Shit English Teachers Think About During the Summer

Thoughts on Harper Lee

GSaW is about Scout developing her individual moral consciousness, separate from her Father. The moment happens, but we are not given evidence of how she has really changed. I think Lee used that as the central storyline, the racial tensions are context. Yet by the time she finished TKM, she seems to set aside this feminist awakening and instead focuses entirely on the race issue. In part because she goes back to tell the story from Scout’s childhood.  But I also see that she in TKM actually embodies Scout’s awakening in GSaW and writes the story that demonstrates her feminism without having to explicitly use it as a plot device.  I know this collapses Lee into Scout, which may be unfair. In her case, as these are her only two extant works, it is certainly tempting.  

In any case, she had to write GSaW first. She had to write her way through Scout's (and her own?) awakening. And thus Lee found her power and her voice, which became the younger Scout and her ability to tell Lee's story about racism and the South.  

June Eighteenths

Brought to you by yet another external memory device, Facebook notifications. We are cyborgs.

**

June 18, 2014 

I had my first shot of espresso at the newly opened Mantra in Budapest.

June 18, 2012

It was Move-in Day at our new apartment in Budapest. It was a Tuesday. The forecast called for 90 degrees and 0% chance of rain. I wore red shoes, a yellow shirt, a white top, and a summer straw hat.

June 18, 2011

I brought my daughter to the emergency room at St. Janos Children’s hospital in Budapest. She had gashed her chin by falling off her bed onto a hard wooden floor, chin first.  She wore silver strappy shoes, a blue and yellow printed skirt, and a yellow shirt. She smiled for the camera. She had two large styes on her left eye, a bandage on her chin.

June 18, 2009
My midwife told me that I was positive for strep B and would require an IV at my second birth.  This was bad news. Then my husband walked into my consultation room with two freshly broken arms. He had been in a bicycle accident and rode himself to the doctor’s office.  This was really bad news.  Iza was seventeen months old and not yet walking. Leo was born on June 30.

This poem by Ted Kooser, Splitting an Order

Splitting an Order
by Ted Kooser


I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,

maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,

no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady

by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table

and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,

and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,

observing his progress through glasses that moments before

he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half

onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,

and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife

while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,

her knife and her fork in their proper places,

then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees

and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.


http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/09/08

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

I recently finished this highly acclaimed novel. The first passage I underlined in the text was on page 32.  It took that long for my brain to learn the book's language.  It also took me that many pages to remember I could underline.  This is the first "real" book I've read in a long time.  I switched to reading on my iPhone when my kids were small. But after reading reviews of McBride's book, I knew I would never be able to digest it's modernist style in digital format.

Memorable quotes 

(Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2014)

"Going foot to foot to foot to foot. Spinning wheels round digging. Crunch as glass on the axel rod." p. 32

"Later it ran up me. Legs stomach knees chest up head. Like smoke in my lungs to be coughed out. I'd throw up excitement. What is it? Like a nosebleed. Like a freezing pain. I felt me not me. Turning to the sun. Feel the roast of it. Like sunburn. Like a hot sunstroke. Like globs dropping in. Through my hair. Spat skin with it. Blank my eyes the dazzle. Huge shatter. Me who is just new. Fallen out of the sky. What. Is lust it? That's it. The first splinter. I. Give in scared. If I would. Stop. Him. Oh God. Is a mortal mortal sin." p. 55

"I don't think I will be clean now. Think instead I'll have revenge for lots of all kinds of things. The start is. That is love." p. 61

"How would they ever understand my life is more than cider? Complex than that." p. 74

"Saying yes is the best of powers. It's no big thing the things they do." p. 77

"So so we are just the one of us now. Me." p. 90

"My heart go bang at no go back now no go back. Some new education begins." p. 91

"Will hear him tell me he's how old a lot oh God lotter than me. I am addling but good to be seen. It's very good to be seen." p. 95

"Wash my body on or off and think I'll be some new a disgrace. Slap in the alley with no doubt rats I am leaving. Epiphany. I am leaving home. I've picked up and left. Fresh. I'm already gone." p. 96

"I love the. Something of it all. Feeling ruined. Fucking. Off. I'm ready. Ready ready. To be this other one. To fill out the corners of this person who doesn't sit in photos on the mantel next to you." p. 98

"The answer to every single question is Fuck." p. 146

"Trains passing like teeth through my head." p. 151

"I walk the street. City. Running through my mouth. Running in my teeth the. Me eyes are. All the things. The said the done what there what's all this? That stuff. I could do. My. I walk the street. Who's him? That man. Who's him there having a looking at me he. Look at my. Tits. Ssss. Fuck word. No don't. Fuck that. No. Will. Not that. Not. That. But. If I want to then I can do. And it would fill me up fine. And I. I do. Do it. Take him back with me. Give him. The word. I want that. Hurt me. Until I am outside the pain." p. 163

"Me the thing but I. Think I know. Is that the reason for what's happened? Me? The thing. Wrong." p. 179

"Think. There's a there's a world's not this." p. 185

Useful links:

The White Review interview with Eimear McBride:

http://www.thewhitereview.org/interviews/interview-with-eimear-mcbride/

The New Yorker Review

"Useless Prayers"  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/useless-prayers

Top Ten Books

I compiled this list in September, 2014 in response to a Facebook meme.  The idea was to list the first ten books and/or authors that came to mind and describe why they are important.  The books that came to mind (without the aid of my bookshelves) are those that are connected to a shared reading experience. 

I dug this out of my writing notes today because I just finished reading Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen, his memoir.  It prompted me to consider what episodes and texts in my life I might include in a memoir.  

Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter.  

This book was given to me by my Grandma Anna Mae Kelley as a Christmas present when I was around ten. 

John Grisham

Reading his thrillers in high school was one of the first times I got drawn into the excitement of waiting with a friend for the next book by an author. 

Stephen King

Reading anything by him when I was in high school was intense.  Again he created a little society of readers who dared to read him.  The experience of reading Gerald's Game in one night through the dawn was terrifying.  I didn't read him again until The Cell. 

The Places You Will Go by Dr. Seuss

This was a key book at my high school graduation and at my wedding. I loved rereading it recently and noticing how the difficulties of life are so vividly portrayed. 

Blindness by Jose Saramago

This is a hard book.  I like hard books.  And that scene on the balcony is worth the entire book. And I'm afraid of going blind.

The Red Tent By Anita Diamant

This book is on the list because of the foundational role it played in my book club.  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd also makes the list for the same reason.

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

It is an epic tale of living in America as an immigrant.  It is a book I've found myself giving to people.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

It is a short book, yet it captured life in contemporary Japan and caught the imaginations of my classmates at Saint Mary's. 

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I am not even sure why/when I first read this.  Not even sure why it is on the list other than perhaps it was one of my first tastes of the modernist style.  And I once quoted it at length in a love letter.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

This play became the heart of many relationships for me.

Magyar Irodalomóra

The following is both my first attempt to write fiction in Hungarian and my first attempt to teach in Hungarian.  My language class asked us to prepare a presentation on the topic of our choice.  Other students presented on wine-tasting, Japan, marriage, and tourism in Hungary.  I choose to create the beginning of a story and develop a lesson plan around it.

It was fascinating to write fiction in another language.  My vocabulary is very restricted which shaped the story I created.  But it also forced me to infuse every sentence with action.

I post it here mostly for my own sake as a way to preserve my little language learning efforts.

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

Magyar Irodalomóra

Olvassátok el a szöveget. Amikor találsz egy új szót, írd a táblára.

***

Rejtély

A munka után a barátok bementek a kávéházba. Leültek és rendeltek. Nyugodtan beszéltek a napjukról.
Szilvia csak nézte a telefonját. Hirtelen felállt és szó nélkül kiment az utcára. A többiek halkan és gyorsan beszéltek róla.
--Kepzeljétek el, a férje komolyan beteg lett. Azt hallottam, életveselyes.
--Ne mondd már! Kitől hallottad ezt? Nem beteg! Elvesztette a munkáját két héttel ezelőtt.
--Na, ne mondd már!  Nem igaz! Azt hallottam, hogy új munkát kapott, de az új cég arra kötelezte, hogy költözzön el valahova Dél-Koreába.

Szilvia odalépett az asztalhoz. A barátai kíváncsian felnéztek. Meg akartak tudni az igazságot. Nem kérdeztek semmit mert megijedtek az arcától. Az arca holt sápadt volt. Az egyik keze remegett. Majdnem elejtette a telefonját.  Nem ült le.

Ott termett a pincér. Letett az asztalra egy drága üveg pezsgőt és négy magas poharat.

Szilva kezébe vette az üveget és kezdte kihúzni a dugót. A barátok féltek a dugótól. Ki is jött belőle halkan és finoman, mint egy kielégitett nőből a sóhaj.

A többiek csak bámultak egymásra.

Szilvia az asztal körül sétált. A pezsgőből töltögetett a barátainak, végül magának is.

A barátok nem tudtak mit mondani. Ilyenkor sütit és kávét szoktak fogyasztani. Most nem tudták, mi történik.

Szilvia felemelte a poharát. Lassan a többiek is.
--Igaz, ugye, barátaim, hogy süt a nap? Én rendeltem a különleges buborékost mert...

Nem tudta folytatni. A barátok már tűkön ültek.

--Igyátok meg --súgta Szilvia.

A barátok kiitták a poharakból a pezsgőt.

A pincér odament és letette a számlát, mert már egy ideje a terem másik végéből figyelte a jelenetet. Úgy döntött, hogy jobb ha fizetnek és távoznak.

Csengett egy telefon. Szilvia ránézett a telefonjára és kikapcsolta.
--Barátaim, nincs sok időnk. Hallgassatok meg és csináljátok, amit mondok. A kabátotokat a táskátokat, mindent hagyjatok itt. Fussatok el!

***

Kepzeljétek el a végét! Válaszoljatok a kérdésekre. Önálló munka.

Hány évesek?

Hol dolgoznak? Együtt?

Kivel beszélt Szilvia telefonon?

Miért szól sok pletyka a ferjéról?

Miért nem ivott Szilvia a pezsgőből?

Mi a te véleményed, milyen baj van?

Szilvia jó ember vagy rossz? Beteg?

Mit fognak csinálni a barátok? Mit fognak mondani? Tényleg birkák lennének?


***

Mit történik ez utàn? Rövid legyen! Nem kell a mese végét tudni.
Mondjátok el!

Humor Project: How Scientists Make People Laugh

I have neglected The Humor Project on my blog.  I have been more aware of my humor and lack-of-humor since I vowed to do something about it way back in June, 2014.

For example, my kids begged to watch Sponge Bob. I relented when they offered the following justification, "But, Mom, it's funny!"  I thought, huh.  They need to learn humor somehow. And then months later I found myself on a Saturday morning at the theater watching Sponge Bob in 3D. And it was funny!

At some point I will write more about this self-improvement endeavor.  However, the best I can do right now is offer this:

http://ideas.ted.com/how-scientists-make-people-laugh-to-study-humor/

My recent humor fail:  I frequently, but not always, remark that something my kids do is "Hillari-ASS."  This was funny, to me.  But guess who thinks everything and everyone is Hillari-ASS now? Yep, my 5-year-old son.  Moments like this make living in Hungary super hillari-ASS.  Another loud, crude American laughing at his own jokes.  (I still think it is funny.)

And for your daily does of laughter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBXKoZQwvDE

Gender Tales: At the Toy Store

Leo, with great pleasure and excitement, trying to make small talk, says to the (male) attendant at the toy store:  "Look, we have this same toy in the nursery school!" (Lifts up a plastic hair dryer.)

Attendant:  "Oh, that's cool!  But you don't play with it, right?"

Leo: Returns the toy to the shelf.

Leo:  "No."

Me: "I'm sure you do.  It's a cool toy."

Leo:  No comment


Whom do he think he listens to?




previous posts on gender, kids, and Budapest:

http://jkkelleywritenow.blogspot.hu/2014/06/kids-are-not-dumb-what-boy-learns-from.html

http://jkkelleywritenow.blogspot.hu/2014/04/raising-kids-in-budapest-gender-tales.html

My Revolution: I am not a survivor, not yet.

I am a mother, a teacher, and a writer.

I am not a survivor of domestic abuse. 

I am not a survivor of sexual assault or rape.  At least not yet.

It is the “not yet” that I have grown up with.  That is the story I was told by my mother, and caring adults who wanted to keep me safe.  It is the only story I knew.

When I began working with V-Day and One Billion Rising, I heard many stories from survivors.  I am not a survivor, but I listened to their stories.  I became a witness.

And once you are a witness, you have a choice.  I choose to stand up for them.  I choose to stand against violence.  I choose a new story:  This is my revolution, a new story. 

Stand up! Shout it! Celebrate it! Write about it in your novels.  Write new song lyrics.  Include it in your paint.  Serve it with your evening meal. 

Tell this story:  you don’t have to live with the “not yet.”  You don’t have to accept the fear, the sadness, the anger, and the helplessness.  Whisper it into every child’s ear at bedtime:  You are loved.  Your body is holy.  We are beautiful creatures.  Whisper into your son’s ear:  You are loved.  Your body is holy.

1 in 3 women, 1 in 6 men are abused, assaulted in their lifetime.

Let’s take those numbers and bear witness to them.  Be in awe.  Be in shock.  And then do something:  Tell a new story.  Together we can bear witness and demand change.

I am not a survivor, not yet.  My children are not survivors, not ever.

-----written for One Billion Rising Revolution 2015

One Billion Rising Budapest: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Onebillionrising-Budapest/386519391435246?ref=br_tf

One Billion Rising One:  http://www.onebillionrising.org/

Secretions

The baby did not blink as creamy white milk thickened with stomach acid cascaded over her lips and down her bare stomach. The vomit coated her mother’s breast and fell onto the couch as she straightened her elbows. That was when the baby shrieked. She was dangling midair, naked, shivering in her own spit-up. She peed her diaper. Then she stopped crying. She always calmed down after a good pee. The sweet release of pressure in her stomach made her placid. Until the damp made her itch. Then she simply whimpered. Relief of one kind led to discomfort of another degree. And now her stomach, a greedy walnut, echoed across its emptiness. A groan only she could feel. A groan it would take years to put into words.


The mother set her down on the changing table and dangled a toy within her grasp. They both had the motions memorized now: the wet cloth diaper removed and tossed in the diaper bucket, the lid quickly replaced. A wipe gently eased around the babies soft, plump folds. A dry diaper velcroed into place, a tab on each side.


The mother didn’t bother with a fresh onesie and instead swaddled her firmly and put her back to the breast. Left breast, ten minutes. Then right. Then left. Right, left, right. This time the mother would fall asleep, her head angled backward into the couch’s corner, before the baby. Soon the baby would follow, still latched to the left breast. It was the sleep of exhaustion. The kind that controls you. The sleep that has no regard for hour of day or night. When the body stops, sleep takes the mind. Sleep is supposed to allow the mind to process new information and make sense of the world. This sleep cannot rise to that function. This is the sleep of the parent with a newborn. It is the sleep of the body. The body gets to reclaim itself. It is work. There is no rest. Even sleep becomes labor. Even sleep is not solitary. The baby’s sweet pucker is latched to her breast; they are still one body.


The mother remembers her panic when the baby’s cord was cut. Her husband severed her flesh with surgical scissors. She felt nothing as the scissors shut, except her heart skipped a beat in the moment after it was done. They were two. She took a deep breath and gathered the hot, slippery baby to her chest.


Now, months after the birth, the mother’s body is still the source of the baby’s every ounce of nutrition. The mother is fucking growing a human being, even now, outside her body. Yet not outside. Attached. And this connection is terrible. It is fundamental. It is the irrefutable definition of humanity. It is who we are. It is what a woman can do. It is singular. It is universal. It is the beginning. It is the future. It is tiresome. It is one long paragraph that lasts for three solid months, so far.


The mother woke from the pain in her neck and let her head roll to the other side, then down to her chin. She breathed in the air her baby exhaled. The baby made gurgles in her throat. The mother will not wake her. The baby has fallen off the breast, her face gone entirely milk drunk. The mother stared. She reached for her phone and fumbled with one hand to take a photo of this adorable baby. The mystery of her silence, her inert happiness fills the room with a giddy electric buzz. The baby will sleep for a few hours. She can see that now. She eased the baby out of her arms and into the deep cushion of the couch, placing a pillow next to her. She stood and looked at the small bundle, swaddled and serene.


The mother would fix a sandwich, a weak cup of coffee. She might dare take a hot shower, the hottest water good for her milk-heavy breasts. She will wait. And see. And scroll through the hundreds of photos on her phone since the birth. And she will be proud that this baby, her baby, exists. It is almost more than she can bear.