(What my mind does during lectures. Rather, where it goes)

Why are we taking tests from Iowa anyways?

I built a city today. Standing in front of sixteen middle school students, I settled the land, laid the foundations, sprawled slowly into the low-lying foothills, and spent 200 years of quiet aging. Churches, homes, barns, ski lifts, snow, trees, wind, clouds, craggy mountain tops in the curling crisp air. What I built had always been. The stories and lives of those before were not remembered, save in the earth and concrete of the place. If there were stories at all. I refused to give the place people. Daisy asked me where all the people were, and I said there weren’t any. I told her people ruin everything.

That may have been harsh.

We had standardized testing at school this morning, which means I’m supposed to hand out the little orange and purple booklets with intelligent looking kids laughing, printed on the front. Read some stupid instructions about how to fill in a bubble properly (which, if you ask me, ought to be part of the test; if they can’t figure out how to answer “D. All of the above” then I think they should be banned from being assessed. We have bigger issues than reading competency here. Little Suzy can’t shade in an oval).

But they didn’t ask me. So I mumbled through the instructions (my flippancy was appreciated) and just got them started on the stupid thing. Besides, let’s be honest: when you’re in the 6th grade, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills at 9 a.m. on Monday the 6th of February is the least of your worries. Put on the scale next to John McHormones and Susan B. Popularity…I’d say they’ve got more on the mind than what time the train, leaving southbound around 6 p.m. and traveling at a speed of 40 mph, will arrive in Topeka if it makes three stops, and has a headwind of roughly 15 mph. That gosh-dang zephyr doesn’t stand a chance.

And so I doodled. Not on a small scale, mind you. I did have the next three hours (broken down into five increments and one game of Heads-Up Seven-Up to get the blood flowing). So I used the white board as my canvas and I created a whole village. I wish you could have seen it, really I do. It sort of started with just a main street and a few houses, but three hours is a long time for my imagination to frolic around with a dry-erase marker.

I’d rather not try to describe it all for you. I don’t think you’d get it. You can’t feel it. You can’t start from one end of the room and see this rough, cartoonish doodle, move closer step by step and become engrossed in the smudges, the eraser marks amongst the pine grove on the western edge of a mountain. You can’t see that the tiny cross-like structures are actually a ski lift, or that the house with round windows must have a fire going because its chimney puffs frozen dots of cloud. You can’t choose which house you would live in, let alone tell me why. You can’t see the distinction between the deciduous trees of the town center and the wild conifers growing in the crook of two mountains.

But it was a hell of a drawing, I tell you. I was pretty proud.

And then I got sad all of a sudden. I realized that the place I drew didn’t exist, and that my apartment in Naperville, Illinois, was quite the disappointment compared to my white-board drawing. It wasn’t like a sharp sadness, like the stinging insult of a door slamming on your finger. Or the sort of sadness that comes from the loss of something that means more than life to you. No one has died, nothing was taken. It’s a deeper sadness. One that you can’t shake for the life of you. It’s a longing for that which doesn’t exist, a pining for…something you can’t quite put your finger on. You can’t describe it, because that would give it actuality, and end up killing or cheapening it. Whatever this “It” is, it isn’t something that you can speak metaphorically about, because it has no comparison and it isn’t akin to anything in reality. It is wholly other. It is, quite simply, the Imagined.

When did we stop creating things? When in life did we reach the age where, in our exhaustion, we began to prefer the creativity of others to fill the imagination in our lives? When television replaced books for our pastime, when “Lego’s” became “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and we no longer had to create our own worlds before we played in them, we simply had to exist, eyes glued to the screen, within the parameters of an overly-stimulated universe that answered all of our questions and didn’t beg any doubts? When we no longer needed to decide, down in the unfinished basement, if we were going to be mad scientists or gun-wielding robots out to conquer the world, before we began playing?

I kept stepping back from my drawing, while my students scratched furiously at those elusive little ovals. I’d move forward again, then step back. Draw a line here and there, then step back. When they were all done with their tests, I told my students to call me in ten years if they felt like they had lost their imaginations. I told them that that was the easiest way they could make me cry. I’m not sure if they thought I was serious or just kind of weird.

I built a city today. Ken the janitor probably erased it already. But it’s okay. I’m left with no choice but to create another tomorrow. Thank God for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and my job as a proctor.

On the Nature of My Writing

I have this problem in life. Life, in general, no specific area. There are those people who bite off more than they can chew, who always seem harried and in a rush. These people bother me. I want to grab them by the shoulders as they run past, to interrupt for one brief moment their overscheduled day. To shake them vigorously. Maybe trip them getting off the elevator. (Yes, I know. What I just wrote is the script of at least 34 different Hollywood films. Except, I don’t want them to slow down because there is this woman who works as a florist and if I can mess up their schedule for only one day they’ll end up getting married, happily ever after. Or they’ll save a kid from imminent death if their groove just gets tweaked by two minutes and they miss their train, thus throwing their life into a progression of comical and yet eye opening little incidents culminating in a heroic and death-defying flurry of activity. No, I want to stop them simply because they bother me. That’s all. Thought it’d be deeper than that, didn’t you? Those people are just exhausting to be around).

Then there are those people like me. The ones with the converse problem. We are the people who have a superfluity of apples, and yet never even bite because, after all, where to start? We don’t bite off more than we can chew, we just simply don’t bite because we know that to begin chewing is an endeavor we aren’t certain we’re ready to embark on. Take, for instance, my writing. On a given day I have 3 good ideas pop into my head, and 1 great idea. Now, if it’s a Monday, forget about writing any of these down. I’m lucky to be on the conscious side of a coma. And Tuesday is small group. Wednesday? Never heard of it. Thursday is quite simply a preoccupation with Friday, thus leading to the inception of the weekend which I’m not convinced exists yet because I can never seem to remember it until Sunday at 6 p.m. And so by 6 p.m. on Sunday night I have a grand total of 21 good ideas and 7 great ideas, and not the slightest filter to divide them into some relevant categories. So I just don’t. I usually eat instead.

The end. Well, not quite. What I just wrote is quite simply an introduction to my next post that I will write tonight. And if no next post comes? The above is my explanation (not to you, more so to myself).

Typical Evening, Monday 12/20/10

It feels as if I ought to do more, I ought to have something profound and long to say. After such a hefty hiatus without a post, after so much life has happened, after so much ground has been traversed, I find myself, in my heart, simple. I do not speak with grandeur, but my heart is charged with it.

Do this: turn life off. Stop the quickening pace, the ever onward rushing, doing. Admit that the world is a terrifying and overwhelming and choking place, that if you slow down long enough to think about the 'future' you are scared witless. Admit that you, quite frankly, suck at keeping all the loose strings of life's balloons gripped firmly in your sweaty palms. Those damn things just keep slipping up up and away, and, yeah it's fun to watch them go but you inevitably begin to think about how miserable it is once they disappear. There it goes, that was the fun. You now have one less balloon.

Stop all that. Find some quiet. Gather your teammates (you say at this point 'what? what are you talking about?'). Those who you can afford to be quiet with. Those who you laugh in front of, but moreover cry in front of. Those who could easily do without you, but choose not to anyways.

And then just sit. See what happens.

This is a post about that, and that is all. I am in the midst of this now, and I could not afford not to write about it. Because tomorrow will come (it always does) and I will be too busy to enjoy it (I always am). But for tonight, let me acknowledge the peace that comes with resting. Not sleeping, not rotting my mind in front of a movie. But rest. Letting my heart just be.

Confused yet? It's okay. You weren't here to rest your heart with me. So I understand. Buuuuuuuuut, you ought to try it anyways. As it goes:

"If you want to feel alive,

Then learn to love your ground."

This is my ground, and here I have my roots.

Lilia, In Answer To Your Question

Had small group on Tuesday night, like I do most Tuesday nights nowadays (it's going well thank you). I got to talking with a friend of mine afterwards, the man whose house it was we were meeting in, and a talking to turned into a full on conversation, so we did what any sane man would do on a Tuesday night after small group. We poured a glass of whiskey and coke and sat down to hash life out.

Not the point of the story though. See, while we were talking, my friend's seven year old daughter comes waltzing in, cute as pie. She can't sleep yet, because she hasn't kissed daddy goodnight (naturally, who could?). She kisses him, and then pulls back a little, looking at him with a grown woman's eyes.

"Are you drinking beer daddy?"

That's all she wants to know, this seven year old. And I think shoot man she caught us. They start out young, these women. Crafty.

But my friend just smiled and said "no honey, it's better than that."

Her eyes got real big. You could see the straining going on in that pretty little head, the cogs twirling at a hundred miles an hour. Finally she gets it.

"You're drinking root beer?"

Because, after all, we as an advanced form of human life know that the logical step on the scale of goodness begins with beer and then proceeds straight to the pinnacle of delicious and coveted beverages, that being root beer and only root beer. It's logic people.

What's happened to us, as we've grown up? Since when did we stop thinking root beer was the only answer to the question of "what's better than______"? Since when did we stop considering it astounding that a grown man would drink root beer late at night, not because it's bad for the teeth but because, heaven help us, you're allowed to enjoy something as good as root beer on just an ordinary Tuesday night? Since when did we commit to our memories our every pain and heartache, noting down the things that've burned us that we might not make the same mistake twice? I watch my friends daughter as she goes running around the hardwood floors, knowing that she's going to slip and bang a knee because I've seen her do it not ten minutes ago. But when she falls, it's like falling for the first time. She can't believe that a slippery floor could yield so much resistance when met with a bare knee, and astounded, as if personally affronted, the tears well up. I could've told her not too. I remember running on hardwood myself.

But that's the problem. We remember. We remember when we've fallen, and the older we get the more calculated our every move is to avoid the repetition of such a stupid mistake. Me, I remember the last time I loved a girl. She ended up falling out of love in quite a boring fashion, so now I wait for love to come hauling back around and hit me like a bus. I remember the last time I was generous with a friend. Think he ended up just forgetting to thank me, and here I sit feeling like a fool for ever giving up my effort. I remember the last time I let my family down. Couldn't seem to meet their eyes or expectations, and now I just keep it so no soul ever depends on me for anything. Because it's safer this way. Hell, if you remember the answers to the quiz, why would you study the questions? You know the outcomes, so choose to defer involvement in the game.

And so we grow. Up, old, into adults, and ever so boring. But not me. No, I think I've made up my mind. If we live in a world of kids vs. adults, then I know where my loyalties lie. I'd rather choose the team where running on hardwood is recommended because it's slippery and fun as heck, not cautioned against because these knees can't take it anymore. I'd rather choose the team where root beer is the apex of delight, why? Because it's a damn good beverage and should be enjoyed for that purpose alone. I'd rather choose the team that chooses to forget the pains and heartaches, not because they didn't happen, but because they aren't worth slowing down for.

So there you have it Lilia, my little pink pajama-ed friend. Yes, we're drinking root beer. But don't tell mom.

Oh Suburbia

We live lives of irony, here in downtown Suburbia. It's the land between lands, for those who can't quite commit to the chaotic relational hotbox of the city, but are terrified that a Thoreauic life in the middle of nowhere would glaringly reveal our blandness. After all, what would we update our Facebook statuses with?

Lest you think I am making mountains out of molehills, let me explain:

A woman in a burka just walked by. I am curious, is she coming to or from the clubs just a block over? A girl wearing less clothing than I sleep in came out of the restaurant across the street. It's 50 degrees out, and windy. The elevation she gets from those heels can't be helping the situation, as, I imagine, it's hard to reach a trot before an ankle is twisted. At least the up and down exercise might fight off hypothermia until Ken doll gets the car. The guy with the blowout hair is wearing a massive silver rosary. How can I see it? Because his shirt is unbuttoned far enough to see the spot just above his navel that he forgot to wax. Maybe he's just out of Mass and couldn't be bothered with changing before happy hour was over at Senor Frogs.

I could go on. Talk about the roving bands of teenagers (where in the hell are you going? none of you can buy booze and nothing else is being sold at this hour...) or the group of 13 girls and 1 guy that just walked past (...make a friggin choice already man!). But I'll stop. This blog post isn't going anywhere. Or is it already there? Mmm...deep...

And all this from a coffee shop at 10:45 on a Saturday night, as the 6'2" guy in a flannel shirt asks the barista for a pumpkin spice latte.

Friends

If I have learned anything from recent life, it is just this: inhibition among dear friends is quite simply a waste of time. (Let me explain, lest you jump to the conclusion that I am promoting rampant drunkenness and rowdiness, excused if and only precipitated among friends. Though therein is another recent life lesson…but that is not for now).

I refer mainly to that inhibition of actions, a self-consciousness, we so often fall prey to when we are in constant company with those we most love. It is the brief pause in a phone conversation that turns an awkward silence into a premature goodbye, quick, before we are both left with nothing else to talk about. It is the mindlessness that deceives us into staying on the couch rather than braving the cold walk to our friend’s apartment because, after all, it is late and what would we do anyways? It is the festering resentment that we quite simply can’t be bothered to resolve because, in all honesty, it would clearly take too much effort to broach the subject and, as they say, time will heal all.

How silly all that seems now.

Now, a phone call is not mapped out, there is no agenda, no reason for the call. The call is the reason. The end goal is to be, however fleetingly, in the presence of the one called. Thus, all inhibition is lost. A prolonged silence is not a rift in the conversation or a breakdown in communication. Indeed, it serves more than words could. In that silence there is the fierce acknowledgement that to hang up, to rush a conclusion, would mean an acknowledgement of the spatial chasm between you and I, and that is quite simply too ugly, too raw a thing to acknowledge. And so we sit, the silence hanging, defying life’s paths that have so separated us, dear friends.

Now, a cold walk seems like such a trivial pain to keep us apart. What separates us now is a few hundred dollars and a day of travel, to mention nothing of Employment and that which it entails, and even in that there is barely reason enough to tether me down, keep me from visiting you. How I regret all of those spent minutes, wasted because of the weather.

Now, any quarrel or resentment seems as trivial as the tabloids. I can no longer afford the luxury of such triviality. To think that anything other than distance will separate us is seemingly absurd, petty nonsense. Inhibition, that feeling that makes one self-conscious to the nth degree, freezing the burning lump in one’s stomach to act in a manner true to who they are at their core, is a precious waste of even more precious time. If there exists that which would keep me from you, let it be nothing more than the inevitability that comes with living as adults in different parts of the world. And let even that be laughable.

This is what I say then: save your inhibition for those you care nothing about. All the time in the world can be wasted on them. But among those few, those of the inner circle, those who know you for you, those who deserve nothing less then the truth of your dependence on them, give inhibition no root. There is far too little time for that.

My Midwest Manifesto

The thing I've realized about blogging is that you stop once life becomes normal. You figure, oh hell, what's the point in writing if what I'm doing day in and day out is just as dull as what Tom is doing in the cubicle next to me?

Good news: I'm not in a cubicle and I don't have a coworker named Tom so my blogging can continue.

I've got 1.5 weeks of adult life under my belt. 8 full days of teaching behind me. 60 plus hours of lesson prepping logged. 15 hours of life wasted in traffic on the way. And 1 pulled hamstring from gym class dodgeball. And so I will write about the weather.

Disclaimer: if you are not from the Midwest, you may not understand any of the following.

Today is/was one of those days that Beauty has filled so full you almost choke on it. In typical Midwest fashion, summer left without so much as a fare-thee-well, and autumn has arrived. Rather, it seems as if autumn was already here, just waiting for the other seasons to desist in all of their busy distractions, waiting for us to just stop long enough to live. It is as if to say, hold. Stop talking, stop working, stop sweating through life at such a breathtaking rate. Simply be. Let the first cool breeze of autumn fill your lungs and remind you that it is enough to just breathe. That there is enough cause for bewilderment and joy in that act alone. The haze of summer has passed, lifting away with it the lazy weeds that have so long wrapped round our legs, holding us in its sticky sweet embrace. The fall winds have slapped us awake, biting through the slowness in our minds, reminding us that winter will be upon us before we know it. But it is not in a rude way, or a despondent way. It is not a foreshadowing of the dark to come, but simply a reminder of the dusk we are in. It is as if watching a fireworks show, when the petty cracklers and single blast rockets that have distracted us for so long give way to the grand finale. We immediately sit up, realizing in embarrassment how tame the show has been up until this point, how tawdry were those forays of sound compared to the chest squeezing concussions of now. And we know that in a mere matter of minutes it will all be over, that the sky will go black again, that all that will remain is the smoke and sulfur of the show. We will fold our blanket, store our lawn chairs in the trunk, driving home to the sweeping and dusting, the entertaining, the relatives, the dog scratching at the back door, the cooking and eating, the clutter that is life. But not for one second does that take away from the glory of the finale. Not one second do we consider simply getting on with what must be gotten on with and leaving early. Not once would we wish that the finale had never started, that the ordinary show had just lasted longer, or that it would be over already so we could hear once again, make small talk with neighbors once again. We become lost in the finale, our hearts beating in time with the blasts, imagining that this will be forever. The power of the present wipes clean the slate of the past, and pushes away any hopes for the future. It is enough to just be now.

Such is autumn in the Midwest. Live here for a lifetime, and you will understand. You will know days like today, days when you want to do absolutely nothing, shirking all responsibility and cutting all ties, not because you are lazy, but because the day is already full enough just being alive.

"Tears, idle tears,

I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair,

Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more."

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson