2008

I can't keep a secret. Life has been hard this week. Those who know me well know that reflection is part of my personality, not something I do only at the close of the year. It may well be the density of winter, the holiday busy-ness and distraction ending, and the encouragement to "re-invent" oneselfat the close of another year. I will be thirty-four in 2008. Who did I think I would be at this juncture in my life? What did I think I would be doing? I have been focusing on the pile-up of rejections and closed doors, of me bounding against opportunities like a happy puppy and the turned-face silence of a locked door. I can not think of a "success" I can name from this last year. A poetry award that no one's ever heard of, perhaps, an unpaid Internet "publication" maybe. I read stories by writers who've won XYZ, been a resident at QRS colony and retreat. I think I want health insurance and paid personal days. Then I think all I want is safety. I want some external source to say 'Yes, you have gifts. We want to put the to USE.' I am exhausted by applications and still feel a great frenzy to applyapplyapply againagainagain. I am sorting poorly, sleeping too much, and crying at useless things. For more than a week now I have been following a scheduled work-out routine on Mon, Wed, Fri. I have a light box that I use most days. I take vitamins. I cultivate gratitude. If you're out there, Angie (in Denver) you said the best thing to me once "Things change. They always do."

I sent a DVD about the migration of the Porcupine Caribou Herd out to a friend I met only briefly while working at Overlook Farm this year. Thank God for John, a man with such vibrancy and love and faith and endurance--as he enters his seventh decade-- that I can't help but learn. He sent me a book entitled "Of Earth and Sky, spiritual lessons from nature" compiled by Thomas Becknell. The book organizes writings about nature from poets, naturalists, clergy, and biologists into seven chapters. The chapters are: Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, Faith, Hope, Charity. At the back of each chapter are seven "practicing questions". I have begun with the chapter on

FORTITUDE

p. 48 of the above book OEAS
" . . .Margo Morgan admires the kangaroo because it can not go backwards, but must always move forwards. Consider particular animals or plants you admire and choose one as your "totem," a model you can keep in mind when life brings you face-to-face with obstacles or predators . . ."

me --
Because it was such a unique environment, the few months I worked at Cornell Vet Hospital in Ithaca, New York in 2004-2005, still yields intense memories. After the first few months I worked primarily alone, through the darkest pre-dawn hours of 1-2-3-4-5-6 am. At those times my job was to comfort and protect the patients in the hospital, to write down little notes on a square, gridded sheet littered with abbreviated phrases, "alphabet soup" I've called it. A patient is BAR, QAR, WNL, EUP, TACHY and on and on. I treated a kangaroo named Helen for two nights in a row. She was three or four feet tall. She had a pink dog collar with a large bell on it. An IV line went into the cephalic vein of her stunted, dinosaur-like forearm. She had big liquid eyes and was placid with a human's calm voice. Her tail was a wonder . . .like a bent, balancing limb made of muscle. It had no "give" at all, the way a muscled leg does. I do not know if it can unilaterally be said about kangaroos, but I would venture to say that--yes--they can NOT go backwards, but nor do they lie down. When Helen finally died (I was not there to see it) I wonder if she truly "fell over" or slumped against the side of her cage. I remember the feel of her joey. She had a joey in her pouch, that she let me feel one evening, like a little swimming squirrel under her pouch skin.
I would like to see kangaroos in the wild.

And while you might guess I would choose a lion, or a tiger, or a leopard as my animal totem (the only tattoo I have is of a tiger over my right breast:). I choose, at this time in my life, the caribou. I will read more about them. What I know now is that they may migrate up to 800 miles in a year, the pregnant cows leading, the most gravid females in front. They single file through deep snow and rivers, over mountains, to get to the calving place where the food is good and the insects are limited. They drop a calf that weighs thirteen pounds and may double his weight in a week on her rich milk. They are ruminants, they are reindeer, they are intricately tied to the lifestyles and lore of Alaska's real people. They taste good. They make the warmest boots you will ever wear. They are steadfast, strong, and they have an inner metronome for the seasons that we will never fully understand. They are that mix of familiar and mysterious, definable and elusive, social and solitary.

I'm on my trek.

December 24

The picture? I was getting a little tired of seeing my "sweet" face at that head-cocked angle stuck on the right side of the blog. The new computer has a built-in camera and I'd just stepped out of the shower . . . I thought about taking another shot that reduced my forehead wrinkles, but I believe I earned those at the equator while not wearing sunscreen. I'm writing and reading about Africa again. It's calling. There's a big show-production coming to Fairbanks in mid-January called "African Footprint" and while the music swells and compels you to buy the 53$ ticket while you're driving through -40F, the reality of the show makes me angry. Here again, is Africa as Westernized myth, as glossed and groomed Broadway, every black-man's step rehearsed and rehearsed to be perfectly in time, costumes impeccably matched and none of the dancers missing fingers or sporting scars. It isn't WRONG, these portrayals, but it is not COMPLETE, and it doesn't raise the bar on how we as human beings connect with human beings of other cultures who are the same mix of confused tradition and globalized culture that we are. The same way Christmas (as a tradition) is a wonderful mash of Celtic, Scandinavian, judeo-christian, pagan what-not, if you are watching (East) African song and dance you are likely to hear Christian hymns about Jesus Christ ululated to incredible, foot stomping heights by men who may have multiple wives (like their fathers and grandfathers) but make sure none of them know about each other. At the end of the "service" you'll be offered a 'donut'(square, greasy sweet bread) and a 'pop', whose slender-glass neck you'll drink out of with a straw (the old-fashioned bottles you can buy at Williams-Sonoma) and then return to the vendor to recycle the glass bottle out of necessity and not civic duty.

Smell the morning. Hear the cock crow. The sounds of the night. The taxi park! *sigh*

"Casting with a Fragile Thread" by Wendy Kann, sent to me by my father for Christmas. A MUST READ. Unsentimental, unapologetic, and the woman now lives in Westport, CT.

Let's see . . .I'll have some photos up of the marzipan pig I made for our Danish Christmas dinner tonight. If you're the one to get the almond in your rice pudding you win the pig (and her graham cracker, Necco-wafer tiled shed :)
Veterinary work through the 5th of January.

First lessons in holding your licker

In the deepest sense, I've been doing some end-of-year gathering and sorting lately-- hence the silence. Being quite sick didn't help, nor does the current cold snap. Deep winter: -40F at night, 3 hours of daylight . . . perfect days for warm cabins, purring kitties, fresh sheets and books.

Preschool is winding down for the winter break. Today and tomorrow we just have our morning group until 1130. They are the smallest kids, some of them barely 3 years, and most of them with only variably-pitched wailing as a form of communication. Christmas is a high-stress time even for these little people. It's been too cold to spend real time on the playground, but we went through the play equipment on the way to the bus the other day. . .and suddenly noticed that one fellow was spending a little too long standing right in front of the slide ladder. . . his chin right in front of a metal step-bar. His face was just beginning that scrunch-cry that he usually uses as "a warning call".
"He's stuck!!" Miss C. called
Without thinking I said "Oh Shit!" and ran into ER mode.
"Get the water!" Miss C. Called
I was running to the sink inside in a flash, thinking about the first law of animal impalement injuries: don't remove the offending object before medical assessment!!
By the time I got back out she was trying to haul his backpack onto him (the bus driver was there). "I blew on it" Miss C. said. Our small friend was eerily silent, his little wet mouth in an unbelieving 'o' around a pink tongue with a little tip of blood.
I knelt down to look at his tongue more closely. Then I stood up, patted him on the back, "Fastest healing tissue in the body, my friend, you'll be fine."

Let's see . . . there's also been cookie decorating, ornament making, gingerbread house creations with graham crackers and frosting with those little-bitty milk cartons as the structural base --and tootsie-roll chimneys. There was the day when EVERYONE in the morning group was crying and I suddenly decided to run an impromptu "AA" meeting with a circle of tiny plastic chairs and the hokey-pokey instead of the serenity prayer. I forgot my extension cord to plug in my car one day and everyone in the building was so kind . . .the librarian lent me one of her AV cords, and I recognized her because I've treated her Yorkie dogs.

Merry holidays all--

Week in Review

I made it all the way until last night/ this morning before breaking with a florid head cold. I bypassed the "sniffles" phase and went right to shocking-pain-between-ears sinus infection. I worked this morning and am now experimenting with decongestants hoping one will work without turning me into a someone unworthy of operating heavy equipment (do blogs count?)

It's been a fun, tiring week. Yesterday I did an abbreviated "veterinary" lesson with the kids that involved balloon animals. We also had a fire drill yesterday--standing out in the cold and snow for a long time, perhaps contributing to my current woes.

I got a new iMac. It counts as "the basic" 1199$ model, but it still does everything except make my bed and feed the cat. It was a little tricky in that it came equipped for bluetooth, ethernet, DSL, airport/wireless. . .everything except the dial-up I can only use in my apartment here. Karl saved the day by finding me a thumb-sized external modem for now.

Due to some frightening spelling errors and feeling generally lousy, I'm going to keep this short. The dose of preschool humor that's worth chuckling over here was from our afternoon group this week. A little girl was finishing her lunch at the table, eating an open-faced "Lunchables" pizza with the sauce you squeeze onto the round bread. One of our boys had already built a "flying alien" out of bright colored plastic gears and Leggo-type toys. As the alien flew over the girl's table, one of its huge, round, glow-in-the-dark eyes uncorked from the rest of its body and fell onto her pizza. I was sitting across from her at the table. Part of the genuine humor was that she just stared at it, then looked up at me. In slow silence I walked over, plucked it off her pizza, patted her on the back and rinsed the eyeball in the sink. That little person is a "typical peer" and a very fine sport about everything that goes on in or afternoon room.

Just a warning to my friends: don't ask me to listen or sing "Up on the Rooftop" for at least two years. I am SO over that friggin song . . . the school concert/Xmas performance was today.

Everything I needed to know I learned in . . .

. . . Preschool special ed??

1) Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is actually a Shakespearean morality play about individuation.
2) If you think a four-year-old with a speech impediment is calling you an asshole -- he's actually telling you he's building you a castle.
3) Red finger paint does actually come out of the knees khaki pants . . .but you should tell your co-teachers the day before the project "goes down" so they can dress in crayola-paint-camo
4) It will not make children's feet "grow funny" when the shoes and boots are on the wrong foot.
5) Though the appear vibrant and durable, children actually have no bones. To test this theory, show your three-year-old a snowsuit, boots, scarf, mittens, hat and tell them the bus is leaving. While feeling goofy at the end of a Friday, we all sat the tots down to a central pile of peanut butter crackers and told them it was "reverse strip poker". Each person that took a cracker had to put on an article of outdoor gear. It didn't work, but no one ended up wailing this afternoon . . .that was a definite A+.

How do they know?

At 3 pm every day at Arctic Light Elementary on Ft. Wainwright military base the school bell rings and the hall floods with snowsuits trying to find the right daddy in camouflage and combat boots. Like penguins, they each find their own young and tiny pink and blue snowsuits are hauled out by the hand into idling cars.

It's a different world, teaching preschool. We got new play-doh yesterday. WOWee!! Have you seen those colors lately? There is also plenty of whining and major melt-downs to help us all appreciate a good George Winston CD and a hot bath at the end of the day.

One young gentleman was so excited to be chosen to help hand out snack to the other children that he forgot something. . . and we'd noticed he was a little extra "wiggly" . . . moments later from the bathroom could be heard "Misssss Caaaaat!" Not only were his pants, shirt, socks and sneakers wet, but a visible stream lead along the tiled floor to the central drain in the small bathroom with the toilet 12 inches off the ground (it's like a "squat toilet" in UGanda!).

There's more to type, but I'm just trying to keep up with sleep and Xmas and everything. Just wanted to let you know I'm surviving.

Why are toddlers like cell phones?

Because if you put them on 'silence' they vibrate.