*
*
down in the basement of must and mold
lives a slow-burning fire
connected by wires and tubes
to the thunder-maker
life-support, hearth heartbeat
an ancient system, obsolete
a necessary antique
not mine to critique
its warm water saltsweet
*
down in the chest cavity of blood and bone
lives a slow-burning flame
connected by prayer and intent
to the liberator
keystone spirit, seven stories high
an ancient path, evergreen
not ours to refuse,
only when to choose
*
*
This memoir comes from 2005, when I was teaching English as a New Language (ENL) to kindergarten and first grade children. Now, seventeen years later, I still have “teacher dreams” like this one.
*
I am in a room filled with the brightly colored decorations and clutter of a primary class. It is 8:30 and the first student comes in bundled in snow jacket and boots and burdened with a backpack almost her size. I am teaching kindergarten (God give me strength) and it is a winter day with no outdoor recess.
A boy enters next, followed by a parent: my class mother. She greets me pleasantly and proceeds to remove her coat. There being no place for it, she folds it up and stashes it in a corner on top of her purse and a brown bag she was carrying. More students arrive with parents in tow. I become anxious, and check the week’s schedule posted on the bulletin board. No PTA program is planned. I have no choice but to whisper a question to my class mother. “Why are you all here?”
“For the math demonstration,” she replies. “Parent-child hands on math?”
“Oh.” My co-teacher and I scheduled this activity for a weeknight. Or so I thought.
Now eight parents, with bags of materials, are perched around the room. One dad has brought a guitar.
“Apparently there is some mistake,” I say with a smile. “This class was scheduled for a Thursday evening next month.”
Most of the adults do not hear me. Three look up vaguely and continue talking to their children. No one moves to put on a coat and leave. The room is crowded. Seven moms and one dad are perched on bookshelves and miniscule chairs, conversing with each other, and being interrupted by noisy children showing off their work. The rest of the students have unpacked and are milling around the room aimlessly.
A sickening knot begins to form in my gut. The room is descending into chaos. I call to the students to sit in their chairs. Most do but I see two girls go out the door. I follow them into the neighboring classroom where they are taking toys off the shelf. I speak to them severely; they put the toys back and return to the overcrowded classroom.
Maybe I can teach some math. Frantically, I search through a stack of math worksheets that I have collected for emergency lessons. All the tasks require pre-teaching new concepts. I couldn’t do that with this group. No math lesson this morning. I decide to read a book and paw through a shelf of paperbacks to find something appropriate. I come up with a story called “Scrub” about a backhoe. I call the children to the rug. I have to shout to make myself heard over the noise. The students are distracted: some sit down and some hang on their mothers.
The dad takes out his guitar and begins singing a silly song that gets the attention of the group. He is a much better guitarist than I. I feel a pang of jealousy and inadequacy. He is doing my job and I am now looking bad: unprepared, unable to maintain order.
My last thought is that I will read the story and improvise a lesson on phonemic awareness: have the students identify pairs of words that begin with the same sound. I’m feeling sick.
Like the trite endings of third grade stories: I wake up. Relief pours over me, the nausea subsides. It was only a dream. I don’t teach kindergarten, and I will not be presenting at Math Night.
Whew. Deep breath. Time to get up and get ready for work.
Line from: I Don’t Think for a Second That We Won’t Survive This — Abdul Ali
*
*
how did I do this
fifty years ago?
siblings battling in the back seat
put your shoes on
I can smell your feet
you take the dog out
I already picked up the poop
finish one meal, clean up, start another
how did I manage as a single mother
working full days
rushing home to drive to rehearsals, shows
crashing into bed, dazed, glazed
fevers, stomach flu, stitches, broken nose
*
Summer brings it all again
only I’m the grandma now
slow, deaf, a used-up cow
ask your mother, would she allow?
forgot the car seat, the gluten-free turkey,
the towels, the laundry, the car key
It’s much more fun
than it used to be.
*
FYI: The site is not open to the public. We were lucky that no one turned us away, but unfortunately, this beautiful place is only open to members. Sorry!
*
*
“Right near you in Wallkill,” my friend said, about a year ago. “We used to go to events there—concerts and crafts sales. Quality crafts. Really beautiful grounds.”
Then, last spring, we got a postcard in the mail from the School of Practical Philosophy at 846 Borden Circle, in Wallkill, New York. It announced the Philosophy Works Introductory Course beginning on April 12, 2022. I was intrigued, but I didn’t get around to looking at the website (www.philosophyworks.org/wallkill) until June. My Zoom schedule being full, I wasn’t as interested in a course as I was in the place itself.
Finally, on a Friday afternoon, we found our way to the site after several wrong turns. As far as we could see, nobody was around. We parked near a stately house and followed the noise of a weed whacker to where a man was clearing off the stone patio behind the house.
He turned off his machine, introduced himself, and proceeded to give us an abridged history of the organization and the Borden estate.
Perhaps some folks in the senior category remember Elsie the Cow, the mascot of Borden Milk?
(https://bordenestate.com/) John G. Borden, son of Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk, chose the site in Wallkill for his Home Farm in the 1880s. His daughter, Marion, took over running the business after his death in 1891. Under her auspices, the Queen Anne-Tudor style mansion was built. She was a great benefactor to the area, funding the library, portions of local school buildings, and other projects.
To learn more about the Bordens, go to this link:
http://abouttown.us/articles/marion-the-last-wallkill-borden/
The Borden Estate/Philosophy Works site is delightfully peaceful. We have visited twice so far and no one has chased us away.
*
*
*
When the cat bathes itself
at the bed’s foot,
soft thumps
against the curve of my leg
take me home
to my child self.
Then I always had
an animal curled up fur tight
sharing my dreaming bed
nosing purr close
kneading an arm
sheathed claws
tiny pain pricks
supple companion
chose the king’s spot
the royal feline middle
and I, careful not to disturb
adjusted my legs around
its warm weight
*
*
He has his pull-ups on.
I’ve shaved him. (It’s fun.)
He’s got just one hearing aid.
Lost the other one.
He’s had his breakfast,
taken his pills
brushed his teeth.
*
“Where are we?” he says.
I tell him again.
*
“I’ll be here when you get home,”
I say.
“You don’t need to call me.
You’re safe.”
*
I send him out to the van.
Watch him climb in
wipe away familiar tears
like a mother.
*
*
Honeysuckle breeze carries
scent of cut grass.
Mower drones
behind shaggy hickories.
He stops to listen.
Maples flutter,
serious oaks think
about making acorns.
*
Slow walking
One step to his two-step
shuffle-crunch gravel.
On the verges
phlox lilac pink
dandelion fluff
sinister poison ivy,
innocent in shiny green
*
One chorus of
Zippity-do-dah,
He’s happy
under the canopy
shade and sun
in his eternal now.
*
“I don’t read,” Satya says.
They are sitting in Satya’s kitchen. Samantha is in one of the chairs. Satya is on the floor with her back against the dishwasher.
Samantha looks at the stack of books on the kitchen table. One is about Mary Magdalene. Another is called Eyebody Technique.
“What do you mean, you don’t read?” Sam asks, gesturing to the books on the table.
“Oh, a page that looks interesting, yes, but not novels. I can’t sit still that long.”
Samantha thinks of her own bookish habits. Sometimes she’ll have three novels going simultaneously, and one for the gym, and an audiobook for the car. She especially likes to listen to Jane Austen on the way to work. Austen can make Sam laugh out loud.
Satya doesn’t strike Sam as the restless type. Sam knows that Satya watches videos. Sam squirms in her chair and lets out a huff of air. She doesn’t like this feeling of passing judgment, either on Satya for not reading, or on herself for spending so much time in books.
Sam has always been surrounded by books. As a child, Sam’s bookcase in her bedroom was only one quarter the size of the wall-to-wall bookcases in the dining room, the ones her father built. Sam read and reread the Little House books, the Narnia Chronicles, and all of Marguerite Henry’s horse stories. Laura and Lucy were as well known to Sam as her friends at school. In fantasy play with her friends, they acted out events in the books. Sam remembers that she always chose to be Susan, Lucy’s older sister. “Why Susan?” Sam wonders.
There were the E. Nesbit books, also, and George MacDonald’s fairy stories. Edward Eager’s magic books. For years, Sam believed intensely that one day she could find a magic coin or step into another world. Sam and her friend, Marcia, used to stand next to an ornate lamppost near the school playground with their eyes squeezed shut, waiting for a faun to call them into Narnia.
But in the silence while Satya stares at the floor and Sam sips her tea, Sam returns to Susan in Narnia. Susan was a warrior, strong and decisive. The exact opposite of Sam’s girlchild self who was timid, too eager to please, afraid to speak her opinion—it’s taken years for Sam to step away from those qualities. To be honest, she’s not gotten that far away from little Samantha.
Who was Satya when she was a girl? Was she as ethereal and unusual then? If so, she would have been teased and bullied by her peers, that’s almost certain.
“I went to a private girls’ school,” Satya says, as if reading Sam’s mind. “The girls tortured me. I didn’t have a single friend there. I hid in the library and read books.”
Fans of Narnia, Harry Potter, and the other books mentioned above might enjoy my Karakesh Chronicles:
*
It was a sobering experience,
trying on brassieres in Target.
*
Full disclosure:
It’s been at least four years
since I bought a bra.
And probably more
than four pounds.
But I was tired of
gorilla underwear.
*
In lingerie,
I got the size I was before—
34B.
No underwires, you know.
They obstruct the chi flow.
But look at the flesh
bulging over the sides.
(Don’t look at the belly below.)
*
When did this S shape
creep up on me?
When did my waist ascend?
The size I thought I was
I am no more.
Remember 32A? 32B?
*
To me in the mirror, I say,
“This is what 71 looks like.
You are healthy.
You are alive.
You’ve escaped Covid.”
*
I hang the lacy 34Bs
on the return rack:
the polka-dotted beige satin,
the striped gray cotton,
the black floral.
*
Again, I scan the displays. Pick out any 36B.
Buy the ones that fit.
Tangled Magic 