was about a girl who was a Satan worshiper. I can picture this scene so clearly, though it had to be around 47 years ago. The girl was asleep in her bed with a candle burning. There would be a shot of her sleeping, then the table by the bed with her photograph and the candle...then a shot of a statue of Satan standing there in her room. Repeat: sleep, photo, statue; sleep, photo.....and the statue, its glittering eyes turning to look at the girl in her bed!
I blame this movie for a lot of my Satan-terror when I was a kid, but also for the Hershey's-syrup-and-purple-satin-bedroom nightmare (that's in an earlier blog) that makes me laugh just a little too maniacally these days.
But after that, I wasn't allowed to watch even things on TV that were scary. Remember that TV movie that Elizabeth Montgomery did in the late 70's where she played Lizzie Borden? I remember being banned from the family room that night because there was NO WAY Mom was going to let me watch that. I sat in the living room, pocket doors closed, contentedly reading a book and eating popcorn. But I'm still a little pissed off about missing that movie.
When I went off to college, of course, there weren't nearly the kinds of movies we have now. But I just about refused to see all scary things; I'm not sure I saw Halloween or many other psycho killer things, but I know I saw Nightmare on Elm Street....stupidly. Freddy Kruger was the perfect sort of villain for my brand of hysteria. Shoot, even bad Stephen King stuff, like Salem's Lot, scared the shivers out of me. The original George Romero Night of the Living Dead---oh, crimeny. It makes my eyes water even now to think about how bad that freaked me out...or maybe it just makes my eyes water in embarrassment to admit that such a BAD movie scared me.
Somehow, though, I guess life teaches you there are much, much scarier things than vampires and zombies. Ghost Hunters started it, and then various other TV shows got me more desensitized to the supernatural. And then one day I noticed that my DVR was full of True Blood, Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and other oh-so-charming pieces of modern culture. Maybe I have lost my fear of those things because I'm long past childhood, the refuge of the mysterious and unexplained. Maybe I just outgrew the fear. Possibly I'm scarier than anything I think could ever come after me! Or perhaps it's just the medication: better living through chemistry.
This is not to say I don't believe in the supernatural.....well, a little. But that's another blog. Besides, my big bubba tom cat just heard a noise and went off growling to protect me, so I'm pretty safe. And I have to find out what's going to happen to the vampires who are running out of their blood supply on Daybreakers. Don't tell me how it ends----and don't call my phone and scare me into screaming. You know who you are.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Moon on Fire
Leaving the gym each night this week, I watched patiently for the waxing moon to the east; I knew it would be full soon. That moon, she greets me with a warm smile every time she arrives. I always try to give her a friendly "Hey" when she puts on her show.
For those of us with a dark spot in our being, night is our real home. Sunlight is too harsh and revealing, so the forms of light we trust and adore are the gentler moon and stars. We can stare at them as long as we like and they will not hurt us. Their cycles are not unlike the cycles our own lives take, the waxing and waning of our moods, the meteor showers of happiness. Many times, one thing or idea or person in my world has outshined all else, as Venus does at times---surely everyone who has ever lived has felt that way. No doubt there are people who have never seen the Milky Way, looking so thick and frosty that you wish you could sip it through a straw. I feel so sorry for them; they only have to look up to know it's there.
The Poets, of course, know the value of this easy metaphor, this fickle moon who shares herself willingly with anyone who will pay attention to her. The Bard himself loved to use the occasional lunar reference for his lovesick characters. There are those lesser poets who often get a little over-wrought and feverish about it---but still, they hit the mark in a way we all want to hear: "I'll come to thee by moonlight/ Though hell should bar the way." What girl wouldn't swoon at that?
One spring night long past, some 15 years ago, I was driving home from a regional speech contest where I was a judge for the team I had just given up the year before when I changed schools. The day had opened a chasm of loss and love I had for those kids, my Roland babies, and I drove nearly 50 miles, weeping aloud, windows down despite the cold to try to calm myself. At some point I looked out my car window to the left. In the western sky was the tiniest little splinter of a moon. I wasn't even sure it was real at first. In an instant, I was reminded of an evening in the spring of '93. I was driving home to Skedee from Austin to surprise my baby sister, who had the lead in the school play. It was long after midnight, and I was about 20 miles from home on a straight but hilly stretch of Highway 15. As I came over a hill, a bright orange light leaped into view. I thought at first that I had come upon a house fire, or maybe a hay-barn fire, and very close at that. I had never seen such a light at night outside of a city. But a fire? No---a colossal, pumpkin pie/carrot fire full moon. I wanted to stop, get out of the car, and try to touch it: it was just that large and real. I was awed that I got to see it, sped over hills hoping that it wouldn't have disappeared. And when I saw that meager little sickle moon, the night that I was so heartbroken and grieving for my kids, I recalled the earlier trip in an instant. I thought, "How sad. That's all that most people get in their lives, that little sliver. But I've had the moon on fire." I had been driving along mourning for things lost to me, then generously received a gentle reminder of how much more I've had and understood, all courtesy of that loving moon.
So I look forward to her show every chance I have to see it, wondering what message she will bring me: a muse for an art, an eye-catching presentation, or even a crucial insight to dry life's tears.
For those of us with a dark spot in our being, night is our real home. Sunlight is too harsh and revealing, so the forms of light we trust and adore are the gentler moon and stars. We can stare at them as long as we like and they will not hurt us. Their cycles are not unlike the cycles our own lives take, the waxing and waning of our moods, the meteor showers of happiness. Many times, one thing or idea or person in my world has outshined all else, as Venus does at times---surely everyone who has ever lived has felt that way. No doubt there are people who have never seen the Milky Way, looking so thick and frosty that you wish you could sip it through a straw. I feel so sorry for them; they only have to look up to know it's there.
The Poets, of course, know the value of this easy metaphor, this fickle moon who shares herself willingly with anyone who will pay attention to her. The Bard himself loved to use the occasional lunar reference for his lovesick characters. There are those lesser poets who often get a little over-wrought and feverish about it---but still, they hit the mark in a way we all want to hear: "I'll come to thee by moonlight/ Though hell should bar the way." What girl wouldn't swoon at that?
One spring night long past, some 15 years ago, I was driving home from a regional speech contest where I was a judge for the team I had just given up the year before when I changed schools. The day had opened a chasm of loss and love I had for those kids, my Roland babies, and I drove nearly 50 miles, weeping aloud, windows down despite the cold to try to calm myself. At some point I looked out my car window to the left. In the western sky was the tiniest little splinter of a moon. I wasn't even sure it was real at first. In an instant, I was reminded of an evening in the spring of '93. I was driving home to Skedee from Austin to surprise my baby sister, who had the lead in the school play. It was long after midnight, and I was about 20 miles from home on a straight but hilly stretch of Highway 15. As I came over a hill, a bright orange light leaped into view. I thought at first that I had come upon a house fire, or maybe a hay-barn fire, and very close at that. I had never seen such a light at night outside of a city. But a fire? No---a colossal, pumpkin pie/carrot fire full moon. I wanted to stop, get out of the car, and try to touch it: it was just that large and real. I was awed that I got to see it, sped over hills hoping that it wouldn't have disappeared. And when I saw that meager little sickle moon, the night that I was so heartbroken and grieving for my kids, I recalled the earlier trip in an instant. I thought, "How sad. That's all that most people get in their lives, that little sliver. But I've had the moon on fire." I had been driving along mourning for things lost to me, then generously received a gentle reminder of how much more I've had and understood, all courtesy of that loving moon.
So I look forward to her show every chance I have to see it, wondering what message she will bring me: a muse for an art, an eye-catching presentation, or even a crucial insight to dry life's tears.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
High Strung
I made an off-handed comment this week that really got me thinking. In a text to the absolutely wonderful guy I recently started dating, I told him I was getting a massage after school because my back was so knotted up, and that it was a pretty common thing for me because I'm a little high-strung and tend to carry all my stress in my shoulders and back. The sweet message I got back was something along the lines of, "How are you high-strung? I haven't seen that. I want you to feel like you can be yourself." I was teasing him about that this afternoon---wasn't he really saying, "Oh, holy crap, what does 'high-strung' mean? When is the other shoe gonna drop?" We both knew that he didn't mean that (well, maybe a little bit...), but it did make me consider what I really meant.
I've always been a little high-strung to my family. From my earliest memories, my family called me a worry-wart and often compared me to my paternal grandmother, who was intensely high-strung and nervous. The similarities were close enough that I took note of her personality when I was pretty young and decided that SHE made ME nervous by being so nervous. My maternal grandparents made me much easier in my mind; they were eminently practical people who dealt with the real problems of the world without getting all hyped up about it. I try to emulate that as much as I can now. But still....yes, I am a little high strung.
I hate loud noise, especially unexpected loud noises; they are physically painful to me and can make me want to bite something, like a startled dog would do.
I can't stand littering or trashy behavior, like kids drawing on desks at school. It feels like a bomb goes off in my head when I catch a kid using any kind of writing utensil on my desks. Most years, I never had much problem with it after the kids saw me go off over it once or twice early in the year. This year's class of juniors, though, doesn't seem to care what I think. It's been so bad that I have had to start making each class clean their desks every Friday before their tests because so many write their spelling words on the desktop in very, very light pencil. It's absolutely infuriating. And littering from cars---pshhh! If I ever make a citizen's arrest, it'll be for some idiot throwing a McDonald's bag out on the road.
I get caught up in my oldest-child syndrome a lot and put incredible pressure on myself to either do something perfectly or put on my poker face and convince the rest of the world that I really don't care about how a thing comes out. Both ways of approaching life take a tremendous amount of energy and spirit to craft the image I want to send out. It makes for a very private sort of personality----and a tense, high strung sort of character.
There are some standards that I just can't let go of, whether at work or my personal life. If I volunteer to work on a committee, for example, my conscience won't let me shirk, no matter how busy life gets. If a student asks for an opportunity to get bonus points, I won't give that kid a chance that I don't give to every other student. If I make a mistake, I just can't rest until I do something to try to make it right, even if it's only apologizing. I'll still lose sleep over it, too, though not as badly as I would have without apologizing. But for my personal convictions to make me a little high-strung surely isn't that bad.
The best example of how tense I can be is the fact that I can't just go home at night, no matter the hour, and go right to bed. I am much too tightly-wound for that. I have to sit at the computer or read or watch television for an hour or two to chill out, to let the wind-up toy in my head wear out and let me settle peacefully.
It's not like being high-maintenance: I'm a lazy shopper, a sloppy housekeeper, a casual girl who rarely wears anything dressy. I don't get particularly excited about hair and makeup, nor do I even try to stay fashionable. But watch out, world; if you try to squeeze me into any of those roles, the high-strung, tightly-wound Ms. Welker in me might snap and give you a piece of her mind---or a little nip on your hand.
I've always been a little high-strung to my family. From my earliest memories, my family called me a worry-wart and often compared me to my paternal grandmother, who was intensely high-strung and nervous. The similarities were close enough that I took note of her personality when I was pretty young and decided that SHE made ME nervous by being so nervous. My maternal grandparents made me much easier in my mind; they were eminently practical people who dealt with the real problems of the world without getting all hyped up about it. I try to emulate that as much as I can now. But still....yes, I am a little high strung.
I hate loud noise, especially unexpected loud noises; they are physically painful to me and can make me want to bite something, like a startled dog would do.
I can't stand littering or trashy behavior, like kids drawing on desks at school. It feels like a bomb goes off in my head when I catch a kid using any kind of writing utensil on my desks. Most years, I never had much problem with it after the kids saw me go off over it once or twice early in the year. This year's class of juniors, though, doesn't seem to care what I think. It's been so bad that I have had to start making each class clean their desks every Friday before their tests because so many write their spelling words on the desktop in very, very light pencil. It's absolutely infuriating. And littering from cars---pshhh! If I ever make a citizen's arrest, it'll be for some idiot throwing a McDonald's bag out on the road.
I get caught up in my oldest-child syndrome a lot and put incredible pressure on myself to either do something perfectly or put on my poker face and convince the rest of the world that I really don't care about how a thing comes out. Both ways of approaching life take a tremendous amount of energy and spirit to craft the image I want to send out. It makes for a very private sort of personality----and a tense, high strung sort of character.
There are some standards that I just can't let go of, whether at work or my personal life. If I volunteer to work on a committee, for example, my conscience won't let me shirk, no matter how busy life gets. If a student asks for an opportunity to get bonus points, I won't give that kid a chance that I don't give to every other student. If I make a mistake, I just can't rest until I do something to try to make it right, even if it's only apologizing. I'll still lose sleep over it, too, though not as badly as I would have without apologizing. But for my personal convictions to make me a little high-strung surely isn't that bad.
The best example of how tense I can be is the fact that I can't just go home at night, no matter the hour, and go right to bed. I am much too tightly-wound for that. I have to sit at the computer or read or watch television for an hour or two to chill out, to let the wind-up toy in my head wear out and let me settle peacefully.
It's not like being high-maintenance: I'm a lazy shopper, a sloppy housekeeper, a casual girl who rarely wears anything dressy. I don't get particularly excited about hair and makeup, nor do I even try to stay fashionable. But watch out, world; if you try to squeeze me into any of those roles, the high-strung, tightly-wound Ms. Welker in me might snap and give you a piece of her mind---or a little nip on your hand.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
The Best Ever
It takes a lot to make an English teacher to commit to the written word as being "perfect." Out of tens of thousands of essays I've graded in my career, I think I have given three perfect scores, possibly four. It's not because I'm so incredibly picky; it's just that there is almost always a way to improve a piece of writing. That is, if you aren't F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, or Charlotte Bronte. There are three books that I have read almost every year for the last twenty years, even though I've only taught one of those more than a handful of times. They are my favorites, the standards by which I judge all books.
Jane Eyre is the only book of my favorites that I have never taught in any class. I don't know that I could encompass all of it, especially since I have no good touch with British lit, or even whether I could make it relevant for today's student. But what a multi-faceted jewel it is! There are such distinctly different sections, each with its own light to give off. Jane's childhood as an orphan raised by a cruel aunt-by-marriage is an exercise in humility and injustice. It would take a harder heart than mine to be unmoved by this little girl starving for love and finding only indifference; when Jane is locked up in a "haunted" bedroom and faints from terror, I feel every thrilling agony of her pain. When she is sent to a harsh but ultimately blessed education in a private school, I recognize the joy of discovering that there were others in the world like me. When she falls in love with the sophisticated but untamed Mr. Rochester---ahh, every girl knows that feeling. Her grief at coming close to happiness with him, only to have it snatched away by his secret (locked away under her very nose), is the same as any girl's grief at losing a great love. And each time I read it, when they are restored to one another by fate, I see the hope that all will be fine for each plain, lonely, lost girl who ever longed for just one great, true love. When Jane says, "Reader, I married him...," well, if you've been reading my blogs from the start, you may recognize that form of address. I have to confess that I copied Bronte every time I spoke to you, dear readers, directly. Forgive me the plagiarism and read the book if you have never taken the time. You'll be charmed as I am, each time.
There is one book that can instantly transport me back to my earliest childhood in Skedee, population not-very-darn-many, in the late 60's. No, To Kill a Mockingbird isn't set in that time---it's a good 30 years earlier---but in small-town Oklahoma, things run a few decades behind the times. The story of Scout was so familiar to me that I wrote a major personal reflective essay titled Me 'n' Scout for my Southern Women Writers course when I was completing my Master's degree. I have even refused to watch the film of the book because I can't stand the thought of changing the vision of it I have in my head: our own little white house, the older house across the street (gone now for decades), the neighbors with the terrifying shaggy black-and-white dog that used to chase me, our church, the ragged sidewalk, my beloved babysitter Theda Rae down the street.....so many pictures mixed up in my mind that it's sometimes hard to recall what happened in the book and what happened in my life. Sometimes, I almost convince myself that I lived next door to Boo Radley instead of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, or that the rabid dog, Tim, was McMillan's crazy dog chasing me on my little red bicycle. I know it's a trick of my mind because I've read the book so many times, but I can almost feel like I'm revisiting my childhood by reading Mockingbird again---not a bad way to time travel.
But by far, because I teach it and my students come to love it, The Great Gatsby has the greatest hold on me. It has something for every part of my spirit: the pragmatist loves the historical setting; the romantic, the idea of an all-consuming love captured in vivid, poetic language; the realist, the totally believable but cruel fates of those who are powerless, crushed by love and lovers. It's the lyricism of the written word Fitzgerald paints his world with that has my heart, but Francis Ford Coppola's film is so beautifully executed and so faithful to the text that I have no problem sharing the book with my students that way---and they never fail to see the ironic beauty of the story, captured in such gorgeous detail on film. I still read it when I have them watch it, and I see something new every time, though I've read it dozens of times now. I have the latest movie version on DVD, but I haven't brought myself to watch it yet, fearing how it might corrupt my beloved Gatsby, the character, and Gatsby, the man.
No, these aren't the only books that I have an enduring love for. I could probably never convey the meaning that books have had in my life; it's the ONE area where I agree with the old (awful) platitude that "those who can't, teach," because I could never come within a thousand miles of writing anything as glorious as some single sentences from these greats. But I CAN teach and share the greats and pray that one day, someone with an equal craft might pass through my class on the way to writing a fourth great book to capture my undying affection.
Jane Eyre is the only book of my favorites that I have never taught in any class. I don't know that I could encompass all of it, especially since I have no good touch with British lit, or even whether I could make it relevant for today's student. But what a multi-faceted jewel it is! There are such distinctly different sections, each with its own light to give off. Jane's childhood as an orphan raised by a cruel aunt-by-marriage is an exercise in humility and injustice. It would take a harder heart than mine to be unmoved by this little girl starving for love and finding only indifference; when Jane is locked up in a "haunted" bedroom and faints from terror, I feel every thrilling agony of her pain. When she is sent to a harsh but ultimately blessed education in a private school, I recognize the joy of discovering that there were others in the world like me. When she falls in love with the sophisticated but untamed Mr. Rochester---ahh, every girl knows that feeling. Her grief at coming close to happiness with him, only to have it snatched away by his secret (locked away under her very nose), is the same as any girl's grief at losing a great love. And each time I read it, when they are restored to one another by fate, I see the hope that all will be fine for each plain, lonely, lost girl who ever longed for just one great, true love. When Jane says, "Reader, I married him...," well, if you've been reading my blogs from the start, you may recognize that form of address. I have to confess that I copied Bronte every time I spoke to you, dear readers, directly. Forgive me the plagiarism and read the book if you have never taken the time. You'll be charmed as I am, each time.
There is one book that can instantly transport me back to my earliest childhood in Skedee, population not-very-darn-many, in the late 60's. No, To Kill a Mockingbird isn't set in that time---it's a good 30 years earlier---but in small-town Oklahoma, things run a few decades behind the times. The story of Scout was so familiar to me that I wrote a major personal reflective essay titled Me 'n' Scout for my Southern Women Writers course when I was completing my Master's degree. I have even refused to watch the film of the book because I can't stand the thought of changing the vision of it I have in my head: our own little white house, the older house across the street (gone now for decades), the neighbors with the terrifying shaggy black-and-white dog that used to chase me, our church, the ragged sidewalk, my beloved babysitter Theda Rae down the street.....so many pictures mixed up in my mind that it's sometimes hard to recall what happened in the book and what happened in my life. Sometimes, I almost convince myself that I lived next door to Boo Radley instead of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, or that the rabid dog, Tim, was McMillan's crazy dog chasing me on my little red bicycle. I know it's a trick of my mind because I've read the book so many times, but I can almost feel like I'm revisiting my childhood by reading Mockingbird again---not a bad way to time travel.
But by far, because I teach it and my students come to love it, The Great Gatsby has the greatest hold on me. It has something for every part of my spirit: the pragmatist loves the historical setting; the romantic, the idea of an all-consuming love captured in vivid, poetic language; the realist, the totally believable but cruel fates of those who are powerless, crushed by love and lovers. It's the lyricism of the written word Fitzgerald paints his world with that has my heart, but Francis Ford Coppola's film is so beautifully executed and so faithful to the text that I have no problem sharing the book with my students that way---and they never fail to see the ironic beauty of the story, captured in such gorgeous detail on film. I still read it when I have them watch it, and I see something new every time, though I've read it dozens of times now. I have the latest movie version on DVD, but I haven't brought myself to watch it yet, fearing how it might corrupt my beloved Gatsby, the character, and Gatsby, the man.
No, these aren't the only books that I have an enduring love for. I could probably never convey the meaning that books have had in my life; it's the ONE area where I agree with the old (awful) platitude that "those who can't, teach," because I could never come within a thousand miles of writing anything as glorious as some single sentences from these greats. But I CAN teach and share the greats and pray that one day, someone with an equal craft might pass through my class on the way to writing a fourth great book to capture my undying affection.
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