Two days post-break: I miss the ocean.
Blue #SOLC26 24/31
Category: pictures
Quiet #SOLC26 18/31
Part of the magic of writing a daily slice of life is that I’m forced to notice small moments every day, and – somewhat less obviously – allowed to reflect. The noticing is clear: whether I’m writing about something that happened that day or stumbling across a memory that has sudden relevance, I pause to collect the moment and then provide structure via words. In this way, writing is an attempt to capture and share an impression. Writing also shapes the moment, insisting on a start and an end, a form, the importance of some details over others, and an expected or desired effect. As I shape each moment, writing gives me a slender sense of control by ordering my thoughts and making moments into stories. Anything can be a slice of life because I can notice it and fit it into my own understanding of who I am or am not. When I capture these moments, I affirm my identity.
I can imagine writing daily moments and leaving them unconnected – loose beads, rolling on the basement floor – but that’s not my experience with this month. Instead, at some point, I start to pick up those written beads and string them together in new ways. I recognize that one moment is temporally distant from another, but as I shape my larger story, I examine them and mentally place them together. The more I write, the more patterns I can create with my captured moments. I can see myself in different ways. The more I read other blogs and comment on them, the more I am able to understand which patterns are universal (or at least universal to educators) and which are personal.
Somehow the hurried pace of March, the steady march, if you will, of write, read, comment, read, comment, read, comment, write – and my sense that I cannot keep up, can never keep up (have I missed your blog? I’m so sorry. I wanted to read it. When did I stop responding to comments on my blog? I apologize. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I appreciate them.) In the rush, March becomes an exercise in looking for ideas, of looking at what I’ve already written, of restringing the moments. In other words, amidst the chaos, I reflect.
Every year at the end of March people reflect on the month. I get double the reflection time since March Break always happens in, well, March. Here, in this third week, while I’m away from my normal routine, the noise of the school year and my family life and even my writing quiets. Sometimes the quiet is fleeting, but it’s almost always there.
Today, I am in my favourite place in the world: my aunt and uncle’s cottage on the North side of Grand Cayman. Familiar with the comfort of this place, I allow myself to relax more readily than I might elsewhere. The boys I’m accompanying are at the beach and I am alone. The breeze shushes through the trees, the birds call – grackle, mockingbird, dove – and, from the nearby pool, children shriek in delight. I am no longer the mother of shrieking children. My mind wanders as I sift through the memories, the slices of life that come up. I am a newly minted teenager, exploring the island, spending hours with my sisters, draped over a raft in this very bay, astonished at the giant starfish. That night, my aunt and my mother will rub soothing aloe into our badly burned backs; as an adult, I check my back regularly for signs of skin cancer. I am a high school senior on her first solo trip with her best friend. Driving on the wrong side of the road, listening to the soundtrack from Cocktail, thinking Tom Cruise is sexy, wishing we were Elisabeth Shue. While Kokomo and Don’t Worry, Be Happy blast from our tinny speakers, I feel both sexy and mature – though I am neither – in my strapless blue and bathing suit with a ruffle across the bust and a cut-out back. Now I watch my younger sister get married on the beach as my grandfather wipes away tears, and today I glide over the jealousy I felt back then, choosing to remember instead that my uncle noticed and took me out for secret drinks afterwards, reminding me that he and my aunt met when they were a bit older and had (have) a strong happy marriage. I am here with friends, and as a newlywed, then, later, snorkeling while pregnant and then again with my firstborn, who enthusiastically eats sand, and my second, who does the same. I am here with another family as we watch our older children create a scavenger hunt for the younger ones and we play games on the porch. I am here and here and here. I have written these moments in my journals, captured them in photographs, published them on this blog.
What moments have I forgotten? Which have I chosen not to share today? Why not mention the Olympic swimmer I met here (ahem) or the time we forgot to defrost the turkey before what must have been Christmas dinner? The way my dad never really did get along with my aunt or the times my sisters and I fought? The time we met a celebrity on a snorkel trip and invited her over? Swimming with turtles and stingrays and dolphins? Being stung by jellyfish or cut by coral?
Today, in this quiet, I string together moments of comfortable happiness. I know from what I’ve written this month that my mind and memory need this. There will be a time for exploring new places, for highs and lows, for petty jealousies and wild ecstasies. But for today I am content with the quiet of this story and this storytelling. I know that I have plenty of moments to string into different patterns another time.
When I write, I become more conscious of the stories I tell myself about who I am – and I am better for it.
Shoes have a place #SOLC26 4/31
Man vs Max
Our dog Max is a rescue. What he was rescued from, we don’t exactly know, but we do know that he came to Canada from Lebanon, we assume in a large dog crate. This explains many things. First, Max is an anxious dog. Second, he does not love crates. According to our dog trainer, his anxiety presents as aggression – so, she assures us, he’s not really an #$@hole; he just acts out because he’s nervous and doesn’t know what’s expected of him. As a teacher who often works with students who need a little extra attention, I feel like this is something I should have picked up, but the dogs I grew up with were decidedly not anxious, so I had no idea.
One thing that helps nervous dogs, apparently, is having a space in the house that is their safe space. Before we knew what he was doing, Max had chosen under our kitchen table as his space, which is not ideal because, well, that’s where our feet go. He’s generally ok with feet being there, but “generally” is not really enough when it comes to where your feet go while you eat. So… we are trying to help Max find another safe place in the house.
We started with a large hard-sided crate, which we put in the TV room by the sofa where we often hang out. Max was not impressed. He absolutely, 100% refused to go in the crate. Heck, he would hardly go near it. He growled at it and, when we put his favourite toys inside, whimpered a little, but he did not go get them. He spent weeks steadfastly refusing to go near the crate, giving it a wide berth while giving us the side-eye. Finally, we realized that he had probably flown from Lebanon in a crate, so we retired it to the basement (a place too scary for him to even contemplate; he will barely look down the stairs).
Months later, we put a dog bed in the kitchen near his table-lair. We have been trying to teach him the “place” command, and he will kind of do it, especially if treats are involved, but it’s out in the open, and he’s made it clear that he might go there to humour us, but this is not where he intends to sleep. So two weeks ago, we got *another* crate – this one with metal sides that he can see through. (Thank goodness for friends and family who are supporting us and our anxious dog by providing us with various types of crates and beds in our quest for calm.)
We set up crate number two in a different corner of the TV room, and this time he didn’t growl or whimper. Then we got smart: we put Max’s food dish in the far corner of the new crate. To eat, he would have to go in. He’s half Lab, so he loves food, but he’s still Max, so he was tentative: he tested things out with one paw… then two… then he s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d in to eat his food. Such a brave boy!
We added a towel to make the bottom of the crate more comfortable, and two days later, Max managed to put three paws in the crate. Then, yesterday, he discovered a better solution. When Andre put a treat in the far corner, Max pawed at the towel and pulled the whole thing towards the door. Once he’d pulled the bowl close enough, he grabbed the treat and triumphantly trotted back to his safe space under the table to eat in peace.
Anxious, but not dumb, this dog. Sigh. In the question of Man vs Max, I think Max is winning.
Update: tonight he put all four paws in the crate!
Immigrant
Last week, my child had to interview an immigrant for a grade 9 Geography assignment. Everyone in his class had to do the same. Pause for a moment and take that in: we live in a place where a teacher can safely assume that every child in a class of 25ish can, with relative ease, find a person in their life who has immigrated to the country. Oh, and we live in a place where that is a good thing.
I no longer take this for granted.
My child chose to interview me because I am an immigrant. Some days I am highly aware of myself as an immigrant; others, it seems like a word that pertains to other people. As an American immigrant to Canada, right now I feel horribly connected to my birth country: people who, like me, have immigrated, only to the US instead of to Canada, are being targeted and deported – sent to rot in foreign jails from which they may never return – for no reason other than being immigrants. Yes, yes, I realize that there are trumped-up reasons for their deportation, but even the Cato Institute (not exactly a bastion of liberal thinking) has determined that many of the men recently deported to an El Salvadorean prison had no criminal record and had never violated immigration law. The immoral actions of the current US government must surely give many immigrants pause.
So, when my child started asking me questions, I was a little tense. He was conducting the interview in Frenglish because I refused to answer exclusively in English for a class that he’s taking in French. Soon, he learned that I had lived in five places (and two countries!) before I was ten; that I have taught in four countries; that people in the US don’t take their shoes off when they enter a home. (“Wait? Really? That’s weird. Why don’t I know about that?” he asked. I said that his American relatives probably just laugh at him behind his back. Hee hee hee.)
He learned about the visa process and what it was like to move to a country where I could not yet hold a job and didn’t really have any friends.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Learned to knit,” I replied, which is sort of true.
“I never really thought of you not knitting,” he said.
Oh, my sweet child. One is not born knowing how to knit.
After the interview, he drafted his “article”. It was still in Frenglish, though the French was coming along. Tonight, he’s polishing it, so we’ve spent quite a long time making sure the French grammar is right and double-checking accents. “I trust you more than Google Translate and BonPatron,” he tells me.
I point out that I am American. He is literally writing about me being American. I am not a native French speaker and still have a bit of a Southern accent when I speak. He says my French is still “really good,” and I decide to accept the compliment.
He decides he wants pictures to accompany his article. He’s particular – he wants me at specific ages and doing certain things.
“Do you have any in the snow?” he asks.
“Not if I can avoid it,” I tell him, but I live in Ottawa now, so of course I do. I send him what I can.
After a few minutes he says, “Do you have any of you looking normal?” which makes me laugh – I love making silly faces for the camera. Still, for him, and to make immigrants look good, I find some “normal” pictures.
For you, however, I will share some of the funny ones.
There: faces of an immigrant. Remember this the next time another person gets deported. They might be a lot like me.
The Language of Flowers (Cayman Version) #SOLC25 14/31
For multilingual Friday, I’m trying a photo “essay.” As I’ve worked on this, I’ve realized how little I know about this as a form. I have struggled for a theme, tried to figure out organization, made choices about what to keep and what to cut. I thought I was just going to play and share pretty pictures – and in the end, I think that’s what it looks like – but it turns out, given a new language, I had to work to understand form and learn how to manipulate things. Also, it looks different on a laptop than on a phone. Gah! If I had been at home rather than on vacation, I would have given up because this took so long. Makes me think of what I’m asking for when I ask my students to “just” write an essay or some such. Interesting.
My favourite place #SOLC25 12/31
I have woken first. I sit at the table on the porch of my aunt’s cottage and sip milky spiced chai. I am relaxed.
The white-winged doves call almost continuously over the soft susurration of water and the cool rustle of the morning breeze through the palm leaves. I know that beyond the porch screen, the world is awake, although from here everything looks still. The deep green water in the little bay calmly offers a mirrored view of everything it sees. If I wander out across the white sand, I will be able to see hermit crabs exploring the shallow edges of the water, jelly fish – beautiful pulsing flowers – a little further out, and fish of various sorts swimming through the reeds, but for this moment, I am quiet on the land.
A grackle flies into the jungle geranium (ixora coccinea) bushes which surround the house, and she poses. She tilts her sleek head at me as if she knows how beautifully her iridescent black feathers contrast against the green leaves and red flowers. Really, she’s just hoping for food. “I don’t have anything for you,” I say and, as if she understands, she flies away. She’ll be back throughout the day, but for now, I imagine her reporting to friends, “No, she’s the only one awake, and she’s still drinking her tea.”
Soon, my spouse appears and joins the lively quiet of this space. We speak occasionally, easily, but mostly we allow ourselves to exist independent of whatever expectations weigh on us elsewhere. The birds continue to call.
Now the human world begins to wake. Now engines growl from the road, from the water. A couple walks by, conversing in hushed tones, moving towards different water – the pool or the ocean. Two paddleboarders slip almost silently into sight. Next door, a little one runs to the edge of the bay, a pail in hand, ready to shape her tiny part of the world. I stand to make a second pot of tea and the curious grackle comes back.
This place – my aunt & uncle’s cottage – is my favourite place in the world.
Locked out #SOLC25 9/31
We are locked out of my aunt’s house. She and my spouse left about an hour ago to go see my nephew (really my cousin’s son, but big families get confusing) in a swim meet. My boys and I stayed behind, too happy in the ocean to go with them. Eventually, I traded the Caribbean for the heated pool, and soon my kids followed.
While they roughhoused in the pool, I made my way back to my aunt’s place to write today’s post – only to discover that the key she left behind didn’t turn in the lock. So here I sit, poolside, writing on my phone and watching my teens. They’ve had me film them in slo-mo as they do various wild tricks; now they’re playing something akin to baseball with a pool noodle and a beach ball. My writing keeps getting interrupted by gales of laughter and giggles.
The sun is starting to set, so I have finally texted to admit that we can’t get in – but we’re in no rush. When we left this morning it was snowing and gray; we can stay here, locked out together, and be happy for a long time.
Calico Capers #SOLC25 7/31
Despite the cold and snow, Tippy insisted that she was going out this morning. She waited in the front hall, yowling, and then, when I opened the door, she fearlessly pushed ahead of our black lab mix and went out into the world – or at least onto the porch. She is a tiny 12-year-old calico who has no business spending much time outdoors when it’s -5C (23F), but she didn’t care. She had plans.
I didn’t see her when I got back from walking the dog, but I was pretty sure I knew where she was, so I didn’t worry until it got close to time for our family to leave for work and school. Then, I texted the neighbours who live a few doors down.
Tippy loves this family. She hangs out with them and their two daughters quite a lot. When all our children were little, she used to follow first our boys and then their girls to the bus stop. Now she just seems to enjoy the extra love.
A few minutes after our first exchange, they texted again.
Which is how I found myself tromping through the snow to our neighbour’s house when I should have been on my way to work. Two workers were sitting in a pickup truck in the driveway. They glanced at me, but didn’t seem to think much of my early morning visit. When I got inside, Tippy was refusing to leave, so I had to take off my boots and head upstairs to help catch her.
Once we had her, I went back downstairs and tried to slip on my boots while holding a squirming calico- but there really is no way to slip on good winter boots and there’s certainly no way to do it while wrangling a cat – so my neighbour tried to help me out by crouching down to help me get my feet in. At this point, a few construction workers poked their heads out from the bathroom they were working on to see what all the screeching and laughing was about.
I imagine they saw something like this, except with more snow and a squirmier cat:
Within seconds the workers were laughing, too. I handed Tippy to my neighbour, jammed my feet in my boots, and grabbed our now-irate cat by the scruff of her neck to head out the door. There, the two men were still sitting in the pickup. Now, however, they were decidedly staring – I was disheveled, my boots really only half on, carrying a twisting, yowling, tiny calico up the driveway, through the snow, back to our house at 8:30 in the morning. I could hear them laughing as I made it to the sidewalk.
Tippy was extremely unimpressed with my rescue mission and raced up the stairs as soon as I dropped her inside the door. Now running late, I grabbed my backpack and my lunch and scooted to the minivan. I made it to work on time, but only just. And Tippy? When I got home, the little rascal tried to go outside again!
Here she is in her normal cuddly glory:
Sunset
Oh, but the sunset was beautiful!
Persistence and Pedagogy 