#....also makes sense why he called me to bring and wear his rosary.

[beastofwant]

also shoutout to hermes for sponsoring my nyc trip I guess

[hunterartemisanime]

Noragami: Bishamon- the Archetypical Warrior Mother Goddess

Bishamon or Bishamonten from “Seven Gods of Fortune” in Shintoism is the typical “strong woman” trope character in a Shonen anime called Noragami: she is angry, she is beautiful and conveniently buxom for fans to drool over her. Termed by Yato as “ugly broad” Bishamon is fierce and coarse. However, she is not only that: she has a caring and nurturing side which almost caused her demise once and put her in danger over and over again. So this is my take on Bishamon and why she is the Eastern archetype of “Warrior Mother Goddess” instead of her Shinto persona.

First of all, let’s look what Bishamon actually is in the Classic Shinto religion.  In Japan, Bishamonten (毘沙門天), or just Bishamon (毘沙門) is thought of as an armor-clad god of war or warriors and a punisher of evildoers. Bishamon is portrayed holding a spear in one hand and a small pagoda in the other hand, the latter symbolizing the divine treasure house, whose contents he both guards and gives away. His (because Bishamon is a male in Shintoism) legend derives from the Hindu Demigod “Vaisravana” or “Son of Vishrava”, who is known as Kubera the God of wealth. Both Vaisravana and Bishamon are associated with material fortunes and Bishamon is really a fierce version of Vaisravana, a well-fed, content and rather gluttonous demigod. 

But how a god like Bishamon gets transferred in Noragami to a woman? It could be a design choice by Adachitoka to create a contrasting female character who could meet Yato in a more Godly plane. But I can see some clear Hindu influence in Bishamon’s design. She is inhumanly beautiful, fierce, perfect body and with rapunzel length hair. Her design is very similar to the Warrior Goddess Durga. In the “Meditation of Durga” she is described as

“the one with great length-ed dreadlocks in her head...whose face is beautiful like the full moon, whose complexion is as fair as flax seed flower...whose beautiful teeth sit on her full lips, whose full breasts hold the elixir of immortality*-- (Meditation of Durga, verse 1-3)

The physical description of Durga has uncanny similarity with Bishamon. the Goddess is also called “nabayouvana sampannang, sarbabharana bhushitang” (who is young and clad with fantastic jewels). Bishamon may be young and beautiful but she does not wear any eastern jewels: she is rather clad with her regalias posed as weapons, navigation and clothes; thus it isn’t far off.

It is not only the superficial physical appearance that are similar with Durga and Bishamon; they also share some character similarities. The traditional Bishamonten is not known to have a mount or Divine Familiar, Bishamon in the anime on the other hand does a divine familiar in the form of mount: Kuraha, who takes the shape of Lion and can travel in the air. This is an iconic similarity with Durga, whose divine mount is a lion. In “hymns of Gandhesvari” Durga (or her Gandhesvari form) is described as “Simhasta” (the one who rides a lion). Durga is also known as “Simha vahini” (she whose vehicle is a lion). The Bishamonten is known to carry only one weapon, a spear, but Bishamon in Noragami has or carries multiple weapons because she has multiple regalia. In the “Meditation of Durga” the goddess is known to carry a goad, bow and arrow, executioner’s sword, discus, conch, mace, shield, rosary and the trident. Bishamon too carries multiple weapons: whip, guns, knife long machete etc, just like Goddess Durga herself. One part of Durga’s weapon is “Aveda barma” or the “impenetrable armour” forged by the ironsmith of the Gods, Vishwakarma (the forger of the universe). Bishamon wears a full blown armour by her regalia Aiha when the Ebisu-crisis occured and she had to journey to underworld.

Now, in the parallel of two warrior goddesses who seem to be far from society’s idea of ideal femininity, where does the nurturing part fit? According to the Hindu mythology Durga is only a fragment of the ideal femininity: the rightful rage of “Adi Shakti” (Ancient Energy), the Female mother goddess. (Excuse my jargon) in the “Durga Saptashati” of Rigveda, the Goddess is described as “mother of all creation” (verse no 3) and at the same time she is described as “creator, sustainer and destroyer of the world” (verse no 4) of which she is the Mother. Bishamon has an extensive collection of regalia: she does not discriminate who is weak or who is useful, she takes everyone in as her own according to Noragami Wiki: 

“She willingly accepts any wandering and troubled spirit, useful or not, and adds them to her family. “

She and her Shinkis live in Takamagahara which is the universe on its own, so she is the guardian and mother of her Shinkis in a way. Takamagahara is situated in a place which has golden hued galaxy as the backdrop of the sky. The form of Durga which alludes to the primeval Female Goddess is called “Bhuvaneswari” (she, whose body is the universe). The shinkis or regalias derive strength from her divine existence and they exist in a palpable form because of her. It again alludes to “Devi Suktam” (the introduction of the Goddess) where is has been mentioned:

“ I am the Queen of the Universe; I give wealth to those who worship me. I am the all-knowing one and the prime one among the worshippable deities. I enter many bodies as the Soul, taking various forms and with different manifestations, in various ways. ... That one who eats food, who sees, breathes, and hears whatever is said, he does all that only through me (my powers). Those who do not understand me, die. “ --(Devi Suktam, verse 4 & 5)

The sense of being center of the universe has brought a tremendous sense of loss and grief to the goddesses in many occassion. In the myths, when Goddess Parvati (the calm version of Durga) loses her child Ganesha, she assumes her rageful spirit again to destroy the universe that has taken her child from her. Bishamon has faced tremendous sense of loss and grief when she lost her “Ma” clan due to the malefic thoughts of the Shinkis--an action which blighted her tremendously. She too assumes a vengeful spree towards Yato, who allegedly slaughtered her “Ma” clan. 

In short Bishamon is a great representation of motherly strength in anime field: the term “mother” often evokes a sense of tenderness, security and comfort, but it has been proven in the ancient myth that bringing life into the world and the sense of protectiveness towards life is the most powerful energy of all: it can make an break everything in existence and when the motherly tenderness is challenged it can manifest in one of the most destructive forces in the world. Thus the “ugly broad” “stern powerhouse” persona is only skin deep. The essence of Bishamon is far greater and more empowering. 

* In ancient India, full breasts of a woman, which are swollen with milk was granted as a symbol of motherly power, nourishment and comfort. A woman with moderate breast size or small breast size were considered equally beautiful. In fact talking about sexuality in religious and secular discourses by scholars and sages were acceptable. It has no sexual connotation whatsoever. Please don’t perverse it in any sense.

...

wow that’s a lot, now tags (although I have no evidence that they like Noragami)

: @sidd-hit-my-butt-ham @yanderebakugo @kurokonbscenarios @kurokonobasket @kurokonoboisket @art-zites @idinaxye @sp-chernobyl @strawbe3ryshortcake @reservethemoon @rilnen @a-shy-potato @thirsthourdemon @animebxxch @edagawasatoru @akawaiishi-blog @reinyrei @chloe-noir @theswahn @ahobaka-trash @jeilliane @trashtoria  @scarlettedwardsposts @quirkydarling @ghostieswaifu @levihan-freaks @hope-im-spirited-away @yves0809 @marshiro1101 @bubziles @heartfullofknb @kit-kat57 @akichan-th

[pynkhues]

Hi ! I just wanted to say that I love your writing and I wanted to ask how you go about doing research for all your au's. Thanks!

Hi! Thank you so much, anon! And what a fun question! I could talk about researching all day, haha. My undergraduate degree is actually in history too, so research is something that’s sort of fundamental to my education in a lot of ways. 

To talk about researching is kind of hard though, because while the steps are more or less the same, the approach is really different depending on what it is that I’m writing. For instance, the answer’s pretty different if I’m writing a modern day au where I can shorthand certain things because my readers know what I’m talking about vs an historical au where I really have to think pretty deeply about everything if I want to submerge a reader in a storyworld. 

So I thought it might be fun to answer this question using my two biggest au’s as sorts of case studies! This is probably an extremely nerdy answer, I don’t know, haha, and it talks about both researching and incoporating research into the creative process while writing, so I hope that’s okay! 

Generally speaking, all my writing starts with a question: 

What’s the story that I want to tell? 

This is always a process that tends to vary for me, but I rarely actively ask the question to myself prior to getting ready to write it? Usually it ends up as me sort of thinking over a concept then getting to a point where I know I’m going to write it, and it’s only when I really start to think seriously about that that I ask myself that question. 

In both of these cases, it was pretty typical for me, haha: 

And well, then we get to the next question.

What background do I need to know to be able to tell that story? 

While this question might seem AU specific, it’s something that’s actually a step in everything I write. I was working on the second part of the Christmas fic today, which is technically canon divergent, but has made me think a lot about Beth and Rio’s canon cultural backgrounds. 

I’ve always liked the headcanon that Beth and Annie are Jewish, but disconnected from their heritage (Marks is a traditionally Jewish surname, Annie’s used some yiddish slang before), and Rio’s obviously Latino, but of Mexican heritage if we apply Manny’s background, and wears rosary beads on the show which indicate that he’s Catholic. I wanted to embrace both of those things, so I’ve tried to thread them through the story where it’s appropriate to do so. For instance, there's a scene of a Las Posadas celebration at Sainte Anne de Detroit which required a LOT of research on my part and hopefully reads well! 

The point is that those things felt important to me to include in a Christmas fic about Beth and Rio in the C&C ‘verse because the entire series is about their lives entwining and getting to know each other fully. I want to include detail that feels specific to what we know about them and embraces and (with any luck) deepens our connection to the characters in my fic. 

What I’m getting to in a really roundabout way is that once I have a story idea, I start to think about what I’m going to have to understand if I’m going to do the story justice.

In the case of the pornstar and pirate aus, this couldn’t look more different: 

Annnnnd so on, haha. 

As you can see, sometimes that background research is really clear and straight forward, as it was with the pornstar AU. I looked up how it worked, and because I knew that I wanted it to steer clear of the seedy and toxic parts of porn, I basically researched ideal environments and best practice, put those in place, and then focused on how to get Beth from her suburban home into a legitimate studio. 

The pirate AU was extremely different and much more of a mutable process. Without a clear sense of the era from the get-go, I had a much wider scope to explore when and where the story could take place, and when I realised that dating the story would inevitable force me to contend with parts of history I might not want to (i.e. the lead up to The Civil War), it let me re-shape a world around an era, but not feel entirely beholden to it. 

In that sense, the research process for both of them involved me choosing fantasy over reality – I negated certain realities to focus on the things I wanted to write (I highly doubt you will find a porn set anywhere near as ethical as Thank You Ma’am after all) – but if I can’t do that in fanfic, where can I? The aim still is for there to be enough that is real that you feel grounded in the story even if I’ve taken certain creative liberties for the sake of telling the story I want to tell.

That’s the beauty of research. Once you know enough about it, you can make informed choices about what you use to shape your storyworld, and make it feel authentic even as you’re fictionalising it.

The point of that though is that this background research is so fundamental to the DNA of the story itself, that it can’t even begin to exist without it.

Loose plotting

It’s usually around this point that I’ll put together a loose plot. This is generally pretty thin, but I’ll start to put pieces into a bit of an order. 

The pornstar au is, again, a really easy example of this. Three parts felt right for it, the shooting of the porno itself was always going to be in the final part, which gave me two chapters to get Beth there. I knew she was going to submit herself through an amateur talent callout which I’d discovered in my background research, so the question of it was more around why would someone like her sign up? Canon plot points help – Beth needs money! Fantasy kicks in again, haha – because she and Dean are finally divorcing.

On the other hand, the pirate au is pretty much unrecognisable from it’s first loose plot.

In it, I’d pencilled in Beth travelling on a ship with Dean and the children, pirates boarding, and Rio kidnapping Beth as collateral to help him escape. 

My loose plots change a lot and usually grow in detail, evolve and change shape as I start to ask myself why, and there are a lot of reasons why the pirate au changed so much, but I’ll get to that a bit later. 

The point is, once I have a loose plot, I’ll usually throw some more words down, see what I’ve got, and then get to the part of the research process I like to call: 

Question time

With background research done and a loose plot and some draft scenes written, I hit a much more specific part of the research process where I don’t need to know broadstroke background detail, I need to know the answers to really specific stuff. I usually write a list and try to do it all at once so that the writing process isn’t too much stop-start. I bullet point the answers in my creative doc then too, so the information is right there when I need it.

Again, the questions I asked of the pornstar au and pirate au were pretty different (although there were a few similarities, haha). Some of the questions I asked were: 

This is actually a case where the pirate au was, in a lot of ways, easier. History is well documented and fact checked after all, but current porn industry standards are, y’know. Not quite as transparent, haha. I’ve mentioned it before, but I actually started to fill out an amateur porn application (with a false identity of course, haha), so that I could see the full form and get a genuine sense of the questions they ask, which is hilarious, annnd brings us to sources. 

Sources

In researching, there are definitely things I’ll just Google, but I also like to utilise sources pretty widely. In particular, Google’s not really going to give you a great sense of what - say - the life of a pornstar’s like, but there are some great podcast series where performers talk about their lives in their own words. Similarly, Google searches are great for the cliffnotes of an answer, but don’t hold a candle to era-made drawings, letters and newspaper clippings. 

For the two, I’d probably say my sources looked something like this: 

How do the answers to these questions affect the story that I want to tell? 

Annnd of course, the answers to these questions frequently end up re-shaping and re-framing my story, both directly and indirectly. Originally for instance, I wasn’t going to have condoms at all in the pirate au, because I naively assumed they wouldn’t be invented yet in a loose 1800s-set fic, only to discover that some version of a condom has been around since Ancient Rome (it was made using the bladders of animals! Gross!). 

Other times it’s indirect. The idea for instance in the pirate au to have Beth realise the houses that the men had robbed through certain items they were wearing came really from looking a lot at antique store sites and image archives and seeing how much was custom made for families and individuals. That in turn made me think how for someone who’s ability to think on her feet and observe are her strengths, that could really come into play as a plot point. 

Re-Plotting and Writing

It’s usually around this point that everything comes together and I start to really map out a fic in a firmer, more meaningful way, and also just throw myself into the writing of it. I generally feel like I’ve got the tools at this point in the process, and start to talk to the story in a bit more of an informed way. 

It’s also really where I start asking myself why? and what does this mean for the next scenes? a lot. 

Jumping back to the original pirate au plot, this was really where it pivoted as drastically as it did. There were too many tropes in that premise that I didn’t like. I didn’t like that Beth had no agency in the act that connected her to Rio, I didn’t like the trope of the MOC kidnapping a ‘helpless’ white woman, I didn’t like that Beth would be taken from her children by force and how that would impact any connection her and Rio formed and ensure that a major part of the story would have to be devoted to Beth trying to get back to them.

Immediately that made it a case where Beth had to choose to go with Rio, but why would she leave her family? And why would Rio let this upperclass lady onboard his ship? So she snuck on. So she had to, because Dean lost everything again. Okay, but would Beth just leave the kids with Dean after he’d done that? No way, not with the implications of the time, so who would she leave them with? Annie or Ruby - no, I want Ruby on the pirate adventure. Annie. But what on earth could put Annie in a secure enough position that Beth would willingly entrust her children to her? 

Thus the subplot of Greg wanting to legitimise Ben was born! Which I doubly liked, because it kind of mirrors canon, haha. 

In that case, the research really helped me flesh out a story world that let me explore character storylines in a way that I wouldn’t always do, which is insanely fun to me, haha, so I forever am left hoping it’s fun to read too. 

But yes! In a nutshell, that’s my research process. :-) 

[thistangledbrain]

Ok y’all, I’m sorry I’m having to catch up! We got a new foster in a few days ago - a particularly broken soul - and my mind has been *entirely* on him. But he’s settling in a little now, so here’s the last 3 days in one post ☺️

Autism Acceptance Month

Day 10!

“Sensory Life”

This is sort of hard to describe, but I’ll try! This is different from the next entry about stims, though both are sensory related.

It’s like being on microdosed ‘shrooms *all the time*. If you don’t know what that’s like, I’ll try to describe (this is collaborated with a friend who regularly does this - I don’t...it would probably be far too overwhelming).

Colors are far sharper to me & I emotionally react to them far more than most people. That results in some colors being genuinely offensive - not just “I don’t like that color”, but it will make me intensely angry or physically sick. This makes me curious about chromotherapy, but I haven’t really looked into it that much. My tolerance of certain colors can ebb and flow depending on my emotional state/mindset. (This crap is so sharp, I’m actually getting a twinge of irritation just *thinking* about my most hated colors LOL 😂 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Textures/skin sensations are another big one. (By now you may be asking, how TF did this chick manage Marine Corps training/exercises?!) I guess if you want something bad enough, you can shut down some of the overwhelming aspects of the sensory thing...this ability to disassociate probably isn’t what NT’s would call “healthy”, but it’s quite handy if you’re autistic, and those of us who have been through real trauma seem to be especially skilled with our ability to just shut off all circuits and “embrace the suck”). Like...I’ll nearly panic to get out of a store or something if my underwear starts feeling uncomfortable, but I’ve literally been soaked head to toe, covered in mud and sand in my *everywhere* (and I HATE SAND anywhere but on my feet) AND I pissed myself, because nobody’s gonna stop shooting/training just because you have to go potty 🙄), and I remember literally giving zero fucks about it...so it really is entirely a mindset thing. But let’s talk about when I’m NOT in “Marine mode” (cuz let’s face it, it’s been close to two decades since I got out, and I no longer HAVE to tolerate overwhelming sensations).

Sensory input is just basically dialed to 11 & the knob’s been snapped off. Bright lights, loud discordant noises, too much touching/not touching the right way, things like that. I am particularly sensitive about body hair (my own). I *strongly* prefer to have my head shaved on the back and sides (but I leave the top long). The only time I haven’t done this, was in the Marines (it was considered “eccentric” and not allowed, so they made me grow it out). Even though I leave the main part long, it’s *always* in a bun or ponytail - well, unless I’m super dressed up for something, but even then I prefer some sort of updo. Despite the fact that I like my long hair (well on the top anyway), I can’t *stand* the way it feels on my neck or especially my face - I HATE IT when my hair touches my face. If I wasn’t married...there’s a decent chance I’d just shave it all off and be done with it LOL 😆 My ponytail pulled through the back of a baseball hat is I guess what they’d call my “signature look”.

And you think NT’s have bad misophonia? *I’ve jumped out of a moving vehicle before* to get away from the noise of someone chewing loudly/smacking their lips in the back seat (he was a coworker and punching him in the mouth - which is what I DESPERATELY wanted to do - would have gotten me fired 😕)...but humans eating, or dogs licking their junk, makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. It’s mostly humans though....you have *no idea* the level of self discipline it takes to keep me from either rage crying or actually getting violent around someone smacking their mouth during a meal. I *cannot* be around my husband when he’s eating breakfast cereal even though he’s a very mannered eater - I don’t know why, but it’s *so loud* (and I’m terribly hard of hearing) - it sounds like he’s chewing rocks. It took us years to work this problem out LOL - he thought it was dumb that I had such a deeply emotional reaction. Then he tried to “chew quietly”, which all that did was slow down the rock tumbler inside his mouth 😂...gradually, for everyone’s sanity, we realized that cereal eating should not be done in close proximity to each other lololol....and now, when it’s time for family meals around the table, I’ve learned to either keep the range hood fan going (white noise is definitely my friend), or have the TV on. If it’s just mainly the sound of everyone chewing, I simply won’t eat at the table. I lose my appetite. (And all of my dinner guests/family are very polite diners. It’s MY hangup.) Phone calls are another big one. I could probably come up with several reasons why I hate it...I LOATHE it. This is one sensory hangup some people in my family just refuse to accept. I don’t think they realize I equate unexpected or immediately demanded phone calls to running naked though a mall or getting a root canal. Hissssssssss!! Give me some time to prepare myself for this shit please - you’re actually asking a *lot* from me. (And when I do have a call? Ugh I babble and am so awkward, because I’m so effing uncomfortable, which I also hate.)

But here’s an area where my “sensory overload” serves me very well:

Dogs.

I am usually *intensely* dialed into the energy and body language of an animal, but particularly dogs. I’m *so* sensitive to them, that I often actually can feel things even happening behind my back - can basically sense the energy in the area shift. (Roughly 75% of the time. I’m spacey sometimes too LOL.) The work I do with “behaviorally challenged” dogs is the biggest area where I am *grateful* for my autistic mind. I don’t think I could really do the things I do without it, successfully. (I can do this to a large degree with people as well, as can my youngest son. You cannot lie to that boy about your feelings or mood.)

We all have different levels of sensory sensitivity and different triggers, but every autistic I know has several “sensory hangups”. It often is one of our biggest hurdles to deal with, when it comes to “normal functioning”. So, many of us constantly have headphones (or muffs) on, some of us wear sunglasses *all the time*, etc (I wear a baseball hat - and I genuinely don’t like going anywhere where I have to get dressed up and can’t wear my hat. Been like that since my early teens. That hat shields me from all sorts of real and imagined sensory triggers.) You do what you can to mitigate, you know? But my “microdosing shrooms” and “knob dialed to 11 and snapped off” is really the best way I can summarize. (And that’s not all bad - my trips into a new natural space, like the redwoods, is an absolute *thrill*. I also occasionally love sensory overload - many auties do - like rollercoasters. My youngest son and I can ride till we pass out LOL!) So sensory life is love/hate, really....but I don’t think I’d change much about it.

Except the fucking misophonia. I hate that I go into almost a murderous rage over someone just chewing food loudly 🤦🏻‍♀️ - but seriously. It’s impolite anyway. Don’t do it. 😆

———————————————————

Day 11!

Stims

This is one of the biggest areas where neurotypicals struggle to understand us.

We all have stims. Stims are basically any stimulus that brings us joy or comfort. It could be rocking, flapping, walking in tight little circles, clicking your fingernails together, spinning, making weird sounds or whistling, etc. And it’s usually repetitive - that’s the part that gets on people’s nerves.

I’ve found that most *women* hide most of our stims. We only let go and stim our little hearts out when we’re alone. I do that, because some of my stims grate on my husband. Sometimes I don’t WANT to feel “watched” anyway...I’ve noticed males don’t have quite the same issue with that.

I have quiet stims I do to soothe myself, and happy stims. One of my quieter stims when I’m trying to soothe myself (like in public) is clicking my teeth, particularly my right canines. I also have this silicone bite stick I wear around my neck sometimes, that I chew on (my sons like the bite sticks as well). I carry a little bag of fidget toys in my purse, to soothe myself with when I’m stressed. There’s a thing sort of like a fidget cube, a little cowrie shell and twine bracelet that I fiddle with almost like a rosary, a small stuffed axolotyl (her name is Blossom), and a few other toys. My little stash also comes in damn handy when I encounter a bored child LOL!

One of my sons makes funny little sound effects randomly (and he’s grown & still does it). The other used to randomly shriek when he was younger - then he learned how to whistle, so he couldn’t say a whole sentence without punctuating it with little whistles (we actually thought it was adorable).

My favorite stim is putting my headphones on, putting on some favorite music, sitting with my legs crossed, closing my eyes, and rocking. I’m happy to TELL you about this stim, but it’s one I do alone, because I like to get completely lost in it and I can’t do that if I feel I’m being watched...and you’ll damn near give me a heart attack if you touch me while I’m lost in that world. (And boy does it irritate me to get yanked out of that before I’m ready, for some bullshit non emergency reason.) Better to just isolate myself (except my dogs are always with me). Another one I do alone - and I have no idea why i like it so much - is squeaking my bite stick across my teeth. (This one is weird to me because I usually HATE my teeth being touched...yes dentists are a problem.) This one I enjoy doing kind of mindlessly while I read, but damn would it irritate anyone in listening distance LOL...I mean, it would irritate the shit out of ME if someone else was doing it, because *other people’s* repetition, especially if it makes noise, gets on my damned nerves. 🙄 Figures lmao!

Stims can be damaging sometimes, though. Like I used to twist and twirl my hair when I was younger so much that the areas I usually grabbed were frayed and broken (I also chewed my hair sometimes). One stim I cannot break myself of even though sometimes it’ll make me bleed, is chewing the insides of my cheeks or my lips. That’s my most frequent (several times a day) one, and the one that is both gratifying *and* soothing. It’s also the one that’s hardest to suppress.

Some auties are either unaware or literally don’t care how you feel about their stims, but I am and do. I’d like to think I’m pretty “appropriate” *most* of the time with my stims and other people around, except the lip/cheek chewing. If my husband notices I’ve gotten pretty furious about it (even using my hand to push my cheek into optimal biting position), he’ll gently put his hands on mine to bring me back to awareness - if I’m gnawing away, I’m either super stressed or way lost in thought. Either way, I can accidentally hurt myself, so he gently guides me away/distracts me.

Stimming is an important part of Autie life and should not be discouraged unless it hurts Your Pet Autie ™️.

And if you’re looking for a neat gift for an Autie? They actually make stim toy packs. Get them one, they’re fun. ☺️ (Most stim toys are designed to withstand being put in mouths and bitten/chewed, too - LOTS of us have oral fixations.) And hey, even if you’re a NT, try stimming sometime (lots of normal people have stims, they just don’t realize that’s what they are - like nail biting. Bite your nails a lot? Get a bite stick!! God they’re so satisfying!)....

Happy stimming!

———————————————-

Day 12!

“Favorite Autism Charity”

This one is short and easy: ASAN. Autism Self Advocacy Network.

“The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is a nonprofit organization run by and for individuals with autism. According to its mission statement, the Network’s goal is ‘to empower autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us.’”

————————————————-

Day 13!

“Family”

Well that’s kinda ambiguous, isn’t it? 😒

I’ll start with this tack:

Being an autistic mom with autistic kids.

I mean for years, none of us KNEW LOL - and maybe that’s what took me so long to get around to pursuing a formal diagnosis for my youngest. To me, for the longest time, he was just sensitive and different like me (same with my oldest, for the most part, but I’m pretty sure that was me buying into the “brilliant people are just fucking weird ok” mindset also), yannow? So it was like, “well mama always told me I’d have one like me & then know what I put her through” 🙄 My oldest got lumped into the “all bright kids are quirky” category - but as I learned about ASD through my youngest and myself, it became damn obvious the oldest was also in our camp. (He’s taken the prelim test now anyway, but is not formally diagnosed.) I genuinely believe that our “shared weirdness” binds us very tightly to each other - and I’m super pleased about that.

It brought a whole new level of understanding and awareness within our little family when we realized it was ASD I guess - and acceptance. (I 100% believe that diagnosis - or even affirmation - is critical to our self acceptance and understanding.) I wouldn’t trade my little family for anything, and consider myself remarkably blessed. I can talk about how complex and brilliant my boys are ALL day (and often do LOL). Hubby is neurodivergent, and can identify with (or at least sympathize with) MANY of our hangups....but he’s “normal” enough that he’s been able to guide us (mostly me) with things like how to use tact (not often a skill we naturally possess lmao). My heart breaks when I read posts by auties whose families either don’t understand or don’t accept them & are constantly trying to basically mute who they are. Auties “live out loud”, and some people find that off putting. I know growing up, I was constantly getting my ass chewed for being “dramatic” or too sensitive, too, so I shut down and hid my sensitivity far, far away. I’m only *lately* (last few years) discarding that silly tough girl mask. (I can still be quite the little wolverine at times, but I’m not afraid to show my soft sensitive actual self anymore...to stay soft in today’s fucked up world takes actual courage - a lot of it - and strength. I was looking at the concept of being “strong” entirely the wrong way.)

I swear my husband has lived with nearly as many phases and facets, as years we’ve been together. Sometimes I ask him if this ever bothers him. He says no, because who I am at my core never changes...and he grins and says “and you damn sure aren’t boring” 😂

But since I’ve known I’m autistic, I’ve given myself more freedom to discover who I am without these socially dictated parameters. And permission to be precisely who I am, without cringing apologies when the real me shines through awkwardly.

And my husband and boys have been there every step of the way, embracing me, as we do with them. ♥️

Yeah. I love my family. We’re some pretty cool people. 😁

[tommyplum]

- tis the saison | tommy/alfie, modern au  for @boundinshallows’ sholomons prompt fest 2019

Nobody much cares for holiday parties, but everybody's got to go to them nevertheless. Tommy Shelby's no exception, much as he would like to be. .

notes: takes place in the same modern au as eggplant peach question mark - maggie

"Tell me one more time that you don't want to go, Tommy Shelby, and I'll not only send Arthur round to drag you there, I'll buy you a Christmas jumper with mistletoe pinned to the hem and sit back and laugh at the thought of you jumping around the room like a scalded cat trying to avoid being kissed on the cock."

"Christ Almighty, Pol." Tommy rubbed his fingers over his eyebrows, using the heels of his shoes -- currently hooked up on the edge of his desk -- to drag his wheeled office chair forward. "Giving me a little too much credit, aren't you?"

"Giving the other attendees of the liquor board holiday party too little, more like it." Polly's voice sounded amused and warm, even over the tinny speakerphone. "Thomas, you know I usually take on party duties, but it simply can't be helped this year. You're going to have to represent for us. It won't be so bad! How many distributors can you have slept with already?"

Tommy felt it was quite admirable that he had the grace to just let silence stretch between him and speakerphone Polly in answer to that question. Pol, however, didn't seem to share his viewpoint on that.

"Oh, hellfire, Tommy! It's a wonder you get any fucking work done at all, I swear to God."

"Look, I'll go, I'll go. I won't like it, but I'll go." He used his heels to push himself away from the desk, drag himself close again, bony knees accordioning up on each approach as he chewed a thumbnail and mentally totted up the likely suspects he'd be running into over fusion dim sum appetizers and rounds of whatever vodka blended drinks were on the themed menu. "Might even make it out of there unscathed."

"You're a horror." Polly paused, and then said, "--Alfie Solomons is going to be there this year. He said since we were clear that it's a holiday party and not a Christmas party, he felt at peace in his devotions with dipping a toe in the secular festivities. He literally said those words."

Tommy grunted, thumping one shoe down onto the floor. "So what? So he's religious. I've seen you twirl a rosary or two in your time, Aunt Pol."

"Shut it. Don't fuck anybody." 

The dial tone followed this warning, and Tommy ended the call on his desk phone. With Alfie Solomons around being the cock-blocking arsehole he'd more than once proven himself to be, Tommy thought sourly, there wasn't much chance of his even being able to disobey Polly's orders.

---

Hour One of Holiday Representation Hell consisted of two tremendously terrible courgette gyoza, a peach-and-satsuma nightmare of a blended drink, and two elderflower ciders in quick succession to rinse out the taste of both. It also consisted of Tommy smiling and nodding as a number of representatives of small labels that wouldn't see next year paraded themselves past him, pressing flesh and telling him their names with voices of great import. Tommy made jokes that didn't land half the time, but watched them all laugh anyway.

Hour Two of Not-Christmas Carnival of Nonsense saw the introduction of wasabi cheese straws (somehow more tasty than the gyoza, and Tommy had one in his mouth at all times through that hour), another cider, and a few shots of green apple soju. Luca Changretta followed him around for at least twenty minutes trying to sell him on fruit wines, and Tommy finally promised to try his blueberry merlot before hiding in the kitchen for the rest of the hour and feeling up one of the servers through her sensible cotton pants. She ate the rest of his cheese straw and he retreated once the coast was clear.

Hour Three of Whatever It Was, the peach-and-satsuma nightmare had become much more tolerable with the addition of most of a bottle of peach schnapps, and Tommy watched a short parade of those small label representatives conga out the back door. 

"What are they called?"

Tommy blinked, raising his eyebrows as he turned and found Alfie Solomons standing next to him, munching a wasabi cheese straw as if it were a stalk of hay and himself the laziest cow in the pasture. "Pardon? What? What are who called? Make sense, Alfie."

Alfie snickered and nodded at the tail end of the line. "They all gave you their names when you glad-handed them, love, and you looked oh-so-terribly interested in each one. I'll give you five pound and a kiss if you can tell me the name of even one of the poor blighters."

"Why would I bother to remember their names?" Tommy said, irritated, and looked around for where he'd put down his drink. "It's a party. Bad manners to expect proper business at a party. If they had any sense they'd give me business cards."

Tommy spun back towards Alfie, startled to find the man's fingers delving into one of the back pockets of his jeans … and extracting a little sheaf of business cards. "You mean these?" Alfie said, then laughed and pitched them in the air. Tommy made no move to stop him, only groused, "The serving staff won't thank you for that, Mr. Solomons."

Alfie made a noise that Tommy would swear he'd heard a high-fantasy tree make in a movie once, and took Tommy's hand in his own -- warm, surprisingly deft, with a crown tattoo near the thumb that Tommy'd somehow failed to notice before -- and brought it to his lips. For one heart-stopping moment Tommy thought the daft bugger was going to kiss his fingertips, but all Alfie did was brush the very end of his nose above Tommy's fingers and intone, "...and you've already ingratiated yourself to the serving staff from the aroma of it, eh, darling?"

Eyes blazing, Tommy snatched his hand back and rubbed it against his shirt. "Pick those up," he snapped, pointing at the cards scattered on the floor. "Really, Alfie. Some fucking manners."

A low chuckle followed on Tommy's heels as he marched away, in search of a fresh drink and maybe some fresh air. His face was feeling awfully hot, for some reason, all of a sudden.

---

Hour Four of the Wonderful Year-End Festivities found Tommy performing his best booze-related trick for a captive and somewhat plastered audience: lopping the cork off a bottle of mid-range champagne with a short saber brought expressly to the party for that purpose. Tatiana shrieked with triumph when he managed to pull off the feat, champagne geyersing from the neatly broken neck of the bottle in dry-scented frothing excitement, and flung her arms around his neck to claim a very wet and vodka-fumed kiss. 

"All Tatiana's idea, I assure you," Tommy told the remaining celebrants as they applauded him and he brandished both bottle and saber around. "In fact she's the one planned this whole party. A round of applause, ay, for Tatiana?"

The gathered people obliged, and Tommy handed off the bottle but kept the saber as he trailed over to the decimated cake in the shape of a squat beer keg and used the sword to hack off some frosting for himself. He bore it carefully outside, using a case of bottled water to prop the door open, and leaned against the railing of the stairway landing to swipe his thumb through the clot of frosting and stick it pensively in his mouth. 

The party hadn't been that bad, all told, apart from that fucking courgette repeating on him and the hopeful looks some of those nameless reps had been shooting him all night. The server girl with the sensible knickers had caught his eye and it was clear she'd be up for it, if he wanted a go. And she was pretty, with curly hair dyed some sort of pale purple and a snub nose and freckles across her dark skin. 

But, Tommy thought bleakly as he bit frosting from his thumb, there was just something … wrong. Something missing. And the thought of ending the night as he'd ended so many others, making the trek back to his quiet, junk-filled flat with a bottle of gin to fall exhaustedly asleep on the settee and wake up to dry toast and jelly, it was … well, it was depressing. And Tommy was getting heartily tired of feeling depressed.

He lifted the saber with the thought of bringing it whooshing down again so that the gobbet of frosting on the end would sluice off, somewhere down three floors to hit the ground, but a hand grabbed his wrist and -- dammit -- here was Alfie Solomons again, peering at Tommy in the dim light. "Steady on, sweetie," Alfie said, "don't want to disappoint the cleaners more than you already have, eh?" He nodded towards the party, now in its decided downswing. "That girl you had as an aperatif has gone off with one of the Young Bolsheviks--"

"Young Turks, you mean?"

"No, red's back in fashion, it's very woke to talk about the evils of capitalism at the drop of a knitted hat these days." Alfie grinned, twisting the saber out of Tommy's unresisting grip and scraping the frosting off on the railing before sliding the sword into his belt.

"Ridiculous," Tommy said, although whether that was about the saber, Alfie's wearing it, or his farcical claim about young people and their politics, he didn't care to draw a bead on. But that hollow feeling had eased, somehow, and Tommy was suddenly in no hurry to get back inside. "You don't look the slightest bit drunk. Have you turned teetotaller, Alfie?"

His companion shrugged, heavy shoulders rolling under t-shirt and plaid. "I don't get sloppy at company hurrahs, love," he said. "Hard to erase that picture when you're back at the grindstone trying to cut deals with suppliers and distributors. I save my getting squiffy for when I'm with friends."

"And you've got some," Tommy scoffed. "Friends."

"Not all the ones I'd like." Alfie reached into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt and pulled out a cellophane bag tied with twine, holding it up by the cinched bit to swing in front of Tommy's face before Tommy took it and opened it, taking out one of the rings inside and laying it in his palm before looking at Alfie, perplexed. 

"What's this?"

"Oh, come on now, Thomas -- I know you Shelbys grew up the ragamuffins on your street, but surely even you, the benighted orphans, had biscuits once in a while? A chocolate finger or two? A fucking Jammie Dodger on the High Holy Days or whatever your kind celebrates when you're not busy moaning and rending your garments?"

Tommy scowled, closing his hand over the bag and -- just barely -- easing up his grip enough not to crush the remaining rings of cookie it held. "High fashion party rings," Tommy said after a moment of studying the one in his palm. Begrudgingly. The damn thing had flower petals as decoration. He looked up at Alfie. "Why on earth--"

--and then he was being kissed, and Alfie tasted somehow of fizzy lemonade and smelled of cake frosting and hops, and his hand was cupping Tommy's jaw (so deft! Who would have thought) and stroking the crest of his cheekbone with one thumb. His mouth is like a peach, Tommy thought stupidly as he breathed and opened up and swayed into Alfie's space. Or maybe a satsuma.

Alfie's lips closed and he smiled, not moving away, staying close with Tommy in his space. "Been wanting to do that all fucking night," he rumbled. "Longer, if I'm honest."

"Make some fucking sense," Tommy said, because damned if he was gonna give in that easily to this. He curved his palm enough that the scalloped edges of the delicate biscuit nipped slightly at his skin and said, "you never liked me. I never liked you. It's a happily mutual distaste we've maintained for each other."

Alfie made a hurt, indignant noise. "You wot! I know for a fact that I've been nothing but lovely to you, sweetie, sheer loveliness on a sodding stick."

"You're in my phone as 'that loser who keeps texting me,' and I'm in your phone as 'how about no.'"

Alfie considered this for a moment. "Aside from that." He laughed and took Tommy's hand, curling his fingers over into a fist until the biscuit he was holding snapped, in one place, then two, then crushed into more pieces than Tommy could tell without opening his hand to look. "Don't tell me you'll let a little thing like that stand in the way of what could be a bloody mind-blowing shag for the both of us, Tommy. After I brought you a little prezzie and all."

"Which you've just ruined."

There's three more." But Alfie looked fainly contrite, letting Tommy unfurl his hand while still keeping his own beneath it. Tommy sniffed and tossed his head imperiously, the smell of sugar seeping up from the warmth of his palm. 

"How about no," Tommy said, and ducked his head, licking up crumbs and icing and petals like a horse nosing around for a sugar cube, licking the gritty bits down onto Alfie's fingers, grabbing his wrist and turning his hand over, sucking down hard on that crown tattoo as he listened to Alfie sucking in his breath like a dying man.

Straightening, Tommy slid his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowed, lips parted, eyes hooded as he regarded Alfie steadily. "Did you pick up those business cards like I told you?" he asked, voice low and measured, thrumming in his throat. "Like a good little boy?"

Alfie reached into his back pocket, crumbs and spit smearing against his jeans, and brought out the slightly crumpled wad of cards, holding them pinched between thumb and forefinger. "Mmmm," Tommy hummed, and knocked his hand against Alfie's wrist, sending the slips of cardstock fluttering over the rail as he grabbed the back of Alfie's neck and kissed him, deep and wanting, all thoughts of shame or restraint sent down to the ground three floors under.

A beat passed, and then Alfie growled, the saber clatering against the concrete barrier when he shoved Tommy against the wall, hips crowding in against him, cock thick and promising when he rolled his groin into Tommy's and felt the answering rise there. "That loser, eh?" Alfie muttered, nipping hard at Tommy's jawline. "I'll make you eat those words along with the rest of your biscuits, pet, see if I don't before the night's through."

"You can make me do whatever you want, Mr. Solomons," Tommy said primly, knuckles white as he gripped the back of Alfie's belt, clung to the back of his collar, cellophane crinkling into the nape of Alfie's neck. "Dip your fucking toe into the secular festivities."

"I'll be dipping more than that, Tommy," Alfie said, with a firm thrust that drove Tommy's breath right out of him.

Maybe he'd have to ask Pol where he could find himself one of those mistletoe jumpers.

/end 

[k-l-bryan]

I finished New Dawn and couldn’t bring myself to kill Joseph at the end.  From videos I’ve seen, if you take Judge with you for the mission and do end up killing him, they kneel down and weep.  On the flip side though, I wanted to write something Judge/ Joseph focused that deals with what happens when Joseph lives, where he goes and what the Judge thinks/ does about it.  This was also partly inspired by when I went back to Dutch’s bunker and found the door was now closed.  Both of my characters were female, so I’m going to be writing using female pronouns in this story.  Also going to issue a warning that this story makes several references to suicide attempts.

                                                   Forgiveness

No one had seen or heard from Joseph since Ethan’s death.  Captain seemed quite convinced that after how adamantly he’d wanted her to kill him; that he’d gone away somewhere and committed suicide.  With the remaining members of New Eden scattered to the wind, the people of Prosperity seemed to accept this assumption and get on with their lives.  A few even seemed pleased by the idea.

Not Judge though.  Without Joseph around, the masked shadow seemed to be lost, and her former friends noticed.  Though they didn’t fully understand how the fierce Deputy they’d once know could have bonded with the man who had essentially been her arch enemy, that didn’t change the fact that she had and now she was suffering with him gone.

Judge had been spotted multiple times wandering through Prosperity and the surrounding area in the dead of night when everyone but those on guard were asleep.  She never seemed to have a goal in mind, just wandered aimlessly picking flowers or picking up handfuls of dirt and staring at it in her hand before tossing it back on the ground.  Though the behaviour was, odd, to say the least all of her former friends agreed to keep an eye on her and do their best to help her deal with whatever grief she was feeling.

One night, Nick found himself unable to sleep and decided to go out to the garage and tinker on a buggy that the Captain had brought back after her latest outing.  Stepping out of the main doors, he paused at hearing a soft sort of crying noise.  Figuring it was likely just an animal, he headed to the workshop but the sound kept getting louder and as he entered the workshop, he found Judge huddled in the corner near some boxes; knees drawn up to their chest and sobbing.  The sound was heartbreaking; so strangled and painful sounding.

“Hey, uh, you . . . you alright Ju- Dep?” Nick asked, approaching carefully and crouching down a short distance in front of them.

Judge continued so sob as she held something out to Nick that was wrapped around her hand.  It was a simple set of rosary beads and he assumed that they probably once belonged to Joseph.  Had he given them to her as a gift, or had she picked them up years ago and claimed them as her own?

“You, miss him don’t you?” Nick asked quietly as Judge retracted her hand, cradling the rosary across her heart as her body continued to shake.

Judge nodded before a fresh wave of despair seemed to overcome her and she wailed again, scrambling forward and holding onto Nick like her life depended on it.  He was slightly taken aback but after a moment, he closed his arms around her and hugged her tightly.  The only time he ever remembered hugging Dep as she cried was after the Marshal shot Virgil and himself at the prison.  Everything she’d endured at the time; everything that she’d been holding in; had just gotten too much and she’d broken down.  How much was one person supposed to endure?  He hated seeing his friend in that state back then, but somehow it was even worse now.  Nick couldn’t believe he was even considering it, but if being with Joseph was what made Judge happy . . . then he would just have to find him for her.

It took getting Sharky to agree to answering all of Bean’s sex related questions, no matter how embarrassing or awkward they were, before the young man agreed to temporarily divert his scouts from gathering information to looking for Joseph.  He hadn’t told Judge yet, didn’t want to get her hopes up in case they couldn’t find the old man.  Each of her former friends as well as some new ones were taking turns looking after her.  As it turned out though, Hurk and Gina were the ones that came up with what seemed to calm her most.  The first time she held baby Blade, Nick could see her whole body relax and he wondered if it was bringing back memories of Carmina as a baby.

She would sit for hours with Blade, playing with him or just laying in the flowers gazing up at the clouds.  She even made him a simple flower crown, the boy shrieking with delight and dissolving into giggles as she placed it on his head.  By the end of that day, almost everyone in the community was wearing a flower crown.  The night always came though, and every night Nick would pass by her room only to hear the soft whimpering coming from the other side of the door.

It was almost three weeks before Bean came to Nick, telling him that one of his scouts had received word from a wandering trader that he had seen Joseph in the vicinity of Dutch’s bunker not long after Ethan died.  It made sense really, and if he was holed up in there, it would explain why no-one had seen him since.

Nick felt nervous as he approached Judge to tell her the news, knowing that if she left to find Joseph, he may never see her again.  He didn’t want to loose his best friend a second time, but it wasn’t about what he wanted.  It was about what was best for her. She didn’t move or say anything as he told her; the rosary now secured around her right wrist, and they sit in silence for almost a minute before anything happens.  Slowly, she got to her feet and shuffled over to a small pack made of leather and furs that she has stuffed in the corner and rummaged in it for a moment before pulling something out and turning back to him.  There clasped in her hand were a pair of aviators.  They had a slight crack in one of the lenses, but they were almost identical to the ones he owned when they first met.

Judge walked over quietly, her head tilted as she placed the glasses on him, and Nick was almost certain she was probably smiling behind that mask as she did so.  She’d always liked giving people things, back before the bombs fell.

“Thank you,” Nick said quietly as he stood and pulled her into what felt like a final hug.  “Just know, if you do find him and I can’t believe I’m god damn sayin’ this . . . but if you do and want some place nicer to live than a hole in the ground, you can come back here with him.  You’ll always have a home here.”

It didn’t take all that long for Judge to reach Dutch’s island.  She’d managed to avoid any remnants of the Highwaymen entirely and was now walking up the familiar muddy path to where she hoped she would find Joseph.  She more than anyone knew what grief and guilt could do to a person, and what it could make them do to themselves.  

She subconsciously rubbed at her neck as she walked, remembering the feeling of the rope tightening around her neck all of those years ago in the bunker.  That had been the final straw in rendering her unable to speak, her vocal cords and larynx already damaged by then from constant and prolonged bouts of screaming and attempting to drink anything in the bunker that was even slightly toxic.  Judge could remember Joseph rushing in and cutting her down, then holding her and singing softly as he cradled her against him.  He’d told her several times that he had forgiven her, but it was in that moment when she saw the fear in his eyes at the thought of loosing her that she truly believed him.

Eventually she reached the bunker, finding the door firmly closes.  She tried pulling it open a few times with no success, even tried knocking hoping in vain that Joseph would answer.  However, she had been prepared for such and since she couldn’t call out to him, she would have to let him know that it was her on the other side of the door in another way.

Reaching into her pack, she pulled out a small cassette player and set it on the ground before pressing play.  The lyrics to Amazing Grace started drifting through the air as loudly as she could make them before she sat down on the damp earth and waited.  As cliche as it was, this was their song and if it didn’t work, she didn’t know-

Judge’s train of thought was interrupted at the sound of creaking metal and she scrambled to her feet as the bunker door began to open.  Moments later, the older man stepped out into the sun, surprise and confusion all over his face as he stopped and stared at her.

“I . . . of all the people I expected to come looking for me, I never thought it would be you,” Joseph said after a moment before taking a shaky step forward and placing his hands on the side of her face as he had done so many times before and touched their foreheads together.  ““I was wrong, and in my arrogance I hurt you; blamed you and drove you to-”

Judge drew back suddenly, shaking her head at him before pulling a small slip of paper from under the rosary and handing it to him.  Confused, Joseph unfolded the piece of paper and read it.

You forgave me, now I forgive you.  You saved me, now I save you.  Prosperity is hope, and it is home.  Let’s go home.

“Home, I rather like the sound of that,” Joseph said with a slight smile.  “However, if this is to be our fresh start, I think we should seize it as our true selves, don’t you?”

Judge shrunk back slightly, shaking as Joseph raised his hands and gently removed her mask before dropping it on the ground.  She was beginning to panic before she felt him take her right hand and all the nerves seemed to dissolve as the warmth of his skin that seeped through her glove seemed to calm and centre her.  His thumb brushed gently over the rosary beads as he looked at her and smiled, remembering giving them to her on this very spot when they emerged from the bunker 11 years prior.

“Your forgiveness will be my light when my thoughts grow dark,” he says to her as they turn away from the bunker and start walking down the trail.  “Let’s go home . . . Deputy.”

Wow, did that turn out WAY longer than I thought it would.  Apologies for any tense/ spelling mistakes.  I was very sleepy when I wrote this but I pushed through because I wanted to share it with all of you.  Let me know what you think.  As always, tagging @nick-rye-the-pilot-guy and @theeonlyroman so they can enjoy the feels.

[crossbows-and-moonshine]

Chemicals (MurphyxOC Chapter 1/3)

This was originally a short three part fic I posted on Ao3 as a gift for a friend over there. Since I’m currently sick I figured I’d post it here for you guys to give you something to read. Instead of posting the three chapters once a day, I’m posting them all now back to back. It seems silly to make you guys wait for the chapters since there are only three parts, sorry if that's weird looool

It’s Murphy/OC, I feel weird about it just being Murphy, it’s so foreign to me now loool.

The name of this fic was once again inspired by a song; St Patrick - Pvris.

‘I know it's chemicals that make me cling to you

And I need a miracle to get away from you

I know it's chemicals

and I need a miracle

And I'm not spiritual

But please stay

'Cause I think you're a saint and I think you're an angel’

---------------------------------------

Katie pushed through the people warily as she made her way to the T. She had just finished work at the hospital, she was a porter, and now she needed to get home. The issue was the fact a creepy guy had been following her since she left work and it was making her worry. She’d never really been in this situation before, she didn’t consider herself stalker-worthy. She was a bit of a plain jane; shoulder length blonde hair that was almost always in a ponytail and her clothes were just standard jeans and a shirt. She would wear scrubs at work but she would change when she was there, and currently, she was wearing beat up black converse with her jeans and a black shirt. She had no idea why this guy had decided to follow her instead of anyone else, but it didn’t make her worry any less. She hoped he wouldn't get on the train and end up following her home.

She had just moved, the 23-year-old wanted to spread her wings and it lead her to South Boston, where her cousin Jenny lived. She had found a new apartment, if it could be called that, but it was dirt cheap and was better than nothing. As she got to the terminal, her train wasn’t there yet and when she glanced back, the man was still trailing behind her, making the hairs on her neck prickle up. She glanced around, trying to find someone to ask for help but there weren't many people around. Her eyes settled on a young guy who didn’t look much older than her. He had messy brown hair and one thing she noticed instantly was the tattoo on his neck of the Virgin Mary and what appeared to be rosary beads poking out the top of his long sleeve black shirt. 

She hoped his tattoo meant he was devout and maybe he would help her, Christian charity and all of that, it beat standing around on her own with the weird guy following her. She took a deep breath and went over, sitting next to him and angling her body towards him like she knew him. It caught the guys attention and he turned to look at her curiously, quirking a brow.

“Hi, I know you don’t know me, but there's a creepy dude that’s been following me from the hospital, so if you could just pretend we know each other that would be great.” She was smiling, just for show, but her eyes were pleading and the man seemed to pick up on this, realisation crossing his face. His eyes darted over her shoulder before they settled on her with a warm smile, like they were friends greeting each other.

“The creepy bald fuck wit’ the paedo tache?” He asked with a wry smile, making her snort a little.

“Yep, that's the one.” She grinned, glad the stranger was helping her. 

He nodded and she was a little surprised when he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, but she relaxed and sat with him.

“Thank you.” She smiled softly, making him beam a grin at her.

“Ain’t a problem love.” He smiled back, making her blush ever so slightly at his Irish brogue. It was quite attractive, like the man himself. She tried to relax as she sat with him, waiting for her train, but when she glanced over, the man was still watching them both and it made her nervous. She shifted a little and the Irish man looked over, seeing what she was seeing. 

“Don’t freak out.” He muttered as he looked at her, making her look at him questionably, but she didn’t have time to ask what he was on about before he cupped her cheek and kissed her softly. It wasn’t anything crazy, but it was still a kiss and she tensed a little. She caught on to what he was doing and she kissed him back, hoping it would be enough to make the creepy fucker go away and not follow her home.

When he moved away she was breathless and her cheeks were crimson, she hadn't really expected a handsome Irish stranger to kiss her today, but she couldn't complain. She almost felt like she should thank the creepy guy. 

“Aye, he’s gone.” The man smirked as he watched the creeper walk away. Katie looked over, relief flooding her body as she saw the man skulk off. The Irish man's arm left her then and she gave him a grateful smile.

“Thank you, I really mean it. I was scared he would follow me back to my place.”  She said sincerely, making him smile at her again.

“Like I said, it ain’t a problem, glad I could help.” He replied breezily, like kissing a stranger was no big deal. Before she could reply again, the train pulled up. She stood up and noticed the stranger get up to, seemingly getting on the same train as her. She followed behind him as he got on and when he sat down, she wondered if she should sit next to him. She didn't want to seem like she was following him or being weird. He had helped her and he seemed nice, but she didn’t want to be annoying him. He looked over at her though and gestured with his head for her to go over, so she did. 

She sat next to him and the journey home was full of small talk. She learnt his name was Murphy, he had a twin brother called Connor and he worked at a meat packing plant.

“It was really nice meeting you, but my stop is next. Thanks again Murphy.” Katie said softly as she stood up, her hand clasping the strap of her bag. 

“It’s my stop too. I’ll walk ye home if ye want, just to be safe.” He suggested with a warm smile as he stood up too. 

“You don’t have to do that, you’ve already done enough.” She protested weakly. She wasn't averse to the idea of him walking her home, she still felt a little shook up at being followed and she didn't feel very safe.

“I want te, so hush.” He grinned, walking past her as the train stopped. She once again followed him and she started leading them back to her place. They made some more small talk again as they walked but when they were just outside of her building, he stopped and looked at her looking somewhat amused.

“What?” She asked with a quirked brow.

“Ye live here?” He asked, still looking amused and she blushed. It wasn’t the best, it was illegal loft housing after all but it was a roof over her head and was dirt cheap. She felt embarrassed like he was calling her out. 

As if sensing her embarrassment, he shook his head with a light laugh.

“Nay lass, it’s not that. This is where I live. Yer the new neighbour on the second floor?” He smirked, making her eyes widen in surprise. What were the fucking chances that the guy she went to for help lived in the same building as she did?

“Yeah, that’s fucking weird.” She snorted, making him bark out a laugh. He seemed even happier now, somehow lighter as his eyes lit up.

“C’mon, Ye’ve gotta meet Connor.” He left no room for discussion as he took her hand and practically dragged her inside. He only let go once they were in the elevator.

“I can’t believe you live here.” Katie huffed a laugh as the elevator ascended. Murphy flashed her a sly grin, seemingly pleased with the news. He lead her to their apartment and for some reason, he stood behind her as he told her to go in first. She opened the door and was greeted with an eye full of someone's ass in the shower.

She squeaked, turning around as she blushed furiously and Murphy burst out laughing, she wondered if Murphy had planned this since he was adamant she went in first.

“Fuckin’ Christ Murph!” The man yelled, making her blush even more. She was just glad he had his back to her or she would have got an eyeful of something else. She heard the water turn off and Murphy smirked at her, gripping her shoulders and spinning her around. This time when she came face to face with the man, he had a towel slung around him.

“This is Katie.” Murphy grinned, stood behind her with his hands still firmly on her shoulders as she blinked up at the blonde man. Connor quirked a brow at her curiously before looking back to his brother.

“Pickin’ up strays again brother? Could have at least warned me.” He huffed a little. Katie squinted slightly at him, not liking being referred to as a stray or his attitude. Murphy had told her all about Connor and this didn’t seem like the good guy Murphy had been banging on about to her. It also unsettled her that it seemed it wasn’t abnormal for Murphy to just bring strange girls back. She wasn't sure why she felt a pang of envy and she tried to ignore it.

“She’s not a stray, ye fuck. She’s our new neighbour.” Murphy glared, giving his brother a pointed look over his shoulder.

Connors' eyes widened as he looked at her again and he actually looked contrite this time.

“Fuckin’ hell lass, I’m sorry. Murph’s a bit o’ a slut, can’t blame me for presumin’.” He snorted, making Murphy grumble behind her as he finally released her shoulders and went to the fridge. Katie was left with the lighter haired brother and she was glad he wasn’t being rude anymore.

“It’s okay I guess.” She smiled awkwardly, feeling out of place and weird.

“I’m Connor, it’s a pleasure te meet ye.” He smiled charmingly at her, taking her hand. She thought he would shake it, so she was a little taken aback when he kissed it instead and she blushed just a little. 

“Hey, hands off. I’ve already claimed her.” Murphy piped up with a grin as he sat on the couch, making Katie’s cheeks flush even more as she glanced to him. He did what now? Connor raised a brow and smirked at his brother.

“Did ye now? And how exactly did ye do that?” He asked looking thoroughly amused.

“I’ve already kissed her.” Murphy smiled smugly, again making Katie blush. Maybe she would just stay red forever if she kept blushing this much. 

“Fuckin’ hell Murph. Can’t ye go a day without harassin’ some poor girl.” Connor laughed as went over to a pile of clothes. She turned around the second the towel dropped and she got a second eye full of his ass and Murphy snorted at her, he seemed to enjoy her discomfort, the little asshole. He held his hand out and she went over, sitting on the couch with him. He casually slung an arm around her shoulder and she wasn’t really sure what the fuck was going on with him. He had kissed her, yes, but he had done so to make a creepy dude go away. But now he was saying shit like he had claimed her and she didn’t really know what to think about the whole thing. She figured she’d just go along with it and see what happened.

“Some fucker followed her from work te the T.” Murphy stated seriously. Connor was dressed now and moved to sit at the table looking at them. He shared a dark look with his brother and nodded, scratching the scruff on his chin thoughtfully.

“Hmm, aye. We’ll need te keep an eye on that then.” He murmured, making Murphy make a noise in agreement. Katie wasn't really sure what that meant but she felt good they were looking out for her. Living here with them, she felt a little safer now and it made her feel better to actually know people here in the building if she ever needed help.

“Alright then, McGinty’s?” Connor asked Murphy with a grin.

“What’s that?” Katie asked curiously, glancing to Murphy who still had his arm around her.

“Irish pub love, ye comin’?” He asked with a smile. He was beautiful, she couldn't deny that, especially when he smiled at her like that.

“Why not?” She replied with a smile of her own. This was a new start for her after all, maybe it was time she let her hair down and just went with the flow and lived a little.

Taglist; @risingphoenix761 @daryldixonandfrogs @arlaina28 @divadinag

[agirlinjapan]

Red Data Girl: My Longest Day of School (Week 23)

Red Data Girl: My Longest Day of School By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

Miss the last piece? Read it here!

Check out the RDG Translation twitter!

Yay! I’m on spring break! We’re off to a chilly start and there’s a chance of snow tonight, but we’re making due with the weather we have. Real spring will be here soon!

Red Data Girl: My Longest Day of School By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 4: Choice Part 1 (2 of 2)

The horse ring and the area surrounding it were not as large as the sports grounds. To Miyuki and Manatsu, the space seemed to be crawling with students wandering this way and that. There were even students jabbering away inside the ring itself, not just around it.

There were students yelling for no clear reason—it looked like mass panic had taken over. Upon seeing the two kuroko, a number of students streamed over to Miyuki and Manatsu, looking for an explanation of what was going on. And with that, a crowd began to form.

Finally, the kuroko in charge of judging in the area noticed the bustle and headed over. It was clear who it was long before Hawakawa reached them, first from his familiar voice shouting across the field about a meeting and then by his uncovered face. After a minute, Hayakawa recognized the two first years who had come from the other game as well.

“Thank God. Are you here as messengers? We’ve got a problem that no one can do anything about,” Hayakawa said, breathlessly. He looked troubled. “I haven’t been able to do anything since Okouchi’s laptop broke. I’m still me, but I’m starting to lose faith in myself over this…”

“Really? You?” Miyuki asked without thinking. Out of all the students in the school, he would have guessed that Hayakawa would be the last one to lose faith in himself.

“Honestly, I feel like I’ve been hallucinating… I don’t know why, though.”

Hayakawa opened his mouth to continue, but then seemed to hesitate. A moment later, he regained a hold on himself and looked at Manatsu.

“What’s going on at the sports grounds? How’s your sister’s defense team?”

“They won,” Manatsu responded calmly, “There isn’t as much panic going on over there. None of the electronics are working there either, though, same as here.”

“Ah, at least the win is some good news. It’s terrible that we can’t get updates from the sports grounds with them so close by though.”

“Hayakawa, what kinds of hallucinations have you seen? Please tell us.”

“At the time, I was thinking I should check up on Izumiko,” he said vaguely. “She was talking closely with some of the main attack force commanders. Then her hand went straight… through me.

“Straight through?”

“Straight through like a ghost. After I saw that, I went back to the tent, thinking it had to have been a hallucination. I couldn’t really remember why I’d left the tent in the first place. After that, I heard the phones and other electronics weren’t working and I thought I’d go find Izumiko again, but I couldn’t find her where I’d last seen her. None of the frontal defense team members in that area had seen her either for some reason.”

Miyuki looked hurriedly around the horse enclosure.

There were students everywhere in the disorder, but there was one corner that was strangely empty.

There’s something hidden over there. There has to be…

Hayakawa took off his sweaty veil and rearranged part of his hair. “I have no idea what’s going on. There’s been a bunch of students who’ve said they’ve seen ghosts. I guess I can’t say that’s ridiculous anymore…”

“Get all the students together and bring them over to the classroom building,” Miyuki said as calmly as he could. “It’ll be better for everyone to be together if anything strange happens. Besides, it’s almost lunch time. I think everyone will be calmer if they eat something. Hoshino said we might have to cancel the rest of the games. If it comes to that, it’s probably better to get everything in order as soon as possible.”

“You’re right. A meal, huh?” As the conversation turned practical, Hayakawa’s face brightened a little. “Oddly enough, ‘An army marches on its stomach’ actually sounds like something we could say today. All the commanders and generals are out around the tent. Can you two call them over?”

“Manatsu, come with me for a second. Over there,” Miyuki said to Manatsu quietly. He headed towards the other side of the horse ring, nearest to the grove of trees.

There were students in foot soldier costumes walking around everywhere. The few meter wide space that no one seemed interested in stood out conspicuously. Manatsu noticed it as well before they got close to it.

“Huh. I wonder if this is diviner magic, too.”

“I think Takayanagi and Izumiko are here. We’re just being kept from seeing them.”

“Do you think you could break through whatever it is with a sutra?”

“I’ll see if I can. I just have to be careful seeing as I don’t know if there are people in that space who we can’t see.”

Miyuki guessed that Takayanagi was not alone. There were probably shikigami with him. If he forced them out into the open, he would be putting himself in unavoidable danger. He prepared himself for what was to come, murmuring a short chant just in case.

After repeating the holy words a few times, he tapped the staff on the ground with a hard thump to link the power already there to his. The bronze rings danced and jingled at the movement. The students around them, who had up until now been talking among each other, almost in a daze, turned in surprise. However, Miyuki and Manatsu had already disappeared into the invisible space they had been looking for.  

Colorful faces seemed to rise up from the ground in front of Miyuki and Manatsu as they passed through the magical veil. There were five or six of them, their outfits more decorative than casually dressed foot soldiers.

What Miyuki noticed first though were the two foreign exchange students standing nearest to them in the group. Having sensed the newcomers’ arrival, the exchange students turned to face them. Two sets of blue eyes widened in surprise.

Taking the initiative, Miyuki spoke first. His voice was firm as he said, “What are you doing here? Where’s Izumiko?”

None of the students gave any response. They froze as if turned to stone, staring straight ahead of Miyuki and Manatsu.

Without looking around, Miyuki knew that Izumiko wasn’t there. Moreover, Takayanagi wasn’t there either.

…Are they the only two that are somewhere else?...

He had been so sure that this was where Izumiko was, but apparently he had been mistaken. Realizing this, his temper rose. He clenched his staff and strode forward. He was conscious of the fact that he must have looked particularly threatening at that moment, but the truth was that this was exactly how he felt.

He turned his unrestrained aggressions on Claus first seeing as the exchange student was in his own class.

“Where did Takayanagi go? Tell me.”

The terrified look on Claus’s face did not match his hulking form dressed in priest’s robes. He murmured something under his breath in German. However, his expression and response seemed less to do with Miyuki’s demands and more to do with something that had scared the blond boy before Miyuki had arrived.

Claus clenched his rosary in a tight hand, a strange look crossing his face. Suddenly, Miyuki knew what was so peculiar about the space he and Manatsu had entered into.

Angelica, the popular second year student, was standing next to Claus, dressed in an impressive armored outfit. She took one step back and then another. As she moved, Miyuki got a good look at what they were standing around.

There was a white Shiba inu in the middle of their circle, politely sitting at attention.

“Is that someone’s lost dog?”

It was clear to see with just one glance that the dog was a pet. For one, it was wearing a brand new, bright red collar. His white fur also appeared to be clean from a recent bath, and there was no dirt on him from running around outside. He was a medium sized dog and his triangular ears were pricked up in an intelligent looking tilt while his black eyes and nose had a healthy wet shine to them. Based on his appearance, it wouldn’t have been strange to hear that the dog was pure bred.

While Miyuki had never had the experience of owning a dog, he still considered himself to be more of a dog person than a cat person. As he gazed at the intelligent looking dog, he softened for a moment. There was a rule stating that students were not allowed to bring pets into the dorms, so the students did not have many opportunities to interact with animals.

“What’s that yappy dog doing here?” Miyuki asked, confused by the fact that the group was hiding the dog.

“Don’t be an idiot,” the dog retorted.

Miyuki stiffened.

After an icy silence, Manatsu dared to speak the reality of the situation.

“…That was just Takayanagi’s voice.”

“Obviously it’s me. Why can’t you see me?” the dog demanded of Manatsu. There was no doubting who the dog was now.

“Um… We can see you.”

“I’m not a dog! Why don’t you understand that?” The white dog opened and closed its mouth as it spoke. “I’m right in front of you! Don’t you dare call me a dog!”

Miyuki tentatively stepped forward in disbelief. Leaning forward, he reached a hand out towards the dog. He wanted to touch its head to confirm that all of this was actually happening. However, while his hand was still a distance away, the dog’s voice rang out once more.

“Idiot! I just told you I’m right in front of you! Stay away from me!”

The voice did seem to be coming from above the dog’s head rather than from it. Miyuki stepped back in surprise. “Takayanagi can still see himself as he normally is, but we’re seeing the dog…” he said.

“You make a good dog, if that’s any help,” Manatsu added, possibly trying to appease Takayanagi.

 …The goddess isn’t making any sense…

For a moment, Miyuki was lost in his thoughts, but then he reminded himself that they wouldn’t get any further with this if the focused too long on the strange situation at hand. They had to keep moving regardless of what had happened to Takayanagi. That was how they were going to get to where Izumiko was.

He moved towards the white dog once more and asked, “What did you do to Izumiko? Where is she?”

The dog sulkily turned its muzzle away from him, apparently uninterested in answering his question. All he did was let his tongue hang partially out of his mouth, give a sigh, and scratch his stomach with one of his front paws.

However, Angelica, who was standing next to dog-Takayanagi, responded in a resolute voice, “Who is Izumiko, anyway? Where do her powers come from? Do you even know?”

“Where did Izumiko go?” Miyuki demanded, not intimidated by her questions for a second.

Angelica let out a sigh and answered, “She disappeared right in front of our eyes. She went into a different dimension. But that’s not all she did. She made Takayanagi into this. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. That’s not something a human can do…”

Angelica’s pale face looked paler than usual. It was clear how scared she was. Then again, it was reasonable to be scared of someone who could turn a person into a dog out of revenge, he reasoned to himself.  

Claus gave a great shudder and held the rosary in front of him.

“I’m sorry, Ichijo. I’m not good around dogs. I’ve got bad memories of them…”

The dog tucked his chin in as if he were about to let out a bark.

“I keep telling you. I’m not a dog!”

Miyuki looked around at the other students dressed in Warring States era costumes. He had thought he knew most of the students at the academy, but he didn’t recognize these faces. They left no impression in his mind, almost as if they were wearing invisible veils of their own. It had to be magic. He couldn’t even tell if these were real students.

However, all they did was shrug their shoulders dejectedly. Miyuki, who had come into the dimension ready for a fight, felt a little disappointed. He wasn’t alone. Everyone appeared to be losing their fighting spirit.

After calming himself, Miyuki said, “Everyone’s frightened right now, but if everything going at the moment is actually happening, Izumiko’s even more scared than we are. If you diviners hadn’t screwed everything up so badly, none of this would be happening. Takayanagi, what happened to you is your own fault. You tried to control Izumiko, didn’t you.”

The dog turned in Miyuki’s direction, opened his mouth, and let his peach colored tongue hang out.

“Izumiko just wouldn’t fall under my persuasion. I didn’t realize how difficult a girl she was. She always seemed so well behaved around you.”

Ignoring Takayanagi, Miyuki turned to face Angelica.

“Where was Izumiko last before she disappeared?” he asked, annunciating the words carefully. “Tell me the truth.”

Angelica swung her hair nervously. It didn’t look like she was planning to say anything useful. Then she took a few steps and said to her boots, “Here. She was about here.”

There were a few weeds growing on the hard ground. As far as Miyuki could see, there was nothing particularly special about the place. All the same, he raked his eyes over the spot before looking at Manatsu.

“Do you think it’s the same as in Togakushi?”

Manatsu gazed at the space almost as if he was looking through it.

“…It probably is. But I can’t go through. I can’t do anything without Masumi here. Besides, the ground here is different. Places that horses continuously walk over tend to ward off magic. There’s nothing that I can do here today.”

Miyuki was quiet for a moment. He couldn’t help but think that they wouldn’t be able to get out of this without making some sort of sacrifice. With Takayanagi transformed into a dog, everyone here was now in this together.

“Wamiya,” he called out, his voice full of resolution. “Don’t be lazy. Izumiko’s in another dimension. You can bring us to her, can’t you?”

A crow fluttered down from the sky. Fanning out his wings, he dexterously landed on the top of the staff. Manatsu flinched a little in surprise, but then didn’t react further when the crow began to speak.

“I could certainly bring you to where she is. But unlike last time, I won’t. I happen to know that she doesn’t want to come back.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’ve been with the goddess for a long time, haven’t you? Thousands of years, right?”

“She’s just getting started with Izumiko,” the crow responded carelessly to Miyuki’s words. “Besides, there are strong enemies where Izumiko is right now.”

“Strong enemies?”

“They’re more powerful than I am and they’re armed for sure.”  

Miyuki looked at Wamiya in shock.

“What? Are you giving up already? What’s wrong with you?”

“Masumi’s here on the other side of the dimension,” Manatsu said suddenly.

“What does that mean for us?” Miyuki responded quietly.

Manatsu quickly looked up into the sky and said, “I can sense him somehow. Something’s different, though. I thought he had changed the least out of the three of us, but I was wrong. No way… Somehow, he’s change the fastest. Mayura and I still can’t imagine being with anyone else except each other, but Masumi’s found someone else. He has someone he loves besides his siblings—Izumiko. He’s awakened.”

Keep reading!

[reiner-is-back-bitches]

Levi sighed as he leaned against a rickety old table.

“Oi, watch it, half breed!” A pudgy woman pushed his arm off and he growled, walking away from her, her table and the odd trinkets she started to display on it.

Levi started to scan the area, his eyes passing over faces until he finally saw the one he was looking for.

“Father Erwin, about Goddamn time.” Levi walked up to the tall priest. Father Erwin was dressed in a large black overcoat over his typical clerical attire. He also had a large silver rosary around his neck.

Erwin frowned down at Levi. He has told the dhampir repeatedly about how he felt about blasphemy.

However, he was quick to forgive and he thought it best to not dwell on small things when there was a much bigger problem at hand.

“Levi, sorry I’m late. I was over at the monastery. It seems to have suffered a kind of attack.” He looked down at his partner.

Levi was wearing his usual black jacket. He also had on a thin off white shirt and a pair of green trousers. They must have been too big for him because they were tied around his slim waist with a length of rope.

He had on his pair of old black shoes. They were so worn out, they were practically falling apart.

“An attack, huh?” Levi stretched his arms and rolled out his shoulder blades before walking past the priest. “Do they know what did it?”

Erwin turned and followed Levi, trying not to lose the short man in the crowd.

“Werewolf. I was kind of sceptical about even bringing this job up to you. I know how you feel about werewolfs.” Erwin grinned as Levi turned and walked backwards. His inhuman senses making him very aware of what was behind him.

“I don’t like doing werewolf jobs because I always end up smelling like dead dog for weeks.” Levi narrowed his eyes at Father Erwin. “Tsk, you should know this old man. I say it every time we get a fucking werewolf job.”

The priest laughed.

“Old? You’re one to talk, dhampir. Aren’t you like a hundred?” Levi stopped and pushed against Father Erwin, leading him into a dark secluded alley that the Father knew was there.

“You always have to say stuff like that, don’t you Priest?” Levi growled softly. Father Erwin sat on an old mead barrel and Levi positioned himself between his legs.

“You know I can’t help it, Levi. It’s all in good fun.” Erwin said, seemingly unaware of the dhampir’s attempts to seduce him.

“Hmm, right.” Levi got closer to Erwin, his hands on the priest’s body. Erwin remained straight faced, but his eyes spoke volumes.

They were closed slightly, trying to hide the look of lust and need in them.

Levi leaned forward in an attempt to kiss him, but Erwin turned away.

“Levi, don’t. You know I can’t. I made a vow.” Levi didn’t move. He kept his hard gaze on Erwin and he gently ran his finger across his cheek.

“Tsk, you and that damn vow.”

“Levi, please.” Erwin whispered as he turned to look into a pair of steely eyes. “You know how I feel about you. But I made a vow, to god and the church. I can’t abandon it. I’m sorry.” Levi looked into Erwin’s blue eyes and nodded,  leaned forward and kissed Erwin on the cheek before standing up. “Well, let’s go slay a werewolf, Father.”

Erwin stood as well, shaking any dirt off his coat. He knew that Levi could have him in an instant. With just a few seconds under a hypnotic glare, Erwin would be completely at Levi’s mercy.

But the young dhampir had never attempted that. Erwin had never asked why.

But he had an idea.

-

Levi and Father Erwin were hot on the trail of the werewolf responsible for the monastery attack.

They had been led deep into the woods that surrounded their small village. Levi walked ahead, using his acute senses to guide their way.

“He’s close, Father. Be on your guard.” Father Erwin nodded. He kept his two single shot handguns at the ready. If he didn’t get the werewolf with these two shots, he had his rapier which had never let him down before. There was also Levi.

“Father! Behind you!” Erwin quickly turned, right as the werewolf lunged from the shadows. Erwin aimed to fire his first shot, but the werewolf was too fast and it knocked the gun out of his hand.

Levi got there and defended Erwin as he readied his second shot.

But this werewolf was too much, even for Levi. The werewolf’s massive arm connected with the dhampir, sending him flying into a large tree.

“Levi!” Erwin called out. He turned back toward the werewolf and he aimed the gun right at the creature’s heart.

He fired, but the gun didn’t go off.

Erwin looked at the gun in shock and anger and then up at the werewolf. Before he could pull the rapier, the werewolf grabbed him in its large hands.

“Gah!” Erwin cried out, the creature’s grip tightening. He had to get to the rosary. His rosary was pure silver. It could buy him some time, enough to draw his rapier.

The werewolf suddenly bit Erwin. It sank its long deadly fangs into his arm.

“Auuughhh!” The werewolf tore a large chunk of flesh. The werewolf bit again, cracking the bone between its teeth. “Gaaauuuhhhh!” Erwin cried out in pain. His arm was gone, bitten off by a werewolf’s toxic bite.

Levi looked up from where he was thrown, his mind muddled and his vision blurry. When he saw the werewolf bite into Erwin’s arm he bolted up. When he saw the werewolf bit into Erwin’s neck, he sprinted.

“Erwin!” Levi yelled! He quickly ran to the werewolf who dropped Erwin roughly.

“You fucking bastard!” Levi yelled out. He rushed at the creature and tackled it. It fell on its back and before it could swing or bite at Levi, he was gone.

Levi grabbed the rapier and lunged at the werewolf. He swung at it, over and over, watching as the creature’s flesh ripped and burned, due to the toxic effects of the silver.

Finally, with a jump and a mighty yell, Levi stabbed the creature through the heart.

The werewolf spat blood as it fell to the ground and died.

Levi dropped the rapier and ran to Erwin.

“Father Erwin!” He cried as he knelt down.

“Le-Levi?” Levi grabbed the priest, positioning his head in his lap. “Levi, I’m sorry.”

“What could you possibly be sorry about?” Levi asked in a choked voice, tears threatening to drip onto Erwin’s pale face.

“For..dying.” Levi gripped the priest tighter, his nails all but ripping the cloth.

“You’re not going to die, Goddammit! You are going to be just fine!”

“Levi..” The young dhampir, wiped his face and knew what the priest was going to say.

“I know, I know. No blasph-”

“Kiss me.” Levi looked down at Erwin. His skin was getting slick with sweat and his eyes were going dim.

Levi leaned forward and planted his lips onto Erwin’s. Levi couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

“Erwin,” Levi gasped as he pulled away. “You’re going to be fine. I’m going to get you help.”

“Levi..” Erwin took his partners hand and gripped it with every last ounce of strength he had left. “Recite…the last…rites…” Erwin’s breath was becoming more labored. Levi looked away and shook his head.

“It’s been a long time since I was a priest.” Levi replied.

“You..still…know…them…” Erwin gripped Levi’s hand suddenly and Levi gasped.

“Erwin? Hold on, okay! I’ll say them for you.” Levi searched through his memories, trying to remember the words that were used to ease a soul into death. “Okay, Erwin. Are you ready?”

He looked down and met Erwin’s eyes, but Erwin’s eyes were dark. Levi choked on a sob as he rested his head onto Erwin’s chest. The only sound he heard was the wind blowing through the trees.

Levi gripped onto Erwin’s body, cries of pain and anguish filling the forest.

“Erwin! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

-

Levi bolted awake from his recurring dream. He looked over at the digital alarm clock on his nightstand. It was about four in the morning, the same time he always woke up when he had that dream.

He sighed and he ran his hand through his dark hair. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes from beside the alarm clock.

He didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks or ask why this dream kept happening.

After a month of this, he was used to it.

He lit the cigarette and as he exhaled the smoke through his parted lips, he couldn’t stop thinking about why he was never able to save the priest named Erwin.

The start of another fanfic that i have absolutely no time to work on. I don’t think anyone would read it anyways. So it don’t matter lolol

[cutiesonthehorizon]

Exorcist fic - The Price of Vision part 6

You can find the newest chapter of The Price of Vision under the cut, on AO3 or fanfiction.net. As always, thanks to all who reviewed and commented and specially to starrylizard for her help with a quick beta. All mistakes left are my own.

Hope you’ll enjoy and let me know your thoughts:)

The night before Harper was released from the hospital, Marcus Keane sat on the stairs in front of their motel room. He was holding a rosary, eyes locked on something invisible in the darkness and mouth moving in silent prayer. It was nothing new for him, this praying in solitude, but lately it was like talking to a void. There was nothing on the other side, just the taunting echo of the words the demon in Cindy threw at Marcus several days ago.

'But you're not a priest, are you? Oh, God abandoned you. You're nothing but an empty vessel.'

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith," Marcus started to pray, even as the demon kept talking, it's vile words cutting deeper and deeper into Marcus' mind.

'Why do you wanna pray, when you know no one's listening to you? You think your friend will discard you too?'

"...we find peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ-"

The demon cackled and Cindy's body twisted.

'Father Tomas, God's new favorite. He doesn't need you. You need him, so your wasted life has a purpose.'

"-we glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance-" Marcus found himself repeating the verse, trying to ignore that voice in his head, echoing Cindy's words. God abandoned you. Father Tomas, God's new favorite. He doesn't need you. No one does.

The last one came from somewhere deep inside and suddenly Marcus was back, feeling the hard stairs underneath, the crispness of the night air. He looked up, towards the stars, eyes filled with hurt and fear.

"Why aren't you answering?" he asked with choked voice. "Did I make a mistake? Is this all a mistake?"

There was no answer, no light inside his chest, nothing. Just emptiness and a crawling fear that maybe he was wrong, that taking Tomas onto this journey wasn't what God planned for them. That somehow, he fell from God's grace and there was no way back.

"What do you want from me?" Marcus asked in whisper, looking at the strongest shining star as if it could give him an answer.

The door behind him opened and Marcus jerked when he heard Tomas' voice.

"Marcus? Dinner's ready."

"I'll be right in," Marcus said, his voice hoarse. He could feel Tomas staring at his back, waiting, dying to ask if everything was alright. "Just... give me a minute, yeah?" Marcus chanced a glance and saw Tomas nod, his face wearing a puzzled frown. Still, there was no protest, only the soft click of the closing door and Marcus let out a sigh.

"Why is it that each time I pray for a sign, you bring me him?" Shaking his head, Marcus looked down at his rosary, biting his lip. If God was answering, it was in ways Marcus didn't comprehend and it didn't make him feel any better. Doubt was growing in his heart each day he couldn't feel God's light coursing through his body and he wondered how long it would take until the power of words left him too. What will be left then? Just an empty shell of a boy that watched his mother being murdered by his father, a little boy who pulled the trigger and made himself an orphan. Marcus wasn't sure there would be anything left of him to salvage then.

Tomas knew something was bothering Marcus, something that wasn't connected to Harper or their latest exorcism. Maybe it wasn't even connected to Bennett and the last six months they spent on the road. No, this was something much deeper, lurking and dangerous and Tomas wished he could help his friend fight it. Several times that day he found himself wishing to ask, but knew the older man must decide to tell him himself. With Marcus it was like that... he could be stubborn to death, but the moment he decided, everything came pouring out in raw detail. Tomas hoped that when that happened, he would be near and not held down by his own demons.

They ate dinner in amenable silence. They prayed together and Marcus turned on the TV while Tomas prepared for bed. He still got easily tired and battled the residual headache, but thankfully the dizziness was gone. Lying down in bed, Tomas noted that Marcus at least turned down the volume a bit, although his choice of programming was more than questionable. The screen lit up in fire as an impressive car crash involving too many vehicles to count played out, killing almost everyone on the screen in one or other horrible way. Tomas frowned and Marcus chuckled, popping a candy into his mouth, his eyes shining like a kid who was allowed to stay up late.

"What are you watching?" And why? Tomas wanted to add but bit his lip when he saw the smile on Marcus face.

"Final Destination... dunno which one. Someone who's supposed to die survives and saves the others, so the whole movie they're being killed off in the most absurd ways. It's hilarious," Marcus said just as there was another gruesome death on the screen.

"Sounds... interesting," Tomas muttered, ignoring the smirk Marcus was giving him. "Think I'll give it a pass though. You can tell me in the morning if anyone survived."

"Doubt there will be anything to tell," Marcus said and turned back to the TV, though when there was another loud crash he turned the volume down even more. Tomas fluffed his pillow and lay down, hoping the sounds coming from the TV and Marcus' occasional commentary on the stupidity of one of the protagonist's actions would help lull him into a somehow peaceful sleep.

While he managed to fall asleep rather quickly, the sleep that came was anything but peaceful.

The dream started innocently enough. There was a boat, just a small rowing boat, not much bigger than a canoe. Tomas was in the boat with a paddle in each hand. He was sitting in the middle of a deadly calm lake. There was no ripple on the surface; the dark water looked almost like a mirror. The sky was grey, the sun hidden behind a cloud. Tomas could barely see the shore, the lake was covered with thick mist, but he started rowing and the shore was getting closer.

There was a figure standing on the shore and for a moment Tomas' heart relaxed, thinking it was Marcus here to help with whatever was wrong with this place. Because something was disturbingly wrong, Tomas just couldn't put his finger on it. After what felt like an eternity, Tomas finally reached the shore. A hand reached toward him, offering help getting out of the boat and he gripped it before realizing that this wasn't Marcus at all.

It was a woman... a stranger, but with familiar eyes.

"Quien eres tu?" Tomas asked and the woman smiled, but it wasn't a kind smile and Tomas felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Better question padre is, who are you?" she spoke, but the voice didn't belong to her and Tomas took a step back. He felt his leg stepping into emptiness, he expected to feel the boat under his feet but there was nothing, just cold water. No boat, no pier... and no woman. Only ice coldness and Tomas slipping underneath, gasping for breath and choking on water instead.

He felt himself sinking down into the darkness, felt the water fill his lungs with painful clarity. He wanted to scream, but there were bubbles of precious air leaving his mouth. The darkness closed around him and Tomas thought he might just be dying... maybe he was already dead. There was nothing, only him, the darkness and the sticky wetness pushing against every pore of his skin.

It lasted forever or maybe just a second, Tomas didn't know.

'Tomas?' he heard a familiar voice calling from far away.

'Tomas!'

A hand reached down, bringing light and hope. Tomas blinked, the water stinging his eyes but he didn't care anymore. There was a hand offering deliverance from this nothingness and with last of his strength, Tomas reached towards it.

There was a flash of light, a huge ripple tore through the water and suddenly Tomas was standing on a pier, his clothes dry and his lungs filled with precious air.

The shock of it drove him to his knees, a litany of prayers on his lips. He looked up, searching for the hand but it wasn't there. He still felt the warmth of it coursing through his body, but he was also acutely aware of the darkness crawling all around him in the shadows.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tomas realized this was just a dream... God, he hoped it was just a dream and not a vision of things to come, but that realization was overridden by the sharpness of his senses, by his feelings. His skin was hot, but there was moist coldness in the air. He could feel a familiar smell of the aftershave and sweat mixed with the less familiar stink of rotting bodies and dead fish. It made his stomach turn, but there was nothing to come up and Tomas swallowed, his mouth suddenly parched. The worst thing however was the utter silence and the stillness of the air. As if time itself stopped.

"Hello?" Tomas called out, startled by the sharpness of the sound he made. It was like a crack of thunder and Tomas quickly turned around, as if expecting to be hit by lightning. It would've been a relief at this point; however, there was no such salvation. Instead there was the sound of steps on the wooden pier.

"Olivia?" Tomas asked with disbelief and frowned at the familiar figure that stepped out from the mist.

"Tomas!" Olivia ran towards him and Tomas enveloped her in a confused hug.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh Tomas, he's gone," Olivia sobbed into his shoulder and Tomas froze.

"Who's gone?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Luis. They... they took him. You must come back, come back home," Olivia gripped his shirt and looked at him with such despair Tomas couldn't think, couldn't speak. He felt that with each second the warmth that came from the hand raising him from the water was vanishing, being replaced by coldness and dread.

"No, it's not possible. You and Luis are safe in Chicago," Tomas finally said with choked voice, gently pushing Olivia from his chest.

"They took him, Tomas! Because you weren't there, because you couldn't protect us!" Olivia shouted, her pain quickly changing into anger as she hit Tomas on the chest. "They took my boy and he's gone, because you ran away like a little coward you are" the voice changed and Tomas gasped, pushing the woman away from himself. It still bore the face of his sister, but the eyes were wrong... the eyes were metal red and the smile was cold just like that water. The being inclined its head and laughed.

"What's wrong, padre? You don't like to hear the truth?"

"You speak no truth, only lies," Tomas said, a prayer on his lips. 'Father, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ I decree that, by your grace and wisdom, I, my family, my church and all those that concern me are well taught of You.'

The being only laughed harder, as if the words were of no consequence here, as if they had no power. Tomas started shaking and backing away, but he still kept on praying.

'We are well grounded in the Word and we know the difference between the holy and the unholy. We have discernment to differentiate the clean from the unclean and the true from the untrue. When life and death is set before us, we choose life. When blessing and cursing is set before us, we choose blessing. Therefore we live and do not die. We do not fall for lies and deception.'

"Ah, lies and deception are such strong words. Maybe I do speak the truth of the future... maybe you really are a coward who left behind his sister and nephew, in a city crawling with demons. Maybe you're the coward who's too afraid to stand up for himself, a coward who must hide in the shadow of an old lion. You're just a cub, Tomas, nothing more. A toothless cub brought to a hunt." Olivia, or rather the being wearing her face cackled and Tomas choked down a sob, shaking his head and repeating the words that should bring him peace.

'Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.'

The being let out a howl of laughter and the metal red eyes turned back to the familiar black, which were now filled with horror.

"Tomas?" Olivia gasped in her own voice, then there was a sickening snap and Tomas watched as his sister fell to the ground in a boneless heap.

"No!" Tomas shouted and rushed over, cradling his sister in his arms. Tears poured down his face as the prayers were forgotten and all he could mumble over and over again was a wish for forgiveness, a plea to God to take him instead and spare his family. The body in his arms twitched and Tomas opened his eyes, only to find that he was no longer holding his sister but Harper, small and barely breathing, a look of accusation in her eyes.

"This is all your fault, Father Tomas. Look at me, look at what you did to me!" Harper gasped hoarsely as blood started pouring from her mouth and Tomas couldn't handle it anymore. He screamed in pain and rage, feeling as if his heart was going to burst from all of it. And suddenly there were hands all over him, small hands of children, sticky with paint and blood and Tomas could take no more. His eyes rolled back inside his skull and all he knew was darkness.

TBC

[unifycosmos]

A Complete Guide to Ram Mantra [+Free Printable Puja Guide]

With the Ram mantra, you will achieve material gains while being guided on the path towards being a truly perfect spiritual being. But which mantra should you use…? There are many ways to invoke the name of Rama in your meditation. Many powerful combinations of words are used to evoke Rama and his powers for your benefit. So let’s take a look at them.

11 Free Printable Puja Guides to help you chant Ram Mantras

I’m so proud of these puja guides, so I couldn’t be more excited to share them with you today!

As you may know by now, I like to write long and helpful posts for my readers. Sometimes, however, I get an idea to do something more, something even more useful.

That’s why I decided to prepare something that people could have in hand while reciting mantras. Something printable, easy to read, and that could act as a puja guide.

That’s how these guides were born.

Each guide has a big picture of a divinity that you need to devote to, a mantra, and a how-to guide to help you prepare yourself for reciting. It’s in A4 format, and all you need to do is to print it.

These Ram mantra puja guides are completely free; all you need to do is to enter your email in the box below to unlock them.

Just click on one or all of the links below and the free PDF file will download immediately!

10th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

9th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

8th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

7th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

6th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

5th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

4th Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

3rd Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

2nd Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

1st Puja Guide – Click Here to Get It

What Is the Ram Mantra?

The Ram Mantra is a mantra dedicated to Lord Rama, one of the many forms of Vishnu. Lord Rama came to Earth to vanquish demons, and his mantra bestows self-esteem, will-power, mental fortitude and the ability to overcome vices to its practitioners.

When Sri Rama came to Earth he established the path of dharma, the path of correct action (more on that below). Chanting the mantra bestows amazing benefits of the body and mind – it promotes proper circulation through the body and clear focus of the mind.

The name of Rama acts as a divine guide on the path towards spiritual enlightenment. Yet Rama is benevolent and merciful, and understands the needs of humans; thus it also takes care of the material needs of the aspirant as well.

To draw this powerful spiritual energy from the mantra, it is important to try to understand it as fully as possible. To whom the mantra is dedicated; the many variations of the mantra; the proper way to chant it for greatest effect; and the many benefits you can hope to achieve through its use.

Let us delve into the Ram Mantra and its wonders, starting from the beginning.

Who Exactly Is Lord Rama

Rama, also known as Ramacandra, is the 7th incarnation of Vishnu, and one of the most powerful next to Krishna. He is considered the ideal man, both physically and mentally, and his marriage to Sita is considered the ideal of marital devotion and love.

Lord Rama by Pinterest

Lord Rama is best known for his adventure to slay the demon king Ravana, a multi-headed foe of considerable power. Ravana was the king of Lanka, today known as Sri Lanka, and was so fierce a demon that the gods bid Vishnu to intervene. Vishnu complied, appearing in a divine fire to King Dararatha, prince of the solar race. The king was presented with a pot of nectar, some of which he gave to Kausalya so she could birth the half-divine Rama.

Rama met Sita, the avatar of Lakshmi, in his early travels. The demon king Ravana eventually captured Sita, setting Rama off on an epic quest to save her and destroy Ravana. The story is told in the oldest Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana. His story demonstrates the value and virtue of the following dharma, fulfilling one’s pious path in life.

Lord Rama is an influential and important figure in Hinduism. His representation of the spiritual, physical and mental ideal makes him a popular subject of devotion. Diwali, the festival of lights and one of the most well known Hindu celebrations, is a celebration of his coronation as king over his kingdom after finally destroying the evil Ravana.

How to Chant the Ram Mantra

There are over ten Ram mantras, each with their own way of saying them; their own meanings, their own strengths. It is important to consider each of them, and which is most appropriate for your life.

There is a recommended ceremony and schedule you should adhere to. This is regardless of the specific mantra you choose, so learn the following advice regardless:

Bathe or wash your hands and feet before you begin to chant. You can also bathe your entire body if you wish.

Always sit facing either the North or the East when chanting.

Devote your mind and spirit totally to Lord Rama and feel the connection with the universe.

Wearing white garments with a few pieces of the black or blue color (Rama blue) show our absolute devotion to the Rama.

Recite the mantras for 48 days with devotion. It is suggested to chant daily. If this is not possible, you can chant solely on Monday.

You don’t need any offerings, but if you want to offer something to him, offer payasam, panchamirtham, panagam (jaggery, musk melon, and ginger), methi pulao.

The mantras should be chanted 9, 27, 54, 108, or 1,008 times, three times a day. Count the repetitions on the beads of a rosary when doing so.

A list of Ram Mantras

“Raamaaya Raamabhadraaya Raamachandraaya Vedasey, Raghunaathaaya Naathaaya Seethaayaah Pathaye Namaha”

This mantra evokes several of the names of Lord Sriram. It praises him as the most auspicious descendent of the Raghu clan. It proclaims him the most venerated person who can end suffering and promote happiness, and the husband of Mother Sita.

“Om Kleem Namo Bhagavathey Raamachandraaya sakalajana vashyakaraaya Swaaha”

This chant is intended to attract success and happiness. It includes the “klim” seed mantra or “bija” mantra. Seed mantras are powerful, single sound mantras whose vibrations are attuned to certain universal energies. The klim mantra is attuned to the law of attraction. This Ram mantra uses the klim mantra in conjunction with praising Rama as a charismatic god who is able to promote peace and harmony. This combination of klim and Rama is a powerful mantra for attracting prosperity and happiness.

“Shri Rama Jaya Rama Kodhanda Rama”

This mantra combines both Rama and his bow, Kodhanda. Kodhanda was the bow Rama used to destroy the evil forces of Ravana. Evoking the two together symbolizes strength, invincibility, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Chanting this mantra promotes harmony and success while assuaging the practitioner of all fears.

“Sri Rama Jayam”

“Victory to Lord Rama” is the literal translation of this simple but powerful Rama mantra. It instils confidence, peace, and harmony in the chanter. It is suitable for most people, providing benefits for all aspects of life – our relationships, our jobs, our big and small challenges. Its simplicity has made it an incredibly popular chant, and it is particularly preferred for large gatherings.

“Om Dashrathaye Vidmahe Sita Vallabhaye Dhi-Mahi Tan No Ramah Prachodayat”

This is the Ram gayatri mantra. Like other gayatri mantras, it is used to call upon a deity – in this case, Rama – for protection. This particular mantra addresses Rama as the son of Dashrat, and the husband of Mother Sita. Not only does it provide protection, but it is used to request clarity of thought and clear judgment from Lord Rama. It helps practitioners see the path of dharma in their everyday lives and make clear decisions.

“Heen Ram Heen Ram”

This is another simple mantra which can be used by those who are inexperienced in meditation or do not have a sufficient guide in their spiritual journey. It is a mantra that helps awaken spiritual awareness in the practitioner. This mantra, like many other Ram mantras, helps align the chanter with the path of dharma or virtuous action. This was one of Rama’s greatest contributions to mankind, and his tale is an epic exploration of the power and rewards of dharma.

“Clin Ram Clin Ram”

This Ram mantra is used to provide protection from negative energies. This may be more esoteric things like black magic, psychic attacks, and invisible entities, or the more mundane – the negative thoughts and feelings of other people, the depressive moods, attitudes and actions which might bring our own energy down.

Through the devoted reciting of this Ram mantra, you will create a barrier between you and negative forces that allows your own peace, harmony, and happiness to prosper.

“Fhat Ram Fhat”

This seeking an inner peace which brings about a positive change in their own behavior will benefit from this mantra. This simple Ram mantra brings harmony to the spirit, helping the chanter to be more sincere and honest as a person. It also brings clarity of thought, word, and action, setting the chanter on the path of dharma.

“Ramay Namah”

Another simple mantra intended to bring focus and clarity to the user. Here it is specifically purity of mind and word. This purity covers things like focus and articulation, but also purity in a moral sense – removing impure thoughts from the mind. It frees the chanter of negative, distracting or destructive thoughts, and helps them achieve a sense of inner peace and spirituality.

“Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu Vidyarupena Samsthita, Namastasyai Namastasyai Namastasyai Namo Namah.”

“SaIutations to the God Rama who bestows upon me the fearlessness of life in the form of knowledge and intelligence”. This chant grants the user inner peace and strength in times of great distress. It is an ideal mantra for those going through tough times at work, or in their relationships.

It will help to guide you on the right path to conflict resolution and standing up for yourself.

“Shri Ram Sharnam Mamah”

This mantra brings balance and strength to the body and mind. It promotes both physical and mental healing and can create a surge of bliss through the body.

Miraculous Ram Mantra Benefits

As you read in the previous section, there are many Ram mantras. Each has its own attributes, uses, and benefits. Yet, you may have also noticed there were certain trends and themes amongst them, chiefly the promotion of peace and harmony within the mind, body, and spirit of the practitioner.

So what are the overall benefits of using these Ram mantras? Here are some miraculous Ram mantra benefits for you to consider.

Promote self-esteem. One of the benefits of the enhancing of positive energies brought about by Ram mantras is an increased sense of self-worth. Those who are full of self-doubt or self-loathing will appreciate a remarkable boost in their self-esteem through the use of the Ram mantras.

Improved willpower. We face many temptations in our lives, big and small. Whether it’s the big temptations to cheat, to steal, or to be unkind or the small temptations to eat something we’re not supposed to, go back on a promise, or indulge, our willpower is sorely tested daily. Ram mantras help steel your willpower and better enable you to act righteously and virtuously.

Enhance other mantras. The Ram mantra often contains two words; Sri and Ram.

Sri is ying and Ram is yang – the male and female energies of the universe. Their combination employed with any mantra make its effects more profound.

Overcome fear and doubt. A consistent benefit of many of the Ram mantras listed above is helping the chanter to overcome fears and doubts in their lives. We are constantly plagued with doubts in everyday life. Doubts about job security, about our own capabilities and worth, about the choices we make. We fear making big decisions because we get too scared of the many possibilities, and doubt our instincts. The Ram mantra empowers us to overcome our fears and shed doubt from our minds. We become more assertive, more confident, and achieve more.

Better work performance. Clarity of thought and word are also common benefits of Ram mantras. This clarity and purity help us to better focus on tasks and challenges we’re presented with, particularly in our places of work.

Instead of becoming flustered by problems, we analyze them clearly and approach solutions with steady rationality. We perform better under stress, and so attract the positive attention of employees, customers, or clients we engage with.

Better academic performance. Busy students working late nights often find it hard to focus. The stress associated with assignments can make it difficult to concentrate and recall vital information.

The clarity of thought and mind, combined with the increased confidence and self-esteem – not to mention the lessening doubts and fears – helps students to achieve higher academic results in their studies.

Better physical health. The Ram mantras bestow upon the chanter improved physical wellbeing. The body is less likely to suffer from disease or injury, and if it does, it heals faster than it otherwise would. The Ram mantra promotes better circulation through the body of various systems and functions, promoting health.

Better mental health. Purity and clarity of thought, promotion of harmony and inner peace – all of these benefits lead to an improvement of the mental wellbeing of the practitioner. Chanting Ram mantras frees us of negative mental states like depression, anxiety, and mood disorders.

It saves us from intrusive, unwelcome, or destructive thoughts – both those aimed at the destruction of others, and those aimed at the destruction of self.

Improved behavior. Do you worry you suffer from anger issues? Do you find yourself short-tempered? Easily agitated? Ram mantras help us to overcome these antisocial behaviors. The soothing peace and inner harmony brought about by Ram mantras help us to be better people. We are kinder, more compassionate, more patient, and more loving in our everyday lives.

Attract prosperity. Combining Ram mantras with the klim seed mantra can attract great wealth and prosperity to the practitioner. Rama is not just about the spiritual enlightenment of his followers; he also meets their material needs as well. Klim itself is a powerful agent of the law of attraction, but when combined with the mighty divine power of Rama, it becomes supercharged for unequalled results.

Overcome debt. Attracting wealth and prosperity can specifically help those who feel burdened by financial debts.

The Rama mantra will attract the wealth needed to free the practitioner of their debts, in turn freeing them from stress.

Protection from negative forces and energies. Lord Rama is a powerful god sent to destroy a demonic king; he is one of the ultimate protectors, and chanters of Ram mantras evoke this protection for themselves. We are all so surrounded by negativity these days; on the news, in the workplace, at home. Negativity from other people, negativity from ourselves. So much advertising relies on people feeling poorly about themselves so that something can be sold to them. Ram mantras free us from all of these; while it does not make these things disappear, it protects us from their deleterious effects. We become unmoved by the negative influences of others, living our own harmonious, peaceful lives as we so choose.

Increased harmony. Ram mantras bring us together. When we have inner peace and harmony, it is so much easier to be peaceful and harmonious with those around us. We form better connections with our loved ones, our families, our coworkers, and strangers.

Through Ram mantras we can form not just better, but deeper connections with others; connections that are more empathetic, compassionate and nurturing.

Final Thoughts

Lord Rama is a powerful, beloved god, the 7th avatar of Vishnu sent to destroy a demon king and bring dharma to the world. Today, we chant to Rama with Ram mantras, evoking his strength and virtue. Through these mantras, we seek his protection from evil forces, clarity of mind, inner peace, prosperity, and perhaps above all, harmony – both within ourselves, and the world around us.

Related articles: The Complete Guide to Shreem Mantra [Secrets of Money Mantra] The Absolute Guide to Surya Gayatri Mantra [Blessed By Lord Surya] The Complete Guide to Chamunda Mantra [Feel Miraculous Blessings] The A-Z Guide to Vakratunda Mahakaya Mantra [Blessed By Ganesha]

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[gmarytherese]

Clear the stage, being Catholic isn’t an act.

My parents shared with me an encounter they had yesterday with a man they have been speaking to on occasion about the faith. The gentleman was a cradle catholic and had been active in his faith for years before a bad encounter(s) with fellow catholics had disillusioned him to the point that he decided to leave the Church. It was with years of being away from the Church that my parents first got to know him and to share about their faith with him. Since then, they had been sharing about God, their faith and the Church with him whenever they met him. 

Yesterday as they bumped into him at a mall, they invited him for our parish’s Christmas fiesta to which he responded that he was free on that day to come! It just so happened was with Divine Grace that of all days that week, the night of the Christmas fiesta was his off day! 

Oh isn’t it clear how much God is yearning for this man’s heart to return back to Him? Divinely arranged schedule allowed him to be free to come to Church -  maybe after many years away from the church, to finally come home and encounter the magnificent love of God who has been waiting and calling. 

Beautiful story isn’t it? Yet, this isn’t all there is to this encounter unfortunately. 

The gentleman began to share about how just that morning before my parents had bumped into him, he had another terrible encounter with two Catholics. He knew they were Catholics because they were wearing their Parish t-shirts when they went to the shop he was working at. Unable to provide the service that these two individuals wanted (which is no fault of his that he couldn’t provide it), they started berating him as “dumb” and implied that he was useless in their “whispered” comments (you know, those soft enough to be a whisper but loud enough to still be heard by the intended audience). 

I was horrified. As my parents recounted the story to me at dinner, my heart began to feel a whole range of emotions. 

I felt a deep sense of sadness and pain for the gentleman. Being hurt again by the Church that he had grew up in and served? Just when he seemed open to coming back to the Church, fellow Catholics by their words and actions may now drive him further away again. 

I was angry at the two Catholics who had been unnecessarily rude and demeaning to another person for no valid reason except for their own exasperation of not being able to get a service done. Could they not have graciously accepted that he could not provide the service, and move on to another shop?

I was confused as to the reason that the two catholics would even remotely think that it is okay to say these words to a stranger, who did them no wrong. Have they not been to Church and heard from Scripture about the effects words can have on other and thus to be careful with the tongue?

“The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Proverbs 12:18

I was annoyed and frustrated by the fact that they were wearing Parish t-shirts, which openly declares that they are my fellow Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, and chose to act in such an unloving manner to another. It doesn’t matter what religion or beliefs the other person prescribes too, but somehow it just seemed slightly worse when the unloving behaviour was directed to a fellow Catholic who had already left the Church because of past hurts before. Will it re-instill his conviction and decision years ago to leave the Church?

As I continued to dwell and reflect on this, and to try and understand why I was so emotionally invested in it, two areas hit me. 

Firstly, I was sad because it was clear to me how God loves this gentleman and wants him to come home. God longs for him, and desires to draw near to his heart yet again. God longs to heal him of the hurts that his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, the people who was supposed to love and support him, have caused him. It was upsetting to think that the actions of fellow catholics may once away drive a wedge between his willingness to come back to the Church and to Christ. How important it is to always be worthy witnesses of Christ! 

Secondly, I realised how dichotomous my thinking and view of being a Catholic is. I was, at the core, upset that the two individuals could act in such an unloving manner while declaring their faith by wearing their parish t-shirts! Shouldn’t they know that wearing the parish t-shirt places on them that added responsibility of being a witness of Christ in the world? 

“If they didn’t want to be loving, then just don’t wear the shirt!!” 

was my initial cry when my parents recounted the story to me. It reminded me of the many times when I am driving and I say 

“argh, if only I didn’t have the crucifix on my dashboard and the rosary hanging on my rear view mirror... then I can (insert inappropriate/rude driving manners)” 

But that’s just it, I am looking at the concept of being a Catholic Witness in the World all wrong. I began to realize how limited my view of being a catholic is! 

Being a catholic isn’t an act. It isn’t about putting up a show to the world that we are loving only when others know that we are catholic (i.e. when we wear crucifixes, scapulars, church t-shirts). It also isn’t about lowering our moral standards and choosing to compromise on being loving in situations where others around us do not know we are Catholic. It just isn’t an act and shouldn’t be made as such because it cheapens so greatly the beauty of being Catholic and being a disciple of Christ. 

Being a witness for Christ needs to well up from deep within our souls; and this conviction and inspiration comes from knowing Christ’s love for us deeply and intimately. It needs to be a conviction that we are first deeply loved by Christ and the Father, because from that wellspring of love, love flows. Love flows in every single moment of our lives. 

Sure there will be times that we get frustrated and upset, tired and fatigue. Yet with a constant closeness to Christ and consciously choosing to draw strength to love from Christ, all these tiredness and frustration that we may feel in our lives become new opportunities of grace - to choose to act in love even though it requires more intentionality and effort. Christ smiles on us even more when we can put our own struggles aside and act as He would, and that is in love. 

Thus, it really shouldn’t matter if the people around us do not know that we are Catholics. It shouldn’t dictate how we choose to respond to them because deep inside, God knows and we know our identity. 

And so I began to understand and also then to humbly admit, that I was feeling so much listening to this story because I see myself and my limited view of what it means to be a witness in these two individuals wearing the parish t-shirt. I recall the many times that I could have been in that same situation - proudly proclaiming my catholic faith with my t-shirts, crucifixes, rosary rings, and the many times that I could have been a counter witness by my un-Christ like actions and words. It hurts to know that my actions could have been the reason a person chooses to walk away from the Church, from the God who longs for him/her. It hurts. 

The call of being a disciple of Christ is really tough, because even times of my own fatigue and frustration is never a valid or justified reason to respond unlovingly. Christ’s call is to love always, not just when we feel up to it. 

So what now? 

Is the plan to take the easy way out and stop wearing all these “look-at-me-i’m-catholic” clothings and accessories? It can’t be because these are ways that we can bring an awareness of Christ’s love and His presence into our world. It would be irresponsible to stop wearing them or having them displayed because it makes our life “difficult”.

Instead the call is to take up the challenge - of becoming more and more authentic in our discipleship. The call is to take up the ever difficult task of always choosing to love. And the wonderful thing is, we don’t depend on our own strength because if so, it would be impossible. Instead, we draw the strength from the love of Christ that we have and continue to encounter in our daily lives. 

“Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.Clear the stage, being catholic isn’t an act - it’s choosing a radical new way of living.”

Isaiah 40-30-31

So, clear the stage because being a catholic isn’t an act - its choosing a radical new way of living and loving. 

ALSO, about the Christmas fiesta I mentioned earlier in the post, YOU ARE ALL INVITED! It’s going to be a wonderful time of celebration and feasting. Joy and laughter guaranteed!! If you are not Catholic, even more we welcome you to come to see what the catholic church is like :) 

[patriciahaefeli]

The following blog essays were part of another blog I had - and lost the password to!  It was called simply "Here's What I Have to Say About That"

 Resolutions 

     There was a nun at my all-girl’s Catholic college who used to like to call me into her office for little “chats” during my sophomore year. It was awkward. She’d ask me lots of questions, and in between fidgeting, looking out the window and tearing at my cuticles, I’d answer her. For a long time it seems, I kept thinking the questions were just polite banter, and eventually she’d tell me why I was there, or where this was leading. Once it became clear that she wouldn’t be explaining any of that, I just waited to be dismissed. 

     Sister Catherine Joseph (we called her “CJ” or “Ceeje,” behind her back), was energetic and petite, and the thick wooden rosary that hung from the belt of her floor-length habit swung wildly back and forth as she speed-walked through the corridors. In the early 80’s, most of the Dominican sisters wore the shorter habit and a simple coif and veil. Clearly, she didn’t have to wear the longer version, or the wimple that wrapped around her pixie face like a starched, white bandage. Once, in an effort to avoid one of her questions, I asked her about that. “Its important to me that I’m visible,” she replied briskly, as if she’d been asked this before and was mildly defensive about it. It occurred to me then that she liked to save people, and I wondered what she thought I might need “saving” from. 

    We were talking about poetry one fall afternoon, and I, happy to be in neutral territory, was on a roll, defending my appreciation for Sylvia Plath when, seemingly out of nowhere, she interrupted me. “Do you believe in God?” She inquired; as though this were a perfectly seamless segue. My shoulders sagged. Here we go, I thought. 

      “Oh Sister,” I moaned, “do we have to go here?” 

      “Do you think you can shock me?” She countered, looking amused. 

      “I don’t particularly want to,” I mumbled. 

      “Don’t want to what?” She probed. 

      “Shock you, Sister. I don’t particularly want to shock you! Oh fine, you know what? Yeah, I do. I believe in God…I also believe in Jason.”  She peered over at me with a questioning expression. I sighed. “You probably don’t go to many horror movies do you?” I asked wryly. Then, not waiting for the obvious answer I continued, “Jason is the killer in the Friday the 13th movies. Like Michael Myers in Halloween? You know, the axe murderer movies?” She looked at me, expressionless, waiting. “So, there’s like a formula to these movies. Basically, the killer preys on a bunch of high school or college kids who fall into three groups: The first two include those who don’t believe he’s really out there. They’ve heard the stories, so when they go on a weekend camping trip, and someone brings it up, it makes them kind of nervous, but deep down they figure that’s all it is, a story. Folklore. Then, there’s always that one kid who’s all glib about it, laughing him off as some stupid campfire tale, maybe even sneaking up on the others and jumping out at them, imitating him even, and finally, there’s the one who believes in Jason one-hundred percent.” I smiled at her, “Wanna guess which one survives?” 

      “Oh by all means,” she said, leaning back in her chair and bringing her index finger up to her mouth, “enlighten me.” 

      “The one who believes, Sister! In fact, the one who laughs Jason off – who thinks he’s invincible and that there’s no such thing as axe murderers? He dies the most awful, gory death of all. And frankly, they all die pretty horribly. Except for one.” 

      “The one who believes,” She echoed. 

      “Exactly!” I said, feeling pretty satisfied with my explanation. There were a few minutes of silence after that while she studied me with large blue eyes made even larger by her thick glasses. She ran that index finger back and forth across her closed lips several times and then it stopped right in the middle. After three decisive taps against her mouth she spoke. 

      “So in this scenario then, you are the believer,” She confirmed rather than asked, but still, I nodded my ascent. “And what you believe in,” she was learning forward again now, “is the possibility - no, the probability of some violent, terrifying, force just waiting to strike?” 

      “Well, actually, it’s not that simple,” I began, happy to clarify. “I believe that terrible, violent, terrifying things can happen, so that they won’t happen.” 

      “Ah,” she said, nodding and leaning back again with what I thought was a posture of serious contemplation of my idea. When she spoke again, both her words and her inflection conveyed a mixture of pity and reproach. “I had no idea you were so powerful.” 

      Walking to the parking lot afterwards, I remember feeling suddenly uneasy about having revealed this particular belief system. I’d been nurturing my “horror film philosophy” for a while but I’d never actually said it out loud before, and I felt a little exposed. Like she’d lured me into some kind of trap and then got all judgmental on me. What started that whole conversation anyway? Oh yeah, God. That’s it. She asked if I believed in God and we ended up talking about slash ‘em up, serial killer movies. Well, not “we” actually, just me. That probably pissed her off. There’s probably something blasphemous about that. Shit. 

      I should point out that at the time, I’d fairly recently had my first real experiences with tragedy and loss. The kind of senseless catastrophes that nearly everyone experiences sooner or later; that mark the beginning of the end of that sense of invincibility all young people enjoy. Ultimately, I’d responded to this with a fierce resentment about the lack of notice, and I began to obsess about the myriad careless ways people could set themselves up for that kind of ruthless ambush. 

     Suddenly, things like going about one’s daily activities without a moment’s anticipation of the scope of possible tragedies that might strike seemed arrogant and reckless. Attending to the mundane routines of eating a meal, or ironing a shirt, without once considering that at that very moment, irreversible tragedies might strike, became for me like portals to cataclysmic events. In the interest of self-preservation I suppose, the fact that I’d been blind-sighted became the central issue, and I developed a perspective on life (and death) that focused on preparation for the next one. My resolve to never feel completely safe was, therefore, a preventative measure, like hanging garlic on the door to ward off vampires.

      I had no idea you were so powerful. 

      That sentence had marked the end of our little chat session that day, and the beginning of a series of chats we would have over the next several months. She would, over time, gently coax me out of this convoluted mindset. She was the first person to suggest to me that believing in my own ability to influence events, whether it was through a kind of hyper-vigilant apprehension or any other method, was not just a painful way to live, it was actually pretty contemptuous of the idea that there was, in fact, a power greater than myself. And that, by the way, was the height of arrogance. 

      Oh yeah, God. 

      In the thirty-plus years between then and now, I’ve found it challenging, to say the least, to have that complete confidence in God that Ceeje had. I say I do, and I certainly think I do most of the time, but relinquishing that illusion of control, trying to stop attaching all kinds of weird meanings to a variety of talismans, can be a very slippery thing for me. I’m a lot better at it when life is going according to plan and the people I love are happy and safe. Oh yeah, then I’m a model of reliance on a divine authority. “Everything happens for a reason” is such a serene axiom to embrace when everything is going well. It’s all part of God’s plan. Surrender, under these circumstances, is so sweet. 

      Part of the reason that all of this comes to mind has to do with the conversation that I had with my doctor recently after my annual check up. He’s an older guy, my MD, and once he finished up his review of the numbers, assuring me that all was well, he took off his bifocals, set down his clipboard, and looked me in the eye. “So, how’re you doing?” After telling him I was great, for some reason I felt a welling up of emotion. “I’m fine, really,” I said, fighting back tears, “It’s just that I can’t sleep.”  We had nice conversation after that, and by the end of it I realized that he’d basically told me the same thing Ceeje had told me thirty years ago: That worrying like it’s my job is a lot of wasted energy and no matter how much I do it, no one is going to put me in charge of the future. 

      Intellectually, this is not news to me. What did surprise me was the immediate, gut-level certainty I had that part of the reason I was doing it was because, deep down, I still have the idea that if I don’t do it, I’ll be punished for my naiveté. I worry like it’s some kind of vaccine. As though imagining disastrous outcomes for a number of situations somehow immunizes you from those worst-case scenarios. 

      It’s nuts. 

      The truth is, I find myself thinking about Jason more than I’d like to admit. His looming presence is manifested in a variety of ridiculous behaviors on my part, and I tend to recognize them only in hindsight. I can, for example, become utterly committed to the idea that if I worry half the night instead of sleep, I’ll hear him coming and be ready. If I go to the gym and run (too long) or pedal maniacally (for too long) on the elliptical, I can fool myself into thinking I can take him, axe and all. If I clean and organize and label things just so, he won’t be able to get past the barricade of orderliness I’ve arranged. If I tick off all of the items on my crazy schedule, he won’t be able to slide the blade of his machete between the layers of efficiency I’ve created. 

      Oddly enough, when I am gripped by the conviction that these rituals are what’s holding it (or me), together, and that doing anything less would be akin to investigating that noise in the basement with nothing other than a flashlight, I’m the last to know. Nor does it occur to me during these times that if I were to direct half of that energy toward cultivating a deeper faith in the God of my understanding, I might just have a shot at not only peace of mind, but I’d free myself up for becoming a greater source of support for those who need me. 

     Which brings me to my kids. As a parent, it’s a fascinating thing to watch your child and recognize, with sudden clarity that their mannerism just then was exactly like yours. Or to hear the inflection in something they just said and find that it was so much like your spouse’s that it’s eerie. They imprint so much more than we realize. In some ways I’ve tried really hard to be aware of this. I consciously conceal, for example, my wildly out-of proportion anxiety about things like the dentist, horseback riding, and sharks. 

      Still, my youngest can be a bit of a “fretter.” She goes through periods of getting herself all tied up in knots about everything from grades (nothing but A’s will do), to global warming. During these times, her motto seems to be that it’s never too soon to begin to obsess about the future: How she’ll manage in high school, where she’ll go to college, even what type of career she’ll choose. As a small child, the sight of homeless people made her cry. When she began suffering from migraines last year we suspected that these things might be related, and sure enough, we left the neurologist’s with a prescription and a recommendation to help her find ways of de-stressing. I couldn’t help but feel like she was furiously treading water in my end of the gene pool. 

      I rarely trust simplicity and this is as simple as it gets: I don’t have to become the guy who makes fun of Jason, and scoffs at the notion that bad things might happen (he gets split down the middle by a chain saw, or impaled to a tree for crying out loud). But I don’t have to live life like the cowardly lion either, who hopes his repeated incantation “I do, I do, I do believe in ghosts” will somehow keep him from harm. I believe that Ceeje was right about all of it. There really is only one way to prepare for a future that no mortal can predict or control, and that is to live today with optimistic enthusiasm. 

     So, at the risk of sounding all New-Age-y, I’m making some changes in 2016. My resolution begins anew with each new day. I will try to remember to just breathe; to enjoy things more and to have more gratitude for each moment of each miraculous day. To love more, and laugh more, and to ask God every single day to give me the willingness to trust in Him and let tomorrow take care of itself. I’ll let you know how it goes. ☺ 

 12 Jan 2016 

 Pain 

      Just got back from a nice five-mile walk/run up here in Cape Cod. I run a little more of those miles than I walk these days, and I’m pretty happy about that. The minute I feel my hip start to complain I stop running and start walking. As I told my husband the other day, I’d rather do this and able to do it again tomorrow, than be grounded for a few days with a really inflamed joint. He just smiled and said, “That’s great honey. So unlike you!” What he means is that, historically, moderation has not exactly been my “thing” but that’s another story. I’ve had to learn this approach to exercise, and I had a good but very demanding teacher: Pain. 

      It all started on a beautiful summer day in 2009: We were out on the boat in Cape Cod Bay and our youngest and two of her friends had just taken a giggling, hair flying, grinning ear-to-ear ride on the tube. My husband steered the Boston Whaler sharply to the right and then the left, and when the tube hit the wake they shot up in the air and squealed with sheer joy. It looked so easy, and fun, and I wanted to do it too. 

      When it was my turn, I decided that the best way to get from boat to tube was to descend the ladder and, on all fours, back onto the tube. I did this for two reasons, 1) I figured that this way my hands would be facing the handles, as they should, without me having to awkwardly turn around, and 2) I wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of basically mooning everyone on the boat. Seemed logical enough. What happened, however, was that once my lower body was on the tube and I was in the process of letting go of the ladder, I realized that my weight was not distributed evenly. It was, in fact, pretty much all at one end of the tube; that end being the one closest to the boat. My awareness of the situation occurred in the precious few seconds I had before the tube pitched forward. Instinct took over. In an effort to avoid having my face slam into the back of the boat, I let go of the tube with one hand and with more velocity and force than I thought possible for me, wind-milled my right arm around to break my inevitable fall. 

      So, yeah, I broke more than my fall. Somehow they got me, my arm hanging uselessly at my side, back onto the boat. Three little girls under the age of seven sat across from me with wide-eyed apprehension so I whispered when I told my husband, “I might get sick.” With all the concern and compassion of a man who loves his boat almost as much as his wife he whispered back, “You look really pale. Do you want me to help you get to the side of the boat?” 

      It took about forty-five minutes to get from the house to the hospital in Hyannis. The pain was excruciating. The throbbing in my arm and shoulder was a thing in and of itself. For some reason, it was very important to my husband that I eat the sandwich he’d packed for me before we left. He suggested it more than once. The first few times, I merely shook my head no. After that, I stopped answering him altogether. For one thing, I was nauseous as hell. More importantly, however, his suggestions were an irritating interruption to my counting. Like a woman in the last stages of labor and childbirth, I was on another plane. In my mind, I was counting to one hundred, and then starting over again. The only thing that existed for me on that drive was the counting. Not the car, not the radio, not the sandwich. The counting and the pain. The whole of my consciousness had narrowed to those two things, and I could endure nothing else. 

      The hospital X-Ray revealed two fractures of the greater tuberosity of the humerus (the big ball of bone where the arm meets the shoulder). They gave me some type of pain-killing injection, put me in a sling, and sent me off with a prescription for pain meds and instructions to see my orthopedist when I got home to New Jersey. By the time we got back to the house we were all laughing about it. It seemed like a silly thing, mildly embarrassing. Our girls jokingly agreed to tell people that I’d suffered an “extreme wakeboarding” accident. Above all, it was an inconvenience. I’m a personal trainer, and this would affect the bootcamp class I led in the early morning, as well as my own workouts. Still, I figured in a couple of months I’d be good as new. No biggie. 

      I saw my first orthopedist about a week later. He took another set of x-rays and outfitted me with a bizarre looking sling intended to immobilize that shoulder. In early September I went back to work as a middle school teacher. The very first day back we had all kinds of professional development workshops to attend. By the afternoon session, I deliberately chose a seat in the back of the room and hoped no one noticed the tears streaming down my face. I figured out early on that Percocet made me feel crappy, but the pain was unremitting. I kept thinking that If I started taking it, when, exactly, would I stop? It wasn’t just my shoulder at this point either; my whole arm ached all the time. 

      I white-knuckled it for the next three weeks. When I returned to the orthopedist, I described the pain and said that I’d noticed an even greater reduction of my range of motion during that time. I asked if he thought I should have an MRI. He was dismissive. Told me he’d send me for one if I wanted it, but he didn’t feel it was necessary. He recommended that stay I immobile one more week, and then begin physical therapy. I left with yet another prescription for Percocet. 

     At five weeks post injury I began PT. Immediately, my physical therapist used the term “frozen” to describe what was happening with my shoulder. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I did know that I was on a mission. “Just tell me what to do,” I said determinedly. “I’ll work through the pain.” I was so willing to “work through it” that one of them told me later that they were all concerned that first week that I might pass out. 

      And yet, it didn’t help. In fact, the pain seemed to be getting worse, and my range of motion seemed to be decreasing. Writing with my right hand hurt, driving and working on the computer was worse, and writing on the board or playing the piano was out of the question. I was a regular runner at the time, but I found even a brisk walk left my shoulder and arm throbbing for hours. I began to joke with my family about the possibility of just cutting my arm off and getting a hook. “I could be really useful with a hook,” I would say, curving my fingers into a “C” shape. 

      At night, the pounding ache intensified. When I did sleep, I slept badly. Always overtired, I counted the days until my next doctor’s appointment, and when the day came, my husband came with me. “She’s really not a complainer,” he told the Dr. “she’s in a lot of pain all the time, and it’s gotten worse, not better.” The doctor shrugged and suggested a cortisone shot might help. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when he asked my husband and one of the nurses to hold me down for the injection, but when the Lidocaine kicked in, the tension I’d felt melted. I felt….nothing, and it was blissful. 

      “This is awesome! Is it normal that I can’t feel my neck or chin though?” I asked, half-crying, half-giggling. Needless to say, they quickly ushered me into the x-ray room where a nurse sat with me in the dark as I cried. I didn’t know at the time that they were sort of hiding me from the other patients in case I was having some kind of allergic reaction and went into anaphylactic shock. I didn’t know that my husband was out front arguing with the office staff, demanding my records and x-rays (he had already decided we weren’t going back). All I knew was that it didn’t hurt anymore. The nurse patted my hand and consoled me, telling me I’d be okay. I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t crying because it hurt. I was crying with relief. It was the first time in seven weeks that I wasn’t in constant, inexorable pain. The absence of it made me positively giddy for about an hour. Then, all I wanted was to go to sleep. I was exhausted. 

      Unfortunately, the only thing about that injection that worked was the local anesthetic, Lidocaine. Within 24 hours the throbbing was back with a vengeance. Back at school on that rainy, muggy, Monday morning I gave in and fished a Percocet from the vial in my bag with hands that were literally shaking from the pain. I taught my first class of the day measuring out the pain by the hands of the clock. I noted each ten-minute increment and silently committed to just ten more before I…before I what? I never finished that sentence in my mind. Ten minutes, repeat, ten more. When the bell rang I waited for the halls to clear and then began my walk to the bathroom furthest from the classrooms. 

     On the way there, I cradled my screaming right arm with my left, and gave my undivided attention to the floor tiles. Carefully measuring my stride, I focused on putting one foot exactly into the center of one gray floor tile, then the other into the center of a red one. I just have to make it to the bathroom, I thought. One gray one, one red one. Once inside, I called my husband. As soon as I heard his voice the uniformity of the tile game fractured like a kaleidoscope on fast-forward. “I can’t take this anymore,” I sobbed. “It never lets up. I swear, I’m not kidding about getting a hook. I want to just cut my arm off…either that, or drive my car into a brick wall.” 

      The very next day I had my first appointment at Hospital for Special Surgery. Right away they did an MRI and, in addition to confirming that I did, in fact have a terrible case of adhesive capsulitis (otherwise known as frozen shoulder), I had also torn my rotator cuff in that accident. “Frozen” shoulder is the term they use to describe a condition where the surrounding soft tissue becomes wildly inflamed. It thickens and hardens, causing a decrease in range of motion and a shitload of pain. In general, it lingers for about a year. My new doctor scheduled another cortisone injection for me that very day, this one guided by ultrasound. When she handed me yet another prescription for Percocet, I refused it, told her I had plenty and that I thought it might make me depressed. At that point, she wrote two new scripts; one for PT and the other for Vicodin. 

      That entire school year I went into New York at least once a month, sometimes more for Dr.’s appointments. I got cortisone injections every three months and went to PT three times a week. In June, I had another MRI. This time, she showed me how the rotator cuff tear had worsened, and despite my history with inflammation and frozen shoulder, my best option was still surgery. To her credit, she was honest. She warned me about the difficult recovery, said it was likely I’d become “frozen “ all over again, and told me that people who had total shoulder joint replacement had less pain afterwards than the rotator cuff repair folks.

      Well allrighty then. 

      I had my surgery almost a year to the day of the accident. In the interest of saving time, I’ll give you the highlights of year two: Rotator cuff surgery is hell. By the time I returned to work in October I had developed frozen shoulder again, and soon after, my other shoulder began to throb as well. I ignored it until I couldn’t ignore it anymore, until the obsessive counting of things to pass the pain/time was interfering with my life, then told the doctor. She immediately sent me for an MRI and a cortisone injection. I would have two more on that side before the situation merited surgery as well, although far less complicated or invasive. More PT. 

      Basically what this amounted to was year two of chronic pain. It became the very center of my existence. It was the filter through which I experienced everything. It drove my actions, and my thinking. I would catch myself moaning involuntarily, and look around to see who had heard. It was an evil enemy presence, and I rotated through periods of being at war with it, trying to ignore it, and then surrendering to it, trying to make peace with it. We went everywhere together: To work, to my kids soccer and softball games, to the supermarket and out to the movies. It needled me at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it reduced me to tears at least once a day. It changed me. 

      I am a person who endures through laughter. I can joke about nearly anything, the more irreverent, the better, and yet, I found myself smiling mirthlessly at things I once found funny. At times, it felt like it defined me. I became the human barometer. I knew before the six o’clock news did that it was going to rain tomorrow. Pain told me loudly and clearly. Sometimes I experienced it as a solid block of sensation. Other times it was a pulsing, living thing, at once separate from me and a part of me. Certainly I thought you could see it when you looked at me. It was so big, and loud, and mean, and insistent. I was crumbling under the exponential pressure of it. It was always there, and it was wearing me down. 

      In between PT and cortisone, I took prescription anti-inflammatories when I could get them, but getting them isn’t easy. Here’s what I learned about pain management practices: Narcotics are shockingly easy to obtain. You want Percocet? Piece of cake. When I mentioned my shoulder/arm situation to my gynecologist, even she offered me a prescription for it. Vicodin? Like taking candy from a baby. Then, somewhere along the line I picked up a prescription for Tramadol, which is described as being a “narcotic-like”, pain killer. It had none of the side effects of the other two and was truly a Godsend for me for a time (oddly enough, although most healthcare professionals agree that, “Yeah, that’s the best,” it is often the last considered when writing prescriptions). But anti-inflammatories, while not dangerously addictive opioids, are h ell on your stomach and most Orthos are loath to prescribe them. 

      I used to look at my impressive cache of painkillers and think, no wonder so many people get hooked on these things. They’re so abundantly accessible! I consider myself fortunate in that I hated how fragile they made me feel emotionally. Percocet in particular left me nauseous and brittle. I was on the verge of tears all the time. I’m not being dramatic when I say that prolonged pain is corrosive enough by itself, coupled with depression it is the stuff of suicide, and I don’t know how one can experience chronic pain and not be depressed. Add Percocet to that and you’ve got a frighteningly toxic cocktail. 

     So, good ole over-the-counter Ibuprofen became my drug of choice. Frozen shoulder worsens at night so I took them every night, sometimes several times a night, so I could sleep. Once, when I admitted to this regimen, my physical therapist reluctantly divulged a good stomach-saving tip: Take Omeprazole (over-the counter strength Prilosec) first thing in the morning before eating to protect my stomach lining, and then take the Ibuprofen after eating breakfast. That became my routine. 

      I dreaded rainy days. Rainy, cold, damp days intensify inflammation. Standing on the sidelines of my kid’s soccer and field hockey games was often insufferable. I got special therapeutic massages and went to a kooky little acupuncturist who gave me bruises the size of oranges. I researched foods with anti-inflammatory properties and began drinking a concoction of hot water, ginger and cayenne pepper every morning (after my Omeprazole). The dad of one of my daughter’s friends referred me to a quack in Colorado who sold pricey special herb patches for reducing inflammation and controlling pain. I ordered them in bulk. 

    I knew the aisle for sports related injury soreness at CVS like the back of my hand. A drawer at home grew heavy with tubes of BioFreeze and Arnica, Blue Emu and Aspercreme. After visiting family in Wisconsin, a friend at work brought me back a mentholated gel used on horses with tender flanks. I tried it. I took krill oil, glucosamine and turmeric supplements. Hell, I would have entertained the idea of an exorcism or a voodoo hex if I thought it would work. Desperation isn’t discriminatory. 

       And then I stopped talking about it. When people asked, “How’s the shoulder?” I’d shrug and say, “Okay.” I knew that even if I could describe the exhaustive grind, the emotional fragility, the sleeplessness, it wouldn’t matter. People don’t get it, and frankly? It’s boring. It’s the same record over and over and over and over. Yup! It hurts. Still hurts! Hurting again! Sharp, dull, throbbing, pulsing, pounding, stabbing, aching, sickening screeching PAIN. And the answer to “You should try…” was always, “I have.” There’s no cure. That makes people uncomfortable, so you say, “Okay.” And you feel abysmally alone. 

      Then, just when I was beginning to see the light at the end of the upper body tunnel, and had started training for a half-marathon, I began experiencing a new pain – this one starting at my hip, and running down my entire right leg. And it got worse at night. Keeping me up. Rain, cold, humidity, sent my right leg throbbing like a lighthouse searchlight. Oddly enough, when I ran, it felt fine, when I stopped, I was limping. WTH? 

      Enter year three of pain. Back to the orthopedist. More MRI’s. This time, a torn labrum in my hip. Did I want cortisone? She asked, or maybe I’d like to try a new type of injection, one that uses your own body’s Platelet Rich Plasma to heal itself? “It isn’t yet FDA approved, so insurance won’t cover it. It’s gonna hurt like hell when I inject it, but people have had good results, and with your history of adhesive capsulitis…” 

      “Okay. Yeah, sure. When can I do it?” 

      Over the next eight months I got two of them. Thousand bucks a shot. More PT (they got me my own Christmas stocking that year). The good news? Eventually, those injections worked. It took some time, and I am cautiously optimistic. 

      I have developed the habit of personifying the pain. I know that it lurks there, like a predator, waiting for me to give in to the urge to push it too far, to run that extra mile, and it might pounce and drag me under once again. I am grateful to live relatively free of pain these days. I promised myself a few years ago that I’d never take that for granted again, but I often do. The absence of it is oddly unremarkable. It slinks off gradually, almost stealthily and you don’t even notice it right away, and then one day you wake up and think, dare I think it much less say it? (Because it lives and breathes and it will hear and punish you for this respite, for your relief.) 

I know others who suffer and I have a special understanding of who and what they live with. I feel a level of compassion for them that I didn’t always have. I hope my eyes say go ahead and talk about it. I won’t be bored, or turn away too soon, and if there’s no cure, I swear, I can take it. Introduce me to the evil twin, the traitor living in your body. I get it. I do. 

 27 Aug 2015 

 Words and Music 

      I learned to read music before I learned to read words. Those odd little opaque symbols that represent notes and tempo and phrasing were my first alphabet, and translating them to sounds on the piano felt natural to me. I was no prodigy, and yet, I have this distinct memory: I must have been four years old, just before I had my first lesson. I remember having a clear sense that I would be able to do this; that some part of me, in fact, already did. At my very first lesson, my hands slid comfortably into position on the keys as though into well-worn gloves, and my teacher looked skeptical when I denied having ever done this before. 

      At the piano, I am what people used to call “classically trained,” which is not at all as grandiose as people imagine. What it means is that for years I spent countless hours with C.F. Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist, learning scales and arpeggios, and my entire repertoire of study was concerned with the “classical” composers. I practiced, often with a metronome ticking, observing music expressions written in Italian, and following phrasing notations made by the composer. As a more advanced student, I had a teacher who insisted that I memorize the notes and phrasing of the Bach Inventions and could say them aloud before I ever played them. 

      If this sounds very strict and Victorian, I can assure you that for me, it didn’t feel that way. It suited me in ways I could not have defined back then. There was a discipline in the way I was taught that was oddly comforting. I could count on these things being static and sure: the staccato of the Bach, the dissonant precision of Prokofiev, the indulgent angst of the Chopin. It would be a few years before my mother began to say that she could tell the kind of mood I was in by what I played and how I played it, but from the beginning, there was some intrinsic connection between the music and my inner workings. 

      I had a similar experience with learning to read words. The prospect of it thrilled me! I assumed that not only was I meant to read, but that I would love reading the books that lined the shelves in our house. I pretended to read long before I actually knew how. I would hold books on my lap (often upside down,) the way I had seen my brothers and sisters and parents do it, contemplate the hieroglyphics on the page and in my mind, I made up the stories that I knew were hidden there. I knew that someday the mysteries of this code would reveal themselves to me, and that this would be a very, very good thing. 

      It is hardly surprising then, that at the very heart of the adult me, there is a dorky adolescent who is fifty percent “Band Camp,” and the other fifty a (library) card-carrying word nerd. For as long as I can remember, I’ve kept a little notebook filled with words that I especially like. I am the gal who is always slightly more obsessed with the goings on in the “Pit” during Broadway musicals than I am with the actual play. I leave movie theaters talking about the sound track that no one else seemed to hear. Last Spring, I saw Johnny Matthis perform, and while my husband talked non-stop about his long and trailblazing career, all I kept saying was, “But did you see his pianist? He did all the arrangements and he was conducting that entire orchestra with one hand and playing with the other – it was nuts!” 

      I love all kinds of music, and have an appreciation for rap that my students find amusing (me being so elderly and all). The linguistic complexity intrigues me, and the cadence reminds me of songs I’ve made up when I had to memorize things. To this day, I can only name the continents if I sing a little song in my head in which each is named. There are instrumentals that can make me cry. Add words to that, and well, there are certain places that combination can reach within me that even I cannot access voluntarily. 

      This is, I realize, probably at the very core of why I find it difficult to play the piano for an audience. The music is so tied to my emotional make up that it often leaves me feeling too exposed and vulnerable. Years ago, someone who didn’t run, and who couldn’t understand my need to run for miles asked me what, exactly, it did for me. I thought for a long time before I answered, struggling to find the words to express what I wanted to say. In the end the best I could do was this: “Have you ever heard the very beginning of U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For?” I asked him. 

       “Yeah, I think so.” He said, looking perplexed. 

      “Well, that’s kind of what my head sounds like until I run.” 

      “Ok,” he laughed, “I’ll guess I’ll have to listen to that. But tell me this, what does it sound like after you run?” 

      Again I struggled for the words, until finally, “A Chopin Sonatina.” 

      “Weird.” He said. 

      “Yeah,” I said simply.

      I know that the connection I feel to words and music is in some ways unique to who I am. And yet, who among us could have learned the ABC’s without that song? Who hasn’t exclaimed, “Oh! I love this song!” And turned up the radio feeling strangely proprietary about what my daughter would call her “jam”? I like to ask my students, “How many of you know all the words to your favorite song?” Without exception, every hand goes up. Then I give them an evil smile and tease them saying, “You are so busted right now! There is no reason you can’t memorize everything you need to know for Friday’s test!” 

      Sometimes these two loves of mine collide in strange ways. I imagine, for example, Joan Baez telling Bob Dylan, “Babe, really though, don’t you mean ’Lie Lady Lie’?” Like a game of Operation, some songs connect viscerally to places and people and situations: I cannot hear Natalie Cole’s This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) and not belt it out too, chasing away any remnants of a bad mood. Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets? It will forever remind me of a girl named Joyce who I walked to school with every day. Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street makes me think of a boy I knew who will never grow old, and the entire David Bowie album, Ziggy Stardust, brings me right back to the kitchen of my very first best friend and the drinking parties we had at her house in high school. 

      I was a Beatle girl first and a Rolling Stones girl second. I listened to Donna Summer’s On the Radio album over and over so many times that my brother once yelled up the stairs to me, “Enough is Enough Tricia!” A friend, and the son of my old piano teacher, introduced me to Warren Zevon. We sat in his room listening to “Werewolves of London” and turned to one another to deadpan the line, “I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics - and his hair was perfect.” Then we’d smile, feeling like he was our own personal and very cool discovery. 

      The other morning, I set my iPod to “shuffle” and stepped on the elliptical. About forty minutes later, a song came on that I haven’t heard in a long time. At one time, it had special significance to me, yet I began to sing along, grounded and unmoved by those ancient associations. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, just as the string section swelled and the vocalist began again, some instantaneous charge was ignited, fusing the past and present and causing my voice to catch. A bark-like sob discharged obstinately from my now short circuiting lungs. Almost as quickly as the moment began, it was over. 

      What the hell was that? I wondered, wiping tears with the back of my hand. But some part of me understood that the music had travelled straight through the insulated me like a hot, electrical current, aiming straight for the bare conductor somewhere deep within. The result? Musically induced momentary overload. 

      I’m home alone tonight, a rare thing these days. I sat down and played the piano for a solid hour-and-a-half and in that time I believe I ran the gamut of my emotional arpeggios. I still like the discipline of the classical composers, but a few years ago I had a small treble clef tattooed on my inner ankle with the words “a piacere” above it. An admittedly rare Italian musical phrasing instruction, it means to play “as you like it.” 

      In life, as well as at the piano, I need the reminder that sometimes not following someone else’s rules is okay too. I can trust myself to find the words, make the choices, and know that whether I am right or wrong, the sound that demands to be felt is true: A piacere. 

 21 Nov 2014 

 The Acrimonious Acronyms of Education 

      It’s a peculiar time to be a public school teacher. I have just spent the better part of the last ten months “teaching to the test” as they say (all the while encouraging us not to say it) because I had no other sane choice. In April, I paced fretfully as my ELA classes sat for the LAL section of the Big, Bad NJ ASK state test. My colleagues and I feel enormous pressure to ensure that our (read: our student’s) scores make AYP so that the DOE lifts the “Focus School” designation, which will force a hasty retreat by the ever-present RAC team. 

      Then, just as we all heaved a sigh of relief at having that behind us, we were reminded that our students still had to take a combination of four MCU tests; one covering the final unit, and the other three representing a “post-test” administered to see if we (teachers) met our SGO’s this year. Tiered with a variety of growth percentages associated with the myriad ability levels in a single classroom (thank you, NCLB), the final Excel spreadsheet analysis requires a level of mathematical wizardry that make my English teacher’s eyes twitch with anxiety. 

     The final numbers will inform our SGPs, which are linked to our educator codes, which become part of our final evaluations, which tie directly to our continued enjoyment of gainful employment. After all of that, the only thing left to do was to compile a binder of “artifacts” that prove that I carried out the PGP (which used to be a PIP, then a PDP– stay with me here) I developed last year, and then create a new PGP for next year. My new one includes methods of teaching three-part objectives that will prepare my students for the upcoming PARCC all the while pretending to not be “teaching to the test.” Natch. 

      When, you ask, did I have the time to plan and implement meaningful, engaging classroom experiences while slogging through this artifact uncovering, evidence building, number crunching spectacular exercise in what corporate employees refer to as good ole C.Y.A.? (Cover Your Ass.) Ha! As the kids (remember them? See paragraph #2) say: LOL. 

      The real irony is that the more gnashing of teeth that goes on with regard to these test scores, the more irrelevant the actual children who generate them seem to become. I have found myself more than once this year holding my breath as I ran my index finger down two rows of numbers, exhaling only when I got to the bottom and confirmed that the second column was equal to, or higher than, the first. 

      I used to look at the names too. 

     It used to matter to me a whole lot more who was doing well and who was struggling and why. I picked up on things like changes in handwriting or a sudden drop in grades. The comments I wrote on their essays in purple ink addressed the content of their essays as often as the construction. Only a few years ago I would not have considered trying to provide students with a prepared set of examples to use in almost any explanatory quote essay, or a single generic metaphor to use to get points for including figurative language. I would not have advised entire classes to kill two birds with one stone in terms of point gathering by beginning any picture prompt essay on that state test with the English teacher’s one-two punch, the hook-dialogue combo, “’Wow!’ Said Tom.” 

      When I coach them to do these things, I call it a “tool chest.” In my mind, it’s more like the frenzied clamoring for the daggers and spears placed in the cornucopia at the start of The Hunger Games. It’s not just that it’s a numbers game now instead of a word game. It’s that it’s a game, period. Survival is the goal and it’s quantifiable. The key players, however, are nameless and faceless to the people who are making decisions about them and for them. 

      Meanwhile, here’s a succinct little example I like to give people about just one of the many failings of NCLB: I teach writing. If a student in my class has been I&RS’d and winds up with an IEP that recommends a modification that says “Whenever possible, allow this student to speak his responses instead of writing them,” then by law, that is what I have to do. If I don’t, his parents have grounds for a lawsuit. Against me, his writing teacher. When April comes along, and that same student has to take the state test, that IEP simply won’t fly. He may be given additional time, but he will have to write the essays. Here again, the state plays by different rules and we are left scratching our heads going, “Uhm, WTF?” 

      Another curious morsel: The “Model Curriculum,” conceived and designed by the DOE, now drives everything that math and English/Language Arts teachers do, as well as when we do it. For ELA, however, the MC recommends that we teach the persuasive essay in the first few months of the school year. Then in April, just prior to that Big Bad test, they recommend that we teach the narrative. This is particularly baffling when you consider the age group. 

       Dear NJDOE, Have you MET the average 13 yr. old? Here’s a fun idea:          Send one upstairs to get something, and then hold your breath. When they come back a half-hour later (if at all) empty handed and completely mystified about why they went up in the first place, you’ll be lucky to get CPR. 

      Love, 

      Middle School Teachers 

      Did I mention that the persuasive essay is also the “big ticket” item on that test? Forty-five minutes long and worth more than twice as many points as the narrative essay. Upon reflection, the sequencing of the Model Curriculum KMYW (Kinda Makes You Wonder). Knowing all of this, I personally defy the MC and go back to the persuasive in April. Wildcard rebel that I am, I also explain to kids the point system that will be used to score their (read: my) essays. 

    I provide a frame of reference for them that I think might help. I tell them to think of it like a video game or a sporting event, or if necessary, The Hunger Games. One is reminded of the great coaches of the past, the Knute Rockne’s, the John Wooden’s, (or maybe just John Belucshi’s Bluto speech in Animal House?) as I wrap up my final motivational pep talk with…“We’re after points, guys. We need lots to win! Now let’s go out there and kick some NJ Ask!!!!” 

      There is no doubt in my mind that teaching kids to write clear, effective arguments is an important life skill that will serve them well no matter what they decide to do with their lives. Still, the minute we get a break from all of this testing and formulaic writing, I dive into what I consider the fun, creative stuff for the few remaining weeks we have. This often includes poetry and the personal narrative. 

      One of the activities I’ve done for a few years now is the “Chicken Soup Story.” First, we read a bunch of them. Using the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul or Pre-Teen Soul books, I photocopy what I think are stories that cover a variety of topics that will interest both the boys and the girls. We read them out loud and talk about them. I keep about a half dozen copies of those books on the shelf in my room and encourage students to borrow them and read as many as they can. 

      We discuss how sometimes, the events described in them are small, but the impact on a life is big. We wonder aloud about why sometimes those who seem to “have it all” are unhappy, while those with real challenges appear to find joy in their lives. We talk about the value of things like honesty and trustworthiness, determination and forgiveness. We define what it means to have good character, and how much there is to learn not just from our experiences, but how we respond to them. 

       This is, quite obviously, The Good Stuff. Along the way they enthusiastically identify the themes of each selection, and admire the word choice and vivid imagery provided by the authors. We note how well snippets of dialogue move the story along, and how after the main character’s epiphany (what plot diagrams call the climax) there is some type of resolution, even if it is only a greater understanding of some aspect of life. By the time that I tell them that they too, have had enough experiences in life to create an original Chicken Soup Story; that they can reflect upon and write about what they’ve learned from these experiences, there is an energy in the room that I haven’t seen all year. They are genuinely excited. They want to tell their stories. 

      And tell them they do. It is the end of May by then, and as I read their stories I finally “meet” my students. I discover that David had a two year-old sister who died last June and he worries all the time about his mom’s sadness. Marco’s dad was a gang member and is now in prison. He wonders if his dad remembers him, because he hasn’t seen him in years. Angie wants so desperately to be popular, that she goes along with the nasty, bullying tactics of her friends, and then goes home and into her small apartment feeling so guilty that she methodically cuts herself with a razor. Rosa’s uncle molested her for years, but he was a drug addict then, and he’s clean now so it’s “all good.” Delilah wants to be an artist, and those doodles she’s constantly drawing in her notebook? They help her organize her thoughts before she writes in a way no graphic organizer would. Carlos is living at the YMCA in one room with his mom and younger sister. That’s why he didn’t come to detention that time, because he doesn’t take the regular school bus home, there’s a special one that comes for him every day. He wrote about how he was glad he had this opportunity to tell me this in “private.” Luis, a serious, considerate boy, is the oldest of three children, and the only one who is not severely autistic. It’s sometimes hard to focus in school because his parents need his help with his siblings, and he feels protective of them as well. Krystal’s parents went through an ugly divorce last summer, and she had to go to court and choose which parent she wanted to live with. No one seems to be paying attention at all in Destiny’s house, because she stays up until 2:00 or 3:00 every night texting, Instagram-ing and Facebook-ing. As a result, she is often so tired during the school day that she gets in trouble for falling asleep. Raphael cooks dinner every night and takes care of his two younger siblings because his dad works nights and his mom is working two jobs. 

      But why would we want to know anything about that? That’s just messy, that is. You can’t calculate it, and there’s no section on the bubble sheet for that #2 pencil to code in the right letters or numbers for exhaustion or depression or anxiety or pain and then write a well-organized five-paragraph essay either supporting or refuting the value of same sex schools using details, facts and examples to support your opinion until you see the words STOP! Do not go on until you are told to do so. 

      I understand the need for all the numbers. Truly, I do. The concept of data-driven instruction looks really good on paper too. I get it. It’s a logical approach that seems to make sense just as I’m sure NCLB seemed back in 2002. I just think that some really important stuff is getting lost in the process. The connection I have to my students as people, for one. All the components of a student’s life that can’t be quantified for another, and the sense that this new world has a kind of survival of the fittest sensibility for teachers that leaves us with no option but to squelch every instinct we have about the real, true indicators of instructional effectiveness in favor of making our quota. 

      In an effort to keep the educational conveyer belt humming we’re becoming factories, funneling nice, neat black numbers into little white squares on a grid. Numbers that often have little or no real connection to the people they represent. Numbers that, when all is said and done, are really being used to evaluate teachers, not to help students. 

 20 Jun 2014 

 The $1 Valentine 

      A few years ago, I had a bubbly, brown-eyed girl named Zoey in my 8th grade class who was head-over-heels in love with one of the 8th grade boys. She talked about little else, wrote Jonathan inside the hearts that she drew all over her notebooks, and became apoplectic if his name was called over the PA system. 

     Her devotion to the crush she had on this boy was common knowledge; her openness about it endearing. She even talked to me about it. When I asked her if he knew, she rolled her eyes, smiled widely, and nodded her head yes. When I asked if he returned her affections, she glanced away, pulled her black, high top Chuck Taylors up onto the seat of her chair, pressed her chin down onto the knobby knees of her skinny jeans, and shook her head no. She explained to me that boys like him did not go out with girls like her. “He is way out of my league right now,” she explained, still smiling. “He could have anyone,” she said, throwing her arms wide to illustrate the point. 

      This fact, however, did little to lessen the single mindedness of her obsession, or to prevent her from sharing her worship of him with anyone who would listen. I knew Jonathan. He had the confident kind of good looks that kids now refer to as ‘”swag,” and in truth, he probably did have his pick of those 7th and 8th grade girls. Tall and lanky, he wore his dark brown hair short in the back and long in the front and carefully disheveled. He walked the halls with the athletic gait of a boy who knows he’s popular, and looked down at his adoring posse through amused hazel eyes framed by long, black lashes. 

     I had him in another class and found his cockiness disappointing. He couldn’t help but know how beautiful he was, I supposed, but he seemed to believe that this, combined with a certain amount of oily charm would get him through. He’d flash his dazzling white smile at me and explain that he’d forgotten his homework, or that he didn’t have time to study because basketball was in season. When I told him that this did not excuse him, that brilliant smile would quickly fade and he’d mutter something bitterly under his breath. The “it” girls around him would commiserate with him about the unfairness of it all, and would sometimes offer to do it for him. More than once, I’d seen him turn on the charm to get others to do his work. 

      In short, I thought privately that Zoey could do so much better. She was quirky and bright and creative and funny and I didn’t like seeing her devote so much emotional energy to a boy who, in my opinion, was conceited, manipulative, and vapid. 

      I was the advisor to the school newspaper back then, and Zoey was a valued staff member. We were gearing up for the February issue, which ran the much-anticipated Valentine’s Day messages. Kids could buy the space to write a message for a friend or crush for $1.00. Zoey was an eager promoter of the Valentine’s Day messages. I knew, as everyone did, that she had purchased and written several for Jonathan, so I worried a little more than usual about how willing she was to put herself out there for this boy. Not only could I not imagine him caring very much about her declarations of love, I was afraid that he and his friends would be unkind about her lack of subtlety. I also knew that while he would have many admirers, there was a good chance she wouldn’t have any. 

     The V-Day Messages were our biggest fundraiser (second only to the sale of a DVD that our paper once mistakenly advertised as the “8th grade ‘Copulation’” instead of Compilation). Kids would line up to get those little slips of paper, and then write sweet assurances of love and friendship. They sent them to their bff’s as often as they sent them to the boys and girls that they “liked”. 

      The messages had to be carefully read and sometimes edited, and then typed up prior to the publication of the paper. They were printed alphabetically by the name of the recipient, and it never ceased to amaze me how many were addressed to “Babe.” Those beginning with the name “Jonathan” were a close second. I couldn’t help but notice that he, on the other hand, had not sent one. 

     It was not unusual during this time for students to come running to my classroom waving dollar bills, hoping to get a message in before the deadline, or hoping to retract one already written (middle school romances being short-lived and fickle and all). I always typed them up myself, to avoid the inclusion of any inappropriate messages and that’s what I was doing in my classroom one day after school just before Valentine’s Day when Jonathon tapped lightly on the door. I looked up and the first thing that struck me was his sheepishness. The swaggering self-assuredness was gone, and he stood there for a minute, hands in pockets, shifting from foot to foot, looking everywhere but at me. “Jonathan?” I began, “Are you alright? What’s up?” 

      He pulled one of his hands out of his jeans pocket, and out of it dropped a dollar bill onto my desk. “I need to buy a valentine,” he said, glancing up at the board with feigned interest. 

      “Well, the deadline has passed Jonathan, it’s really too late at this point—“      

     “Mrs. H., please.” He said simply, imploring me with his eyes. 

      “Okay then, make it quick.” I sighed, slipping him the paper. He wrote quickly, folded the paper in half and tossed it onto my desk. By the time I unfolded it and read the name he’d written on the line next to the word “To” Jonathan was gone. Smiling to myself, I placed it at the bottom of the pile of messages I was working on and continued to type. The paper would go to “press” the following morning and I needed to get these done. 

      Near the end of the next day, the school paper was distributed. Students quickly grabbed their copies and immediately flipped past the regular school news to get to the pages at the end, the ones with the valentines. Some of them elicited smiles and some prompted tears, and still others caused fights (mostly among girls), but it was the very last one that I’ll always remember: Zoey T. - You flatter me and make me smile. Happy Valentine’s Day. – Jonathan. 

      It would have been so easy for any 14 yr. old boy to blow her off, to make fun of her ever present adoration with his friends, and dismiss her as some geek stalker. Perhaps Zoey was right. Jonathon was never going to feel about her the way she felt about him, but judging by her elation over that one sentence, it was more than enough for her to be acknowledged and appreciated by him. It did not escape her (or me) that hers was the only one he’d sent, and that small, sweet gesture forever changed my impression of him. 

     Jonathan did understand his power, and he had risen to the occasion. He knew didn’t have to love her back. All he had to do, was be kind. 

 16 Feb 2014 

 It’s a Different World….Or is it? 

     I was eight years old and in fourth grade the day it happened. I was walking to school one morning and had just gotten to that larger-than-usual lot six houses up from mine, when I noticed the large, black car driving slowly next to me. I looked over, and saw that the passenger side window was down. The driver, a man with dark, slicked back hair was saying something to me, but I hadn’t heard him. I paused, and took one step closer to the car. “Excuse me?” I said politely. 

      “Do you want to earn ten bucks easy?” The man repeated, his voice quiet, urging me to move closer. 

      “Oh, uhm, no thanks.” I said simply and I continued walking. I wasn’t scared. In fact, I was almost certain that he meant raking leaves. I didn’t like to rake leaves, and I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, so I figured that raking his leaves was out of the question. It was a no brainer. I met my friend Randi at the corner as usual and we walked the remaining two blocks to school. The conversation with the man in the black car never came up. It just didn’t seem important to me. 

 ********************************************************************************* 

    I didn’t trust my memory, so I asked my mom about this the other day: “Mom, how old was I when I began walking to school by myself?” 

      “What do you mean?” She began, mildly incredulous. “You always walked by yourself!” 

      “You didn’t walk me? Even in Kindergarten?” I prodded. 

      “Of course not. Well, maybe the first day. All you kids walked.” 

      It wasn’t a long walk. The equivalent of about three blocks. Sometimes I walked with my brother, who was three years older than I was. Eventually, I began to walk part of the way with a friend who lived on the top half of my long, oak-tree lined street. She met me at the halfway point. There were exactly seven houses between my house and the corner where I met her. Between the sixth and seventh house there was a larger-than-usual lot that had even more oak trees. I remember that when I first began walking to school by myself, I was little enough to be terrorized by an unruly gang of squirrels who hung out there in the autumn months. Every day, when I got to that part of the sidewalk next to the larger-than-usual lot, I stopped and watched them dart around, frantically collecting acorns. At times we’d reach a kind of stand-off, the squirrels staring me down like delinquent teenagers until I’d gather my nerve to take off and run straight through them, often in tears. 

      I am from a generation that did not have formal “play-dates”. We went outside. We found the other kids who were outside. We played until it got dark, or our mothers called us home. The house I grew up in sat in a kind of small suburban valley bordered on two sides by sloping hills. The houses on my side of the block all had small backyards that ended in a narrow wooded area that rose up and separated them from the backyards the next block over. I spent countless hours in there, playing hide and seek, looking for fossils, collecting leaves or filing jars with lightning bugs. I played often with the boy next door and we called it “the jungle.” 

      One summer morning, I filled my father’s Marine canteen with water and we took it with us. All afternoon, we were explorers in the jungle, carefully rationing out the water in that canteen so that we would “survive.” Another time, convinced that we had seen a snake slither down between the roots of a tree, we snuck back into the house just long enough to grab two towels and two pieces of lined paper before heading back out. We didn’t hear our mothers calling to us at dinner time, but I will never forget the sound of his mom’s laughter as she described to mine how she had found us sitting cross-legged beside the tree trunk, towels wrapped around our heads, blowing into sheets of paper rolled up like “flutes,” which we were pretending to play in an attempt to charm the snake back out of the hole. 

      The most trouble I ever got in as a kid happened when I was six years old. I was a couple of blocks over at my friend Patti’s house when we decided we wanted to go to the park. The park, however, was an off-limits trip for me without a grownup. The park meant crossing Lakeside Avenue, a wide, four-lane mini-highway at the bottom of Patti’s street. I called my mom to ask if I could go. Her answer was a firm, “No.” In an uncharacteristically brazen attempt to persuade her to change her mind, I pushed her, pointing out quite reasonably that Patti was seven. Mom wasn’t having it though, and she proceeded to launch into an equally rare explanation of why. She told me that Lakeside Avenue was too dangerous for a six and seven year old to navigate alone. 

      If asking her twice was unlike me, what I did next was just sheer lunacy: I went anyway. I went, and have this picture in my mind of Patti and me, smiling as we walked, single file, with our arms outstretched for balance, as though on a tight-rope, along a log at the edge of the lake when Billy, Patti’s brother, came running toward us across an open field like Paul Revere, yelling, “Tricia! Tricia! Your mother knows you’re at the park! She knows and she’s coming for you!” 

     Holy Mary, Mother of God. This was bad. This was very, very bad. This was scary. Another child might have tried to run or hide. I knew that my only choice was to go home and face it. I walked up Morningside Road and turned right onto South Prospect Street, where I saw her at the other end walking toward me. I trudged toward her, walking the proverbial “Green Mile.” Suffice it to say that for at least a week, my sore rear end was a daily reminder of the consequences for being sneaky and defiant. And of course, in addition to breaking one of the few rules she had about where I could play, I had scared her. My dad had a little joke about mothers in general, saying that in these circumstances, “That which doesn’t kill you, gives her the right to.” 

             ************************************************************* 

     Randi and I were in the same class. When we arrived at school on the day the man in the black car spoke to me, our teacher, Mrs. DeJohn, chose Randi to begin “Show and Tell.” Usually, Show and Tell consisted of a half hour of kids holding up cool snow globes from Disney, or a really sweet piece of quartz from a museum gift store that would make everyone wish that they too, had one. 

      Not that day. That day, Randi stood up in front of the class and told the exact same story about being approached by a man in a black car as what I had experienced. Funny thing was, at that moment, lots of smiling little 4th grade girls started eagerly waving their hands saying, “Me too!” 

     It seemed exciting! We looked at one another, marveling at this thrilling coincidence. None of us really noticed at first that Mrs. DeJohn had walked quickly out of the classroom to the main office down the hall. That night, I was in my PJs ready for bed when the doorbell rang. We rarely had evening visitors, so there were plenty of questioning looks between my siblings and parents as they went to open the door. A few minutes later, I was sitting on the couch between two large police officers, feeling very self-conscious in my pajamas, looking at hundreds of pages of mug shots in a big black binder. 

      I didn’t choose the right guy, which later on, wasn’t surprising to me at all. I hadn’t really paid attention to him. The fact that he stopped me and asked me that question seemed a bit odd I suppose, but there didn’t seem to be anything menacing about it. To be honest, those squirrels terrified me a hell of a lot more. I didn’t pick up on danger at all. And as I write this, I think of my 10 year-old daughter, who is two years older than I was at the time and the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention. 

      Randi was the one who “caught” him. A few days later, she saw him again. This time, she was able to point him out to her mom, who called the police right away and they picked him up. Turns out he was a pretty scary guy. Adults were tossing around words in low voices like pedophile, and child pornographer, and then they’d glance over at us kids, pointedly turn their heads the other way, and speak in whispers. 

              ************************************************** 

      My youngest, Elizabeth, has always ridden the bus to school. Her bus stop used to be at the nearest corner to our house, which is visible from our dining room windows. Until this year, I walked her, and waited with her-and never considered allowing her to do this alone. In fact, on those days that she took the bus home, if there were no parent waiting for her, they wouldn’t have let her get off the bus either. 

      This is the world we live in now. This year, the bus picks her up directly across the street from our front door. It was a significant rite of passage that, as a big 5th grader, she asked if she could walk to the bus stop and wait alone. Doing this was a point of pride with her for the first month or so of school, and then a few weeks ago, just prior to the announcement that the famed New York WNEW DJ, Dave Herman, was arrested for attempting to transport a 7-year-old to St. Croix with the intent to engage in sexual activity with her, there were two attempted “lurings” of young girls in our town. Parents were notified immediately via mass emails, and the kids were told too. 

     The next morning, I watched as she walked down the front walk and crossed the street to wait. I had just closed the front door and was standing in front of the dining room windows scanning the empty opposite side of the street for her when, before I had a chance to panic, the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find her there, shaking and crying, saying, “I’m scared. Come with me.” 

      I hate the fact that she is afraid. I hate that when she asks to go play by the creek behind our house I say yes with a twinge of uneasiness I doubt my mother ever had. I hate that when her very best friend moved from the house next door to a couple of blocks over, she lost the ability to just yell, “I’m going to Lulu’s,” and walk out the back door. I hate that I sometimes feel like the “helicopter parent,” overprotective with an overactive imagination. I hate that those emails fuel that fear. 

      I think that I had a much simpler childhood. But did I? Dave Herman is 77 years old for God’s sake. How many women my age owe their damaged bodies and psyches to that particular monster? Were we just naïve? Or is it the fact that things like this were only spoken of in whispers? That parents whose children were victimized made sure that they were also “protected,” so that they weren’t stigmatized as well. “Protected” translates to a generation of kids who were told not to talk about it. Who were molested, and then silenced without explanation. What that translates to, is a nightmare I cannot imagine, and I realize that while I do not want my child to live in fear, I’m glad she is more cautious than I felt the need to be.  We talk often about the idea that no adult stranger ever needs her “help”, and if she really believes they do, that she should say, “I’ll be right back with my mom/dad.” 

      I wish she’d come in the house more often with the smell of fall leaves in her hair after playing outside for hours. I wish her biggest fear had to do with a constellation of gray squirrels racing around her, or her mother’s wrath for breaking the rules. She doesn’t know the specifics, but I could tell by her reaction that morning that she understands that there are other, more sinister things to be afraid of, and it comforts me and breaks my heart in equal measure. 

 8 Nov 2013 

 Cape Escape, Part I 

      The drive up is, at best, five hours. We live in New Jersey, so we say that, “the drive up.” Rhode Islanders taking the same route refer to it as going “down”. If the kids are with us, among my responsibilities as annoying parent is that of identifying the crossing of state borders by turning in my seat to announce, “Connecticut Welcomes You!” Our youngest likes to count the bridges along the way, and she knows that it is the fourth bridge that really matters, the milestone that means you’ve entered another kind of place. 

      If you travel in the wee hours like we do, you can avoid the four lanes of traffic that typically merge toward it, and there’s something truly magnificent about the Bourne bridge at dawn, how it scoops you up and over the shimmering canal, and then eases you down depositing you right smack in front of the rounded, Disney-esque, topiary of the words “Cape Cod”. This, however, is nothing more than cheerful irony. As we navigate the bustling hub of traffic entering and exiting the rotary that surrounds it, we have arrived at what natives of the area refer to as “up Cape.” 

      Our final destination, however, means continuing to wind around and follow the flow of traffic north for at least another hour, heading “down Cape.” The second rotary has considerably less fanfare, but has the distinction of being referred to as the “elbow” of the Cape. Soon after, the main arteries of highways give way to numbered, vein-like, county roads, off which smooth paved local streets are carved out between dense, green forests. They twist and turn, snaking up and around in gentle rolling hills until you lose your sense of direction completely. Slivers of images beyond the trees distract you. The shock of red as a kayaker glides quietly along a lake, the cool, mercury glint of a kettle pond appearing and disappearing among the leaves of flowering dogwoods. 

      If you’re renting, or here for the first time, what you’re looking for at this point is probably one of the thousands of dusty capillaries of dirt roads sneaking through canopies of White Pine and Bebb Willow, Scarlet and Black oak. They appear as little more than sandy paths the color of fortune cookies amidst the green. Often carpeted in dead pine needles, you’d never imagine the secret treasures beyond, the surprise they’ll reveal at their end. 

      Something about them draws me in completely; I long to explore each one and sometimes, especially in the off-season, my husband will indulge me and we’ll pick one or two of these roads and plunge in, submerged in the deep, dark, emerald of the pines, then ascend from the undergrowth just in time to happen upon a cluster of rural mailboxes, hear the cry of a gull; small clues that hint at the possibility that there’s something up ahead. And then nothing. The road might narrow to the point that the wild blackberries and sheep laurel slap the car doors as you bounce along, and just when you begin to think you must have gone wrong, all at once, the shadowy cape of branches and thicket come to an abrupt end. There, with some great, sweeping flourish, the woods unfurl, giving way to a panoramic expanse of endless deep turquoise water punctuated with white caps, and mirrored by an impossibly blue sky dotted with bleached white puffs of cloud. 

      All of this a picturesque canvas, the backdrop to a small settlement of manicured lawns carved out between moors of sassafras, witch hazel and wild beach plum bushes. Upon each sit the greyish brown of cedar shake cottages. Framed by lavender and hoards of pink hydrangeas, they arrange themselves like paintings at the edge of a cliff. 

      Our house sits like the dot on an i at the end of one such dirt road. Camouflaged by tall pines and low-lying lady slipper and beach heather, it is barely visible even at the top of the road. Once you make the turn onto the driveway there’s a small oval of blue beneath a lantern, the same blue as the shutters on the house beyond, with “Haefeli” etched into it. To the left is a perfect postage stamp of a lawn, bordered by a white picket fence and an arching white trellis, through which you glimpse the first patch of blue water just beyond. 

      New Englander’s like to name their homes. The early settlers did it out of necessity, before there were street names or house numbers. More of an affectionate tradition today, the names range from reverent to humorous, reflecting life’s mottos, inside jokes, a personal philosophy, or just clever wordplay. Whatever the sentiment, they are not chosen hastily, and to their owners, they hold great significance. The blue plaque above our garage reads, “Searenity” and it seems to me now that it was one of the many things bought as a retaining wall of ownership; a valiant effort to stake our claim on a thing of beauty, and deny the possibility of loss. 

      From this side, the side we call “the back” although it’s really the front, the house appears to be quite pleasant. Average sized, typical expanded Cape style, detached garage. You walk in the front door to face the staircase, the living room to the right. Even if it’s your first time here, you’ll put your bags down on the long weathered bench against the wall and follow as though some kind of magnetic pole was pulling you left toward the kitchen. You might tilt your head down at this point, and when you look up, no matter what the weather is, your eyes widen, a small, murmured “Oh,” leaves your breathless lips, and you stop dead in your tracks. 

      The great room sits three steps below the sea green of the marbled kitchen surfaces. Shaped like a ship’s bow, the walls, what there are of them, are white. The muted beiges of Orientals break up the warm glow of the hardwood floors beneath, and a big, comfy, “L” shaped couch in a pale buttery yellow takes center stage facing away from you. A couple of strategically placed armchairs covered in white sailcloth follow suit, but what they do face is not a television, and you won’t notice anything in that room right away anyway, because you’re not meant to. The real attraction lies beyond the eight enormous windows that form the “walls” on the starboard and port sides. Designed to showcase what no interior designer on earth could even hope to conceive, they make up the “front” of the house, and through them, a spectacular view of the ever-changing grandeur of the shoreline appears to have been captured all around you in one huge, continuous, white framed, sequence. 

      Trust me on this: It never gets old. 

      Aside from the memories our family has built here, this is the very heart of the house. A good thing to keep in mind, because being in it is the closest you can be to sitting in the copse before the dune grass, protected from the elements, looking out on the colors of the water and the sky; things that have always been, and will always be. Things at once immutable, and unremittingly changing. Things that no one can take away. 

      There are few things in life I treasure more than the early morning on the Cape. Waking to the lazy, rhythmic sound of the tide, I’m generally the first one up. I slip downstairs, pour a cup of coffee and take in that magnificent view. Eventually, I make my way outside for what used to be a long run alone, and has become a long walk, often with my husband. 

      Depending on my mood, I jog out the dirt path to its end and then choose: To the left a stretch of undulating pavement takes me a few miles past kettle ponds and out to the main road. The right leads to the salt marsh, and beyond that, First Encounter, a stretch of beach that marks one of the first stops made by Myles Standish before he moved on to Plymouth. The way to the latter is my favorite. The blue Manitoba flycatcher boxes stand deep in the marsh to attract the greenhead flies, a real necessity especially on days where the wind is still and the tide is low, and millions of Fiddler crabs scuttle around the muddy edges close to the road. 

     There is a very specific Cape Cod sort of Americana along this road too; heart shaped, painted driftwood American flags and my favorite, an arrangement of clam shells pressed into the soil on the side of the road, painted to create a seaside version of Old Glory. At its end, the road is lined on both sides with the dunes, the tall sea grass curved in frozen arcs as a reminder that stillness doesn’t last for long near the sea. 

     In recent years, as the fear of losing this place to forces outside our control became more acute, we’ve savored our time here with a fierce determination. My husband, who found the original house and realized a childhood dream as he built it, railed at the writing on the wall, channeling his rage into a myriad of improvements. Each project ensured a fortress-like permanence, an impenetrable force field of devotion to his promise. On occasion, he’d disappear and I’d find him on the upper deck staring straight through sunsets. With his face bathed in the orange glow of the early dusk, he’d detail the plots of elaborate strategies, swearing “As God is my witness” soliloquys, cursing the fates that led to this, and ultimately sighing deeply. “We are here now,” he’d say. “Today, it’s still ours.”  Another year would go by and we both believed it. 

      Then, a few months ago, a maelstrom of forces collided and the threat could no longer be ignored. Right to the bitter end, (and probably beyond) we fought and haggled and reasoned. We schemed and bargained and we prayed. But in the end, the decision was made for us, and other priorities prevailed. Battle weary and still disbelieving, we alternated between numb acceptance and weepy grief. “It will be alright,” we told one another, “we’ll find another one.” 

      Mitch Album wrote, “All endings are really beginnings, we just don’t know it at the time.” So here we are. We gathered this weekend not to mourn, but to celebrate the time we’ve had in this house, and to scout out our next one. The girls brought enough fireworks to make July 4th seem small by comparison and we set them off on the beach our first night. Last night at dinner we recounted our favorite stories. It was our youngest’s idea. She said we should each tell one memory that was funny and one that was “endearing” about the house. We willingly obliged, going around the table, laughing until we cried as each of us shared morsels of history and I was struck by what they all had in common, by what was strangely conspicuous to me about each of those memories: None of them had to do with the house. Not a single one. 

      Our love of this place, our history as a family, does not require the wood, or the glass, or the marble, or even the view from that room. In that moment I knew that we did the right thing coming here this weekend and that the cycle of our grief is almost complete. We looked at some beautiful properties today, and although I will always feel an inextricable bond to this place, I’m beginning to feel excited about starting again. I can go up to bed now, and know that late tonight, when I wake as I always do, I will listen for the sound of the surf, and rise to marvel at the reflection of the moon on the water. I will hear the soft rustle of the curved dune grass and it will serve to remind me that all that is most beautiful here, all that I treasure most, endures because it will bend rather than break. 

      We will find another dream on Cape Cod, but wherever our next house is, I know now that bow or no bow, it’s just the vessel. Our love for each other, the sound of our laughter, and the strength and resilience we share, those are the true elements of our “Searenity”. 

 Haefeli Time Capsule 25 Bay View Dr. Eastham, Ma 10-14-13 14 Oct 2013 

 My Baby Turns 18 

      Eighteen years ago today, I wore my favorite maternity dress to work, a pastel floral that was both cool and comfortable; two things that cannot be overstated when one is eight months pregnant. It was, as I recall, one of those gorgeous spring mornings when it seems that virtually overnight, all of the trees had conspired to birth new green buds. The cherry blossoms debuted their spectacularly brief appearance, and everywhere you looked, clusters of pink petals pressed against a background of clear blue sky. On the drive to work, I sang along with Sheryl Crow about how all she wanted to do was have some fun. 

      I began my workday in a “Status” meeting, and somewhere around the middle of it, I looked around the table at my all-male co-workers and said, “Would anyone mind if I left? I feel a little…. off.” Never had this group agreed on something so quickly. Lots of enthusiastic nods. I stood, and as I as walked to the door, almost an entire month before my due date, my water broke. 

      What happened after that has all the elements of an I Love Lucy episode. Thankfully, only one of the men seemed to notice that something was up, and he followed me out of the room. I was talking to one of the secretaries at that moment, both of us staring down at my now soggy shoes as I murmured something like, “So I guess I need to go home now?” 

      “You can’t drive!” She exclaimed, and seeing my deer-in-the-headlights expression, took charge. She turned to Rick, the man who had followed me out, and barked, “You live near her. Can you take her to the hospital?” 

      I barely remember getting into the car. What I do remember is the sudden panic I felt when Rick said to me, “Just think, by this time tomorrow, you’re going to be a mother.” 

      “Yeah,” I said, dazed. 

      I was thinking about the baby shower gifts still in their packaging on my dining room table at home. My shower was only two days before. I wasn’t ready. How could this happen today? I wasn’t having contractions, but all of a sudden, I was scared. I asked him to drive a little faster. Forty or so minutes later, we arrived at St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston. 

     I knew my husband was meeting us there, but I didn’t know the older couple that was walking out of the hospital as we walked in. Rick greeted them warmly with anxious promises to, “talk to them later.” I gave them a hurried, “Hi!” and waddled through the door, conscious of their inquisitive glances in my direction. Jeeze, haven’t they ever seen a pregnant woman before? I wondered distractedly. “Who’re they?” I glanced at Rick over my shoulder. 

     He stopped walking for a minute, and I turned to face him. With just a hint of hysteria, he replied, “My in-laws.” 

     We both lost it. “Oh, Reeekkky, you got some ‘splanin’ to do!” I managed to spit out right before I peed my pants. 

      Nineteen babies were born at St. Barnabas that day. Emily Walsh Halpin was one of them. She was only five pounds, but then, she was only seventeen inches, so she didn’t really look scrawny, just sort of miniature. They handed her to me and I looked at her teeny- tiny body and face and said, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” and I cried a little. When the pediatrician came the next morning to check her out, he declared her perfect, and added that, “Sometimes good things really do come in small packages.” 

      These are the things you remember. This is the story I told Emily every year on her birthday for years. There are other little details I remember too, like the outfit I brought her home in. It was a white onesie with rosebuds all over it. Preemie sized, it was still way too big for her. As they wheeled me out of the hospital holding her in my arms, I tried for a look of Mona Lisa-ish serenity, the way I thought new mothers were supposed to look and feel. What I really felt, looking down on this perfect little human, was something closer to terror. I looked around desperately for the person who would hand me the “book” before they let me take her home. You know, the “how-to” manual, the guide. Keeping Your Newborn Alive: For Dummies. 

      I had three full months off from work for maternity leave, and they proved to be one of the most stressful periods of my life, a murky, emotional, Bermuda triangle of bliss offset by grief and loss. I was inexperienced and she was colicky. I had never been a great sleeper myself before her arrival, and after she came I teetered on the verge of exhaustion all the time. I walked miles with her in my arms throughout the old Victorian house we owned, wondering what I was doing wrong, and if she would ever stop crying. Once, during our nightly walk the song “Happy Together” by the Turtles came on the radio and she suddenly stopped crying. After that, it became “our” song, and I sang it to her every night, long after her infancy: “Imagine me and you, I do/ I think about you day and night/ it’s only right/ to think about the girl you love/ and hold her tight/ so happy together!” 

      My marriage at that time, always an erratic EKG of highs and lows, had entered a cold, flat-line of silent accusation and resentment. By July, after one final downward spike, I packed up my white Celica and left. I was nursing two- month old Emily at the time, and the day I moved, my milk dried up. 

      And then, at the beginning of September, my father died. I had stopped at my parent’s house on my way home that night to see him. I looked at him sleeping in the hospital bed my mother had arranged for him, then kissed his head and left. About an hour later, as I sat rocking Emily in my rented home, I heard the phone ring. I knew. I let it ring. I rocked. I gazed at my sleepy baby, who was fed and warm and I watched her eyelids twitch and her mouth make little O’s. I closed my eyes, breathed in her baby smell, and kissed her soft, downy head. Finally, I put her down in her crib and whispered, “I don’t think you’re going to get to know your Grandpa.” Then I forced myself to make the call to confirm what I already knew, my dad was gone. 

      For a long time, I recalled the autumn that followed with an aching sense of loneliness and self-doubt. When I left him, I never imagined how many times I would go from staring at my infant, memorizing her little yawns and sighs, her smiles and hiccups, to glancing up instinctively, longingly, to meet the eyes of her father, the only other human on the plant who I believed would be equally rapt. At those moments I felt my single parent-ness most acutely, and I learned quickly to convert the funneling spiral of sadness that came with it into anger at his shortcomings, and at myself, for not being “enough” to change them. 

      Now I remember that period as being one filled with too many blessings to count. My superiors and colleagues at work were like family to me. The night I called my boss (and friend), to tell her all that had transpired during my maternity leave comes to mind. “What can we do to help?” was her sincere response. The memory of that still chokes me up. They rallied around me, letting me work from home two days a week, taking a never-ending interest in my “Emily” stories, and whether or not they actually were, doing a great impersonation of “rapt”. 

      Then there was the fact that the other three days a week, my mother, only three blocks away and happy to have Emily all to herself for a while, took her so that the only concern I had about child-care was how much she would be spoiled. It is no exaggeration to say that Emily came as a gift to both my mother and me at a time that could have been defined by loss. In ways we could not, and did not articulate, this new life saved each of us and gave our days a light-ness and a hope that held more power than the pain. She simply filled us up. 

     Here are the pictures, the flashbacks, the slideshow in my head: She was a pea in a pod that first Halloween. Right before Christmas, I propped her in front of the fireplace and took beautiful photographs of her right before the fire department had to come because I doused the Duraflame with water when we were done and the house filled up with smoke. The first time she went to her father’s overnight, I walked around feeling like my arm had just fallen off and I cried myself to sleep. She walked at nine months. In fact, one of the first words she said was, “Awk!” holding up her chubby arms for me to hold while she took her first aided steps. The summer after she turned one, my sister and I rented a house at the beach for a week. Several times each day I coated her in sunscreen before setting her down in the sand where she rolled around and emerged like a breaded chicken cutlet. 

      When Emily turned two, I bought a little white two-family house. I painted her room pink and planted a little garden in the yard while she sat next to me on the grass babbling lines from a book we’d read many times called The Story of Little Babaji (a presumably more politically correct version of my beloved, and now banned, childhood favorite, Little Black Sambo, although for the life of me, I cannot see the bias or the difference other than this child is Indian instead of African). Every night we played the same game while she soaked in the tub. I would close the shower curtain a little bit and say, “Where did Emily go? Is she in the kitchen? Is she in under the table?” And from behind the curtain she would answer “Noooo!” her voice giddy with the notion of fooling me. Over and over I would ask if she was here or there and she would answer me from behind the curtain. Finally, I would yank it back and “find” her and she would scream with delight. It never got old. 

      She got her first big girl bed in that house, and I smiled sleepily each night at the sound of her bare feet padding from her room to mine. One spring night I came home from a stressful day at work and noticed the maple seedlings all over the driveway. I put down my bag, picked one up, pealed it open and stuck it on her nose. Then we opened more and threw them up into the air to watch them spin to the ground. “Helicopters!” I exclaimed. “Hep-ti-collars!” She repeated happily, and I laughed out loud, my workday completely forgotten. 

     After I realized how much she loved the rhyming sing-songy words of most children’s books, I decided to try reading poetry to her instead. Every night for weeks she requested Robert Frost’s, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”. I added some gestures to it for her, pointing at my head when I said, “I think I know” and other motions that I thought would give it meaning and entertainment value for her. She was not quite four the night she stopped me from reading it again saying, “I’ll do it,” and to my delight she did, reciting the entire poem, adding a little shimmy of her own as she said, “He gives his harness bells a shake!” 

      Then there was the summer evening that she styled my short hair for me, adorning my locks with at least a dozen little bows and clips, kinda like Buckwheat in the Little Rascals. We both agreed I had never looked better. After dinner we heard the tell-tale jingle of the ice cream truck so I grabbed my wallet and her hand and ran outside to meet it. A neighboring mom and I stood making small talk as we waited our turn. Right before she turned to leave she gave me a sly smile, “So Trish, where’re you going?” 

      “Going? Where would I be going? What do you mean?” I asked perplexed. 

     She gestured to her head, and then mine, and at that moment, standing outside in front of half the neighborhood, I remembered the state of my hair. 

     This would prove to be a theme. One of her earliest school picture days I sent her off with her “bob” cut perfectly combed and secured with one tiny red bow clip. When the pictures came, she not only had the red bow, but several other clips and a hair band as well. It seems that she was working the, “If one is good, ten are better” philosophy. At the time, I was actually a little upset about her crazy little “do”. Now, it has become one of my favorite pictures. 

      Funny how that happens. 

      I called her my, “OK Mom,” kid, because that was her standard response to me, no matter what I said. She was never defiant or fresh. Really. Once, when she was about four, she used a bad word and I marched her into the bathroom and just grazed her front teeth with the soap. Honestly, it was not a true bar-of-soap-in-the-mouth thing. I just wanted to make a point. Boy, was she furious. She stormed away and then stormed back in, face red, fists balled, and she shook her little finger at me and said, “I’m thery, thery, thery, angry with you!” 

      Suppressing laughter, I countered with, “Well, then we have something in common, because I’m kinda angry with you too!” 

      “Humph!” She snorted, and stomped away. 

      Emily was four when I remarried and seven when I had her sister, Elizabeth. That same year, her cousin, who shares the same birthday, went off to college. I think that’s what prompted her to tell me for the first time that when she went to college, she wanted me to be her college roommate. “I promise not to hold you to that,” I told her, but for years afterward, she insisted that she still meant it. 

     Today, she is eighteen. Her life has not always been as charmed as what I’ve written here implies, but whose is? On the other hand, some of the challenges she has faced have been enormous, and she has handled them with more grace than I could have at her age. In three short months, she will go off to college, and no, I will not be her roommate. What I will be, is, well, sort of abbreviated. Not missing an arm perhaps, but not quite as whole as I am with her here. 

      I have always said that my children saved me from a life of complete self-absorption, and I cannot quite imagine my life without her here. I will miss all that she is, and she is so many more things than I can describe. She makes me laugh. Even as a child she had a very dry, sophisticated sense of humor. When she was in Middle School, I once stood over her, furious, yelling at her for listening to her iPod on an impossibly high decibel saying, “You’re going to go deaf from that, and I’m NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOUR HEARING AIDS!!!! She looked up at me and after just the slightest pause, threw back her head and laughed. I ended up laughing too. Lately, I have to remind her not to make me laugh if we’re in public and I’ve been drinking a lot of water. It’s dangerous. 

     Over the years I have been in awe at her capacity for forgiveness, and shocked by the irrevocability of her stubborn streak. Her eyes communicate everything you need to know about her inner climate. Her smile, which reduces those eyes to mere creases, is nothing short of radiant. She is a wonderful writer, and a gifted photographer. She is resilient. She not only survives the difficult events of her life, she survives with a determination to be happy. She is aware of this, because it was a decision. A decision she made at seventeen after losing her father to cancer. She decided to be happy in spite of anything. 

      I cried when I read her college essay, and not because she chose to take the obvious route and play the pity card, but because she didn’t. She described some of the difficult things she had endured, yes, but instead of capitalizing on the woe-is-me aspect, she focused on what she had learned: “From blissful to brutal, my exposure to the ups and downs of life presented me with a decision; I could potentially retreat into my anger and sadness or I could do the opposite. I could live my life with the glass half full, and accept that things will not always be easy, but life will go on, and I can always find a way to thrive.” 

      Yep. That’s my kid. I’m so proud of the woman is she becoming and sometimes I honestly don’t know where she came from. 

   We’ve been blessed. In many ways raising a child does take a village, and over the years, every time I glanced up from her to ours, including family, friends, and caregivers, they have never failed to offer us “rapt”. She even told me the other night at dinner (in what I like to think was a partially kidding tone) that she might still be willing to have me as her college roommate if only I wouldn’t nag her so much about the fact that her room’s a mess. That was sweet, and tempting as it is, I still promise not to take her up on it. But man, am I gonna miss this kid and count the days until her room is messy once again. 

 23 May 2013 

 Straight Talk 

      After a busy weekend of our kids’ soccer and softball and field hockey games and practices, Monday mornings in my house can be a grim reminder of all of the things left undone. I race around the kitchen making breakfast and lunches while my husband rifles through my youngest’s backpack, firing comments and questions at me in rapid succession: “Did we ever fill out that form for Elizabeth’s camp stuff?” “We really need to get that basement cleaned up.” “Are we going to make something for the Harvest Fest?” 

      On a good day, I smile inwardly and simply answer the question or murmur agreement. On a bad day, or after a long week of forced togetherness like the one we just experienced compliments of “Sandy,” these types of questions illicit answers mildly tinged with irritation: “Ooooh! Oui Oui! I love it when you speak French to me!” I coo sarcastically. Because, of course, what he really means is “Moi,” and sometimes, I guess I just wish he’d say so. At least I think I do. The reality is that there’s a solid chance that on some days that wouldn’t go over well either. 

      On the other hand, speaking French to me occasionally is a giant step up from another kind of question. The one that begins, “How would you like to….” For that one, the cartoon rendition would show the words screeching down a giant lightening bolt headed straight to the top of my aluminum spine. The thought bubble would read: No I wouldn’t like to, thank you very much. How would you like to just ask for what you want instead of acting like you’re doing ME a favor? Sometimes, he goes the flattery route. School and camp forms will pile up on my desk for all of the kids and he’ll shrug in an aw shucks kind of way and say, “You’re so much better at this stuff than I am. I’ll help you if you need me to.” Allow me to do the translation: I hate filling these papers out and I never want to see them again. Please take care of this and then let us never speak of it . 

      Ugh. As my sister and I like to say, “If only everyone were a lot more like us.” Humph, and tsk. 

      Okay, okay, so I probably have a few annoying habits of my own when it comes to communicating clearly. What I think of as “gentle prodding” for example, some people might perceive as manipulative. Passive-aggressive even. I’m sure my husband is not at all fooled by my fondness for questions like, “Do you want me to take out the recycling honey?” I’ve also caught myself beating around the bush with that that oddly indirect-direct question, “Can you not put the dirty glasses in the sink?” I sometimes find the “I” statement favored by relationship experts to be a tough one to swallow. I know I should say things like, “I feel devalued when you bring your best friend into the delivery room while I labor to have our child.” And yet, I’ve heard my own pre-epidural voice squeeze through clenched teeth to utter things closer to, “Dude, he takes one more step into this room and you won’t live to see your newborn.” 

      A long time ago, I decided that when I reprimanded my children, I wanted to do so in a loving way. My own mother had sounded and looked furious when I broke the rules, and the effect that had on me was that I felt, at that moment anyway, that she really loathed me. The very idea that she raised seven children without ever having read a single book about child rearing is a concept that my generation finds reprehensible (and she finds hilarious). I didn’t want my kids to ever feel that way. I read the books. I embraced the mantra, I don’t like what you did, but I still like you. Now a senior in high school, my daughter doesn’t hesitate to tell me that she has always found it enormously creepy that I smile when I’m describing both her crime and her punishment. Truth be told, I see her point. 

      A friend of mine told me that both she and her husband prefer to deliver many of their most difficult messages through conversations with someone else while in earshot of the other. It might go like this: He comes home one night and is snappish with her. Then, over dinner, he’ll announce to the kids that he’s cranky because he’s, “Really tired because I didn’t get home from work until late last night and had to be back in the office early today.” She will then turn to the family dog and loudly apologize for forgetting to refill his water bowl saying, “I just haven’t had a minute to think all day” and then patiently ticks off the number of chores and responsibilities she has managed to jam into her day. I’m sure marriage counselors have a name for this style of indirect banter. I’m equally sure it falls into the category of “frowned upon,” and yet the message is abundantly clear. 

      As a teacher, my students who return after a day’s absence often ask me, “Did we do anything yesterday?” I try not to feel insulted. I’m fluent in this language and know that what they really mean is, “What did I miss?” Unfortunately, my standard reply, “No, we waited for you,” is frequently misinterpreted. Pronoun usage is at its most interesting when report cards come out. Inevitably I will hear one child say, “She gave me a C,” and another say, “I got an A.” 

      I’m considering embarking upon an experiment. I’m going to be more direct. To consciously choose my words in a way that is a clear expression of what I’m trying to say. I’m sure it’ll save a lot of time, which will free everyone up for better interactions overall. No more reading between the lines, no need to crack the code. What you hear is what you get. Oh yes, I think this is going to be good. But on second thought, maybe I should ease into this. Practice on the dogs first. Yeah, I’ll start tomorrow. 

 4 Nov 2012 

 Schoooool’s Out. For. Summah! 

      The big joke among middle school teachers is that hardly anyone chooses middle school. Middle school is the true pariah of school districts. Most teachers start out in the high school or at one of the elementary schools, and for one reason or another, get transferred. Some couldn’t find a job in their subject area in an elementary or high school. Once in, however, many middle school teachers wouldn’t leave if you (ahem) paid them. Maybe it’s because we have the privilege of bearing witness to a metamorphosis. There are few phases in a child’s life where they undergo so much transformation. 

      It’s a weird, complex age, the whole twelve-to-fourteen year-old period. I teach the new ones, the seventh graders. Making the transition from elementary school to middle school is nothing short of exhausting, and frequently traumatic for them. No longer are they in one classroom all day with their best friends. They arrive, with brand new backpacks and sneakers and excitedly navigate a brand new building, filled with new kids and new teachers. Gone are those sweet little desks that held all their books and papers. In their place are hall lockers with new lock combinations to deal with in that frenzied three-minute timeframe they have to get from one class to another. The novelty of changing classes for each subject is tempered by the fact that they change teachers as well, and each of us have different personalities, expectations and breaking points. By the time they get to fifth period lunch and realize their “bff” isn’t there until sixth, the shine is pretty much off the penny. 

      The drama of changing clothes for gym cannot be underestimated. They’re riding the fence, both physically and emotionally. Some days they really want to be treated like little kids, others, they’re convinced that they are mini-adults. This is the age of braces and unfortunate forays into hair and makeup experimentation. It marks the onset of puberty and all the emergent feelings that accompany that. The girls, many of whom already occupy the bodies of women, tower over the boys in seventh grade, but by eighth I’m often looking up at those same boys teasing them, saying, “What did they feed you this summer?” 

      Most of all, they’re goofy. Seventh graders get hysterical while reading “A Christmas Carol,” every time the character named “Dick” is mentioned. They have to be reminded (often) of the necessity of deodorant, and don’t even get me started on the copious spraying of “Axe” in the hallways after gym. They write all over their hands and arms, and are obsessed with their cell phones and chewing gum. 

      If their name is Robert, and you ask them what they’d like to be called (Rob? Bobby?) It is entirely possible that they will misunderstand and reply, “The Dark One.” Girls with beautiful, old names like Catherine will take the opportunity to reinvent themselves and ask to be called “Lexie.” They develop crushes, form cliques, bully one another and are young enough and idealistic enough to believe that they have a great shot at being a professional skateboarder, actress or rapper (in my district, I have yet to have a child lay claim to President). To them, the eighth graders seem arrestingly exotic. The eighth graders, well aware of this, work their worldly image for all it’s worth; “making out” in the hallways, rolling their skirts to make them shorter and whipping out that hair elastic to cinch their shirts tighter in back. They call the “little” seventh graders “cute.” 

      I teach Language Arts, what we used to just call “English.” In my school, Language Arts and reading are actually separate subjects, so what I really teach is writing. In September, when I first get them, if I assign an essay, more often than not, I will get a paragraph. Then I have until April and the dreaded NJ Standardized Test to turn that into five well-organized paragraphs. Along the way, I grade literally thousands of papers. 

      Sometimes I keep a private record of the “best of” the essays I’ve graded. I have included them here exactly as they appeared in their essays: 

      “Once I got lost and a stranger picked me up and drove me home. My mom was so happy she gave him four hundred dollars but he just gave it back. But my mom did let him date my sister…” 

      “I am trying to improve my grades so that I can be on the on-a-roll.” “Many reality shows are supposed to be real but most of them are fake. Studys of Julie Arts, which is an acting school, say that more then 67% of people need to know how to act when entering to be in an reality show.” 

      “Parents will save more money on clothes with hammy downs, and not hassle with new clothes when you can just past the clothes down.” 

      “According to the First Commandment, we have the right to free speech.” 

     “My aunt Linda was a teacher until one of her students made a website called ‘Ms. Linda Crowfeet STINKS!!’ My aunt got a law suit and won, but she still goes to therapy lessons four times a week.” 

      “My grandmother Becky had eighteen children in the years 2000 to 2002 and she went to the therapist once a week because it was hard for her to keep track of each one and pay bills at the same time.” 

      Back in 2004, I took the opportunity to use the fact that it was an election year as a “teachable moment.” Instead of essays, I had the kids choose a candidate, research their stand on the “issues” and then write campaign speeches. Many of these were priceless, (the comments in parenthesis are mine, I couldn’t help myself): 

      “I have a lot of other things to say about healthcare, but it would take forever, so I will move on…” (Oh, if only it worked this way in real life!) 

      “I will also give poor seniors free vitamins, and make hospital payments and education payments free!” (Free payments! Where do I sign?) 

      “Kerry is presenting a plan to identify, disrupt and eliminate terrorist networks. They will be hunted down and slaughtered. They can run but they can’t hide. He will use military forces if necessary…” (Ah, but only as a last resort…) 

      “Finally, I’ll talk about the environment. I say that since I have taken office, the U.S. has been enjoying air, water and land… " 

      “The last issue I’ll talk about is healthcare. We work hard and still don’t have enough money to buy ourselves a new outfit every month. That’s because we give so much money for healthcare and other programs.” (Ugh! I hate that!) 

      “I am very alarmed that Americans are concerned about Iraq and other foreign policies.” (Yeah, aren’t they aware of the outfit problem??) 

      “In addition, if what he says is true about doing enough for our environment, then why do we still have filters for our water? We aren’t satisfied. Why do thousands of people every month catch asthma from inhaling bad air? We aren’t satisfied, are we?" 

     “Education is very important because if you don’t have one you won’t get no where in life. The No Child Left Behind Act gives schools the chance to be flexible and learn new ways to spend government money.” (I ain’t touching this one!) 

       “I believe in making changes for my country such as lowering taxes, and making schools a little non-strict. I want to be as good a president as Bill Clinton, God bless his soul.” 

      “I offered a tax credit to dry cleaners that use environmentally friendly technology so it can clean and decrease the waste lagoons so we can swim in them again. I will also help the hog farmers.” (I just don’t know where to begin…) 

      “I have been thinking about starting a new program to keep forests healthy. One way is to allow companies to cut down trees that could end up being part of forest fires.” (Clever! Now why didn’t I think of that?) 

      “John Kerry is also a kind man because he chose me, John Edwards, as his vice presidential running mate.” (Hmn…) 

      Someday, I’m going to write a long, detailed essay challenging the rotten propaganda Chris Christie has generated about New Jersey’s teachers. I’ll extoll the virtues of my co-workers, talk about the fact that most of the teachers at my school have Master’s degrees they’ll never get reimbursed for, work longer hours than most people imagine, and spend a ton of their own money on supplies that make school better for kids. 

      I know of at least one teacher who buys her own class set of paperback books for her kids to read, and another who keeps a loaf of bread and jars of peanut butter and jelly in her closet. She often makes sandwiches for those kids who forgot to bring their lunch, or have none to bring. Most of us have second jobs. 

      The faculty at my school have identified and helped children who were being hurt or neglected at home, cutting themselves, starving themselves, using drugs, and being bullied for their sexual orientation. They’ve come in early and stayed late and tried, really, really, tried, to develop lessons that were dynamic and engaging and meaningful. The creativity, compassion and dedication I work alongside with fairly blows the mind. 

      Yes, there are perks. I have loved being able to be home in time for most of my kids’ soccer and field hockey and softball games. Having the summers off? I kid you not, it rocks. But on this last, hot sweaty day of the school year, sitting in a 105 degree classroom with a bunch of the quirkiest pre-adolescents on the planet, who were asking me again if next year, I will really mail to them the letters I had them write to themselves for 8th grade graduation (and yes, I will), my irritation was interrupted by a young, first year teacher who I mentored this year. She came by to chat for a few minutes, so we talked about summer plans and then said good-bye.

     I got one of those glimpses of how quickly it all goes by, and what a gift it is to be able to share this awkward slice of their lives. That young, bright, poised, first year teacher was my student back in 2001. What a remarkable thing it is to remember her then, and see her now. 

      The bottom line is that no one goes into this profession for the money, and if you go into it for the shorter hours, vacation days and summers off, you won’t last. As for me? Well, I’m in it strictly for the laughs. :) 

 21 Jun 2012 

 How a Corporate Climber Went Back to the Classroom 

      In mid-August of 2001, I ended a fifteen-year run on the track of Corporate America, spent mostly with one large company. Leaving that firm, that world, was a wildly spontaneous decision on my part, fueled by the perfect storm of lifestyle changes, bad career choices and a rare opportunity to return to public school teaching. I felt exquisitely lucky that August. I had no idea how lucky I was. 

      I had wound my way around and up throughout the firm and landed in Communications, where that English degree was finally put to good use and I got to write for most of the workday. I made a respectable living, the people were fun, and my work was valued. Still, when I saw the internal posting for a Communications Director spot, a little voice egged me on. Not only would this new job be a nice promotion, it would secure the all-important “Vice President” title as well. A title that was, in a large financial services firm like this one, coveted as much for the attendant ego gratification as it was for the annual cash bonus it merited. Sure, it reported directly to a First VP with a monstrous reputation, but all the right corporate buzzwords were woven into this one job description: Lucrative, high profile, high exposure. 

      It was a two-hour interview. She was everything she was rumored to be: Arrogant, high-strung and mercurial. Somehow, she got me to agree to a month-long “audition” so to speak, during which I communicated with her mainly via email, and then sent her speeches and articles and presentations appropriate to the things she described. Toward the end of the month, she called me at 5:30 in the afternoon and said that she needed a speech for the opening ceremony of a corporate-wide event. “No problem!” I chirped enthusiastically, then, with a little nervous laugh I added, “Wait, isn’t that tomorrow?“ Unapologetically, she assured me that she was, in fact, scheduled to deliver said speech at 9:00 a.m. the following morning. There was a pause, and she finished with a deadly coy, “Oh, well, maybe it’s too much to ask.” 

      I heard the challenge in her tone and knew this was a test. I was frantic. I did my best impersonation of nonplussed. “I’m on it,” I told her, and then I called the babysitter and asked her (again) to stay late. There were others taking a stab at that speech too. She chose mine, and that was the day she asked me to “name my price.” Her choice of words unnerved me, but once again, I shook it off. In keeping with the “go big or go home” mentality I was working at that point, I told her (in an equally even, challenging tone) an absurdly high number. She didn’t flinch. There, I thought, game on. 

      The truth is that I was as close to selling my soul to the devil as I would ever be and I should have never, in a million years, imagined that I was anywhere close to being in her league in any kind of game, much less the game I was signing on to play. 

      The older me, the one who reflects on this and other times in my life, wonders about the fact that I disregarded every instinct that I had about her. She made no attempt to camouflage her difficult disposition, and I sensed early on that the hoops she had me jumping through were getting higher and higher. Why was I not asking myself if I could work for someone like that? Instead, I embarked on this mission to excel, to please, to succeed, frankly, where no man had succeeded before. 

      Which brings me to the notion that I could have, for example, just listened to the man who currently held the position. He was more than willing to share his experiences (not to mention his anti-anxiety meds) with me. He explained to me that because he had not yet been with her for a year, the only way he could transfer out from under her and still stay with the firm was if he was willing to see the firm’s counseling service and plead emotional problems. As it turns out, he was. And he did. 

      Ego is such a formidable force. I dug in my Brooks Brother’s heels, looked away from the evidence and my obstinate resistance to considering it seriously. There was something familiar and disquieting about my own choice in that regard that lingered like old perfume. Ego notwithstanding, there were probably a number of factors that knit together my stubbornly skewed perception. I had remarried the year before, but the financial insecurity of the single mom was still with me, as was the secret suspicion that I wasn’t good enough. I had something to prove, and was probably rein-acting something personal; hoping that this time, it would have a different ending. The really creepy part is that I think she honed in on that. As a former trial attorney, she had a knack for making quick and accurate assessments of people. I’d bet my bonus that she was gifted in terms of jury selection. She could smell vulnerability, and she was shameless about capitalizing on it. In a very dysfunctional way, our pairing was serendipitous. 

      It was the end of January when she called to offer me the job. I remember her exact words: “I am pleased to offer you the position, and to meet your salary requirements as well.” With a quiet reserve I did not feel, I accepted her offer, briefly discussed an official start date and hung up the phone. I walked calmly to the nearest ladies room, checked every stall to be sure I was alone and then I let out a delirious whoop of joy. There may have been a few salsa moves a la Victor Cruz. I’m certain that there was fist pumping and an exuberant chorus of one yelling “Yes! Yes! YES!!!” 

     Had I known at the time that this moment would be the best I was going to feel for the next six months, I would have reveled in it even more. 

     If things had turned out differently, I’d spin this is as a cautionary tale: Denial and greed and pride, oh my. But the luxury of hindsight compels me to view it as one of life’s watershed moments, one that would soon trigger other watershed moments, and before it was over, huge chunks of my life would be altered and re-defined. Here was this not entirely blind curve in the road and I was just entering the turn, all juiced up on a dangerous cocktail of adrenalin and ambition. 

      I moved into my new offices by Valentine’s Day and the honeymoon period began. I would split my time between Princeton and downtown Manhattan, just as she did. The first two months were filled with certain regular initiatives that became my main focus. Little by little, however, these were interrupted by unreasonable demands; ancillary “projects,” the corporate writer’s equivalent of, “Would you pick up my shirts from the cleaners?” 

      One of these was a “roast” that she absolutely had to have for an old friend of hers whose retirement party was that same evening. I’d never met the man, and she insisted that she was too busy to fill me in. His secretary was out of the office that day as well. I hadn’t a thing to go on other than one of his colleagues telling me that he was “bald, and liked to golf.” A normal person with a normal boss would calmly discuss the impossibility of the situation with their superior. Knowing this was not an option, I went into the bathroom and threw up instead. Then I wrote it, flying by the seat of my pants the whole way. 

      By April I was having regular migraines. At the end of May, the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend to be exact, Boss-zilla interrupted my daughter’s sixth birthday party at our house. “I. NEED. YOU!” She screamed accusingly into the phone. I’d learned to keep my responses level, unemotional. Don’t feed the monster. She was fairly hysterical as she spewed her diatribe straight from the deck of her summer home in the Hamptons. 

      That evening, after cleaning up party debris, I got on the computer and stayed there until the wee hours creating a PowerPoint presentation with talking points and the stump of a speech on the same topic. I hit “send” at about 4 am and fell into bed. Then I turned off my phone and didn’t look at email for the rest of the weekend. When I got back to the office on Tuesday, she ignored my presence, but left an “Action List” on my desk consisting of thirty-two items due at the end of the day. Later, I would discover certain intriguing details of a brouhaha that took place after she had presented my weekend work to her superior, calling it “unusable.” He declared it “outstanding.” As I read his email expressing his appreciation for my “fine work,” I felt a glow of satisfaction that only slightly eased the knot in my stomach. Above the subject line I saw that Boss-zilla been copied on that email. 

      Soon after, in June, she called me in to declare a speech I’d prepared for her “turgid.” I almost laughed. She continued, saying something like, “You know, it’s kind of pretentious-“ 

      “I know what turgid means.” I cut her off, my tone a warning. 

      We locked eyes. I held her shocked gaze knowing that my own was cold. Bring it. 

      At the end of July I saw an ad in the paper for an English/Public Speaking teacher at a nearby public middle school. I had taught high school English briefly right after college, and daydreamed of going back to it someday. Add to this the fact that my new husband and I had four school-aged kids between us, and together we agreed that I should send a resume. I was at the beach on vacation when they called me for an interview, and by the time I went back to work, I had my letter of resignation in hand. 

     I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect her to try and convince me to stay, which she did. Pulling out all of the stops, she used everything at her disposal actually, to change my mind. Another watershed occurred with shocking clarity, revealing what I’d been so reluctant to see before; that ours had all the earmarks of an abusive relationship. And just like that, it was done. Shifted. Over. All the angst, the self-doubt and the ire that she inspired just vaporized. My secretary, who had taken the call when the offer came, sat in my office with me and laughed until we cried over the fact that I was really going to do it, I was jumping ship big time, and for a ridiculously low new salary. 

     Ironically, here again, had I known what the future held for me, I would have reveled in the moment even more. 

      Two weeks later I was home, off for a few days before beginning my new/old career. The relief I felt was indescribable. I remember sipping coffee on the deck, marveling at the ubiquitous nature of landscaping in my neighborhood. I’d never been home to see it before! Never imagined there were so many of them! The sound of lawn mowers was incredibly soothing to me; a constant, lazy drone that I hadn’t really heard since childhood it seemed. It came to represent everything I’d missed sitting in sound-proofed, over air-conditioned offices for too many years. 

      One week after that, I was at the beginning of my first full week of teaching. As the kids filed in for my period 2 Public Speaking class, one of them said to me, “Mrs. H., did you hear? A plane just flew into the World Trade Center.” In a kind of fog, I went upstairs to the library where someone had told me there was a news program on the TV, along with a clear view of the Manhattan skyline. There was. 

      With excruciating slowness, details emerged about the attack. I stood there staring out at the clouds of billowing black smoke where there once stood two powerful buildings and silently contemplated the unspeakable evil behind these acts. I prayed for friends and family members. At one point, I tried to make out the two cousins to the Twin Towers, the North and South Tower of the Financial Center, and shivered, finding it difficult to breathe. “What day is it?” I croaked, to no one in particular. “Tuesday.” Someone answered. 

      I stared straight ahead, heart pounding, trying to process the thousands of emotions and scenarios running through my head, shifting like a deck of cards from terror to frustration to confusion and rage to uncomprehending gratitude. 

     Right up until three weeks prior, I spent Tuesdays at 2WorldFi, otherwise known as the South Tower of the World Financial Center. My office, on the 40th floor, faced the swiftly collapsing World Trade Center buildings. Thank you, Boss-zilla (who is, as of this writing, alive and as cantankerous as ever), for assuring me that most of my co-workers were fine too, in spite of the fact that the windows of my old office blew in like a child’s soap bubble in the wind, spraying glass and debris throughout the entire floor. 

 Our pairing had been serendipitous indeed. 

 12 Jun 2012 

 Oh, Baby 

     I recently attended a baby shower. In many ways, it was typical. Lots of pink decorations, great food, and a nice sized pile of presents wrapped in pastel paper. For the most part, the vibe was upbeat and supportive. Only the grandmother seemed reluctant to take the plunge and celebrate. She spoke little English, but her disapproval was palpable. She was all folded arms and a grim expression. Occasionally, she’d let out a disgusted “tsk, tsk,” accompanied by a bewildered shake of the head. It would be easy to assume she was angry. I figured she was sad. Or afraid. Her granddaughter, the mom-to-be, had just turned fifteen. 

      “Maria” was my student last year when she was in 7th grade. I may as well cut to the chase here; With any luck we hide it well, but teachers who deny the reality of “teacher’s pets” are lying. Maria was one of mine. Why? Maybe it was because she is so smart and yet so unable to envision a connection between that quick mind and her best shot at a ticket out of an underprivileged existence. Maybe it was because she is a tangled mess of contradictions; Street gang tough on the exterior, fragile and incredibly sweet underneath; Uber-responsible at home, and a complete flake about school; Intellectually sharp, and completely lacking in ambition. Maybe it was because I knew she was looking for love in all the wrong places, or maybe it was simply because she often trusted me enough to let down her guard with me. Perhaps I’m kidding myself about all of that. The reality is probably that I didn’t choose her at all, she chose me. 

     There was nothing unusual about Maria’s visit that September morning. I wasn’t the only person she had charmed, and she often wrangled her way into the school building earlier than most students were allowed. Once in, she frequently wandered down to my classroom for one of our early morning chats. This time, I knew almost immediately that something was up. She was nervous and edgy, literally wringing her hands, and she kept referring cryptically to some new “drama” that was unfolding in her life. Finally, she just spilled it, “I’m having a baby.” I had been walking around the room, pushing desks together and arranging papers, but at that point I stopped, and slowly lowered myself into one of my student’s desk chair. I didn’t have to ask, I knew by the way she had phrased it, by the way she didn’t say, “I’m pregnant,” but I couldn’t stop myself, 

     “What are you going to do Maria?” 

      “I’m going to keep my baby,” she announced, lifting her chin with just the tiniest bit of defiance, “I’ve always wanted to be a young mom.” 

      Young mom. When I think of young moms, I think of women in their early twenties. Married women. Women, period. This fourteen-year old person sitting in front of me was a child. A child who had learned at home what to say (in English) to DYFUS when they knocked on the door, and more importantly, what not to say. A child who had told me once that she and her mom had been arguing, and not about the fact that she was sexually active and out at all hours of the night, or even that she had done some creative “translating” of the notices that went home, but about the fact that Maria hadn’t been “there for her.” 

      “There for whom?” I asked, sure that I had misunderstood. 

      “For my mom.” She replied, so matter-of-factly that I could have cried. She was barely thirteen at the time. 

       There had been rumors last year of a previous pregnancy. One where nature had intervened and granted her a reprieve. For a while afterwards, she was quiet and subdued, pale and moody. Little by little, her outgoing nature began to emerge once again, and at about the same time, the hickies began appearing again too. These she wore proudly, like red and purple neck accessories, or maybe just the only visible, tangible evidence that somewhere, someone loved her. 

      I’ve lost a lot of sleep over this kid. 

      She left my district shortly after we had this discussion. DYFUS surprised them this time, and certain realities of their living conditions could not be overlooked. Thankfully, there was a family member in an another town willing to take them in, and once she was settled, she got in touch with me. At that point, the usual and important boundaries between student and teacher were no longer imperative or practical. I simply decided that I was going to do what I could for her, and see her through this. 

      We exchanged cell phone numbers and began to have fairly regular conversations and dinners. We talk about her schoolwork, which high school she should apply to in her new town, her family, and the boyfriend who just turned eighteen and is idealistic enough to be excited for the birth of his child, and naïve enough to assume that his offer to “help her” with whatever she needs is a generous concession to his role as father. She brings me her sonogram pictures and her fears about childbirth. We talk about what motherhood is going to be like and how much it’s going to cost. 

      Only recently, she came to my home and met my kids. She sat at my kitchen table while I cooked and wrote down the recipe and the steps of the preparation. When we were done eating, she politely asked if she could take the leftovers home. Without so much as a glance in my direction, my girls started rifling the cabinets for other things she could take too and I knew then that they were right there with me, drinking the Kool-Aid. Maria had cast her spell once again. 

      When I drove her home that night, I apologized to her for missing her birthday, explaining that my oldest daughter’s father had passed away and it had been an all-consuming week for me. “That’s okay,” she responded, and then went very quiet for a while. When she spoke again, she said this: “My dad is dead too. He was murdered in our country.” 

      She’s excited to have her baby. Says she can’t wait to be a mom and all of her 8th grade friends tell her what a great mom she will be to the little girl she is carrying. I cannot deny that she has a nurturing sensibility. I’ve seen it in action with her six-year old brother, and her sweet, but emotionally fragile mother. She is a caretaker for sure and she longs for the unconditional love an infant can offer. 

      But who will take care of her? 

    This is the last and most compelling of her contradictions: This conspicuous lack of self-pity or bravado. Just an innocence that is incongruous with the experiences she has had already in her young life. She simply doesn’t know how to have expectations. She is that overused term: survivor. Figuratively speaking, dodging bullets has been a way of life for her. She has no doubt that she can do it all, because well, what choice does she have? 

    At times, I swear, the desire to take care of her and protect her is overwhelming. I have this picture of her in my head from her shower. The young boy is beside her, his arm slung awkwardly around her shoulder, smiling self-consciously for the cameras. If not for her giant belly, it could have been an eighth grade dance picture. I doubt she’ll have one of those now, and I understand completely why the grandmother looked so grim. A baby is such a beautiful, life-changing miracle, but who among us was really ready for that change? I thought I was, and I still struggled at times. I also had a lot more in the way of resources than she does, I can tell you that, and I wasn’t trying to get through freshman Algebra at the same time. 

      I hope Maria accepts all the help that is offered her, and I hope she is offered a lot. I hope she finishes school, and has the chance to go to college. Most of all, I hope this child brings her immeasurable joy, and that she is loved and cherished by everyone around her, because no matter what else Maria does, it will never be more important than this. 

 9 Apr 2012 

 Run Away From Your Problems 

     Anybody remember the 1977 best seller, The Complete Book of Running? Great book. The cover was a picture of the author’s bare legs topped off by a pair of red running shorts. When he wrote it, Jim Fixx had a story to tell about his journey from overweight couch potato to confirmed running junkie. His message was clear: Barring very few physical considerations, you too, can be a “runner.” I read it in the early 80’s and there are a couple of odd tidbits in it that cling to the cobwebs of my brain even today. For one thing, Fixx claimed that while perspiration produced by sedentary folks was stinky, the sweat generated during running was “virtually odorless.” “So, go ahead,” he encouraged the corporate masses, “Take that run during your lunch hour, skip the shower, and suit back up!” Eeeeww. 

      True or not, this is, in my opinion, just one of those things that give runners a bad name. This conjures up images of the Boston marathon champion Uta Pippig, who, with diarrhea streaming down her bare legs at the finish line, told the TV commentator that she “looked worse than she felt.” Uta, sweetie, you just crossed a widely televised race finish line in front of thousands of onlookers. You did not stumble incoherently out of the Amazon having just survived against insurmountable odds! You are giving the average spectator way too much credit. I’m pretty sure there were only a handful of people who cared how you felt at that point, most were horrified at first by how you looked, and then by your shamelessness about ignoring it for the sake of a run. 

      Then there was Amber Miller, who ran/walked the Chicago marathon at 39 weeks pregnant. She later noted that race medical workers seemed “startled” to see her as she hauled that huge belly past mile markers. No kidding. She actually began laboring during the race, and about seven hours later was fortunate enough to deliver a healthy baby girl. To her I can only say, “Dear Amber, There’s no ‘do over’ in pregnancy and childbirth. There will, however, be other races.” And then there’s ole Jim Fixx himself, who dropped dead of a heart attack at aged 52 while he was, of course, running. 

      There’s an undeniably elitist mentality among runners too. Secretly, they’re all purists, believing that running is far superior to any other exercise because it requires next to nothing, there’s no class at the gym, no equipment, and no instructor. All you need are your legs and a pair of sneakers. You just go out the door, thumping bass music optional, and it ends when you want it to end. “Elite” runners, especially marathoners, don’t even bother to conceal their condescension when you mention things like Spin classes or Zumba. They smile, and maybe even throw out a dismissive, “That’s great!” Right before they tell you that you should just run. Or not. Which may be even worse. Because then you might be getting the pat on the head, the atta boy reserved for the little kid who just struck out…again. 

      In spite of all of this, I am happy to be counted among those who love to run. There’s a part of me that completely understands the mania of it, the unadulterated compulsion to hit the pavement. I was a runner for the better part of 30 years. My Sauconys are the first thing I pack when I go on a trip. I have run on boiling hot asphalt and cool early morning beach sand. I have made running playlists on my iPod to help me escape the monotony of the treadmill, and had near-spiritual experiences while running trails through the woods in Autumn. I have, as Jim Fixx promised I would, found it easier to breathe while running in the rain because of the higher nitrogen content in the air. 

      Here’s a little insight for those of you who think we’re nuts: Only non-runners see people out “jogging” and think it’s about weight management or getting a little exercise. “Real” runners find that attitude just a little precious. Real runners know the truth, and we can spin it a thousand positive ways, (and they would, in fact, beat the alternative) but it pretty much comes down to those whacky madcap twins: Addiction and Obsession. 

      I recently posted a “status” on Facebook that was essentially a good long moan about how much I needed a good run right now. An old high school friend who has been sidelined with an injury commiserated with me, saying that she literally cried when she drove past people out running. God, I so got that. I was really glad she said it too, because I had felt it and thought I was being melodramatic. Truth: I have never heard anyone express anything close to that kind of desperate yearning to get on the elliptical, or to (yawn) go into warrior pose at “Yoga in a Toga.” Oops. I’m sorry. That was a little condescending wasn’t it? Just a little slip. My bad. Maybe I’m just jealous. At this point I want to love both of those things, but I can’t seem to work up the same passion for them, and it’s killing me (softly). 

      My friend Vivian opted to have two hip surgeries in less than a year even though she was told she could live a completely “normal” life without them. That normal life, however, would not include running and for her, there’s nothing normal about that. This is a woman who has run a marathon a year for as long as I’ve known her. Being “grounded,” first by her injuries and then by her recovery period has been a tougher road for her than the ten plus miles she routinely does just because it’s a Tuesday. “I feel like a part of me has disappeared,” she admits. “I miss the wonderful feeling I get when the endorphins have kicked in, especially after a very long run, and I am on top of the world. It’s a ‘high’ that lasts throughout the day.” As a writer, she has found running to be a catalyst for creative ideas. “Sometimes,” she reveals, “I’d even run with one of those little golf pencils and a piece of paper in my running shorts.” In fact, her blog, Catching a Third Wind/ The journey from injury to recovery (www.athirdwind.com) was created in part to chronicle her surgical experiences and the dreaded physical therapy that follows, as well as to provide a forum for others who are temporarily derailed from running due to an injury or surgical procedure. 

      I’ve never run a full marathon and I have a bad case of marathon envy. I was training for a “half” when I began experiencing the pain that yet another MRI would reveal stems from a labral hip tear – the same tear my friend Vivian had repaired. My situation is a little different, and I decided to try a different path to recovery, but I can tell you that I completely understand her choice to Just Do It. And then do it again. 

      I personally prefer to run alone. Over the years I have just pounded anger, anxiety, frustration and fear right into the pavement. People have told me they’ve seen me (looking slightly deranged, no doubt) with my fingers flying, playing the air-piano as I run and I know it’s true. If it’s classical music on my iPod, I’m a featured soloist. During my runs I’ve carried on (both sides of) conversations that I wisely never ended up having, and composed letters I’ve never sent. I’ve mulled over the day ahead, and made up stories. I’ve cracked myself up, and let myself cry. I’ve left the house happy and contented, and come back euphoric and brimming with a sense of endless possibility. I’ve run to escape the bad neighborhood of my head, and returned to place more like Easy Street.

     I’ve prayed. 

     Hell, I ran when I still drank and smoked cigarettes! (And my buddy Jim told me, in a somewhat conspiratorial tone, that I could do that too.) In my twenties I ran off hangovers and, to borrow a Charlie Sheen-ism, the “cringeable” behavior that goes with all of that. 

     I tell anyone who is just beginning to run that the best kept secret about running is that anyone can be a runner. Anyone. Put on a pair of sneakers and go out the door. Start with five minutes, walk, do it again. It doesn’t matter where you begin, from the very first step, you are a runner. I also tell people that in my experience, no matter how long I’ve run, the first mile is almost always the hardest. It takes that long to get your rhythm, for your heart rate and breathing to level off, and to feel like you are in the “zone.” It’s after that first mile that the magic kicks in. I don’t think I’ve ever run far enough to “hit the wall,” but the “runner’s high”? Absolutely. And let me tell you, adrenalin is good stuff. What that means for me is that fairly consistently there’s a point on my run when I get this invincible, I could run forever feeling - as long as I keep running forward. But of course, my runs are always large loops. As I round the bend to head back, I’m reminded that you can run away from your problems at least temporarily. Sometimes that’s all you need. 

      Here’s another thing running guru Jim Fixx said, and I’m paraphrasing here: He said that in his opinion, running is to exercise what vodka is to alcohol consumption. In other words, it’s the most direct and potent means to an end. I haven’t tasted vodka in a long time but, for a variety of reasons, I like the analogy. Running is the most direct and potent means to an end, and the end is way more than exercise. It is, pure and simple, the best way I know of to untangle thoughts, dilute toxic emotions, and positively channel the overdrive nature of an obsessive personality. That’s the way it works for me, and that’s why I keep coming back to it. Cheers! 

 2 Apr 2012 

 The Brady Bunch? - Not!! 

     My husband likes to tell people that ours is a “his, hers, and ours” family. When he does, someone inevitably gushes, “Oh! Like the Brady Bunch!” A friend who knows us better overheard this exact exchange once. Without lifting her eyes from the newspaper in front of her, she grunted, “More like the Osbornes.” She was right of course. It’s a messy world here in the land of the “Five H’s”, as we used to call our patchwork of kids, and yet, recent events have given me cause to reflect more deeply about this complicated and quirky family that is the epicenter of my existence, and how far we have come. I have much to be grateful for, and sometimes, I take it very much for granted. 

      In all fairness, my husband’s description is accurate. When we got together, he had three children from his first marriage, I had one, and later, we had one together. It is not irrelevant to say that all of these children are girls. It is not irrelevant to point out that when we married, our kid’s ages ranged from four to ten, and that every single one of them was fighting to stake out their territory. Did I mention that we’ve never had fewer than two dogs at one time-that sometimes, there were as many as four? We didn’t have “girly” girls either. Our girls were the skateboarding, soccer/softball/basketball playing, as soon as it snowed, “let’s make a jump out of the deck steps and snowboard,” kind of gals. Get the picture? 

      And of course, though we were loath to admit it at times, they were children of divorce. At this point in my life, I don’t care what anyone says (and I will certainly catch hell for this), the fact is, there are very few positives about divorce for kids. No matter what the situation was before, once it’s gone they feel the loss, the sense that the earth is no longer solid beneath their feet. 

      I didn’t used to believe that. Didn’t want to anyway. I remember the first time it became eerily clear to me. I was at a Halloween dance at my daughter’s small Catholic elementary school standing shoulder to shoulder with the moms of my daughter’s two best friends. We had been brought together that year by our kid’s friendship, not the other way around, and it suddenly occurred to me that we were all single. I watched my child that night, in her yellow “Belle” dress with the long white gloves, searching her four year old face for some sign of….What? Incompleteness? A sense that she felt “less than” or maybe just different? Her two best buddies were seemingly well-adjusted, really sweet, happy little kids, but I don’t believe for a minute that they gravitated towards one another purely by chance. I think that being a child of divorce had already shaped those three, defined them in some really basic, fundamental way, and they had instinctively found one another and held on fast. 

     So, it’s really no surprise that when I remarried, I had hoped to seal the fault lines caused by divorce and create a bedrock of future security for all of our children. It’s probably also no surprise that for literally years, our girls struggled against the mantle of molten rock that simmered beneath their disappointments, and predictably, against one another. My husband and I were both ferociously devoted to our kids, and yet we sort of ridiculously underestimated just how hard it was going to be to merge these lives of ours into something that could be termed a “family.” 

     In retrospect, I think that trying so hard to force our happy ideal on our children made the first few years even more brutal at times. But Lord, how we tried! And cried…And fought. Then exhausted, we’d regroup, strategize, and rebuild. We read books about “blended families,” and “combined families,” step parenting and child psychology. We tried separating them, singling them out for one-on-one time, and then forced togetherness in the form of “family meetings” where most of the open “sharing” was communicated with scorching glares that shimmered like seismic waves across the dinner table, needing no verbal translation. 

     When our youngest was born, the one we had together, she proved to be like the last piece of tile in a complex mosaic, bringing everyone together in a way that seemed more complete and whole, but still, I cannot claim that she alone sealed the deal. 

     The best advice I got during this time came from a friend who stubbornly refused to indulge me in my complaints. I would call her, often in tears, vent my frustration, and then ask her what to do. Over and over she said simply, “It’s going to take time, and a lot of love. You respond to all of it with love. That’s all.” 

     Yeah. And in case of an earthquake, you drop, cover and hold on. 

     When did the tension recede? I wish I could tell you. Time is a funny thing. For all the times I wished and wondered if it would ever happen, when it finally did, it was crazily anticlimactic. If there was an exact moment when it shifted, I missed it. The earth did not move the way I would have predicted, and I doubt that any particular event preceded it. It seems more likely that it occurred so slowly, so gradually; that the concentric rings of our children’s radiating hostility attenuated, and then dissipated completely. What I do know is that seemingly overnight, the sullen silences gave way to sudden bursts of laughter. I came downstairs early one Saturday morning and on tiptoe, followed the voices I heard coming from the basement. Halfway down the steps I paused, closed my eyes and smiled as I listened to their giggles muffled by the comforter they were cuddled up beneath as they played video games together. 

      Confidences were shared and secrets protected. A fierce loyalty replaced accusing eyes and if someone was foolish enough to talk “smack” about one of them at school, they’d have all of the others to contend with. At one point, they seemed to have bonded over a collective eye roll whenever my husband or I spoke. Ah! I thought. This is good! “Us” against “them” became “them” against “us”! This felt like a very good sign indeed. This was as it should be. 

     Strangely enough, the day they sat around the family room doubled over with laughter, calling each another names and teasing each other mercilessly, I knew we had arrived. We were, officially, a family. Where once they had Do Not Enter signs on the doors to their rooms, now we can’t get them out of each other’s rooms. They have stockpiled memories that they pull out and revisit like cherished heirlooms. They stick up for each other, and when necessary, they set each other straight. They can argue and know they will make up. They can fight over clothes, and food, and who left the hair in the drain because they are better than friends, they are sisters. 

      When the oldest ones went off to college, they cried and held each other tight. And when one of them was in need, one by one they made their way home and rallied around her like, well, sisters. The love grows exponentially with each moment shared. 

      As a family we are a case study of challenges met with a stubborn kind of perseverance. At times it has certainly seemed as though against all odds, we have endured. The Brady Bunch, we are not. Norman Rockwell? Not so much. But as part of a demographic that boasts a 60% divorce rate (for second marriages with children), in many ways, we’ve thrived. So far, anyway, we seem to have built something here that has remained intact in spite of the cracks and fissures in our history. 

      Lately, it occurs to me that maybe the most significant proof of this is this magnificent gaggle of girls we have who, given enough time and with enough love grew to become best friends who no longer use the word “step” before “sister.” They have given me more than I can ever repay, have enriched my life in a thousand ways big and small. From them, I have learned so much. In many ways, they have raised me. I’ve benefitted from their warmth and humor, their vulnerability and their strength. I am grateful for their unwavering loyalty. For the family they first resisted, and then embraced so willingly. 

     Time and love. Who knew such a simple formula could yield such rich rewards? Oh, and don’t forget to drop, cover, and when all else fails, hold on tight. 

 18 Mar 2012 

 When There Are No Words 

     My oldest daughter’s father is seriously ill with cancer. It’s strange, I’m not exactly sure when I stopped referring to him as my “ex-husband,” or even just “Frank.” Even with the friends who knew us both when we were together, I still tend to use, “Emily’s Dad” when I talk about him. It’s easier. On some level, I think it began in order to attach some much-needed distance to a relationship that was once so fraught with emotion that it was nearly unbearable. This title erased our history, and implied that somehow, the relationship was solely with my daughter. It was a distilled version of “ex-husband,” of which, for me, the “ex” may as well have been a prefix meaning, “to fail.” 

      His weakened condition has brought up a lot of things for me. Memories that I had successfully suppressed for years have been resurfacing at the oddest moments, and I am awash in the feelings that accompany them, if only for a few minutes. A song on the radio, an aroma, a certain angle of my child’s face in contemplation can bring it on, and off I go, tumbling around in a tidal wave of love, or rage, or anguish. The awkward truth is that he and I didn’t have the luxury of “outgrowing” one another, or even something as mundane as falling “out” of love. Speaking strictly for me, the marriage ended with a deep sense of longing for another outcome. The one thing I think we both know is that there was a mountain of unfinished business. 

      It seems now that for a very long time after the divorce, anger was my very best ally in the fight against the pain. There came a time when I could no longer distinguish between the two emotions, and that too, would have to be worked out later. I had bought an old two family house when we split, and was glad that Emily would have a yard. I couldn’t afford an electrician, so a friend helped out with the new wiring I was required to install. When he was done, you would flip a switch in the living room and the lights would come on the hallway. It didn’t really bother me. In fact, years later I would say that my old house and I were completely in sync. We both had faulty wiring: If you traced my anger back to its source, more often than not, you would find something entirely different; sadness, fear, embarrassment, frustration, etc. 

      But it was all so long ago. In time, I did move on. I dated, fell in love and remarried. He moved on as well. If he and I tend to be a little too formal with one another when it comes to the co-parenting of our child, I suspect that is a shield we employ to guard against everything I’ve said before. It’s all very polite.      

     My daughter, however, is firmly entrenched in my past. She simply adores her father. She has his wicked sense of humor, and she looks like him too. She’ll come home from his house and tell a story about something he said or did, and I can hear his voice when she imitates him. I see him, with his head thrown back unleashing that big, booming laugh. They have worked the knots in their relationship and developed an ease with one another over the years that is enviable. They enjoy one another’s company; and truly, how many fathers and daughters can say that? People often say that she looks just like me, but when they do I always counter with, “Have you met her father?” More often than not, if they think she resembles me, they have never seen him. 

      So, as evocative as this has been for me at times, ultimately, it is she who rattles the cage of my reveries and eclipses whatever reality I think I exist in at any given moment. It is she who reminds me that the true reality is, that there is absolutely no heartbreak that compares to watching your child suffer. At sixteen, this kid has experienced more death and dysfunction that most people see in a lifetime. Cancer has been a constant, black thread running through the fabric of her life for literally years, taking one of Frank’s sisters first, and then one of mine. Her fifteenth birthday will be remembered forever as the day she sat sobbing in her room after finding out that both a close friend and her father had been diagnosed with cancer. The friend, thank God, recovered completely. But in her experience, this is the exception, not the rule, and at the moment, she vacillates between an anger and a grief that threaten to engulf her with their enormity. 

      No one understands this better than me actually, and yet, I am sometimes at a loss to know how to help her. The days she goes to see him in the hospital are the worst. I know that words are often not nearly enough, and the thing is to just hold out my arms and hold her. On occasion, when she is particularly raw, she tells me she cannot bear to be touched, so she pushes everyone away and is unreachable in a world of nothing but loud music and headphones. 

      A few nights ago, I sat on my bed listening to her choking, inconsolable sobs echoing off the tile walls of the shower, and I was paralyzed by the sound of it. I found myself in that barely breathing, heart pounding, heightened-sense state you experience when you think you’ve heard an intruder in the night. I didn’t even realize I had been crying along with her until I heard her weeping subside, and the water turn off. When she emerged, blotchy and red-eyed, I asked her if she was ok, and she kind of tossed her head and in a congested, five-year old’s voice answered, “Yeah, I think I’m done now.” 

      “I think I’m done now.” 

      During her most recent visit, she witnessed just how indiscriminate and cruel this disease can be. She watched as the last shred of his dignity was peeled away and his family, who had wished to protect her from the realities of his prognosis, could no longer encourage her to hope for the best. She sent me texts that whispered of her panic, of the crazy tug-of-war between her desperation to flee his room, and her fear of ever leaving his side again. Cell phone in hand, I paced the floor until the back door opened. She dropped her bags and ran straight into my arms and for the longest time we said nothing. Our tears said it all. 

      What I would like, at this point, is to prevent the inevitable. A simple solution; a win-win: Remission for him; a father for her. To go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow to find the facts have changed. To be able to say the words that would forever remove the deepening crease between her eyebrows, and put some color back in her cheeks. To promise her that yes, he ate today and will get stronger. Yes, the chemo is working. Yes, he’ll see her in her prom dress and her graduation gown. He tear up at her college graduation and walk her down the aisle. He’ll be there dammit, he will. 

      Here I am again, yearning for a different outcome, but this time, for my child. For his child. In the meantime, I’ve been too busy to sleep much at night. I’m knitting something very big and purple and ugly instead. What is it? Who the hell knows, and I don’t care what it is because it gives me something to do and I can’t read because I can’t focus on the words when I’m trying this damn hard to act sure and solid as a rock while secretly trying to bargain with God (craftily sandwiched between prayers because maybe he won’t notice?) and control the universe. 

      Last night I had this dream: Emily and I are driving at night to visit a college when I realize that we are driving without headlights and can’t see what’s ahead. Yeah. You don’t have to be Dr. Phil to figure that one out. 

      It seems like such a long, long time ago when she was a toddler and I was a single mom working full time and I thought it was really hard. I hated leaving her. Once, when I was talking to a co-worker about it she told me, “It is hard. But the thing nobody tells you is that they need you even more as they get older.” I think I remember that conversation so clearly partially because I wondered what the heck she meant by that. Need you how? When you’re still at the stage where you’re changing diapers and they can’t feed or dress themselves, nothing anyone says can make you believe that the teenage years are going to be anything but a breeze. Hell, her kids could drive! It was beyond the scope of my imagination. 

      When she was little, and afraid of things that came in the night we had a little routine that she liked. She’d tell me what she was afraid of, and I’d tell her what I would say to any “monster” that tried to “get” her. My part of this went something like this: “You go away you monster! You leave my Emily alone! Nobody gets to Emily without going through me, and NOBODY gets past MOMMY, so you just go away!” She bought it too. You could see the relief spread across her face like sunshine chasing a shadow. I was strong… I was invincible… I was MOMMY. 

      Like everything else, I had to learn the hard way that what that woman told me that day was true. They do need you more. But there’s another thing “they” don’t tell you, and that is that around the same time, the pendulum of your power swings way over to the left of invincible, and that it’s a lot easier to offer protection than it is to teach acceptance. To stand by and watch while your child learns that often, the most painful things in life teach us about our capacity for compassion, and resilience, and that sometimes, they even leave something in the wake of all they take. That when the time comes, there is Grace in being willing to relieve someone we love of their suffering, even if it means the continuation of our own. 

    Because Emily, though I wish with all my heart that it were so, I’m afraid you’re not nearly “done yet.” 

 7 Feb 2012 

 In Style 

     My mom is 87 years old. When I showed up at her house last week wearing my best pair of “distressed” designer jeans, she looked me up and down and then asked me what had happened to my “dungarees.” When I explained that the worn spots and holes were intentional, that they were, in fact, quite stylish, she pressed me further: “You didn’t pay for them did you?” I didn’t have the nerve to tell her exactly how much I paid for them, which, roughly speaking, equaled the national budget of some third world countries. Her question didn’t insult me because, you know, she’s kind of old. She says things like “swanky”, when describing a cool restaurant. What does she know about this stuff? 

      I was reminded of that conversation a few days ago when I picked up a magazine and read an interview with a very young, very overexposed (in every sense of the word), starlet. During the interview she revealed that after she gets a manicure, she actually requests that they scrape the tips of her nail lacquer off, so that the end result is a “look” that is chipped and worn. She likes this better, and goes on to point out that wearing it this way doesn’t then commit what is evidently the ultimate sin, of trying too hard. “She prefers this to that whole ‘polished’ look?” I wondered aloud. “She pays for this?” I shook the pages at my friend in disbelief. “Ridiculous”, was my final, disgusted word on the subject. 

      Somewhere deep down, however, I had a nagging sense of déjà vu. It continued when I went to the hair salon to have my roots tended to. I’m there like clockwork every five weeks. It is my firm belief that if you decide to color or bleach your hair, then you really must commit to it fully. Yes, it is costly, it’s also inconvenient, and it takes too long in my opinion. That is the price you pay for fooling with what nature intended. Do it right or don’t do it at all is my motto when it comes to hair color. In fact, about the only thing I look forward to about the whole ordeal is getting to sit and read silly magazines without feeling guilty that I should be doing (or reading) something else. 

    I’ll just go ahead and admit it: I have been a fan of Drew Barrymore ever since she dressed up E.T. like one of her dolls. I followed her troubled youth in the media and I sometimes feel like I know her a little. It’s probably a tiny bit weird how proud I am of how solidly normal she appears to have emerged from the dysfunctions of her childhood and early fame. She’s a cheerful survivor of a ruthless business as well. So, when my husband recently criticized a photo of her sporting two-inch deep “rootage”, I jumped to my girl Drew’s defense. “She’s probably really busy. I’m sure she’s not the typical Hollywood prima donna type, running to the salon every two weeks. Cut her a break.” 

      Weird. 

      But I was wrong. As I settled into my chair at the hairdresser’s (slightly high from the fumes of the color processing on my head), I read the most recent article featuring Drew. Peering awkwardly through shingles of highlighting foils, I learned the truth, and the truth is, not only does she want her hair that way, there’s a name for it: Ombre. 

      I had to look this up. The word itself is French. Well, of course it is. If you’re going to have roots down to the tips of your ears and call it fashionable, you may as well give it a French name right? The literal translation is, “graduation”, as in; your hair gradually gets lighter at the ends, because you’ve let it go so long your roots are really long. According to a style trend website, (which featured dozens of Hollywood types embracing this look) “It’s a beachier, more natural looking version of the enduring ‘visible root’ trend.” 

     Lord! I thought, it’s an updated version of another “root trend”? An ‘enduring’ one at that! And I missed it! Completely! These women are not too busy after all. They’re not even too lazy. They’re going for a more natural look; A devil-may-care, slightly bored, I’m not trying too hard look. Oy Vay! They’ve gone Ombre. 

    While I am in no way a slave to trends or fashion in general, I do make an effort to not succumb to the middle-aged mess syndrome. I don’t want to become dowdy. I find myself walking a fine line these days in terms of deciding what is “chic” and what is simply too young for me. I have a hunch Ombre hair is one of the latter. It’s right up there with the “smoky eye,” (which looks to me like smudged mascara and liner after a long day teaching Middle School), the Lady Gaga shoes with the six inch platforms, and something called “Grunge Chic”. I will admit to having tried black nail polish and that too, ended up in my daughter’s room. High-Waisted, bell-bottom jeans? As my friend Maryann says, “I wore them the first time.” 

      It’s funny, when I was in my twenties I was way more conservative in my tastes. I was all about the classic wool pant, blazer, and crisp white button down. In my thirties and forties I sort of careened off in the opposite direction for a while. I got tattooed for one thing. Several times in fact. Cut my hair really short and dyed it blond. I think it was partially an, “if not now…when?” kind of thing. Besides, I had left a long run on the corporate track and gone back to teaching. I no longer had to wear suits and pantyhose. I was having fun with it. 

     Now, in my (very) early 50’s, I have a new fashion mantra, which was previously known only to my daughters and close girlfriends. You won’t find it mentioned in any magazine, although I’m convinced that it should be. It is C.T.S.U., as in, Cover That Shit Up. I’ll lift something off the rack and note, “This is a good CTSU top!” Or, “I need more CTSU bathing suits this year.” Come to think of it, I’m about ten minutes away from Not Your Daughter’s Jeans. At least I don’t call them dungarees. 

      Among the looks I will not be rocking anytime soon: I will not walk around with dark roots, deliberately chipped nails, anything with “micro” or “mini” in the description, or any makeup trend that looks like it was applied in a crack house. If this is trying too hard, well, then I’m guilty. Or maybe I’m just getting older. I did, in fact, ask my daughter a few minutes ago if she had any more crème rinse. “Crème rinse?” she asked, looking completely baffled, “What’s that?” 

      “A swanky version of conditioner” I replied dryly. 

 28 Jan 2012 

 Lessons 

      One of the most important classes I took in college was horseback riding. When I first saw it listed in the course offerings as an option for fulfilling my physical education requirement, I was giddy. I had never been on a horse before. Everything I knew about horses had come from television shows and movies. The night before my first class I fell asleep with romantic images of beautiful smiling people on horseback. They galloped down the beach (sometimes in white dresses) at sunset, with their hair whipping behind them. When I woke up that morning, I was chomping at the bit (sorry, couldn’t resist), to join them. 

      The course was being taught at a local indoor riding academy. About eight of us had arrived at the start time, and we stood in the lobby/observation area watching riders trotting past us, practicing “posting” atop sinewy chestnut mares. The sounds of their hoofs was muted by the protective glass between us, and the soft, deep, brown soil floor of the rink. Our instructor came to collect us and immediately ushered us through two sets of doors into the long, brightly lit stable. 

      The smell hit us like a wall; a mixture of manure, damp straw, sweat and leather. We got an insanely brief lesson in how to approach a horse from behind without getting kicked in the head, how to saddle and bridle it, where to hold the reigns as you walk it, and were told to assemble in the rink in five minutes. 

     The horse to which I’d been assigned was a glistening mahogany gelding named Midnight. Stick my fingers in this creature’s mouth? Was this a joke? First of all, I was pretty sure my horse’s teeth were much larger than the average horse’s. Secondly, horses in general seemed a lot bigger and taller than they did on TV and thirdly, the way ole Midnight kept throwing his head around was a sure sign he didn’t want me to do it either, and that was enough for me. 

       Finally, I got a friend to do the bridling for me. On the walk to the rink I failed to hold the reigns close enough under Midnight’s jawline and this allowed him to swing his enormous head up and over and into my chest repeatedly. With a girly little squeal I’d push it back. I hated this already. Once in the rink we were told to mount our horses. 

      I needed a set of those little steps to get my foot in the stirrups and swing my leg up and over. Once up, I sat up straight in the saddle, looked around, and tried to resist the urge to throw my arms around Midnight’s muscular neck and hold on for dear life. Where was that knob that was supposed to be on the saddle? Why did he insist on dipping that long neck down to bury those steamy flared nostrils into the earth? I had the sensation that I would just slide right down and that wasn’t entirely bad. Bad was how crazy vulnerable I felt. Midnight was a veritable freight train of a horse; all taut, rippling muscles. I didn’t expect to be so high up. What if he took off? What if I fell off? What if he fell on me? I didn’t like this at all. My palms were sweaty, my throat was dry and tight. I was very, very afraid. 

      I knew what was coming, could feel the heat creeping up my neck to my face, my bottom lip began to quiver pathetically, and then, to my absolute horror, I started to cry. At this point, the instructor, who had been a tad drill-sergeant-like, walked over to me. She saw the tears, the snot running down my nose and her expression softened. Quietly, and kindly, she began to tell me a story. It was about an experience she had had with an out-of-control horse. It seems that her horse had gotten spooked by something, and took off like a bat out of hell through the woods where she was riding. No matter what she did, this horse would not stop. In fact, the more she pulled on the reigns, the faster the horse went. 

     Right about the time that I was wondering what in the name of God she was thinking telling me this at this moment, she got to the punch line: Finally, in complete frustration, she dropped the reigns completely. At that point, the maniacal horse unexpectedly slowed to a cantor, and shortly after that, stopped completely. “You see,” she explained gently, “The tighter I held onto the reigns, the more I was driving the metal “bit” into his mouth, and he was just trying to escape the discomfort.” Our eyes simultaneously came to rest on my white- knuckled hold on the reigns. I looked back up at her, and, terrified as I was, I let go. 

      I never forgot that story either. This particular metaphor plays over and over in my life like the lyrics to a favorite song. To this day, every once in a while, I find myself so consumed with fear (what if?) that I catch myself in that white-knuckle control mode. When it becomes unbearable for me, and everyone around me, I try to make a mental checklist of the things I actually can control. Inevitably I find that it’s a pretty short list. In fact, what I can control usually comes down to exactly one thing: My response to whatever it is that is happening! Simply put, my attitude. 

      I can beat my head against the wall trying to change this person or that situation, try to manipulate events and outcomes and all it does is make me crazy until I let go of the reigns. I throw my hands up and just accept what is. There’s some kind of magic in that. Because somehow, every single time, the minute I let go, something changes for the better. 

 18 Jan 2012 

 Im-Perfect Parenting 

     My oldest child, Emily, is sixteen. I know, ‘nuff said, right? Actually, she is a terrific kid. When she was younger, I referred to her as my, “Ok Mom” kid, because that was her response to everything I said. Easy. Not defiant or tantrum throwing. Yep, I had a perfect kid. I used to stand on line in grocery stores watching other people struggle with unruly toddlers who were angrily demanding that their mother’s leave RIGHT NOW, or complaining that THESE ARE NOT THE GUMMIES I LIKE!!! And I would smile understandingly at the mom while secretly thinking, “Jeeze. Get that kid under control!” 

      Some of you will be happy to know that I’ve paid the price for that particular brand of smugness with child #2, who is not, shall we say, of the “people pleasing” variety. Who has, in fact, not only pitched grand mal fits on the grocery store line, but has launched glass jars of pickles over the side of the cart and loudly demanded to know why the fella on line in front of us was so BALD. 

      Hmn. Karma’s a bitch. 

      Elizabeth’s 5th birthday party was, in fact, a “princess” theme. But since we had invited the boys in her class, we kind of kept that on the lowdown and I made sure that while the little girls got pretty pink princess goodie bags (with crowns and pink nail polish inside), the boys got really cool laser swords. There was one little boy, however, who really wanted a princess goodie bag. Now, far be it from me to impose gender restrictions on party favors, but I simply didn’t have enough. So, I kept shoving the cool sword at him and he kept stealing other girls’ goodie bags. The whole thing kept me pretty entertained during the last half hour of this soiree. 

      Finally, when the last “princess” had left, and I had pried the pink goodie bag out of his hands and placed it safely in hers, I handed him the sword yet again. His sweaty little hand reached up to grab mine and coax me down closer to his face, “You know,” he began, little beads of sweat forming on his pink cheeks, “My mom really doesn’t like it when I come home from parties without a goodie bag.” “Hmn.” I replied. And this time, I smiled with understanding. Period. 

      Of course, grocery store line tantrums and birthday party etiquette turned out to be the really easy stuff, and it turned out that the child formerly known as the “perfect” child, was as delightfully flawed as the rest of us, thank God. At the moment, she has me slightly dizzy over a subject that instills fear in every mother’s heart: The Driving Permit. Don’t misunderstand me. Here again, my firstborn started out just like a dream. She passed the written exam with flying colors, went fairly unwillingly to her driving lessons with a foul-mouthed, chain smoking driving instructor who is beloved by the local teenagers. She got enough driving hours to get her permit, and then had one teensy little incident in which she parked a little closer to the sidewalk than the curb. We laughed about it. I thought it was a non-issue. 

      Somehow, I failed to notice when she quietly tucked her permit away in her jewelry box and never asked to drive again. When I asked her if she wanted to drive, she invariably said, “I don’t have my permit.” Cool, I’d think, as I slipped behind the wheel. Still, as time went on, her reluctance began to seem weird. What the heck? I thought kids were dying to drive? God knows I was. When she started to point out cars on the road that she’d really like to get for her birthday, my response was incredulous, “Are you kidding? You don’t drive! You think when you turn 17 and get a license you’re going to be handed a car?” Clearly we had to have a talk. At this point, she reluctantly admitted that she was afraid to drive. Of the two issues at hand here, (the assumption that there would be a car being one of them) this, I thought, we could negotiate and work through. 

     Once I agreed to abide by a few hundred (okay, okay, I’m exaggerating!) “rules” for when she did drive, she agreed to move the permit from the dresser into her wallet (baby steps!) Among her rules are the following: #1 – No music or cell phone use is allowed (pinch me!–this alone may reinstate her perfectness) #2 – No one can TALK when she is, a) Merging onto a highway, b) Making a left-hand turn (really? Okay, I guess…), c) Exceeding a speed limit of 40 mph or, d) Performing ANY type of parking. There’s a certain amount of irony to this considering the fact that as she drives she never stops talking; to other drivers, pedestrians, parked cars and other inanimate objects. 

 I’ll say it again, hmn. But not, of course, during left-hand turns. 

     She’s getting better. A lot better, in fact. Her confidence is increasing in direct proportion to her driving ability and she asks for the keys all the time now. It’s all good. By the time she turns 17 in May, she will be ready. A fair amount of her friends have already reached this particular milestone and I have gotten glimpses of what our next big conversation will be: The car issue. We live in a town, like many other towns, where extreme affluence and abject poverty co-exist. Our family is, thankfully, somewhere in the middle. Many of her friends, however, fall squarely in the extreme affluence category. Two of them just got brand new cars for Christmas, and I just don’t know how I feel about this. 

      No doubt it’s a lot safer to buy your kid the Mercedes version of a military tank instead of letting them drive a $400.00 1967 Volkswagen Bug like I did, but there are other consequences of such indulgences. Entitlement can be a very dangerous thing in and of itself. Sure, I’m aware that there’s a middle ground here, but seriously, what happened to borrowing the family car to go to your part-time job to save money to get your own car? As the youngest of seven children, when we waxed philosophical about the cars, or anything else we wished for, my father (born and bred in Pennsylvania), liked to say, “Well, like they say in the Old Country: ‘Sava you money.’” 

      I often say that the only thing I’m sure of about being a parent is that I’m not making the same mistakes my parents did. But boy, have I made others. Lots of them. Back when my children were perfect, I didn’t worry about this stuff. 

 Hmn. 

 9 Jan 2012