6/24/14

what i miss about western nebraska--REVISED

Note: In class today we discussed poetry and read several different pieces. One was by Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite writers. The piece really twisted the traditional concept of poetry. It blended traditional line breaks with rambly, poetic prose. I kind of thought my list piece would fit with that format. So tonight I played around a bit. Here's a revised version...the form has changed, but I've also tightened in a few spots. 


what i miss about living in western nebraska:


the streets cracked and pot-holed,
about three stop lights in the whole town.
a slow fade into gravel--
the gravel roads placed in neat rectangular grids
surrounded by fields of corn.


a five minute grocery stop
turned into twenty-five minutes
because nobody goes unnoticed in a small town.


our students--a wonderful mix of quirky and serious with a longing to connect to something outside their small town. many lamented their rural upbringing and dreamed of cities like denver as their escape. our students, who initially resisted our ideas. “we’ve never done it that way” or “we don’t usually do this much work in class” or “you want us to do what?!” like most kids, we invested in them long enough and they bought into what we were selling: fight apathy, work hard, be respectable and respectful, make a difference. the crazy group of kids who’d show up at our house dressed as sailors, plainsmen, indians, pandas, and construction workers in March. students who’d sit on our back patio at 6 am playing chess and drinking coffee. their weird antics an odd sign of affection.


kristin,
my first running partner.
my 4:30 am, 20 mile running partner
who showed up midway through my long runs
with gatorade and water and companionship
just when i needed her most.
who listened for hours,
who taught me what it means to listen and not just hear.


cameron,
our tomboy neighbor girl we watched grow up---
5 to 9 in the blink of an eye.
with a curiosity like scout finch--
always outside when the weather invited her out.
cameron,
who knew we were a sucker for her brown eyes
and anything she was selling---
wrapping paper, girl scout cookies, candies, candles.
who dragged her shy, hesitant older brother
(our student) to our house to say hi.


judy,
whose husband died a few years before we moved in.
who kept a wonderful garden every year--
tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers,
who swore every year,
“god damn it. this garden’s too much damn work. it’s the last year, i swear.”  
judy,
who fed our terrier extra large milk bones--
so many he couldn’t keep up
and turned to burying them in holes throughout the yard.
judy,
who found our dog after he’d gotten loose
on her front porch waiting patiently
for perhaps another milk bone.


85 year old ruth, a long time smoker, a transplant from baltimore whose husband died two months after they moved to town, unaccustomed to the dry air and the peace. ruth, who shared stories about city life--about crack houses and gang violence and falling down houses. ruth, who fattened our dog that eventually learned to just sit at our shared gate, his body pressed on the fence, fur sticking into her yard, yapping until she caved and brought chicken nuggets, pieces of hamburger, bread, and anything else she had at the moment.


bob and shannon our western nebraska parents who fed us on the weekends and watched out for us, made sure we had our fill of good wine and music and the stars that could be seen in an abundance pricking the black sky on a clear night. who developed the wrinkles around our eyes from late nights of laughing.


ryan and tracy
who taught us what it truly means to work hard and invest wisely.
ryan,
late twenties but already a businessman--
five gas stations and a home medical supply store--
with dreams of owning his own ranch.
tracy--
a farm girl, a compassionate but strict first grade teacher
who took no bullshit from anyone, including her husband.
our first taste of ranch life---
using horses and dogs to herd cattle from the pasture.
ryan and tracy
who attached spurs to my nikes
and set me atop an embarrassed horse on their family’s ranch land.
the only people who ever trusted me with a gun--
shooting rusted, homemade targets listening for that magic “ping.”
big lake mac--in winter or summer, a 22 mile spectacle. in the wind, the wild grasses bowing to the lake’s beauty. beaches of powder white sand. the tops of trees poking the surface of the lake recovered from a ten-year drought. an entire town submerged in the waters, myths of rooftops peeking above the waves. the canyons begging me to jump the fence and sit a while.


our tiny, two-bedroom home. 1950s ranch, original wood floors, kitchen so small not even a table could fit in it. pool blue, obnoxious green, burnt orange, deep red, chocolate brown, slate gray--each room a different hue to soothe my gypsy soul. our first home, $400 mortgage payments. the home where my husband and i finally fell into a rhythm, discovered what it meant for two to become one--where we learned what it meant to be in it for the long haul.


being a wonder in a small town--
one of three 68 county subarus.
our keens and chaco sandals were definitely not boots,
were not functional,
could not be worked in.
“are you from boulder?”
a game and parks officer asked skeptically,
nodding to my tie-dye shirt and hiking pants.


the people--
honest and genuine,
sprinkled throughout a misunderstood landscape.


the 6 pm slowdown.
businesses closed,
streets nearly empty.


quiet.
the stillness of an early morning run,
the crunch of gravel the only sound.

6/23/14

What I miss about western Nebraska

note: in an earlier post, i committed to sharing some of my writing from the class i'm helping facilitate. however, the pieces i've written have either been lesson plans, crap, or family narratives that probably aren't appropriate to share in such a public space. i do have one though...this is a list i’ve been working on during free-writing time throughout the institute. i tend to get nostalgic and a bit syrupy when i think about living in ogallala. this is actually a third draft of the piece that i'll take to my group to receive more feedback. there's more elaborating to be done, but for now, this is where the piece is.

the streets cracked and pot-holed, about three stop lights in the whole town. a slow fade into gravel--the gravel roads placed in neat rectangular grids surrounded by fields of corn.

a five minute grocery stop turned into twenty-five minutes because nobody goes unnoticed in a small town.

our students--a wonderful mix of quirky and serious with a longing to connect to something outside their small town. many lamented their rural upbringing and dreamed of cities like denver as their escape. our students, who initially resisted our ideas. “we’ve never done it that way” or “we don’t usually do this much work in class” or “you want us to do what?!” like most kids, we invested in them long enough and they bought into what we were selling: fight apathy, work hard, be respectable and respectful, make a difference. the crazy group of kids who’d show up at our house dressed as sailors, plainsmen, indians, pandas, and construction workers in March. students who’d sit on our back patio at 6 am playing chess and drinking coffee. their weird antics an odd sign of affection.

kristin, my first running partner. my 4:30 am, 20 mile running partner who showed up midway through my long runs with gatorade and water and companionship just when i needed her most. who listened for hours, who taught me what it means to listen and not just hear.

cameron, our tomboy neighbor girl we watched grow up---5 to 9 in the blink of an eye. a curiosity like scout finch’s--always outside when the weather invited her out. cameron, who knew we were a sucker for her brown eyes and anything she was selling---wrapping paper, girl scout cookies, candies, candles. who dragged her shy, hesitant older brother (our student) to our house to say hi.

judy, whose husband died a few years before we moved in. who kept a wonderful garden every year--tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers, who sweared every year, “god damn it. this garden’s too much damn work. it’s the last year, i swear.”  judy, who fed our terrier extra large milk bones--so many he couldn’t keep up and turned to burying them in holes throughout the yard. who found our dog after he’d gotten loose on her front porch waiting patiently for perhaps another milk bone.

85 year old ruth, a long time smoker, a transplant from baltimore whose husband died two months after they moved to town, unaccustomed to the dry air and the peace. ruth, who shared stories about city life--about crack houses and gang violence and falling down houses. who fattened our dog who eventually learned to just sit at our shared gate, his body pressed on the fence, fur sticking into her yard, yapping until she caved and brought chicken nuggets, pieces of hamburger, bread, and anything else she had at the moment.

bob and shannon our western nebraska parents who fed us on the weekends and watched out for us, made sure we had our fill of good wine and music and the stars that could be seen in an abundance pricking the black sky on a clear night. who developed the wrinkles around our eyes from late nights of laughing.

ryan and tracy who taught us what it truly means to work hard and invest wisely. ryan, late twenties but already a businessman--five gas stations and a home medical supply store--with dreams of owning his own ranch. tracy--a farm girl, a compassionate but strict first grade teacher who took no bullshit from anyone, including her husband. our first taste of ranch life---using horses and dogs to herd cattle from the pasture. who attached spurs to my nikes and set me atop a horse on their family’s ranch land. the only people who ever trusted me with a gun--shooting rusted, homemade targets listening for that magic “ping.”
big lake mac--in winter or summer, a 22 mile spectacle. in the wind, the wild grasses bowing to the lake’s beauty. beaches of powder white sand. the tops of trees poking the surface of the lake recovered from a ten-year drought. an entire town submerged in the waters, myths of rooftops peeking above the waves. the canyons begging me to jump the fence and sit a while.

our tiny, two-bedroom home. 1950s ranch, original wood floors, kitchen so small not even a table could fit in it. our first home, $400 mortgage payments. the home where my husband and i finally fell into a rhythm, discovered what it meant for two to become one--where we learned what it meant to be in it for the long haul.

being a wonder in a small town--one of three 68 county subarus. our keens and chaco sandals were definitely not boots, were not functional, could not be worked in. “are you from boulder?” the game and parks officer asked skeptically, nodding to my tie-dye shirt and hiking pants.

the 6 pm slowdown. businesses closed, streets nearly empty.

quiet. the stillness of an early morning run, the crunch of gravel the only sound.

6/15/14

Father's Day

I'm told that when Nate was a little boy and was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he responded: "a dad." Finally...his childhood wishes have come true. Today we celebrated his first Father's Day with giving him breakfast: a donut, bacon, and eggs. Jonathan gave him the present he picked out (Ghostbusters 1 and 2). After church we ate at HuHot and then walked off all of that food at Platte River State Park. We ran a few errands and then ended with a walk around the neighborhood. I loved spending the day with my boys, seeing Nate interact with Jon, watching Jon's face light up around Nate. Last year at this time, Jonathan was transitioning to our home with visits throughout the week. During the week of Father's Day, we picked him up from daycare and saw that the kids worked on a project that day for their dads. Jon's was blank. He had nothing to fill in, but he brought it home...empty. Of course, I bawled at the thought that because he didn't have a father he couldn't do the project the other kids were doing. I tucked the unfinished project away, and this year he finished it and gave it to Nate.


I hope all of you dads and father figures out there were celebrated today!

6/9/14

Window of Opportunity

I started co-facilitating a Nebraska Writing Project course today. The class has a focus on connecting literature and writing, and like any NeWP course, we are expected to bring a new piece of writing each day to share with our writing groups and engage in giving and receiving feedback. We are studying a graphic novel called The Arrival (I recommend it..it's beautiful). Our assignment for today was to choose an image or a page from the text to use as inspiration for a creative writing piece. This isn't my best work, but I figured select a piece or two each week to post on the blog. The image I used as inspiration for the poem is the last one--the wall of windows. I focused particularly on one window that appears to frame a woman looking out.

From The Arrival

Window of Opportunity
In this window--
a woman sits staring into the streets.
She smiles
at the stray dog,
at the child
hitting a stick against a nearby fence
just to hear its rhythm.

As quickly as the smile comes,
it fades
as she remembers her home.
This is not her home.
This is a shell.
A cage twenty stories up.

She does not come down.
She wants to be there--
home--
where the houses are yellow and green and pink
and have bedrooms
and are not high-rise apartments
with people cramped,
sharing hallways and bathrooms and cups of sugar
attempting to be neighbors.

She wants to tend her garden
with, Theadosea, her sister.
She wants to smell czarnina soup
boiling on the stove,
hear her mother’s cackling laugh.

Instead, she’s here,
in the “land of opportunity.”
But opportunity looks different
than she imagined.
It’s crowded
and smells a lot like dust and iron.

6/2/14

Battling insecurities

As a teenager, I was a confident young cuss. I was opinionated, sassy, bold, and by all accounts, unique. I prided myself on pounding out my own path no matter how much that made me deviate from my classmates. The older I get, though, the more self-conscious I become. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Lately I'm a bit hyper-aware of my flaws.

On Saturday during my weekly long run, I trudged 12 miles through thick humidity. By mile 8.5, I was soaked in sweat with nothing to wipe my face off. For at least four miles I contemplated taking my shirt off. I've been a distance runner for 6 years, but I've only ran with my shirt off once. When I first started teaching I ran into a student at Lake McConaughy while I was sporting a bikini leftover from my college years, and man, that made for an awkward class the next time. It's best I just keep my clothes on in public. However, with each elephant like stride, I became increasingly uncomfortable; I just needed something to keep my face dry...like my tanktop. I gave in and ripped my shirt off--not in a sexy manner you might see in the movies. Nope. Since I was so wet, my tanktop clung to every part of me, got stuck on my hat, tangled in my headphones...it was very similar to swatting away a swarm of mosquitos. But when the struggle was over, and when my two-toned torso (I have a tankini swimsuit--so my stomach looks very much like a fish's belly while my chest, arms, and back are the color of a tomato from opening day at the pool) was hanging out for the world to see, I felt better....for about a quarter of a mile. That's when five male college runners, tan, with wash-board abs, short running shorts illuminating their rippling quads running probably a 6 minute mile flew past me. I hope they were running so fast they couldn't see me, I thought. Right behind the Runner's World models were two 20-something women who I can only imagine were the previous runners' girlfriends because they had matching abs and only a slightly slower pace. I felt my form become hunched. I was suddenly aware that the increase in my beer intake and the decrease in my ab workouts has made my stomach the softest it's been in a few years. I was aware that my legs are not as chiseled as I'd like them to be, that I sweat so much it looks like I've pissed myself after my long runs, that my stride is not light but heavy--like I have mud caked on my shoes, that my skin is not clear like most women's, that I'm not as feminine as I "should" be, that my flat and un-curvy shape and pixie haircut often make me look like a twelve year old boy...the list of insecurities scrolled through my head and drowned out the music in my headphones. It was only when my 12 miles had ended and I was home with my shirt back on that I stopped the self-hate.

For the past few years my insecurities have been more noticeable, but I honestly can't remember the last time I felt this insecure. Not only is it a frustrating experience to pick apart every little thing about myself, but I felt so shallow, vain, and dirty for doing it.

I just finished studying the book of Joshua. Towards the tail end of the book when Joshua is nearing the end of his life, he instructs the Israelites to serve only God--to put away all idols and to be aware of the areas of their lives where temptation might creep up on them. This week I've really had to confess my own selfishness and insecurities as an idol I've given more attention to than God. I do think it's difficult to be a Christian in our culture; it takes prayer and diligence to not get wrapped up in the pressures to be or look or act in a way that society accepts. Fortunately, I serve a God bigger than our culture. I think the verse I'll use to help me focus this week will be from Joshua's last instructions: "'Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord'" (Joshua 24: 14).