A month ago continued

I left off my last entry in the middle of the night. My sweet husband came to get me and so I didn't finish. I was writing about how everything I experience exists on the same plane. The heros in the novels, the prophets in the scriptures, the images in poems--what is good about one is good about all. Truth, for me, is found in all of my world, both "real" and "imaginary." I have a life described by Whitman's "gigantic beauty of a stallion, . . . Head high in the forehead, . . . tail dusting the ground, . . . His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, . . . we race around and return. I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you."

The most passionate moments in my life have existed using both my real body and my creative mind. Jumping my horse over a real fence is just as vivid as reading about Whitman's stallion. I live both in motion and in thought--for which I am grateful. When I leave this Earth, I will take only what I can remember, what I am. This means that I will take my whole life with me, leaving nothing behind.

A month ago today

I noticed that it had been exactly a month since I last posted on this site. My other blog tends to lend itself to everyday inspiration--bunnies that have peed in the wrong corner, dishes, homework, cat-hair-dust-bunnies in the corners, rose mildew, over-due library books, the shedding habits of two Uromastyx lizards . . .

Brent sent me the site for an article about how people tend to open up on-line and expose things that they would never think they would (or I think they never should), but that article itself came from an on-line blog. For me, the world has always been one big blur. Literature, the tops of trees, a cake recipe, the plays that I have been in, trimming our pets' nails, science fiction stories, folding clothes, doctor appointments, laying by the pool and watching my rabbits explore behind my potted plants, movies I have seen--and movies that I have only heard about--

Brent and me Orlando Science Center Fall 08

I was looking for a picture of me--just me--that made me look the way I wanted to look--fresh, happy, without wrinkles and lines. Couldn't find one--doesn't exist. Nathan took some of me outside--but I had a wierd look on my face. The best one of that batch was the one that he took of himself, upside-down. It has come back to the point where I was 20 years ago: my children looked back on photographs of our family and would ask me why wasn't I there? Didn't I like being with them?
Time again for pictures of mom.

Frustration, teaching, donuts, friends

I can hear the voices of some 2 dozen people behind me. I can smell coffee and burnt toast. I am sitting on a fairly uncomfortable chair. I am in the Palm Beach Community College's cafeteria/student center. There is the ubiquitous cafeteria and a new Dunkin' Donut counter. (Guess where most people buy food?) Nathan treated me to breakfast this morning. I had two cake donuts and a medium hot chocolate (combo 1) and a milk. Nathan bought a coffee roll (a large glazed donut with cinnamon throughout) which he at most of. He also purchased a medium hot chocolate and breakfast egg-and-cheese-and-sausage-on-a-slightly-squashed-croussant. Neither of which he ate. A good lesson to remember next time he has to spend his own money on food. Since living in Argentina, I have ceased to look at how much food cost. There, if you could find something you wanted, you bought all that they had. There was no way to know how many months (or years) would pass before they were able to import more of the same. Foods like cheddar cheese, saltine crackers, cranberry juice, good granola bars (and sometimes even root beer)--I horded all that I could find. I still find myself buying four instead of one--gallons when I need cups--a case when I need a can. I suppose it is like the body's response when it finds itself in starvation mode--save all that you can, expend as little as possible. We are learning about diets and body training right now in Health. Nate needs it for his GE requirements and I'm in there to take notes. The professor is a former college gymnast, coach and personal trainer who is probably my age (about 50) who possesses a singularly dry sense of humor. He names our class his favorite--and the kids are starting to open up in response to his 1/2 teasing 1/2 serious presentations. He is overly careful not to preach about whether people should eat empty calories, take steroids, or get inoculated for the HPV. Especially he wishes that they would stop smoking--but he couches his warnings of the its effects in phrases like "I'm not telling you to stop smoking, BUT those who do reduce their risk of heart attack by 25% (or whatever the number is)." I have come to appreciate his precarious position--official spokesman for PBCC and bound by its policy of "non-interferience" in the lives of his students. But, as a teacher, isn't he suppose to be an influence on them? It seems that this idea is the essence of what it means to teach. All of my life, I have dreamed of changing those around me--even those who never knew me--for the better by the things I do. My children constantly affirm that I have been a good mother and am a good friend--which pleases me in ways I cannot express. I would hope that those who pass through the classes that I teach and who read the things that I write would also come away with more insite into themselves, more curiousity about the world around them, more compassion for those around them. I would always want to be a good teacher.