What I learned on the playground.

A dragon with wings was my imaginary friend.
We would dangle on the monkey bars
And make up songs about him.
We named him Pete and did upside down hand jives beside him and with him.
We would hook our ankles and hang until the blood rushed to our heads and made us dizzy.
My friends would flip down from the bars to land on their feet,
But I was a bit too fearful.
Afraid of what? they would ask.
The flip or the fall...

It didn't matter.
Inside I knew I could do it if I wanted to-
I just never wanted to.

On the swings we would pump our legs and try to flip around the top bar.
When we got so high the swing would jump out from under us,
We would scream with glee
Knowing we could flip all the way around if we really wanted to
But we never did.
Under dogs and party lines,
Shadow tagging and sometimes standing,
The swing set in my backyard made me brave-
But it also taught me fear.

(My mom would tell a story about a photograph of me.
I am two years old and standing on a swing.
They were so proud of my bravery.
My sister is eighteen months older
And I would do whatever she could
And then more, they tell me.

There is another picture of me
Standing on a vacuum cleaner at about the same age.
While my mother would clean
I would climb up and dance.
I was silly, they say. Brave and silly.
I don't remember the vacuum, though,
Not the way I remember the swing set.)

At school we had two recess breaks
Two breaths during the day when our cheeks grew red
And we ran with life.

Our playground was divided into two:
Fourth through sixth graders would mostly play tag,
But the  younger kids stayed on what was called the Lower L.
We climbed on jungle gyms, slid down slides, or flew on swings.
On a creative day, I would scour the playground for ant hills to stomp with the girl who ate glue.
Most days I rode on the back of Vanessa's electric wheel chair,
Begging her to spin again and again.
Once I was the first to begin a conga line and got the entire first grade class to join in behind.
Recess was when we were all alive.

One day a girl ran up to me with a paper she wanted me to sign.
I was on the lower L playpad and she was from the Upper L.
An ambassador from the other side,
Somehow she had snuck away from the sixth grade area
And had brought this paper down for signatures.
She said there might be a war.  That we should be afraid.
Nuclear bombs could be dropped at anytime
And that if we signed this letter to President Reagan
He would stop it.
It was 1980 and our President was good.

She hopped upon the orange balance beam and read her petition aloud.

It was my first political rally.
Some girls listened a minute before running back to the swings,
But I was hooked by the ankles again
My world flipped upside down.
It was the first time I had heard of a need to fear
And the first time I felt a deep responsibility.
I was in first grade and the Russians began to wake me at night.

My world consisted of the play ground, my backyard, and my court.
And now there was Russia.
An elusive landmass, oppressively present.

The next day I told Vanessa I couldn't spin on the back of her wheel chair at recess.
I organized a group of girls to meet at the orange balance beam to discuss the state of the world.
I wondered to my peers if maybe we should get our parents involved,
To help stop these bombs.
When a friend reported that the sixth grader had gotten her recess taken away for crossing over to the lower L to get her signatures,
We suddenly feared our teachers more than Russia.
Our underground club dissolved
We squealed and ran away from boys.

We returned to the jungle gym
And turned our worlds upside down again for release.

I would not take part in political activism again until third grade,
When I wrote a letter to the editor voicing my disgust and contempt for acid rain.
It appeared in the Detroit News.
My mother cut it out and put it on the fridge.
My father stood me on his desk and gave a speech in my honor.
I signed an index card for him so he could have my autograph before I became too famous-
I remember thinking I could change the world.
I knew I could, if I just wanted to.

I also remember wondering how my article could possibly help stop acid rain.
Surely everyone who would read it must already agree?
Then how and why did it still exist?
How could my article stop acid rain,

I asked my teacher who had assigned the project.
She said it must help. It would help.
So I wrote it and prayed for the fish.

And I wondered...
What to do next.

For me, activism meant telling someone bigger.
My parents, the president, God
But what if the someone bigger is too busy, doesn't care, or allows it?

This possibility surfaced after my letter to the editor for a brief moment
-A star falling across a midnight sky-

In eighth grade I learned about the Holocaust.
With all my old testament studies and world history books
I started thinking America invented goodness.
What followed was a stint of extreme patriotism and pity for the world.

My environmental spirit changed its object of affection
From world loving to people saving.
For how could acid rain compare
To these piles of baby shoes and empty suitcases?
I felt more than cheated.
I began to understand what it means to have a tilted axis.
It made sense that another degree this way or that
And we would freeze or burn.
I learned Humanity stands precariously close to combustion.

I was thirteen and I received an A on every paper
And A on every test.
I thought education would help.
For the next four years
I read for answers. I memorized formulas.
I became the valedictorian, a golden chord around my neck.
But the world still confused me.

In college, I met Africa
as a dark place needing things.
cliché and hungry.
My world fears became world pities
and I almost joined the Peace Corps.
I had years of trouble pinpointing my blue spot on the globe.
The happenstance, the randomness,
incomprehensible still.

I have a pocket full of dark discoveries
to carry with me.
And me, a simple, white, girl who grew up in the time of peace,
with parents who are not divorced or even alcoholic.
With what contempt or injury
can I claim my brokenness?
Barely scarred at all,
the world still pains me
like a funny bone knock-
sharp and denting.

Now I am a mother
and I have watched my girls
unaware of their safety
and innocent fear
step into the age of twelve

Middle school-
where boys become secrets
and next year they will read number the stars

There have been hints,
moments to foreshadow their awakenings.
Like the time my daughter cried and made me turn off the car radio
because the Matchbox 20 song was too sad.
(She was 3.)
Yes, I have known the day would come when I would have to teach them about the world's darkness.
That nightmares can come true.
and explain the name of Hitler.

I am not ready.
I do not understand.
And I certainly do not know how to walk a child into sadness,
except to hold a hand
and say,
I know.
I see it too.
I am with you,
there on the playground
swinging
between fear and courage.

After High Winds

After the high winds...

To say tornado sounds pretentious
like I am borrowing more pity than I deserve
after all, there was no spiral
just a strong, strong wind
pulling and tossing pieces of our farm about

No injuries
except the trees
(I include the trees in the casualties, for they are living
and will be scarred)

The horses are okay.
The people are safe.

What we tried to make
has fallen.
Three times the structures torn.

But we are okay
we remember through the drips into the kettles on the dresser
we survive unharmed
almost unbothered
we say through the stream of water running under rains.

After high winds
we are tossed about
feeling guilty for complaining
and neglected for the wait.

It is safe here,
we say as we dig a hole for a dead horse.
The mud will dry,
we say about the filth.
This is aftermath.
We survived the storm.
Now we just live through today.

Remembering what we have.

Reading a book this morning. Setting is back when my mother would have been a young child, still playing tea party with the tiny China dishes.

The characters went for a car ride in the family's De Soto. It had been idle and limp on the lawn for years and the prodigal son had returned. He rebuilt the engine and whisked his old man away for a Sunday drive with a bowl of freshly picked strawberries. They ate the berries and spit the green tops out the window as they regally drove toward country.

Sublime, they said. This is life, they laughed, as they thought highly of themselves.

Today my fridge is full of berries - red, black, and blue.  We will ride in a car toward town and then back toward country. 

I am making a point to think it sublime.

The Ruins of Roma

  

The first time I went to Europe was with my sister. We were graduating from college soon and it was a capstone experience/reward from mom and dad. With an art history teacher as our guide, we swiveled through the alps and across the midsection, slicing cities but breathing in museums. We did not sit at cafes but moved through the streets awake late, missing nothing - we hoped. My pictures and notes from this expedition resonate with wonder, but I still can't help but think of what I may have missed.  Are Innocence and Youth just as blinding as they say love is, or does it simply offer a different lense through which we view the world? 

I must have seen something because when I returned, I Immediately changed my major to French and signed up for a semester study.  6 months. That should do it, I thought, and I headed to Besancon, France. A town that was perfect in every way.  I was only 21and 6 months still felt like at least three years... And I came home wise, I thought.

Years passed. I married. Returned with a friend. A short visit here and there. I brought my students and introduced them...I even left the continent and saw other countries for a while. But then life set in and some how ten yeArs passed without our being together. Europe and me... I missed us. 

So I found a way to take my students again, affording Europe the only way I could- as the traveling teacher with 20 high schoolers in tow, I packed mes valises and prepared for what I thought was "me settling."  A less than ideal scenario for my continental reunion, I thought.   What I found was that She didn't disappoint. Despite the years and changes that life has a way of handing you, the travel still satisfied.

This time, nearly 40, I expected to love the cafés most.  I expected to enjoy the routine moments of markets and meals- but it is the ruins of Rome, Italy that surprised me. And not just for their historic significance-I had been awed by centuries before. This time it was the ruins themselves that captured my attention.  

Our guide at the colloseum  held pictures of what it must have looked like in its prime.  She asked us to use our imagination to envision the columns and floor... Then to see the gladiators, muscular and spirited, sprinting forth for the arena battle.She walked us through towering arches and had us touch the ancient stones and it was like touching Time itself, to think of the crowds and the fear and cheering that were once held in that stone.  Yet,  even though I could feel the immensity of the past, I found myself preferring to rest in the present. Preferring the feel of cold under my hand to the imaginings of glory.  I saw my feet in the arena, not the athletes' of old.

We walked away from the ancient stadium and headed toward the Roman Forum.  Among the flowers and amid the grass, lay stumps of mightiness that have all passed.  Like Ozymandias, from Shelley's poem, monuments strew the field.  I felt comfort and found majesty in the thought that it was all in the past.  The glory wasn't from today- and that was okay.  It was still worth guarding, worth keeping just the way time had altered it.  

And I walked between the stubs of columns, content with myself - thinking that perhaps my own ruins could also be left that way.  In middle class America, we have such a desire to polish and prune. We are always mowing lawns and hiding cracks in the paint. But here, in Rome, one appreciates the value of the ruin.  Existence is enough. It is in fact beautiful.  And it is this philosophy that I am sure my younger  self would never have noticed.  In fact, I looked around at my students and found myself thankful to have twenty years on them, for they sat on my ruins and sighed.

They checked their phones for text messages from home and they missed the appreciation. They even missed the history.  I tried to call them together and explain that this was where Caesar was slain, his body then dragged to Piazza Navona, where we had eaten lunch earlier that day. Their eyes were glazed, though. They had been In Europe for 10 days already.   They had seen the  Vatican and had told me they thought it would be bigger.  They had taken selfies in front of too many pretty churches.  This place of perfect ruin seemed to them only a neat old place- a pile of rubble to most. In their defense, on my first travel expeditions, I am sure I too missed awesome opportunities.  Perhaps.  But I wonder if it has changed for teens.  I wonder if we have taught them at all how to value history.  In this moment, I felt a twinge of guilt, for I wanted to teach them to study the past and to listen for stories in the wind.  I wanted to place their hands on stone and force an honoring.  But I failed that day.  My selfishness won over and I turned my back to them so that I could pay homage to the Roman ruins, almost apologetically, for I had brought the irreverent into a sacred place.

I stepped away and rested on a fallen stone, caressing it for its sturdiness.  I lingered in front of layerings that revealed centuries and loitered over temples opened to the earth.  From high peaks I watched glory still hover, and I listened to Pride shout its name. 

And in my mind, I thanked Time for showing me the beauty of ruins. 

I left vowing to learn more deeply, promising to teach from the heart.  But Time touches each traveler a different way, I know.  And I ponder now, perhaps, if there was some wonder behind those selfies and in the text messages my students sent back home. Perhaps they will return at forty and crop out the selfie pose, zooming in on the rubble.  Perhaps they too will vow to share the ancient with the modern.  

Please don't show my daughters a bar graph(2)

Please don't show my daughters a bar graph

Colored red green or gold

With itemized sections detailing her growth.

Please don't show her the words

Unsatisfactory

Or average

Or even above

These are grown up words

And I'll tuck them in my pocket

And reflect on them 

As a parent should

But please don't show my eight year old

Any charts and graphs

Made to display her knowledge or lack thereof.

Instead,

Show her picassos colors

His cubes and blues 

And see if she has a color

That shy would like to try to turn into a period.

Then take the drawing that she painstakingly

Marked and erased and redrew

And hold it up next to a Surrealistic brightness

That will make her own look upside down and 

Find it's greatness.

Please do not show her

Data

Scores

Means and modes

Instead,

Show her Fibonacci's flowers

And honeycombs

Discuss the ideas of outliers

 And let her try to reinvent the clock.

Who thought of 60 anyway

And what if time could stop?

Please do not ask her

To bubble in a test

Or stay in lines

And if she must

Then please take the test outside 

And not under a stale light next to a window with recess calling.

Take her mind

And mold it,

Teach it -- yes

But please don't show her

Anything standard.

Instead, let her show you

Everything that isn't.

When she picks up the turtle and sees its feet keep crawling

Let her discover why

His head pops in and out.

And what if Her dog could do it to?

Let her try.

And please

Let her fail.

Let her flop.

Even, some days, let her cry.

But please let's not have it be

For  percentage

For a 4 question standardized benchmark mess

With size 8 font and illogical wording

And randomized information

From a short selection she has just read.

Make her read read read

And then let her write write write

But not with itemization and standardization

When her thoughts are so wanting to soar.

Give her a character to love

And a kite to fly at recess 

Have her do it

On her own-

And make her see that she can't.

Then play some music and have her decide 

Which song sounds like her favorite story.

Show them how our cores are common

But how our minds defy definition.

Make small hands make sense of the world

By touching soil and seeds.

Let them discover plants will grow

Even if they don't believe.

For ther is power in defiance

And childhood should be about

Exploration, questions, and guidance

Not testing or alignment.

Please, show my daughter the world

And nothing less.

Seashell Observations

Everyone knows that when you put a sea shell to your ear, you can har the ocean.  But what happens when you put the ocean to your ear?  I believe you can hear God.

At our house, we fondly call the ocean "The O" and when given a week at the beach, we make a big point of telling it good morning and good night.  Normally, I spend my good morning hours running along the shore as I revel at the quietness of humans and the loudness of the O as light rises from the deep.  This year, though, with my daughters now 8, they wanted to wake in the still crisp hours and head to the wet sand with me.  Running didn't seem effective with them in tow, and, quite frankly, 37 may just be the year when I decide to let myself go.  So we grabbed some buckets and set out with a plan to build the grandest sand castle.  With two bucketfuls and a collapse, the experience was too much a memory of the snowmen we failed at this winter (in the end we took to calling them snow blobs for no man ever slumped like ours).  Finding our inadquacies a bit frustrating,  we tossed our sandy buckets aside and comforted ourselves by collecting sea shells.  Here, now, was a much more profitable task: to search the shoreline for shiny treasures.  For this, we had an eye.  

Mesmerized by the search, we plodded head down through the shallow waters, learning to hunt.  Almost immediately I felt God whispering to me above, or was it under, the crashing waves.  Quietly, He placed moments in front of me to examine.  Just as my girls inspected their washed up treasures, I found God at every tide turn.  The entire morning itself, designed to see what we could build, ended up being about finding what God could give.  We discovered the best sea shell treasures weren't  simply lying there on shore; they had to be dug up.  And most often, the first awareness of their presence was a painful little poke under the foot.  It wasn't our eyes that would find the grandest conch, but the recognition of pain under toes, and then there it was: a treasure worth digging.  Sand under the fingernails and water to the waist, we dug up secrets that seemed to have been planted before Eden's quake.    

Knocked over by my bag now heavy from collection, the waves mocked me.  Stop striving and start enjoying, they seemed to say.  I set my bum down on the wet sand to breathe, to listen deeper.   At first I heard only waves and birds, but then my daughters voices drifted into focus. With God's ocean as a steady bass, treble giggles bobbed upon the splashes.  Then in a lul, I heard Katie begin to ponder,"Are pink dolphins true?" and I knew that God's voice was working in them too.  Lexie matched her sister's sudden serious tone and answered, "Iknow they are"- as if confirming the existence of the world creator Himself.  Oh if my faith could be so resolute.

       

I watched as the girls piled shell after shell into their buckets.  To me, a small shattered piece was hardly worth keeping.  With a trove so deep and horizon width, I would have passed over many, searching for the choiciest meat.  But Katie cannot advance step, for under her toes are strewn scraps that she must inspect.  They will be kept for hardly any reason; their worth is in their existence and they find excuses for significance.  A hole, a speckle, a bumpy ridge that would make a neat imprint.  A pretty pink, a smooth side, a perfect swirl.  When these attributes get used up their ideas grow more creative:

a little seat for a ladybug to sit on, a river stone that skipped all the way to the shore, and one that looks like an ironing board. It isn't hard for them, it isn't hard at all to find a reason to cherish every beach shell.  At the sea, wonder is common.  I resolve to scour my life's shore in search of blessings.  I breathe in the salty air and enjoy the sand between my toes. 

When I let the tide ebb and wash again, burying my feet with the smooth, cool sand, I remembered grandma.  The sea's heaviness reminded me that at her passing she began to ask questions about the shore.  She, the Nebraskan native, lived her entire life landlocked, but in her final moments claimed to hear water pouring onto a beach. Where was she? She questioned.  Had she been here before?  And then a calm, final comment: I hear the ocean.  Like one of the shells, the Ocean washed over her and silence covered with depths of peace.

The skyline before me is vast and plain with holy simplicity.  There is only faith and peace where there was once fear and stress.  From this brackish water I have drunk the tea of holiness.  My thirst rests satiated.

Heading back to start the day, I look over my shoulder to offer a thankful nod for the morning conversation and God tosses one last seashell at my feet.  We add it to the bucket and my gaze transfers from horizon to the shoreline where people now walk with pails, intent on castle building.  Some  walk with head down, looking for seashells.  I am but a speck of humanity. 

I 

Learning to Swim

I woke up this morning and prayed: Dear Lord,Thank you for goggles. Amen.I would have never dreamed that at thirty-six I would be learning to swim. It is a secret of mine that I started to tell people and they have been laughing, so I am just going to turn it back in and keep it between God and me. I have always hated swimming. Even when it is hot and the only way to stand the outdoor scorching summer sun is to swim, even then, I would typically just rather not. I don't really care for air conditioning either – but if I get into that I will sound like a complainer, so I will stop right there with hating to swim.I've been thinking back at being seven, since my girls are now. And this is what I remember of my summers: never being able to see. And I realized it wasn't so much the swimming that I hated, it was what happens when I swim. At about seven years old I suddenly needed glasses. It is weird to me to think that one day I came home with glasses because I swear they were instantly coke bottle thick and needed for everything. I never had the glasses just for reading or the light pair that a child would even need a glasses case to carry. Since first on my nose, I never remember being able to see without them. And so, here is the answer to my distaste for the pool: water and glasses don't mix. The glasses get set on a pool side table or on a towel edge, and from that point on as a child, I dreaded the time in the pool. My list of worries:1.What if someone steps on my glasses and breaks them? There is no safe place near a pool edge.2.Where are my friends? At a public pool I could literally not tell the difference between the grandma floating and my friend's raft. Marco Polo was the only game I could handle because it didn't matter if I tried to peak – I still couldn't see.3.Where are the cute boys? As I grew up, that became the only reason to really go to the pool anyway and I couldn't even get a good flirt in! No googly eyes? What was the point of my cute bikini?!4.What if I can't find my towel when I get out of the pool? What if I walk over to the wrong group of friends?5.The glasses fog up at an indoor pool. I hate that.Okay, you get the picture. It is quite simply, miserable. So as I grew up, I had an aversion to swimming. If you are as blind as me – which is, can't-see-the-alarm-clock-blind – then you understand my distress. So I did the lessons, and I managed the pool parties as best I could, but I grew up hating swimming.In high school, I got contacts. You might think this event would change my abhorrencee for water sports, but au contraire. I remember going to swim for the first time with my “new eyes” and being so excited inside-ready to enjoy the pool with the invention of vision! On the edge it was immensely better. I no longer worried about having my glasses broken and I was free to scope out the boys. I could even wear sun glasses! Glory be! But jumping in, my fears and frustrations returned. Any sort of splash or attempt to swim stung my eyes and made me feel like my contacts were going to fall into the pool. So, now I could handle the shore and even wade a bit, but the real fun and adventure splashing out in front of me still did not seem inviting. I resigned to be a dog paddler, keeping my head up and looking nonsporty. Fast forward twenty years. Here I am today, watching my daughters learn to swim. And they have goggles. I chuckle every time they put them on – their little bug eyes popping out. But they dive down deep and they enjoy the water like mermaids. And I sit on the edge, with my contacts in, and watch them splash and play for hours. I get to thinking: Goggles. Me. The thought cracks me up because I can just imagine my eyes popping out of my head like theirs. Then I realize, Hey, why not? I am already horrified to be wearing this swimming suit. My days of impressing the boys are long gone. So I grab an extra pair of goggles, and I jump in. Low and behold, I can see the bottom of the pool! I can see my daughters as they play and I can splash back! I do a lap across the pool and apply every thing I have heard their swim instructors tell them – and what do you know? I can swim! I never sunk before, like I said I was a great dog paddler. I once even treaded water for 20 minutes in a bet with my dad which was supposed to get me a horse in the end (never did). But swimming! Now this was new to me. It felt amazing to glide through the water and to turn my head and breath. I did the "Bubble Bubble Bubble Breathe" stroke in my head and the freestyle was exactly that – freeing!I climbed out of the pool like I had discovered a secret. Now, I know it's too late to be a Missy Franklin – but I just may try a triathlon someday. I just have to laugh because, like I said, I never thought I would be learning to swim at thirty-six. And it gets my thinking...what else did I hate as a child? What did I hold myself back from for some silly reason? I suddenly am realizing that my list of things I want to do with my life can be bigger and bigger. It is like I have just heard a graduation speech with inspiration and a “Go forth!” message. Maybe skiing, mountain biking, orienteering, even water slides! My mind is reeling at the possibilities. For the first time in a long time, I feel like trying new things instead of perfecting the old. And I realize, I am starting to like being old because now I can wear goggles and just jump in without a worry in the world about what that Barbie on the beach towel is thinking of me. And I am thankful. Thankful for goggles and thankful for growing old. Amen.