When My Kids Are In School

It will get easier.

I can finally become a full time teacher.

I can make more money.

I will have time to myself again.

There will be less pressure.

These are all things I have said to myself in passing when I think about how much easier things get once babies become kids become students in school.  Yes.  I too have thought of school as a kind of daycare.

And that is where the problem lies, for me.

I have come to realize more and more, with each passing anecdote, that school has become glorified daycare.  Daycare with tests and worksheets and, in my area at least, knife fights.

There was an all out brawl between two freshman boys in front of my apartment building last week because one boy stole the other boy's iPhone 5.  The boy getting beat up was the one attempting to reclaim his stolen property.  He ended up on the ground, receiving several kicks to his head and stomach, before the police finally arrived.

Flash forward to my child in her first year of high school.  What do I tell her?  Let people steal from you.  No.  That's not right.  Stand up for what is right.  And get beat up?  No.  That's not right either.  Pay attention in your self defense classes?

Ugh.

Add to the issue of violence the one of test driven classrooms.  Worksheets being sent home to the students I tutor that involve basically filling in the blanks.  These answers can be found with a simple google search.  The work takes less than ten minutes (depending on your internet speed), and my students are learning nothing.  The night before a test, they memorize the information, get an A on the test, and forget everything before dinner the next night.  These examples come from an area of wealth, from schools that are supposedly highly competitive and catering to children of educated parents.  Imagine what schools in my inner city area are like.

Learning should be about critical thinking, about challenging expectations, about asking questions and communicating with peers.  Ideas.

Fun.

A recent study published on education in kindergarden in the U.S.

http://www.thestrong.org/sites/default/files/play-studies/Crisis_in_Kindergarten.pdf

found that fewer than 30 minutes a day were dedicated to play for kindergardeners in school.

Apparently, teachers simply do not have the time to allow for play in the classroom anymore because of the intense curricular demands placed on them by districts pushing for improved test scores.

Test scores!?

For a five year old?

In kindergarden children learn letter recognition, beginning phonics, and phonetics.  They work on colors, shapes, and basic counting with numbers.  These are all things that can be taught through play.  I know.  I do it with my almost two year old.

We are now placing test taking pressure on five year olds to excel in literacy tests?

It is ridiculous.

Fine, you say, how about private school?

Here is my problem with private school then:  is it really any better?  Is private school also not just glorified daycare?  I know kids who go to private school.  For the most part, in my experience, private school is very child driven, giving children an overinflated ego and sense of superiority.   This is not to say that there are not wonderful private schools with strong critical thinkers and creative ways of teaching.  There are.  I have taught at some of them.  But my students complained that their peers were doing cocaine in the parking lots and having sex parties while their parents were out of town.  So.  Private school has its own set of problems.

As a teacher, I cannot imagine sending my five year old off to a classroom to be taught to sit still, shut up, do well on tests, and get good grades.

She is not a bank, or a safety deposit box.  I will not have teachers attempting to simply "deposit" information into her brain.

My favorite quote runs through my head every time I get caught up in my education rant:  "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."

Yet, as a mother, I cannot imagine spending thousands of dollars each year on a private school education that may or may not be any better than public school (except for the knife fights).

Here I am then.  What choices are left to me?

Working harder to find a small private school that fits my desires for Celaya's education, that it be creative, that she be taught how to think critically, that she is challenged daily, that she has room to play, that she is encouraged to love learning.

It might work.  Maybe I will find an affordable, revolutionary, local private school that serves all of these purposes.

The reality more likely brings me to the last two possibilities I have come up with:

Open my own school...

or

Homeschool.

I know.  I know.  Open my own school?  What do I know about running a school?  Where would I get the resources?  Who would attend?  Who would teach?

Ahhhh!

Homeschool?

When I mentioned this to my brother he raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head, "do not homeschool your kid."

Right?  The image of the dorky kid with no social life flashes through everyone's mind.

Can I do better than that image with Celaya?  Maybe.  Hopefully.

What I know for sure is that the first option is out.  I just cannot, in this moment, imagine sending her out into the wild world of public school.

We have also decided we will definitely keep her home for at least the first year.  I can teach her kindergarden.

Beyond that?  I am not sure.  But I do know that the work begins now.  I have to begin researching, preparing, planning, allocating resources, networking, and on and on.

I will keep you posted as I become more informed, better educated, less overwhelmed, and less terrified that "when my kids are in school" may not be a reality for a long, long time.

It will get easier, right?

It's a Joke! Kind of.

"How was your break?"  Asks one of my coworkers on my first day back from having eighteen days home for the holidays.

"Wonderful.  Fabulous.  So much fun.  And I'm so glad to be back at work."

"He he he," is the general response in the room of a few of my coworkers.

It is an uncomfortable kind of laughter that people produce when a joke is inappropriate, or just lame.

And then again, tonight:

"The problem with Elmo is that he is supposed to be a typical four year old, which is cute, in moderation.  But being with a small child like that all the time can get grating, which is what happened when Elmo was all of a sudden everywhere."

We were discussing children's programming at the end of the evening as a group of us were walking out, and the conversation turned to Elmo's irritating qualities.

"I know.  I know.  Why do you think I was so happy to come back to work?  And mine's only almost two!"

Again:  "He he he."  Or even, "awww don't say that."

It's a joke!  Kind of.

I am so happy to be back to work.  Before my daughter was born, I thought I would go into a PhD program full time.  Barring that, I figured I would find full time teaching work.  After my daughter was born, I decided to be a stay at home mom.

Three months later, I went back to work part time.

This situation has been ideal for me.  I have a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature and I get to use my education to pursue my passion for teaching and discussing language and literature.

I also get to be a full time mom who works part time, instead of the two alternatives:  full time employee who is with her kid part time, or stay at home mom.

I am fully engaged with Celaya when I am home with her, playing, teaching, exploring, listening, reading, and those are just the things I do that center around her.  Everything else I do when she is awake still involves her somehow.  She empties the dishwasher with me.  She helps me cook.  She helps with laundry.  She holds the cord while I vacuum.  Or I hold her.  She dusts my already dusted shelf while I am dusting.  She is the absolute ultimate without question center of my universe when she is awake and we are together, which is the vast majority of my time.

And dear goddess is that exhausting.  She wears me out.

But it is a good kind of worn out, like a great workout, or a productive day at work.  Being a full time, fully engaged mom is hard work.

Going to my profession work is actually a break for me.  It also reminds me that I have a vocabulary and reading and writing level beyond Olivia Helps With Christmas, an added benefit.

It is interesting to me that so many people are uncomfortable with a mother saying, "man it's nice to take a break from my kid."

Now, to be fair, all but two of the people I work with have no children, so obviously, in their minds, children are cute and cuddly or annoying and repulsive.  The complexity of children and what is involved in raising them is beyond anyone who does not actually have children.  I know.  I was in the cute and cuddly camp before Celaya burst into my world with strong lungs and a thirsty, sponge like mind.

And the one woman I work with who has children asked today, when I mentioned how rigid I am about Celaya's schedule, "how do you get your husband to put her to bed on time?"

She was genuinely interested.  There was a clear sense of "Mama needs her alone time" camaraderie.

She gets it.  Parents get it.  Or at least they should.

I read a blog on the Huffington Post today by a woman who was confessing to her rage issues with her children:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-bradford/the-part-of-parenting-were-too-scared-to-talk-about_b_4531665.html

I will confess, I cannot relate.  I have never felt rage toward or because of Celaya.  And I have felt some pretty extreme rage.  But I know I am fortunate to be an older mom.  Having my daughter at 33, after graduating from graduate school, and being married to an incredibly supportive and involved husband makes for an enormous capacity for patience and empathy.  I have always tried to see things through my baby's eyes.  How difficult it must be to be separated from her mother, how painful it must be to have colic, or to be teething, how frustrating it must be to want something and not understand why she cannot have it.

Yes, I get frustrated, but I have learned (over years and years of practice and dedication) to breathe through my frustration, and I try to reason with my quickly developing, energetic, anxious, eager toddler, in whatever way possible.

Rage?  Never.

But I can empathize.  I can try to imagine what it would be like to feel the rage I have felt in the past toward the person I love most in the world, and then the guilt and shame that must come from that.  Since I have become a mother, I have tried not to judge other mothers who are clearly just trying to do the best they can with what they have.  I have not always achieved this goal, but it is a work in progress, thanks, in large part, to having read Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother.  This book should be required reading for anyone who gives any thought at all to criticizing a parent.

My daughter pushes me to my limits.  And I know that my limits are different than other parents' limits. And I know that I only have one child to push me (one big reason I have chosen to wait a bit longer before having another limit pusher).  And I know that my child is not even two years old yet.  Hopefully my limits will grow along with my little bundle of chaos warrior princess in light blue Converse.

She drives me crazy.  She is the greatest reward I have ever been given.  She makes me laugh.  I cry when she hurts.  I worry more, fear more, love harder, and push farther for her than I ever have before for anyone in this way. And yes, I am so happy to be back to work, back to balance, back to short, temporary breaks from my beautiful brazen bossy baby.

So please, parents and non-parents, just laugh at my jokes.

Love Means Never Saying "I'm Sorry"

Of all the Hallmark card sayings, the empty expressions, the meaningless phrases I’ve ever heard, this one is probably the biggest crock.

My husband and I have been together for almost a decade.  I say I’m sorry all the time!  I am constantly making mistakes; contrary to popular belief, I am not, in fact, perfect.  I mess up, I apologize, and I try to learn from my errors.  I am also a mother of a toddler who watches everything I do now, so I am trying to be a role model.  I want the people who are brave enough to love me, and those who do not really have a choice, to want to be around me, to continue to love me.  So I humble myself, I think about what I’ve done, I apologize, and I hope to fix it, make it up, heal the wounds I have caused.

I have not always been this way.  I used to throw plates, and cut with my words.  When I was much younger, I would use my extensive vocabulary and skill with language to make people feel low, to hurt as deeply as I could.  Why?  Because I was wounded myself, I suppose, and misery loves company.  I have looked back on the damage I have caused, at the casualties I have left behind, and I feel sorry.  I have regrets, and for the people still in my life, strong enough to have stuck it out, I hope I have apologized enough, in enough ways, to move forward without looking back.  For those no longer in my life, I hope the hurt I have brought has not led to further hurting.

I am sorry.  I do have regrets.  Another ridiculous expression:  “Live life with no regrets.”

Really?  If you could go back and accidentally hit that person with your car, you would do it all again?  If you could ignore your children while you catered to your own selfish needs, you would still sit watching that program on television while your daughter begged you to have a tea party with her, still do those drugs, still push those babies away?  You wouldn’t fight harder to go to college?  Pay more attention in class?  Hold your loved ones closer?  Tell them you love them more often?  Say I’m sorry quicker?

I would. 

But we cannot go back.  What we can do is move forward, acknowledging our mistakes, and trying to make them better.  We can hold our loved ones now.  Tell them we love them now.  And say we’re sorry when we hurt them.  For we will hurt them, no matter how hard we try not to. 

I swear it seems like as soon as I learn from one mistake, I make a new one.

And there is a clear difference between the “yea yea, I’m sorry” that you give a sibling or friend when you are younger and your parents make you apologize (or when you are older and you still act like you are younger), and the genuine regret you show when you actually feel it.

We all know the difference, both the givers and the receivers, so the false apologizers know what they’re doing when they say “what? I said I was sorry.”  Or worse, “well, I don’t always want to be saying I’m sorry, because I know I’m going to mess up again, and it’s going to start sounding meaningless.”

What?  No.  You say you’re sorry when you mess up.  Period.

Unless you are not, in fact, sorry.

In which case, I am.

I Am Not Black

I know.  I know.  Yet another shocking confession.

But this is an issue I have been thinking about, pondering on, mulling over in my mind for years and years.  And years.  The older I get, the more I learn, the more I experience, the louder the beat of this particular drum becomes in my writer's mind.

I grew up in a neighborhood and went to schools in the San Francisco Bay Area that were predominantly white, black, and hispanic.  The white people in our area were mostly middle class and I just never fit in with them; the white girls from my elementary school went on to become cheerleaders and wear pale pink cardigans in high school while my parents could barely afford to buy me one pair of shoes from Mervyn's a school year, much less pay for cheerleading fees. The hispanic girls hated me; they pulled my hair as I walked down the halls of my middle school and ridiculed me for my beat up shoes and hand-me-down sweaters.  Black people took me in.  I'm not really sure why.  For all intents and purposes, I was the ultimate enemy.  I dated black boys and represented everything that black girls supposedly hated, a white girl taking one of their men.  That's what the movies tell you.  But I hadn't seen any of those movies yet, and I just knew that I felt at home with the black kids at school and in their homes after school.  

Once, when the Chicana girls at school came after me, my girlfriends surrounded me, forming an outward facing circle around a dirty, low-class, white girl with no other friends and a sure beating in my future if not for their help.  Later that year, those same would be attackers beat another girl so badly that she needed stitches in her vagina from repeated kicks to that area while she was lying on the ground already knocked out senseless.  Right after school.  Right off campus.  

My best friend in middle school took me home one night to stay over.  She had an older brother and a single mother, and they treated me like just another of her friends.  I had a crush on another boy who lived in the same apartment complex, Mondo, who had been flirting with me at school.  Finally, away from I home, I had the freedom to take a walk with this boy, and after wandering for a few moments, just the two of us, we snuck behind some bushes in the complex and began kissing.  I was thirteen.  Kissing was all I had ever done and all I had ever planned to do.  Mondo had different ideas.  He quickly shoved his hand down my pants and before I knew what was happening he had his penis out and rubbing against me.  I freaked out.  I tried to end this encounter, but he grabbed me, pushed me against the wall, and held me there.  Fortunately, it was early evening and we were in a fairly public place.  Someone walked by, I yelled out and broke away.  

When I got back to my friend's house I told her and her mother what had happened.  I wanted to call the police.  I was terrified.  I had been violated.  

At that point, the mother gave me a lesson in white humility.  No, I would not be another "white girl victim of big black brute."  I do not remember exactly what she said to me, but my experience with this strong black woman relating to me the impact of my own actions as a soon to be white woman stuck with me much more than the scary moment behind the bush with the violent boy.

Mondo went on to impregnate another white girl a year later and then beat her up at school when he found out she was pregnant, throwing her to the ground and kicking her in the stomach repeatedly to ensure abortion of her fetus.  

I realize now, years later, that some see his crime as typical of an "angry black man."  For me, it was simply an atrocious act carried out by a horrible person.  My perspective was probably due to the fact that most of my filter was through black friends.  "Can you believe he did that?"  "Stupid white girl."  "Yep, he's gonna be in and out of jail for the rest of his life."  

I was Diggy in Save the Last Dance, the one white girl in a sea of black faces.  "Oh, that's Diggy.  She thinks she's down."  And Diggy responds, "please, I am down."  Yea, that was me.

I did.  When I was in high school, and even beyond.  I thought I was bad.  I would raise my eyebrows and say things like, "I wish you would!"  "I wish he would!"  I picked fights because I was so hard.  Sometimes my little sister would say things to me like, "you think you're black," or "you wish you were black."

No.  I do not remember ever wishing I was black.  But I do remember liking black people a lot more than white people.  I knew there was a war going on, however discreet, however insidious, and I knew which side I was on.  It wasn't the white side.  One of the great loves of my life was a black man who said to me once, "admit it, Shanna, you're racist."  

"What!?"  I distinctly remember this moment, sitting in his car, looking over at him in the driver seat, astounded.

"You hate white people."  And he laughed and laughed.

And I have to admit, at the time, it rang a little bit true.

But that was before college, before years of education and maturity, and working through generalizations and sweeping hatred.

My freshman year in high school, my English teacher let us write an essay on any autobiography we wanted.  I chose The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  Back then, I understood his hatred.  I understood the anger.  It was only after a long time, decades of life really, that I understood the matured point of view he adopted later in life.  When I was younger, I would have been that one white girl, "the little blonde coed," he talks about who walked up to him and asked how she could help his cause. 

In college, English majors had four options to choose from as emphases in our field.  I chose minority literature, "New Voices."  I studied Black Literature, Hispanic Literature, Native American Literature, and even, finally, found my way to Women's Literature.  But Black Literature, Black History, Black culture, have always been the subjects that rang the truest to me.  I found my love of Women's Literature, in fact, my way to feminism, through Black Literature.

Now, I am still that white girl walking up to Malcolm, but I respond to the answer he says he wishes he would have given her, to work from within the white community, to change minds and hearts within our own community.  I understand when he says that black people have to head their own communities, lead their own people, to the exclusion of white people in many cases, because of the deep seated psychological superiority/inferiority complex within us all that has been actively at work for centuries.  I recognize I have power in society as a simple matter of being born white.  I do not apologize for being white, and I think the idea that anyone does is simply ridiculous.  I see these websites and articles entitled "never apologize for being white" and shake my head.  

Right, we are overrun with people apologizing to black people for being white.  That is the big problem we face in society today.

The truth is that I do not really have any black friends today.  My friends are mostly white, hispanic, and Iranian.  This reality is one that at times shocks me, considering my youthful days, and also one that saddens me.  I want my daughter in school with people from all backgrounds.  I want her to feel part of a world full of color, not like the brown girl in a sea of white faces.

I realized right before Christmas that all of her dolls and figurines are white.  

"Ahhhhh!!!  She needs black dolls!  She needs brown Little People!"  

"Honey, she's twenty one months old.  We have time to get her more dolls."  My husband, ever the voice of reason.

Many things have come up recently that have made this blog post weigh heavily on my mind, and I still have not said all I want to say, nor am I even sure I have said what I want to say effectively.  

The Duck Dynasty "scandal" was one thing.  How a man can go on record and say that black people were happier before civil rights, that he knows this to be true because he worked side by side with them in the cotton fields, and they never complained is beyond me.  In fact, he says, they sang happy songs. 

Really?  A white man with an audience of millions teaching other white people that black people were so much happier "before welfare and other entitlements," is a detriment to society.

The other big thing that has stuck in my craw as the white girl fighting against racism from within my own community is the Black Girl Dangerous article on Beyonce's latest album.  I was with Mia McKenzie all the way through her article on Black feminism versus White feminism, mysogyny, hypocrisy, and unity, until the very end, when she says:

"One of my favorite scenes in all of Beyonce’s new videos is in “Partition” when she drops that napkin just so that white woman has to pick it up. I read it as an incredible moment wherein a powerful black woman flips the script on white women who are constantly trying to put her in “her place” and in one subtle movement puts them in theirs."

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mia.  Really?

So, here we have Malcolm in his younger days then, ready to respond to me, "nothing," when I ask what it is I can do.  

If the point is to "flip the script" and put white women in our place, then what?  White people's place is to pick up the droppings of black people?  To now be inferior to black people?  To further the dichotomy, the segregation, the hierarchical structure, just inverted?  And then what?  Then after a few hundred years of that arrangement, whites will say, "okay, now we're even."  Or the "script" will be flipped once again, after years of bitter resentment and white people will once again subjugate black people, and the cycle will continue.  

I have this same issue with women claiming superiority over men.

Working toward equality does not allow for racial superiority or gender superiority of any sort.  

I am not black.  I cannot ever empathize with the struggles, with driving while black, shopping while black, living while black.  I can only sympathize, listen, read, observe, and work from within my own community.  

I teach my students about black history.  I buy my daughter books with children of color, dolls with different skin color.  I take her to my city parks where she will encounter children of all colors.  And, yes, I do hope to befriend mothers of color along the way.  Because I think our experience on earth is enriched by our differences, not by our similarities.  I learn more from people different from me than from those similar to me.  I learn from people who challenge my beliefs.  

And while I know that regardless of what I say, how carefully I choose my words, there will still be people out there who would read this and say "she's white.  She can never understand."

Fine.  But in my attempt to get there, closer to understanding, further in my fight towards equality, I will listen to Malcolm.  Not Mia.

I know my place.

Christmas

Ultimately, it is about family.  Isn’t it?

And family means all sorts of things to all sorts of people.

To me, family means choices.

Today, I choose not to fight.  I choose not to pick this battle or that one.  I choose to let go.  I choose to love and laugh even if deep down I want to yell and complain.  I choose to breathe in family, to remember how grateful I am for their presence in my life, however limited or overwhelming it may be, depending on the day. 

This Christmas has been a different one for me than any other Christmas, and I do think it has most to do with my immediate family:  my husband, my brother, and my daughter.

My husband is my rock.  He is home.  After eight years together I can say that wherever he is, home is.  So this year, after all this time, I feel like I am home for Christmas because we are together.  My thirty sixth Christmas is the first Christmas I have celebrated in my own house, and felt like I was having Christmas at home.  He heals my wounds, he keeps me steady, he shows me that life is meant to be lived to its fullest, and that you can always come home at the end of the day to recover and begin again.

My brother is my reason.  Whenever I begin to feel irrational about things, I think of what I must look like through his eyes, and it calms me down (mostly).  He is the advocate of the underdog, the savior of the picked upon, the shoe’s on the other foot guy.  Usually I do not even have to hear his thoughts on an issue, I know what he will say, and I bounce my ideas off that.  He reminds me that life is not pure emotion, and that the world does not revolve around me and mine.  His logic brings home that after all, it really is about the ones we love, and that we should love better, without exception.

My daughter is my sunshine.  I cannot be sad long when she looks me in the eyes, grabs my face in both of her tiny, pudgy hands, and says, oh so seriously, “Baby have more cookie.  One more.  Last time.”  She holds her finger up, shaking it up and down, to emphasize the point.  Watching her see the tree with presents under it for the first time, letting her open each present in her own time, which ended up stretching out her present joy for hours, letting her eat cookies for breakfast, cheerios and yogurt melts right before dinner, giving her her own little mug of milk next to her mama’s and papa’s mugs of coffee in the morning, letting her walk next to her stroller instead of sitting inside of it for some of our walk, all of these allowances and tiny pleasures took us out of our usual rigid routine and schedule and made today a real celebratory holiday.  She had a day full of sunshine, so I did as well.

I am not religious.  At this point I do not think I ever will be.  But I believe Jesus lived.  I believed he had a message full of hope, love, acceptance, tolerance, and yes, activism for the poor, the weak, the downtrodden.  Jesus is a hero of mine.  I have admired him for years.  God?  I remain agnostic on that point.  Awesome?  Absolutely.  White?  Absolutely not. (oh, wait, that’s another post)

In the end, this Christmas has been the best Christmas I have ever had.  Because I see the message of Jesus in my husband, in my brother, and in my daughter.  And I ask myself, what would Carlos do?  What would Teno do?  What would Celaya do?

Live fully.  Love hard.  Laugh loud.  That’s what.  And so I will as well.

Writers Gotta Write

Yes, we do.

But we also have to not die.  At least until we are published.

I have not blogged in ten days, and it has been a difficult ten days.  Writing is constantly on my mind.  I am always writing.  In fact, before I went on my hiatus from writing I had at least four separate blogs running through mind at different times, sometimes blending, separating, blending separating, like entwined branches of a twisted old tree.  Katy Perry's lyrics will spark a topic in my mind and I will not be able to stop myself from writing in my head.  When I was in college, I would write while doing the dishes, laundry, dusting, while I was out running, or driving to school or work.  I can see the words unfolding on the page.  I imagine the delete key, backing up, nope, can't say that, uh uh, don't really mean that, and so on until I finally get in front of the keyboard and begin spilling my thoughts onto the page.

The problem is that in my life now, it can be a great distance from my mind to the keyboard.  In terms of immediate need, Baby takes top priority, then Work, then Self, then Husband, then Brother.  And by immediate need I mean that Celaya will not sit idly by while I write; I cannot write from work; I cannot write unless I know I'll sleep at least 6 hours that night (I typically write at night); Carlos deserves my attention; and by the time Teno comes out to talk to me about whatever show he is watching, or insist that we finally watch The Conjuring after weeks of him waiting, I simply cannot turn him away so that I can write.

When my life is normal, I have no problem saying, "no, I have to write."

But life has not been normal lately.  My perfect balance has been pushed to its limits and it has taken everything I have as a thirty five year old woman well versed in what happens when life loses its balance to maintain my balance.

So I've slept.  I've spent time with my husband.  I've walked-wandered-strolled-stopped to look at butterflies with my toddler.  We all finally sat down to watch The Conjuring.  All of my Christmas shopping is done (see upcoming blog on Christmas).  In short, I have worked on getting firmly back to the Woman Wife Mama place I am so hell bent on occupying.

And I have returned to the keyboard, to talk about the very thing I have been missing so much:  writing, and why I have been missing it.

One thing I have heard much from other writers, and something I have noticed myself often, is that good writing comes from loads of reading.  So while I have not had time to sit down and focus on writing at my desk, I have done a fair amount of reading in the last few weeks, all of which has given me food for additional thought.  The easiest thing to read in order to keep reading as a busy mother and wife who works is an article, essay, or blog.  A few days ago I happened to be having a conversation with a coworker on the essays of female fiction writers.  She was recommending a local author, Rebecca Solnit, whom I have not read (she is now on my list).  I was extolling the work of Jennifer Weiner, whom she has not read.

I remembered reading a book by women artists on turning 30 when I was 30 and thinking that one of my favorite essays was by Jennifer Weiner, an author I have loved since I happened across her book, Good In Bed.  I love her voice.  I love her activism.  I love her philosophy.  I was fortunate to have a free schedule in that moment and looked her up online, only to find an incredible piece on her website specifically for people looking to get published.  I have included her link below.

http://www.jenniferweiner.com/forwriters.htm

While I am certainly not looking to get published at this point, I do think about what I would write if I were to write a novel.  Fiction?  Fictionalized memoir?  Book of essays?  Fantasy with socio-political bent?

I am not sure, which is why I have dozens of beginnings to stories and essays saved on my laptop, but I have neither truly finished nor sent anything out.

What I do have is this blog, which is, to me, my lead in.  Here, I can work through ideas of all kinds to exercise my writing muscle, without stressing too much about perfection in terms of structure, development, and organization, all the while keeping those things in mind because I simply cannot help it.  Does this post have a clear purpose?  Does that post flow well from idea to idea?  Does the beginning wind appropriately through the middle and toward the end?  All of these critical questions are in my head as I type away, cut and paste, delete, and, ultimately, post.  Too many commas?  Probably.

Most of what Weiner says in her essay for writers I had either already heard, or already intuited, but again, I enjoy her writing; it is nice to be reminded of things like:

"a writer writes. If you're going to be a writer, nothing, not even a difficult major, can stop you. You'll write poems, you'll write stories, you'll begin a novel about suicide or bisexuality or a suicidal bisexual that will forever languish in a shoebox beneath your bed, but you will write. You'll do it in your spare minutes, you'll snatch time before work or eschew prime-time TV after. You'll think of stories while you're walking the dog or driving to work. You'll do it because it's your passion and your calling, because doing it makes you happier than almost anything else, because, really, you don't have any choice."

And she's right.  I have been writing for as long as I can remember.  I journaled when I was much younger.  I created entire books full of alternate versions of my own life so convincing, it would seem, that when my younger sister found one of my journals many years later packed away in my parents' garage, she went to my mother crying.  "Mom?  Is there something you want to tell me?"  She asked through tears.  You see, I had written an entire journal as a twin girl from Mexico who had been forced to lie about my identity, dye my hair from its natural black, wear contacts over my crystal blue eyes, and be separated from my twin.  My real name was, apparently, Christina.

I have always found ways to write, fiction, non fiction, poetry.  I love typing, writing in cursive, and simply thinking about what it is I want to write.  

But, in addition to not dying, writers also have to live.  Weiner includes in her tips for writers necessities like: troubled childhood.  Check.  Miserable love life.  Been there.  And, one that really struck me, get a dog.  Okay, not for a second would I compare my daughter to a dog.  But the intention is the same.  Weiner writes about having the time to think through your thoughts as you walk your dog, and honestly, life with my dawdling toddler usually gives me a ton of time to think.  She is admiring a tiny pebble stuck in mud, and for much of the time I am admiring her admiration of this awesome object in a new situation she has never encountered before in her twenty one months on earth.  But I am also picturing words, thinking through ideas, scrapping bad ones, and so on.  

I need the moments with my daughter, the shopping excursions in San Francisco, the trips uphill to the park, the late night movie fests, to be alive as a person and do things worthy of writing about as well as to have time to reflect on the life I have lived, am living.  

Reflection.  That is probably the most important piece missing when I do not write.  Time for refection. I have been living.  I have been sleeping.  I have had no concentrated time to reflect.  Because I felt as though I had been missing valuable moments of Celaya's life in my five week crazy hustle bustle schedule, I hyperfocused on her admiration of the pebble.  I made sure to look her in the eyes more often, to listen to her words more intently, to wait through her stuttering little voice until she found the write words so her own communication could blossom.  I poured myself into my home and my family in an attempt to make up for having been gone the extra time. 

And I have, I believe made up.  After almost two weeks of radio silence from Shanna As Writer, I am here, writing once again.

I am not an avid fan of poetry, more of a distant, fondly appreciative relative, but William Wordsworth's words on reflection have stuck with me over the years since I first read them in college:

". . . Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:  it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility:  the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.  In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on . . . the mind will upon the whole be in a state of enjoyment."  ("Emotion Recollected in Tranquility")

You have powerful feelings about something that originates in your ability to have calmly reflected upon it (Katy Perry, anyone?).  You continue to reflect on those feelings until the calm transforms into contemplation.  From contemplation you begin to write.

If I am not writing, if you are missing my blog (as I most surely am) it is because one of those key ingredients is missing from the recipe for writing well.

And I will either write well, or not at all.

At least not that anyone can read.

Inappropriate Language

"Tell Uncle, 'Bullshit'."

"Bullshit."

"I can't believe you just told your kid to say bullshit."

"Well, she's gotta learn when to call bullshit."

This exchange took place a few weeks ago between my brother and me, and, obviously, my 20 month old non-stop-talking daughter.

I do not regret teaching her to say "bullshit."  It was appropriate at the time.  Teno was unloading some serious BS on me, and we called him on it, my toddler and me.  It is something I would say in the situation, and I do not plan on raising my daughter in the do as I say and not as I do fashion.

I do not have a problem with curse words.  They have their place.  "Shit" is my most frequently used curse word, but, to be completely frank, when I am very angry, I will employ "fuck."

Yep, it has happened in front of my daughter, and yes, you guessed correctly, she repeated right after me.

What did I do?  Nothing.  What could I do?  I moved on.  She doesn't walk around the house cursing, she has never randomly repeated those words.  She picked up on a moment.  She engaged in the conversation.  There is only pride to be found in her engagement with language.  As she grows, I will teach her the appropriate use of those words.  Not that they are taboo, or evil, or punishable, only that there is a time and a place.

I remember once when my sister was a teenager and her father was railing at her for some slight.  He was being relentless, pushing at her, allowing his infamous temper to spill out onto her.  At one point, she got up from the table they were sitting at and said, "you're an asshole!" and stormed off to her room.  Of course, as is typical in these situations, a huge fight ensued, and the focus of the conflict centered on her calling her father an asshole.

This shift of focus is a problem for me.  He was, in fact, being an asshole.  Did he look at himself for one moment and ask himself if her estimation of him was correct?  No, of course not.  As Mathilda's father says, "You're small; I'm big.  You're weak; I'm strong.  You're stupid; I'm smart."  Kids are taught to behave as their parents tell them to.

Unfortunately for many parents, what kids actually learn about life comes from what they observe, not from what they are commanded.

Language is not bad or good; it is simply all too often used incorrectly.

While I will not teach my daughter to never say "shit" until her eighteenth birthday (at which point she must move out, take full responsibility for herself, get a job, find some place to live, and oh yea, get an education, and otherwise do whatever she wants, except drink an alcoholic beverage), what I will teach her is not to say she is sorry if she is not.  I want her not to say "I love you," if she doesn't.  I will teach her to think before she speaks (goddess knows it took me years of foot-in-the-mouth disease to figure that one out).  If she says she will be somewhere, or do something, then she should do it.  I want my daughter to learn about the importance of words.

Words mean something.  They have power.

When I get really angry with my husband I will tell him:  "I hate you!  I don't really hate you, but god I just hate you right now!  I don't hate you.  Ugh!"

Call me Sybil.

But I need to say those words sometimes because it is the only way I can express just how angry I am.  They are the only words I have for that level of frustration and rage.  I am trying to hold it together, not to throw a temper tantrum (like the much younger Shanna would have), and I push those words at him. But because I am more mature now, because I understand the full import of words, especially those ones, especially in a marriage, I have to include my disclaimer.

I have found myself often wishing I could grab the words out of the air as they are coming out of my mouth, racing toward my intended victim, and eat and swallow those words back up.

Too late.  The damage has been done.  And it seems it takes a thousand more words of making up to ameliorate the few angry ones, the hurtful ones.

In addition to not saying things she doesn't mean, I want my daughter to learn from me to say things that must be said, even when it is difficult to say, and probably difficult to hear.

My student's often come to see me without having done the homework I have assigned.

"So, do you not care how you perform on the test then?"  I'll ask.

Many of my students do not know how to respond to this.

"Um, yea I do," is a common response.

"Then why are you not making the practice a priority?"

"Because I don't have time.  I'm busy.  I have a ton of homework at school."

"Then maybe you should not be taking the test right now."

"I have to.  My parents are making me.  This is my last chance."

"Well then, suck it up, do the work, and celebrate when it's over.  It's a few weeks of your life, and once you take the test, it will all be behind you, and you'll be glad you made the time.  Or don't.  Don't do the work.  Don't invest the time.  Go in, do the best you can, and don't worry about it.  But do not, I am telling you, do not lament the fact that you didn't do well, that now you can't get into that school you really wanted to get into.  Life is a series of choices, and this one is yours to make, now."

I have given a version of this speech so many times and in so many different scenarios over the last several years that it is starting to feel rote.  But I think it works.  I think it works because my students typically do well, typically try harder, and typically come back for more abuse.  I have a reputation for being a tough tutor and teacher.   But more importantly, the words work because I mean them.  I mean them with every fiber of my being.  I speak from a place of experience and of genuine interest in my students' success.  My words are true.  They hit home.  One of my students said to me the other day, "I like all the tutors here.  Everyone is great.  But you are my favorite.  You don't bullshit me."   

As to your nagging question about what I am going to do when Celaya gets to school and starts calling her classmates and her teachers on all their bullshit?

I'm thinking of homeschooling.