Transition

Function: noun

1 a : passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : CHANGE b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another

2 a : a musical modulation b : a musical passage leading from one section of a piece to another

3 : an abrupt change in energy state or level (as of an atomic nucleus or a molecule) usually accompanied by loss or gain of a single quantum of energy

This week's personal transition is a number 3 according to Merriam-Webster. Tuesday was my last day of work at my high school, where I taught English to seniors this past year. This is my fourth year at my first high school teaching job (although it was only my third year teaching due to a leave of absence last year). Teaching is a full contact sport. When summer starts, there is an abrupt change from full energy 6 am starts to days that loom with no bells to govern when to eat or move between classes. Suddenly, the abundance of time weighs me down.

My colleagues feted my resignation with flowers and short stacks at a local pancake house before we went to work and finished our packing and grades for the year. I was finished with all my tasks by noon. So I went shopping. I don't enjoy shopping as a habit. Yet it was soothing to buy our household an expensive, razor sharp 8-inch knife. I also bought an oven thermometer for our trip to Transylvania this summer, where I hope to conjure American chocolate chip cookies from a gas stove. I dropped into a salon and treated myself to an impromptu pedicure. My toes are now buffed and bearing a shade called something like "A Taste of India." Then I was home by three o'clock with NOTHING to do. My husband wouldn't be home for hours. The house was clean. Oprah was a rerun.

So I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry's and fell into a three-hour coma with the soft blare of the television on the edge of my dreamless sleep.

Currently I am still in a state of loss. One negative quantum.

I do have many tasks to accomplish: writing, editing my book, finding an apartment in Boston, cleaning my toilet, responding to all those wonderful emails I never have time to fully address, visiting the doctor to diagnose the weird lump in my arm (he told me to come back in two weeks), feeling guilty about not working out, picking up the dry cleaning, hanging my new painting, "ism" by Scott Hatt (my very first painting!), playing tennis with my husband, reading the stacks of books that have been patiently waiting for me for months, etc. It will take a gain in quantum energy to transition into this new summer self.

I have temporarily banned Ben & Jerry's from our household.

In the meantime, my new kitchen knife slices through red bell peppers and broccoli with barely a shrug of my shoulder, no wrist action needed at all. What is more risky in times of abrupt change? Ben & Jerry's or a new kitchen knife? At least I'll be getting my daily dose of fresh vegetables.

Guest Writer: Lovella Kelley

The following piece is from my first guest writer, Lovella Kelley, who also happens to be my mother. Enjoy!

SELL MY UNDERWEAR?

I recently received one of those pass-it-on surveys by way of cyberspace and one of the questions was: What are you most afraid of? (For some reason, I actually did not delete this one as I usually do with all those chain letter things) The answer to that is- I am afraid that someone will sell my underwear in an estate sale after I die. Now, with a statement like this, you need to look at the bottom line. Actually, though this seems rather surface, there is much to be said about the bottom line. The bottom line is- I don’t want to get old and die, at least not for a long time. At 64, it is always a mystery about how long that time will be.

A few years ago, we had a neighbor whom we were really fond of. She was lively, generous, and fun to be around. When she died, we had already moved from the neighborhood. Her husband lived a year or so longer and then he died and guess what? The heirs (they had no children) had an estate sale. I went. My friend was someone special. When I saw, laid out on tables, gifts that I had given her and things that meant so much to her, with an ambiguous price tag, I felt sick. Is this estate sale all that is left? Someone sorting through your life and putting a price on each item? Selling your most precious things in life on a long, narrow table with unknown greedy people picking away for the best price for what, let’s face it, is mostly junk to anyone other than the owner, was to me very sad. Not only that, when not everything sells, they run a hot sale and put all you can get in a bag for one dollar.

I look around my home and see things that are wonderful memories of living: love, travel, history, and a great life with lots of family and friends and I wonder what to do. A family member says get rid of all that stuff, you don’t need it. I actually enjoy looking at reminders of other days and other times, and I am not dead yet, which means I continue to enjoy just looking at them and remembering who gave me the blue dolphin and the Nutcracker and the old chiming clock on the mantle. Sometimes I think they are pleasurable to look at even with a layer of dust on them. That tends to remind me that I do not have to dust them any more to enjoy their presence.

And so, do I spend my last years sorting and getting rid of my JUNK that I enjoy or do I just dump it all because I don’t need it and, after all, I am going to die sometime and then who does what with what? I contend that I do need it. I do understand that there are some who don’t want or need reminders of other days sitting around the house. When (hopefully, if) I have to move from my home into a single room at some nursing care facility, it is time enough to dump. The same family member says to that, The kids will have to sort it all out. Well, maybe so, but I think that is part of giving up a loved one and moving on without them. Maybe I will sort and label and say, dump this, treasure this. At least, that will make their chore a little easier. Maybe something in my treasures that means a lot to me will also mean something to someone else in my large extended family. If my junk is sorted and labeled, I can continue to enjoy the things I treasure while I put the sorted things into boxes to save for someone else. For instance, due to enlarged knuckles and other physical ailments, I don’t use much of the jewelry I have accumulated over these many years. I have given some away already to be enjoyed. Last week, I went through it piece by piece, put it all into little bags, and stored it on a shelf for my family to enjoy picking out the things they have treasured with me- in due time, of course.. The next morning, I was in the ER with an erratic very rapid heart beat. Now, I am thinking, all that sorting and making decisions is enough to do me in for good even sooner than I ever anticipated. In which case, sorting and labeling becomes a moot issue.

If no one wants what is left after I sort, dump, and die, please just give it away or throw it in the trash. But don’t put a price tag on my memories. And do not put my underwear on a long, narrow table with a price on it. Actually, most of it probably won’t fit anyone else anyway (not to mention there may be holes in most of them) and my undies are not desirable since the modern day thong (we used that word in reference to what is now foot covering called flip-flops) undies are not part of my wardrobe. Victoria’s Secret never fit me so well. So there! You can’t sell my underwear because it is old-fashioned and if you do, I will haunt you for the rest of your shopping days! Oh, by the way, you don’t have to look in my socks or old envelopes or books or underwear drawers for hidden money or other treasures. It would have been too easy to forget where it was. I have it all in a nice bankbook that I can keep track of it and remember where I have put it, usually. And everything else is sorted and labeled! One more thing, it is forbidden to include my 1960 picture with my obit!

Back in the Back Bay

I arrived in Boston late last night and hit the road this morning on a hunt for the perfect apartment--which is determined by a combination of gut emotional response (see the elegant Japanese screen! The granite counter tops are so shiny!) and geographical calculations--proximity to T stops and grocery stores. Thus far I am a little bit in love with a place near Coolidge Corner. But I have been know to be fickle. I do like my real estate agents--can we be friends later? Or is that just awkward?

I suppose we should rent a place now that our perfect house in South Bend has sold or at least the sale is pending. Real Estate makes abstract decisions real, really real. Let's Move to Boston! becomes OH! There goes our bungalow to strangers! (who, at least, are desperately in love and she is an architect).

The school year is mostly finished--my senior English students finished two days earlier than the underclassman. We said our goodbyes. I got a few handwritten thank you notes, one or two "See ya later and oh yeah, Thanks" and one heartfelt sought-me-out to say goodbye. Mostly they checked out months ago--somewhere after prom or their senior project presentations. We have two more professional days next week with meetings and time to clean out our desks and tear down classroom posters. How do I feel about the end of my career at my first high school teaching job? Mixed. Summer is always good; knowing that I won't return is not so good. Not knowing what is next....more teaching, scholarly work, fiction writing, tiny tots.....requires deep breathing and self-permission to indulge in a berry berry muffin with my afternoon tea.

(The guy next to me in the cafe is named Suzanne and he is expounding about why zebras were never domesticated. Apparently they are quite vicious. There you go.)

Tomorrow is another day hitting the streets for an apartment. Then I fly home in time for our Saturday trip to the Farmers Market (where does the apostrophe go? they don't use one, I swear). Sunday is high school graduation. Monday back to work. Tuesday will be a half day at work. Then official summer. Time to write!

Writerly Quote of the Day

"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

--Colette

Read any good books?

Check out the reading recommendations for their recent favorites by these authors (see strangely disembodied floating heads above) and many more (including Stephen King and Elizabeth Gilbert among others) from the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/books/review/Survey-t.html#


Pictured above from top left, Nora Ephron, Dave Eggers,
Ursula K. Le Guin, Jonathan Safran Foer,
Edwidge Danticat, Gary Shteyngart, Kathryn Harrison, Jeffrey Eugenides.

Swan Lake

A scene from a Chinese version of "Swan Lake," by the Guangdong Military Acrobatic Troupe, featuring Wu Zhengdan and Wei Baohua.

An amazing 48 seconds.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=3f5112778b7fa7051ee5b20dd6b0aecb7164037f

15 Sentence Portrait

Starlight White

We had been sitting on the unforgiving plank seat of the picnic table for a heart-to-heart when my dad scooped me up and held me, my spindly spine drawing a neat line down his chest. The dusk light turned my fingertips faintly yellow, the color of pollen too stubborn to be washed off in the bath. My stomach was a hard chasm and my throat thick with the warm milk that was supposed to have put me to sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of school and my fingers flexed like a basketball player miming a free-throw shot, ready and nervous to press my freshly sharpened pencils into the mysterious shapes of the ABCs.

All summer I had waited, planned, and dreamed about tomorrow, but not any tomorrow, tomorrow’s tomorrow: it was the evening before my first day of kindergarten at Prairie Hills elementary school. I had to ride the bus alone. My red and black backpack was packed with Big Chief paper and a box of tissues for the classroom. I wanted to be new like my new supplies, a brand new grown up girl instead of the little girl who stayed at home with her mother while the big kids went to school.

My dad pointed toward the lights at the edge of the prairie grass. We watched the fireflies flit freely near the lawn’s limit. My Dad, who must have sat here with his other three daughters and maybe even my brother, breathed gently into my ear. The taste of mint lingered in the air as I absentmindedly ran my tongue across my freshly scrubbed teeth. The stars were cool pinpricks behind my eyes.

Dad told me, “Just scream them out.” My little-girl lips opened wide in a high pitched scream and as the butterfly wings raced toward the stars, soft traces of their wings gathered in the creases of my smile—the starlight white smile I would give the next morning for my new teacher, Mrs. Drew.

(with thanks to Ms.Nic.)

Ted Kooser and Me

Ted Kooser
(click on image to enlarge)

Last night we managed to find our way to the Dowagiac Fine Arts Festival to listen to Ted Kooser read his poems. We were running late, of course. It was only our second trip to Dowagiac and we were unsure of the way. Luckily we had my new favorite toy: a gps device. It shows and tells you where to go. I love pushing its buttons. L. finally had to suggest I might want to enjoy the lovely scenery instead of the virtual fields and lakes.

We had tickets dead center and about halfway back from the podium in the quite posh Dowagiac Central Middle School. Junior High never looked so good.

Ted Kooser turns me on. Wait. Ted Kooser's poetry turns me on. But it is him too. His softly angled face full of stories, ready for a joke, eyes and hands eager to get outside with his notebook calms me into a readiness to gaze into his poems and wait for the pressure of his elegant verse to set off little explosions under my skin.

He is one of those poets who have that power to compel me to pay attention. To observe. To listen. He is not flashy or aggressive. He doesn't demand attention. I just find myself turned inside out when listening to his poems. If he asked me about my deepest secrets, I would tell him with comfort. One of those types.

I am sure not everyone feels this way about Ted. But maybe not.

Maybe it is because I am from Kansas and he is from Nebraska.

L. and I were two of the youngest audience members in the sizable crowd. What an honor. What a shame that more young people (by young, I am thinking 40 or under) didn't come out to hear these words simply spoken with such delight and power.

He read two of my favorites "Beaded Purse" and "Tattoo." I heard "A Washing of Hands" in a new way. He also read a poem about a couple splitting a roast beef sandwich. I can't find it in my copy of "Delights and Shadows", his 2004 book of poems. I want a copy of that poem. Please let me know if you know it.

He read one poem that he had composed that morning. It was a portrait or "snapshot" poem he had written called "Will Work for Food" and depicted a person living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Kooser makes it his habit to write every morning from 4:30 - 7:00. For something like 30 years he sold insurance and had to find a time to write. After serving as poet laureate of the United States two times, he nevertheless maintains his morning writing routine.

Kooser's poetry starts in observation. He sees insects. He sees his wife washing her hands. He sees stories. He sees humor and pathos. He sees strangers. His poetry does not start in the depths of the Bodleian stacks tangled in linguistic theory. You do not need to read Dante in the original or be able to define "trochaic" to understand and find pleasure in his words. You do not need a PhD. You need to be human. You would be surprised that many are unsure about how to meet this qualification.

Ted Kooser’s poems give me pleasure. They don’t stretch my vocabulary or sting my political correctness. They don’t spur me on to political revolution or social activism. They make me aware of the delicate pleasure of being alive and call me to see the world, really see it. This is a welcome reminder for a girl who gives into the tempation of pushing buttons on a tiny handheld gps device screen instead if seeing the landscape in front of her eyes.

A few Kooser poems:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.



Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Links:

Ted Kooser's Official Site:
http://www.tedkooser.com/

A list of his published works:

http://www.tedkooser.com/works.html

Weekly Column: American Life in Poetry:

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

All you need to know about the Martini and how to pick your gin:

Spirits of The Times

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

By ERIC ASIMOV

Published: May 2, 2007

The Times tasting panel sorts out which gins produce classic martinis, which add welcome nuances and which really ought to seek another line of cocktail.