I can't accept it. I can't even allow myself to think about it. Talk about straight up overwhelmed.
I remember every detail of the room at that time. Time stood still and I knew everything that was and is as you spoke to me. I remember your eyes, how they looked at me when you told me. Your lips as they moved, where you're arm was. I remember all these details vividly but cannot comprehend those words.
Those words did not penetrate my heart. My heart did skip a beat, maybe two, as it listened closely to what you said. My heart has never heard those words. It was foreign and unfamiliar, yet strangely fascinating. I'm pretty sure my heart gasped. It was stunned. I taught my class in shock, I talked to you in shock. I went home & sat down to think about it, process it. I play it all back in my head, right up until you said the words-and then it stops. I can't get past that 3 second sentence. Press rewind, start over, play And stop. And stop. And stop.
I like the sound. It feels like a good thing. It was like someone handed me a glass of water. Do I drink? Set it on the table? Give it to someone? These were the questions that I needed answered, so instead of asking, I took the glass of water with me and held it and looked at it and smelled it and examined it. And was puzzled by it. I finally decided to give it back to you until I discovered why it was given to me. Is my heart so hard? So unfeeling, so cold? What's happening? I want you to say it over and over again and at the same time I want to put my hands over my ears and beg you to stop. Please stop. Just hold me. Hold my heart. Be gentle with it. It's so fragile. It's learning to love again.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Friday, July 15, 2011
Six Hours, Six Kids . . . The Marathon Continues
Taking a trip is exciting. Taking a six-hour trip is entertaining. Taking a six-hour trip with six kids is hands down exhausting. From packing and seating arrangements to eating and entertaining, every step is crucial in ensuring that everyone is not only happy but, more importantly, that everyone will emerge from the car alive.
The first step to an enjoyable trip is to pack smartly. In a large Ford Excursion SUV, there is minimal trunk space, therefore it is necessary to maintain luggage to a bare minimum. One overnight bag per person. Keep the heavy items on the bottom, such as the cooler and duffel bags and the lighter, smaller items, like pillows or teddy bears on top. Make sure the cooler is in easy reach, though. When it is time to pass out drinks, it is vital that nobody touches anyone’s pillow. Their hands might be dirty, or they might have germs and make the person who sleeps on that pillow sick, or they might spill Coke on the teddy bear. In this instance, the mother will be obliged to pour the last bottle of water on the sticky bear and try to dry it off with her jacket. This will in turn upset the oldest daughter because she hates Coke and only drinks bottled water, resulting in driving to the first available convenience store to restock the cooler. This brings us to our next point.
Make frequent rest stops. Preferably every 30 minutes or so. And under no circumstance are you to visit the sanitation-forsaken gas stations with one stall bathrooms that look to have never been clean in their existence. The mother cannot stand to walk in those restrooms, let alone use one and besides, it smells. The McDonald’s restrooms will do just fine, plus, you can fuel up the wife and kids with Happy Meals. When Mother Nature calls and there are no McDonald’s restaurants in sight, just wide open space, the children might be so inclined as to ‘visit Mrs. Murphy’ as Mr. Gilbreth of Cheaper by the Dozen so eloquently phrased it.
After the kids have eaten and all have visited the restrooms, it is time to rotate the seating arrangements. The father still drives, but the mother now moves to the very back to read to the youngest and, hopefully, lull him to sleep. She also has a prime view of Child #3 and can deal out punishment accordingly. The oldest son moves to the passenger seat next to the father and is awarded the position of ‘Navigator’. All should
go well for about an hour until the ‘Navigator’ concludes that he has been reading the map upside down. The ‘Navigator’ is now relocated to the back with the mother and sleeping child. The two middle boys should, at all costs, be seated on either side of the daughter so as not to disturb the driver. Or any other driver passing by for that matter. With making faces, holding up ‘HELP!’ signs and hurling objects out the window, it proves to be very distracting. Convincing the policeman who pulled you over that you are, in fact, on vacation, not kidnapping six children and smuggling them over the border, is somewhat distracting. Child #3 should rotate seats as much as possible. He is rather jumpy and tends to “not” touch his neighbor. His neighbor then “not” pokes him back. After an exchange of “not” slapping and “not” shoving, it is time for Child #3 to transfer.
It is also vital to keep the kids entertained. Books of any kind will do just fine for the oldest son. The daughter can knit for hours on end and catch up on her beauty sleep. The two middle sons will wear out a 24 pack of batteries listening to “Jonathan Park” and “Adventures in Odyssey” on their portable cd players. Child #3, however, will sing. Loudly. The entire trip. Hymns, rock n’ roll, Christmas carols, and anything else that come to his mind. He might explain the reason to his serenading is because of the broken radio, but the father should assure him that the family really does prefer silence to singing.
When the family finally arrives at their destination, it is now time to check into a hotel. Finding one with a swimming pool and a continental breakfast would be an intelligent choice. After the check-in process, forgo the urge to unload the luggage or take a nap, but rather stop by the pool and take a dip with the kids. The parents should unwind in the bubbly, hot tub to relieve some of the stress that has been building up from
the long trip and the kids should exert every ounce of energy in the pool. This is to provide a quiet, peaceful night’s sleep to the parents.
As dawn breaks and the kids tumble out of bed the next morning with smiles on their faces, the parents can rejoice in the fact that they have successfully transported six children from house to motel and all are alive and well.
The journey home, however, is an entirely different matter.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Botany of Desire (Sweetness)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man,” writes
Henry David Thoreau. Much of that history can be coaxed out of John Chapman’s story. It’s the story of how pioneers like him helped to domesticate the frontier by seeding it with Old World plants. Such a strategy would have large consequences on both the frontier and the apple.
In 1801, a land grant in the Northwest Territory specifically required a settler to “set out at least fifty apple or pear trees” as a condition of his deed. The purpose of this rule was to dampen real estate speculation, by encouraging homesteaders to put down roots. Since a standard apple tree normally took ten years to fruit, an orchard was a mark of lasting settlement. This is one reason for the success of Chapman and his trees. Frontiersmen found comfort in an apple orchard, in that it reminded them of the Old World: graceful, flowering trees provided shade and gave the eyes a resting place when scanning across the vast, flat emptiness of the wilderness. It also gave the pioneers a sense of achievement. Conquering the wilderness and domesticating a farm was no easy task. The second reason for Chapman’s success was the apple itself. Sugar was a rare pleasure in the eighteenth century. It usually came in the form of maple sugar, and, in some extremely rare cases, honey. Therefore the sensation of sweetness came chiefly from the flesh of Jonny Chapman’s apple.
Sweetness is a desire that starts on the tongue with a sense of taste, but doesn’t end there. The
experience of sweetness was so special that the word served as kind of a metaphor for perfection. Like a shining equal sign, the word sweetness stood for a human desire: fulfillment. Over time, sweetness has lost much of its power; overuse probably helped to cheapen the word’s power on the tongue. (The final insult came with the invention of synthetic sweeteners.) Anthropologists have found that a taste for sweetness seemed to be universal, even among animals. This makes sense because sugar is the form in which nature stores it’s energy. By encasing their seeds in sugary nutritious flesh, the fruiting plants have found an ingenious way of exploiting the mammalian sweet tooth: in exchange for fructose, the animals provide the seeds with transportation, allowing the plant to expand its range. As an extra precaution for protecting their seeds and ensuring that the seeds get started on their journey, the fruit held off on sweet flesh until the seed is fully developed, by encasing the seeds in bitter, sometimes poisonous flesh. Before then, the fruit is usually green and unpalatable. Desire therefore, is built into the
very nature and purpose of the fruit.
The apple has been quite willing to do business with us humans; we give ourselves far too much
credit in our dealings with other species. Take the oak tree for example. Try as we might, humans have never been able to domesticate the oak tree, yet, evidently, the oak has a satisfactory arrangement with the squirrel, who obligingly forgets where it has buried every fourth acorn (according to Beatrix Potter).
The tree has never had to enter into any formal arrangement with us. The apple has done such a convincing job of making itself at home in America, thanks to Jonny Chapman, that we wrongly assume it is a native. The blandishment of sugar is what got the apple out of Kazakhstan forest, across Europe, to the shores of North America, and into Jonny Chapman’s canoe.
In the process of changing the land, Chapman also changed the apple—or made it possible for the apple to changed itself. If Americans like Chapman planted only grafted trees—if Americans had eaten instead of drunk their apples—the apple would not have been able to remake itself and thereby adapt to its new world. Apples don’t “come true” from seeds, that is, an apple tree grown from a seed will bear a glancing resemblance to its parents. Anyone who wanted edible apples, grafted their apple trees, for apples from seedlings were almost always inedible or sour enough to “set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream” ,Thoreau wrote. Most frontiersmen judged them good for little but hard cider, and hard cider was the fate of most apples grown in America up until Prohibition. Apples were something people drank.
The identification of the apple with notions of health and wholesomeness turns out to be a modern invention, part of a public relations campaign dreamed up by the apple industry in the early 1900s to reposition a fruit that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had declared war on. “The desire of the Puritan, distant from help and struggling for bare existence, to add Pippen to his slender list of comforts, and the sour ‘syder’ to cheer his heart and liver, must be considered a fortunate circumstance,” a speaker told a meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1885. “Perhaps he is inclined to cider . . . because it was nowhere spoken against in the Scriptures.” Whether this was the reason or a rationale concocted after the fact, Americans were indeed strongly inclined to cider. In fact, there was hardly anything else to drink. The sweetest fruit makes the strongest drink. Corn liquor preceded cider on the frontier by a few years, but after the apple trees began to bear fruit, cider—being safer and easier to make—became the alcoholic drink of choice. Virtually every homestead in America had an orchard from which thousands of gallons of cider was made each year. In rural area cider took the place not only of wine and beer but of coffee and tea, juice, and even water. In many areas, cider was consumed more freely than water, even by children, since it was arguably healthier and more sanitary. Cider became so indispensible to rural life that even those who railed against the evil of alcohol made an exception to cider, and the prohibitionists succeeded in mainly switching drinkers over from grain to apple spirits. Eventually they would attack cider directly and launch their campaign to chop down apple trees, but up until the end of the nineteenth century cider continued to enjoy the theological exemption that the Puritans had contrived for it. One of the wonders of alcohol is that it suffuses the world around. (Or at least spins that illusion.) This was the gift of sweetness John Chapman brought into the country.
Wallace Stevens wrote a poem about the power of a simple jar atop a Tennessee hill to transform the surrounding forest. He described how this very ordinary bit of human pretense “took dominion everywhere”, ordering the “slovenly wilderness” around it like light in the darkness. This serves as a reminder that there can be no civilization without wildness and no sweetness absent its astringent opposite, that our overpowering desire for sweetness drained the innocent apple, warping it of its original taste, shape and purpose. Who’s next in line? The fruit, the animal, or the human?
Henry David Thoreau. Much of that history can be coaxed out of John Chapman’s story. It’s the story of how pioneers like him helped to domesticate the frontier by seeding it with Old World plants. Such a strategy would have large consequences on both the frontier and the apple.
In 1801, a land grant in the Northwest Territory specifically required a settler to “set out at least fifty apple or pear trees” as a condition of his deed. The purpose of this rule was to dampen real estate speculation, by encouraging homesteaders to put down roots. Since a standard apple tree normally took ten years to fruit, an orchard was a mark of lasting settlement. This is one reason for the success of Chapman and his trees. Frontiersmen found comfort in an apple orchard, in that it reminded them of the Old World: graceful, flowering trees provided shade and gave the eyes a resting place when scanning across the vast, flat emptiness of the wilderness. It also gave the pioneers a sense of achievement. Conquering the wilderness and domesticating a farm was no easy task. The second reason for Chapman’s success was the apple itself. Sugar was a rare pleasure in the eighteenth century. It usually came in the form of maple sugar, and, in some extremely rare cases, honey. Therefore the sensation of sweetness came chiefly from the flesh of Jonny Chapman’s apple.
Sweetness is a desire that starts on the tongue with a sense of taste, but doesn’t end there. The
experience of sweetness was so special that the word served as kind of a metaphor for perfection. Like a shining equal sign, the word sweetness stood for a human desire: fulfillment. Over time, sweetness has lost much of its power; overuse probably helped to cheapen the word’s power on the tongue. (The final insult came with the invention of synthetic sweeteners.) Anthropologists have found that a taste for sweetness seemed to be universal, even among animals. This makes sense because sugar is the form in which nature stores it’s energy. By encasing their seeds in sugary nutritious flesh, the fruiting plants have found an ingenious way of exploiting the mammalian sweet tooth: in exchange for fructose, the animals provide the seeds with transportation, allowing the plant to expand its range. As an extra precaution for protecting their seeds and ensuring that the seeds get started on their journey, the fruit held off on sweet flesh until the seed is fully developed, by encasing the seeds in bitter, sometimes poisonous flesh. Before then, the fruit is usually green and unpalatable. Desire therefore, is built into the
very nature and purpose of the fruit.
The apple has been quite willing to do business with us humans; we give ourselves far too much
credit in our dealings with other species. Take the oak tree for example. Try as we might, humans have never been able to domesticate the oak tree, yet, evidently, the oak has a satisfactory arrangement with the squirrel, who obligingly forgets where it has buried every fourth acorn (according to Beatrix Potter).
The tree has never had to enter into any formal arrangement with us. The apple has done such a convincing job of making itself at home in America, thanks to Jonny Chapman, that we wrongly assume it is a native. The blandishment of sugar is what got the apple out of Kazakhstan forest, across Europe, to the shores of North America, and into Jonny Chapman’s canoe.
In the process of changing the land, Chapman also changed the apple—or made it possible for the apple to changed itself. If Americans like Chapman planted only grafted trees—if Americans had eaten instead of drunk their apples—the apple would not have been able to remake itself and thereby adapt to its new world. Apples don’t “come true” from seeds, that is, an apple tree grown from a seed will bear a glancing resemblance to its parents. Anyone who wanted edible apples, grafted their apple trees, for apples from seedlings were almost always inedible or sour enough to “set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream” ,Thoreau wrote. Most frontiersmen judged them good for little but hard cider, and hard cider was the fate of most apples grown in America up until Prohibition. Apples were something people drank.
The identification of the apple with notions of health and wholesomeness turns out to be a modern invention, part of a public relations campaign dreamed up by the apple industry in the early 1900s to reposition a fruit that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had declared war on. “The desire of the Puritan, distant from help and struggling for bare existence, to add Pippen to his slender list of comforts, and the sour ‘syder’ to cheer his heart and liver, must be considered a fortunate circumstance,” a speaker told a meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1885. “Perhaps he is inclined to cider . . . because it was nowhere spoken against in the Scriptures.” Whether this was the reason or a rationale concocted after the fact, Americans were indeed strongly inclined to cider. In fact, there was hardly anything else to drink. The sweetest fruit makes the strongest drink. Corn liquor preceded cider on the frontier by a few years, but after the apple trees began to bear fruit, cider—being safer and easier to make—became the alcoholic drink of choice. Virtually every homestead in America had an orchard from which thousands of gallons of cider was made each year. In rural area cider took the place not only of wine and beer but of coffee and tea, juice, and even water. In many areas, cider was consumed more freely than water, even by children, since it was arguably healthier and more sanitary. Cider became so indispensible to rural life that even those who railed against the evil of alcohol made an exception to cider, and the prohibitionists succeeded in mainly switching drinkers over from grain to apple spirits. Eventually they would attack cider directly and launch their campaign to chop down apple trees, but up until the end of the nineteenth century cider continued to enjoy the theological exemption that the Puritans had contrived for it. One of the wonders of alcohol is that it suffuses the world around. (Or at least spins that illusion.) This was the gift of sweetness John Chapman brought into the country.
Wallace Stevens wrote a poem about the power of a simple jar atop a Tennessee hill to transform the surrounding forest. He described how this very ordinary bit of human pretense “took dominion everywhere”, ordering the “slovenly wilderness” around it like light in the darkness. This serves as a reminder that there can be no civilization without wildness and no sweetness absent its astringent opposite, that our overpowering desire for sweetness drained the innocent apple, warping it of its original taste, shape and purpose. Who’s next in line? The fruit, the animal, or the human?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Handy Handbag
It's used for lipstick stashing, cell phone holding, car key cramming and wallet hiding. Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce to you: the purse. Attractively priced, it comes in a wide array of colors, shapes, sizes, and uh, smells. That's right! Available in any color in the rainbow and then some, and shaped in every design possible, you can find purses resembling a fish to a purse with a million zippers. Although not always a fashion statements, purses are practical as well as pretty.
Handbags have been essential to fashion history ever since people have had something precious to carry around with them. Only the items have changed over time. In the 16th century, handbags took on an air of practicality. These purses or satchels were carried by men and were often made of leather and held together with a drawstring. In the 17th century, women started carrying handbags underneath their clothing, sort of like pockets. By the 18th century, a reduction in the amount of underclothing worn by women started the trend of a 'must have' handbag. Wearing a bulky, leather purse would ruin the look of their clothing, so fashionable ladies started carrying handbags called reticules which were very similar to the handbags men carried, only smaller and made with a printed fabric instead of leather.
The term "handbag" first came into use in the early 1900's and generally referred to hand-held luggage bags carried by men. These were an inspiration for new bags that became popularized for women, including handbags with complicated fasteners, internal compartments and locks. With this new fashion, jewelers got into the act with special compartments for opera glasses, cosmetics and fans.
Without this essential fashion statements, all the little important things would be left at home. The errands wouldn't get done and the keys would never be found. Without a purse, life would be complicated.
Handbags have been essential to fashion history ever since people have had something precious to carry around with them. Only the items have changed over time. In the 16th century, handbags took on an air of practicality. These purses or satchels were carried by men and were often made of leather and held together with a drawstring. In the 17th century, women started carrying handbags underneath their clothing, sort of like pockets. By the 18th century, a reduction in the amount of underclothing worn by women started the trend of a 'must have' handbag. Wearing a bulky, leather purse would ruin the look of their clothing, so fashionable ladies started carrying handbags called reticules which were very similar to the handbags men carried, only smaller and made with a printed fabric instead of leather.
The term "handbag" first came into use in the early 1900's and generally referred to hand-held luggage bags carried by men. These were an inspiration for new bags that became popularized for women, including handbags with complicated fasteners, internal compartments and locks. With this new fashion, jewelers got into the act with special compartments for opera glasses, cosmetics and fans.
Without this essential fashion statements, all the little important things would be left at home. The errands wouldn't get done and the keys would never be found. Without a purse, life would be complicated.
Spirited Away review
Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is equal parts visual masterpiece, nightmare-inducing fable and packaged pantheism. Imagine a Grimm fairytale expanded for more than two hours and then riddled with Eastern religion. Although it's artfully done, this imaginative work may be too dark and hostile for school aged children.
In the beginning of the movie, Chihiro and her parents are on their way to a new house in the suburbs. Chihiro is upset and resentful because she is leaving her familiar life behind and is unsure of what's to come. She lies in the backseat of the family car, clutching a bouquet of wilted pink roses, her last tangible connection with her old life.
As they stumble upon a vacant tunnel, Chihiro's parents urge her to explore with them.
They come upon a deserted Japanese town, with a tempting steaming buffet of food waiting for customers. The parents help themselves, while Chihiro explores the vacant town. She returns to find her parents have turned into giant, slobbering pigs. As darkness falls, the town comes alive with spirits: dark, formless blobs, floating masks and cloaked apparitions. This peculiar place turns out to be a resort where the spirits recharge on hot tubs and fine dining, cuisine that includes once-human pigs.
Forced into an inhumane nightmare, Chihiro is befriended by Haku, a boy who works in the main bathhouse. Since humans are unwelcome in this world, he convinces her to get a job by working at the bathhouse. She must submit to slave labor to stay alive and have any chance in saving her parents from being eaten by the spirits.
Chihiro witnesses several otherworldly transformations; Haku morphs back and forth between his human form and a flying dragon. She also undergoes changes when she becomes "See through!" and Haku casts a spell over her to relieve numbness in her legs.
By the time Chihiro is morphed back into her own world, she finds that no time has passed and that her parents are waiting for her at the entrance to the tunnel. This now brave little girl, runs to catch up and is ready to explore.
Intended as a tale empowering children to face change, the film wants to diminish their apprehension over experiencing new things by showing how Chihiro conquered bigger obstacles. She bravely faced fear and uncertainty in an attempt to save Haku's life. Hard work and inner decency served her well as she found her way though the strange, new surroundings.
In the beginning of the movie, Chihiro and her parents are on their way to a new house in the suburbs. Chihiro is upset and resentful because she is leaving her familiar life behind and is unsure of what's to come. She lies in the backseat of the family car, clutching a bouquet of wilted pink roses, her last tangible connection with her old life.
As they stumble upon a vacant tunnel, Chihiro's parents urge her to explore with them.
They come upon a deserted Japanese town, with a tempting steaming buffet of food waiting for customers. The parents help themselves, while Chihiro explores the vacant town. She returns to find her parents have turned into giant, slobbering pigs. As darkness falls, the town comes alive with spirits: dark, formless blobs, floating masks and cloaked apparitions. This peculiar place turns out to be a resort where the spirits recharge on hot tubs and fine dining, cuisine that includes once-human pigs.
Forced into an inhumane nightmare, Chihiro is befriended by Haku, a boy who works in the main bathhouse. Since humans are unwelcome in this world, he convinces her to get a job by working at the bathhouse. She must submit to slave labor to stay alive and have any chance in saving her parents from being eaten by the spirits.
Chihiro witnesses several otherworldly transformations; Haku morphs back and forth between his human form and a flying dragon. She also undergoes changes when she becomes "See through!" and Haku casts a spell over her to relieve numbness in her legs.
By the time Chihiro is morphed back into her own world, she finds that no time has passed and that her parents are waiting for her at the entrance to the tunnel. This now brave little girl, runs to catch up and is ready to explore.
Intended as a tale empowering children to face change, the film wants to diminish their apprehension over experiencing new things by showing how Chihiro conquered bigger obstacles. She bravely faced fear and uncertainty in an attempt to save Haku's life. Hard work and inner decency served her well as she found her way though the strange, new surroundings.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Not-so-Ordinary Neighborhood
Normal, everyday neighborhoods have freshly painted, white picket fences lining the front yards. Patios with grills and picnic tables with red, white and blue umbrellas. The aroma of tangy barbecue and juicy hot dogs drifting through the street. Front porches with rocking chairs and swings, graced with comfy pillow, a welcome invitation to come over and chat for a while.!" Huge potter ferns hanging from the porch's ceiling, creating a tame, closed in jungle. Tall, inviting glasses of ice cold lemonade and a platter of still warm chocolate chip cookies sitting on a nearby table, waiting to refresh and replenish. Clotheslines hanging in the backyard, decorated with colorful crazy quilts, tattered blue jeans and mismatched socks, flapping like carefree butterflies in the warm breeze. Old rundown junk cars, perched on jacks in the middle of driveways patiently waiting to relive their glory days.
My neighborhood is far from ordinary. It has something that other neighborhoods do not. My neighborhood has a guardrail.
This guardrail is old, silver and rusted. It leans slightly from its original stance, having been 'on duty' for many long years. Holes at one end reveal unusual patterns when the mid-morning sunlight shines through. An afterthought of a dated construction project, cutting off a road that had never been built. Located at the end of the subdivision's main road, it serves many purposes to any 10-year-old's childhood.
Guardrails are for leaning on while watching the neighbor kids play baseball in the field across the street. In the muggy evenings, swatting mosquitoes and screaming cheering when your team makes a home run. For sitting on in the humid summer afternoons, licking the last of a cherry Popsicle, the cold, sticky red juice dribbling down your hand. For being 'home base' in a neighborhood-wide game of tag, breathlessly making it back just in time. For "One last game!" of Hide-and-Seek, as parents wait impatiently, watching flashlights flicker across the yard, like frantic fireflies. For being the community bulletin board, advertising the 'Annual Neighborhood-Wide Yard Sale', Missing Dog', Free Kittens to Good Home' and 'Car For Sale-Cheap'.
Guardrails are for standing and waving goodbye in the chilly autumn air, as the school bus pulls out of the neighborhood, the children's faces pressed to the window, catching one last glimpse of Mommy blowing kisses. The changing fall foliage littering the ground with vibrant bursts of yellows, reds and browns. Fathers rushing to their cars, hot coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other, off to another day at work.
The sturdy guardrail is a solid bulwark in the mountainous snow fort that everyone pitches in to build. Protecting against snowballs sailing over your head and the other team's surprise attack. The dads standing by, arms folded, swapping stories of their snow forts. For gathering around to sing Christmas carols, belting out 'Joy to the World', 'Away in a Manger' and 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' in an off key, yet melodious chorus. Snowflakes quietly falling and landing on eyelashes and children's tongues. For drinking hot chocolate and spicy apple cider, shivering, whispering and giggling about last minute Christmas presents. For trudging back through the winter wonderland, echoes of "Merry Christmas!" and "Keep warm!" sending you back home to a warm, crackling fire, as the multi-colored Christmas light flickering and casting rainbows on the snow-capped front lawns, surround the home with joy and peace.
Guardrails are also for sitting on, watching the moving vans slowly back out of the driveway, leaving an empty shell of a house, a heart, a life behind. For absently tracing the rusty holes made by years of corrosion, especially the ones shaped like a heart. The one where you and your best neighbor friend stuck your fingers in and promised never to move. the guardrail, however, remains faithfully planted, unmoving and unchanging.
For posing against, as your parents snap pictures of your family, the fragrance of the spring wildflowers float around you and your loved ones, like a gentle hug as the evening ends. As you are tucked into bed, covers pulled up to your chin, the starts knowingly twinkle through the window and the moon shines down on the neighborhood, reflecting off the guardrail and lends a soft, silver sheen to the quiet night. You dream of the sunny days and happy memories in your not-so-ordinary neighborhood. Because every ordinary neighborhood should have a guardrail.
My neighborhood is far from ordinary. It has something that other neighborhoods do not. My neighborhood has a guardrail.
This guardrail is old, silver and rusted. It leans slightly from its original stance, having been 'on duty' for many long years. Holes at one end reveal unusual patterns when the mid-morning sunlight shines through. An afterthought of a dated construction project, cutting off a road that had never been built. Located at the end of the subdivision's main road, it serves many purposes to any 10-year-old's childhood.
Guardrails are for leaning on while watching the neighbor kids play baseball in the field across the street. In the muggy evenings, swatting mosquitoes and screaming cheering when your team makes a home run. For sitting on in the humid summer afternoons, licking the last of a cherry Popsicle, the cold, sticky red juice dribbling down your hand. For being 'home base' in a neighborhood-wide game of tag, breathlessly making it back just in time. For "One last game!" of Hide-and-Seek, as parents wait impatiently, watching flashlights flicker across the yard, like frantic fireflies. For being the community bulletin board, advertising the 'Annual Neighborhood-Wide Yard Sale', Missing Dog', Free Kittens to Good Home' and 'Car For Sale-Cheap'.
Guardrails are for standing and waving goodbye in the chilly autumn air, as the school bus pulls out of the neighborhood, the children's faces pressed to the window, catching one last glimpse of Mommy blowing kisses. The changing fall foliage littering the ground with vibrant bursts of yellows, reds and browns. Fathers rushing to their cars, hot coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other, off to another day at work.
The sturdy guardrail is a solid bulwark in the mountainous snow fort that everyone pitches in to build. Protecting against snowballs sailing over your head and the other team's surprise attack. The dads standing by, arms folded, swapping stories of their snow forts. For gathering around to sing Christmas carols, belting out 'Joy to the World', 'Away in a Manger' and 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' in an off key, yet melodious chorus. Snowflakes quietly falling and landing on eyelashes and children's tongues. For drinking hot chocolate and spicy apple cider, shivering, whispering and giggling about last minute Christmas presents. For trudging back through the winter wonderland, echoes of "Merry Christmas!" and "Keep warm!" sending you back home to a warm, crackling fire, as the multi-colored Christmas light flickering and casting rainbows on the snow-capped front lawns, surround the home with joy and peace.
Guardrails are also for sitting on, watching the moving vans slowly back out of the driveway, leaving an empty shell of a house, a heart, a life behind. For absently tracing the rusty holes made by years of corrosion, especially the ones shaped like a heart. The one where you and your best neighbor friend stuck your fingers in and promised never to move. the guardrail, however, remains faithfully planted, unmoving and unchanging.
For posing against, as your parents snap pictures of your family, the fragrance of the spring wildflowers float around you and your loved ones, like a gentle hug as the evening ends. As you are tucked into bed, covers pulled up to your chin, the starts knowingly twinkle through the window and the moon shines down on the neighborhood, reflecting off the guardrail and lends a soft, silver sheen to the quiet night. You dream of the sunny days and happy memories in your not-so-ordinary neighborhood. Because every ordinary neighborhood should have a guardrail.
Summary: The Homestead on a Rainy Mountain Creek
In his short story "The Homestead on a Rainy Mountain Creek", N. Scott Momaday discusses his lifestyle in the town of Mountain View and his experiences with the Kiowa people. He describes the house he lived in as a child and how he was born in a tepee close by while the family's house was still under construction.
Momaday also describes his grandfather Mammedaty, who was a respected and successful farmer. Even though his grandfather died a year after Momaday was born, he felt like he knew him all his life, though stories told about Mammedaty. In the same way, Momaday notes about his grandmother, who governed over the household with 'great generosity and goodwill.' Interestingly, his grandmother passed away during the time of the writing of The Way to Rainy Mountain and in that, he retraced the route of the Kiowa people from Montana to Oklahoma, ending at his grandmother's grave.
Curiously, his parents are rarely mention, signifying the importance of the role his grandparents played in his life and the values they instilled in him.
Momaday also describes his grandfather Mammedaty, who was a respected and successful farmer. Even though his grandfather died a year after Momaday was born, he felt like he knew him all his life, though stories told about Mammedaty. In the same way, Momaday notes about his grandmother, who governed over the household with 'great generosity and goodwill.' Interestingly, his grandmother passed away during the time of the writing of The Way to Rainy Mountain and in that, he retraced the route of the Kiowa people from Montana to Oklahoma, ending at his grandmother's grave.
Curiously, his parents are rarely mention, signifying the importance of the role his grandparents played in his life and the values they instilled in him.
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