Has the City Mouse Trampled the Country Mouse?

Well, I hate to say it, but being in my small nesty town has made me somewhat antsy for big-city life. Can it be possible that, this girl raised beneath branches, has become entranced with skylines? Yes, at sunset, they rise above the ground so beautifully and cradle the pink of the sky with such grace that I fumble, but does this make me city-bound?

The city mouse, as the story goes, has gadgets, a car and lives at a faster pace. I wonder if indeed I have become one of these fidgety people who is always sniffing around for the next enticing activity. I have been serially-dating, going to tons of shows and events, and exploring the ambiance of various bars. Add all of these up, and you may find that the little mouse that I once was has acquired a nicer outfit. It's hard not to, though, when there is that energy pulsating down the one-way streets and the outdoor seating is so vibrant and free that you may smile at one hundred strangers before finishing your locally-brewed beer. I find it particularly fascinating that I could have dated the guys I have in Austin and really never see them again. In Chico, my beloved hometown of about 90,000, I would probably end up working with his mother, or would've befriended his younger sister when we were six and dabbling in jazz dance.

Austin. Urgh. I sort of hate you for making me miss you when I am nestled in the nook of Northern California. I am going to unfairly blame most of your charm on your unseasonable warm weather. It's like fishing with dynamite. In Chico right now, it is raining so hard that it looks like one long string falling from the sky. The only thing that gives its ferocity away is the noise, the constant pelting that rocks me to sleep. It is lovely to be rocked to sleep, usually, but not when the day is young and you feel an anxiousness to do, change, be spectacular (though I rarely accomplish any of these).

I will quickly tell about one thing that the country mouse within me smiled at, down-right beamed and gushed at, really. I was with my mother, father and my darling aunts, when we found the rain taking a breath to reload, so we packed the car and headed to Vina. Vina a lovely spot north of Chico, and when you drive there you see my most cherished orchards of walnut trees reaching towards the sky with gnarled limbs, as though stretching from ancient slumber. We picnicked on the Sacramento river, guacamole sandwiches and smiles, then landed in Vina. As you drive up, you see the most beautiful building residing beside rows of grapes and discarded tractors that could make even the most vacant person come alive. The story goes that stones were brought from a destroyed church in Spain to San Francisco. The Abbot of Vina, after twenty years, convinced the stones' owners and the city that he could do marvelous things with them and erect an exact replica of the edifice the once flourished in Spain. And so, construction began, and you can now see the Chapter House portion of the grander group of buildings to come. The Chapter House is where the monks gather to read one chapter a day from the Benedictine Bible. As we walked in this building, open and airy enough to exhale on angels, I knew that I need a juicier kind of beauty than the city to please me. I have to say that the subsequent wine tasting also reminded me that the soil, the life and space of the country, is what lines my truest of hearts and that softens the points of my soul.


But for now, being young and indulgent as I am, I think I will stay in the city. I will shelf my dreams of simple living and growing everything I eat in order to rejoice in musical triumphs, be part of a myriad of communities, and have spontaneity be served in grand proportions with my daily recommended cultural feasting.

So, has the city mouse trampled the country mouse? Perhaps not completely. But, I must say, the city mouse does have a rhythm in her that is tempting to me now, oh so tempting. I remember though, that I do have faith, a strong faith, that I will return to my walnut trees one day....one day.

Entangled Hope

Last night I stayed up reading Irish folklore and wondering, as I read about the fate of an enchanted isle, what my own fate will be. I believe, from years of experience, that it is futile for me to be swept into the capacious future. It is like a baker, burdened with a thousand recipes, who must focus on each delicacy of culinary art at a time or they will find themselves fossilized beneath mounds of flour.

I do like baking but I fear analogies only sound good in writing (and at times, they are aggravating even then). When applied, they can rub one raw and irritate skin and soul. I truly am trying to not think about years slipping beneath me but instead focus on the many years that will throw down as my steps find the earth. My roommate was showing me wedding blogs last night. We spent a while gooing and awwing at the delicious decorations and ornate gathering of colors and light. I want to blame our infatuation with wedding pictures on the fumes of hair dye that were floating around our living room, but I know better. Heather's eyes were not on that anonymous woman's wedding but on the transfer from screen to life that will surely happen for her one day. And yes, the visual of dangling lights and romantic ribbons ensnared in true love was enticing, delectable even, but I can't think about that now. I must think of my book, my friends, my adventures in teaching that will never produce the cape we need.

This lack of daydreaming is strange, if you happen to know me. Much of my life has been spent sloshing around in the realm of dreams and future fantasies. Often people would move a hand across my face, trying to bring me back from where I'd been only to find me disturbed with the jilt into present. It took great feats of nature to bring me back from the ornate worlds in my own head. But now, I find myself less and less capable of these indulgences. While I hope this is not a reflection of a stomped heart, I also feel it may be my own ability to embrace the moments at hand, if not only more slightly than before.

I suppose I can not omit current events here, that relate to a bleak future indeed that I don't care to fully digest (though, when you live with three other teachers, it is hard to not want to have dialogue about said issues). As all of you who function in society (and don't curl beneath your bed sucking your big toes) know, there are severe budget cuts all over Texas and the country. Cuts is a strangely appropriate term, for they are indeed severing new teachers from fulfilling their dreams of a career. We are full of life, fresh-faced with annoyingly rosy cheeks, willing to fight for what is not and to thwart those obstacles we deem breakable. This is not to say that veteran teachers aren't juicy beings as well, for they are, and we newbies look to them with almost pathetic, forlorn eyes! It is just that new teachers demand change fiercely, and for the most part we are free agents who can invest in our work in a way mothers and fathers most likely can not. When I sacrifice my time there are few who weep at the bloodied rock.

But I digress......what I mean to say is, linking the many offspring of this post, is that when I think of the vast, stormy future of education I feel as though nothing can change an inevitable crumbling social structure. I simply can't digest the immensity of the future. I am better suited to be besotted with smiles in front of me, noticing how one of my students used the future tense with such fluidity that I want to cry. And, when I am with my students (babies, let's be honest) I am forced to think of what I can do right then, not what this country will take from our children in decades ahead. Obama proclaimed that must educate our children in a way that demands change and higher-level thinking, but all I see is the contradiction of this-our new teachers who have been reborn beneath this mothered philosophy are the very ones being "cut" from the looming, swelling body of public service. We are discarded little limbs, pale and yearning to be allowed back on the vessel of education, of work, of change, though we know it is rotting. We still want to be a part of something.

It is the greatest crime I have seen yet, save for my visit to Auschwitz and the horrors of Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge. For this crime does not show blood or death counts; I fear the taking of dreams and drive will be what destroys this country before anything else. For I see around me, too many new teachers who have a rhythmic passion for children, for knowledge, for work and to take that self-actualization away from them, that growth in character and that training of heart, is in fact a crime of global proportions. It reminds me of Stalin, in a way, how he sucked the life from his occupied territories not by strict violence (he only did that sometimes) but he stripped their color, their purpose and their right to sing, pray, rejoice and gather. Subtlety does not mean the crime itself was less, perhaps it just means no one knew how to translate one language of destruction. For bodies may recover, over time, but the soul takes nursing of epic proportions and I fear doctors can not reach in and grasp the very spot of that pain.

I must stay focused on now. I can't think how this summer, once thought to be a dreamy string of vacations and hiking through the Pacific Northwest, snuggles with a nephew and musical harmonies of WorldFest, could turn into the repetition of doubt and hopelessness as last summer was. I will instead embrace what I can do now. How I can work with these kids now and spread infectious learning like the sneaky roots of the Aspen tree, until we are all connected, just beneath the soil, in an entanglement of hope.

So here's to that knot of something stronger than what we are alone, that can only exist in the present moment, without the burden of time. I hope to stay here as long as I can, but I fear it is easier on a Sunday than on a Monday.

March Monarch

Little blossom
I saw you rise
from the bud of branch
to your pink disguise
and there was grace
how you pranced along
as though you were
a Renaissance song
then you crept by hand
from trunk to bark
for you still believe
you're the March Monarch

But you were nothing
save a bud transpired
to blossom
that bloomed
that bloomed
is it wretched to be
that kind of used?

If I call you in summer
just where will you be?
Blossom, dear blossom
you are no kind of tree
and no one will play
in your symphony

Little Bits of Space

It is Monday morning, another cloudy awakening, and I perform my rituals with such a fluidity I think I might be breathing water. I have found myself, of late, struggling to find that perfect space where I am whole and beautiful and not lacking in all the greatness of individuality. It is so easy to fall into sisterhoods, relationships, the many delights of love. For so much of my life I have been prone to the draw of companionship. While I am a lover of quiet moments to myself I also seek the wholeness of contact.

I wonder why I think I am innately such an independent woman. I did, as a child, play alone quite happily for a better part of my days. My mother says that, as a baby, she needed only to place me in my crib and I could be left alone for hours, amused but for the blossoming little plants of imagination soiled in my head. That carried on for much of my life. Playing outdoors, walking to the horses about a mile out and bringing them fluorescent orange carrots. I always found such a peace in the orchards, when alone, save for the cryptic white of the branches and the ancient knots of gnarled wood.

And then again, in my travels, I met myself. I remembered how to laugh at the thunder and sway my hips to the blown grass where the hills were just land that had risen up above the rest. The days in Ecuador, in the city of Cuenca, where I wondered the streets and plopped down in moist cafes to drink coffee and sing sweetly for my swirling veins. Finding a river, that appeared over a rickety bridge, and losing an afternoon in unpolished grass. The incredible fear of ordering for one, with a forced-foreign tongue no less, and conquering even the mocking nights of silence.

But now, it is harder. The cacophony of sirens and rowdy bands makes it hard to remember the girl, those curls that wrapped around small ears, for now I am in a house with paper walls that may fall to the ground with just a slight blow. And the people are kind and intriguing and I stay indoors gladly, but for the sunny days that won't be turned down, and I enjoy the translations of their thoughts to mine.

And I am trying to remember what it means to be perfectly at peace. I asked my dearest friend, last night on the phone (for it is all we have, in the distance) what she does when she wants nothing but isolation. She told me that it is never a problem wanting space, it is only once you have it, that you must wrestle with demons. For the quiet can consume you, and all you remember is laughter in kinship and the delight of hands. So you must trample the memories, just for a little while, and greet yourself as though you are the newest of acquaintances, and say something like, "Hello, Kristen, it has been a while. It is so joyous to see you again." Be sure to speak sweetly to your lone self, for she can be fickle and scared as easily as a curious turtle who wishes to see the stars with a long, unabashed neck.

You must date yourself. A lost art, like that of spinning flower stems into earthly crowns. You must ask yourself to coffee, just to start, and sip foam while reminiscing and asking subtle questions. After a while, you can move on to more intimate endeavors, a long dinner, walks in the park and then, finally, a trip to the mountains where you camp beneath an immense sky that will surely bounce back all the great poetry of you.

But, go with caution, for once a self renders scared there is barely any space left to find her again. For she hides quite well in shadows, no matter how small the room.

I believe each of us must continue this battle. Whether married, single or newly enchanted with another, we must seek out the solace of ourselves, and delight in what creations we are. For, if I can not find a way to truly love my time with me, how can I expect another to cherish that very thing? Indeed, I cannot, and do not wish to miss out on my own company (no matter how self-destructive I may be feeling).

So, load your weapons and begin, for there is much land to conquer within ourselves.

Conversing with Mozart: Tri

"What are you thinking?" I asked
for I was bored and found reading dull
just then, as the sun was falling

"I'm thinking of the people."

"What people, Mozart?"

He smiled, in a knowing way
his little secrets were his most
delighted in quality

"The people I played for."

I wondered of the royalty
the height of prestige
that sat before him
clapping demurely, once
upon that time

"Kings and queens I'm sure,"
I whispered
wondering if my art has
that power to stilt hearts

"Yes, there were those
but they were numb
to the jilt of notes.
It was the people of Praha
that crowded the streets
shoulder to ear to arm
they rejoiced in the sounds
and for them I was magnanimous."

"Only for them?"
I asked, thinking still
of capes and velvet

"It was all for them, dear girl
in the streets, on top
a darling city encased
in a greyness of hope
we met each other
the people and I
and I can't forget them
every little roundness of face
and the eyes that thanked the angels
those eyes that met the angles."

I feared he might cry
he was always doing that,
crying
when he thought of faces
for he too could not face
that they are gone
we are gone
he is gone
and yet barely here
in song.

Conversing with Mozart: Dva

"Is it you, again,
dear Mozart?"
I stared at him
on my wall, dangling
his little tears falling
like the rain of a true
stormed poetic heart

"My dear," he whispered
"you can not know the fate
of loving two cities
but never quite having
either in full."

He choked, fighting
another round
then continued,

"I loved her first,
my sweet Salzburg
but it was Praha
that showed me how to trace
a lover's spine
with the breath of song."

I sat up, quite awake now.

"But I do, dear Amadeus,
for I, too, have loved
the skeleton of an empire
and then been besotted again
by the lines of trees."

"And do you think," he began
composing himself
"that it can ever be enough?"

I waited, knowing
he needed my words that way
and finally, I spoke.

"I fear it will never be all
nor will it ever lack in full
we will instead feel
the incandescence of joy
while rowing through
our torrents of sorrow."

He sighed, eyelashes coming down
like a curtain around him.

"But it will be enough
I suppose
to keep us here."

And he was right
even then
at 3am
but even rightness
has a sadness
and he was of two loves
that would not let him go.

Conversing with Mozart: Jedno

I hung him
by my bed
on a long, frazzled line
where I clipped him
on a clothes pin
so he was angled just so
I could ask him what I wanted
as he wept for dear Praha
(we have that in common)

I asked him one night
late, the ugly hours
what it meant to make
that kind of music
and he told me this:

There is no music.
There is no music
like how the wind moves
nor a higher note of perfection
than fall of sun into night
And If I stole from anyone
it was the innocence of love
I just touched the keys
and tried to remember a name
a taste of earth
and the colors of mist that hang
But remember this
there is no music
here
but there will be
and, oh, how we will dance.