Sashay? Don't mind if I do

I have spent my whole life trying to understand what is meant by style.  The only way that I can express my relationship with it is to say simply that the notion persists in dodging me.  The word "fashion" makes my brow get all wrinkly and my mouth puckery; that word is even more frustrating than "style".  Would you believe that one of the ideas that I gave my daughters for a Christmas present was a color wheel, as if that somehow would help me when I'm standing in my closet any given morning, trying to put together an acceptable ensemble.

Be that as it may, every once in a great while I have a feeling (and it's not even that confident a feeling) that I've seized on the right combination.  This morning was one of those moments.  As I walked down the hallway to my classroom, I caught myself sashaying, and the realization made me smile stupidly.  Continuing to my door, my mental check came up with this:  I'm wearing a plaid, flannel oxford shirt, dress jeans and low-heel pumps.  Very uninspired look.  Hmmmmm. . .  Closer mental examination convinced me that it was the shoes.  Of COURSE it was the shoes!

I would be embarrassed to admit how many pairs of shoes I have ordered in the last year, ever searching for that perfect pair.  I finally had a winner and they made me feel GOOD!  Enough for me to sashay in an empty hallway early in the morning, the purposeful click of my heels echoing ahead of me.  Oh, I could feel good in my Tims walking down that same hallway, but I wouldn't have sashayed, and the next person could easily sashay in a pair of stilettos but I would have sawed off my feet by the time I arrived at my classroom if I were crazy enough to think that stilettos and I have any business working together.  So, at the end of the day, style will still artfully dodge me, but my toes will wiggle delightedly in my sensible Ros Hommerson's.

The Gahden!

We've seen the image over and over.  The camera sweeps up to the rafters to take in the 1972 banner, the 1970 1941 1939 1929 banners.  It's a magical moment now to observe the new 2011 banner floating up to take its rightful place next to the one that of course has most meaning for me.  When the cameras turn to capture the faces of former champs down on the ice, especially my adored Bobby Orr, I can almost, ALMOST conjure up that same sense of joy felt thirty-nine years ago.  (I can be forgiven, too, for having fallen in love with the superstar when I was a teenager, not so easily forgiven for still hanging onto a bit of that crush.  He's still so dreamy, though; how can I not?!)

But the point here is that we see those banners at every moment when an announcer or news reporter wants to get all dramatic or to build "feeling", and the effect becomes dulled, the effort lacking real meaning.  It is sweet, however, to see that 2011 banner settling into its new home.  Tonight, at least, the effect is poignant, the effort definitely with meaning.

Let the games begin!

So Satisfying

You have to understand that my brain doesn't hold onto things quite so well these days, so I make my eventual declaration with one caveat:  I can't swear that it has never happened before, but if it has, I certainly don't remember it.

I had a real "teachable moment" yesterday.  For the uninitiated, that just means that, unplanned, an opportunity presents itself in the classroom to teach something that you know will hit home and mean something on a much deeper level.  Some teachers never give in to those moments, they're too afraid. . . afraid of being chided for not sticking to the curriculum, afraid of giving up total control.  Well!  Needless to say, I'm well beyond that stage in my teaching.   Sometimes, it's necessary to just seize the moment.

Jessi interrupted the Spanish lesson, asking generally about what happens to the people of Cuba who (sometimes through blind determination) emigrate to the U.S., landing on our Florida shores.  Do they have to go back, or can they stay?  Gesturing toward the large mural on one of my classroom walls ("Varadero, Cuba,") I launched into a history lesson of the "Wet Foot Dry Foot" Policy that articulates our laws about who can stay and who must be returned.  Admittedly, I was treading on the history teachers' turf by explaining our relationship with Cuba - at least the last contentious 50 years' worth.  Neglecting Spanish grammar and the "thou must speak in Spanish for the entire period" rule, I reveled in the obvious interest that the question provoked. 

I've studied about Cuba in great depth, ever since the day my husband came home and casually announced, "I got a phone number today from a gentleman who lives down the beach.  You'll never believe this - he fought with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the jungles of Cuba during the Revolution."  And, almost as an afterthought, "They're friends."  (Are you kidding!  A friend of Fidel Castro lives 2 miles away!)    It took me several weeks to work up the nerve to call this man.  I did, though.  Our conversation was like no other.  Never before had I spoken with someone who truly saw Cuba (up close) as a beautiful country. . . beautiful people. . . beautiful landscape. . . beautiful (if frozen in time) architecture.   It set me to thinking; how did we as a nation come to view Cuba as unworthy of our respect and admiration?  Consider this:  some of the world's best doctors and surgeons are Cuban.  (Did you know that when Sadam Hussein needed back surgery, Castro sent one of his surgeons who, of course, could not personally accept the millions of dollars that were awarded for the medical procedure; after all, it is a Communist nation.)  Cuba's literacy rate is higher than ours.  And their music and dance . . . OHH! It's astonishingly first rate!  You should try a sampling:  http://www.bembe.com/elzorro_lavidaentara/El_Borracho.mp3.

The unfortunate fallout from Castro's Revolution and the consequent (endless) U.S. boicot, however, can be appreciated and accessed viscerally by viewing Ry Cooder's documentary BuenaVista Social Club.  You should check out this sampling of the video here.  The film is a worthy tribute to some excellent musicians whose music fell by the wayside at a time in their careers when they should have been soaring. Given our national dismissal of all things Cuban, it should come as no surprise that Europe gave its positive appraisal well before the United States.  Long story short, Buena Vista Social Club (more accurately, its individual artists) earned our respect through the Grammy's that it won.  (It saddens me that my favorites of the group have passed away:  Rubén González and Ibrahim Ferrer.  Watch the movie, and just see if you don't fall in love with these two guys - especially when they visit New York City.)

Returning to my original point in this blog, I hastily concluded my improvised lesson about Cuba just as the period ended; the Malecon, Elian Gonzalez, Mariel Boatlift, thriving black market.  A student afterwards approached me and said, "Thank you.  No one ever teaches us culture in our foreign language classes.  I really found that interesting.  I hope we learn more."  I am indeed honored.  I will store that one in my very special bag of Teacher Memories.

Sigh......

My year can be simply divided into two parts, the summer and the rest of the year.  I'm obviously a teacher if I make that kind of a distinction.  Alas, summer is over, and with it, my earnest pursuit of creativity, craftiness and fun-fun-fun.  Friends and family will observe - as they do each year - my annual turn toward seriousness.  I become the one that must plan endlessly engaging classroom activities, grade compositions and tests, and steer department professional development.  And don't even expect to have an enlightened conversation with me after 9:00 pm on a weeknight. . . or - jeesh - any night, for that matter.  (Right here is where I would provide the expected disclaimer about the inexpressible rewards of teaching thirsty young minds.  That will follow, of course, when I'm not feeling besieged by the at-once lengthy list of tasks, . . . I promise.)

But, before I turn my back once again on a relaxing and inspiring summer, I will coax y'all to take a look at the evidence of my seasonal productivity.  Take a look:

www.etsy.com/shop/joyhandbags


And here's a sample:

So good so good so good

While I don't think I'm alone on this, I haven't been able to find anyone who feels similarly.

I wake up in the morning to music.  If I'm home I play music via iTunes or Pandora or my cd player/radio.  If I watch a TV show, inevitably a very familiar song will accompany the action.  In other words, music somehow threads its way through just about everything.  And I have often decided, oh, I like this song, and sometimes I say, I really like this song.  But I never say any more, I love this song.  What is wrong with me?  What has happened to me?  I recall how often I declared as a pre-teen and even as a teenager that I LOVED a particular song.  I will never stop wanting to bray Sweet Caroline as forcefully as I can (touching me touching you) for as long as I have a voice.  And that's what has caused me to conclude that you can never again fall in love with a song the way you did (or do) as a tweenie, pre-teen or teenager.  The lyrics had (or have) such profound meaning at that life stage.  Nowadays, I don't even hear the words, everything sounding like yuAHaaaawwwoooluuuuuguckaguchaguuuuuuu.  Sadly, I sing along to that string of sounds as if it were being sung in the Tagalog language.  Of course it has no meaning. . . at least to me.  All it does is suspend me temporarily and give me visceral pleasure. . . and then life's noises flood back in, overlapping each other and making me blink-blink-blink to keep my composure.

Like I said, no one has been able to relate to this; instead, I'm told that anyone can fall in love with a song at any time.  Perhaps I've just never found a song that makes me genuinely feel that good times never seemed so good, so good, so good.  (Sigh.)  So, what do YOU think - can you love love LOVE a song at any point in your life?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

It may not be the very least favorite place in my world, but it comes pretty darn close.  This morning was my scheduled six-month check up/cleaning, and I was prepared for the usual tsk-tsking about the sad condition of my mouthful of teeth.  The hygienist never seems to come over to my side on the issue - why can't I just have fewer teeth?  In fact, why is it necessary for humans to be assigned a set of, what is it, 36?  Isn't there some redundancy in that?  Instead, what I hear is, I need to floss more, use a mouth rinse regularly, and stop eating Snickers bars as an apres-lunch (apres with that little backwards accent mark above the e) snack.  No, the hygienist did NOT say that about the Snickers bars; she doesn't know about them.

Deep breathing gets me through any sitting, but it doesn't work when my jaw is being pressed so hard that oxygen - my very good friend - concludes that there is no discernible pathway to my lungs.  Oxygen takes the high road, and I'm left with the choice of either passing out or most inarticulately communicating that, "ahhhng url reeeee!"  I choose life.

There is a most wonderful up-side to the dental chair. . . after the initial twenty minutes or so of jackhammering to remove plaque buildup.  One can become - by focusing on the fish mobile in the corner of the room - very reflective.  It begins by noting the fascinating differences between those vividly painted fish.  Before you know it, you're drafting thank you notes, deciding on a new color palette for your living room, heck, you're adding on an additional 500 square feet to your already sizable house, petitioning the Spanish government to accept your new word entry, saltacharcos (nm puddle-jumper) into the Diccionario Oxford de Español.  (Rather than engage in the lengthy explanation of how a word becomes accepted into the Dictionary, I may have grossly misled my students on that score.)

In any event, and despite all the efforts to rinse and spit and wipe with crinkly bib, I leave the dentist's office with that gritty feeling still in my mouth.  I'm confident, however, that everyone I acknowledge with my exaggeratedly wide, teeth-baring smile will observe how white and beautiful my teeth are.  And with all that time in the chair to reflect and sort things out, I cannot help but think: isn't life grand?!  So what if next month I have to return to have my cracked molar "assessed"?  That white-knuckled ride is a whole month away.

It's the best of what I do

If you call me. . . or appear on my doorstep this summer you'll find me wholly distracted by my re-discovered passion.  I am designing and making handbags.  Here's a recent one, made with fabric bought for me by Lindsey, free spirited younger daughter.  She found it at Windmill Fabrics in Chinatown.  The bag is modeled by its new handler, Tracy, good friend of Lindsey.

A syncopated life, an arrhythmic body

It's an unchallenged fact that I have no sense of rhythm.  It's fitting, too, (in a loosely-related way) that I, half the time, can't spell the word rythm correctly.  I am destined to spend a lifetime wondering about that damn h.  

The whole thing mystifies me, though, because there had seemed to be a legacy of musicality that ran through at least one side of the family.  Papa Joe, accomplished organist, choir director, and high school music director, took for granted that his children would absorb both his zeal and talent (if not his direct instruction.)  Nana Mae, too, sang with such joy, rather softly, yet without the timidity that generally characterized her.  St. Thomas Aquinas himself would not have an inkling that the woman who warbled "Amazing Grace" a solas in front of - or behind, as the case were, - a churchful of parishioners, was really a very quiet and most-unassuming woman.  While I have so many memories of the two of them, memories largely shaped by their shared life of domesticity (1777 South Street) and worship (St. Thomas Aquinas Church), the presence of music with its various accoutrements was a constant.  

When we urchins came onto the scene, we responded to a microcosm densely saturated with music at times sweetly pure, other times (specifically at 415 Titicut Street) harshly distorted through the simple act of turning the volume up. . . WAY up!  Formal music instruction occurred in isolated, small snatches - guitar lessons for Tom and me, violin much later for Bobby.

It wasn't until I was well into my thirties that I made a serious effort to explore my capabilities in music and dance.  (Dance?  Where did that come from?)  For four months I worked on a single song,  "Turn down the lights, turn down the bed, hmmm hmmm HMMM HMMM hmmm  inside my head.  La la la la-la, la LA la-la." (Sorry, Bonnie.)  That was the extent of my voice lessons. . . four months. . . one song.  As for dance, realization didn't happen quite so quickly; I believe I was in a modern jazz class, but I can't even say that with certitude.  Did I learn in six months to move with the music?  Not a bit!

Which all brings me to last night, the 22nd of July, my 33rd wedding anniversary.  I honestly DO love music, I just can't sing and I can dance even less than I can sing.  As I have taken a real liking these days to the small, but comfortable Blue Ocean Music Hall on Salisbury Beach, I once again purchased a pair of tickets, this time to enjoy the music of Johnny A, rather a renaissance electric guitarist.  It's impossible to say that his music bears a resemblance to any one artist, but I'd say his work is strongly influenced by legends Jimi Hendrix and Les Paul (think Jimi Hendrix meets Stevie Ray Vaughn meets Eric Clapton.)  We had a wonderful night, but my bobbling head would not coordinate efforts  with my tapping feet, as hard as I tried.  Even fixating on the drummer to pick up the beat had no effect.  I would get things going with my head, and - feeling that I was doing okay - I would add the foot.  And that's where everything dissolved into Central Body Awkwardness.  What an uncoordinated mess I am!  So, if a genie appears to me, I have half a mind to burn one of my three wishes on a body with rythm, er, rhythm.

Gotta love those adorable brown uniforms

Today the brown delivery truck streaked down our little street, giving a hail and hearty toot just before it backed into the driveway.  With years of contact with UPS, I recognized that characteristic approach; it wasn't our quiet, sweet courier this time.  It was Rob!  Rob who had been reassigned to another part of town, but who for years would bound out of his truck on arrival, attempting each time to win the affections of our socially bereft shelty, Tavis, before he took care of the business at hand.  I have to smile when I remember one particular afternoon when my arrival from work interrupted yet another try to befriend Tavis.  Rob was rolling on the ground pleading in a most earnest manner, while Tavis - at the end of his tether (in more than one way) - would not even look at poor Rob, eyes turning toward me with sadness and desperation, suggesting that this strange being was just not making any worldly dog sense.  It just wouldn't occur to Rob that anyone, including a dog, would reject his friendliness and charm.

Because of his constant good cheer and his pitiful efforts with Tavis, I will always be awash in happy feelings when I hear the UPS truck approach, even though it is now a rare occasion when luck will strike and it will be the ever-ebullient Rob in that adorable brown uniform who will leap from the truck.  Of course, these days he can't roll quite so effortlessly on the ground, what with his aching back and shoulder, and a strained forearm.  The smile, however, is just as broad and uplifting as ever.  It's a GOOD day!

It's surely summer

Although technically not a heat wave, as one of the past three days was only 88 degrees, it is a sangría evening.  Everybody should buy a sangría pitcher and start concocting.  (You'll want a pitcher that over time builds a history of flavors within its walls.)  There is no end to the variety of recipes.  Tonight:  Cava Spanish sparkling wine (vino español, como no,) muddled mint, sliced strawberries (oh, so sweet around these here parts right now), little bit of white grape juice.  That's all there is to it.  ¡Gózalo, amigo!

great book to kick off my summer

I love reading, but I am the slowest reader I know.  My favorite books as a child were "Misty of Chincoteague" and the Billy and Blaze series; admittedly, I was mainly fascinated with the illustrations.  The SRA reading program in third grade nearly buried me, as I languished in the color red or orange far longer than was considered "healthy" by my teacher.  Worse than the teacher's disapproval was the very public evidence of my failure to thrive.  Even casual visitors to the class could pinpoint who the strugglers were.  When I consider my entire third grade experience, I can only remember my SRA phobia; in fact, I don't think we did anything else in third grade; it can only be that the teacher neglected the other subjects that round out the third grade curriculum, subjects such as geometry, world history, and whatever else one should learn in third grade.  One simply could not fake it in the SRA program; the designers made sure of that by including something spirit-crushing called "comprehension".  As my anxiety grew over my constant companion Orange, my comprehension suffered further.  While I could recite for anyone the dictionary definition of any and every word in the reading selection, the words would not cooperate with me enough to provide a sense of understanding, and no one was standing at my shoulder asking me to define the word "abject" or its companion "misery."  Alas, reading comprehension has ever since been my achilles heel.

Which quite naturally leads to my recommendation for a good read.  I just finished "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand, a jaw-dropping narrative about an American World War 2 POW.  It's the perfect antidote for anyone who doesn't believe in survival against all odds. You'll not get a thorough summary from me, of course, since I only understood 63% of what I read.  And if you ask me, "Why do you think Louie wanted to return to Japan after all the physical and psychological torture he suffered there?" I will have to turn the question around and instead give you a definition of "psychological torture."  (Just investigate "SRA Reading Program" for that.)

Whitey, your celebrity is costing us too much

Having heard that it is costing something like $20,000 a trip (maybe even $40,000 or $20,000,000, it's all the same to me) to transport Whitey Bulger to the courthouse each morning, I encourage us funders of this excursion to assert our creativity.  There are alternative solutions to using our Coast Guard; for example, let's bring the court personnel to the prison.  Or, let's utilize our high school tech ed classes to construct a highly re-usable, portable cell to place in a closet or some other small space at the courthouse in South Boston.  There have to be a multitude of other creative alternatives.  Ideas?

Maiden Voyage

This is my very first blog.  So, there you have it!  Now it's time to squish some annuals into pots on my deck, and give them a stern look to convey the seriousness of their mission.