How the Other Half Lives

I'm on vacation in the Pacific Northwest.  I tell my Oklahoma friends that it's "the Seattle area", because that just seems easiest. In truth, I got up at 4 am Oklahoma time, flew all day and got into the Seatac airport at 11:30 in the morning.  My sister picked me up and we drove a couple of hours out West on the peninsula, across the Hood Canal Bridge and past Chimacum to Coyle road.  Then it was another 11 miles out in the middle of nowhere and nine acres of blueberries.  And a house and a shop and a really cool terraced garden. And quiet.  Lots and lots of quiet time.  Except that I downloaded the Angry Birds app on my iPad for my nephew.  All I can hear right now is the keyboard keys and the sound of electronic slingshotting of ostensibly angry birds.  Every once in awhile, I hear "Cool!"  That's too funny, if a little distracting. 

It was 54 degrees today, and a little drizzly.  I made arrangements to see two of my old friends from elementary school.  From fourth through sixth grades, I attended the local elementary school.  While my family moved away, one of my sisters still lives here and I've been lucky to keep in touch and occasionally rediscover other old friends.  Today was one of those rare days where there were no demands on my time.  I could sleep in, drink coffee and do my hair.  I painted my toenails and put on my cute flipflops and a pretty tank top with a light sweater in case it was chilly.  I left 104 degree heat for this and packed a little light. 

I met my friends, C and B, down at Linger Longer Bay.  They brought their children with them.  C has one little girl, and B has three little girls.  It was a gaggle of girls between the ages of 8 and 13.  We walked onto the beach, where it was chilly and windy, and I stuck a toe in the water.  Long ago, when we were girls, we swam on days like this.  The water felt warm by comparison.  If the air temperature was 54, then water must have been about 60 degrees.  All but the littlest kid jumped right in, splashing and screaming while the rest of us sat on the rocky shore and caught up on old times. 

B works at the local store, in our little seaside town.  The population is about 350, and since it's on the major road, a lot of traffic comes through in the summer to camp, enjoy the scenery and most importantly, drive on through.  "People ask me what we do around here for fun," said B.
C answered, "You told them about hiking in your yard, or playing in the bay or fishing or gardening and such, right?"
"Yeah," said B, "But it seemed to confuse them more.  They say 'but what about going out and having fun?' They just don't get it. This is fun."
I was trying to listen, to keep up, but I'd lost feeling in my pretty painted toes. I was shivering uncontrollably.  After twenty years of being gone, two in Las Vegas and twelve in Oklahoma, it's safe to assume that I am no longer acclimated to the cooler climate. Eventually, the chattering coming from my teeth scared the bald eagle that was flying overhead.  B asked if we'd like to just move our party to her house.  Yes, I'd love to come over to your indoor, not freezing and seasalty home.  Yes, please. The girls continued the high spirited, high pitched noise level. 

B and C are both life-long residents of our tiny town.  Usually, when someone thinks of the Northwest, they think of log homes and multi-millionaires, giant and sparkling houses built into hillsides with water views and pristine vistas, with yacts in the harbor.  They might think of Bill Gates, the Seattle Symphony, and Pike Place Market. Sophisticated stuff.  These days, the Northwest invokes images of that annoying, sparkling vampire. I don't know anyone who has one of those gorgeous homes or even one with a yact and I sure as hell would shoot any vampires that sparkle or otherwise go emo on my ass. 

B and C and all of the people we knew lived in houses exactly like the one I lived in- older and cluttered with barely controlled happy chaos.  There was powdered lemonade in the cupboard and popcorn and the kids knew where to get something to eat and something to drink.  And there was plenty of stuff to do.  I climbed trees and went swimming at Linger Longer Bay even when it was raining sometimes.  At B's house, it was the most welcome sight I have seen for some time.  It looked like three princesses lived there.  Three princesses who played dress-up and camped on the lawn in their tents and worked on a race car with their dad.  The oldest showed me her knife collection.  Two of the other girls practiced using a straw to make farting noises under their armpits.  Then everyone drug out B's big box of clothes and showed me all of the beautiful things she had made or bought for them to wear and play in.  A dog named Rocky meandered by from time to time and two cats made themselves known.  There was talk of a mouse living in one of the closets and a cat was set in front of the door.  There was none of this perfect brand-new furniture and museum-quality housekeeping.  How do you live in a house you have to fret over, anyway? I looked out the big picture window at the farm down the road and the bay a quarter of a mile off.  From my vantage, I could see the neighbors chickens and goats and occasionally, a car driving by.  A treehouse stood ready for playtime, the plants owned the place and I had to pry myself from my seat when it came time for me to leave.   C and B and their families are wonderful people, kind and thoughtful and I am so lucky to know them and to be their friend. 

I went home and we had leftover spaghetti for dinner.  I had to put on a wool vest and drank hot tea to keep warm.  My sister, brother-in-law and nephew talked about fishing and camping and what we did with our days.  They teased me about my cold toes and frozen hands.  I guess tomorrow we will have a seafood dinner- whatever my brother-in-law caught and smoked, and some crabs and oysters.  The tourists who come through town, who ask what there is to do- they just don't understand.  It's not their fault that they lack the experience of real living on the coast.  How do you explain how the other half lives?        

This is my vacation face

Every Rope Has An End

When I was a young woman, I was confused. I thought that I was defined by my family. I worried because I thought that secondarily, I was defined by the community I lived in. I worried even more because it seemed I should get married and that the person I married would be the definition of me. I spent a great deal of time in a church, praying that I would be someone good and that God would love me.

Sometimes my family is a little crazy. Sometimes I'm not in a great community. And it's 100% unfair 100% of the time to expect some poor man to do all of the work of defining me. Honestly, I wore men out with that one. Loaves of men. Those poor men, with their skeletons stacked to the ceiling of my closet. Metaphorically, of course. They just all fell short of the perfection I had to have within myself.

No, I pretty much define myself. Through the words that I say, the actions I take and the company I keep, I write the book of my own life. But let's dwell for a moment on my friends. They make me look pretty dang good. They sometimes make me look pretty damn crazy. I have a few very close friends that I can call in the middle of the night and they'll come over - or I'll go over there- and we'll talk it out. I return that favor, of course. When I moved from Washington back to Oklahoma, my friend Cathy steam cleaned my carpets for me, set up my bed, brought in flowers and potpourri and stayed up waiting half of the night to keep a light on for me. I'm just never going to forget that and hope I'm half that great as a friend. I have other friends who would help me hide a body. That's not a metaphor. I have friends who trust me with their children and invite me to a bridesmaid at their weddings.

I have a few friends who I have made through either Facebook or my blog. I find things in common with the most unlikely people. I think I love that part the most. I wrote to one friend:
"I write so much because I feel inarticulate in real life. I'm a..hider. I like isolation because then people don't get to come too close. And I never feel as connected to humanity as when I'm divorced from that noise, writing. As for teaching, well, it's a mask and persona that I wear so that I can feel close to people."
It surprised me because he responded that he felt the same way. It's hard for me to admit that I avoid crowds of people like the plague ever since I taught in a prison. It just seems so dangerous and it's very tiring for me. But when I write about it and share it with someone, it seems the burden is made light. I hope these are the kinds of people who define me, because they do often bring me into sharp focus.

It seems this semester that I will need my crazy, sane, safety release valve, intellectual, silly and supportive friends more than ever. It seems that I've finally found my limits as a human being. It starts at 5 a.m., when I get up. Yes, this night owl has to be a morning person for a bit. Seriously, I don't ever *want* to see 5 a.m. unless I'm stumbling out of a casino, having not gone to bed and perhaps missing my stockings.
I have to get up so early to commute to Ada, Oklahoma and teach at 8. It's a 70 mile one-way commute. I teach on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, five classes in a row. And it's all the same class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't have to get up as early, but still make the commute to hold office hours. I'm also taking 6 graduate hours- my final classes in the program. Yeah! But they're also difficult hours. One is a teaching language class wherein I will learn some basic Italian and figure out how to teach English as a foreign language. I have a minimum of four pages due every week. I don't really "need" this class, but I do need two in order to remain a full-time students.
The other class is a curriculum theory class. The professor rotating into that one is very tough. I have had her before and got an A, but she worked us pretty hard. So minimum of a book a week there and some heavy research. And the class gets out at 10:15 on a Thursday night, so getting up at 5 on Friday mornings will suck even more.

Oh, and I'm taking my general exams this fall as well. That's where I'll get a list of three questions from my committee. In two weeks I will have written three 20-page papers. I will be required to defend my generals. Oh, and at the end of the semester, my language professor wants me to find the money to go to Italy.

I'm a little overwhelmed, but there are some benefits to these decisions. For one, I like where I'm teaching. I like them a lot. I will have my final semester of coursework and my generals out of the way by December. I will have the comfort of a good friend who is doing her generals this semester too- while pregnant and commuting to Norman from Lawton twice weekly. I'll have a regular paycheck that doesn't just stop in December and regular 401k contributions. And I'm hitting up a dentist, doctor and chiropractor as soon as I can. The first two are preventative; the chiropractor is to look at my neck. It's probably grad school-itis. All the knots will uncoil as soon as my advisor signs the last piece of paper.

Maybe it's my friends who extend the end of my rope. They throw me a line when I'm at the end of mine and I'm starting to sink. Yeah, that's about right. I appreciate you, friends, whomever and wherever you are. Sing it with me: Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!