I Think This is Why I Haven't Been Writing

3 Prayers: Desert, Ocean, Home

I dream of the desert

where winds sun stone

Red orange yellow--

blue purple black.

I dream of the desert

where breath catches slow

round swirls on the ground

every touch pays water of its own.

The desert does not dream of me

it knows what I can’t know,

and doesn’t care that I will never

be carefree indifferent windblown.

---

You are unmoved by me

unchanged by me

in you I see

my Creator

---

The cat is bathing herself

again.

Her snuffly breaths anchor me

with a sense of belonging:

this is right, to be at home of an evening,

cooking something, playing something,

straightening here and there,

and finally turning off lights, and bowing

face down, to say "thank you, God. Won't

you bring such security to the whole world?"

"God, may the young women have a moment to stop and think,

a space to breathe in.

"May the young men have a purpose they can believe in that

will earn their self-respect.

"May the old ones have families.

"May the young ones have dreams.

"May all have the food they need.

"Amen."

Poetry Is...

a fever, sung

a slow-working medicine

one distilled thought

the shortest essay, and the longest version of the story

how we remember

a last resort

annoying, poignant

sand in your eyes, balm on your skin

a splash of water, a driving rain

a jump, a leap

a whispering wind

the moment you know that

you couldn’t have said it better yourself.

How I Grade and How I Think

(I began this piece last spring. It's true. I wasn't often working at an optimal mental level for the last three years.)

I was sitting in the park, admiring the stream, having just half-composed a poem about the leaves against the sky. I opened my grading folder, and started in. One paper later, I received a phone call from a friend, also a beginner teacher. "Hey, Carolyn. I'm calling to hear about your grading philosophy..." Hahaha! I couldn't have planned it better. Of course, while this conversation took place, highly gratifying, though it was, nary a paper was graded.
___

Teachers: talk to each other about grading. What does an "A" mean to you? I would be willing to bet a lot of us are actually grading on effort over product most of the time. If you're not "in education," you might find it surprising how many books and classes center on this very issue.
___

I wish I knew how to teach a works cited page and avoiding plagiarism, and to do it calmly. I wish I knew how to do anything calmly. To sit quietly and grade 22 papers fairly and consistently, and afterward to keep my head clear and just do a load of laundry and go to bed.

I wish I knew how to stop watching YouTube clips and move through the day. Why does Buzzfeed have to format their articles with lists and gifs? Lists are my favorite way of organizing my thoughts. My thoughts are like cats, sitting on sofas and tabletops, each prowling, playing, sleeping, and sunning as they have need. And lists are like herding these unlawful creatures into a straight line.

Re-Entry

I went through the pains of what I have heard missionaries call "re-entry" when I returned from my first short-term mission trip to Arizona at the age of 12. What was it? Everything was different; home wasn't home. As I re-entered my old world, I recognized that it, too, was new. Those losses had to be mourned.

I didn't experience it to any great degree when I returned from Honduras, nor upon my return from any other foreign country.

But I've found myself experiencing it this summer, those aches of loss, now I have moved out of the life I've known for the past three years. I haven't always phrased my work as a missionary assignment, though my availability to friends and family has been that of an ex-patriot. (Besides, why would I call myself a missionary? Our lives are ours to use how we will, and if you're a Christian, your life is yours to use how God wills. So we live out our mission. All Christians are also missionaries.)

Yet... aside from rarely being available to hang out, I've been surrounded by people of a different culture and language, and I've been a spiritual mentor. And I guess those are what I have always thought of as a missionary's callings.

Now that I'm living outside of the residence hall, here's what's been on my mind:
1. I have to cook. What is "to cook"?
2. I just did a lot of packing and downsizing: my classroom and my apartment were all placed or displaced in the house I now share with three other women. And most importantly, I don't miss any of those items. Maybe possessions are silly.
3. Is it time to move to another country in a few months? No.
4. Aren't all jobs supposed to be full of purpose? Or are some jobs editing copy, making coffee, and praying that God would receive glory in that? Yes.

The Latest Transition

It's been hard to find a place in my new domicile in which I feel comfortable writing. Today I cleaned and moved some furniture, and I feel more at home now. But writing requires inward inspection. To turn my eyes inward requires an effort when my outer world is so stimulating. There's a whole kitchen to use, and food to be made out of necessity, not just luxury. There are so many living room chairs to sit in and find the comfortable spot. There are so many modes and tones of lighting to try in each room. It takes time and dedication to know and love a place. As I move into this one, I'm slowly settling in. It'll probably take 11 more months before I feel at home.

I hasten to add that I feel comfortable here on the whole, and am glad to be here. But it's different living with three other people in the same house than having an apartment, as thin as the walls were, as intruded-upon as I was. In this house, it is possible to...

• run out of milk (I was always throwing away 1/3 of the smallest milk containers.)
• stay up talking without having to turn off floor alarms (In a dormitory for high schoolers, you need floor alarms.)
• light candles (Again, it was a dormitory, and an old one, that couldn't be subjected to fire code.)
• wake up at 6 am, and see humans moving (High schoolers don't wake up that early.)
• come home, and find a party is already going on (At the dorm, if there was a party where I lived, it meant someone had broken into my apartment.)
• experience a breeze (In the dorm, I had all West-facing windows, and none too breezy.)
• find no room in the freezer (I generally kept ice trays with water evaporating in them.)
• walk to the front door without passing through your job (And that is beautiful, my friends.)

Self Love: Let This Be My Death Knell

[written in March 2014]

Sometimes I re-read my blog posts (way oftener than you'd think) to re-acquaint myself with myself, because I forget who I am so easily. Sometimes I address my wider readership (i.e. hey, Mom...), but more often I am writing to an imaginary person who has never met me, but wants to get to know me: someone who is doing research.

Said imaginary person is delving into the depths of these writings, looking for nuances and stuff, to get to know me. And it occurs to me today that that person is me. I am the one for whom I write, not for a long-distant, blog-reading, unknown-to-me, in-reality-creepy lover.

A worse fact of my narcissism is that I was at dinner a few nights ago, with five students laughing together as someone read their horoscopes in Chinese. In the interest of conversation, I asked them to read mine and translate it. "The lion looks like he loves everyone. But the lion loves himself."

In my heart, "Lord? You wouldn't speak through a horoscope, would you?" But it's true: I love myself, no matter what I say. Even writing this is vanity. I am in love and hate with myself. Jesus said that we have to find a way of loving others as much as we love ourselves. He knows that I love myself, that my own comfort and care is at the top of my priority list unless repeatedly otherwise stated.