Catching Up

Here is my math class at the Boys and Girls Club in Lacoochee this week. Angel, on the right, has just turned in his dollar winning one hundred points word. (Sweetbay). These kids are middle schoolers, and in this photo they look so determined and sweet. Even the room looks good! But none of that is the true thing. What you can't see are the kids who are juning around and flipping the math materials on the floor. One kid said a "bad" word (that I did not actually hear, but someone in the room did!) He's gone! What you don't see is the dreariness of that space and the other stuff going on there- the loud MTV, the pool games, etc. We tune it out. However, I did return after my car wreck and they were glad to see me.
Javier and David you can see working in the background are the stalwarts. They always come and they are certainly motivated, working quietly and consulting each other about the algebra. I do not know much of anything about them yet, so that day I brought a watermelon to cut up and serve after the class to the kids on the picnic table outside. As we devoured the sweetness of it they told me about what they read for pleasure. (They read!)
Then, later in the week I went to the used book store and picked up some paperbacks I thought they'd like.
After being with the little kids at the elementary school in the afternoon, I approach the middle school math gig with some dread. I turn into Patti Lane, dodging the dogs and kids, try not to see the detritus of lives gone bad, take a deep breath and get the stuff out of the car. But, then, I am there and it is all worth it.
I am thinking about the upcoming summer. I know that Javier is about to join the football team for high school and he tells me he'll be practicing every day. I don't know what David has in mind. I am thinking of ways I can get these two talented boys to be engaged.
So, I do these things with kids, and my great reward is the expression in their dear faces. I am planning to have a summer arts camp, parents and kids making art together and ending the day with swimming in our large pool.
I love this kind of volunteer activity, but also I need the time to work on my own stuff (painting, clay, quilts).
I have a new car! A Honda Fit- very economical and basic, but it gets from point A to point B.
Our harvest from the garden is bountiful right now. Cucumbers! Beans! Collards! Those wonderful new potatoes! Herbs! Multicolored carrots! Onions! Squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are coming along. Lettuce is just about gone in the heat, but so far we have eked out a salad every night. The armadillos have discovered ways into the garden but mostly they have been foiled by the containers they cannot reach.
Since the wreck I have been here in the country-almost two weeks! In that time the hickory trees have leafed out and the wrens in the barn have hatched their eggs. A black racer has become my constant companion outside the studio. He stretches his length outside the back door, and then curls up in the leaves at the corner of the building by night. He doesn't mind my coming and going as I tend to the kiln and water the plants. If I get too close he pretends he's a rattle snake and shakes his tail. Red shouldered hawks are nesting in a tall tree back of the barn. Their young constantly call for food.
Back to the city tomorrow in my new car, renewed.

Can't get it up? (new rant)

Tonight there was an article on Sixty Minutes about gang rapes by basketball players on a college campus. Far as I am concerned, rape is rape, no excuses. This article was tastelessly followed by a commercial for some erectile dysfunction drug, so I was out of there, speeding out of the t.v. room, my pants on fire.
I can't stand the pharmaceutical crap that clogs commercial t.v. And I especially can't stand those ads for what to do about nether parts, burping, gas, feminine products etc.
And what do we really think about the way we deal with athletes who seem to have a free ride? We conveniently look the other way as they rape, shoot, fight dogs, threaten and steal. (Coby Bryant for one)
Perhaps the excessive male hormones are a part of the athletic expertise? But, does that give our athletes carte blanche to rape and pillage?
I know of several athletes who are truly philanthropic
and caring. These are the ones who are on site for the dedication of a Habitat for Humanity house. They have provided all the furniture and they get the kudos and their photo in the paper. But I am wary. Even these wonderful guys may be discredited. You have to wonder about folks who toot their own horn.
Greg Mortenson, the guru and author of "Three Cups of Tea", the guy who was supposedly saved after a climbing trip in the Himalayas went wrong and then got religion and started many schools in Pakistan seems to have been fudging the facts and the financials. I have read these books and was moved by his words and work. I know that our troops in Afghanistan are required to read his books. Seems to me that Mortenson, like so many others, is a victim of his own fame. You begin something amazing that works, then you get others on board who can raise money for the cause, then you write a book about it, and maybe tweak the truth a bit (because you really really need the money to go forth) And then, suddenly you are a rock star! No need now to hunker down in the gritty villages; you can get others to go out there because now you have a staff.
And all the time you think you are still following your dream. It happened so seamlessly.
So, everyone has the potential to be co-opted by circumstance. It takes major energy to remain humble (and ethical).
A corrective is to bike a few miles on the Withlacoochee trail as we did today in the glorious spring weather. So many birds and so many colorful wildflowers to be seen. No trash! Yesterday we joined some other concerned citizens to spend a couple of hours picking up trash along the road between the school and the RR track. We filled ten large bags, and anthropologists we are, we noticed that there were many tiny plastic bags, thousands of beer bottles, millions of snack bags.
When I exit my studio on the yard side I must jump over the black racers who are heavy into snake sex. Two of them are out there now, and when I go out they shake and pretend they are rattlers. Who knew? They seem not to have erectile dysfunction, and actually, the males have two penises. I carefully step over them and go out to watch the bats flying against the full moon.

Wreck!

Yesterday we were in a wreck. We started out the day on our way to a fine time at Selby Gardens in Sarasota. Before that we needed to let off the dog at our St. Pete apartment.
As we left the interstate my beloved old Honda Accord was smashed into oblivion by a huge Suburban. My husband and I and my brother and his wife and our dog were spared by about six inches from certain death. The suburban ran a red light and then there was that horrible crashing sound we have all known. There was smoke coming from the engine and we all leapt out, grabbing the dog kennel. You all know the scene: cars stopped, people getting out of cars and asking if anyone was hurt, witnesses coming up to give their addresses and phone numbers, cell phones ringing and responding, waiting for the police to record everything. And of course, we were all shaking to think of what a close shave this was for us. The dog, who had been safe in her kennel, thought we had come to a picnic and wanted to be a part of it.
Within minutes my daughter and her partner arrived from different points, full of hugs and practical directives. And then, you all know the scene, we waited for all the taking of Information, and we kept asking each other if they were really o.k. The woman in the vehicle that ran the red light was so distraught! She was not the driver. She told me that she had just completed two surgeries for breast cancer and was now on the way to chemo. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, she was thin and scared. By the time the waiting for the police to get all the details was over, I was hugging this woman and telling her not to be afraid, accidents happen etc. A bad day for all.
The rest of the day is taken up with phone calls to insurance companies on our cell phones that we can't actually hear well on and are so complicated because we, being frugal, have the minimum.. And later, we have a family supper under magnificent oak trees. We are spent and love the care we receive from our daughter and her family and my sister and brother-in-law.
Of course, if I had to do all this myself in a strange place, I could have done it. But, having this amazing family helping us was wonderful.
Today, having lunch with my best friend, who had her own family emergency this week, we spoke about the importance of our wonderful daughters.
When we returned home this evening, the power was out! Aargh!
You just keep on stepping one foot behind the other, pick the salad from the garden and eventually sit down to eat, and rejoice that you are all here, the bats are flying in front of the moon and soon you'll be in bed with the man of your life and the small smooth dog plastered to your leg. I thank my lucky stars for all this.

Swamp Rising

The water under the bridge is almost as high as it ever was. The Withlacoochee River is over its banks and sending that wonderful clear tannic colored water racing under the bridge and into the other side of the swamp. Hundreds of ibis are looking for food and alligators and otters have been swept out from their usual habitat. Our natural world is happy.
And so is my technological world. Finally, we got back our internet after almost a week. I hired a Geek (Alex Smart, can you believe it?), who reconfigured everything that had been decimated by the recent storms, and so, now everything works perfectly and faster than ever. Alex Smart is younger than my youngest child, devoid of any sense of humor, and incredibly knowledgeable about anything digital. He was alarmed at the hugely loud trumpeting of the sand hill cranes in the yard and he was clearly worried that his zippy Z car would run into trouble in the sandy ruts of our mile long driveway. As he finished up the work I casually asked him if he'd like to live here. So great. Here he was alone with a really old lady in the middle of nowhere. "Oh, no! I have signed a non compete contract!" I love these strange contacts! Probably Alex Smart sings in his church choir and does a few lines behind the sacristy. And visiting me was maybe the best adventure he had today.
My brother and his wife (from California) are scheduled to appear this evening so I have turned on the lights in the guest house and put out fresh fruit. Lots of family coming to this place that is so spectacular in early spring with the intense green of the fields punctuated by the wild galloping of the new calves, blooming trees in the woods, bats and fireflies, hummingbirds by the dozen zooming around the main house with the porches encircled by honey suckle vines.
This place is truly heaven on earth.