Literary Treasure

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

I first read this poem in a high school textbook while I was teaching when I first moved to Los Angeles. The simplicity of it was beautiful to me. I wrote it down by hand so I could read it to my friend, Lori, who ran the Continuum office. Continuum is a form of organic movement that accesses the fluid system through sound, breath, and wave motion.

It is impossible to describe in words…one just has to experience it like the bus stop incident Aram was speaking of last week. Emilie, the founder of Continuum, talks about negative space. “In a field/ I am the absence/ of field.” It is such a simple line, and yet pondering it is the space between the words that makes it so potent. “Wherever I am/ I am what is missing.” This is very Zen, as we rush around trying to find something which is already present. It reminds me of a Poetry In Motion poem that should be on the subways in New York City. Deb Margolin used to memorize the poems.

“When I walk/ I part the air/ and always/ the air moves in/ to fill the spaces/ where my body’s been.” Again, the image of the air moving in to fill in the space where our body has been is a juxtaposition of our narcissistic culture of the human moves, not the air. “We all have reasons/ for moving./ I move/ to keep things whole.” It brings me back to myself, to keep moving, to keep being whole. It’s silly really—it is such a simple poem. Like the stupid Jerry Maguire line, “You complete me.” But that line resonated with the masses.

Dissecting a poem in textual analysis is like beating a horse of its beauty. I would rather read this poem aloud, the words falling between spaces, allowing it to do its own magic, others discovering its treasures. Even if they hate it, it has moved through the spaces and found a reason for moving.

Personal Narrative with Song Lyrics

When I was thirteen, I was breaking the law on a regular basis. It didn't really register that I was breaking the law because I thought that having to be sixteen to drive a car was a stupid, societal law and I was a very mature thirteen-year-old hanging out with a sixteen-year-old. I was a good girl. I wasn't having sex, I wasn't getting drunk, I wasn't doing drugs, I got straight As, respected my parents and teachers loved me. But I was breaking the law every time Andy and I got together and he would offer to let me drive his mother's Sprint. Andy was a great driving teacher. We laughed when I broke too hard. I was very careful with the gas pedal and he was very patient as I practiced. We started out in parking lots. But we got bolder as I got better. We took to the streets.

Andy let me drive to Bay City, a high way jaunt, twenty minutes from our town of Saginaw. We would just drive around, listening to the radio, our favorite songs. Gas was cheap in the late eighties and Saginaw was home of the hashers with bands like Bad English singing “When I see you smile, I can face the world.” We were going through the drive thru and the man in the window said, "there's a song by Stevie Nicks I wonder what Greta would say" when he heard my name. He sang, “She wants to live by the ocean.” I didn't know the song.

One day we had gone to Butman Fish Library and Andy had offered to let me take the driver's seat. There we were on the side street, I at the wheel so Andy could read the latest biography of Diana Ross. We didn’t see his mother driving the navy Caprice behind us. Had we, we would have ducked or driven away, or done something…but as it was we were oblivious until she pulled us over.

It’s better to be pulled over by a cop than your best friend’s mother when you are breaking the law…or is it? I don’t think I had really thought through the repercussions of this rush of adrenaline, this sheer joy of being behind the wheel. Sex you can get pregnant, disease, they had classes to teach you about that, but driving seemed like such a harmless sin. Back in Jesus’ day, they didn’t even have driving licenses. I had to get behind the wheel because Jesus never did! But Andy’s mother wasn’t seeing it that way. She talked about me hitting a child crossing the street, the insurance company coming after me…things I had never even thought of with my thirteen-year-old vision.

We begged her not to tell my parents. Andy told her my strict parents would surely take me out of theatre, or never let me see him again, should they be told. I don’t know if it was because his mother loved me, or because she had been through breast cancer, but somehow she decided that taking away Andy’s Diana Ross concert was enough. It was tragic, but together, we could dramatically sing:
“There was so much you gave me
To my heart
To my soul
There was so much of your dreams
That were never told
You had so much hope
For a brighter day
Why were you my flower
Plucked away”

I was driving the other day in my usual mundane way, wondering why I have to live day after day trying to find a parking space. Realizing that I do live by the ocean just like Stevie Nicks prophesized, and for that, who can complain, even when searching for a parking space. I thought about how thrilling those first driving days with Andy were. “Sometimes I want to give up, I want to give in, I want to quit the fight.” Andy has passed on. But when I hear our music, I see him smile. “And then I see you baby, and everything’s alright.”

Where I'm From

modeled after George Ella Lyon

I am from Boy George and Culture Club
Quiet Riot and “Cum on feel the Noise
Girls rock your boys
We’ll get Wild Wild Wild”
I am from Day to Night Barbie
She can be anything
I am told I can be too.

I am from Macaroni and Cheese
Raman Noodles
McDonald’s and Search for Tomorrow
Never in the present,
But living in a soap opera
Even in 2nd grade
No reruns and lots of drama
Lunchtime with Mom who works nights at the hospital
I am from being overwhelmed by other kids energies in the cafeteria
But feeling safe at home.

I am from hunting with Alivia
That didn’t mean killing animals
Rather exploring neighbors
Backyards in the heart of Michigan
Winters our footprints tracks
Of guilt in the snow.

I am from my blanket
With a corner for each family

I am from a gunite pool
Underground in ground
Popular girl in town
Mom floating on her raft
Doesn’t go underwater
Because of her face

I am from “Hista Napa Buska Nama!”
Smell your belly button xxxxface
From my only words of Finnish
To the pasties made of meat and potatoes

I am from the Midwest
Middle of Nowhere
“Somewhere, there’s a place for us”
I am from Barbra Streisand dreams
Sewing some Jewish seams
Finding humor in tragedy
Laughing through my sister’s death
Dark comedy in NYC
Transforming strife to find new life.

I am from Seaweeds
To comfort me
Mermaid dolls floating
On sponges
I wanted to be the Little mermaid who floated away
Transformed from sea
Foam into a daughter of the air
Here is my unrequited love
I am ready!!

I am from rebelling against
My father’s teaching
Being an artist instead of a scientist
Believing in God, going against his grain
I am from scattered fantasies
Told to me in childhood
Still holding onto hope
Like Pandora
Watching the bird take
Flight among the evil
Unleashed through myth.

Vocabulary Narrative

Supplication

I learned that word with my students. We were reading Antigone. I played her in college. Anouilh’s version, not Sophocles. Technically, it means to ask or beg for something earnestly or humbly. But I remember it as a prayer. This divine calling out to God. Reading Antigone with my students was my way of praying. I played that part in college, right after my sister died. I had just buried her. I played a part about fighting for a proper burial. “You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell.” I loved that line. The anger, rage, despair all rolled into one. “Happiness. Paint me the picture of your happy Antigone.” My professor taught me about being present even though I wasn’t always present in his class. He put us on stage to witness, even when we had no lines. I brought up a song to learn while I was up there. He never said anything, but ten years later, I finally get what he was trying to teach me. So often, we are multi-tasking, thinking about what we have to do, as opposed to just being in the room listening, sitting with our breath and the breath of others. Ten years later, I am finally understanding what happiness is.

Biopsy

That word makes you stop. Because they do a biopsy to look closer for cancer. They cut a little piece of the suspected skin and send it off to the lab. I know this because I’ve had it done. Maybe you have too. Or know someone who has. Because biopsy is like the yellow light that you hope stays yellow long enough for you to make it through the light before it turns red and the cop stops and give you the cancer ticket. Or maybe you run that yellow light, but aren’t quite as lucky to have a cop stop you to give you the ticket because another car hits you broadside and you die instantly. But sometimes, the biopsy comes back, and you make it through the yellow light safely and count your blessings. An examination of tissue removed from a living body to discover the presence, cause of extent of a disease. Coined in French from the Greek “bios” meaning life plus “opsis” meaning sight. To see your life flash before your sight. The flashing yellow light.

Wild Card Essay

Write an essay about anything.

Violence Essay

Maria Hicks was shot in the head when she flashed her headlights at teens tagging a wall—this story was not enough to keep my mouth shut when I saw a guy tagging the bathroom door in Santa Monica at the beach on my walk. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, as he started to walk away from the door.

“I saw you tagging.” I see a white Santa Monica beach truck and wave my arms, flagging it down, screaming, “This guy is tagging up the bathroom!”

Two beach maintenance men appear on the scene as another kid comes out of the bathroom. One of the men calls 911 on his cell phone and starts reporting the incident. He is describing the kids as they start walking away from the scene of the crime, calm, smooth, slick. They look at me. “Bitch, I should fuck you up.”

I yell, “Add threats to vandalism!” With this, the boys change their saunter to a scamper, holding their slouching pants as they run off.

The beach maintenance men, Carlos and Leroy, see this all the time. They don’t approach the taggers in the act, nor do they confront them…this is what they are taught in their training. I suppose this makes sense, in the real world, but I am a high school teacher, safe within the public school system where we thrive on finding vandals and using the evidence as reason for an opportunity transfer, aka, getting them out of our school. Bill and Tyrone stick around so they can talk to the police, but I proceed with my walk, heading up to the pier. On my way back, I see Bill and Tyrone again, but the police never came. Bill said there is an entire crew dedicated to painting over tagging, and come tomorrow morning, they will paint over the door and it will be like it never happened. When I get home, I called the Santa Monica police to find out why no one ever stopped by to document the incident.

I spoke with a woman on the phone who told me the cops had found the young lads who admitted to being confronted by a white woman who had mistakenly thought they were tagging. After the cops had identified them, they released them. I gave my name and number to the woman on the phone saying that I would like the incident documented and would be available as a witness.

Weeks later, a detective called me. I was to pick out the guys out of a photo line up. Picking pictures out of a line up is no easy task. I am all too well aware of the stories like Ronald Cotton, the documentaries like Murder On A Sunday Morning…there is quite a bit of error in the eye witness account.

I hit the jack pot on the one that threatened my life, but the one actually tagging the door, I didn’t identify. Afterward, I remembered he had a lot of acne. But the detective’s number was buried in a cabinet and I was defeated, knowing that society is never ahead when it comes to graffiti. LA County spends 30 million a year trying to clean up the chicken scratch of various vandals. Meanwhile, there isn’t enough money to fund education, which is why I was so infuriated in the first place, I suppose. I thought about my honor students who live in this quasi fear going to public school with this gang mentality, territorial, violent, ready to shoot a woman in the head for flashing her lights. The adolescents that spray painted a 6-year-old boy’s eyes as he witnessed their scribbling gang signs.

I have been advised not to confront taggers again. “It’s not worth the risk,” I was told.

Reading Autobiography

When I was five, my Mom would read me Amelia Bedelia books, but would end up laughing so hard, she had to stop and catch her breath. My Mother used to work nights at the hospital, so it was a rarity that she would be the one to read to me. Usually it was my father who always read to me before he tucked me into bed. His main author was Dr. Seuss. I do remember the incredible pride I felt at finally being able to read to him, and the patience he must have had to listen to me stumble through my first book all on my own. It was a book I had ordered through Scholastic at school.

I don’t think I was ever turned off to reading, but I do remember that getting through The Hobbit was like moving through molasses. It may have been I was too young for the book, but even when I saw Lord Of The Rings, I still felt like it went on forever and the only thing that kept me entertained was the voice in my head that said, “Would you wash your hands, brush your teeth, and put some shoes on.” We read it in fourth grade, which was a hard year for me anyway, but Mrs. V fell short of my expectations of an educator--she did not make class a safe place to be. No matter now, but I had to reclaim Greek Mythology because she was the one who introduced me to it and it did not have happy memories in the beginning.

As I became an independent reader, I liked Ruth Chew books about witches and supernatural powers. There was one book called The Third Eye that really stuck with me. Pam and I would go to the library on our summer vacation and check out books—she read more than I, which was good for me to be challenged. Choose Your Own Adventure novels were hot with my peers and so was Judy Blume because she talked about all the things in adolescence that were taboo. All the girls in sixth grade liked Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret?, but I connected more to Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. Even though it was a female author, it was the closest I had and perhaps have ever gotten into the mind of a man.

I recently asked my Mom to look for The Little Mermaid book I had when I was a kid. It had a green tape to go along with it, and I used to listen to it on our 70’s cassette tape player over and over. I was so deeply touched when the sisters cut off their hair so that the little mermaid could be with them again in the water after she had given her voice to be with the prince. I had short hair at the time and longed for long hair. I thought about the closeness of sisters and how you give a piece of yourself when it’s your blood. Lara told me she would give me a kidney in high school if I needed it when I had high protein in my urine. After she died in a car accident in college, I went back and read The Little Mermaid again. I was teaching it to kids and I was so moved again by the story. It gave me comfort that even though she was no longer with me in body, she could be with me in spirit just like when the little mermaid became a daughter of the air.

I read a lot for school. I like to discover new short stories to teach and I always reread whatever I am having the kids read. I actually find reading the NEA magazine and articles on teaching to be very helpful.

My apartment is the size of a car, so I try not to buy books. I usually check them out from the library—I absolutely love the online system. I just finished Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and Power Versus Force, both recommended to me by friends. I like reading anything that sounds like I am going to have a better life. I also have a lot of David Sedaris checked out at the moment to inspire me on my own book. Plus I dip into Whoopi Goldberg’s book for a good laugh.
I think everyone has their own list of books that have been like the Bible to them. Mine include Bodywise, Albinus on Anatomy, Wheels of Light and Of All The Nerve. Then there are books that I think everyone should read like Night and Malcolm X.

Teaching English, I start to reflect on my interaction with Shakespeare. How I’ll never forget how I was introduced to it in fifth grade with “Double, double, toil and trouble,” then read through Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade…it took a lot of concentration to understand Shakespeare, and help from my teachers. I didn’t start off wanting to read Shakespeare in my free time. But while other kids were at fraternity/sorority parties, I was in the grad library in winter at Michigan reading and just sitting with Shakespeare’s plays, and somewhere along the line, digging deeply into text and cracking it gave me great satisfaction. While in NYC, I taught Shakespeare to fifth graders. Some of the teachers I worked with told me iambic pentameter was an advanced concept for elementary, but one of the kids memorized Hamlet’s soliloquy and shocked his teacher as she had never seen him inspired in her class before. Textual analysis can be tedious, but it can also be an amazing exploration of our thoughts as they bounce off a text. One of the greatest things someone can do for another is hold space. That is the greatest asset that I have that I give to my students. The other day, Ondre was reading a passage and asked me questions about it, looking for me to give him the answers. Instead, I said, “Those are excellent questions and that is exactly what I want you to be asking.” He smiled and went back to the text. I want to give my kids the freedom of knowing that there really is no right or wrong, as long as there is evidence to support what is said. I don’t want them to be trepidatious in their learning. I want them to risk.

As I read through this essay, these words on a page, I feel like I am just skimming the surface of my reading experience…how can I convey to a stranger my friends on my bookshelf, how they have touched me so deeply, how I sometimes will share them with someone who may find them just as sacred…how can I explain the layers of feeling like the layers of Sandra Cisnero’s Eleven…how can I take you into a different state of consciousness that these books have taken me into, different times, different places, they are part of my cells, my muscles, my memories. They have made me laugh and tear, taught me, been there for me. When I was reading The Monkey’s Paw to the kids one year, I was so dramatic, but I wanted to bring them into the story. There is such magic when that happens. It is the magic of human connection that words can’t always capture, but that happens in between the spaces and the print. Sometimes, when I am experiencing that magic, I am able to share it with others…the movement of swimming, the silence of conversation, the self you discover in the presence of another.