Days Like This

Today I am thinking of my father

On what would have been his 68th 

You were too big for the world, Dad.

Emotional Response

He asked me a question
That directly related to my past
Which reminded me that life is not fair
And is sometimes cruel and merciless
And so I started to cry
And his response was,
"Where are the tears coming from?"

He was not the first to do this.
The trend seems to surpass gender, age, training, and approach.
An inside joke for counselors:
"If we're going to listen to all of their issues,
We at least reserve the right to kick 'em when they're down."

It always seems to happen right in the middle of a revelation,
When I'm allowing myself to feel what I was trained not to feel,
My soul starting to center itself--
And someone is being left out, so he or she asks the dreaded question,
Halting my progress and requiring yet another fifty minute hour
And ten dollar co-pay.

No Wonder

To the women of my mother's generation: I respect you. You have worked to have it all, and you've accepted that you have to do it all. You have raised daughters expecting them to have both careers and families. You burned bras and marched for civil rights.

But the blind spot that you have worked to maintain, that you are now training me to have, that tells me to keep quiet and accept that men are allowed certain privileges in marriage, this I cannot accept. Don't tell him to hang on there when I'm upset that he left me and cheated all because--glory of glories--he came back. Don't ask me to remove posts that just might incriminate him if one reads carefully. And please don't call me a "good girl" if, out of respect for you, I do. I don't want to survive unhappily on benzos and caffeine for the sake of making a marriage work. It's too stuffy in here; I need air.

I remember my grandmother's house: the gold shag carpet, the brick red linoleum floors. She served my grandfather like he was a king, bringing him his food, even peeling his bananas for him. And when her dementia debilitated her, the tables turned, and he waited on her. At least she had an excuse.

We Aren't

for my own almost other lover

Regardless of how I cut and pull and prune, it takes root, sprouts, flowers: a beautiful bloom that I want to touch and smell and taste.

Next to it is one bitter and deadly; I need to let it die. When I feed your sweet, unassuming flower, I inevitably nourish its poisonous neighbor: the anger I hold for all the wrongs he's done to me. 

I need to tend to my family, not to my resentments and desires. Even when you reside patiently and respectfully in my periphery, I nurse  a passion that conflicts with my reality. I need to let it die.

In the beauty of spring I toil to plow my rocky Folsom soil with exhausting solidarity.

Dirt under my fingernails, sweat and dust mingling on my skin, I reach for a goodbye. I need to let it die.

Industrialized Foodstuffs and Enjoyment

the package on the oatmeal instructs me
to add a dairy beverage
or a non-dairy beverage
natural or artificial sweetener
fruit, honey, raisins, or nuts
and enjoy.

how long have they been telling people how to eat oatmeal?
listing our options as if we didn't know,
being sure to remind us
to enjoy.

is this a valid concern?
when did we start
needing to be told
to enjoy our food?

the tech writers had to think long
and hard on that one.
you never want to mislead your consumer,
especially when it comes to oatmeal.

Star Cross'd

"Listen, darling," she said.
She sat back and stared at the sky, listlessly.
"This star here. This is mine."
She pointed at the blue sky smudged with cumulous clouds.
"And that, over there, that's yours."
She stroked his shoulder.
"It's old news; it's archetypal.
The Herd Boy and the Weaver Maid. R & J. Hamlet and Ophelia."
She shifted toward him and pulled at his white lapel with her left hand,
his grey tie with her right. Close.
"That's all there is to it: the universe."
She breathed him in, released, and arose.

On Teaching

Sugar enriched days
call for aggressive lesson planning.

I chose today,
Valentine's Day,
to run poetry stations,
exploring a few different forms.

Lyric, ballad, sonnet, tanka, free verse; I
Observed
Victory in
Excess:

fifteen
fifteen year-olds
focusing on erased papers in front of them,
holding their hands a few inches in the air,
counting syllables on their fingers.

What It Does

Starting with the hair, the mother can expect extremes.
First, there is too much--so much that ponytails
can make you cry by the end of the day,
This is followed by handfuls in the drain, on the floor, in her brush.
If her kids happen to be terrified of the blowdryer,
She quickly adjusts to just not bothering.
She has better things to do.

At her base her feet swell and ache and likely lengthen.
Her weight picks an extreme--too....something, to be sure. 

In her middle is a gaping hole that still remembers its miraculous accomplishment.

Facial features are case to case.
Her nose could grow longer or wider,
Her eyes might sink in or sag with bags--
Sleep deprivation is no beauty treatment.
And just when she thinks she might start getting real sleep, another
Tooth sprouts, someone is sick. Night terrors terrorize bloodshot eyes.

She learns within the first week to forget about jewelry;
Baby hands are remarkably strong, and toddlers are covetous and demanding.
The neck she used to dab with perfume
Is odorless if she's lucky...she becomes accustomed
to the scents of breast milk and baby wipes.

Skin is the largest organ; it of all does not forget what a mother has been through.
Lines and splotches trace the stomach, buttocks and thighs,
Reminding all of the room it made for growth.
And the breasts. Once they have swelled with sustenance for another life,
The nipples are stretched to grotesque directions, no longer symbols of sex
But limp and lifeless lumps of tissue waiting to be ignored.

A woman's blood supply increases by thirty percent during pregnancy.
Bulging veins are painful; watching others wince when they spot them is equally so.
Spider veins creep through calves and thighs.
When it becomes time to don them, however, her focus
Is on her child's survival in the water, the contents of the swim bag,
And where exactly they all can change.

For the kids

What does it mean, really, to stay together for the sake of your children?

1 out of 2 don't make it. Does that mean that an even smaller percentage stays together because they actually like each other? We had the conversation that ended with "for the kids" scads of times while the word divorce was coming up. Their big brown eyes would widen with the tension in the room. They noticed that they were being shuffled from me to him to me again. Night time was confusing. But even in the fog of emotion emitted by them and us, when they were pitching fits and acting out, the trajectory of our destruction didn't dissipate. The house we had built crumbled around them and us because of selfish desires. We sorted through the debris and found signs of life, possibility for regeneration. They hug and kiss us more now; they know things could be getting better, but they don't know why, and neither does he. 

one perk

when your husband has no interest in poetry
or in you for that matter
you can say anything you want
through poetry
and you'll never get found out
because why on earth
would he care
that you're keeping it somewhere
and writing about him
and his little girlfriend
and the men who like you more than he does?

Dear Jenny G,

for my husband's almost / maybe other lover

Please repeat after me:

"You have a wife, kids, a life.
I deserve better than to be the cereal
You opt for because you don't like
the main course anymore.

I am worth a man's full devotion,
Not frivolous texts about my sexy knees
That I so righteously do not even respond to.

Let's not meet at Lowbrau
To talk about football, your family, and my suitors.
It's wrong. It's adultery, touching or not.

I have never carried or birthed children,
So I have no idea what it really does to a woman's body.
But a woman who has,
If she's chosen a husband and he's chosen her back,
Should be allowed to work through marital issues undistracted
By the drama and threat of an "emotional affair."

And if she finds out
I will fully expect to be called
Six, seven, or eight times,
And to receive an explicit text message and a long voicemail,

Because I have been foolish enough,
Wanted attention enough,
Misunderstood true humanity enough,
And listened to the lies of culture enough

To find myself accused
Of something that I will dismiss as an innocent friendship
But acknowledge through my cowardly avoidance
Is a grave offense and debilitating blow
To a family still reeling from real loss.

I will redirect your advances, knowing you're acting
Foolishly--you are a man, after all;
That Eve story is a myth."

Now run off and be a good girl,
And hope with all your blondeness that you don't see me in hell.

Lines

They develop on skin almost overnight,
A sign of aging, the fright emphasized in ads selling serums,
But I like yours.
They tell me how long we've known

Even as we've grown behind our own lines.
They deepen as the soul deepens:

Through salt, wind, and sun,
And also water, and sometimes laughter.

The self is the accumulation of experiences and perceptions.

When I saw your steel blue eyes once
Again, more silver shimmering in your hair
Your lines pulled me in, uninvited,
Into the depths and the shallows
Of this man I've never really known.
The soul is a stairway of skin.

Whatever you are

I can't decide whether to classify you
as a rodent or a canine.

Like a rat you scavenged through
my leftovers
just trying to survive
on what little you could get.

But like a dog--I'll be more specific here....a golden retriever--
You welcomed attention
and behaved properly.
You were easy
to be around;
"man's best friend,"

accepting the crumbs from underneath the table and gobbling up compliments.

Surely I've sent you running
with your tail between your legs
regardless,
and you will probably move on
alone
to another family's home
looking for     something

but I hope that some day you'll evolve
into a woman.



  

Anima

No woman has it all, unless
she's airbrushed and posing for a fashion shot
or a selfie.
Man's visual nature has created a market for the perfect woman, and we are all
eager to be the product.
We are expected to be easy-going porn stars,
whole-heartedly interested in our husbands' interests.
 And when it comes time to "complete" ourselves,
we are squished and drained and sapped and milked dry, only
to have our home torn down by
 the new projection.
Women everywhere, I ask you:
if we don't look out for each other, who will?

Corey

It is not uncommon

for a student to transfer to our school

credit deficient,

but when Corey showed up 

and won all of his peers and teachers over

we wondered

what was Corey's story.

Last Thursday he and I sat

in the scheduling office 

looking at his transcript.

I asked him what happened,

and charming Corey 

retreated deep within himself,

started to rock, and rubbed his arm.

He didn't want to talk about it.

I pressed the issue.

"It's because my mom...she..."

The un-named pain was overwhelming.

We sat there, helpless,

hot tears streaming down our cheeks.

He didn't have a ride.

He's not ready for counseling.

Everything's ok now.

My mind went to other students:

I have lost four girls to prostitution;

Five boys have been killed this year.

Street drugs are poverty's opiate.

Parents are not exempt. 

I just want to be clear:

the achievement gap

is purely a societal issue.

Base

I've always been a girl with a myriad
of issues.                               I was a teased a ton when I was a kid, and               when I reached adolescence I decided                      to take the matter of looks                            into my own hands. The waif look was in,
so that took care of body type issues...                                                 and I knew that Julia Roberts had lip injections so I could make something good out of my                       "puffy lips"
                                                                                          (as the school boys loved to mock).

So came the makeup,                                   and lots of it.             Anything that I could find to cover up what was
 obviously                               so grotesque,                                       I applied at least five times a day--in between classes, during class, at my lunch break.
As I grew up and started to realize that there was more to me and to life than how I looked, I eased off that                       obsession                             a bit                           (leaving room for all the others).                       Through college I would actually go a whole day (occasionally)                    without wearing makeup.

Then came the spring of 2003.
I was leading a discipleship group for high schoolers and we were discussing Lent.
 I usually gave up               sweets or something                                non-issue-related.                                 Then my little over-acheiving high schooler, Liz, had an epiphany.
                                                      "Let's give up MAKEUP!"
         Fear bounced off my foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, blush, and mascara all at the same time.

The initial reactions
from the upper-class
suburban mothers at work were commical.
                         "Are you ok? Are you sure?" they said, concerned, perplexed, stunned.
         The shock wore off eventually and I got used to my dark circles, large pores and splotchy skin.
                                                        I even came to embrace it.

We spend                                                                                                 so much time                      covering ourselves up that we forget the beauty we have. Those 40 days gave me a new kind of confidence--I became less    apologetic and confined.                                         I found myself screaming silently "Take it or leave it; this is the real me."
Now I can feel free to wear bright teal eyeshadow which screams
                             "This is the real me today.                                   Tomorrow I might be sophisticated."

Baby Names

On Halloween,
I planned a vocabulary lesson
for my Sophomore English students
that I called "Affix Asphyxiation."
The Whodunnit mystery, which covertly
taught my pigeon-speaking 15 year-olds
Greek, Latin, and  Anglo-Saxon affixes,
was going according to plan
when
one of the girls in class waved me over,
head tilted,
with a whimsical expression on her young, round face.
 
"Miss Schultz," she said
dreamily,
  "What does that word on that board mean?"
Her eyes sauntered from me to the board, and then back to me with a flutter of her eyelashes.
"It means
'to suffocate
or drown,'"
I replied, a bit bewildered by her question.
    "Oh," she replied with slightly bated breath,
smiling,
  "because...
   I wanna name my daughter that.
   It just looks so pretty."

Her eyes twinkled as her mind floated away
to the future image of her little daughter, Asphyxiation.
I decided to defend this poor unborn child, but to no avail.
I looked at the word on the board.
   "Maybe you could name her Sphynx," I suggested.
She looked at me with grave confusion.
    "Stinks?"
    "No...um...nevermind. Do you have any questions about the assignment?"
    "No," she chirpped.
    "Okay then." 
    It's not my fault, Asphy. I did my best.

Metaphor

The dark cloud of love hovers above, piercing the parched earth below.
The slithering snake of love coils by the trail, looking for an ankle to strike.
Love is car.
Love is a river.
Love is a blindfold.
Love is a prison.
Locked up, broken down, unable to see, I am caught in its current.

Love Is

Love is a stern 86 year old man
Trying to pick up after life with duty and diligence
Skin flaking dust on the furniture
sleep cycles of an infant
Feeling warm and worn down from years of standing by her side

Ordering orderlies and nagging nurses
Scheduling hair appointments and nail appointments
Still calling her Sweetness and Sunshine
Sneaking her cookies every now and then
Reading the Pslams aloud to her at her hospital bedside

And after she's gone, his voice breaks on the phone
And he tells me 'she's with the Lord.'
And he lets tears fall from puffy pink eyes
As he puts her taupe old lady shoes into a garbage bag--
The shoes she's worn ever since I can remember.

R.I.P. Elizabeth Schultz
1922-2007

Out of Perspective

I am mourning the death of a 35 year old woman, though not nearly as much as her husband and her two young sons. Other mothers who hear of her passing grieve too. As they apply her situation to theirs, they are touched; they are moved. "It just puts it all into perpectice," they say easily, without having to raise their own tired, brittle, pale fists to the sky. And while they are counting their blessings, I am doubting mine. We all said out prayers for Lisa, half-believing that if we just asked enough, she would be healed. But when that didn't work, we told ourselves that it was for the good somehow. Some even go so far as to say that death is cancer's ultimate healer. It makes me wonder about all of the petty prayers we throw up from this sinful earth; this place where young mothers are eaten alive by their own cells and believers are eaten alive by their own doubt. But perhaps there is no formula-- no combination of hoops we must jump through to catch our Master's eye. Perhaps it's only that we make that death-defying leap of faith and then balance...steady...on the edge until the curtain falls.

Practicing Resurrection

Today I am imagining what it would be like
To be the hill that stepped out of the lake just here:
To feel purple and yellow wildflowers grow
And listen to the climactic sound of bees humming past.
I am surprised at my ability to empathize
As I picture summers and falls,
The shore now exposing rocks tossed in
By lovers making memories to sustain them through drought.
I can almost feel the dirt crack
And the dry brittle grass snap in the heat of the Indian Summer
When all hope has been swallowed up
And only the dry reality of death remains.

So this is what it means to practice resurrection:
To experience death because the rain will come;
New life drenching every inch, felt fully
By me and it and us.

Love is Not Enough (for Sam)

All I really want is a girl
Who'll go the third beer
And still be interested in what
Harold said that one time in London
And how the leaves sound in Goshen in the fall
As she quietly acquiesces to the fourth, fifth, and sixth.
And then, when I'm aloof and melancholy,
She will ask the bartender how his doxen weathered through surgery
And quietly giggle as she pays half-attention
To the re-run showing on the precariously balanced
Old television in the upper right-hand corner of the bar.

Staying in Character

Here is where I draw the line. Just here. I will stay, stubbornly, abstemiously, on this side of being the interesting normal you've determined to settle for. As you should clearly see by this sturdy yellow spike tape adhering to the dusty, smooth floor, I am well aware of my cues, my movement, my motivation. I did not audition to be the girl waiting desperately for love to find her, gazing out her window dreamily, Singing some generic rendition of the same damsel's song; or the dear lovesick Jane Bennett, oh so deserving and believing & adorably pitiful. And I surely purposed to avoid the casting call for Rip's wife, that old nagging hag who exists solely to rob him of his eccentricities And beat out every ounce of creativity, sticking him with a constant list of dos and don'ts. No, I don't stand there. I stand here. My lines are much more complicated, less predictable. I may not know them all by heart, but I do know That I belong here by the door where I can almost feel the cool night air streaming in contrast with the warmth of the fire, leaving me with these goosebumps on my arm.

And What's More

i want a

sexual

relationship

when he's so interested in who i am

that he cannot keep his hands off of me

drop

everything

i don't want to worry about things being

too small

or not looking right when i move this way

i want it

deep

spiritual

esoteric

rhythm and cadence

one motion

love

The Night She Proposed

She looked at my wedding ring with 3 year-old eyes

and began by asking the typical questions:

"Where did you get that?"

"Who gave it to you?"

"Where was I?"

So I pointed to a picture from our wedding

and explained the cultural protocol,

and that gave her an idea.

"I would like to marry Drake when I'm big years old."

"You need to marry someone else. People don't marry their brothers."

"But I love Drake, and I'm going to marry him. 

I'm going to ask him."

Dreamily, with confidence, she marched downstairs.

"Drake, will you get married with me when we're big years old?"

"Yesssh."

(hug)

And that was it: security.

I Liked It

his hand brushed my knee
and i wanted it on my thigh, high,
hi! the rush of blood, the tension,
i liked it.
tell me about shame and fidelity
and i will tell you what it's like
to be a woman:

to work past exhaustion
on a typical day.
to change hats three times
all while receiving comments on your wardrobe.
watching the food you prepared sit on the plate.
pulling children into your bed at 2 and 4.

and having a husband interested in sex
weekly at best.
yes, i know right from wrong.
no, petting another man
at a sports bar is not acceptable behavior.
but i liked it.

It's Not For You

My hand rested on the threshold;
My body pressed against the hard wooden frame.

Peeling paint flaked onto the cracked blacktop. Waiting there, I heard--or rather felt--the rumble of the freight train The flutter of a bird's wings The rush of the wind tunneling through the caverns of my skull.

I knew to brace myself against the rhythm, and then, with a quick breath, release. The wind and the earth moved me past the opportunistic weeds of the split concrete, their frothy yellow flowers reaching up, gasping for life. Walking Chagall-like through the air, my body slowly evaporated into the afternoon heat, humid and looming over the town I knew so well.

The trapped arid earth beckoned me with sparse, verdant fingers, each blade of grass and sprouting weeds beckoning me toward density. My desire grew heavy, and I slowly sank toward the siren's song of the cement.

Darkening with the sky, my nebulous form aching to materialize, my own opening imminent, I fell with the rain to the sudden muck and rock, accumulating, hardening, as Adam from the clay. I rose at once to leave, finally transcending, whispering, "It's not for you, it's not for you, it's not for you."