compunction upon planning an early departure

I have a hard enough time becoming forever attached to people - leaving a job is easy. It doesn't matter how stressful the points leading up to my departure may get - the moment I gather my belongings (if I have any there at all) and step outside the building...RELEASE! It is not that I lack compunction or compassion. When I start at something, I have every intention of following through. Phases or seasons in life are going to end when necessary. If the earth's rotation can alter the elements every few months and effect every one and everything, insignificant me can make a career move that may inconvenience a few people but in the long run none of these are worse the ware. In the past seven years, 12 jobs have come and 11 have gone. In these positions I have learned much and for most felt my way through day to day tasks with little or no training. The money it has cost employers to train and pay me has been easily covered by wedding parties, contract-bids won, pre-school classes offered, grants received and stapler sales.

Three months from this day (give or take a couple), the grant that is keeping my current position going will run out. While there has been talk of continued funding from various other sources, I am unsure I could survive another 9 months of breathing in 80 year-old dust, taking lip from punk kids that could give a shit less (that would require too much effort as they have found a true stasis of apathy), dealing with a few incompetent adults (there are also many with the wherewithal to be effective) who are entrusted with a sizable chunk of America's or at least Denver's future and postponing the day when I can actually be rid of the one thing keeping me (loans) from doing whatever it is that I am meant to do (musician, writer, stay-at-home Dad).

Survival of all of these things is not quite the point here. I could put up with all of that crap if I didn't have a para in front of my profession. A prefix with meanings including: alongside of, near, resembling, apart from, and abnormal. Is this not degrading? Being under-paid is not enough for this large bureaucracy that looks down on me from the gray tower that looms only a short walk from my house; the powers that be in this building along with many other educational institutions refuse to recognize my accomplishments and my hard work, denying me the opportunity to fight the good fight as a teacher. If I do not jump through their hoops lined up in such a way to make this hoop jumping process unbearably long and tedious, than I can not make the difference that is so clearly possible. I have to pay money to make money, I have to bend to the mold so I can be pushed around further. It is an outstanding admirable thing...to teach. But only from an outside perspective. Within, it is a degrading calamity from the very onset.

The Whole Foods in Cherry Creek is a unique microcosm of the larger Cherry Creek community. The store is always busy-to a point where you often spend more time trying to find a parking space than actually shopping for groceries. The people are always beautiful--even fifty year old men seem to carry themselves with a natural grace. And the food, of course, is tantalizing and expensive.

The shoppers at Whole Foods often know each other. Business partners run into each other, yoga moms chat while buying granola, and even neighborhood nannies recognize other care-providers from the park. There is a sense of community when you walk into Whole Foods: a shared space where wealthy Denverites can all enjoy the bounty of organic food stuff that Whole Foods so beautifully displays. Even the children in Whole Foods seem to embrace this connection. I have seen little girls with perfectly coifed hair and adorable dresses run up to other children and bring them to the colorful display case of freshly prepped sushi.

And then there is the King Soopers on 9th and Corona. Less than a mile away from the heaven that is Whole Foods, there sits a grocery store versed in my sense of reality. King Soopers is also very busy and parking is a nightmare--but mostly from the fact that the lot is remarkably small and congested with both cars and bikes and random people just walking around. I have seen beautiful people enter and leave this King Soopers, but not the type of "beautiful" that chokes Whole Foods. This "beautiful" is unaffected by an excess of money; style is regulated by cost and produces a far more creative expression of personal taste. I like it. I enjoy seeing the creativity. But there are a lot of other people that mingle through the store. People that sometimes scare me. There is not the homogeny of Whole Foods but instead a diversity that mirrors the community this King Soopers feeds. When you are trying to buy brown rice, it is likely you will bump into someone very different from yourself--and I enjoy that exposure and acknowledgement of difference.

Although Whole Foods always holds a place in my heart, I find myself preferring King Soopers on most days. I find myself wanting to be exposed and challenged by people who live and think differently than I do. And more than even that...I like spending less than 100 dollars on my groceries.

Why I Hope Juno Loses

Thanks to the end of the writers strike...the Oscars are slated to be broadcasted tonight. After perusing the nominations, I was struck by the strong films that have been released over the last year; although many films may not have been appreciated by a wide audience, the outstanding creative and aesthetic results of a myriad of actresses, actors, screenwriters, and directors are worth recognition and praise.

But I do have one problem. And yes, I am aware that my problem is probably not going to be received with much support. But I don't care.

As many people in the past few weeks have asked me about my opinion on Juno, I am going to assume that many people have also heard me rant about my distaste for the film. But for those of you who haven't, I think it might be worth repeating. I don't aspire to be a film critic, and I will be the first to admit that my knowledge is scant. So my critique has little to do with the more technical aspects of the film, the delivery of the actors or actresses, or the directorial vision. My critique rests in the ideology that undergirds the film.

Juno is about a young girl who gets pregnant by her friend/boyfriend. She is in high-school, decides to keep the baby, meets a wonderful and wealthy couple who offer to adopt the child, develops an odd relationship with both wife and husband, has the baby, gives it to the wife (the husband is immature and decides to bail out on baby and wife), makes up with her estranged boyfriend, and lives happily ever after.

This is not reality. And while I understand that movies often if not always provide an escape from reality, I strongly feel that this movie makes light of an immensely difficult scenario. Being pregnant at 15 isn't funny. Being pregnant at any time--when you're not ready--isn't funny. Women are faced with a decision with two unfavorable outcomes and the consequences from both can be life-long.

It is curious that there have been at least two widely popular films about unwanted pregnancy in the past year--Knocked Up and Juno. There has yet to be a funny film about abortion. Is getting an abortion any more painful than deciding to carry a pregnancy to term? When you're in high school? When you have to hand the child into the arms of another woman? Hollywood apparently thinks so. Considering the media coverage celebrities receive for bearing children (magazines are paying millions to get that first baby shot), babies are in.

Although the last few decades have allowed women to achieve greater reproductive freedom, the stigma against abortion is still strong. Abortion is never a decision that any woman wants to make, but then again neither is deciding to keep an unwanted fetus. There are many girls who get pregnant, like Juno, when they are still in high school, sometimes even middle school. Like Juno, these girls decide to keep their babies. But unlike Juno, there is not a plethora of young, attractive and wealthy families willing to sweep up their babies and give them a 'good' life. These young mothers often have to drop out of school, many of them cannot afford to go to college, and they are unfortunately resigned to a life-time of low paying jobs and social welfare. At the age of 15, these young girls are better suited to be gossiping with friends in the hallways of high school than sitting at home, nursing a baby. Unlike in Juno, the boy that gets the girl pregnant rarely sticks around; these young women are forced to bear the burden of unprotected sex for a lifetime.

Understandably every case of unwanted pregnancy is unique. I do not advocate that every young girl who gets pregnant should have an abortion, but I do believe that it is most often the best choice. Juno paints a very different picture--a picture that is unrealistic and in my opinion insulting to the thousands of women who are confronted with unwanted pregnancy every day.

So yes...although Juno does have some redeeming qualities, I hope it does poorly tonight--perhaps that will give Americans a more realistic picture of what happens when you get pregnant--it usually is not a winning situation.

upper middle-class white kids leave their comfort zone

If you didn't know I coordinate a math peer-tutoring program at an inner city (hardly) school. I set struggling freshman up with older students that have had the gift of natural math ability. A very unsettling spectacle has made itself blatantly obvious to onlookers of this environment that I oversee. The tutors are mostly white, privileged and those they are helping are not. I could fill many pages with stories, anecdotes and observances relating to my brief time at this school and I probably will eventually. For now, I would like to introduce to you a certain happening.

A woman that has been placed in our school from Colorado UpLift to teach an elective class based in character, leadership and life skills invited some of her friends from the community to perform spoken word for a group of students. I signed my 8th Period tutors up for this knowing very well none of them would have attended otherwise. I figured that many other teachers in the building would also utilize this unique opportunity to create an environment of integration that is seen sparingly outside of the hallways. Hell, even during passing period when the halls are filled past capacity you can pick out pockets of color and sense an increasing disconnect that exists between adolescents of different ethnic backgrounds.

My decision to sign up for this was questionable in the eyes of my tutors and one young lady was outright defiant. "Why would I want to go to this?" Well that is the point, you wouldn't -- so I am making you go. Once in the gymnasium, it was evident that most of the white folks in the room were going to be my small group of tutors and the principal (there was even less of the hispanic community represented at this event). Noticing the uneasiness in our small group, I all but ignored it until the same young lady who had protested heretofore gave this ultimatum: "If this is a waste of time, I get to leave early on a day of my choosing." I assured her that neither of these would be the case either way and my curiosity being piqued asked what her afternoon would have looked like had I let her go home. As was the case, she would have gotten ready to go skiing the following day. Nothing spells community like a day of skiing, so I apologized.

After some time of waiting around (which even I grew a bit impatient with) the festivities were under way. As a (former/future) performer myself, I was very disappointed with the sound. Somebody please find a competent person who could give free classes to every novice sound guy ever, explaining that if ear drums are bursting, the message you are trying to get across will be slightly distorted. The pain in my ears was however secondary to the power behind the words and the clear talent possessed by these individuals. It did not take much coaxing on my part for the young lady sitting in front of me to admit that this was not only not a waste of her time but worth all of the grueling effort on her part. Anything that sets up a large group of apathetic students wired to have short attention spans to be an engaged audience is applause-worthy and in reality a downright miracle.

Puffins

It is amazing what a bowl of Puffins (aka the best cereal at Wild Oats/Whole Foods/Your organic grocer of choice) and a cup of coffee can do for me. I have been tired for the past week, for the past month, yet if I can have my mug of watered-down coffee and a heaping pile of cereal my day tends to turn out pretty well.

My lack of sleep can be largely attributed to my love/hate relationship with literature right now. I have spent the last week rereading Anthony Trollope's 900 page novel, The Way We Live Now, and also attempting to better understand post-structuralism. And yes- I love both Trollope and his ridiculously long delve into the degradation of London society and the dry, often anti-human, pursuit of deconstruction. Most of my classmates probably think I'm insane, and yes I too am worried.

But then I stop. Like I am doing right now. I stop with my bowl of Puffins and I ask myself, "Why?" Why do you care? And the answers float up quickly. I pursue literature because it pursues me. For years I have invested a small part of myself into the literary worlds of Virginia Woolf, the Bronte sisters, Nancy Drew, Toni Morrison and in return I have been courted by the ever-expanding thoughts and characters these authors and books have so carefully wrought.

I look back at years where I stayed at home, up in my room or on the couch with Noelle playing Barbies on the floor; I look back at those years and I see myself with a book, reading to myself or reading out loud. I remember my Dad coming upstairs in the evenings to read with Noelle and me, in our matching pajamas. And we would read. And we would love those moments. Today Noelle and I read more than any other people I know. She can plow through a 600 page book in a day or two; I read almost 4000 pages over Christmas break.

But in this world where life has become so fragmented, where so many people have lost connection with others, with themselves, there is something haunting about opening a book and finding that you do connect and belong. There is something haunting about muddling through a book like To the Lighthouse, and finding that Virginia Woolf's select absences of plot have allowed your heart to open up and fill the gaps. Language is the sign system that we, as humans, understand reality. And in the moments when I can't fully articulate my own pain, my own joy, I turn to someone who has delved deep into their own soul, into our collective souls, and have found the words to represent my own aching.

This quote by Michael Montaigne hangs above my computer and is juxtaposed against a picture of a woman in orange...
"When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind."

The Madness that is the Tattered Cover

If you know anything about Ryan and me, you understand that the Tattered Cover is one of the primary benefits of living in Denver. If you enjoy books and have never been to the Tattered Cover, you should get there now. But the Tattered Cover could merit an entire post of its own...so we will return to that topic later. Last night Ryan and I went to the Tattered Cover to hear the literary giant, Dave Eggers speak. While Eggers has had immense success with his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, his literary contributions far exceed his own personal endeavors. He is the founder of the widely popular literary journal, McSweeny's and a monthly journal, The Believer, edited by his wife. If you get a chance to flip through a McSweeny's the next time you are at the Tattered Cover, you will understand both the time and the money Dave Eggers has poured into his publications. But even on top of all these contributions, Dave Eggers has emerged as a social activist.

His latest book, What is the What, has received marked critical acclaim and an immense public reception. Told through the perspective of a Lost Boy from Sudan, What is the What seeks to give a personal voice to a humanitarian crisis that has occurred during one of the most globally connected eras of history. First commissioned to write a more biographical account of the real story of Valentino Achak Deng, Dave Eggers eventually decided to combine Valentiono's own personal accounts with more fictional elements.

I have not read the book yet, and after hearing Eggers speak last night, I am very interested in picking up a copy. I admire Eggers for using his reputation to bring the crisis to the forefront of many Americans' minds; in our culture, different avenues of acquiring and dispersing knowledge have resulted in a vastly creative web of political activism. But I am also slightly disheartened by the method in which this narrative was written.

Dave Eggers assumes authority to tell Valentino's story; he essentially superimposes his presence and identity as an author over Valentino's identity. It is largely unfortunate that Valentino himself was not commissioned to write his own personal account because the transference of one man's personal experience into another man's story results in an immeasurable loss of authenticity. This is troubling due to the historical context we find ourselves in today. African nations are still recovering from the tragic effects of colonialism: an era in which the wealthy exploited the poor for economic gain, completely disregarding the cultural and economic consequences of such actions. Still today the lens of imperialism prevents many Western people from appreciating and accepting cultures different from our own. While Dave Eggers is using his book for social good, which should not be overlooked, there is a slight taste of post-colonial superiority (eg White man must reinterpret the African man's story in order to be successful). Again I have not read the book and so I am really not at liberty to offer my critical opinion, but the very preface of the novel does concern me.

What do you think?

wyoming, windy

With the upcoming caucus/convention in Wyoming only three weeks in the distance, a long-time friend and I found our way up to Cheyenne, WY to lend a hand to the newly opened Obama campaign office. This is a state in which the democratic party was so broke that they couldn't afford a venue large enough to hold the caucus. Money was, however, no object at the grand-opening of the office when 60 or so people pulled together a little over $2,000 in under five minutes. After the convention center was booked, people signed up to volunteer and gone home, the campaign office felt more like a mountain town in Colorado. Every vehicle parked in the front was a Subaru with Colorado license plates and Obama stickers

It seems I am striking out big time when it comes to picking travel destinations as of late. Cheyenne is the antidenver if ever there was one. The entire state of Wyoming has fewer residents than Denver alone. While knocking on doors and visiting with randoms, we encountered hundreds of locals, yet we encountered no more than six or so folks in their early twenties. After spending a few hours downtown it became painfully clear why we were hard-pressed to find many people under the age of 35. The cultural scene is abysmal. The coffee shops close at four p.m. A local bar had the weather channel playing. The thrift stores were lacking. Even as the state's capitol, Cheyenne is more bucolic than it is urban and more small town than it is big city.

This is not to say that Wyoming is all bad. People need a place to call home when they retire and this state is a tax haven (there is no state income tax and sales tax is just four percent).

The exodus of young people aside, these people have some character. Harp playing pseudo-scientist Michael Riversong lives about an hour outside of Cheyenne and rents an office out of the same building as the Obama campaign. Rancher Don produced some of the most lucid statements I have heard regarding politics in a while. Keith, a 40 some year old member of the Unitarian church is delving into the world of home music recordings. Katherine, a recent implant from Texas can not live without her NPR. No matter the locale, people in Wyoming have just as much to bring to the table as anywhere.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

I made and decorated four-dozen cupcakes yesterday. Homemade butter cream icing, fresh strawberries, and slivered almonds covered a delectable mound of German-chocolate cake. Hallie, my five-year-old niece, sat next to me as I frosted the cupcakes, and she carefully placed three or four strawberry pieces on top when I finished. We sat there for an hour and she talked about her imaginary poodle and how her teacher had been sick last week. I had to be careful to avoid the chunks of butter in my homemade frosting (Martha Stewart’s recipes never turn out like they should). But it was one of the better moments of my weekend.
We were at a benefit dinner my sisters were throwing. Susanne, Hallie’s mom, and Noelle, who is almost seventeen, are leading a mission’s trip to Haiti this summer. Last night the two directors of the orphanage spoke, and the ten students, who are planning on traveling this summer, prepared and served dinner to about forty people. I was on desert duty, and I was glad to be in Craig’s office icing cupcakes with Hallie and away from all the people, people that seemed now so different from myself. Different and yet painfully familiar.
I’ve traveled to Africa twice, once in high school and then again a year and a half ago. Both times, I felt “led” by God. I had images of starving children, huts, elephants, and me, a brave white girl, helping out the unfortunate, serving the needy, doing God’s “will”. And both times many of those images were confirmed. When I was in Uganda, I was confronted with child after child coming up to me on the streets in Kampala, usually clutching a younger infant to his or her side, looking up at me with dark eyes and asking for food and for money. One day I met a group of three children, the oldest a 12 year old girl, clearly pregnant and very alone. And elephants? Absolutely. When I was in Botswana elephants were everywhere—at gas stations, at our campsite, in people’s backyards. But the one image that was never confirmed was me because while I did hold orphans I was not brave and I don’t know if I helped anyone. I was a skinny, privileged, white girl who was facing a reality that I still don’t know how to handle. I cried a lot when I was in Uganda. I walked away from my belief in a just God. Eventually I walked away from Christianity altogether.
And so last night, listening to these young, idealistic, high schoolers talk about how much they loved God and how excited they were to serve the poorest of the poor, I wanted to stand up and tell all of them how wrong they were. How much God didn’t care. I wanted my two sisters, two women that I love more than anything, to join me in my understanding and in my rejection of what I’ve been taught—I didn’t want to feel alone.
But then I saw my mom and my dad. I saw them watching my little sister with tears in their eyes. And I thought about how proud they were of us. I listened to the ten kids explain the reason why they were going, and it all tied back to my little sister; she had organized everything, encouraged her friends to get involved, and she’s only sixteen. I watched her, and I was reminded of her beautiful heart—I knew she wanted to love people, to help people, to erase some of the inequality that this world seems to run on. And I was proud too. Susanne and Noelle are in different place than me in some areas, but in others I feel as if we move as one. And I am honored that my sisters care so much about me and so much about people—we may not believe in the same religious paradigm, but there are no other women that I feel as intimately connected to. And so I withheld my urge to deconstruct God, to explain what seeing starving kids did to me, and I just stood and watched as a proud sister.