A perk

One of the joys of teaching Writing B is that I have an excuse to sit around and read poetry for "work."  I get to research authors and talk about short stories and listen to interviews with writers on Youtube (here and here and here.) Just talked about Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. Read "Pied Beauty" and "The Tyger."  Discussed coming of age in T. C. Boyle's 'Greasy Lake" and Alexie Sherman's "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona." "Cathedral" and "To Build a Fire" were popular stories to examine for the first papers. Grading goes slowly still, and plagiarism is rife.  But so much more fun to talk about literature rather than commas!

And now I'm super excited about this conference which I first read about at Heather King's blog: "The Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination."  At USC! My diocese! I'm working details to go to at least one day - but which one?

Theme for English B

Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

The instructor said,

    Go home and write
    a page tonight.
    And let that page come out of you—
    Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me 
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what 
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white. 
But it will be
a part of you, instructor. 
You are white— 
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. 
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. 
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true! 
As I learn from you, 
I guess you learn from me— 
although you’re older—and white— 
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/theme-english-b

Out of the ordinary

Last weekend we went to Mass at a small Catholic liberal arts college not far from our house.  The college is just about 20 miles away from us, and we've been a handful of times. Our boys were meeting up with some friends to go to Mass, brunch, and then a hike in the hills around the school.  Since we like to keep Sunday as much of a family day as we can with multiple teenagers, we decided all of us would go to Mass there, even though my youngers were resistant because 1. the Latin Mass at the college is long and 2. they miss out on donuts at our parish's "Friendship Sunday" gathering.  Their vote was overruled, as usual.

The church at this school was designed by one of my husband's professors at Notre Dame.  It is stunning, large and light drenched. Its neoclassical design belies its recent completion a few years ago. The interior is covered in marble. In the axis of the cross design stands the altar, canopied by a large baldacchino. Light streams in from stained glass windows, and replicas of famous portraits of educated saints, mostly Dominicans, adorn the walls.  Needless to say, every sound reverberates.  Music sounds ethereal from the choir loft; the cry of babes sounds piercing.

The other times we have attended Mass here, the Masses were more sparsely attended, but this past Sunday the pews were full.  We had to sit in the section to the right of the altar, which was fine because the echo isn't as bad there. And we were not alone. Each pew was brimming with small children.  During the Communion hymn, I was distracted by trying to figure out which kids belonged to which family. I counted 10 kids in one group; my son counted 12.  Our baby's voice was one of many pipsqueaks.

I assume these were primarily faculty families.  I know there is a large home school community in this area, which is also where a popular umbrella school is based.  There must be some form of the Catholic ghetto up here in the hills.  In light of the hullabaloo over Pope Francis' recent remarks praising large families and then being accused of comparing Catholics to rabbits, I felt like we were in the midst of the audience he was praising.  I surreptiously checked out the other families: they looked happy enough, not too overwhelmed, the older kids were helping with the younger kids, they all seemed well fed and dressed appropriately.  Nobody appeared neglected, unhappy, or abused.

If we were going to stay in the area, I might be tempted to get to know some of these families. I have more than once felt like the object of curiosity because of our large family.  We have been compared to rabbits more than once. In fact, when my husband and I first arrived at our newlywed apartment, we found an enormous rabbit hiding in the shrubbery by our door.  It turned out to be the tame pet of the chef down the street, who was so grateful to be reunited with his friend that he baked us a lasagna. I always thought it was a sign.

So at a moment when I was feeling a little lonely for a community of like minded individuals, lo! there appeared to be some here! I projected onto them a little of the "thickened" culture that Melanie described in her recent post.  These families seem to live and share faith and practice and community.  In the middle of Mass I was having this existential moment of both recognition and disconnect. Ah ha! here is a community!  But no! I don't belong!  I wondered if I should try to strike up a conversation after Mass. I didn't. Mostly because we met up with our other friends (!) for brunch.

But I also felt distanced because I couldn't help but make associations with a home school group we were on the periphery of when we lived north of Chicago. After one meeting, I left feeling shocked and disappointed when the group voted not to allow a family in which the mother was not Catholic to join. She was married to a Catholic and was raising the kids Catholic. She wanted to join. She probably was a Catholic in the making, but that rejection was harsh. It may have determined her to think negatively of Catholics from then to the end of her days.  The intent of the home school group was to protect the integrity of their mission and the innocence of their children. And I can understand now the difficulty of raising a countercultural family in the midst of mainstream culture. But I left feeling disillusioned.

My thoughts also meandered to the land of whatmighthavebeen.  My husband was once offered a job with his professor. He would have been a measly draftsman, copying designs, but in an up and coming firm. At the time, exactly at the time, the Twin Towers were bombed, and being in the military was a noble and patriotic profession. My husband declined the job offer because of the timing, the security, the opportunities.  We did not go to live in South Bend in a little cottage for the next 14 years, but have migrated from place to place.

Whatmighthavebeen is a dangerous place, and I don't like to linger there long. When I was in the midst of those large families on Sunday, feeling like the mother of a small family, (only my children are large), I could see that perhaps I could have belonged to a community like this.  We might have gone ahead and had a couple more kids between number 6 and 7 if we didn't have to pack up all our belongings every couple of years.  The kids would have had ready made friends; we might have continued home schooling; I might have been more skilled at domestic crafts.

But I couldn't help but wonder if these families were like the ones we once knew, who withdrew from the mainstream culture to raise their kids without rude comments from grocery store clerks or the influence of advertising and mainstream peers.

I know I am stereotyping to connect these two groups. Yet I also know I'd still feel a little out of sync in this crowd. It is an interesting subculture up in the hills removed from the "beach culture," the "consumer culture," the world at large.  It is a beautiful place to live, where your practice and your ideals can come close to being identical.  But it is not my place, which is in the midst of the traffic.
As much as I long for a community of like-minded people, there are few of those around. As much as I love the beautiful liturgies and the instant camaraderie of large families, I also love my friendly parish that sings the Gloria with jazz hands where the old ladies pat my baby and comment on her growth, and the priest remembers all my kids' names. I love feeling free to teach and work outside of the house. I love the military community that reaches out so freely to near strangers.

After reading Melanie's post about creating holidays and community and Pentimento's reflections in the same vein, I thought back to last Sunday morning, when I sat in Mass pondering both the beauty of the Mass and the church and the goodness of being among families as large or larger than our own worshiping together. I also realized that living as an oddity (one among many) in a secular community is my calling right now.  Even though sometimes we are a bad witness, I love that my kids are witnesses to the gift of having multiple siblings.

I don't have any answers to the situation of yearning for community and feeling the thinness of celebrating holidays like saints' days and Epiphany all by ourselves. I don't doubt that up in the hills some of those large families got together for a party for Epiphany.  Maybe even for Michaelmas. I know that the community of students and tutors at the College is tightly knit because of the testimony of our friends' daughter who just graduated and now is working there. It is a kind place where people are excited about beauty and wisdom, and perhaps we would find soulmates there. My stereotypes are most likely wrong.

We'll be looking for a new community again soon. Every time we move to a new place - which will happen yet again this summer -  I have to push myself to show up at the parish Moms group or the school volunteer meeting or the Navy wives' luncheon when these things aren't really what I want to be doing, but I'm always surprised by the offers of friendship waiting there.  These people are sometimes baffled by our choices, but often the feeling is mutual, so we share something!  In many ways the community created by a mom's group or a marriage ministry or at a library story time is a bit artificial. But sometimes real friendships are begun through the casual acquaintances these events facilitate. I'll be adding a few more addresses to my list of friends I keep in touch with when we leave here.

I didn't take any photos in the big church but here are some pics of the campus:

Tiny altar in the guest house chapel where Blessed Mother Teresa once stayed and prayed.

Good kids

Hidden ponds

Stations of the Cross in the woods

Redwoods were planted here long ago by the original property owners.

As were these calla lilies that grow along a little stream

2014 Reading Review

The frenetic pace of our life doesn't leave much time for looking back at the past, but I do like to make note of the past year's events.  Looking back at the list of Books Read for 2014 I see that I didn't have a lot of time for pleasure reading. I'm afraid I wasted more time than I like to admit on the social media. I used to read while nursing babies; now I check up on the internet.  Add "Less Time on Social Media" to my resolutions for 2015.

I did read a few things that I really enjoyed this year. Here's the very brief recap:

Number of books: 45

Number of novels: 26

Non-fiction: 19

Read-alouds: 8. Five Little Peppers and Redwall both took a long time. I did enjoy reading Redwall once I got into it. Fun to read aloud with different accents. Will probably read another in the series. 

Favorites: Mansfield Park, The Professor's House, A Room With a View, I Surf Therefore I Am, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki.  Very different books enjoyed for different reasons.

Least favorites: Morrissey, Graced and Gifted, The Fault in Our Stars.  Boring and overrated, all three.  Ok, maybe The Fault in Our Stars wasn't boring, but it was so overrating and objectionable as a young adult book because of the love scene. Just leave it out. It's a YA book for goodness sake.  Middle schoolers are grossed out by that kind of stuff.

Again not much spiritual reading.  Again no Shakespeare or Dickens. But Trollope, which took a good deal of time, was like Dickens. And I've been dipping in and out of a book of essays of spiritual writing.  Nonetheless, my reading goals for 2015 will remain the same: More Shakespeare, Dickens, and read alouds. Try to read closer to 50 books - not on a good start to that goal.  And do more reading that will feed my soul instead of just entertain - although most of these classics do feed my soul. 

Now it is past the middle of January, and I haven't finished a book. I've been reading my grandfather's biography and my literature book.  I recently was reading the racy Kate Chopin story "The Storm" and doing some internet research on her life, when I discovered an amazing coincidence - I know her great-granddaughter!  She teaches the docent classes for art class presenters at our kids' school.  What things you can find on the internet!  I sent her a fan letter via email, even though according to her remarks at the Kate Chopin International Society meeting last spring, she never met her great grandmother and really never read her books until she was in college. But the truth is Chopin was not very well known until she was rediscovered in the late 60s. I was given a book with "The Awakening" in it as a graduation gift from my high school English teacher.  It struck me as incredibly sad and romantic, but I didn't understand the controversial reception it first received. Now I read her stories with mixed feelings - I am uncomfortable with the frankness with which she writes about sexual tensions - but nonetheless, I appreciate her artistry with words and the fact that she could write like this and support herself and 6 small children after her husband died.  A strong woman she must have been. 

Resolutions again!

Sunday we celebrated the baptism of Jesus and the end of the liturgical Christmas season, although somewhere I've read that Christmas lasts until Candlemas commemorating the Presentation in the Temple on February 2nd. I could look up a liturgical calendar but instead I am going to take advantage of the baby's nap to note some resolutions.  Better late than never!

I have just realized that this is my seventh year of making resolutions on this blog. That's a long time. Child number 6 was but a wee thing at the time I started doing this. Can that be right? As I look over my resolutions from years' past, I realize not that I have not changed so much in those years, but my children have accumulated many inches!

I'll stick with my pattern of making four resolutions, although I've got a couple that have nothing to do with last year's goals.

Resolution number 1 - find a good family picture to replace those sidebar photos from 2010.  We have about 2 group shots from the Christmas holidays, and those were taken with the timer set on the camera stationed at a very unflattering angle. The picture I sent with Christmas letters was from Yosemite two months ago.  And how did my parents stay a whole week without taking a photo of all nine of us together!  With one fledgling about to leave the nest, I am newly committed to getting a decent family photo taken.

Number 2: Update those quotes, too.  Pope Benedict, I love you, but I need a new inspirational quote for the next five years.

Now on to the four pillars resolutions: I'm writing these up quickly because I'm short on time. Perhaps I'll think of something new to add in a week.

Health/wellness: Do sit-ups and run a half marathon. Maybe start training for another marathon, if I can get on a schedule that allows me to get up early before baby.  She does not like the jogging stroller, much to my keen dismay.  I NEED her to like riding in her stroller. She's getting too heavy to carry, and as much as I like walking with friends in the mornings after drop-off, I miss running.  Also: drink more water, again. For a time I was doing better about drinking water, but it's been coffee by the gallon for me the past few weeks.  My husband is "detoxing" right now - no alcohol, no sugar, no white flour, no caffeine, lots of vegetables and juice.  I feel rebellious when he diets, and now I recognize the response my family used to have around me when I was the self appointed food police back in the 90's when sugar was ok but fat was off limits.

Academic/Intellectual: Continue organizing my lesson plans. When I look back at last year's resolutions, I am happy to see progress. I am also happy that I can walk into a classroom now and talk  and ask questions for a couple hours without really looking at my notes to see what it is I want to say.  Experience is beginning to pay off.  Read and write as much as possible. Share that reading with the teenagers. I'm suddenly aware of how much I need to talk with them before they leave me.

Continue reading aloud: this resolution from last year has also paid off. Much of my reading over 2014 was aloud to the younger kids. They enjoy the time on the couch, and so do I.  And my third grader really needs help with reading, so I resolve to continue this practice.  Best time of the day.

Spiritual: Continue Mass once a week, confession every month or two, rosary as often as possible at night. Look for God in others, in creation, in the Word. More time with Scripture would be a good practice to add to stir my listless soul.

Community: Again, continue to serve in small ways. I've been the email person for Many Meals the past several months. Since the baby was born we don't serve meals very often, but I help alleviate a little tiny bit of work for the coordinator.  We have not formed as many connections here as we have at other duty stations, perhaps because this is such a well organized place to begin with, but I like to think I have helped carry a bit of the burden for some of the people who run things, just by helping out occasionally and thanking them.  Our awesome youth leader is getting ready to move to Steubenville, and I will grieve her. I haven't helped out with the program very much, but I go walking with her sometimes and try to convey how much I appreciate what she has done.  Such an active youth program I've never seen before at any other parish.  She'll be missed. And I hope the church will find someone equally charismatic to inspire and lead the teens.

And now it is time to start researching new schools and neighborhoods. Bleh.  I have considered the possibility of staying here to let my junior and seventh grader finish out the last years of high school/elementary, but my husband is strongly opposed to the idea.  Although his next duty station is only about four hours away, he does not like the idea of separating the family. I completely understand his concerns, especially since we are at the age when many of our peers' marriages are crumbling, but I also see that our children need some continuity, and I do, too. We have a lot of research and praying to do as we look into the options for our family.

Capturing Memories

In the days following the Christmas Feast, we had some memorable moments, many of which I captured on film for the viewing pleasure of my family and maybe a few friends.  I recently read an article about how if you take a lot of pictures at an event you may not remember it very well, unless you spend time looking at the photos afterward.  But in that case you are in a way creating a narrative in your mind about what happened through the photos, much like what goes on in the minds of Facebook friends and historians and other people who view photos but who weren't present at an event.  Try to create a narrative from these photos because I don't have time to write one. Captions provided to assist your imagination and my memory.

Drinking from the dog bowls - we had a canine visitor for the holidays. Dog sat for a friend
Almost made me want a puppy. Almost.

Learning to taste some chords

Christmas morning exhaustion

 

Baby mermaid elf at the beach Christmas morning in her Valentine's shirt

Shrine and relic of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, LA

Nativity outside the Cathedral

Visiting LACMA, discovering Houdin

Enjoying LA food trucks with the grandparents

Interactive sculpture beats out videogames for a day at LACMA

Another lady for my collection of Reading Women in Art

Saint Anne reads to her baby also

Goodnight playground! A local friend told me it is pollution in the air that makes the sunsets so colorful here.

The neighbor's floribunda

New Year's Eve Lantern Lighting, courtesy of a friend

Prayer lantern on the way to Heaven

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park

While my parents were visiting, we made an excursion into the Sierras.  Seeing Sequoia National Park has been on my "To See Someday" list for a long time, and we had been putting it off waiting for the perfect weekend, which never seemed to show up, as perfect weekends are apt to be scarce. But this weekend was perfect - there was a foot of snow on the ground, which thrilled my children who haven't seen substantial snow since 2010.  My parents were up for an adventure and were interested in seeing a little bit more of California than just the coast. The entrance to the park takes just under four hours from our house, but the change in climate and terrain is remarkable. We arrived in time for some evening snow play, a short trudge, and a visit to the General Grant, second largest tree in the park. Instead of camping, my first choice in National Parks, we stayed in the John Muir Lodge, which was comfortable, if not luxurious.  I nearly, well, did have a meltdown trying to reserve it, but in the end all worked out beautifully. It was a short visit, without much hiking, but lots of fresh mountain air and family time. Happy memories. 

Kids jumped out of the car to touch the snow as we drove into the park.

First snow

The General Grant

Beautiful ending to a beautiful day

Relearning the perils of ice

Sledding on pantseats

Tree huggers

Good morning Hume Lake

A view off to Kings Canyon - roads were closed to this part

Enjoying time with the grandparents

Baby and I have matching hats, thanks to a friend

These could put your eye out!

Driving Generals Highway through the park

More snowplay

The General Sherman - largest tree by volume

Hiking in the Grove of Giants

Another massive trunk

Tree growing out of a rock

Enough photos, paparazzi

Too many scenic views to capture

Goodnight Sequoias!

Worn out after a nice trip

Now we have visited three National Parks lately - Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Sequoia.  I think I would say I like Sequoia best. The Grand Canyon is so crowded. The view is amazing, but you experience it as if you are at a museum, unless you have the time and permits to hike down into the canyon, I suppose. Yosemite was also breathtaking. I'm sure if the falls were roaring it would feel completely different.  We went at an ideal time, when it was still warm, but not as crowded. I've heard the summers are crazy. I'd like to go back, but if I had to choose one to go back to, I'd pick Sequoia because I like the woods. The southern part of the park was still full of tourists and people come to play in the snow at the big sledding hill. We saw three ambulances carry people away with injuries from the icy hills.  But the northern part, where we entered and spent the night, was very quiet at this time of year. Maybe because we arrived late in the day, we had the path around the General Grant nearly to ourselves. The kids could run and slide and throw snowballs to their hearts' content.  We played cards in the lobby of the hotel in front of a large, cozy fire and ate leftovers we had warmed up in the crockpot.  Our morning hike around Hume Lake was accompanied only by wintering ducks and an eagle and a few ice fisherman, although some other intrepid walkers showed up as we were leaving.  I'd love to go back when the snow is melted and the roads are open to get in some good hikes off the main thoroughfare, but that may wait for another lifetime, when a perfect weekend shows up again.

This trip confirms again my feelings about travel - I don't think you have to move around and see the world in order to be a better person. But I do like to go places with the family so that we are self-contained and together enjoying a place that is miraculous and awe-inspiring.  My favorite part of this trip wasn't seeing some really giant trees, but seeing the joy on the kids' faces, watching them playing together in the snow and in the lobby, and even in the car. (We did take two cars on this trip.) We've made some beautiful memories on this trip with my folks that have nothing to do with the views.  Instead we'll remember the baby touching the snow, the weird sound of tree branches skimming across the ice, sliding around on the paths, eating snow, rolling down windows to get fresh air on the winding road down the mountains, jamming into a shuttle bus against my desires, wondering at the tailgaters in the snowplay parking lot, trying to capture light and size in a small frame, trying to capture time in this retrospective.