should I stay or should I go now?

Took a hike through McKinney State Falls this morning. Hiking is great reflecting time, so I continued my internal interrogative as I wrote about in the previous blog. It was hard to think, as I walked through spiderweb after spiderweb, invisible. Also, getting to the Homestead Trail means crossing through the lower falls area, and wet socks do not a pleasant hike make. Plus I'm not great at following maps. I walked a quarter of a mile only to end at a maintenance area and had to backtrack. Rounding the corner, some big and brown caught my eye and I froze, thinking either bear or Blair witch. It was a buck, about twenty feet away. We looked at each other for a few seconds, then he bounced away. I could hear him walking with me for a while, out of sight.

When I got home, I rented Devil's Playground, a documentary about Amish kids during their rumspringa (German for "running or jumping around") at age 16 where they go buck-wild in the real world and try to decide whether or not they want to go back to the Amish church and be baptized. 90% did, some didn't, but all went through serious angst as they tried to decide, and they have awesome parties too. What ultimately had them by the short and curlies was a pervasive belief that they would or would not go to heaven. One girl left the church a few weeks before her wedding to her Amish boyfriend. She talked to the cameras as she showed her black wedding dress, which she said she always imagined making her feel like a queen, but now covers up the girl inside. One kid started selling crank to support his habit (this is after being a full time factory worker at age 13), informed on other dealers, and went back to the church to save his neck. Members of the church miss their cars. A lot. And the regular clothes, phones, tv, concerts, videogames, etc, all of which older members say detract from the family and the community and loss of individuality is a sacrifice you make. A handful leave the church after rejoining and are shunned for life from their family and friends. These people were teary, alone, and unable to cope with the world as they didn't go to school after 8th grade but claimed things were getting brighter.
The polarity was oppressive--everything was either this or that, right or wrong, heaven or hell, jeans or dresses.

watch this -- Amish lady asks for $50 to let this dude take her picture.


Watching this film after What the Bleep Do We Know? a few days ago on top of a hike might have been a bit taxing. I believe a nap is in order.

what a fine looking question

If your early twenties are about finding yourself and having new experiences, your later twenties are about trying to answer the questions brought up in the last 5 years or so. It's been the theme song of my life lately, between my 8 year old neice's incessant interrogative about the mundane and overheard to a rousing and educational round of twenty questions in the car between Texas and Colorado to the constant question of what I'm going to do when I graduate, and I just don't know. I don't have the answers. I don't make the rules. Even the question of what we really want, how it's going to manifest itself becomes a huge cloud of whothefuckknows. I know some things. I like to think I know more than most people. Trying to make sense of things is a tough job, and I wonder if other people are asking questions too or if they're just floating along a sea of blissful ingnorance.

I just finished a book for class (I know) which poses as one of its central tenets the issue of "authentic questions," and how they really bring out the real life learning you should get in school, rather than the kind of learning you don't get when you try to figure out what the teacher is looking for. Curriculum questions like, "Was Huck Finn a good boy?" and "Why did Hamlet hesitate?" These kinds of questions can draw upon the fact-driven knowledge, the class discussions, but also and more so from opinions, beliefs, interpretations. These are not the questions being asked on standardized, multiple choice tests, fueled by political and economic reasons. That's why the schools are fucked up.

The biggest question is why. Why a lot of things. Anyone who thinks they really know probably is full of shit. But keep asking.

Pics from Colorado, one of my favorite trips so far:

moons and serious questions

There was one point while imitation boogie-boarding in Corpus last week when I was suddenly unsure whether the rhythmic tides were pushing me sand-ward or pulling me out into blue nothingness. It was horizontal vertigo, and suddenly the land lovers seemed much further away than they should be. After a few seconds of noncommon-sensical shark fear, I slid off the board and realize I could still touch.

No such thing happened today at Bull Creek. The creek rushes one way, and one way only, and strongly. Beautiful leaves kept clinging to me as they were swept away, and I sat in the cool water and read Tom Robbins. The following passage answered questions in my heart too slippery to ask properly:

"Consider a certain night in August. Princess Leigh-Cheri was gazing out of her attic window. The moon was full. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. Imagine awakening to find the moon flat on its face on the bathroom floor, like the late Elvis Presley, poisoned by banana splits. It was a moon that could still wild passions in a moo cow. A moon that could bring out the devil in a bunny rabbit. A moon that could turn lug nuts into moonstones, turn Little Red Riding Hood into the big bad wolf. For more than an hour, Leigh-Cheri stared into the mandala of the sky. "Does the moon have a purpose?" she inquired of Prince Charming.
Prince Charming pretended that she had asked a silly question. Perhaps she had. The same query put to the Remington SL3 elicited this response:
Albert Camus wrote that the only serious qustion is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is:
Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself."

--Still Life with Woodpecker

the body of Christ

Corpus Christi is a strange place, one where there are million dollar mansions on the beach and blocks away from street corners with anywhere between 4 to 7 crackheads chillin. The Catholic influence seems to be stronger here, yet it's the capital of spring break, debauchery, thongs and beer bongs. Have and have-nots. Do and do-nots. The gulf is beautiful to me. I grew up on a muddy river you'd not want to put your feet in, much less swim. Here the sea gulls cry, the waves advance and recede soothingly, the constant seabreeze brings about fro-like hair conditions and my skin tasty salty and sweetly sweaty all the time. The oil refineries and factories stand out in the wide open sunset of watercolors. I like it here. The sand feels right between my toes. I'm going to buy a boogie board next week. And lucky for me, it's my second home for the next month as I will be there every week from Tuesday through Thursday, teaching classes and staying in a kickass hotel right on the beach (boyyyy).



The first week was a comedy of errors--a gross hotel room, an FFA convention overrunning the town, shipping and inventory problems, new classes and students, etc. The drive down is a bitch, and the drive back is bitchier. But I found time to walk the beach some, to get some sun, eat some fresh seafood. I've always wondered who the first guy was that pulled a crab or a lobster out of the ocean and thought to himself, "I bet whatever's in here tastes good. I'm gonna rip it open and eat what I find." I thought about water, how it was here before anything else, and how we're mostly water. The Bible says God created the heavens and the earth, and then light. Apparently water was already there, because "the Spirit was hovering over the waters," an image that has always stuck with me since childhood. I thought about how you can stand and face the ocean, where it blends into the sky itself, a melding of blues and grays, and when you turn back around and face the world your problems don't sound as bad. Not when you turn back around and look into that expanse of power and life. The disciples were fishermen. We're baptized in water. The Catholics have holy water. We all cry and leak water. Just interesting. Water.

Thursday night I decided to reward my hard work with a nice dinner at a nice restaurant. Sure enough, a girl can't get any peace eating alone, and a old dude came over. I mean grandpa-old, bald, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with the top buttons undone to make sure that nice gray chest hair was showing. He was nice enough, and although I didn't really want to, I agree to let him join me and listened to him talk about boring lawyer stuff while I tried to enjoy my pontchartrain. Suddenly looking forward to the solidarity of my drive home, we went outside for a cigarette. I saw another woman walking outside for the same reason, so I jumped on this excuse to include other strangers besides Grandpa and me. She joined us. Then things got weird.

Leeann, who grew up in Corpus Christi and was now returning to live with her mother after a messy divorced, got married (the first time) when she was 14. That's right, 14. She looked to be in her early 40's to me, and claimed to have never drank or partied til she was 39, and her grownup kids didn't like that, so that seemed to have something to do with her moving back as well. She talked a mile a minute and had gold blush on. It nicely complimented the blue eyeshadow and liner. Then Old Boy came out, Leann's latest catch, whose IQ and number of teeth were within the same range, and not in a good way. Choking back laughter I ordered one more beer and asked how they met. In a convenience store. Leeann shrieked (and imagine this with a heavy redneck accent), "I had just rolled outta bed that mornin and we needed some ahce (ice) so I went down to the convenience store, I didn't have no makeup on, no shoes, I don't even think I had a bra on!" Old Boy laughed and said he had no idea how that all happened, and I wondered if that was due to drunkenness or repressing the memory. Leeann's last husband (I'm not sure how many there were) was 12 years younger than her, and had pretty much moved in on their first date and never left. Then two more rednecks came out, friends of Leeann and Old Boy, and I realized I was sitting with 5 people and at least 8 divorces. I felt the red-neckedness and desperation hanging thick in the air and decided it was time to go home.

Til next week, Corpus.

twin falls

The girl and the dog began walking into the grey light of the night being born, up from the rushing waters of Twin Falls. The sounds of the water became blended




with the life of the night and trees around them, the humming/vibrating/cricketing. Time slipped sideways through the tufted pink sky, the sun sinking low as twilight sneaked in. Now only the moon lit the way, dappled on the muddy path of stones that stuck out like garden gnomes and roots that lay waiting like snakes in silence. She looked straight ahead, her feet feeling the way while the dog trotted on, an occasional shadow ahead with a jingling collar. The water to her right, she heard voices behind and turned to look. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she didn't hear them now. The trees began to blend into black, moonlight crisscrossing her trail through the leaves.



Jingle jingle. Cricket cricket. Whisper whisper.



Her breath stuck slightly in her mouth and she focused on not tripping, not falling, not stopping. Wasn't really positive she was going in the right direction anymore. The locusts buzzed melodically and the sky took on a shade of night the way a mournful blues note grows. Here and there a shadow flickered ahead. Small boulders had to be scampered over in the now-dark. The dog collar jingled. She had to pee.




She remembered how when she was young the shadows on her walls at night activated her imagination to sometimes ridiculous heights. Like in Annie Dillard's short story, the headlights of a passing car during black sleepless nights sent a shrieking flying shadow across the room, only to curl up and whither at the corner. Lights and shadow. She kept walking, remembering being young and afraid of the dark. Of the unseen. Of what's ahead.

She kept walking, and she and the dog went home.

the nicest thing I've ever leased

what a car wreck smells like

Car wrecks have a distinct smell, one that lingers on you for several hours after you blow out a tire at 80 mph, spin around and smash into a wall twice. I sat on the shoulder of northbound 35 in traffic around 6pm today by Kyle and cried for a minute. A few seconds before I had issued a blood-curdling scream that rivaled Anne Darrow's in King Kong as I tried to control my severely swerving car. A rear tire blew out and I saw two hubcabs rolling comicly in front of me as the soda between my legs exploded all over me. A 180 busted the front right end until another 180 found me resting safely on the shoulder, out of traffic. I don't even know if someone was behind me.

Since I had been in San Antonio, I had my digital camera with me, thinking I would go take pics at the missions or something after work. Ironic.













One second you're enjoying your Diet Dr. Pepper, the next you're in a fucking movie scene. I thought after seeing Deathproof I'd like to be a stuntwoman. Now I'm not so keen about driving at all. Props to the Kyle PD who arrived almost immediately. I wish I had taken advantage of a good whiff of O2 before the ambulance took off. Progressive Insurance lady, I don't appreciate being asked if I damaged the wall. Thanks to the wrecker yard lady for staying with me til Dana got there. There are nice people everywhere.

My parents pray for me everyday, and I'm convinced this is why I didn't get hurt or hurt anyone else. My back feels kinda wonky, but I'm feeling pretty calm at the moment, enjoying a glass of wine and a smoke. Trying not to play the what-if game. I'm a lucky girl. And I didn't like that car anyway.

I love you all very much. Some more than others. You know who you are. :)