To Be in Love

Today I was at a store in Kernersville, killing time until my mom and stepdad got home and I could go to their house. I wandered around the aisles, glancing at the posterboard, shampoo, potato chips, whatever. Stopping in front of the cleaning supplies (do I need any of this? I asked in my head) I heard a couple talking from a few aisles over. They both sounded youngish; the guy with a loud, excited voice, and the girl, a lower, almost bored one.

“Don’t forget the dish detergent,” I hear her say.

“Done!” he shouts triumphantly. “What else do we need, baby?”
She mumbles something.

Again, he happily responds, “No problem! I’ll get you anything you want.”

They appear around the corner: both in their early 20s, the guy tall and heavily built, with thick plug earrings, both sides of his lips pierced, black hair, black jacket, combat boots. The girl is pretty, skinny, with blond hair, tight jeans, lip ring.

“Do you know how happy I am, baby?!” the guy breaks into a huge grin, wrapping his free arm around his girlfriend, the other one holding the shopping basket. “I got paid today, and I feel on top of the world!”

“I’m glad, too, sweetie,” she smiles.

“I oughta make you pay for these cigarettes and Fabuloso,” he teases, and kisses her hair. “But I’ll get it all.”

She punches him good-naturedly in the arm, and they walk off to the cash register to pay.

Something about this hardcore, punk rock couple in love struck a chord with me. I don’t know anything about their situation or their relationship. Maybe they fight all the time. Maybe they just met. Maybe the guy hasn’t had a job in six months and just now got one. In any case, he’s overjoyed that today was finally payday so he can buy his girl some cigarettes and Fabuloso so they can go home to smoke and clean. No matter what the background story is, he was full of joy tonight, and it was a beautiful thing to see.  

What I Love About My Job

There are always things people don't like about their jobs, and I could name them, too, but ya know, I think mine's got a lot of perks, in the grand scheme of things. In no particular order: 

1. On Mondays and Wednesdays, my first class, which is a 10-minute drive from my apartment, doesn't start until 10:00 a.m. This means I don't have to leave my house until 9:30, giving me an extra hour around the house to spend as I please. Sometimes this means washing dishes or straightening up. Often, it means an extra cup of coffee, yoga, or reading. (Don't worry, I make up for it by not taking a lunch those days.)

2. I have enough time between my morning and afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to do 30 minutes of yoga in my empty classroom and still eat lunch. Before it got too cold and rainy, I was having a picnic outside on a blanket in a field behind the church twice a week. Fresh air, blue skies, good food, and a good book. And sometimes a free cup of coffee if the secretary makes it. 

3. Also on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have enough time to eat dinner and watch an episode of 30 Rock before my next class. 

4. Mileage reimbursement = free gas

5. My coworkers are fun and easy to work with. 

6. I can come to the office on no-class Fridays wearing jeans, a t-shirt, no makeup, and my hair in a ponytail and it's totally cool. No one to see, no one to impress but my computer and my papers. 

7. Sometimes (like, a couple times a year) we close the office early on Fridays and I'm home by 3:30.

7. My office is close enough to everything that going to the bank, supermarket, or post office during lunch or right after work is totally doable.

8. My students might annoy me sometimes (like when I have to explain how to conjugate "to be" 15 times a day) but for the most part, I love them all. Especially the students in my jail class who say funny things like, "We might kill someone, but we wouldn't ever rob anybody," as if that makes them win the Morality of the Year Award. And of course, the moments when I see that what I'm teaching is actually sticking, and I can see progress in their English ability, it makes it all worthwhile. 

9. Complete autonomy when it comes to lesson planning. No one tells me what to teach, so I can make a mix of life skills, grammar, vocabulary, literature, history, music and culture (all the things I love) and there's no problem. As long as students' test scores go up (which, invariably, they do), everyone is happy.

10. Not being in the office all day. Being able to go from site to site keeps me from being bored. And it makes the day go by faster. And I can do things like visit a roadside grill or farmers market in the middle of nowhere Wake County between classes.

See? There are always things to be grateful for. I'm never gonna make it rich working at a non-profit, but it definitely has its pluses! 

Autumn

Last autumn I was so busy apartment-hunting and then finally moving in, while at the same time getting settled into my new job, that I didn't have time to do anything autumn-y except go to the State Fair. This year I've got a vase of goldenrods sitting on my table with my pinecone candleholders, a weekend camping trip to the mountains planned, and a host of fall recipes waiting to be cooked. I want to savor this season before it slips away from me like I let happen last year.

Not that I don't have a lot going on, though. You've probably all heard how wretchedly busy I am this semester. I'm teaching four separate classes at the Literacy Council, plus my usual Wake Tech night class, all twice a week. Add to this the weekly updates I'm doing for the Wake Tech EL/Civics blog (two posts a week) and the mentoring I'm doing for a promising ESL student-teacher, and I've got something like a 60-hour work week facing me until Christmas. Throw in the 9-week Financial Peace class I'm taking at church every Wednesday night, and it's no wonder my friends complain that they never see me. It's stressful and tiring, but it has taught me how to be organized and manage my time. Ha! One of these days life will slow down . . . but until then, I have to relish these pockets of beauty and quiet when I can.

I love the fall, love the leaves turning colors, love the harvest food at the farmers market, love the big blue afternoon skies, the late afternoon sun going down that always reminds me of reading "Three Dreams and a Nightmare" outside in the field behind my house, wrapped up in a blanket on the ground until it got too dark to see. I'll miss the warmth of summer, but always welcome the nostalgic homeyness of fall.

"O suns and skies and clouds of June
And flowers of June together
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather."

--Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831-1885

Poetry

I was surprised at the poems my students wrote in class this week.

We've been studying Nikki Giovanni's "Knoxville, Tennessee" in my jail class. It was fun to introduce Southern cuisine and various gospel music songs (both country-gospel and black gospel) to a group of Spanish speakers who didn't know such things existed. After analyzing the poem almost to the point where it lost its feeling, I asked them to think of the place where they were the happiest. After doing some pre-writing, they all wrote a poem about their favorite place, following the same style as Giovanni's.

I was expecting a bundle of poems about Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Instead, what I got was a stack of poems about Raleigh, Benson, Wendell, and Zebulon, North Carolina! Sure, there were a few poems with titles like "Jalpán, Querétaro" or "Igualapa, Guerrero," but the vast majority of my class, apparently, has been happier in the U.S. than in their home countries.

The food they mentioned, too, surprised me. Not many students wrote about carne asada and tamales and sopes. Instead, they mentioned hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, hot wings, fries, turkey, barbecue, hush puppies, and any number of other typically "American" dishes.

What does this mean? If I were going to write a poem about the place I was the happiest, where would I write about? Takasaki, Gunma? Oaxaca, Oaxaca? Littleton, North Carolina? Greensboro? Raleigh? Where have I been the happiest . . . ?

My Self-Help Post, In Which I Bare My Soul

I just found out I’m a Two.

That probably doesn’t mean anything to most of y’all, but don't worry; it didn’t mean anything to me either until a few months ago.

Probably everyone, even if they don’t put any stock in it, knows their Astrology Sign (I’m a Leo, in case you wanted to know), and, if you’re Japanese, you probably know your blood type, too (I’m A-, would you believe it?!). However, it’s quite possible that you don’t know your Enneagram type.

I’m not even going to pretend to explain the Enneagram here; you can kindly go to www.enneagraminstitute.com yourself. All I’ll say is, it seems to me like a more detailed version of the ol ‘Myers-Briggs personality test, but with additional social and spiritual implications. They’ve been studying it at church recently, which is what got me interested in it to begin with.

So, in a nutshell, here I am:

Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others. 

Sounds pretty accurate to me. Both good and bad.

Finding out that I’m a Two has helped me understand a few basic things about myself and how I relate to others.

First. If I want to sit at home all by myself and not talk with anyone, I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. The joy of being a Two means that I give of myself ALL. THE . TIME. I do it at work, in my personal relationships, and in my family. It’s not a bad thing; Twos put others first. It’s what we do and we’re happy to do it. But it can become bad when we lose ourselves in the process. Once in a while, we need to shut the door, turn off the phone, get off the internet, and just relax. Other people do it without feeling bad. I shouldn’t feel guilty, either.

This leads us to a very important point: I AM NOT AS IMPORTANT AS I THINK I AM. What a revolutionary thought. That the world will continue spinning happily on its axis if I say, “Sorry, I just want to stay home tonight.” If I don’t respond to a text within 30 seconds. If I buy a pre-made cake instead of making one from scratch. I am not that important, and neither is what I do.

Back in January I Googled my 2013 Yearly Horoscope just to see what kind of nonsense they’d say about what to expect this year (no, I’m not getting married). But damned if they didn’t hit the nail on the head with a couple of other things: namely, that 2013 would be a year of complete metamorphosis and self-analysis. Bing! We have a winner!

I’m still on the super huge Self Improvement kick I started back in 2012. Bigger than anything else has been this unrelenting thirst to connect with God. I’ve never felt it before. Even during the height of Jaimie’s Christian Era (1996-2009, give or take a few years), I never felt like all I wanted to read was the Bible or the only thing I wanted to do was pray. Not even a little bit. And yet here I am, unashamedly basking in the confusion and incomprehension that I am connected to something much greater than I. I will sit and meditate for 20 minutes and come away (most days) knowing that God has been with me. It’s been wonderful.

If you’ve only met me post-2009, it might seem odd to hear me say I am searching for God, especially if we haven’t talked in a few months. But if we’ve known each other for longer, it might make sense that I’d try to find my way back. Of course, some of the patterns that have been deeply ingrained in me (God is an angry unsmiling judge waiting for the opportune moment to send your sorry sinning ass to Hell) are changing for the truer version that God is Indeed Love. A girl I knew in Japan (an American girl, completely non-religious herself) told me that it’s usually true that one finds a stronger spirituality the second go around. In my case, at least, she was right.

OK, just a little bit more and then I’ll go.

As well as reading plenty of spiritual texts, I’m also going through Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James and Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnach (what a name). Despite the fact that SYL was written in 1994 and thus has constant references to how indulgent the 80s were, and how if only you would remove call waiting from your house phone and get rid of your CAR PHONE—yes, your CAR PHONE, remember those? I don’t—anyway, if you would do these steps, you would live more happily. Despite its datedness, it still has a lot of practical tips that I enjoy. And RTO puts into words many of the thoughts I’ve often had: that it’s not about having the best of things, but learning to savor the simple ones. Amen, sister.

As I was reading, I started thinking about the things I do to simplify and romance my own ordinary life. By no means exhaustive, here are a couple of things that help me:

#1: I don’t check Facebook every ten minutes like I used to.

#2: I don’t text as much as I used to. I’ve become a big fan of telephone conversations.

#3: I stretch, run, walk, do yoga, dance, and go to Zumba class as much as possible. I WANT TO MOVE.

#4: I put puzzles together. You can think I’m lame ‘cos I said that. That’s cool. I won’t take it back, though. I love putting puzzles together.

#5: I visit the Farmer’s Market. I cook.

#6: I find shapes in the clouds. It connects me to my childhood.  

#7: I drive with the windows down. Most days.

#8: I pay attention to the time of day. I love how the light filters into my house through the trees at sunset, and how the morning light slants in through the kitchen window.

#9: I don’t use the A/C unless absolutely necessary. I love to sit in my house with the windows wide open. It feels like summer in North Carolina, and that’s something I’ve missed.

#10: I meditate. It keeps me grounded. 

Thanks for listening. See y’all next time.

            

The Thing About Teaching . . .

It's been a long couple of weeks. This past week, the last in a series of long weeks, was the worst. It's like this.

Monday mornings I wake up at 7:00, I get to work around 9:00, and am out the door, heavy laden with two bags of teaching materials, a rolling cart of computers, and my lunch bag, by 9:15. I drive 20 miles south to the dot-on-the-map town of Fuquay-Varina, unload the computers, lunch bag, and one of the teaching materials bags, and proceed to have class -- ESL/Family Literacy/Computer Literacy -- from 10:00-12:30. (I'll save the description of the frustrations and joys of teaching multi-leveled classes for another day.) Then it's a hurried affair to clean everything up, woof down my lunch in the breakroom of the church where I teach (or outside, if it's a nice day), and be out the door by 1:00, headed back up 401 to the county jail, where I teach from 1:30-4:00 p.m.

I'm back in the office from 4:15-5:00, trying to summon the energy to prepare for the next day's lessons, answer all the calls I missed (I'm on the only one in the office who speaks Spanish), and make sure students' files are updated. Around 5:15 I head upstairs and sit with a cup of tea and whatever I brought for dinner, enjoying half an hour to read and play Words With Friends. But at 5:45 it's out the door again to teach my final class of the day, from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

I get home around 9:45 or 9:50, meditate to slough off the stresses of the day, and go to bed.

Tuesday, ibid, without the night class or the computers.

Wednesday, a repeat of Monday.

Thursday, like Tuesday.

My no-night-class-days should be my time to hang out with friends or go grocery shopping or something, and I do, even though what I'd really like most weeks is to come straight home, do some yoga, and sit by myself and watch a movie. Those nights are the best.

Luckily, this past week saw the end of two classes. I finished my afternoon jail class on Thursday, and my Monday-Wednesday night class on Wednesday night. The Wednesday night presentations/international party lasted until almost 10:00 p.m., but was fun times. I won't go back until the 21st. On Thursday, we watched "Big" and ate flautas and tortilla chips in our white cinder brick classroom. Then I have a vacation from Wake County Detention Center until the 28th, when a whole new set of students comes in.

May stretches out before me like a long grassy field . . . three glorious weeks of only teaching one class a day and having every single evening free. The afternoons at the office will be spent doing quality lesson-planning (no more hurried, ten-minute affairs), and the evenings full of 5:00 jogs around the park and happy solitude--well, at least until I get lonely. This weekend, though, I'm going on a personal retreat to recover from the past four months of my harried lifestyle. Then it's off to Greensboro for five days one week, Indiana another week to see my family, then lots and lots of time to relax.

Here's the thing about teaching: I love it, but I need a break once in a while. Luckily, that time is now!

Sin Titulo

I've been so busy with work and life that I've almost quit writing my blog entirely. It's not my aim to quit writing, though. I've got a list of blog posts in mind: religion/spirituality, living on my own, job excitement and distress, teaching, traveling, friends. . . but every day leaves me without anything put down. It could be the incessant working 48 hours a week, the lesson planning, the house cleaning . . . oh yeah, and the string of interesting dates, dinner parties, reunions, and chats with friends that keep me pretty busy, too! I don't regret moving here for a second, though! My dad is an hour away, my mom about the same, most of my closest friends are nearby, and I'm coming into my own as a noveau Raleigh-ite. I am, however, vastly bereft of self-reflection time, which I desperately need more of.

I've joined a "Life Story Group" at my church. We are a group of four women who meet about once a month at one of our houses to talk about our lives. One week it's one person's turn, and the rest of us sit quietly (or interject occasionally if something particularly interesting is said) as she starts wherever she feels comfortable and guides us through her life ups and downs until the present. We started in February and just finished number three two weeks ago. This Tuesday it's my turn. I wanted to be super prepared for this Confession/Story-Telling, as I feel that so much has happened in the last 30 years that needs to be told. Unfortunately, because of all of the above, I feel not quite ready. Perhaps chronological order is the only way to tackle it: that way I won't miss anything.

One day my life is going to slow down enough for me to have time to write regularly, reflect more, breathe deeper . . . and that day will come soon! I have a 3-day retreat for myself set aside the first weekend in May. I look forward to relaxing, and then to bring that into my everyday life.

Write soon.