My coworkers in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic greeted me Latin-style after our being off for 3 weeks for Christmas break. Hugs. Kisses. Big smiles. “Happy New Year!” “Feliz ano nuevo!”
On my way to the grocery an older lady saw me trying to cross the street in the rain and scooped me under her umbrella. She talked to me like a mom in Spanish. We braved the crazy traffic together. After that I made my ultimate comfort food, Irish Beef Stew.
My mom is feeling better after receiving treatment today in Nashville. My sister– truly our family’s Florence Nightingale–got her a doctor’s appointment. My aunt drove her to and from Kentucky.
My daughter is at the Vanderbilt-Kentucky game with her boyfriend and dad. She sounds happy. My son messaged back that all is good with him in Knoxville.
Yesterday I talked with a former student who graduated in the ‘80s. Now retired, he reached out and said it was on his Bucket List to have a conversation with me because I made an impact on him and some of his friends. A very wise and creative person, veteran, survivor he knows how much I want to write a memoir to share what I’ve seen and learned to encourage others. Understanding my frustration of never having enough time to write, he advised me to be ok with where I am–of doing what I can do– because we may never achieve all we had hoped, and that is reality, and we are still enough. He reminded me not to languish over where I think I should be or want to be. To un-clutter my mind and not allow worry to pierce my heart. To be ok with doing what I can do each day no matter how seemingly small the accomplishment or far the goal. Because, paradoxically, when we stop worrying, obsessing, we’re freed to move toward what we seek.
Today I talked with my gone-back-to-school friend. Both of us have had full-on panic attacks—me last fall and her today. We needed to know we are not alone. I reminded her to be as kind to herself as she is to others. To let go of perfection, over- achievement. To not sacrifice what is most important—like her health–in the pursuit of making others healthy.
Tonight I am continuing the course taught by Elizabeth Gilbert that my single mom/songwriter friend recommended on creativity and finding your life’s purpose. Eat, Pray, Love inspired me and millions to do more than travel–to take a soul journey solo. Today she is a life coach not only by example but also by design offering video sessions and an online supportive community of other creatives (which by her definition would be anyone who tries to consistently choose curiosity over fear) seeking to live their best lives possible. She distinguishes between hobby, job, career, and vocation and provides journal exercises to determine what we care about most, why we care about it, and how to start doing it daily. She believes creativity is about becoming a student of whatever lights up our brains like a cat scan.
She says the creative life is about humility. And service. She basically says what Hal Thurman did (my favourite quote which I’ve shared with readers and students for years): “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
I love that she advised bloggers not to worry about building a big platform. Rather, she says: “Serve the platform you have. Do you have five followers on Facebook? Serve them.” She mentions her blogger friend who shares what many are afraid to say about being a mom and wife. That kind of transparency and authenticity has organically drawn a huge audience because it helps others–something I’ve wanted to do whether teaching or writing. I want to share in a memoir what I’ve seen and learned, but until that book happens, I need to show up more on the blog while still on the journey. I need to let go of perfectionism which causes me to labor so long over what I want to say that posts end up in my unpublished drafts folder. Though I work more than 40 hours per week so have authors I’ve heard speak since I first started attending the Southern Festival of Books. Many said they show up every single day before their “day job.” I’m a morning person so have pledged this is the year I’ll write two hours before work every morning and not wait for the perfect time like weekends or school breaks. And so I write this…
Simply.
Humbly.
Quickly. (Ok, I have edited it a few times since posting.)
Immersed in a culture that just celebrated Three Kings’ Day I was reminded of the Wise Men who brought gifts to Christ. And this I know: I want wisdom in 2017. In 2016 my word was “Hope.” Then…”Wait.” So far this year it’s “Wisdom.”
Last fall was a stormy season–ranked just shy of Category 5 for more reasons than Hurricane Matthew. My mantra then and still was, “No say,” which translates, “I don’t know.” I don’t.
I’ve been confused about many things that have happened and especially about what’s to come. I don’t know what job/career will come next. I enjoy teaching those who want to learn, editing, proofreading, promoting, recruiting, and, of course, traveling. I want to be closer to family again. The perfect life, it seems, would be full of writing, traveling, friends and family. As I’ve said many times before–roots and wings. I don’t know where I’ll live having sold my house last year. Or what I’ll drive having given my son my car. But I don’t have to know. Until God opens the next door I’m thankful for each day–for where I am now. And I’ve thankful that, as Elizabeth says, the font of creativity (and I believe, wisdom or anything else good) isn’t us. She reminds that before Renaissance humanism, the ancient Greeks and Romans believed that all good things we achieve, that we create…that especially genius… comes from divinity. Thus it’s good to know just one thing: I know so little. My theme verse since moving to the DR has been,“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”
A very wise former headmaster told me years ago when I felt very alone as a single mom of two young children: “Bloom where you are planted.” And another truism I’m trying to practice here is that even when you don’t speak the language, smile. Smiles translate worldwide. And for awhile now I’ve tried daily to list all the things for which I’m thankful.
It’s so cool outside that my bedroom windows are open. This usually screaming, shrieking, honking, jackhammering, rooster-crowing, motorbike beeping city is asleep.
Just in time for Thanksgiving…I am thankful for this nomination and a chance to thank some bloggers who bring sunshine into my life.
When I was a little girl, my parents, sister and I ate every Thanksgiving at our grandparents’ house. Mama Lou was the most positive person I’ve ever known. I can still hear her singing to my sister and me, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey…” She was creative, loving, and fun. She took us on our first trip to Paris via her rocking chair. I am not always as positive, but I try to speak more from faith than fear.
Last month I was surprised and encouraged when I received a notification that I had been nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award. The nomination came from previous recipient and Sunshine Personified, Natasha, author of A Girl with Geography. I was even more thrilled when I read her story. Born in St. Petersburg (the most beautiful city I’ve seen) and currently living in Paris (sigh), she inspires not only travel but the expat life as one who has traveled 38 countries and changed her country of residence 5 times in the last 9 years. I appreciate her kind spirit, love of learning, and honesty about the challenges of finding work/life balance. Most of all, I love her commitment to living an authentic, happy life. Thank you for the nomination, Natasha!
Here are the rules for The Sunshine Blogger Award:
Thank the person who nominated you.
Answer the questions from the person who has nominated you.
Nominate 11 other bloggers for this award.
Write the same amount of questions for the bloggers you have nominated.
Notify the bloggers you nominated.
Below are my answers to Natasha’s questions—some tough ones. But first, here are 11 bloggers—some recently discovered and others old friends– who make my days brighter by celebrating life, radiating hope, and pursing their passions. Bloggers, I’d love to see your answers to the 11 questions at the bottom of the post (and yes, many of the questions I swiped from Natasha :).
The Londoner–long-time fav blog on one of my favourite cities. I love Rosie’s recipes, style, and travels.
Assortment/On Living Well–Carmella is a gifted writer. After the sale of my home last spring, reading her story of everyday blessings since downsizing to 665 square soothes like sipping tea.
Kirstenalana.com Kirsten, American descendent of Swedish and Finnish immigrants, describes herself this way: “I’m a lover of culture and adventure…I’m a romantic and an optimist at heart.” Her photography is stunning.
Travelling the World Solo–Ellen is a 20-something Aussie and trained midwife on a mission to go to every country in the world. Join her journeys.
Gypsynester.com–Americans Veronica and David prove that the empty nest is a beginning to some of the best years ahead. Their sense of humour and adventures have won them rock star media attention. I’ll always appreciate blogging advice they gave me one night while trying to navigate a storm. Good people.
ChefPaulette–New Yorker/now Nashvillean Paulette the Polymath is currently a celeb chef, painter, and performing artist. She has more accolades than I can list here (but will in a later post from an interview I did years ago). Everything she does is sunshine…pure gold…and I’m proud to call her a friend.
Mosaic Road–With a photographer’s eye, a writer’s wit, and uber energy Kate Woods is an Australian blogger living in Marrakesh. She, too, is a dear friend, a chocoholic, and one of the most positive people I know. We hope to meet up somewhere in the world for a trip soon.
Handmade in the Heartland –Angela is a designer, Supermom, and one of the most creative people on the planet. She recently was named Best Blogger in Kansas City–no surprise. A friend who makes me laugh and a tv celeb, should she decide to list yet another goal in her planner–to run for President in 2020– watch out America.
France Travel Tips–I met Jan at the European Travel Bloggers Exchange a couple of years ago and was immediately impressed by her sweet spirit and sincere desire to build her blog and share her love for France. She is truly an authority on the country, having made 24 visits (and counting) there. If you need help with trip planning, she’s your girl.
Girl with a Dog and Good Shoes–Adrienne Chinn, another friend I met in Morocco, is a writer, interior designer, educator, photographer and dog lover. Based in the UK, she is writing a novel I can’t wait to read; check out pictures of her garden and her haiku.
Synnove Holt.com–As sure as Synnove moves nomadically from Norway to Marrakesh to the Sahara Desert, anyone who says in her presence, “I wish I could…” will get her signature reply: “Why can’t you? You can.” Though I’ve not attended one of her retreats, as her friend I can attest to her making you feel all things are possible.
Questions for Bloggers:
For what/whom are you most thankful?
What is your source for sunshine?
What is your most important achievement thus far?
What are you most passionate about achieving or learning in the future?
What is the best advice you have on making a major life decision, such as career, family, moving abroad?
What is the best advice you have for someone starting a blog?
What is at the top of your Bucket List?
If you could relive a travel experience, what would it be?
What is the greatest risk you’ve taken? What were the obstacles and was it worth it?
What is a book, movie, or quote that has changed your life?
If you knew five years ago what you know now, how would you have lived differently?
Here are my answers to A Girl with Geography’s questions:
What would you love to know 5 years ago that you know now? (As you can see above, that’s my all-time favorite.) I wish I had known five years ago (my son’s senior year of high school) that I would survive the empty nest and fly away to a new season of life, too. He was my younger child–his sister had already moved out– and I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with The Three Musketeers no longer under the same roof. I’d taught at the school they attended K-12. Though I had friends, family and work in Nashville, two years after he left I decided my house was too empty and silent, so I followed a dream I’d had for about a decade. I moved abroad. Since then I’ve lived in Morocco and The Dominican Republic and visited 11 European countries. That first Christmas I lived in Morocco my kids met me in London and we went to Marrakesh together—a holiday we’ll never forget. Nor will I forget the beauty and adventure I’ve experienced these last 2+years. Despite the challenges of living so far apart and, my children and I are as close as ever and we’ve all grown by learning to lean on God even more. I don’t know what lies ahead—which sometimes scares me—but I look back on all God has worked out and how far He has taken me the last five years and all is well and will be well.
What was the one thing you were considering writing about multiple times but have not written yet? A memoir
If you could speak any new language – perfectly, today – what language would it be? Spanish. I’m taking lessons but have a LONG way to go.
What was one thing that surprised you about blogging? How therapeutic, fun, and important to me it would be. Also, I love that it puts me in touch with readers and other bloggers from around the world.
What do you see as the most meaningful achievement of your life, to date? Being mom to Taylor and Cole
What is the thing you regret not having done in past? Hanging in my apartment are these words, “In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take.” I truly believe that, so I have tried to push past fear and take risks to avoid regrets. I do sometimes regret not getting a PhD as a path to teaching full time at the university level, but I have always been passionate about a full time writing career and school didn’t seem feasible or affordable while raising kids, working full time, and writing when I could. I sometimes regret becoming a teacher because it can be a thankless job, but when I think of how blessed I was to have my children’s schedule to spend more time with them and when former students reach out and tell me I made a difference it their lives, I don’t regret my career choice. Likewise, I loved acting and writing (still do) but when I was in high school it seemed to mean moving to New York or California solo to “make it” and I wanted a family more than anything. Thankfully, it’s never too late to follow dreams; the hard part for me is knowing where to focus energy next.
What is your most important objective, for now? I want to transition back to Nashville to be based near family and to do meaningful work based on my background in writing and education that will allow continued travel.
If a day had 27 hours in it, what would you do with the extra 3? Write
What are the three things (objects) you absolutely can’t do without? Bible, prayer journal, laptop
What is the best life-work balance wisdom you have mastered by now?We work to live. We don’t live to work. I learned that from Italian, Spanish, and Latin American friends who speak of enjoying “The Life.” We need a balance of work, play, rest which is hard to achieve but necessary.I grew up an overachiever and still try to do my best at everything I do. When I started teaching, I worked summers, nights, and weekends grading and planning. This left me tired, frustrated, and not much fun. As a young wife and mother I tried to be perfect at work and at home which was exhausting and unhealthy. After my divorce I learned self-care and that my kids would remember quality and quantity time with me—not a spotless house. Research confirms we are more productive, creative, happy and healthy (emotionally, physically, spiritually) when we find balance. Having kids forced me to leave work at school. When they were little, we’d wheel into the driveway, jump out of the station wagon, and head for the swing set. Work must come second to relationships—with God, spouse, children, friends, ourselves. Most people I know work at least 40-50 hours per week. Though there may be periods where more time is required to finish pressing projects, most work will be there when we return the next day. People we love and our health may not be.
It was many and many a year ago,/ In the kingdom by the sea,/ That a maiden there lived whom you may know /By the name of Annabel Lee.–Edgar Allen Poe
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world/I’ll always remember you like a child, girl. —Cat Stevens
Last weekend I discovered the writing retreat of my dreams.
My heart, churning like the waves beneath my rooftop terrace, was stirred, then calmed…pacified, then pounded… by the power and beauty of the ocean. I am so thankful for a four-day break and a panoramic view of Essaouira, a seaport city with a rich history of surviving and thriving.
Excitement mounted last Friday as I climbed seventy-three winding, tiled steps from the Medina’s ground floor to Number 7 of Jack’s Apartments.
I’ve always loved studios
and found this one with its balcony by the battlements perfect.
Although the fog shrouded the sea, I could hear the waves crash and see the seagulls sweep the ramparts where Orson Welles filmed Othello. It was a scene Shakespeare-worthy, and I’m sure I caught a glimpse of Hamlet’s father’s ghost in the mists. In the 60s this town attracted Jimi Hendrix and Cat Stevens, music legends; more recently it lured HBO myth makers to set Game of Thrones Season 3 here.
was established as a settlement in the 6th century by the Phoenicians. It has been the conquest of Roman, Arab, Portuguese, and French rule.
The “Port of Timbuktu” has weathered not only pirates but also the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755, natural disasters that partially prompted Voltaire’s Candide. For more on Essaouira’s past and present, go here. Today it is an artists’ colony and home to the Gnaoua and World Music Festival.
The coastal town introduces itself gradually, inviting visitors to meander through shops without the pressure to buy as in the Marrakesh Medina. Choosing this place where winds howl louder at the windows at night than at Wuthering Heights released in this romantic melancholy musings.
On my first extended break since moving to Morocco, I was given the time and space to slow down, relax, breathe, grieve… and return stronger for it.
On Saturday and Sunday after drinking coffee in bed while watching waves, I climbed to the rooftop where my only distraction from writing was my imagination. I spied Annabel Lee’s “kingdom by the sea”—a castle rising from the ocean. I saw cats curling around canons on the ancient city wall, and like Pablo Neruda, I, too, felt “The Poet’s Obligation” to share this seaside adventure with you.
It began with reinforcement of a lesson I’ve been trying to master my whole life– lose the illusion of control. Move onto a Plan B, maybe a Plan C, but first relax and let Plan A go.
I’d tried to buy a return ticket in Marrakesh –twice—because friends told me finding a bus back on Sunday, the Eid-al-Adha, might be difficult. I chose the beach, two and a half hours from Marrakesh, to escape sheep slaughtered on my apartment’s rooftop, then hung to bleed on neighbors’ balconies.
The Feast of Sacrifice is a sacred holiday for Moroccans. My students’ families gather together to kill, cook, then feast on sheep in thanksgiving. They believe once Abraham proved his willingness to sacrifice his first son, Ishmael, God spared the boy and provided a lamb for the sacrifice instead. They believe Ishmael, not Isaac, was the chosen one. I eat meat but did not want to see the sheep killed so I thought I was safe in an apartment hanging over the sea. I was anxious to get there but needed to secure my return ticket.
Following Supratours’ instructions to get one upon arrival, I rushed to the booking line. The kind French couple I met earlier that morning interpreted the message of the agent I feared. All tickets were sold out. I could take a taxi back Sunday or possibly find another place to stay Sunday night (my studio was booked). Hoping I could find a room for a third night, I bought a return bus ticket for Monday. I’d focus on first things first.
Walking out of the bus station, I looked for the shop where I was instructed to pick up my room key. I’d be staying at Jack’s Apartments, a property we call a “mom and pop” place at home. The sons of this mom and pop attend my school, and one is in my class. Seeing only the walls of the Medina and unsure of where to go, I struck a price with a man I assumed to be a cab driver offering to take me there. As he put my suitcase into a pushcart he explained cabs cannot drive into the Medina, so he took off and I followed through the gate, then down dark alleyways and tunnels through the Old Town. Counter-intuitively– having been taught to never follow a strange man to a strange place–I hurried to keep up as locals stared. Of course he took me to my destination where I was told a Sunday taxi could be arranged for 700 Dirham/$80 US dollars. Since that was the price of many rooms in town, I decided to try to find a vacant one and stay a third night.
But that first afternoon rather than scramble for a room for Sunday, I went to the seafood stalls, fresh catch squirming, chose a crab, cringed when its legs were snapped off, saw it cooked, and ate it.
As I paid the bill, coworkers called inviting me to Beach and Friends, an outdoor restaurant near the camels.
For the next two afternoons it was the group’s base camp for windsurfing, horseback riding, sun bathing, and lunch.
I was glad I’d run into them as I checked in. Turns out they were staying in the B and B next to mine–we’d realized how close when we waved from rooftops. Friday I left the beach to stroll through shops in the Medina, then met them for dinner at Taro’s. I loved the fish, the live band, the lanterns lighting the rooftop, and being included.
On Saturday morning there was good news and bad news. I booked a room and breakfast for $80 at Miramar by the Sea.
But below my balcony on the ramparts, a boy had tied a sheep. He kissed it and tended to it all day and into the next morning.
On the terrace near my balcony, another lamb bleated, pleaded, and stared at me likewise.
I decided to take off before noon on Sunday, the time I’d heard the killing would happen.
To take my mind off it, I focused on a group of girls, happy sentries, sitting and sipping wine on the wall below waiting for the sunset.
One scampered up the watchtower as a friend snapped her new profile picture.
They reminded me of my girls by the surf of South Beach and of my family on the lake late in the afternoon, of loved ones who sent me off in a big way and continue to support me weekly, even daily, on this new journey.
Sunday the sacrifice happened earlier than expected. I heard screaming from a building behind me, and as I locked my balcony to grab my bags, I saw what I was running from– the sheep on the ramparts was now spread in pieces across the stone.
After dropping my bags at the new hotel I ate lunch across the street at Cote Plage. Salsa music played and the restaurant was full of families and couples. I remembered what a coworker said when I told him I was leaving the US. “Being able to travel will be great, but I wouldn’t want to do it without someone I love.”
I spent a couple of hours on the hotel’s beach alone. The Atlantic was beautiful but across it were family and friends I miss everyday I’m in Morocco. The sea broke me open as did the Caribbean when I went to Puerto Viejo solo. Beauty does that. I hope Rumi’s right…that wounds let the light in. The salt water was healing.
I’ve been told by a lot of people I’m brave. To be honest, using an ATM alone scares me. So does signing up for the Smart Traveler services and then reading precautions for Americans abroad. But most of all, wondering what the future holds scares me because I don’t want to travel alone…live alone… forever. I guess the brave part is doing it anyway.
On the ride home today it again felt right to be in this strange land here and now. When Cat Stevens began singing “Wild World” from the bus driver’s radio I felt it was my song. And I’m not alone: I carry my loved ones in my heart as sure as there is One who has always carried me.
“The Poet’s Obligation”– Pablo Neruda
To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday morning, to who ever is cooped up in house or office, factory or woman or street or mine or dry prison cell, to him I come, and without speaking or looking I arrive and open the door of his prison, and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent, a long rumble of thunder adds itself to the weigh of the planet and the foam, the groaning rivers of the ocean rise, the star vibrates quickly in its corona and the sea beats, dies, and goes on beating.
So. Drawn on by my destiny, I ceaselessly must listen to and keep the sea’s lamenting in my consciousness, I must feel the crash of the hard water and gather it up in a perpetual cup so that, wherever those in prison may be, wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn, I may be present with an errant wave, I may move in and out of the windows, and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves, asking “How can I reach the sea?” And I will pass to them, saying nothing, the starry echoes of the wave, a breaking up of foam and quicksand, a rustling of salt withdrawing itself, the gray cry of sea birds on the coast.
So, though me, freedom and the sea will call in answer to the shrouded heart.
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life… The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The Arabian Nights… —nPat Conroy, author and former teacher
Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, William Golding…writers who were also teachers. The latter based his classic, Lord of the Flies, on his classroom experience. The Harry Potter creator began her saga as an English teacher in my now-neighboring country, Portugal. (So almost did a legendary songwriter from my home in Nashville, Kris Kristofferson, who after studying literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, took an English position at West Point. Though he resigned to move to Music City it’s a fun fact for me to remember that he and Conray have Southern accents, too. I first worried about having the only drawl on staff until some of my new coworkers told me they like it.)
I have to remind myself that despite the demands of teaching, there is no excuse not to keep up with blog posts. As Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat told me in an interview when I asked how she managed to teach and write: “The way anyone finds time to do what they most want to do. The time is there. It’s just a matter of priority.” By the way, she taught at the school of one of two of my brilliant new English department colleagues, who, like the rest of the faculty, work really hard daily and care deeply about our students. One of the many firsts this new school year is being the only female and non-Brit of the department.
I’ve been teaching as long as I’ve been writing. After elementary school each day, I’d run from the bus to play teacher to my sole pupil, Granddaddy Ladd. My grandmother, Mama Lou, had taught in a one-room schoolhouse before she married, at a home for special needs children after my grandfather died, and in an elementary school until she was eighty. She gave me my father’s book, The Arabian Nights, from which I’ll teach a story this year alongside The Alchemist, a book that inspired my move to Marrakesh. Although I’ve been at this teaching-thing more than thirty years, the first day of inservice I felt like a kid again. Like a first grader, I had little idea of what to expect, and not since a ninth grader had I boarded a bus for school. Most of the teachers live in the same complex and ride the bus into work daily. Our stop is just around the corner. Since our school doesn’t have a cafeteria, teachers who don’t pack lunches pop into the hanuts to grab fresh baked bread or snacks for the day on the walk to the bus stop. I either take leftovers or, more often, though I’ve never been much of a bread eater I find myself stuffing a loaf into my backpack and pinching off pieces throughout the day; that, a Fanta, and a 1.5 liter bottle of water are plenty for me in summer heat.
I feel like it’s my first day of school — ever.
My thirty-minute commute has rendered many firsts — passing a neighborhood mosque, posses of pigeons in parks, donkey-drawn carts of chickens, weary workers gathered around tea in an alley before work (we leave for school at 7:15 AM–an American school schedule that lasts till 4:30–atypical of Morocco where families eat dinner/sleep/open shops later). Terra cotta apartments topped with satellite saucers give way to suburban living– villas and turnoffs into spas and luxury hotels along a boulevard lined with bushes trimmed into poodle tails, palm trees, olive groves, and walls laden with cascading bougainvillea. As we turn off the now-country highway, the guards swing open the huge wooden gates. Our bus driver parks, we gather briefcases and bags and walk through the school’s orchard. After two weeks I still marvel at the beautiful building and massive grounds– the arched doorways, long stone hallways, private alcoves, scrolled iron balconies, and olive trees on the playground tempting children to pelt each other with olives.
Our headmaster reminds us we’re one of only five schools in Morocco recognized by the US State Department. We discuss the Mission Statement which begins, “The American School of Marrakesh is a multicultural community of learners.” True. My colleagues from Morocco, France, England, Scotland, Singapore, the Philippines, Russia, India, Canada, and many US states and assorted countries do work and life together, whether interpreting for the French and Arab teachers at faculty meetings; discussing curriculum on the bus or movies or vacations together at our Friday night rooftop gatherings; cheering on a colleague’s son who rides his bike without training wheels for the first time in our complex courtyard; or taking a coworker’s daughter home so Daddy can play Friday afternoon soccer after school with the faculty and staff. Like many 21st-century schools, ASM strives to “foster excellence through critical thinking and creativity; build resilience and character; promote responsible, global citizenship, and encourage lifelong learning.” But unlike most international schools, students are expected to not only master English and their native language but also become fluent in French and classical Arab (different from Darija, the local language).
Lunch areas at ASMBasketball/soccer court and rose bushes outside my room at ASMView from my room at ASMRoses in the desert at ASM outside my room
We meet off the courtyard for in-service where most of the children eat lunch. Our headmaster reminds us we’re one of only five schools in Morocco recognized by the US State Department. We discuss the Mission Statement which begins, “The American School of Marrakesh is a multicultural community of learners.” True. My colleagues from Morocco, France, England, Scotland, Singapore, the Philippines, Russia, India, Canada, and many US states and assorted countries do work and life together, whether interpreting for the French and Arab teachers at faculty meetings; discussing curriculum on the bus or movies or vacations together at our Friday night rooftop gatherings; cheering on a colleague’s son who rides his bike without training wheels for the first time in our complex courtyard; or taking a coworker’s daughter home so Daddy can play Friday afternoon soccer after school with the faculty and staff. Like many 21st-century schools, ASM strives to “foster excellence through critical thinking and creativity; build resilience and character; promote responsible, global citizenship, and encourage lifelong learning.” But unlike most international schools, students are expected to not only master English and their native language but also become fluent in French and classical Arab (different from Darija, the local language). My room, which I now affectionately call “the annex” has its own private entrance. It’s beside the basketball court and has its own rose garden!
Last summer I made posters for “windows to the world” using my travel pictures to entice students to read world literature and embrace global citizenship. They want to know where I’ll take them and when, and I’ve assured them class trips are being discussed. My students are high energy–most movers and shakers (kinesthetic learners and/or highly motivated), social and warm–and they all greet me each period with a “Good Morning/Afternoon/Hello, Miss!” and bid adieu with a, “Thank you and have a nice day, Miss!” I really like them. I have 15 in my 9th Grade Advanced, and a dozen in my 10th Grade Standard, 11th Grade AP, 12th Grade Standard. I also teach an elective, Journalism.
Windows to the world that look in and out at ASMOld friends from home and the ASM libraryI love this.ASM LibraryPresident Obama’s photo in ASM libraryMorning break at ASM
The library is full of classics and other interesting reads. Teachers check out books regularly for pleasure. During inservice we were treated to hot mint tea, pancakes, and pastries, and catered lunches of traditonal Berber tagines served on china. Yesterday we celebrated our first week of teaching with a high tea–mint tea, chilled strawberry and avocado drinks, pastries, and assorted almonds and other local nuts.
Mint tea and pastries for Morning BreakMy desk
And though my first couple of days the temperature was 108 degrees and I wondered how we’d ever manage without AC, the weather has dropped to the mid-90s and become bearable. In fact, the mornings have been 70 degrees and I love preparing for my day, windows open to nothing-but-green– soccer field in the front, flowers in the back– as my daily visitors, wee birds, fly in, land on the floor, and say hello. It also helps in a new place to be surrounded by not only new friends…but old ones, like Bronte and the crew, as well.
ASM Soccer field and olive grove
As students and teachers we get two new starts each year–one in January, the other now. Then again, we all can learn something new everyday for the rest of our lives. From the land of oranges, pomegranates, and figs, here’s to a fruitful year.
No joke. I truly thought when my children left the nest I’d fly away, too. If I didn’t make it as far as Italy or Ecuador, I’d migrate south to Seagrove or west to Big Sur. I’d park my vintage camper (circa 1959) and chase seagulls, collect shells, and make a mermaid my muse. I’d bake pies like Sylvia Plath and burn rubber if I met a Ted Hughes. I’d brunch with friends every Sunday, do book tours, and sell shirts at book fests from Austin to Boston.
My baby moved to college last August. I’m still on Jenry Court. It seems that while the gypsy- in- me has fantasized for years about holding up a sign on the Church Street bridge that reads, “WILL WORK FOR TRAVEL,” the mommy- in- me isn’t going anywhere. Not for now anyway. Maybe when my kids are out of college and in careers they love. Maybe when I’m over teaching. Maybe not.
We moved to this old house when Cole was three months old, and he’ll be twenty March 8th. Outside my bedroom window, the magnolia tree, leathery leaves rustling, recollects when my boy fell from a high limb, chipping the growth plate in his ankle. The dogwood creaks in the winter wind, bare arms spread protectively over the resting place of Annie, our golden girl three years gone. The swing that held Taylor and Precious, her Persian, sways silently, patiently waiting for the little girl to return.
And she does. Running ahead of her to my front door are Lindsey and Laila, the four and seven year-olds she loves like her own, my precious “grandgirls.” They can’t wait to climb all over Cole, a 6’4” Gentle Giant come home from college, and love on Ella, my late-in-life child.
I had been on dog rescue lists for about a year, and my friends, Emily and Kim, had Facebooked me pictures of dogs in need of homes, but I wasn’t sure I could handle loving and losing again. Likewise, since my niece, Abby, started volunteering at the Bowling Green Humane Society, she’d texted photos of puppies. I wasn’t sure if this time I’d go for a petite poofy pooch—a cuddly couch cohort–or another Golden Retriever—a hiking companion with a watchdog bark. As a Romantic, I just knew I’d know it’s time when I saw The One.
When Abby sent a picture of a beautiful 4- month- old yellow lab with the softest fur, velvet ears, soulful eyes, and sweet face, I knew she was my baby. The nesting I did last year– the unexplainable energy to grow a garden, paint walls, and make cupcakes pretty- as- Pinterest–all makes sense now. I knew I was cooking like Paula Deen to lure my kids home, but I didn’t realize I was feathering my nest for new chicks. The angst I felt a year ago, the need to make a move since Taylor and Cole were moving on, settled down and not because I settled. Though I planned to heed the lead of my globe-trotting friend, Rawsam, and downsize to a single box of possessions, freeing me to fly, I found myself filling a sole box…for Goodwill. Becoming a mom again didn’t ground me. It was grounding.
Like a decade ago when I stockpiled frozen casseroles and decorated nurseries with Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh, I’m now filling Hello Kitty totes with crayons and coloring books and a dress-up trunk with feathered boas, head pieces, and old evening gowns. I’d worn those formals out-on-the-town, then Taylor wore them trick or treating, and last New Year’s Eve, Lindsey and Laila wore them too.
Bringing in 2013 was wild. Cole, Taylor, Chris, the girls, the pets and I gathered at my house for a sleepover. We popped popcorn, ate candy, and watched television till midnight—just like I’d done with my grandparents, sister, and cousins. The girls had never stayed up so late. Laila lined up Taylor’s dolls as we watched Marley and Me (sans the sad part). We laughed at how much Baby Marley looked like Baby Ella. Then I didn’t laugh at how much they are alike.
As the ball dropped on Times Square, Lindsey twirled around the room in my satin formal, saying she was at a “beautiful ball.” Then she squealed—not because she had lost her glass slipper, but because Ella had pooped on her dance floor. Since some parts of 2012 had been poopy, we said all the more reason to look forward to an even better 2013. I insist the poop fell before the ball, and I’m sticking to it.
As for Ella, the adventure continues. She licks me awake every morning and still tries to jump like a jackrabbit to my chest, on the couch and sometimes on the cat despite doctor’s orders and my commands not to. While I was at work, Houdini bent the kennel with her nose, escaped, and chewed my favorite shoes. Pulling fast ones, she switched toys and rawhides to chew her leash and the foot of my antique sofa. Though I puppy-proofed the bathroom, she apparently climbed on the toilet seat, yanked the Venetian blinds from the top of the window to the window seal, and chewed them like bubble gum. When I came home, she limped to see me as Cole did when he fell from the tree. Ella fractured her tibia crest near her growth plate, scaring me to death and sending the vet on a vacation. I wasn’t invited. But as a friend with four golden retrievers said, I’ve invested in a companion and Europe will be there. My mom, sis and daughter rallied around the patient, offering to sit with her if needed. She’s family, and I couldn’t love her more.
Guess I’ve come full circle. With a twist. Keeping with tradition, I might take Ella to Florida this spring since Cole went there after his foot fracture—his cast covered in plastic. Maybe the whole gang will go. Or one day we may pull that camper to Cali, Ella riding shotgun, my kids and their families following behind. Home is where the heart is. I hope mine always beats with kids, chaos, and puppy love.
Abby’s pic of The OneCole and MagnoliaBabyCole’s moveLaila and Lindsey at the New Year’s Eve BallTaylor, Laila and me Christmas EveSomeday
Teaching has brought amazing students into my life. And families. The Gentuso clan is one gang I’ll never forget. The three boys’ ACT scores were in triple digits while their wrestling pins racked up powerful points. I loved that they were avid readers, creative, interesting, and best of all, all heart. Knowing them has made my life richer.
Stephen, the eldest, was part of my AP English “Dream Team.” He was an incredible writer… articulate, thoughtful, and sensitive. In a word…perfect. Then came John– energetic, curious, fun. He was in my daughter’s class and became my son’s hero. He still coaches Cole in wrestling. John didn’t just think outside the box. Long before I met him, he’d scaled it, jumped over its side, and never looked back.
And now I teach Andrew, a high school junior, who I met as “Monkey” when he was in the seventh grade. He and Cole wrestled off to the side as his older brothers were at varsity practice. His first big paper for me is below. Be ready to be moved. The pictures were taken by their mom, Tammy, the lady behind the camera at every match…except when she’s in Africa as the official photographer for Hanna Project, a non-profit humanitarian and medical aid NGO.
I saw Tammy’s first photography exhibit when I taught Stephen. A freelance journalist, she describes herself as “a registered nurse by training, who traded in her stethoscope for a diaper bag more than twenty years ago; and then traded a worn-out diaper bag for a pro camera bag in 2005.” Her portfolio may be viewed here: http://www.gentusophotography.com.
Tammy and Paul are a cool couple. They lived in Africa as medical missionaries and now make hours at wrestling invitationals all the more fun. Tammy’s my go-to mom for advice on practical parenting with eternal impact. I’m sharing their story–Andrew’s through words and Tammy’s through pictures–because their mom/son team is a picture of loving others well by serving side-by-side.
The New Responsibility
by Andrew Gentuso
The reek of rotting flesh and infection assailed my senses, smothering all else as the makeshift splint supporting the mutilated leg was taken away. The appendage was contorted and tattered, much as I imagine a motorcycle accident victim’s leg would look. But there aren’t many motorcycles, or roads for that matter, in the savannah of Northern Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. The injury must have been a severe break at one point, but infection and a lack of medical attention had caused it to steadily worsen until the leg was well outside the limits of our small open-air clinic, which was nothing more than a few tackle boxes filled with first aid equipment. The owner of the mutilation was given oral antibiotics after my mother cleaned off most of the mud and maggot-ridden flesh. He was then directed to go to the closest hospital around, which was luckily only about a dozen miles away. Our surgeons there could hopefully be of more assistance.
Next in the line was a small baby being held by his mother. I hadn’t noticed at first, due to the general ruckus of an entire excited village being gathered in one place, but the child was wailing. It became apparent for what he was crying when the mother pointed to a short, puckered gash on his distended stomach. It was a part of a pattern of cuts around the baby’s naval like the rays of the sun. However, unlike its seven other companions which were now healing into keloids, this slash had ruptured. I cleaned the wound gently with betadine, applied bandages and gave the mother medicine to help with the malnutrition and parasites causing the swollen belly. She, like all the others receiving medicine, was given instructions on when and how to take the pills by one of our translators.
During the van ride back to the hospital compound I asked what the pattern of cuts on the child’s stomach were, although I thought I had a shrewd idea. As it turned out, the slices had been made in an attempt to alleviate the distension of the abdomen by providing an exit for evil spirits, the obvious culprits. This was apparently a common practice and one deeply rooted in the fetish worship practiced by the Lobi tribe. This is the tribe from which I obtained my name as a baby: Olo Dablo, which means “third-born son, white boy”. This is the name African children who I had never met would call out to me as I rode by in the back of a truck or walked past on some errand. It seems that the American boy born in their village was still famous almost ten years after he had left Doropo—the largest village in the region and the location of the small bush hospital my parents ran many years ago.
It was partly this love shown to me by the people of Doropo, whether through a cheerful greeting or a gift of a carved and painted wooden bird made by a man who was my parents’ friend of old, which brought me to the reality about the vast need in places where clean water and a quality education are precious commodities, and simple medical aid is in such high demand. Each face I had seen in these situations was a distinct individual, just as much a human being as I. These weren’t just villagers waiting for the privileged Americans to swoop in and save them; they are our brothers and sisters who fight everyday for their very survival, against starvation, disease and war. I have been impressed by the urgency of their plight. We, who have so much, need to remember those who have so little. And not just remember, but assist in every way possible. The thought that the people of Africa, South America, South Asia and other suffering places are our fellow human beings and deserve just as much as us the love and saving grace of the God who created us all equal should stir some emotions and produce some actions.
This trip to my birthplace during the school year of 2009 opened my eyes to the needs felt by so many outside the borders of what the average American teenager sees. It has given me a new standard by which to judge hardship and kindled within me a desire to serve my God through serving needy people. My throat may be sore, but I at least don’t have a bone tumor the size of a football extending from my mouth and breaking my jaws apart, as one of our patients did. You know, that’s the kind of perspective I mean. Now that I know the realities of life in other places, I am more responsible to do something about them. This is a responsibility that needs to be fulfilled through whatever path I may take and is one that will help shape the remainder of my life.
The 2010-11 school year is over, and I’ve moved back into my summer home. Vacating the classroom means taking up residency here, on this blog, where I can exhale. Having done my penance of papers, I can stop grading others and maybe even myself. Though it will take a miracle not to measure the next seven weeks by how much I cross off my bloated to-do list– writing projects, preparing Classic Coup for POOL, finishing sessions I’m teaching at a conference–it’s all good. Especially more time with family and friends. So far despite my extreme sports in 90 degree weather– banging on a tube behind the boat (the Ladd Sisters–Penny and me–ride the waves again), playing volleyball at night with friends in a pool, batting cicadas with a fan as they kamikaze into me, stirred up by Kaziques at an outdoor concert– I breathe easier in summer. It’s a time to collect my thoughts…like lightening bugs in a jar…and see all that glows.
While many may think I’m at a salsa party on NYE, I’m not. I wanted a last night by the tree, my son in the next room playing video games. He’ll graduate in 2012…too soon…and I haven’t had the chance over Christmas break to look back on the past year and thank God for all His blessings.
Many firsts in 2010…my students doing a book study with Sherry’s class in Ecuador via Skype. Classic Coup featured in Her Nashville, then my writing for the magazine. Examiner interviews with amazing people, like Alberto Fuguet and a salsera who inspired me with her story, soon to be published. Loving Middle Eastern food and eating it while watching the Super Bowl. First trip to Vegas and to Kansas City. Sharing Go-Jo with a friend before he hit the Road Less Traveled. Our bathroom restored over Thanksgiving when 8 Days of Hope came to town. The kindness of strangers.
And speaking of Tennessee Williams…my first trip to NOLA. Why had I not gone sooner considering it’s the most European-feeling city in America? There Kim did a reunion concert with her former husband/band member that loyal fans, Kim’s high school friends, and five of us from Nashville traveled to see. She sang like an angel, he played up a storm, and they bantered like June Carter and Johnny Cash. I’d met Kim post-Bill and her Rockabilly days. Seeing them slip back into something onstage so familiar and so different reminded me of the lives we all live and leave behind. Their reunion foreshadowed my own last fall when I saw girls–classmates most of whom I hadn’t seen since my high school graduation. Girls from ’77– different and yet the same.
2011 marks not only a new year. It begins a new decade. Since 2000 I’ve lost both grandmothers. Others have moved away or moved on. I look back each year to embrace the comfort of Wordsworth’s words: “We will grieve not, rather find/ Strength in what remains behind;/ In the primal sympathy / Which having been must ever be.”
In the last decade ten more senior classes graduated. My kids, pets, and I continued celebrating life with birthdays, vacations, Pokeman, American Girl, movie nights, soccer, drama, cheerleading and wrestling. I’ve seen my nieces grow up one street over, alongside my children. I became part of a salsa family that taught me to celebrate EVERY birthday–even the once-dreaded milestones. I’ve seen my sister, mother, and daughter see Italy for the first time. I’ve gone to the beach and Barcelona with friends, explored from Santa Monica to Malibu with Taylor and Cole.
New friends, new passions, new places…like Garden Brunch Cafe, Lassiz, Cantino Laredo, McNamara’s Irish Pub. And old favorites, comfort food, like clam chowder and beef stew, Radnor Lake and Mad Donna’s. A tradition, taking my sis out for her birthday, became new when Penny and I saw A Scattered, Smothered, and Covered Christmas at the new downtown dinner theater. Family and friends still here…passages as we change and move on. Welcome home from Africa, Sally, friends forever since we started Mrs. Monday’s K-5 class together. And hello friends-yet-to-be in 2011.
Once Upon a Time in Dublin in 2000…
And in Destin circa ’05 or so…
Throughout Italy…
Salsa…
And all the time in-between…
It has been a wonderful life…decade…year…
NOLA–January 2010
Court of 2 Sisters
Full Circle…I grew up near Fairview where family reunions were held at the “Jeff Davis” monument.
Home in film, The Curious Case of Benjamen Button
Sandra Bullock’s home
One school of Brad P and Angelina J’s children
Mike, our Southern gentleman and host, showed us sites after my first night of Zydeco.
High school friends of Kim at Stanley, my favorite restaurant named for the character I love/hate–especially when played by Marlon Brando.
Carnival at Lime with Em
Classic Coup featured in Her…photo by Jude Ferrara
Birthday dance …photo by Anthony Jure
Author/Director Alberto Fuguet
Teaching my seniors to salsa in the park
Taylor reading my favorite contemporary Southern novelist in Destin
Thanks to Emily and Cindy D, our resident photographers.
Fun with Nashville Writers Meetup at Southern Festival of Books
Founder of Hands on Nashville, Hal Cato, speaks at our Career Day
Senior Prank…my knight captured
…and out-on-the-town
My TA, Margarita, consoles me with random acts of kindness.
Examiner article covering Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Awards–Spanish translation
Sonja and Elle’s launch of the Superwoman benefit for battered women
Volunteers from 8 Days of Hope…two families rich in love who blessed mine
I felt like such an imposter. Exposed. Naked. And in the very place I thought would be the answer to all my dreams.
Feeling like I didn’t belong wasn’t about money. Thankfully, I’d never been a gold digger. I was too much a romantic for that. I’d take Heathcliff over Edgar every time. If I married, it would be for love, not for cash. For a soul mate, not a sole provider. My prince could be a pauper as long as he had character and intelligence… and an edge that made him a little fearless and a lot fun. I would never be a “kept woman” because depending on someone else for money seemed the opposite of freedom.
Raised on the Beatles, I knew money couldn’t buy me love. Or at least not new money. Jay Gatsby had the biggest house and car, even a pink suit, but he was snubbed in East Egg (the West End of Nashville) where old money lived. And like his character, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote himself to death trying to maintain the high life to which his debutante wife, Zelda, was accustomed.
Like Gatsby and Fitzgerald, I was chasing down a dream. I had mapped my quest to not just any Starbucks but the one in Belle Meade. Why? Because I associated it with The Best. Even their Kroger carried rare cheeses I’d discovered in Italy. In Belle Meade people obviously had it all together. The place where little girls wore smocked dresses and wore big bows in their bouncing bobs. The place where the J.Crew sipped on coffee and leisurely read newspapers or wrote novels all day in the middle of a workweek. The place where couples in North Face jackets and custom running shoes grabbed a hot chocolate together. They all looked like winners, golden boys and girls, and I wanted to be one, too.
I needed to write a bestseller—to pay off debt, fund my kids’ college, and insure I could one day retire. I needed to write a best seller to free my schedule, free my mind, and maybe free others by giving them an escape—an excuse to laugh or cry. I wanted to tell them they mattered to God. And I wanted to write a bestseller…to matter.
The girl who used to joke that if she had money, it would have to be old money to count.
The girl who teared up watching the Academy Awards because she knew even if she were a movie star, she wouldn’t be enough unless she won an Oscar.
The girl who knew even if she had graduated first in her class, it wouldn’t matter unless the degree was from Oxford.
The girl who had always had such big dreams that she often felt she had accomplished so little. The girl who set the bar so high she was always straining to reach it–sadly obscuring her vision so she often lost sight of the blessings that surrounded her.
And as for the A Team, my insecurities hadn’t ambushed me that day in Starbucks. The stowaways followed me from home, escaped from the glovebox, and pulled up a chair once I finally stayed at one table.
“Just look at them,” they whispered—“the stay-at-home moms who aren’t staying at home. Isn’t it enough that they get to sip their coffee Monday-Friday from here or from china tea cups in their breakfast nooks while you’re chugging yours from a thermos on the way to work? How can they afford to give up a paycheck and treat themselves and their children to Starbucks when you have a fulltime job and do good to get here once a week? But of course, they have husbands to support and love them. Wouldn’t it be sweet to have their lives? Bet they have maids and nannies who watch the kids while they get their facials, massages, and manicures. And even if they don’t, they can give their kids 100% because they are never torn between their little ones and their jobs.”
And then the cruelest cut of all…”Bet they’re even caught up on their scrapbooking.”
Trying to dismiss such miserable thoughts, I turned to hopeful ones: That available looking guy over there is cute. He’s reading a book even. Maybe he’ll look my way. I don’t feel like writing anymore and I’ve got to get home, but maybe the day won’t be a total bust.
And then, just as I willed him to look up, he did…at some skinny, plain, smug girl who strolled over and hugged him. No doubt my feeling naked and exposed had turned into feeling jealous and angry. I was sick of being alone, of being rejected—by everyone but my own insecurities, that is. By the misery that loves my company…
The A Team was now tuning up for a full-on opera:
“Well what do you expect? Your divorce has benched you and your kids for life. So you’re on the B team. That’s really not so bad.”
“At least you realize now, before embarrassing yourself further by putting it all out there, that best leave this writing thing to others. To those who really have something to offer.
You gave it your best shot. I mean, since you were, what, twelve, you’ve told yourself that God is supposed to be enough? That is, you thought it, but you’ve never felt it–at least not for long, right?”
Despite my trying to ignore them, I realized that through the years, I had worked on myself and my faith… and I had not worked on myself and my faith—trying instead to rest in God since only He can show me the acceptance and unconditional love for which I ache. I really wanted God to be the lover of my soul, my truest soul mate, but I still struggled because I wanted a flesh and blood lover as well. He’d shown me I could survive—that I didn’t need a man. But He hadn’t stopped me from wanting one.
Still, I tried to refocus. A best seller would be my new Grail. Since my divorce, I’d been disappointed by too many gentleman callers. I’d depended on the kindness of strangers and been badly burned. I’d learned the lesson of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, that finding The One or the Whatever we think will make us happy—that “long delayed but always expected something that we live for”— is dangerous territory. Because when our dreams are deferred, we can become bitter. While it may seem we have more control over building a career than finding a mate, there’s danger in basing our joy on any one person, on any one goal. Especially when we see neither realized.
Then the A Team belted out the biggest lie of all…
“Wonder why God is withholding from you? I thought that Bible of yours says he gives good gifts to his children? Wonder why so many have been married off to good guys, but you’re still alone? It’s kind of like it’s Christmas morning and your sister just got a new bike, but you just got a stocking full of oranges. Or maybe you’re the female Charlie Brown…it’s Halloween and you’re left holding a bag of rocks.”
They really were cracking themselves up.
And honestly, I didn’t have the strength to pray. Maybe this writing thing was a bad idea…just like thinking I’d ever find The One. Just like thinking I’d ever had anything to offer…
And that’s when He cleared the seats at my table.
He left the agitators to find their own ride– but not to my home. One of my favorite college professors once teased me about my faith: “Do you really think Jesus shows up at your barbeques?” I told him I did, and we agreed to disagree. I’d love to see him after all these years and tell him that He even shows up at Starbucks.
Somehow, my panic-turned-resentment attack had subsided. And while some might understandably give credit to Jack Johnson singing softly from the speakers or to my own emotional exhaustion, I give credit to the only One who can ever really straighten me out and calm me down.
I saw the Starbucks crowd through neutral eyes. I saw them for who they were—no more, no less.
There were the bikers, the businessmen, the boy doing his summer reading. There were the fifty to sixtysomething guys in untucked, dress shirts, madras shorts, and loafers without socks—those who’ve retired and those who make their own hours. I even smiled rather than rolled my eyes when I (and everyone else in the room) heard an obnoxious guy loudly seal a deal from his headset. I couldn’t believe he was actually saying: “I get it—ok—NOW SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
There were artists and students in t- shirts, baggy cargo shorts, and flip flops. There were thirty and fortysomething career women who were well groomed, well exercised, well fed. There was even the occasional surprise, like the confident, twentysomething girl who looked like she might be a dancer at Ken’s Gold Club or Christie’s Cabaret—platinum hair, fake breasts, killer calves, dark tan. They all put on their pants, skirts, shorts, and g-strings one leg at a time, I thought. God levels the playing field. Their worth and mine rests in having one thing only: a God who loves us. Any true security and confidence we have has but one source.
Success doesn’t come from physical strength, riches or brains. It comes from knowing God as He really is—as He really wants to be known–kind, just, and loving. It comes from trusting that He is good even when my circumstances aren’t. That He is God and that I’m not. As much as I want a writing career to spell success, to be my Holy Grail, as much as I want to live somewhere between being too full of myself and cowering in a corner, the only thing I really need to remember is that I matter just because God loves me.
Later that summer, I met the author I’d seen get her book deal in Starbucks back in ’04. Turned out we had a mutual friend, so I asked her if she had time to read this very piece and give me some feedback. She declined, saying she was swamped with her own work. Though I had shaken my posse, I was tempted for a moment to recoil into my old imposter pose—the fetal position. To be fair, I realize now I may have seemed like a stalker. I had rattled off names of our mutual acquaintances and must have seemed like people who stake out local places where Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman drink their coffee. Or worse, like Kathy Bates in Misery just before she pulls out the sledgehammer.
Even if we hadn’t become fast friends and grabbed a Cappuccino, one of her books helped me that first Wednesday in Starbucks. She had dedicated it to every woman who had ever felt like a wallflower and said Christ invites us to dance. He’s wild about us. With Him, there is no rejection.
I already knew but had forgotten that His passionate love can even free imposters …something we all are when we persistently pose or push our way into some imaginary club where we think winners huddle. Whether we’re married or single, have kids or don’t; whether we live in Donelson or in Green Hills; whether we were a geek at a community college or a Greek at Vanderbilt; whether we’re a stay-at-home mom who stays at Starbucks or a career mom who doesn’t, none of it matters.
When I remember Christ loves me deeply and passionately just because I’m His child, I feel deeply accepted. And I know that he wants me to write—because of rather than in spite of—my imperfections and insecurities. He uses broken people—which we all are whether we realize it or not.
I called Brooke at the end of that summer to make plans to visit her in Chicago during my fall break. I shared with her that Starbucks hadn’t been the writer’s silent sanctuary, magical muse, or direct path to the Holy Grail I had hoped it would be, but it had been an arena for slaying inner dragons that huffed and puffed against me as a writer and as a person.
Without missing a beat, as a problem solver and PR major, my friend suggested I try instead Fido, a hip, privately owned coffee shop near Vanderbilt’s campus. And I should try Bongo Java…and Frothy Monkey near Belmont where songwriters gather. Creativity was bound to be in the air if not in the coffee.
I wondered…maybe I’d be inspired there, what with a younger, smarter, and more beautiful crowd. And I can report, now three years later, that I have written at all three places she suggested. Next on my list is a new shop in East Nashville… but honestly, I now really enjoy writing as I am now—my twelve-year-old golden retriever by my side, my son in his room, my cat staring at me from the other couch.
I’ve realized—and I’m not proud to admit this– that my insecurities aren’t always stowaways. They sometimes disguise themselves as pretentions, and I am ashamed to admit I often invite them along for the ride. Acting ugly or not, I often assert my Southern self (a paradox in terms), and tell them I will write without their escort. But I know they’ll come calling again.
I learned in the Summer of ’06 that I was already a writer. I knew I had no great revelations—only the desire to remind others of what I have to remind myself every hour of every day. That the holy grail of Life Ideal—or as close as we can get to it in this life—is not achieved by finding the golden key or magical portal, by running to keep step with the culture, by looking across at the competition, or by hanging behind in regret. It’s learning to live within the paradox of finding self worth and contentment in gratefully seizing this day—ordinary though it may be— while still trusting that God will fulfill dreams He has placed in our hearts in future days. Mid-life is just that—the middle– not the end.
And I must remember that even Type A girls with Team B complexes can rest in a little less striving and a lot more trust.
Sara (who invited me to be the World’s Oldest Bridesmaid), Me, and Brooke in Chicago ’06 in the fall that followed my Starbucks Summer of My Discontent
Playing Author- at -Starbucks would jumpstart my writing career! Not to mention it would prevent me from “going Edna.” Unlike the mom in The Awakening, I wouldn’t walk into the sea (or worse, jump off the dam at Percy Priest Lake.) To be less dramatic… if I gave writing my best shot, I’d at least avoid sinking in the proverbial pool of regret.
So it was settled. Wednesday mornings during June and July I’d write at the Belle Meade Starbucks. By immigrating to that side of town, I hoped the natives’ charmed lives would rub off on me. Some say getting published is a crap shoot. I wanted to increase my odds. All this and I’d be back home before my teenagers rolled out of bed!
That first Wednesday of Summer ’06, I gave my kids and pets the slip. Coasting out of the driveway, I was hopeful. I felt like a real writer at last. I would enjoy the thirty- minute drive, listening to NPR without Cole trying to crank up 107.5 The River. But before I was out of the subdivision, I heard rumblings in the back seat. Relentless as ever, my very own A Team– my entourage of Angst– had camped out in the car. Like the imaginary companions that followed the Russell Crowe character in A Beautiful Mind, they started their usual banter:
“Sooooo Miss WannaBe, you really think you can write something that hasn’t been said before? Something funny, smart, and… this is really rich…helpful. Your life is just so happy now, isn’t it? You who swing from spiritually hopeful to dazed and confused. You who say you love your life one minute, then wail, “I’m destined to be alone forever!” the next. I mean, come on…you are, after all, a little out there. Dreaming of moving your kids to the Cotswolds…then to Ireland…then to Italy?
And what happened to your Martha Stewart phase? The English teas on your front lawn? Reading your kids bedtime stories with a British accent as if you’re still doing Noel Coward plays? Dressing them in velvet capes and knickers so the Christmas cards would look like the perfect little family? What kind of mom leaves her kids in bed to run off to Starbucks? And what’s up with Belle Meade? Think you’re too good for your Donelson ranch, hey? Remember the Green Hills guy who said he’d pick you up for a date, then laughed: ‘Now where exactly is Egypt…I mean Donelson?’ They won’t even let you drive down West End if they check out your bank account. Stop pretending …”
“Yeah, well I’ve had enough of your crap!” I snapped. Stuffing them in the glove box, I drove on. Though they had bullied me since elementary school back in Kentucky, even they couldn’t ruin my morning.
The sun was shining and I was wearing something Starbuckish—a white eyelet skirt—a must- have for the season—a Lauren tank, and flip flops topped with grosgrain bows. I was toting my new vintage straw purse. I was driving my new car— sporting new tires. Things couldn’t be better.
That is …until I turned off of West End into the shopping center parking lot, cut the wheel too close, and ran up on the curb to the horror of Starbuckers who were reading The Tennessean at the outside tables. I prayed I hadn’t burst my new tires already. Not sure if I should apologize to the onlookers for the scare or depend on their goodwill that no harm was done, I hid behind my Jackie O glasses and sprinted by them.
Once inside, I was relieved to learn that no one could have heard my wheels squealing as I took the curb– not over the voice of Sinatra crooning in surround sound. He was smooth, sexy…LOUD. Despite my habit of denial—especially when I plan something, am on a mission, and refuse to be denied– I may have conceded to myself that writing amidst all the noise would be daunting. But rather than face this fact, I had to deal with a bigger dilemma. Only two tables were vacant and the line was long ahead of me. Should I save one of them with my laptop considering it wasn’t mine and I couldn’t afford to have it stolen? Especially since technically, I had hijacked it already? Maybe better to hope the people ahead of me were grabbing their coffee on the run.
Better keep the laptop with me. But then again, everyone there seemed so sure of the protocol… and of themselves. They ordered quickly, efficiently—no holding up the line by hunching over the counter, fumbling for money while a laptop swung off one shoulder and a purse swung off the other. Not to mention that even after I got my order I’d have to add half-and-half, then sweet-and-low to my coffee—possibly creating another clumsy scene with a bulky computer in tow.
To lay it down or not to lay it down—that was the question. Did I mention that one of my favorite books is The Hamlet Syndrome: Overthinkers who Underachieve? My mind was stuck spinning—like the wheel that spins on the computer when a new screen is loading, making you wonder if you should wait a minute longer or reboot and cut your losses.
But if my mind was bogging down, my feet were boogying. I got into line, then walked out of line, then took two steps back toward the line, then balked– causing the guy behind me to bump into my back. (Obviously he never learned the Driver’s Ed rule about the hazards of tailing someone too closely.) Though annoyed, I swung around quickly to apologize for cutting him off. Forgetting that my laptop extended almost a foot past my shoulder, I almost took out the guy’s Grande at the table beside me.
Enough already. I had to lay down my burden. (Mind you, Dells of yesteryear were not exactly lightweight.) And this was Belle Meade for goodness sake. Why would anyone there need to steal a laptop? Lucky for me, right beside the guy with the salvaged Grande was a vacant table. I wasn’t crazy about sitting so close to the counter and all, especially since I could only get to Starbucks once a week and I wanted a perfect experience, but it looked really roomy. I hung the laptop on the chair, waited in line, and stepped up to the counter: “I’d like your largest coffee with a shot of chocolate, please.”
While the young, hip guy (probably a doctoral candidate named Rufus) taking my order didn’t correct me, he edited my request as he shouted it to the girl behind the espresso machine: “A Venti with a shot of mocha.” Making a note to self to avoid future faux pas and learn the lingo, I grabbed my coffee and cinnamon scone and skulked toward my seat. Though I shot an apologetic smile to the guy whose Café Americana I had almost capsized earlier, he frowned, then looked down through his bifocals at his USA Today. I needed to get to work anyway.
When I reached my chair, my face reddened again. On the left corner of the table there was a handicapped sticker. I knew it looked extra wide (the table, not the sticker which was the size of a post-a-note), but who knew back in ’06 that coffee shops allowed extra space for wheelchairs? I thought that was just a bathroom thing. Oh well, that settled it. I moved to the table near the window. I love the sunshine anyway. Upon attracting the stares of people who wondered why I’d trade one handicapped table for another one, I reached the second table to see the same exasperating sign on it. I decided with no other tables available, I’d just have to use it anyway. Hadn’t two women been sitting there—both perfectly mobile—when I first came in? And wouldn’t the same unspoken rule apply here that says it’s ok to use a handicap stall in the absence of a handicapped person? I sat down, unpacked my laptop, and started her up, ready to begin this very piece and my virgin voyage of writing that summer.
I typed two paragraphs. Then I was flashed a warning I’d never seen: “Save all work before losing.” Apparently my battery was going down. I found the electrical cord the computer guy from work had showed me how to use but realized I had zoned out during his demonstration. Frankly, it didn’t register I’d ever need to plug it up. When I saw people working on laptops, they were always unplugged. Like songwriters on Austin City Limits, isn’t unplugged the best way to perform anyway? Not once did Carrie Bradshaw use an electrical outlet. How could her long legs in hot pants encircle her laptop as she wrote on her bed if there had been a cord to negotiate? Reality had struck again.
I plugged up and rebooted. Then I noticed the sun was now coming into the window so brightly that I couldn’t read the screen. I needed to move again—back to the only table left—the other handicapped one. Again, I attracted scrutiny. Even though I thought I had locked my insecurities in the car, somehow they were there waving at me from the table by the window I’d just vacated. Making sure that I felt like such an imposter…
The girl who sat at home watching Brady Bunch while all the popular kids were at the first big party in 8th grade.
The girl who paid her sorority dues by eating mac and cheese or sausage and biscuits every night in the dorm because she knew how hard her mom worked to send her money for college.
The girl who took her young kids to the Renaissance Fair to teach them how to shoot bows and arrows. She had learned the skill and joined the college archery team—all to please her dad who had no sons to take hunting. Maybe her dad couldn’t teach her kids archery because he died when they were babies—and maybe it would have been nice if their dad had been around more to teach them such skills. But surely she could do this. As a teenager, she had practiced on a target in her backyard. Because she was double jointed, the string would pop the inside of her left arm which steadied the bow every time she’d pull back and release, but she’d keep at it until her arm bled. Finally it would all be worth it when she impressed her kids by hitting a bull’s eye and then helped them do the same. Apparently shooting a bow wasn’t like riding a bike. She had forgotten how to hold the arrow tightly against the bow. Unable to get even one shot off, she grabbed the kids and headed for the car, ashamed and angry with herself.
The girl who forgot to show her daughter how to put the car lights on high beam the day of her driving test. Though Taylor passed anyway, she said she knew she should have brought her dad with her instead. And the girl knew it, too.
The girl who was so busy talking in the stands at her son’s middle school football game that she mistook a boy on the opposing team for Cole. Forgetting the home team wasn’t wearing white and only seeing a boy wearing her son’s #20, she thought it surreal that her son had intercepted the ball and was dashing through the defensive line as they dove at him but missed. For a confused moment, she thought, like Willie Loman, that her Biff’s time had finally come. Though she lunged forward, thank God she caught herself before screaming his name. As everyone around her asked why she looked so shaken, she realized her mistake and played it off: “I just wanted one of our players to stop that #20.”She wasn’t about to admit she was inwardly screaming wildly for the wrong boy on the wrong side.
She already felt stupid enough for asking the coach at the start of the season where she should buy pads and the rest of the “outfit.” Even worse, she had later slipped and, flashing back to her own ballet and tap days, had referred to his uniform as a “costume.” When it came to sports and “men things,” she’d always felt inept–knowing as much about tying a necktie as she did about buying a jock strap.
She’d had a 4.0 as an English major and held a Masters degree. She’d been Head of the Department for over twenty years, taught college courses, and was a reader for the national Advanced Placement English Literature Exam She had led school groups and traveled to a dozen countries numerous times. She stayed in touch with friends and former students scattered all over the US and abroad. She had raised her kids with the exceptions of every other weekend and Tuesday nights since they were two and five. She and her sister had been the executors of her dad’s and grandmother’s estates. They had planned their dad’s funeral, and while still in shock, each gave a speech about what he had meant to them. But despite all of this, when friends teased her with blond jokes, she sometimes took them seriously. Because while she always seemed to give others slack, she spent so many years trying to be perfect. The girl who even at four or five couldn’t wait to be grown up— because grownups were in control. They weren’t blind-sighted. They were in charge of their lives. They didn’t have to depend on anybody.
But for all her trying to be grown up, to “arrive,” to have it all together and live happily ever after, she could never completely shake feeling like a little girl inside. She might go months or even a year or two thinking she’d outgrown that powerless child and she’d outrun those childhood bullies, but sooner or later they always showed up. That girl had always shown up.
From Magical Thinking to Wretched Retreating
No matter how hard I had always tried, sooner or later a single embarrassing moment could send me into the corner, feeling that’s exactly where I belonged. The slightest mistake could inflate and then translate into a life of failure. Who was I to think I had anything to offer? I was an impostor on so many levels. It was 2006 and again, in that moment in Starbucks, the A Team reminded me I wasn’t good enough. I’d never been pretty enough. I’d never felt loved enough. At least not for long.
The monster I had always feared and hated most was the feeling of rejection. I’d always wanted the inner security and outer radiance of a woman who is loved. Not just desired, but cherished somewhere by one man. For ten years I’d tried dating services, set-ups by friends, even eharmony, but I couldn’t make myself attracted to someone I didn’t find attractive—even if he was a nice guy. Nor could I make someone I was attracted to be attracted to me—at least not for the long haul. In school I had studied hard, made good grades, and got a job. I had set goals and reached them. But getting the right guy wasn’t the same as getting the right job. I realized I couldn’t control when– or if– I’d find The One. Thus I started heeding the advice of those who claim that just when a person stops looking, her prince arrives. The advice that says God will provide what—or in this case, whom—we need just when we need him. The advice that says rather than sitting around waiting, I should use the time to work on developing the very qualities in myself that I desired in a mate.
So focusing on personal growth, I’d tried new things– traveling with total strangers, learning a new language, discovering a latent talent. I found I could paint and entered an art show. I learned I love ballroom dancing and “muddin’” (4-wheeling in the rain). I tailgated at Titans’ football games and joined the Nashville Film Circle. Some of my closest friends became people who seemed at first so different from me–like a group of guys and girls who were coaches at my school. We spent four summer vacations in Florida together—them reading Friday Night Lights, me reading An Italian Education. I was the world’s oldest bridesmaid in two weddings of twentysomething friends, where I danced all night long at both receptions—not to mention their bachelorette parties. I sang bad karaoke when my sister and friends surprised me with a limo on my fortieth birthday.
And I hired a limo for my daughter and her friends when she turned twelve. And I took her to Europe and back when she was sixteen–introducing her to beloved Italian friends–showing her the world from the top of the Eiffel Tower to the peaks of the Italian Alps. I stretched us both in new ways, and I carried on with familiar traditions. I continued hosting Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners. I settled into the life of being a single parent—a rare breed at the conservative Christian school where I taught. Some days I thanked God for all the good stuff in my life. Other days I felt despair over the bad.
I looked around at the Starbucks crowd. Half-serious, I had called them “my people.” I was as educated as they were. For years I’d driven to their side of town for restaurants and movies my side of town couldn’t offer. In fact, I’d laughingly shot back at those who gave me a hard time about driving across town: “Money might determine where I live. It might determine where I teach. It might determine where my kids go to school. But it WILL NOT determine where I drink my coffee.” But that first Wednesday, it felt as if it did.
(to be continued in Part 6, the final chapter…Starbucks in Reality)
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