writewrite

Today, seven things that undo a funk:

1. My brother is out of the hospital, and (I hope) is finding ways to de-stress his life and be healthy.
2. Baxter is not going to a new home after all, and I am very relieved the little goofball will be staying here.
3. Owen is trying to teach Baxter how to chase squirrels. Baxter thinks Owen is a little nutty. But they are getting along, and the cats are resigned to life with dogs.
4. It’s not as humid. My basement is drying out. The sun is shining.
5. I am still behind in the work that needs to be done for the Fall semester, but incrementally making headway.
6. The ten pounds (no longer 12!) that I’ve been trying to lose is sort of, kind of, starting to budge.
7. and: Kurt, Oliver, Friday.

Which makes nine things, total. So there you are.

dogicon:

]:-P…..

(ears, tongue hanging out, slobber drips)

caticon

(>=<)_____!

(fat cat pretending to sleep while tail wiggles to attract prey)

underfooticon

===000000

(squished bug with antennae)

horsicon

<:o:~~

(as seen if you were standing underneath)

writericon

~~~~~xx_____________” ”

(writer with long hair, napping. notice similarity to horsicon)

apologies to William Carlos Williams

everything depends
upon a girl
in a gingham bikini
pushing
a red lawnmower
across
a green yard

I truly love my brother. Read this: LINK

Yee ha, baby. Embrace love, hit the road, and sing at the top of yer lungs. And Dan? Bring your various stringed instruments when you come to visit. Kurt has a guitar, Melissa can sing like a dream, and I can be a doo-wop back up girl. We’ll have a recording session!

Words are so cool. The difference between ‘flotsam’ and ‘jetsam’? Both are debris in the ocean; one is the stuff left floating after a wreck (flotsam); the other the stuff that is jettisoned from a ship in distress (jetsam).

In ordinary, not merely marine, usage, the phrase “flotsam and jetsam” means odds and ends, rubbish, junk.

The past couple of weeks, in an extraordinary effort to avoid writing, I have come across a great deal of flotsam and jetsam in my own home. Some is still floating around the house: a pair of wooden Canada geese I apparently thought it was important to own; lots of rocks and shells collected in various states and countries over the years; way too many shoes, including: a pair of green vinyl flats, blue leopard print stilletos, and a gorgeous pair of Frye boots that weigh about ten pounds; a basket of tennis balls hidden from Owen; a huge stuffed dog I found in the basement. I own this? Apparently I do.

And, some jetsam, much of it from another life, now jettisoned to Goodwill, the trash, new homes. To name what’s lost is to keep it around, in some sense. The jetsam shall go unnamed. It’s simply, and finally, gone.

If you are a fan of the “All-America” title which Richmond, Indiana, has apparently just won, you won’t like what I have to say about that here. You are fairly warned. Read on if you wish.

This past weekend, a group of eager “youth” traveled to the National Civic League (NCL) competition in Tampa, Florida, as designated finalists in the running for an “All-America” city title. Apparently, the kids impressed the judges with their enthusiasm, honesty, and charm. I admire those kids for being eager, brave, and doing their best to promote Richmond. Good job. And I mean that.

Call me cynical, however, but I fail to see what having an “All America” title will do for Richmond. The city won the award 22 years ago, too, the trusty Palladium-Item tells us. Uh huh. That’s nice. And in those 22 years, how have we done? I offer a few numbers, which I imagine if you are a local reader, you know well:54% graduation rate in the high school in 2006; 76% “estimated” for this year. 11.9% unemployment rate. That’s enough right there to say we are not a healthy place.

So now we’re an All-America city again? Here’s what the NCL says winning the award will do:

All-America City Award is America’s original and most prestigious community recognition award. Since 1949, the Award has honored communities of all sizes (cities, towns, counties, neighborhoods and regions) where community members, government, businesses and nonprofit organizations work together to address critical local issues. More than 500 communities have earned this distinguished title and many have earned it more than once.

If your community works collaboratively to overcome local challenges, it could become an All-America City. The application process alone represents a valuable opportunity to evaluate the way your community manages opportunities and challenges, which can make your community stronger. Communities that earn the All-America City title realize numerous benefits, including:

Local, state, and national recognition
Greater civic pride and greater civic collaboration
Economic stimulus

I see, in the near future, a parade (yes, there is one, Monday at 11 a.m.). I see letters to the editor filled with civic pride. I see community gatherings to plan strategically, brainstorm collaboratively, problem-solve creatively. I see t-shirts. Bumper stickers. A new coat of paint on the water tower. Maybe a community garden. A downtown festival. I see a lot of enthusiasm and energy invested in a smattering of projects across the city that enable the participants to feel good about themselves and the work they are doing to make Richmond a little better here and there.

And then?

That’s it. Nothing. This title, for all the work and investment and energy these kids and community “leaders” have put into it, it’s pure air. It changes nothing on a substantive, fundamental level.

Yet, our self-designated, and sometimes elected, community leaders will tell us, and tell our kids, that this title means we are something. That we will be something. That if we “work together” we can be — no, wait — we are terrific.

I would like to take the community leaders aside and say this: Look. Quit lying to our kids. Quit filling their heads with boosterish nonsense. Quit leading them on these exhausting exercises which result in virtually nothing.

I would also challenge those leaders to take on the hard stuff. Those are good, good kids they took to Tampa, Florida. That’s the easy job. What about the not so good kids? What about the 46% that didn’t graduate? Are you working with them? Are you going to one of the many many bars in Richmond on any given afternoon or evening and talking to the people who spend their time there? Your clothes will stink of smoke and you will get an earful. Can you handle that? Are you enlisting drug addicts and the homeless and dropouts and the illiterate and teenage mothers and the little kids who eat free and reduced lunches every day to be part of your strategic planning, your creative brainstorming, your leadership exercises?

Are you?

If you are not, then you are not what I ever want to call a leader.

So. I’m back in Richmond, Indiana. These are some of the things I have observed today:

– In the grocery store, a rather heavyset woman dressed in sandals, baggy khaki shorts, a baggy t-shirt. On her lower leg, an enormous tattoo of Mickey Mouse.
– A man in the grocery store who whistled like a bird, really loudly, the entire time I was in the store. It was like having a psychotic mockingbird one aisle over for, oh, 45 minutes. Yes. I did want to whack him. With a tennis racket — THWAPP – on the back of the head.
– A funeral procession going west on National Road as I was driving east. Everyone stopped but for a large champagne beige SUV.
– Reading the student evaluations from my spring class and realizing at least one student hated me, or perhaps the world at large; it was hard to tell in the laconic tone of the brief comments what he or she really thought. The rest? Noncommittal or cheery. Nothing of substance, not at all.
– The pile of mail to throw away at home was three times the size of the pile to keep. The pile of mail to throw away at school? All of it.

I am going to watch a cheery movie tonight, toast a good couple of weeks, and get over the slightly nasty burn of re-entry by tomorrow.

I often ask my creative writing students to go somewhere and eavesdrop. You know: listen in on other people’s conversations. There’s great material out there. All you have to do is be alert for it. Here are some recent things I’ve overheard:

In Target, a mother to her child, the child small and young enough to ride in the carriage seat up front:

“Do you think Daddy will kill me if I bring home one more pair of shoes?”

I carefully whisper: you go girl. Get two pairs.

Also in Target, another very small child and his mother:

“TATTOO!”
“Tattoo?”
The child nods vigorously. “I wanna TATTOO!”
“You want a tattoo?
“TATTOO!”
“Why do you want a tattoo?”

This is, of course, where I would love the child to morph into some intelligent being and say, sagely and slowly, in a low voice unfit for his age: “Why, mother dear, it is the word itself I love, not the thing — the sign, not the signified. What I adore is to repeat that word, with its own double voiceless alveolar plosive, the letter “T” appearing twice on my tongue, three times in the word itself.” Ah, but the little guy does not say that. Instead he says:

“Daddy has TATTOO!”
The mother sighs, audibly, and offers her translation to the boy. “You want a tattoo because Daddy has one.”
The boy nods happily.
“Where do you want your tattoo?”

I hate to say it, but I missed what body part the little boy pointed to. I can only imagine.

And last of all, this, at the Speedway gas station. I am standing in short line of customers, waiting to buy a diet Mountain Dew. In front of me, a shortish man in navy blue dockers and a pale blue shirt is pacing in the space before the counter, holding a cell phone to his ear, talking away very loudly while drinking a large fountain drink. He is in the midst of what sounds like a business deal. “They’re close, really close,” he says. “It’s just a matter of time.” The man in front of him, at the counter making his transaction, is very old and thin, wearing a threadbare t-shirt and baggy blue jeans. He has just slowly poured a little mound of coins on the counter. The clerk is very patient with him, and very kind.

“How are you today, Michael?”

Michael nods a couple of times, mumbles a few words that sound vaguely positive. Then he asks for something, what I can’t quite hear. The clerk turns to reach for some cigarettes. At that moment, the cell phone man, who has not stopped talking, tosses a couple of dollars on the counter. He points to his drink with his cellphone hand. “I have a large,” he says, very loudly and slowly as though the clerk is mentally challenged.

The clerk just looks at him, then looks back at her customer, Michael. She carefully rings up Michael’s cigarettes, hands him his change, and tells him to have a good day. Michael shuffles away from the counter and out the door.

Cell phone man is now at the register, jittery with impatience, self-importance, a barely suppressed contempt for the kindness of small town people and the pace at which we move. I only notice now that he is wearing sunglasses. Inside. And he is still — still – talking on the phone. The clerk hands him his change and he bustles out the door.

Now it is my turn.

The clerk is still watching the cell phone man as he strides toward his car. I follow her gaze. He is getting into a gleaming white fancy car of some species. The plate is Illinois.

“I hate that,” the clerk says. “Didn’t he see that I had a customer?”

I want to say: yes, he probably did, but in his scale of measuring the world, a man like Michael doesn’t count. I just nod, sympathetically, then try for some levity to make her feel a little better. “I feel sorry for his wife, or girlfriend,” I say.

“Yeah. I bet he drives them nuts.”

I laugh. “I bet he doesn’t HAVE one!”

We both laugh. I pay for my Mountain Dew and walk toward my own car. Mr. Cellphone’s car is purring away from the station, headed east. And I don’t know about the gas station clerk, but now I’m really laughing thinking about that silly little man, pointing to his drink, announcing in that loud smug voice: “I have a large.”

I wish I had had the courage to say: “Sir? I have a distinct feeling you don’t.”

I unabashedly love this ad, simply and only because I love the way the little girl says “She thinks you’re super delicious.”

I know. Such a deep life I lead.

As my students say? Yeah…whatever.

I really shouldn’t read the local newspaper. Really. Today’s top headline (online, at any rate), was this:

47 Straight Days of Prayer

And in the article, this:

Residents can pray at 28 churches, at the Richmond Municipal Building, Richmond High School, at two local businesses, a local drug rehab center and the Townsend Community Center.

Okay, the 28 churches is fine. Local businesses, sure that’s fine. The rehab center and the community center, okay. But the Richmond Municipal Building? The High School? Um, is it just me or aren’t these public buildings, kind of funded and supported, and heck paid for, by taxpayers’ money? That would include me, last I checked. And some other folks who are rather skeptical of the blurring of the line between church and state. Let alone “community prayer.”

I’m a little busy right now, so I won’t be out protesting this. Okay, I wouldn’t be out protesting anyway. That’s not my thing, and I rather hope this is a benign group of folks with well meaning intentions. But I do wonder: Is this legal? Is it nice? Is it right?

What I mean is, is this another example of a kind of religious passive aggression? For example: imagine I’m a kid who goes to RHS. I’m not particularly religious, don’t go to church, am skeptical of prayer. However, I’m a good kid, I think about things in the world in creative, intelligent, respectful ways. I’m exploring issues of faith and the cosmos in my own way. So imagine me, this kid, walking into school on day #1 of the 47 days of prayer. There’s a group praying, right there in my school. Maybe they’re on the front steps, maybe they’re in a classroom on the third floor, maybe they’re in the lunch room. The visibility of the group is irrelevant. I know they are there. I feel a little strange, sensitive intelligent kid that I am. I find myself wondering: would the powers that be at my school let me have a group of — oh let’s call us “Questing Agnostics” — would they let us meet on the front steps, the third floor, the lunch room? I kind of think they might not. I kind of worry about even asking.

Why wouldn’t I even ask? Because I know, in this town, I’m a minority. I know this because the school lets prayer groups in, and the newspaper prints feel good stories about the groups, and the city building lets the prayer groups in, and it seems that everyone just routinely approves of public prayer. No questions asked. That’s the majority opinion in this town. Does that make it right? No. It just means most people think that way. Here. In Richmond, Indiana. I — the imaginary sensitive high school student — I don’t think that way. Does that mean I’m wrong? Nope. It means I’m simply in the minority, one of a smaller group of people — here, in Richmond, Indiana — who doesn’t believe in the power of prayer. So I am, effectively, silenced.

Hmm. Is this the message we want to give our children? Somehow, I don’t think so.