One Billion Rising...in the classroom

Exhausted.  For many reasons—one major reason is all the anticipation and then execution of the One Billion Rising dance.  The backdrop of which was absolute torrential rain, the bulb in my ceiling projector went out and can only be changed by maintenance which took half an hour to figure out and put into the works, and my underestimating (forgetting) how utterly self-conscious seventeen year olds are.  Most of them simply would not dance.  Odd.  They seem so uninhibited otherwise. 

This shift in tone for the day (though we still had our class work afterward) seemed to throw a few students off to the point of behavior issues.  That was a bigger disappointment than the self-conscious inability to participate in the dancing.

At this high school, we have a small population of extreme developmental needs students and I invited them to join us for the “official” dance at noon.  That was a great experience to have them integrate and mix with us to dance our solidarity to end violence against women and girls world wide.  Again, on a cognitive level, how much did they understand seems less important than that they were included. 

How much my own students fully understand is also unknown.  I can only hope that a door was wedged open even just a little bit, and that an increasingly bright light is shining through which may one day expand into interest and involvement and a heart to change the world for the better....

During the earlier classes this week in preparation, one student made the connection that dance brings unity because it means we are all on the same level, there is no hierarchy—especially if we hold each other’s hands, then we are all the same.  Another student recognized how dance symbolizes freedom.  In one level (3 classes) we’re studying “Dancing at Lughnasa” by Brian Friel and connections were made between the whole world dancing together to make a change whereas in Friel’s play the sisters are dancing in the figurative representation of their ultimate unity, unaware that it will be their last “dance” before everything in their lives will change (1936 Ballybeg, County Donegal).  In the other level (4 classes) we’re studying “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, which brings to mind how women were viewed by society and the Puritan church, making them more susceptible to being victims in the accusations and beliefs about witchcraft.  Losing their lives as a result is the ultimate violence.

I am moved by the thought that both of these stories are “true” in that they are shaped from actual historical events.  This has given me the opportunity to teach both classes how a story teller has the responsibility (desire as well as tools and techniques) to shape reality into the art of a story—whether it’s a play, a novel, short story, or film—in such a way as to move the audience to feel something, to relate, to learn.  We remember what we feel.  Empathy is born from the pathos of our stories.  This is perhaps becoming more critical in an age when young people are more physically isolated from each other, connecting primarily through social media networks that can be so isolating and engender a false identity, a putting on of a front....  Story, in the world of fiction, is becoming more necessary and more powerful in filling the gap needed to engender empathy and the desire to connect with one another (we just finished “Howards End” by E.M.Forster with that as a major theme, of course) globally as well as locally.  If “safety” is in large part borne of our familiarity and connection in community then learning more about each other through story engenders that safety, creates the resonant feelings that connect us.

Another connection for me personally to the One Billion Rising is the connection already mentioned earlier about Valentine’s Day and the show of love through taking a stand in solidarity.  Also, it is the first day of Lent, the first day of the celebration of coming Spring.  What better day to speak up world wide in dance to say enough is enough—time to insist on a change that will bring new life, new hope, new days free of the fear of violence.

So all in all, I guess it was a good day—a hopeful day when I reflect on it this way!

memory sentence wed 2.13.13

021313 memory sentence (there are two!!)

Ash Wednesday.  What joy!  Running late this morning I heard the excited chirps and twitter of invisible birds in the garden. In response, I took the time to refill their little bath.  They like to splash...  Would that I could stay and watch (time clock be damned).


Balancing the apple on my yellow notepaper pad while trying to free the beach chair from its precarious position under junk in the trunk proved futile.  Off it rolled, the delicious apple of which I’d had two bites, under the Mazda—dead center.  Twenty minutes later it occurred to me I could just pull the car out...  Oy

memory sentence

Out of 150 seventeen-year-old students today (and yesterday), not one of them knew who Robert Redford is.  Astonishing.

memory sentence mon 2.11.13

three large adults walked by and i heard the one lady, large and heavy with a deep smokers voice say, "well now, don't think of it as getting exercise.  i just hate that.  so you can't think of it like that or it won't work."  they were very slow walkers.   (said the large adult sitting at the patio table who has some sort of blocking device in her brain right now against walking)

moving day (flash fiction)

       The movers would be there first thing in the morning.  Finally getting out of this hell-hole.  What anybody could possibly see good about living in Los Angeles was beyond her.  Packing was therapy—she cleaned out as much as she could.  Not that a lot could accumulate in just two years.  Resentment could accumulate. Being dragged from home to the west coast with two little girls who needed their grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins; yeah, resentment definitely needed to be cleaned out before going home.
      “Mama?”  The young voice came from the far end of the house.
“Mama’s a little busy back here.” Her oldest was not yet 9. “What is it, honey?” The dramatic pause should have clued her in to impending disaster.
      The kids had chores—clean out their bedrooms, throw away a third of their things.  Four year old Keri played with her barbies quietly which kept her out from underfoot. Kim’s job was to walk the dogs and pack their stuff, change the cat litter and take her stuff to the neighbor because the cat wasn’t going, and clean the hamster cage. The hamsters were headed to her best friend’s that evening after Dad got home.
“There are pink jelly beans coming out of Snowball and he’s chasing Skipper!  The jelly beans are wiggling all over the cage! Skipper is trying to hide behind the barrel— Snowball ran through the wheel. No!       He just caught him!  He’s tearing him up!  MOM!”
The giant cage filled the small bay window just off the kitchen by the back door.  Skipper and Snowball lived together in a spacious cage, well fed and watered.  Today their usual energetic exercise was a fight.
      Kim, the consummate story teller, hollered to her mother and took the water bottle off the side of the cage, to keep it from leaking any more water everywhere.
“This better not be one of your stories!”  She was seriously not in the mood. “Are you making this up, Kimberly?”
“No ma’am! It’s the truth, I swear! There are wiggling jelly beans—eight of them! And they’re bright pink!” It was a funny sight and it made her laugh.  But she knew it was serious.  Those hamsters were stirring up the shavings into a whirl of smoky cedar.  “Want me to call Dad?” she hollered.  “They’re gonna kill each other in there!”
Mama did not have time for this nonsense. Kim had a penchant for rhetoric and having hamsters was their father’s idea.  Mama stopped what she was doing and stormed from the master bedroom through the house, negotiating packed, stacked and empty boxes like an obstacle course. Kim fidgeted at the hamster cage.
      “There’d better be wiggling pink jelly beans in that cage, young lady.”
Kim stepped aside and gestured toward the cage.
      Mama froze. Who knew female hamsters lose their mind in the chaos of domestic life and try to kill their mate? Suddenly she shifted back into action. “We gotta get Skipper out.” She searched the kitchen for the goldfish bowl.
      Kim frowned at the cage. “I thought they liked each other. I thought they were both boys.  Dad said they were both boys.  Boys can’t have babies.”
      Mama grabbed the goldfish bowl off the trash pile. “Exactly!” she screamed. Her patience had been thinning all day. “This is crazy!” She grabbed a soup ladle off the counter to scoop out poor Skipper who already looked pretty shabby. This was the last straw. “Go call your father!” she snapped. And when I get my hands on him I’m gonna scratch his eyeballs out!

a better way to love each other feb 14

enough is enough.  every time i turn on npr or watch international news all i hear is the latest attack on women in this world.  this world.  2013.  there are those who would have us believe this is the age of the woman.  and yet 25% of women in china are victims of domestic violence according to npr.  silent victims of domestic violence because the govt refuses to acknowledge it, much less stand against it.

enough is enough.  women who have been trying to stand alongside men for the last few years in places like egypt are being attacked and brutally raped by men who disagree with their political beliefs.  men and women who volunteer to infiltrate the demonstrations to help protect women brave enough to take a stand are themselves being attacked.  this violence is sanctioned by the current govt.

in india, as you know, women in india have been violently treated for far too long.  two days ago...http://dawn.com/2013/02/06/indian-woman-attacked-with-metal-bar-in-rape-bid-police/

the stories come from all over the globe.  even in our own democratic nation with laws that protect women, the abuse continues.  violence against women is common place. 

time to shift the focus.  Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues), Debbie Allen (choreographer) are inciting a riot of dancing to rise up and sing out against the insane continuing violence all over the world.  February 14 is the target date---a new way to look at an old date.

i confess with great sorrow that i was alerted to this fabulous movement about a week ago but have done nothing...  now i wish i'd hooked in sooner and rallied the school, our women who teach together there and the men who teach with us, our students who need to recognize their power in the world and our need of them to make better choices and see clearly what the world is up to and what they can do to change it.  i'll be speaking of it next week in my classes ...  i was disheartened to learn on the www.onebillionrising.org website that there is no group with 100 miles of my little town....

my deepest apologies for not passing along this event sooner.  please check it out:

http://ncronline.org/node/43911/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5N8rSy4CU

thank you Miriam, Joanne, Joan Chittister, Eve Ensler, 1billion rising, paxchristi and all who are involved in being the change we want to see in this world (we miss you Gandhi)
 

The Lord Giveth and the Lord Giveth Again (flash fiction)

020213

Fresh snow frosted the small windowpane of her bedroom. She awoke late, at 7:30, the morning that began her eighty-fifth year. Last night, she’d given herself permission to sleep in, risking missing morning prayers, Mass and even breakfast with the rest of the community.  Her intention was sincere in honest ambivalence–“if the Lord wants me at morning prayer, the Lord will see to it I awake in time.”
As always, the Lord had other plans.
Before rising from beneath warm, cozy blankets, enjoying blessed solitude, anticipating a first cup of coffee in rare silence, she realized the sisters would be on their way to Mass.  Suddenly she was taken by a vision. Eighty-five years ago this minute she would just be approaching five hours old, hairless in wrinkled pinky flesh, writhing with hunger for her mother’s milk, elixir of life.  Her first communion in the intimacy of the first family bonding as God so ordained.  What awesome wonder!
January could chill through to the bone in Oklahoma’s panhandle. Transporting back to that moment collapsed time and space, to the sights, smells and sensations of her first hours on earth.  The sticky warmth of her mother’s body against her flesh, the warmth of milk coursing down her throat, the low sounds of her father’s voice in comment of adoration.  What wondrous love is this?  The gift of sight extended as she imagined her beloved brothers, then two and four, rubbing their eyes, hair the color of dry corn husks askew with fresh waking. Silently they came alongside their mother to peek at their new sister; gently touching the quilt over their mother’s leg, her arm, astonished at the magical sight of this baby appearing out of the darkness, out of their dreams.  What glorious delight to see them so young, flanked by the older three siblings.
The moment passed briefly as moments do in life and memory, but the joy and gratitude sustained her in giggles and renewed energy.  “Happy new year, Miriam!” she said aloud to herself—grabbed her robe to venture down the hall for coffee, her morning prayers fulfilled.