we could turn back on this pacific adventure...

but we might find ourselves dried up...
below is a poem i'll be using for a lesson my first week of teaching:


Harlem (A Dream Deferred) by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

we. are. moving. to. a. pacific. island. far. far. away.

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

(above: photo of fog in the iao valley, maui, taken during our 2010 summer vacation)

i accepted a job to teach english/language arts to 8th graders in maui. hawaii. papa p is leaving his lucrative law job. baby o is leaving his tonka trucks and his terrible-two gang of friends to follow us on this rocky path. no, not just rocky. fog-covered. and steep. and it's a toll road (ever checked out moving costs to maui?) and my family is at the bottom of the road with a bull-horn yelling: "wait!" "come back!" "where are you going!?" "what are you doing?" "who will pay the bills?". and then at the end of the road there is another group. a group of 120 adolescent polynesian kids saying "hi miss." "don't tell me what to do miss!" "can i have a pencil?" "i need to go to the bathroom. noowwwwww." maybe along the road the fog will lift and my heart will reposition itself back into its proper chamber, out of the pit of my stomach. and i can start thinking straight and with greater clarity, and maybe write without relying on the "road of life" metaphor/cliche.

clinging to the curtains

"Mr. Yamashita, 87, who survived the recent tsunami by clinging to a curtain after waters flooded the hospital where he was bedridden, said Japan had neglected to teach its old tsunami lore in schools." - New York Times, April 20, 2011

 this will be a short post. i am thinking today about my little sister, who suffers from a disease that is largely self-inflicted. she is young, with brains and beauty and a wicked sense of humor. but she forces herself to waste away. her job requires that she interact daily with elderly alzheimer's patients who, even as they fizzle out, sometimes mutter words of wisdom about living each and every day. my sister meanwhile has a tenuous grasp on life, her hold on this world as thin as her bones. i wish she could learn from her patients, or learn from mr. yamashita, an elderly bedridden man who survived the tsunami by hanging onto a curtain.

"auntie b" yesterday made me laugh by talking of her adventures on MUNI (the san francisco bus line). once in awhile, for whatever random reason, a bus driver will stop suddenly and announce: "ok, everybody off!". nobody wants to leave their seat by the window, or give up on their destination.

and then there is my sister. i often let oliver throw pennies into fountains, and for every penny i wish for my  sister to regain her appetite for life -- and with the urgency of an old man hanging above mad ocean water -- to demand that the bus drive on.

create.

i spent a lovely afternoon at deep eddy pool (the oldest swimming pool in Texas, built during the depression by the WPA). the pool is fed by the frigid springs of the colorado river, so no matter how hot it is, the blue-green depths of deep eddy at least give you one guarantee: you will be cold.

oliver and i went with my good friend "auntie b"-- we'll call her -- and we talked about soap operas, adventures on the public bus, and enchiladas mole. and then we got onto the topic of life-fulfillment-and-satisfaction. how do you get it? deep eddy brings you close, but leisure-filled snow-cone days by the pool aren't it. we agreed that the humans have an innate drive to be creative (a drive usually killed sometime in the elementary school years). auntie b speculated that somewhere between childhood and adulthood we became afraid to create. or too apathetic to even think of what we would create, much less start creating it. i feel that has happened to me... being a teacher or a mother or an athlete or even engaged in social causes isn't enough. there is something within that yearns to build or paint or write something. in bold letters. with yellow paint. or to capture an image so powerful, that it expresses the seemingly unexpressable. so with that thought in mind im posting a photo taken by bryant austin, who sold his belongings to fund his passion for whaling photography. the resulting work is so stunning, and the eyes of the whales so wise, that tears roll down the faces of people viewing his work.

click here for a link to today's new york times article on austin and his whale photographs.

democracy is so hollow now.

"And I’m really realizing again that, you know, democracy is so hollow now. I mean, we don’t have power. This is not democracy. We are controlled—we have been controlled by the government and the Tokyo Electric Company, you know, a private company. This is a big lesson to be—for us to be humble, in front of a natural—big natural power, power of nature. And we have to really look for a lifestyle and a way of thinking again, to live again with harmony, in harmony with nature."

- Keibo Oiwa, Japanese cultural anthropologist and environmentalist

it has been a morning haunted by morbid thoughts: a squirrel, hit by a car, twitching uncontrollably on the road as cars sped past. just a small death on the corner, easy to ignore. then: a report from the calm voices on npr. the rating of the disaster at fukushima plant raised to level 7-- the same as chernobyl. but only 29 died from chernobyl, npr quotes a japanese official. try 250,000. and if numbers don't properly convey the scope of suffering, read  voices from chernobyl. hear the stories from the people themselves:

"We came home. I took off all the clothes that I'd worn there [Chernobyl plant] and threw them down the trash chute. I gave my cap to my little son. He really wanted it. And he wore it all the time. Two years later they gave him a diagnosis: a tumor in his brain… You can write the rest of this yourself. I don't want to talk anymore."

and i want to scream. i am reminded of another passage of the book about chernobyl that i can only paraphrase. a man was describing the beauty of belarus after the chernobyl explosion -- the glory of the sunshine and the verdant pastures, of men and women tilling the soil, and of children playing in the sand. i imagine a cerulean blue sky and red flowers. but the man goes on to say that this was an illusion: beneath the beauty was poison. the people were oblivious. cancers were already growing.

to me this is a metaphor for how we live today. the leaves are shining outside my window, people are enjoying their morning. they are ironing their shirts, and heading out for the day. while radiation blows across the pacific, while milk in arizona and california turns dangerously toxic, while the basic human rights of a US soldier are violated on US soil, and while the congressional budget makes astronomical cuts to environmental protection, children's healthcare and public education.

but the words of keibo oiwa, a professor from japan, seem to calm me somehow. he is right, democracy is hollow right now. and that feeling of hollowness is universal, global, and transformative, like the japanese earthquake itself, which shifted the earth's axis 6.5 inches and displaced water in my town's local aquifer.   let the earthquakes and the injustice be the "big lesson" that bring a "new way of thinking." is it childish to hope for that?

destination: maui?

i started this "secret" blog (which i don't share with friends of family because i'm afraid it will keep me from being honest) in order to keep ourselves focused on our desire to live "deliberately" (or in the words of thoreau, "to live deep and to suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life"). "papa p" has for too long been staring out the window of a corporate law office (an aside: i once had an office colleague who became something of an expert on squirrel behavior because of all the time gazing out the office window, watching life -- specifically rodent life -- unfold).

we've positioned ourselves well for our dream of breaking free-- of burning the khaki pants and ties. for six years, we've been living well below our means. even when we had two full-time salaries, we didn't buy furniture or electronics...when "baby o" was born we didn't buy a house and he sleeps in a second-hand crib. other than traveling and eating well (you gotta suck out the sushi of life too!), we've kept it pretty simple. so we have found ourselves in a place where we can do something unconventional, and where "papa p" can leave his job (he is the main breadwinner by far) and plunge into the wild ocean.

i'm in the process of being interviewed for an english/language arts teaching position at a public school in maui. how i got to this point is a long story. we've decided that if i get the offer, we will go. living on a resort island in the middle of the pacific aint cheap, and a teacher's salary doesn't buy much, but we are blessed to have the savings where we could do this without any financial stress. for now, im just trying to meditate on the important things: will i be an excellent teacher (i don't know, i can only try), and will i enjoy it (student teaching was a mixed experience)? i don't want to spend so much time dreaming about bamboo forests and pineapple trees that i forget the incredible challenge of teaching-- especially teaching underprivileged kids.

i was telling "papa p" that if we get this chance, and if i find teaching to be fulfilling, i could have such a beautiful life that i feel i don't deserve. who should be able to live this way, when people in brazil are living in landfills and people of iraq wake and sleep to the sound of gunfire?

pictures of garbage

last night we finished watching "wasteland," a documentary about the work of a daring, brilliant and big-hearted artist named vik muniz. muniz made the "garbage pickers" of the world's largest dump in brazil the subjects of a series of portraits, illuminating both the unimaginable poverty and fifth in which they live and work, as well as their grace, beauty and intelligence. his art creates this shocking contrast between the vast wasteland -- a sick reminder of the gluttonous way we live -- and the human beings who dig through it. poor people who, like poor people worldwide, are thought of as inferior, somehow less-than-human. yet like all humans they are these magnificent gems who carry on their shoulders (along with the trash) ambition, profound loss, intellectual curiosity, and passion. my favorite portrait is the one posted above.

......

the philosophy of the absurd

my husband (disgruntled corporate attorney) works among others who pride themselves on their extensive educations. they are relatively privileged people who have been showered with accolades for every achievement, from the elementary spelling bee to law school graduation. they have been told, through awards and degrees and a sweet bank account, that they are smart. they fought for the intellectual honors of elite colleges, school leadership positions, law review. they have been so very, very blessed with the opportunity to learn from the best educators in the world, to think critically, and to carry that knowledge on with them through their lives.

yet they obsess over football, american idol, and celebrities. and as happened the other day: they laugh and sneer in the break room when a bookish associate makes a reference to the "myth of sisyphus." sisyphus, who spent eternity pushing a boulder up a mountain only to see it roll down again. perhaps people who spend 12 hours a day pushing paper don't like the reminder of the ancient king who thought himself so clever, pushing his beloved boulder.

doubtful that my husband's colleagues will be reading albert camus in their spare time. camus makes the myth the basis of his essay on the fruitless search for meaning, in a world without eternal truths and where people live in denial of death. as camus writes: "the workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. but it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."

and maybe camus is right in his final conclusion: sisyphus was happy with the mundane tasks. but it had to have been some dull and unfulfilling kind of happiness that comes from routine and the vague sense of accomplishment in a task completed. revolting against the absurdity is what is required for core happiness.

you can giggle in the break-room, or you can break free from the break-room...

those are my thoughts today.

the sacred beauty of creation

"Sometimes I need a little reminder... one that I can feel rather than one that I repeat to myself... how many things I will mourn should I be lucky enough to know when my time is coming. Sometimes I need a deeper nudge to listen to the sounds of my children's voices and not just their words. Every now and then a good and serious truth that causes remembrance of how fragile, how fleeting and how un-repeatable the moments of a life truly are is a very good thing." - cagefreefamily blog 

i was just reading the only blog i follow (cagefreefamily). ...she wrote a post about why she prefers reading books about dying and why rather than depress her, they put the fragility of life into focus and give her reason to appreciate it, in all its delicate and fading glory. of course, she said it more eloquently (see above quote).

i've been unable to articulate this myself for so long... it's the reason i prefer documentaries about the iraq war or the water crisis over superman III. or why i was transfixed by the recent frontline episode on dying. and why i adored the novel i read last month (gilead by marilynne robinson): a letter from a dying man to his son. or why my favorite book is as i lay dying, which begins with the sounds of a son hammering nails into his mother's coffin. reminders of mortality give a person a drive to live deliberately and lovingly. reminders of war and social injustice give a person a reason to cast aside the blinders and kill the apathy.

recently, an acquaintance said she could not participate in a book club i am a part of because she can't handle "disturbing" or "sad" literature. but man, you've gotta be disturbed or saddened in order to soak in the beauty!

i'll leave with another quote, from gilead:

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us." - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

bike ride across town, crackers & diapers flying

it was drizzly and a little chilly, but we put baby o in the bike trailer and headed downtown. it's a slow pace when papa p is riding a 20 lb mountain bike and dragging along a 20 pound, curly-headed creature who tosses crackers and diapers into the road. this strange creature managed to stay happy for the entire 2 1/2 hour ride, spending much of the time on his yellow plastic "phone," conversing with someone on the other end about motorcycles. thanks to either pregnancy or labor with baby o, i have a higher lactic threshold or my blood can carry more oxygen-- or something-- because climbing mt. bonnell seemed easy, so i did it twice in a row. (it used to be a struggle to get up once.) papa p took on some pretty big hills considering his cargo. like all top athletes, we stopped mid-way for a large amy's icecream at mozart's cafe. we left with fingers sticky from strawberry icecream and a toddler screaming for more.

the best place to contemplate big themes-- life, the world, the future-- is from the top of two wheels. so we discussed when papa p might leave his miserable law job. very soon we think! and we dreamed out loud about adventures to come-- maybe colorado this summer or maybe europe. that's the big upside of living below one's means: the ability to ponder such luxuries. luxuries like giving the two-week notice to your slave-master, or the possibility of exploring a distant part of the world. note: we do travel on the cheap. last time in europe, we stole lots of cheese from our bed-and-breakfast and subsisted on it all day. swiss cheese, to be exact (because we were in switzerland). to this day, swiss cheese = not appealing.

p.s. question papa p asks: why do bloggers want to make their personal thoughts public to the world? if emily dickinson were alive today, would she be blogging? doubtful. she would probably be alienated and continue hiding her poems in her underwear drawer. with that in mind, i leave with a poem, entitled "the loneliness one dare not sound":


The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --

The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --

I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --


1863

standing on tip-toes

35 degrees, the texas sun is shining, and one 19-month old (blonde hair at ends, tongue out) is learning to walk on his toes. it's thrilling apparently, this toe-walk of the truly awkward, truly tiny dancer. it's a cliche, that the child's eyes are full of wonder, that for the under-3-feet set, every tip-toe across the earth is a tap-dance worth celebrating. but it is true. and so it is in honor of that wonder -- of that very basic, childlike delight in living and breathing and throwing raisins at the window -- that i write this first blog post.

hopefully it will be more than a grocery list of the day's banalities. hopefully it won't dwell on every advancement, stumble, temper-tantrum, and finger painting masterpiece in the life of blonde "baby o". hopefully it will be more about what has to date been an awfully timid, much discussed quest for a life-less-conventional, a life-less-burdened, a life that has more to seek out than the golden career, the gold-trimmed car, and the gold-lined coffin. my baby-daddy, "papa p," laments the new American dream: the cradle-to-the-cubicle-to-the nursing home. can't we do something different? can we give "baby o" the chance to toe-dance on mountains and continents? can we demonstrate to him that we too wonder at this spinning world? will we give him empty lessons on morality and wisdom, or will we actually act out our ideals of social justice and freedom? "freedom".... will that be just some people talking? (I promise, faithful reader, that this is the first and last time i make reference to The Eagles.)

but i ramble. and my blog-- and my life-- certainly has a lofty vision, given that an hour ago i was at marshall's buying lace underwear. Meanwhile, the Egyptian people, in an unimaginably brave and unified scream for freedom, were toppling 30-years of tyranny. According to Democracy Now, they were celebrating with cartwheels in the streets of Cairo.