Snapshots of Maui

How could I have lived my entire life without seeing such beauty. I feel like Jodi Foster in the film Contact: No words...no words...

Sat on balcony overlooking a beautiful garden stream. To my right are the islands of Lanai and Molokai. In the distance someone was playing a guitar and singing some island melody. The notes were lovely; they found a sad place inside. Thought of my dad. He has funded this trip with my kids; I will take him everywhere we go. Wept.

Took Amanda to K Mart to buy shorts so we could go to workout together. Hiway has tall green mountains on one side, turquoise water on the other. She was outlined in sunlight, hair blowing around her. John Mayer song "Gone" playing on the radio. She's turning seventeen. Rachel will be leaving to college the day after we return.

Tuesday: Drove in the driving rain, pitch black night, five am to catch boat for snorkeling adventure. It was one of the main things I was looking forward to in an adventurous Lara Crofty sort of way. Swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Meeting sea turtles. Now was fumbling with a map, trying to stay on the road, trying to see the road, and navigate areas I couldn't even pronounce. We pulled off on a dark road. Rain beating down on the windshield. We laughed so hard I had tears. A voice on the radio telling us to "get up, brush teeth and smile. We sooo lucky to live on the island Maui". Trip was canceled.
Ate banana pancakes. Went to Front Street (very cool) and movie in a wierd musty theater. The guy at Taco Bell was from Lomita.

Wednesday: Rain again. Refused to stay inside. Drove into center of island. Went to sugar cane museum (yes! a museum for this!) and ended up picnicing in a green countryside draped by fern like trees, with no one around (perhaps a cow or two). Later that night had two slices of banana cream pie.

Nourishing Novels

I would like to think that one day, of the myriad of things I shall leave behind, one of the most useful would be a list of some of the books I have read which have been nourishing to me as a woman. Webster's describes the word nourish to be synonymous with nurture, maintain, support, and to nourish is to promote the growth of. Now, these are not to be confused with the Oprah type of list called Books That Made a Difference. There are many such works, and they were not all nourishing, in fact some, like Brownmiller's Against Our Will were haunting and disturbing (albeit necessary).
No. These are the books that I liken to a mentor, a dear friend, a dip in the cold and clear ocean, and when I emerged I felt more myself.
In that spirit, I begin my list, which is by no means exhaustive, nor in any particular order.

1. The Birth House by Ami McKay. The first novel by McKay details the life of Ms. Dora Rare, as she finds her way in her town as a midwife, at a time when medicine, particularly the experience of childbirth - historically a womans' domain- is about to be taken over by men. It is a tale told in a wonderfully creative way (at times a narrative, at times a scrap book) with heartfelt warmth and humor. I loved Dora, and it's one of the novels that I have read more than once. I can't wait for Mc Kay's next novel, The Virgin Cure.

2. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Charming, insightful, Woolf meanders though various scenarios and suppostations to arrive at a great truth: there were so few women of genius because most women did not have money, time, and a room to call their own.
Think about it.

3. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Just sweetness. And while I'm at it, her biographical spiritual journey, Dance of the Dissident Daughter.

4. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindburgh. A series of reflections on the many faceted life of a woman. It was written during a vacation on a Florida island that she took alone. Each essay is a meditation based on the sea shells she has found and lined up upon her desk, and each shell corresponds to a point in woman's life (ie, the moonshell represents the woman alone, the double sunrise represents woman and her relationships). I return to this book year after year.

5. Cleopatra by Elizabeth George. A gorgeous feast of a historical novel. I read it during the end of my marriage when I was taking care of my father. Also, her Helen of Troy.

6. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. It took me a couple of years to finish this because I would read the texts as Nafisi discusses them. I felt like I was in her class.

7. The Tenant of Wildfel Hall by Ann Bronte. A novel ahead of its time.

8. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. A book for young and not so young adults, it is more about a girl's journey into adulthood. And in that spirit,

9. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

Testing Week Over

I should be writing about how overjoyed I am, but I have come to love testing week. Here's why:

1. Unlike the week of testing years ago, I've had the opportunity to work with my students, condition them for this week, and prepare them with test taking strategies. As a result, they're a joy to be with.

2. I get the same class all day, so it's kind of like working in elementary school.

3. The students and I aren't being smothered by the burden of prescribed curriculum. We get to do cool activities that nourish other parts of their intellects.

4. Re: number 3: When I write "cool activities," I didn't actually mean testing itself. Although it is cool to fill in bubbles on a scantron, and show how well you've learned how to take tests.

5. We get ice cream.

6. We get to attend a cool assembly where the staff and students are brainwas- er...pumped up for testing week.

7. We get to see, for the first time in months, that select group of teachers who are highly valued on campus. Since they are busy with other things, they don't get to teach a homeroom/testing class of their own. This is the week they walk the halls, and duck their heads into our classes and offer to be of assistance. I'm sure one of them will be visiting my class soon.

8. Although it's Friday, and the day is half over.

9. And 7th grade isn't actually testing today.

10. Not that I needed any assistance.

11. After the students leave, we get to participate in staff meetings. This is where the real behind the scenes work of teaching is done. We meet by department, roll up our sleeves, and plan for next year. This involves combing through a fifty page document called our Plan for High Priority Schools. It is the masterful plan for turning the school around. It details all of the ways we will work with our students next year to get them up to at least Basic in all subjects. It will be choc full of new strategies.

12. Well, so far I haven't come across any new strategies, but I'm told it's a work in progress.

13. It's generally a time of refreshment for students and teachers alike.

I Miss Victoria

Once upon a time, there was a place that I went to when I wanted to feel beautiful. Its portals were crafted from dark, glossy, burgundy wood. They were the gateway into another world - a world of beauty, in which the sounds of the London Symphony Orchestra drifted about me like a delicate garment. My fingers would brush the lightest, softest fabrics. In my imagination there is the subtle fragrance of Spring Rain, although I can't be sure this was so: I often visited Crabtree & Evelyn first. And while I may have spent my afternoon running from place to place, that stopped when I walked through the door.

"Darling, but what is the hurry?" she would whisper as I held a creamy rose camisole. "We do not rush here...beauty never rushes." And so I would slow down, allowing my senses to take everything in. The matching chocolate satin brassiere and panties. The sheer black nylons. The soft cotton nightgown. Ah, the demi cup bra in pale rose. As soon as I decided to try it on, one of her muses would appear beside me, a measuring tape around her neck.

Visits to Victoria's Secret were uplifting, but that doesn't fully encompass what they meant to me. The imaginary Victoria was the emblem of sophistication: well read, mysterious, very sensuous. She made me want to be better than I was. She didn't make me feel less. She made me feel more.

And when I couldn't visit, there was her catalogue: colorful, glossy pictures of curvy models like Frederique donned beautiful lingerie in idyllic settings. Always tasteful. I would save each issue until the next one came. After I had my first child, my browsing took on a more wistful approach. I collected them as inspiration until I could once again fit into the fashions. Then came child number two, and visits to Victoria's Secret became less frequent, although I would still purchase a nightgown here, and the CD music collection there, in a modest effort to keep her a part of my life. By the time child number three appeared, I am sorry to say I had lost all contact with Victoria. I was too busy, too scattered to give her much thought. I don't think I even noticed when the catalogue stopped showing up. It just...disappeared.

And so did she.

I am sorry to say that for a long time I really didn't give her much thought, until the day I arrived unannounced for a visit and discovered that an impostor had taken her place. This chit angled herself in lewd contortions, her countenance sporting the half-lidded pout favored by gentleman's magazines. There were bins where one could purchase four panties for $20. Bony mannequins sporting thongs were posed, adjacent to polka dotted stuffed pooches in the storefront windows. Had the merchandise been displayed in an unmarked warehouse, it would have been impossible to tell it apart from that of Frederick's without checking the label. A wretched imitation, this Victoria had never read a great novel. She'd never heard of Mozart. She didn't know sensual; she didn't even seem to have the intelligence to grasp subtle. She was Eliza Doolittle before, although I rather credit Eliza with more class.

Where did she go? And who shall we call into account for her untimely disappearance? The consumer? Culture? Was there a generation in there that decided declasse and vulgar were going to be the provocative ideal? I missed it.

Oh Victoria, please come back! I miss you and I know I can not be the only one. You once filled a role in the life of a woman. You were sensual. You were beautiful. You would have been an inspiration to my daughters.

The other day I passed what was at one time my favorite store. I couldn't help it; I glanced up into the storefront, to a larger than life portrait of a woman who appeared to be in a relatively pleasurable state. Her lips were open in a in a dumfounded pout, her eyes were half closed, and she was spilling out of her bra. I wondered for the millionth time if anyone has explained to the CEO the difference between provocative and pretty versus embarassing. I glanced away in time to catch a little girl, about four, walking with her family from the opposite direction. She was staring at the storefront with the kind of intensity I see in children when they are completely focused on some activity. Teachers try to induce this state in the classroom because this is when the brain creates new neuropathways, hence learning takes place.

I looked away.