I've been starting lots and lots of posts. Usually they end up being about two sentences long. And then I sit and think for a while, and work on something else. It takes me a long time to realize the post is dead and I can't go on. I keep the empty blog post open in another window for a few days, just in case I find myself ready to write while I'm doing something else. But I don't. So it gets killed.
Here are some topics I'm not writing about.
1. Academic book publishers who make me really mad. In fact, sometimes they make me so mad that they ruin an entire day, while I sit around thinking mad thoughts and how to professionally turn my mad thoughts into a professional angry letter. And then I get home and realize my day really sucked, and I don't want to live another day like that. So the angry letter doesn't get written. It doesn't. It hasn't. And neither has the blog post. Which means most of my readers don't even know what I'm talking about. And I'm not going to tell you, because what I really need to do is stop whining and just write the angry letter and get it over with. But that makes me cringe. I don't know if the reward of getting the thing fixed is worth the high price of writing the angry letter at this point.
2. The status of women in my religious sphere. In my church, there have been a few movements recently to ordain women (yes, I belong to a religion that still does not -- crazy, eh?). I understand the concerns and desires of these men and women, and I am sympathetic. And I would like to explain eloquently why I am sympathetic. But I don't want to join their cause. Not right now. Right now, I just want to figure out how to politely correct the person who raises their hand in Sunday School and says that women are naturally better than men, and so they don't need the obligation to serve like the men do. Dude -- that is called benevolent sexism. Look it up. It's not helping. And no, women aren't. And your comments make me lean further in my sympathies. But now is not the time -- not for me.
3. The status of women in my discipline. I've been to meetings with women students, in which I was supposed to share "my story". I've been to meetings with women faculty, in which we were supposed to discuss ways to improve graduation rates among the women in our state. I've been to meetings with women in my research area, in which we just talked to each other about the cool things we're doing for a weekend. I liked the third one the best. You know, I would like to be able to help people, and be a role model for people, and a leader. But I don't like standing in for Every Woman. Because I'm not. And sometimes I say stupid things in public. And it is unfair to judge everyone else based on me. Stop it! But honestly, I really really would like to do what I can to help people -- male and female -- feel comfortable in my discipline, and meet their full potential. I just don't know how. And things change slowly, if at all. And it isn't my fault! Just leave me alone for a while and let me get my Real work done.
4. The status of my garden. The tulips are about to bloom! They would bloom, if it would stop snowing. They probably will bloom anyway, because they have already begun the process of blooming, and it's too late to go back now. I predict a profusion of tulips by the weekend! I would blog about that, except that I feel like I should include a picture, and that adds a level of difficulty that so far I have not surmounted. Meanwhile, Tim ordered 2 cubic yards of mulch (that's a lot of mulch), and Jonathan decided he would like to plant actual flowers in the garden space that has been his own for the last three years. That is right. Jonathan's mud and rock hill will become a lovely flower garden this year. As long as the snow hasn't killed off his new transplants.
5. Family news. My little brother got engaged. My parents are preparing for their own Big Announcement. My older brother is moving to Argentina for the summer. My sister had a baby boy. But I can't post any of this stuff, because it isn't my news. It's theirs. But exciting!
6. Boring lists of stuff I am doing, and stuff I need to do. It is useful for me to write such lists, but super boring for you.
In fact, even this post about stuff I'm not posting has turned into a list. And you just read through it. (Most of the way.)
I'm not going to finish this post either. I'm just going to publish.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
School project
This week, my son Jonathan was required to write a five paragraph essay about an ancestor of his, someone further back than grandparent. Tim and I both got a little excited and started describing some of the weirdos the boy is descended from. After hearing a few options, Jonathan decided to write about my great grandfather, his ancestor who went into the resort business in the 1920s. He chose to write about this man first, because it's cool to be descended from the guy who owned the place everyone wanted to visit in the 1920s and 30s -- at least everyone who lived in Hick County. And second, because Tim was going to be out of town when the report was due, so Jonathan decided he'd better write about someone on Mom's side so she could help him.
Honestly.
On Monday night, I had him read about 20 pages of stories written by my grandfather on what it was like to be a kid growing up at a lakeside resort. My grandpa describes roaming the halls of the hotel, crawling under the floor of the dance hall, watching bats fly out from under its roof late at night, and learning to swim and dive. There is a story in Grandpa's memoirs about how Uncle Bun earned a whopping $25 on the 4th of July by pulling on a gasoline-soaked suit, climbing up to the high dive, and then being lit by a match and diving, flaming, into the pool below. He writes about the pet bear that performed tricks for the guests until it grew too big and dangerous and had to be put down. The old resort had what they called a toboggan slide -- attach your sled to the tracks at the top, swoop down to the bottom, and find yourself cruising out over the lake. The stories are fascinating.
But Monday night, Jonathan was in tears. "There aren't any facts in here. How can I write an essay about any of this?"
Tuesday night I dug up a history of the second resort my great grandfather purchased, written by another distant relative. The history contained facts: names, dates, quotes from advertisements in local newspapers. A 1932 ad invited the locals to "Swim in drinking water! Gents 25 cents, ladies 10 cents". The history also included information about renovations to the park and pools. My great grandfather installed an amazing sand filtration system, one of a kind, allowing him to brag back in the 1930s that his pools were so clean, you could "see the bottom from almost anywhere". Under the older system, pool water had been cleaned and changed only once per week. (Yuck!)
Tuesday night, Jonathan was in tears. "This is too much! How can I put this into an essay?"
Wednesday night, we talked about outlining, and giving each paragraph its own topic. He needed to write five paragraphs. That was only five topics! "What five things would you like to write about? How do you think it should start? How should it end? And then what sorts of things can go in the middle?"
Wednesday night, Jonathan was in tears. "I don't know. I don't know what to write about."
The assignment instructions specifically said that parents could help with research and pre-writing. But not the actual writing. We spent a long time pre-writing. I coaxed and coddled and pulled from his mind possible paragraph topics. "What resort did he buy first? Why did he buy it? Don't you think that would make an interesting paragraph?" (Hint hint hint.) I pulled out all the articles again, and marked in pink pen some of the things that he could put into the essay, a small arrow and a few lines here and there around the masses of his enthusiastic yellow highlighting marks.
I had him reread the assignment instructions for some inspiration. The instructions said he should follow the guidelines for writers he had been learning about in school. "What guidelines have you learned?"
"Um... Each paragraph should have five sentences?"
So after we came up with topics, we brainstormed five things he could say under each topic. Five sentences each. And then finally, finally, he sat down on his own and wrote with pencil and paper a first draft. Even after we had talked about each item for each sentence, it took him over an hour to craft those twenty-five sentences. Twenty-five perfect sentences.
When he was finished, I read the essay through with him, and it was very good. I made a few suggestions -- parents could help with editing, the assignment sheet said. This afternoon he typed it up, hunting for letters on my keyboard with a pair of index fingers and a concerned squint in his forehead. In total, he spent well over the three hours the assignment sheet had suggested that students devote to the project.
And I learned a lot more than he did.
I learned again about my great-grandfather, and his resorts. But mostly I learned that writing is Hard. HARD! Even when you have all the facts and all the stories, it is Hard to organize that into paragraphs, and still hard to organize that into sentences, and still hard to organize that into words.
And I think that Jonathan really really needs another five paragraph essay assignment again very very soon. Because now that we have spent all this time talking about organizing information into topics and paragraphs and sentences, he needs to practice that over and over again, and learn how to pre-write on his own, and learn not to be afraid of blank paper and Facts and Stories. How will he learn these things if he does not get to practice?
And how in the world do his friends learn this stuff, the ones with parents who can't help their children with their school work? This project was so different from anything he had been doing (worksheets... multiple choice reading comprehension... short fiction writing), that he needed one-on-one tutoring. Is that what it takes to learn to write?
Or did I help too much? Should I not have been moved by his tears? Should I just have left him in flames at the top of the diving board, to find his own way into the pool? After all, he only had to jump.
But I don't know. I worried that if his hair got too singed this first time, he would be less inclined to jump the next time. And then how would he ever learn the thrill of jumping?
Honestly.
On Monday night, I had him read about 20 pages of stories written by my grandfather on what it was like to be a kid growing up at a lakeside resort. My grandpa describes roaming the halls of the hotel, crawling under the floor of the dance hall, watching bats fly out from under its roof late at night, and learning to swim and dive. There is a story in Grandpa's memoirs about how Uncle Bun earned a whopping $25 on the 4th of July by pulling on a gasoline-soaked suit, climbing up to the high dive, and then being lit by a match and diving, flaming, into the pool below. He writes about the pet bear that performed tricks for the guests until it grew too big and dangerous and had to be put down. The old resort had what they called a toboggan slide -- attach your sled to the tracks at the top, swoop down to the bottom, and find yourself cruising out over the lake. The stories are fascinating.
But Monday night, Jonathan was in tears. "There aren't any facts in here. How can I write an essay about any of this?"
Tuesday night I dug up a history of the second resort my great grandfather purchased, written by another distant relative. The history contained facts: names, dates, quotes from advertisements in local newspapers. A 1932 ad invited the locals to "Swim in drinking water! Gents 25 cents, ladies 10 cents". The history also included information about renovations to the park and pools. My great grandfather installed an amazing sand filtration system, one of a kind, allowing him to brag back in the 1930s that his pools were so clean, you could "see the bottom from almost anywhere". Under the older system, pool water had been cleaned and changed only once per week. (Yuck!)
Tuesday night, Jonathan was in tears. "This is too much! How can I put this into an essay?"
Wednesday night, we talked about outlining, and giving each paragraph its own topic. He needed to write five paragraphs. That was only five topics! "What five things would you like to write about? How do you think it should start? How should it end? And then what sorts of things can go in the middle?"
Wednesday night, Jonathan was in tears. "I don't know. I don't know what to write about."
The assignment instructions specifically said that parents could help with research and pre-writing. But not the actual writing. We spent a long time pre-writing. I coaxed and coddled and pulled from his mind possible paragraph topics. "What resort did he buy first? Why did he buy it? Don't you think that would make an interesting paragraph?" (Hint hint hint.) I pulled out all the articles again, and marked in pink pen some of the things that he could put into the essay, a small arrow and a few lines here and there around the masses of his enthusiastic yellow highlighting marks.
I had him reread the assignment instructions for some inspiration. The instructions said he should follow the guidelines for writers he had been learning about in school. "What guidelines have you learned?"
"Um... Each paragraph should have five sentences?"
So after we came up with topics, we brainstormed five things he could say under each topic. Five sentences each. And then finally, finally, he sat down on his own and wrote with pencil and paper a first draft. Even after we had talked about each item for each sentence, it took him over an hour to craft those twenty-five sentences. Twenty-five perfect sentences.
When he was finished, I read the essay through with him, and it was very good. I made a few suggestions -- parents could help with editing, the assignment sheet said. This afternoon he typed it up, hunting for letters on my keyboard with a pair of index fingers and a concerned squint in his forehead. In total, he spent well over the three hours the assignment sheet had suggested that students devote to the project.
And I learned a lot more than he did.
I learned again about my great-grandfather, and his resorts. But mostly I learned that writing is Hard. HARD! Even when you have all the facts and all the stories, it is Hard to organize that into paragraphs, and still hard to organize that into sentences, and still hard to organize that into words.
And I think that Jonathan really really needs another five paragraph essay assignment again very very soon. Because now that we have spent all this time talking about organizing information into topics and paragraphs and sentences, he needs to practice that over and over again, and learn how to pre-write on his own, and learn not to be afraid of blank paper and Facts and Stories. How will he learn these things if he does not get to practice?
And how in the world do his friends learn this stuff, the ones with parents who can't help their children with their school work? This project was so different from anything he had been doing (worksheets... multiple choice reading comprehension... short fiction writing), that he needed one-on-one tutoring. Is that what it takes to learn to write?
Or did I help too much? Should I not have been moved by his tears? Should I just have left him in flames at the top of the diving board, to find his own way into the pool? After all, he only had to jump.
But I don't know. I worried that if his hair got too singed this first time, he would be less inclined to jump the next time. And then how would he ever learn the thrill of jumping?
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Perspective
There is a huge difference between 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Last week, in early early March, the temperature (nearly) reached 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The following day, the neighbor child walked to school in shorts and a light jacket. (It was 37 degrees and yeah, he was pretty much purple by the time we reached school, but no, he wasn't cold at all. Nope. Not at all. Really warm, in fact.) In spite of the neighbor boy turning blue in the cold, the world did smell like mud and pine and living, growing things. Spring is coming! And then summer! It's almost summer! At 55 degrees!
Last week, in early early March, the temperature (nearly) reached 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The following day, the neighbor child walked to school in shorts and a light jacket. (It was 37 degrees and yeah, he was pretty much purple by the time we reached school, but no, he wasn't cold at all. Nope. Not at all. Really warm, in fact.) In spite of the neighbor boy turning blue in the cold, the world did smell like mud and pine and living, growing things. Spring is coming! And then summer! It's almost summer! At 55 degrees!
But in September, when the temperature drops from 80 degrees Fahrenheit to 55 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, the neighbor boy comes dressed in long pants and a heavy jacket. That evening, we pull out our sweaters and start a wood fire in the basement fire place. Winter is coming. Because the temperature dropped to 55 degrees.
When we lived in California, I remember distinctly those long rainy winter months, and that the average high temperature, day after day after day, was stuck at the bitter cold value of 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I was so cold, and so tired of winter. I longed for warmer weather -- for spring. Warmer than 55 degrees.
Perspective.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Sore gums and important people
I had another appointment with the dentist this week. I knew it wouldn't go well. That's because for the last few years, the amount of pain and swelling I feel in my gums has been a pretty good indication of the amount of stress I'm feeling in my life. And actually, interestingly, lately the soreness in my gums has been the first thing to awaken me to the fact that I'm feeling pretty stressed out. Again.
I really have no good excuse to be stressed out. My family is safe and healthy and well. And yet....
Last week, two important people came to visit our department, and to speak in the seminar I organize. They were invited to visit primarily by Dr Jim Famous, who just retired from G.O.D. University but who still attends seminars. Working with Dr Famous, we picked a convenient week and found travel funds to bring in Dr Important and Dr Impressive. I took care of the details, because I am the seminar organizer, and because Dr Famous is retired, and because Dr Important was my PhD advisor and Dr Impressive was one of my postdoctoral mentors.
For the record, Dr Important and Dr Impressive are both delightful men, and kind. But because they were my supervisors during times in which I felt small and stupid, now when I am around them I remember how small and stupid I can be. And I feel a deep desire not to be stupid in their presence.
I am smart. I am professional. I am a delightful person, and kind. But alas, I am frequently stupid. Luckily, Dr Famous was the guy who would be hosting these important visitors, and so while they were visiting, he would be the one to show them around and help them be happy and I could hide in his shadow with a professional-looking smile.
Anyway, the travel was arranged, the talks scheduled, advertised, planned. Dr Famous took a quick weekend trip with his wife to visit his grandchildren in rural Texas, assuring me he would be back on Monday. And all was well.
On Monday, I emailed our seminar group to remind them of the important visitors, and to organize a post-seminar dinner. Prof Famous mailed back:
But you know, I survived. And the talks were well attended, and the seminar luncheon and dinner were enjoyable. And I spent a couple of hours with each visitor, talking about my research ideas, and I was not struck dumb with stupidity. And the guests were even polite during the inevitable instances in which I was stupid. In all, it was a lovely visit, just as I knew it would be, even if Dr Famous missed it entirely. And if Dr Important and Dr Impressive are reading this, then I want them to know that I very much appreciated having them come. Their seminars were excellent and the entire department enjoyed the visit and learned from it.
But Tuesday morning, when they were gone and I was trapped in that reclining chair at the dentist's office, it was clear that the visit had affected me. As the hygienist gave my gums a thorough hyper-sonic scrubbing treatment, recommending ibuprofen for the pain I was sure to feel the rest of the day, she asked if I had ever tried yoga for its calming abilities.
No, thought I. But next time I am stressed, I believe I will visit rural Texas. I hear that the farmhouses there are warm and comfortable.
I really have no good excuse to be stressed out. My family is safe and healthy and well. And yet....
Last week, two important people came to visit our department, and to speak in the seminar I organize. They were invited to visit primarily by Dr Jim Famous, who just retired from G.O.D. University but who still attends seminars. Working with Dr Famous, we picked a convenient week and found travel funds to bring in Dr Important and Dr Impressive. I took care of the details, because I am the seminar organizer, and because Dr Famous is retired, and because Dr Important was my PhD advisor and Dr Impressive was one of my postdoctoral mentors.
For the record, Dr Important and Dr Impressive are both delightful men, and kind. But because they were my supervisors during times in which I felt small and stupid, now when I am around them I remember how small and stupid I can be. And I feel a deep desire not to be stupid in their presence.
I am smart. I am professional. I am a delightful person, and kind. But alas, I am frequently stupid. Luckily, Dr Famous was the guy who would be hosting these important visitors, and so while they were visiting, he would be the one to show them around and help them be happy and I could hide in his shadow with a professional-looking smile.
Anyway, the travel was arranged, the talks scheduled, advertised, planned. Dr Famous took a quick weekend trip with his wife to visit his grandchildren in rural Texas, assuring me he would be back on Monday. And all was well.
On Monday, I emailed our seminar group to remind them of the important visitors, and to organize a post-seminar dinner. Prof Famous mailed back:
"Dear everyone,
I am snowed in, in a farmhouse 30 miles outside of Lubbock. If the flight hadn't been cancelled, we wouldn't have been able to get to the airport anyway: snow, winds 35-45 mph with gust to 60. The flight has been rescheduled to Thursday. I am sorry to miss all of you wonderful speakers and seminar members. But... it's nice to be with family, warm and comfortable...unless the electricity goes out. - Dr Famous."
And suddenly, I was the only one on the ground to host Dr Important and Dr Impressive. And even though they are both delightful men, and kind, by the next morning my gums were feeling tender and sore.
But Tuesday morning, when they were gone and I was trapped in that reclining chair at the dentist's office, it was clear that the visit had affected me. As the hygienist gave my gums a thorough hyper-sonic scrubbing treatment, recommending ibuprofen for the pain I was sure to feel the rest of the day, she asked if I had ever tried yoga for its calming abilities.
No, thought I. But next time I am stressed, I believe I will visit rural Texas. I hear that the farmhouses there are warm and comfortable.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Expanding, 2013
For four years in a row now, I have volunteered a Saturday at the Other large university in my metropolitan area, running workshops for middle school and high school girls on mathematics. Today was the day, and I was up and dressed and out the door long before I like to leave home on a Saturday morning.
The girls were all up earlier. One group took a bus from a tiny town somewhere in the rural south; they left at 2:00 in the morning. Others were up at 4:30 or 5:00 am. My 8 am departure was not noteworthy.
Why were they all up early? Over 1000 of them this year?
The program is called Expanding Your Horizons, and is part of a national effort, first started in San Francisco in 1974, to encourage girls to study math, science, and engineering. The national website proclaims that such conferences are now held in 31 states. In our case, girls from all over the state, and even the native Americans in the northern part of the adjacent state, come to the University of All People (UAP) and spend the morning attending workshops of their choice in one of 45 different areas, learning about possible careers and opportunities in science, engineering, health care. The math workshop has never been the most popular, but we had about 55 girls total come through, and each one built a couple of cool fractals.
One thing I did right this year was invite one of the other female faculty members from Good Old Dude University to help me out. Not only was Dr E interested in helping, she wanted to come up with the main presentation. She hadn't done anything like it before, but knew it would be a great learning experience. I was in the same place in 2006 in Texas, invited to run a general-audience workshop, and finally ready to put in the time to come up with something fun and related to my research.
Dr E's research area involves applications of fractals to applied problems, and she found a few fun activities for the girls involving paper triangles, marshmallows, and toothpicks. The girls loved it. As they assembled their creations, they pulled out their phones to take pictures of the final projects, which looked something like this:
And like this:
(Neither image is of our kids or their projects, they're both pictures from the Fractal Foundation, in New Mexico. But you get the idea.)
It was really fun to wander the sides of the room as the TA this year, helping to pass out papers, scissors, supplies, answer questions, and clean up in between sessions, but to leave the presentation to Dr E. Last year, and the year before, and the year before, I did all of it alone. Much less fun.
And one of the best things ... Dr E mentioned saving some of the presentation supplies so she could do this again next year....
It is nice to volunteer, but nicer to volunteer with nice people.
The girls were all up earlier. One group took a bus from a tiny town somewhere in the rural south; they left at 2:00 in the morning. Others were up at 4:30 or 5:00 am. My 8 am departure was not noteworthy.
Why were they all up early? Over 1000 of them this year?
The program is called Expanding Your Horizons, and is part of a national effort, first started in San Francisco in 1974, to encourage girls to study math, science, and engineering. The national website proclaims that such conferences are now held in 31 states. In our case, girls from all over the state, and even the native Americans in the northern part of the adjacent state, come to the University of All People (UAP) and spend the morning attending workshops of their choice in one of 45 different areas, learning about possible careers and opportunities in science, engineering, health care. The math workshop has never been the most popular, but we had about 55 girls total come through, and each one built a couple of cool fractals.
One thing I did right this year was invite one of the other female faculty members from Good Old Dude University to help me out. Not only was Dr E interested in helping, she wanted to come up with the main presentation. She hadn't done anything like it before, but knew it would be a great learning experience. I was in the same place in 2006 in Texas, invited to run a general-audience workshop, and finally ready to put in the time to come up with something fun and related to my research.
Dr E's research area involves applications of fractals to applied problems, and she found a few fun activities for the girls involving paper triangles, marshmallows, and toothpicks. The girls loved it. As they assembled their creations, they pulled out their phones to take pictures of the final projects, which looked something like this:
And like this:
(Neither image is of our kids or their projects, they're both pictures from the Fractal Foundation, in New Mexico. But you get the idea.)
It was really fun to wander the sides of the room as the TA this year, helping to pass out papers, scissors, supplies, answer questions, and clean up in between sessions, but to leave the presentation to Dr E. Last year, and the year before, and the year before, I did all of it alone. Much less fun.
And one of the best things ... Dr E mentioned saving some of the presentation supplies so she could do this again next year....
It is nice to volunteer, but nicer to volunteer with nice people.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Australia
I heard today that my application to spend six months in Melbourne has been approved. We plan to go there next January, when it is summer time, and stay until the depths of winter, at which point we will return to summer time here.
Jonathan is not pleased. He is upset about the idea of leaving his friends, making new friends, and then leaving those friends, too. All in one year. We tried to explain that his friends here will still be here when we get back, and making new friends is a good thing. Hopefully he warms up to the idea with nearly a year to think about it.
Tim is not completely pleased either. He is upset about the idea of working on a schedule 18 hours ahead of his coworkers, and getting set up to work remotely from a new location. With the 18 hour time difference to California, he may have to work Saturdays.
But I'm excited! Now that I have approval, I can start contacting people and figuring out things like nice neighborhoods, good schools, when and how to get the appropriate visa, and so on. If you know anyone in Melbourne who could help me out with that process, please let me know!
Jonathan is not pleased. He is upset about the idea of leaving his friends, making new friends, and then leaving those friends, too. All in one year. We tried to explain that his friends here will still be here when we get back, and making new friends is a good thing. Hopefully he warms up to the idea with nearly a year to think about it.
Tim is not completely pleased either. He is upset about the idea of working on a schedule 18 hours ahead of his coworkers, and getting set up to work remotely from a new location. With the 18 hour time difference to California, he may have to work Saturdays.
But I'm excited! Now that I have approval, I can start contacting people and figuring out things like nice neighborhoods, good schools, when and how to get the appropriate visa, and so on. If you know anyone in Melbourne who could help me out with that process, please let me know!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Memorium
My mother's siblings have always been a tight group. There were six of them growing up, and over the years those six married and became twelve. Wednesday morning, the first of the twelve passed from this life into the next. He was too young for death, but the cancer had been eating his body for more than a year, and he and his wife had known that his time was short. In the last few weeks, his daughters were able to return from around the country to tell him goodbye.
The house where he and his wife have lived for twelve years is only a few houses away from ours, but we see them rarely. The ward boundaries separating their church from ours run down the street between us. And otherwise our lives roll along on parallel trajectories, non-intersecting lines close enough to touch when we think to.
I've watched the sidewalks near our houses through January. The ice is sharp and cold in the mornings, my breath a cloud against the winter inversion. As we trudge through identical mornings of cold monotony, taking Jonathan to school, I glance toward their house and think about my uncle. This gray, this winter, this is the weather of the last days of his life.
In the evenings, as the sun sets, the ice stretches again across the slush on the sidewalks, forming sharp edges. I pull my scarf tighter against my chin. Tim has had the flu. Jonathan has a bad cold. We shouldn't visit, to risk passing infection to a cancer-weakened immune system. And his daughters have come. Would we be in the way? We would probably be in the way. How does one live a life, when four houses away an uncle is dying? His family fills our prayers, because prayer is the only gift we know how to offer.
Wednesday morning I wake, shower, walk Jonathan to school in the cold, and then head to work. My brother sends the news of my uncle's passing as I am meeting with a student. My mother drives down to help organize the obituary, the funeral. They visit my aunt and send us messages, but leave before we see them, our lives passing in parallel lines, non-intersecting, but close enough to almost touch.
That afternoon, I volunteer at Jonathan's school. We color triangles and build fractals, and smile and laugh with the children. Not until we arrive at home do I tell Jonathan the news. My uncle is gone. Our prayers change, refocusing on the family left behind, prayer still the only gift that we know how to offer.
At the cemetery today, watching the snow fall silently on the flag draped over the casket, a uniformed trumpeter playing a goodbye, the winter tightens again, like the ice on the sidewalks in the evening. The patches of flattened brown grass showing through thawed snow are slowly covered by the new flakes, falling slowly but relentlessly. The flag is folded and given to my aunt. She thanks them, gracious in the February cold.
February will end. The ice will melt, freeze again, and melt again, until somewhere in March or April or maybe even June, it will stay melted.
Earlier, in the church, Jonathan had asked, peering at the body, "why doesn't it look like him?" Our neighbor? Our uncle? "Because it isn't him. It's just his body." First of the twelve, he has crossed over, in dignity and grace. Is it his end? I cannot believe it is. It is only February.
And I will try so hard to be close enough, just four houses away, to reach out from the trajectory of my own life to the life of my aunt. And also to reach out to the lives of my parents, my sisters and brothers, while they still run parallel to mine. Non-intersecting, but close enough to touch.
The house where he and his wife have lived for twelve years is only a few houses away from ours, but we see them rarely. The ward boundaries separating their church from ours run down the street between us. And otherwise our lives roll along on parallel trajectories, non-intersecting lines close enough to touch when we think to.
I've watched the sidewalks near our houses through January. The ice is sharp and cold in the mornings, my breath a cloud against the winter inversion. As we trudge through identical mornings of cold monotony, taking Jonathan to school, I glance toward their house and think about my uncle. This gray, this winter, this is the weather of the last days of his life.
In the evenings, as the sun sets, the ice stretches again across the slush on the sidewalks, forming sharp edges. I pull my scarf tighter against my chin. Tim has had the flu. Jonathan has a bad cold. We shouldn't visit, to risk passing infection to a cancer-weakened immune system. And his daughters have come. Would we be in the way? We would probably be in the way. How does one live a life, when four houses away an uncle is dying? His family fills our prayers, because prayer is the only gift we know how to offer.
Wednesday morning I wake, shower, walk Jonathan to school in the cold, and then head to work. My brother sends the news of my uncle's passing as I am meeting with a student. My mother drives down to help organize the obituary, the funeral. They visit my aunt and send us messages, but leave before we see them, our lives passing in parallel lines, non-intersecting, but close enough to almost touch.
That afternoon, I volunteer at Jonathan's school. We color triangles and build fractals, and smile and laugh with the children. Not until we arrive at home do I tell Jonathan the news. My uncle is gone. Our prayers change, refocusing on the family left behind, prayer still the only gift that we know how to offer.
At the cemetery today, watching the snow fall silently on the flag draped over the casket, a uniformed trumpeter playing a goodbye, the winter tightens again, like the ice on the sidewalks in the evening. The patches of flattened brown grass showing through thawed snow are slowly covered by the new flakes, falling slowly but relentlessly. The flag is folded and given to my aunt. She thanks them, gracious in the February cold.
February will end. The ice will melt, freeze again, and melt again, until somewhere in March or April or maybe even June, it will stay melted.
Earlier, in the church, Jonathan had asked, peering at the body, "why doesn't it look like him?" Our neighbor? Our uncle? "Because it isn't him. It's just his body." First of the twelve, he has crossed over, in dignity and grace. Is it his end? I cannot believe it is. It is only February.
And I will try so hard to be close enough, just four houses away, to reach out from the trajectory of my own life to the life of my aunt. And also to reach out to the lives of my parents, my sisters and brothers, while they still run parallel to mine. Non-intersecting, but close enough to touch.
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