New Year's Revolutions

One of my New Year's Resolutions (our nine year old calls them reVolutions) is to learn to shoot, file for my pistol permit, and purchase a gun I can safely manage. 

He, who is nine, wants to eat more fiber and fewer calories. He calls it the diabetic diet.

We are moving the Christmas Tree and instruments out of the music room, replacing them with the weight sets and Nordic machines that reside in the shop (baby, it's cold outside!)

J, now seven, resolves to finally lose his first tooth. 

A Blog as Creative Writing, not a News Report

It's a good day to publish this reminder: this blog is work of creative writing. It's not meant to be factual or accurate. It's a place where a writer can play with words, make connections, and explore ideas. A blogger can cultivate an alter ego, a poetic voice, or a case study.

I make no claims to writing from any single source or perspective.

Many moons ago I was told that I'd insulted someone here.

This person, I believe, imagined seeing herself in a story, although her name wasn't used and the scenario was imaginary.

A blogger is allowed to imagine and explore. I don't however, believe that we should point fingers, name names, or infringe on other's privacy.

Still, I sincerely apologize if I made an insulting remark or published something that was inappropriate.

I'm reminded of an article I read yesterday in The Huffington Post, "The Top five Most Preposterous Things in The Desolation of Smaug." The author (critic) thought that the director had taken too much liberty with this and that scene or character.

Where is our acceptance of creativity?

The Impossible Project

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

― Muhammad Ali

While searching for a gift on Ebay I stumbled upon The Impossible Project, the name given to the company that purchased the former Polaroid instant film company. In my imagination I can hear the critics who advised the group NOT to purchase the former warehouses and equipment for old, virtually defunct cameras. Now the company is HOT, selling film for the latest artistic craze, "analog photography." I'm wild about the idea.

Our 9-year-old and I are reading "Strength of a Champion," by former NFL player O.J. Brigance.

O.J. Brigance, a former Ravens and Baltimore Stallions (CFL) LB, is the Ravens’ senior advisor to player development. Brigance, who has three championship rings– two Super Bowl rings with the Ravens (2000 and 2012) and a CFL Grey Cup ring with the Baltimore Stallions (1995) – has been an inspiration to the entire Ravens organization for his perseverance and courage while fighting Lou Gehrig’s Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) the past six-plus years. The NFL has honored Brigance many times, earning the Best Overall Player Development Program award for two straight years (2005-06) and also receiving the Most Outstanding Internship Program Award in 2005. In 2007, the NFL once again honored Brigance’s program, this time with the Outstanding Continuing Education Program Award. In 2008, the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation also saluted O.J. with its Johnny Unitas Tops in Courage Award for his strength in his battle against ALS. Brigance played seven years for three NFL teams (Miami, Baltimore and St. Louis) before joining the Ravens’ front office in 2004.

Many times, O.J.'s life circumstances seemed insurmountable. He typed the book with his eyes because ALS has stripped him of the use of the rest of his body.

Recently we watched the movie "The Impossible," the story of one family's miraculous journey to find one another following the tsunami in Thailand. It is a gut-wrenching, beautiful, inspiring film.

Christmas is the perfect time to marvel at "the impossible. " God became human. A savior-king was born in a manger. He performed miracles and conquered death.

This blog is a work of creative writing.

Oh Gravity!

I sometimes feel as if the forces of gravity are somehow stronger over and under my house. It seems that the floors are constantly littered with things that have fallen from shelves, counter tops, and clothes hangers.

Yesterday I noticed that a boy's dirty sock had fallen into the basket of potpourri that sits in the living room on a side table. I can't get over the juxtaposition of my best attempts at a nice-smelling family spot next to a boy's mindless attempt at undressing himself.

It becomes very frustrating when I have a cold or some other illness that drains my energy.

I am then no longer capable of working, 24-7 against the forces of boy nature.

The sink fills up with dirty dishes. The laundry pile grows and grows.

I'm finding it especially difficult to manage this week when there is a slim, very slim, chance that a visiting relative might stop by and see the wallpaper that has fallen to the ground, the shoes that carpet the entryway floor, and the well-used bathrooms.

This weekend is our family Christmas get-together. There is also another large snowstorm in the weather forecast.

Snowfall spoiled our Thanksgiving plans.

Snow must fall, once again.

Oh gravity!

Culture Shock

Prior to spending a year abroad in a foreign country, I was taken to a hotel in that country's capitol city for two weeks for intensive language training. Along with grammar and vocabulary lessons, we were prepped on how to handle culture shock.

Culture shock, according to the U.S. State Department, has several phases. Not everyone will go through all of the stages, or go through them at the same pace, but it is very likely that someone living abroad will be fascinated by the new culture at first. He or she will be eager to try new tastes and new experiences.

Later, usually after three months or so, a person can get caught in a stage of comparing his home culture with the new culture. The visitor notices that certain situations are "better" or "more comfortable" in one culture or the other. Home sickness usually sets in at this point and some people sink into a temporary depression.

A person immersed in a new culture eventually moves into an "acceptance" phase. In this phase the new culture isn't better or worse than the home culture, but rather "different." The visitor/immigrant finds a way to reconcile the old and the new.

I am assuredly caught in the "comparison" stage of culture shock with regards to Christmas in the U.S. Understandably, not every family/town/state celebrates in the same way, so my experience here is most definitely a "local phenomena" instead of a national occurrence.

I've always been open to change, but this year I'm especially uncomfortable...

1. The holiday menu is pizza and wings. At another home, our meal is served on paper plates.

I can appreciate the spirit of "making it easy on everyone" but I LOVE the special menu items at Christmas! I appreciate the unique dishes that family members bring. I love to see the special plates and glasses that come out once a year, and to hear the stories behind the traditions. What are we teaching our children we we serve them fast food for a holiday?

2. Boys' girlfriends were invited without parental consent. Call me "Old Fashioned" but I think it's proper to ask parents before inviting the girlfriends of minors.

3. I keep hearing "It's all about getting together." Christmas, in my mind, is a religious holiday. The intent is to recognize and celebrate, publicly, Jesus' arrival. It IS NOT about treating each other horribly during the year and then tolerating one another for an afternoon.

My dear husband keeps reminding me..."nothing will feel normal." His advice: "you can't change things."

If the State Department is correct, I'll eventually move on to the acceptance phase.

Origin Unknown

For some strange reason, I monologue as I drive to work in the morning. I tell (myself) about my home town, my family of origin, my elementary school days, my college years, and more, as if I were dictating my autobiography.

This morning I found myself talking (to myself) about the family safe deposit box. Folded inside, I'm told, are my biological father's adoption papers, the secret to his birthplace and family of origin.

My uncle, second husband to my aunt who is now deceased, may be the only person who knows if the mythological box even exists. I was told about it as I grew up and my grandparents promised that one day I would receive the key. They are now gone, and my uncle communicates with me, on average, once every three years (after I write him a kind reminder asking if he'd mind if I fetched the family heirlooms I was promised from his house. "Oh, I'll bring them to you some day," is his routine reply).

I sometimes wonder about my father's parents, who would have been my grandparents. I've been told that they came from Germany in the early 1940s to the state of Tennessee, but there was never any certainty about their ethnic origin.

I certainly feel German, having an affinity for German food and drink beyond any other cuisine.

I imagine that I look German too. I have German skin, that, as I age, develops the typical tags and dark spots I see on older German women.

My oldest son, without any pushing or prodding, has grown into a German Engineer...a German composer-astrophysicist type.

Perhaps it's this child's status as a senior in high school that has me "summarizing" in this way. These are also his (distant) origins.

Chain Store Children

A topic that has been on my mind lately has to do with State and Federal Education Mandates. My children, especially the younger two, go to school in an era that promotes uniformity. Schools favor the "measurable results" provided by standardized exam.

As a teacher, I realize that a student with "out of the box" thinking and behavior can test my already fragile nerves. I tend to teach to the middle and create evaluations that are manageable to grade. Still, I can imagine a world where students create cool projects, following their own interests and strengths, to show mastery of a subject rather than filling in rows of bubbles with a #2 pencil.

Yesterday was parent-teacher conference night. I knew, going in, that I was going to hear that W hadn't been walking the straight classroom line. He has trouble, even at home, walking a straight line from the shower back to his underwear drawer.

He gets distracted. He daydreams. He isn't a big fan of 100 math problems in one helping or writing out spelling words for practice.

But he loves theater, writing, costumes, drama, and music. He is the proverbial "square peg, round hole."

Do we really want a world full of cookie-cutter children who become cookie-cutter adults? As adults, they might be more employable, easier to predict, or better suited to enjoy living in high rises.

My fear is that we squash out the "Robbert Rodriguezes" of the next generation, the creative, sometimes bizarre individuals of the world. I hope that, as an educator, I can thrive somewhere between Common Core Standards and a sincere appreciation for uniqueness and nonconformity.