Deca-Awesome List for the week of 4/27

In no particular order (although #1 is definitely #1 to me)

1. My Mom. It's her birthday on Friday and I love her more than anything. Her love is unconditional and that's an amazing gift. I don't have to be a great success for her to love me. I don't have to be married or give her grandkids for her to praise me. She would love me if I was a convicted felon in jail. She'd love me if I had a drug problem. She'd love me if I was a loser. But her love has made me a winner in so many ways. She is understanding and kind, and I owe so much of my success to her. The reason? She is an expert at dealing with people. I'm talking a really high EQ. I grew up watching her melt hearts of stone. She is amazing at reading people.

Someday she will write a book, or maybe we'll write one together. She worries a lot--and always has--but also realizes that her job as a mother is not to pass that worry on to the kids. When I was 18, she said something like this: "I love you so much, and I will miss you when you go off to college. You will always have a place here if you need it, but now is the time for you to move away and make your new life." I know she must have been fighting her instincts in saying something like that, because I know part of her wanted to keep us close. But she unselfishly looked beyond her own worry, and saw what was best for us (Dad helped too, I'm sure). Her love made me brave because I have always known that she (and my Dad) would be there to catch me if I fell. We are very close, almost psychically linked, and when I hug her, I feel like we're a puzzle with all the pieces clicked into place.

2. Being able to help. Nothing is more awesome than having a confused student come to office hours and walk away understanding what they're doing. Sometimes, it's as simple as re-explaining something to them. Sometimes it's just teaching them an alternate method of figuring something out. On the flip side is not being able to help someone who clearly needs it. That's frustrating as all get out.

3. Gel pens. They're not as reliable as a good old ballpoint, but they come in purty colors. The ones I'm using also have monkeys on them, so that's a bonus.

4. "Monkey-fighting." When Snakes on a Plane aired on commercial TV, they had to do something with the famous line from the movie. So, in their infinite wisdom, they changed the R-rated 13-letter word to "monkey-fighting." Yes. I'm not kidding. I couldn't make that up. They might as well have let him say, "I want these 12-sandwich-eating snakes off my plane."

5. Recovery. I have a friend whose Mom is recovering from a stroke, and she's doing great. Her physical therapy is making her stronger, and she's starting to be able to swallow again. She's not all the way back to normal or anything, but she's making progress, and that is a wonderful thing.

6. Doing whatever I want for my birthday. I don't have anyone to answer to, you know? No one who's planning "something special" for me that I don't even care about doing. Also, last year, I gave two finals and moved on my birthday. It sucked. I want this one to be better.

7. Found Time. I was supposed to leave my office to rush over to an appointment, and I was stressing about it a little. But then I checked my messages and found out that the meeting got canceled. Now I'm on Found Time!! (patent pending).

8. The Inner Game of Music. As a musician, I don't really need the advice because I already instinctively do a lot of things they recommend. But it has helped me so much as a teacher because I now have better ways of giving feedback. For instance, I try to make my comments action comments, like "try this" or "be aware of" or "listen for" rather than "don't do this" statements. It's hard to try to "not do" something. That doesn't mean that's not what you're saying, but there's a way to phrase whatever you want in the positive action way.

9. Bagels. I miss being in a city where there are bagel shops every twenty-five feet. If I want a bagel, I can't be spontaneous about it. That's annoying, because I love these bready delights. I only eat a half at a time now because they're huge and full of calories, but it's a nice Sunday morning treat.

10. My paternal grandfather, Frank. If memory serves, today is the (sixth?) anniversary of his death. He was a good man. Kind and funny and generous and silly and game for anything. He ran his own business, and he was tough. When local "businessmen" wanted to extort money from him, he didn't let it happen. He was brave and trustworthy. My sister and I used to go to our grandparents for an afterschool snack and to hang out before our folks got home. Grandpa made the best sandwiches ever. Mine was a ham sandwich on an egg or kaiser roll with orange juice to drink. YUM. I also learned to carve meat watching him and his ham hands. I love that guy, and not just because he bought me ice cream whenever I asked for it, but because he loved and took care of his family, because he doted on his wife, because he raised my father to be a great man, because he was a veteran, because he still looks after my grandmother in his way. He is sorely missed.

Spring Sprang Sprung Sproing

When I was a child, spring was a vast expanse of time stretching from Easter all the way to those last days of school before summer vacation. It's not like that anymore for a couple of reasons. First, I live in L.A. now and most of our year is like spring. It smells and feels like a beautiful Easter Sunday on a disproportionate number of days. It's amazing, and it's one of my favorite things about living here. But spring is not a season here, really. It's like the default setting. Second, even spring in New York is a truncated affair. I remember there being a couple of months of spring weather. Crocuses and daffodils popping up out of the yellowish grass, cool mornings giving way to warm afternoons, light jacket weather. But that whole thing seems gone. It's dreary old winter, a week of "spring" and suddenly it's humid and hot and summer. Which brings me to my third reason (and this might contribute to the severity of reason #2), as I get older, time just zooms right by. Spring probably felt longer when I was a kid because everything felt longer when I was a kid. The wait for Christmas was interminable, as I recall.

I'm not saying the spring season hasn't actually shrunk in NY, because it really so. My parents can attest to spring being a week or two between snow and mosquitos, but when I was a kid, it was a beautiful time that went on for a while.

Even when I developed allergies, spring was still my favorite season. Who didn't love those first warm days after an eternity in the dark and cold of NY winter? Who doesn't feel renewed by the first green shoots of grass jumping up out of the ground? Who doesn't enjoy shedding layers and layers of down and wool, and re-emerging like a butterfly in a nice light jacket? Wait, did I mean the butterfly was wearing the nice light jacket? Never mind. Spring is awesomeness, and I just figured out why.

It's like a recurring theme with me. Every fourth blog or so (not planned, by the way) I talk about the idea of possibility. Spring is the earth's way of showing us possibility coming to fruition. When I was younger, that time seemed endless, and therefore possibility seemed endless. When spring is shortened (damn you, global warming! ), those flowers don't get to come up with the same glory. That emergence from winter's cocoon isn't quite as sweet.

L.A.'s eight-month-long spring is great, but it's easy to take for granted. Without the awful damp, cold darkness of February, can one really appreciate May? I am grateful to live in a place where we frequently experience cooler mornings, sunny and warm afternoons, and brisk evenings. A few days ago L.A. suffered a two-day heat wave that saw temperatures soar into the triple digits, and I was afraid for a minute that spring had already been replaced by summer. But L.A. doesn't experience that truncated spring yet (and hopefully never will); our summer really hits its stride in August. Today is sunny with a brisk breeze. It feels like Easter Sunday again, and it feels like possibility again.

I feel like I'm coming out of a very long winter, and I'm glad it feels like spring. I'm an orange crocus bulb, no, purple! and I'm just pushing up until my head breaks the surface of the ground. I think I'll go and sit in the sun for a while and drink some water and enjoy spring like a good little flower.

~Hero

Building a Nursery for Possibility

I had a crazy dream a few nights ago. I don't usually remember my dreams, and if I do, they seldom make sense, but this one freaked me out because it was really vivid. I had no idea it was a dream; it felt scarily real.

In the dream, I was pregnant. I was probably only big enough to be about six months, but, when the baby kicked, I could see the outline of its foot in my belly. In real life, you don't really get that until the last weeks, but it was a dream, so, you know. From my reactions in the dream, I can tell you that this pregnancy was unexpected. I was getting ready to have the baby anyway, even though I was quite distressed about the whole thing, and when I finally woke up, it was with great relief that I realized I had been dreaming. I went back to sleep for a little while after that, but when I woke up, the dream was still on my mind.

Why did I dream this? Well, I just babysat for two little ones last week, so maybe little Michael and April were on my mind. My sister is five months along with her second child. I sent a bunch of baby clothes and stuff to her, so I spent a little time perusing the items in Target's baby section. My own biological clock? Still very much on snooze if the relief I felt upon waking up is any indication. So...what does it mean?

Well, I asked the interwebs, and they suggested that a pregnancy dream can be indicative of a new project, a new idea, about to be born. It can also mean the new start of something. Yes, I thought when I read that. Of course that's it. I am in the process of finishing my second book which has been gestating for quite some time. Also, I have just recently reiterated my pledge to continue writing. I've renewed my vows, so to speak (I wear a band on my right hand that signifies this commitment to my art), so perhaps this is the beginning of a new phase where I make time to write more. Also--and maybe this is a reach--I'm coming up on nine months of being single.

So, there are no human babies in my immediate future, but I am ready, willing, and able to give birth to ideas and stories. My life as a teacher and writer is still very much pregnant with possibility. There's pain in childbirth, there's sometimes pain in the act of creation, even if what you create exists only on a computer screen. But I'm willing to carry this metaphor to its limit. If it means sitting up late with a story that's fussy and colicky, I'm willing to be that story's loving mom. I'm good at feeding and nurturing other people's dreams (I am a music teacher, after all), so perhaps the dream is telling me that it's time to start paying closer attention to my own. 

Or it could have just been a crazy dream caused by eating cupcakes too close to bedtime.

DecaAwesome List for the week of 4/13

The theme of this week's list is high school. Here's a list of ten things that I loved about my high school, St. Francis Prep, Fresh Meadows (that's Queens for all you west coasters), NY.

1. The Alvernian Drama Society. Where else could misfits of all sizes, shapes, and stripes find a haven...and put on dramas and musicals! I have so many good memories of building sets, rehearsing dance numbers, and just hanging out with the coolest, funnest, most interesting people in my school. I made friends there, gained self-confidence there (and promptly lost it again in the next round of auditions), and basically grew up there. I laughed, I cried, I saw turtles in the sky, it was a brilliant thing.

2. The 7-day schedule. We had this overly complicated schedule that we all accepted without question. Here are some of its nuances: every class was assigned a letter A-G (not to mention H period which you could take before official classes began every day); every day, one class would "drop out" and the following day that class would meet for an hour, and then the day after that, that class would be first period. So day 1 was ABCDEF (G dropped out); day 2 was DFEGAB (fourth period "G" was an hour long); day 3 was GADCBE. We had funny mnemonic devices to remember this schedule, including the, er, habits and preferences of some of our beloved teachers. Some were generic, like day 2: Drugs For Every Girl And Boy.

3. The Music Department. Particularly Mr. Zuar's choir, Mr. Zuar's Music History class (I'm a freaking musicologist, so it must have had one hell of an impact), and Mr. Motley's RepCo. I just sang my fool heart out for four years running. Good teachers who were funny (intentionally, and otherwise) and knowledgeable and made me love music so much that I made it my career. The jazz band was pretty awesome too, as I recall.

4. The Seraph. Our newspaper. I wrote features for this thing for all of my four years at the school. At the beginning of junior year, they gave me a regular column to write. I called it "The World Through My Eyes" (with apologies to Depeche Mode). It was basically like this blog, but in print form and with more typos. My junior and senior years, I won a bunch of High School Press awards for my column and for other stories I wrote. It was good experience, and it was the beginning of my (possibly incorrect) thinking that people might actually care what I have to rant about.

5. Joe Claro. My junior year English teacher. His first day at Prep was my first day of junior year. He is quick-witted, hilariously deadpan, and superknowledgeable. We hit it off right away, and we are still friends now. I had lunch with him when I was home visiting at Christmas. Way back when, he helped me find my voice as a writer, and he continues to encourage my work. He is a lovely human being, and Joe and his wife Fran are like family to me.

6. The stage in the auditorium. Seriously, one of the biggest stages I have ever seen at a school. It also dwarfs some Broadway theater stages. It's not only wide, it's deep. And when I watch old RepCo tapes (yes, I still have some), I am amazed at how many people we crammed on that thing. I spent half my time at Prep on that stage. It was like home to me.

7. Three lunch periods. Freshman had "first lunch," i.e. the first half hour of the 1 1/2 hour fourth period/lunch thing. After first lunch, freshman had the whole hour period and the afternoon. It made the afternoon drag on interminably, but at least freshmen didn't have to fight with upperclassmen for food. Juniors had "last lunch," i.e. the last half hour of fourth period. So juniors would have their first four periods (last one of those was the "hour" period) and then lunch. Last lunch made the afternoon go very quickly. Seniors had "split lunch," i.e. a half hour stuck in between two halves of the hour period. Made the hour period fly by. I think sophomore lunch was a wild card. Could be any of them. This was a really good system. The school was huge, so this was a way to feed everyone and stagger the crowds.

8. Cafeteria pizza. God help me, I love that stupid square pizza. I loved it at the roller rink, and I loved it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the Prep cafeteria. Honorable mention: those chocolate chip cookies that came three in a package.

9. Eating outside. I and the other misfits ate our lunches away from the madding crowd of cafeteria folks. When the weather really sucked, we'd compromise and eat on the steps, but we tried to stay out of that hornet's nest whenever possible.

10. The smartness of the student body. You had to test to get in, and the standards there were pretty rigorous. Being smart wasn't something you needed to be ashamed of there. It wasn't something you had to hide (like it was in middle school), it was something that was valued, both by the teachers and by the other students. I had friends who were brilliant scientists and artists, and who made the environment fun and stimulating. Only during my Ph.D. studies at USC did I find myself in that kind of environment again.

Bonus: Michele Filorimo. Still one of the funniest people I have ever known. She was a sophomore when I was a freshman, and she took me under her wing. We were unselfconsciously weird together, and I am so excited to still call her a friend. She was my heart during our three shared years at Prep.

Ch- Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes

If you ask 100 people if they want an exciting life of change vs. a life of routine, most people would say: give me that exciting life! But in reality, some of those same people crave routine and will stick to it slavishly even if they are unhappy and unfulfilled. Some will go so far as to defend it when questioned, and will go to great lengths to ensure that it continues, even if they hate it (they can't admit to themselves that they hate it). And don't think I'm making this point because I'm so far above this behavior; I defended my choices even when I knew they were wrong, and I stayed in an unhealthy routine for years. I suppose I'm something of an authority, but only because I've been there and done that.

When I finished school a couple of years ago, I looked for teaching jobs all over the country. Because of my relationship, I tried to limit my choices to coastal places and cities with film industry connections. I suppose I was ready to move to these places, although I don't know what the reality would have been had I gotten one of these jobs. As it happens, I did get a full time job, a year after I graduated, at a school that was 1.1 mile away from my apartment. Now, I made a compromise and took a job teaching my second area of expertise, not my first choice, and it's still something that bothers me from time to time. But still, here I was with a job, and I didn't have to move, change my cell phone number, buy clothes for a different climate, or say goodbye to my friends.

The friends I graduated with, however, are still looking for jobs all over the country. And it looks very likely that I will be the one staying here, while they are spread to the four winds away from me. V and Z moved to England, and now V has an awesome full-time gig in the midwest. R just had two interviews in the last two weeks, one in Ohio, one in Texas. Now she's got a phone interview in Anthens, GA. RM is looking everywhere for work, and KC has some possibilities that would take him at least three hours away from L.A.

So, change comes, whether you like it or not. I may have gotten a job that meant I didn't have to do another cross-country move, but my old friends seem to be leaving, one by one. Even though it's sad to lose their physical presence in my life, I understand that true friendship is stronger than distance (and having Facebook doesn't hurt). Not to mention that I am so incredibly proud of my friends who are getting jobs in this crazy economy, and I'm grateful that they are able to teach and share their gifts with students. It's bittersweet, I guess.

I have dreams of my own, of course. Dreams of leaving L.A. for a while and traveling, making my living by writing. Making change a way of life. I don't know when and if that will happen. I don't know if I will end up staying in my beautiful job long-term, or if I will ever again live close to my best friends. Uncertainty doesn't bother me that much. I'm a very roll-with-the-punches kind of person. I'm a river that keeps flowing, around obstacles, through passageways, and over ground, both rocky and smooth.

What I am certain of is this: I do know that whatever circumstances I find myself in, they will definitely change, either by the increasing chaos of time's arrow, or by my own hand. Luckily, I'm good friends with chaos, and I'm just crazy enough to shake things up when they get boring.

~Hero