Gullahmama’s Blog

I haven’t been blogging lately. I’ve certainly missed it! But, alas, my computer died the big death. It could not be revived. And, you know how we’ve been advised to back up our data? I didn’t.  So much of my writing, artwork and other materials has been lost in the digital black hole. After complaining and whining for a little while (okay, for a couple of weeks!) I decided that this was just an opportunity to start fresh. There are new stories to write. New art to create.  More things to share. Right now I’m using someone else’s computer. Somewhere out there is a Macbook Pro with my name on it.

The following popped in  my email this morning from ExchangeEveryday at Childcare Exchange.  I love it. Hope you will too.

On January 27, historian, professor, lecturer, playwright, and filmmaker, Howard Zinn, passed away.  In his autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, Zinn made these remarks about being hopeful:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.  What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.  If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

“And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.  The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Some days I have no idea what I’m doing. I try to be a decent mother, wife, woman, but I’m not always sure how. Take my son — great kid. Handsome. Talented. About as interested in scholastics as my left shoe. And I want great stuff for him. I want him to have options. To make the best of his opportunities. But the thing is, I can’t MAKE him want what I want for him. It was easier when the children were little. They accepted my values for them as their own. Eat this. Sit here. Wear this. Read that. Ahh, the good old days! But sometimes, like now, I’m at a loss. I think I know what’s best for them. But what if I’m wrong? Then again, what if I’m right?  Sigh. So I keep pushing. Okay, nagging. Reminding him of homework. Checking on class attendance. Pushing him to complete chores. It is not fun. But it’s still my job.

It reminds a little of the 5k I just completed (yes — I was coming around to that!)  I was a little intimidated at first. All those folk who were lean and ready just waiting to run off at the starting line. I was trying to stay near the back to keep out of the runner’s way. And off they went, surging around me, ahead of me. But I kept a steady pace and soon I found my niche. There were a couple of older guys walking ahead of me and 3 women right behind me. I decided not to let the women behind me pass me! So I kept moving, pushing myself a bit. Feeling the pull in my muscles as I determined to keep position. And after a while I stopped worrying about who was ahead or behind, and just kept moving. A step at a time. And I finished in 50 minutes, 53 seconds. No awards there, but a little faster than my practice walks and it felt great! I just kept going. Just kept doing what I needed to do. And so I will. Step by Step. Nag by nag. Push by push.

Yesterday my son called me before basketball practice. “I don’t think I can make it,” he moaned. “Everything hurts! I can’t even move my legs!”  Basketball season has just started and the coach has been working the guys hard. Drills. Suicides (he’s described them to me, but I can’t remember exactly what they are now — except for that they’re tedious and painful). And running up and down bleachers. Sim has come home for the past few nights groaning like an old man who has fallen with his walker and using two hands to lift his legs onto the couch where he remains until he’s finally able to drag himself up the stairs to bed.  But yesterday he’d had enough. “I can’t make it through practice if I can’t move!” he said.
“Well son,” I replied in my wise mother voice, “if you want to be a starter you gotta show up. Work through it.”  And so he did. When he dragged home last night I had dinner ready (meatloaf, smothered potatoes and broccoli — yes I earned Mommy points!) and a bottle of Gatorade. He ate dinner followed by a couple of Krispy Kreme donuts and was in bed before nine. End of story. Sort of…

This morning my alarm rang at 4:45 a.m. as it always does. I hit snooze, which I also frequently do. Then I hit it again. Then I sat up. Then I put on my walking clothes. Then I lay back down. My shoulders hurt. My neck felt like I had slept on it wrong. My eyes felt blurry. I could be premenstrual. I read a magazine. I decided my body was telling me to take it easy. This was a good day to just stay in bed until I felt better. As I was making a cup of tea to curl up with in my favorite curling up spot I suddenly had a flashback — to the day before. “You gotta show up,” I told my son. If you want something you have to work through it. Oh crap. Another opportunity to practice what I preach. Because I do want something. I want to be strong and healthy. I want to have fun on my first “race” (A 5k bridge run this weekend) in years. I want to be able to enjoy myself for years to come. So — I’ve got my sneakers  right next to my chair. When I drop the boys off at school, I’ll drive to one of my favorite courses, zip up my jacket, and put in a few miles. What I do is so much louder than what I say.

The artwork is “Ball four” from Art.com — great image. Wish I had done it!

My son’s best friend ended up in the hospital last weekend. He’d taken some pill, he mumbled. And then he was falling down in class. Talking gibberish. Having hallucinations. Passing out.  Soon his dad came and he was rushed away. Some pill. Nobody seemed to know what. My son was shaken. Rumors spread. His friend’s father, a police officer, came back to the school frightened and enraged. “Who gave my son a pill! Who did it?! What was it?”  My husband, summoned by Simeon, was also there. Listening. Comforting. Asking questions. Nobody had answers. Or no one  who had them gave them.

This is a good kid. I take him to school with my son almost every day. I know his dad. He calls me mom. And that morning, like every other morning he seemed just fine. I kept asking why. Why did he take it?  What was he thinking? Didn’t he know better? What went wrong? What did my own son know? Lot’s of questions.

But an interesting thing happened.  My husband had come by my job after leaving the school to give me the news. He was distraught. So was I. And as soon as I went back into the office I went looking for cookies. No big deal, right? I was upset. Frustrated. I needed a cookie.  Because I wanted not to feel so bad.  It was a couple of days later that it hit me — when I felt bad I went looking for something to take so that I would feel better. Just like my son’s friend. Sure mine was a cookie and legal. But whenever I look outside of myself for some THING to take to feel better I’m engaging in the same kind of activity.  I know — it sounds like a stretch.  But I’ve been thinking — the best way for me to teach positive choices in the face of  stress, pain or difficulty, is to model positive ways of dealing with them.  Positive actions, not negative ones. So, I’ve determined to pray when I feel stressed. To make a conscious effort to be still and say a prayer instead of reaching for something that doesn’t serve me.  No this doesn’t solve the problem. But it’s a start.  The best way to teach our children that there are positive ways to handle stress is to handle it positively ourselves.

My son’s friend was back in school this week. “How’s it going for him?” I asked Simeon. Any consequences from the administration? ” Sim said, “Mom, he’s not a pill popper! He hurt his shoulder in football practice and he was just looking for something to help it feel better.”  “Oh,” I responded. “Well, what about the other kids?”  “Well,” he said, “They all are calling him ‘the kid who O-D’d”

This is my prayer to deal positively with stress: “May we be filled with loving kindness. May we be well. May we be peaceful and at ease. May we be happy.” Thanks Ifetayo!

The picture is  from Coca-Cola’s 2009 Black History Campaign

Simeon is in a play this weekend. It is “The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet.” Yes, just imagine that Dr. Seuss and Shakespeare got together for a few drinks and decided to collaborate! Simeon is Romeo and one of his best friends plays Juliet (“No, I’m not kissing Margaret!”) At any rate, it promises to be fun and I’m looking forward to attending. My son has had many challenges in school, but I love what happens when he moves into the theater. He has an amazing memory and can master the lines with ease. He has a wonderful sense of physicality and a great ear for tone and music. He is in his element on stage and the success he finds there bolsters him.

I work in the early childhood education business. Yesterday the owner of the company was “fit to be tied” because she’d read an article that said that many of the schools in our district were cutting out the music and art programs. These were the same schools that were putting ’smart boards’ into the PreK classrooms at $8000 a pop. I understand that computer technology is important. I understand that there are a zillion learning programs that can be downloaded. But studies prove that a little person’s curiosity and ability to solve problems develops naturally through exposure to music and the arts and good old fashioned play.

I know this is true for my kids. The act of creativity IS the act of problem solving. A mind that can memorize the lines of a play or learn the fingering for a guitar or can understand the tones in a scale, can also figure out the dimensions of a building, or how to develop an interactive accounting program or how to motivate a classroom. Or how to take some new idea and make it into a reality. Am I sounding passionate here? I am.

My baby girl turned 20 Sunday. Twenty years and 3 days ago, after laboring for hours in Ziggy’s motel, Sara entered our lives and made the whole world a different place. Ziggy’s motel was not the plan. Well, a lot of stuff wasn’t in the plan. I wanted my child to be brought into the world gently by a midwife. Ron and I were believers in traditional things and what, we thought, could be more traditional than a gently lit birthing center, a loving midwife, Ron singing as our child entered the world and me immediately bouncing back to a size 6 with a 26 inch waist. Yeah, that last part should have been a clue. Suffice to say — the best laid plans of mice, men, and idealistic pregnant people, oft-times go awry.

First there was the hurricane. Hurricane Hugo hit the South Carolina coast with a vengeance and we all, me 8 1/2 months pregnant, had to evacuate. While we were blest to return to a home still standing and a neighborhood with minimal damage, many weren’t so lucky and thousands were displaced. Then there was the labor that would not proceed. Though we rushed the 45 minutes to the birthing center as soon as the water broke, our baby stubbornly decided to hold on and labor trickled to a stand still.

And then — there was Ziggy’s. We didn’t want it to be Ziggy’s. The midwife told us to go to a nearby hotel so that we’d be close when labor started up again. But all the hotels and motels in the little town of Bamberg as well as neighboring ‘bergs’ were filled with displaced Hugo survivors. Ron and I wandered from place to place like characters in a nativity play, with Ron pleading over and over — “but my wife is pregnant and in labor!” But in the end, only Ziggy’s was available. It was available because nobody with ANY option would stay there. We wrapped ourselves up in our own stuff on top of the bed with the suspicious linens and counted contractions. The crickets and other critters rustling about the room on tiny dry little legs kept us unwelcome company. When daylight came and we’d returned to the birthing center it was determined that Sara was firmly butt first and someone would have to go in and get her.

So, finally, there was the emergency C-Section and my tiny 5 1/2 pound baby girl entered the world, looking around immediately with her bright, shiny eyes. I fell immediately irrevocably in love. And I still am. As I sat with my baby girl this past Sunday I was filled with so much pride at the woman she has become and tremendous faith in the woman she is becoming. I’d go to Ziggy’s for her again.

Joe Wilson’s and Kanye West’s recent outbursts make me think of the things I learned in Kindergarten.  I know it was a long time ago, but I don’t think the curriculum has changed that much.  My own children attended much more recently.  Even though Ron and I read and sang and talked to our children from the time they were little fetusus (No — I’m not kidding. We did!), when they each reached school age we tearfully (okay – that was just me) enrolled them in one of the local schools.  They seemed so small during those first days,  but we felt it was a good experience.  They were going to have the opportunity to learn some more important stuff — like how symbols come together to form meaning, and how some things are alike and some different.  And they began to learn how to get along with other children who might be different than them.

Kindergarten reinforced some of the lessons we taught at home. They learned that just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t make them your enemy.  That it’s not polite to interrupt others when they are speaking. That even if you don’t like what someone else does it is not okay to hit them or call them names or throw blocks at them.  If little Johnny is playing with all the puzzles and you don’t think it’s fair, you should still try to work it out or find someone  who can help.  These were good lessons.  And while Sara and Simeon eventually learned to read and count and even speak Spanish and a little Japanese, I think it was those earliest lessons that may best serve them as they move into adulthood.

Maybe some of the adults I see on television never went to Kindergarten.  Too bad. I know a few well educated five year olds who could teach them a thing or two.

(The chair is entitled “Scream My Head Off.” I finished this piece in 2004.)

School was out this past Friday. My son is so happy. The summer stretches out before him and he sees a driver’s license, the beach, lots of basketball, cook-outs and girls who think he’s cute. I see that it’s time for him to get a job. Play time, at least unlimited play time, is over.

Actually, that sounds gloomier than I intend. I believe in play. I love play. I try to play as much as I can, as a matter of fact. I don’t think we ever outgrow it. I strongly believe that the ability to be creative and the ability to be playful are closely related. That’s one reason that I’ve started doing “Playshops” at schools, conferences and education centers around the country. For so many little children the pressure to succeed in academics is pushing away the opportunity for creative play. Kids learn through play. For that matter, adults learn through play too! For children, just being allowed to interact in their environment and satisfy their natural curiousity is a learning opportunity. For adults, just letting go of expectations and allowing ourselves to experience places, materials and others is also a learning experience.

Okay, I’m getting a little lectur-y here. Didn’t mean too. It’s just that I’ve met so many grown ups who’ve forgotten how to paint with their fingers, or wear a bright pattern or try something new. Little people do that naturally.

So, okay Simeon, I do want you to play this summer. Meet new girls, get sand in your shoes, laugh ’till you cry and drive SAFELY AND WITH A SEAT BELT. But get a job, too, okay?

About the pics:  The adults playing are at a Head Start Play-Shop in May. The other pic is Sim and his friend and “Play Sis” Jessica before the prom.

Emerge

This past month has been a bit overwhelming. While I was preparing for my father’s death, I was not prepared. Loss feels like swimming at the bottom of heavy water. But each day I feel more of myself emerging, rising to the surface.

I spent the past week in Orlando, Florida where I presented teacher training at the National Head Start conference. That was great! I love folk who love kids! We explored the ways that children (and grown ups) learn through playing. My idea of fun! So, I’m back. My days are starting to take shape again and I’ll be back to blogging! Simeon started driving classes this week. He thinks this means he’ll have free access to the car this summer. I don’t think so…..

The painting, “Emerge” is from a gallery show I had with other artists at ArtWorks.  It’s the 3rd in a series.  This is the piece I sold!

It’s really dark at 5:00 a.m.  I  tie up my sneakers, stick my ear buds in my ears and head out anyway.  I need to get to the gym, work out and get back home by 6:00 a.m. to make sure my son gets up in time for school.

I used to go to exercise after he was dropped off, but things have changed.  My son  sat down next to me one night last week and told me he was in over his head in his school work, uncomfortable with the kids he’d started hanging out with and feeling like he wasn’t himself.  He was worried.  I was worried.  I guess my biggest worry is that I hadn’t realized how much he was floundering.  It was so easy to accept his one word answer to almost every query — “straight.”  But things aren’t straight.  And Sim at almost 16, realized he wasn’t able to get it straight by himself.

I like to think I know what’s going on.  But I didn’t. My daughter Sara always said I knew everything everyone was doing. It was like a had my own spy network.  But when Sara and Sabrina were in High School I was working from my home office and almost always around.  Lately I had so much going on with work and my extended family and my own pursuits that I wasn’t really paying attention.

But the reality is this — when some child gets in major trouble the media and community never ask, “Where was his teacher?”  “Where was his principal?”  “Where was his coach?”  No, the question almost always is “Where was his mother?  Why didn’t she know?”  And, on many levels, that’s the right question.  I’m not saying that everything our children do is our fault or that children make mistakes or struggle because we aren’t doing our job.  That’s not true.  Or even fair.  But I am saying that it is my job to do everything I can to be aware.  To do everything I can to help my child learn to make right choices and to learn how to accept the consequences of  and turn around poor choices.  It’s a parent’s job to advocate for their child.

So, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m.  ‘Cause after all, I’ve got to take care of myself if I’m going to take care of anybody else, and I get back home in time to sit and eat breakfast with my son and take him to school before going to work.  My  earlier hours at work mean that I get home shortly after Sim does and we go over his work together.  It’s not easy.  Sim resists sometimes.  He’s going to be 16 in a few weeks, after all, and all this togetherness is starting to feel like a bit much.  Sometimes, as I struggle to remember geometry from 1977, or take a walk in the early morning dark, it feels like  a bit much for me too.  But I count my blessings and I thank God that, in a moment of clarity and vulnerability, my son came to me.  He’s going to be a good man.  And his father and I are going to do everything we can to help him get there.  After all, a mama’s gotta do what a mama’s gotta do.