a new patent on the wheel

Today's been a lovely morning. I woke up tangled in dreams of giant looms woven into book-mouths and theaters with red drapes, so I stretched, snuggled Checkers, and went right back to sleep. When I eventually got up, I spoiled our little garden with lots of water. I realized that you have ZERO pictures of our horticultural efforts this year, so a brief photo-history:

These are our little starts, most obtained from Ms. Purdy at the mid school. Cabbage from DY. The basil plants - now flourishing enough to create enough bruschetta for a party of a dozen - came from Holiday Nursery up in Gallup. The traditional corn, beans, and summer squash are ours from seed.

Tiny corn!

Doesn't my old dresser have potential as a raised bed?? Unfortunately, it was just too hot and dry (without any irrigation possibilities) in June for our beets or carrots or potatoes to sprout. BUT! You can see evidence of the waffle style garden. I dug a foot down or so, and then we mixed soil (manure or compost, tree soil from the hills, sand, bags of potting soil) to supplement the iron-rich, veritable clay soil of Zuni. Believe me that the sides of these waffle holes hardened to an adobe hardness in the sun. 

Three sisters garden! Our traditional beans kicked the bucket, but the corn and squash continued the sorority. Here they are, fresh from transplanting.

Yeah, we made this bread (see the last entry). N.B.D.

Fast forward a couple of months and -----

Ta da! Here's the same garden - look at our corn go! (and everyone else, too)

Here's our corn first tasseling about a week ago. Now it's a riot of aphids, the ants gently tending their little charges. So far no damage to the plants, just some nice mutualism.

This cabbage was planted the day before our spring break. It has survived drought, a hard frost (in late May), and a violent plague of flea beetles. This critter is giant among brassicas.

Yeah, that's my breakfast. Check it! Our little (2') row of beans is producing like crazy.

Our first volunteer squash (of about a dozen, no joke) of the garden is named Katniss. This is her fruitful endeavor. Hopefully the other squashies of the plot will take notice.

What? You aren't growing ristra peppers in your backyard? Bummer. 

It's strange to think since the last time I wrote here my plants have grown from little two inch seedlings to real veggies in their own right. Also, in this time, I have:

• gone to a tremendously wonderful AP conference lead by the intellectual guru, Linda Davey.
• chatted with a couple midwives up in Española, sharing my own thoughts and sharing excitement of a possible birth center in the planning.
• taken a lovely trip to Iowa and Indiana (aka the homelands) with Ms. Lyl. We gloried in Quimby's 150 centennial celebration, playing carnival games and devouring the big pink ice of watermelons cut straight out of the truck. Indiana was a tizzy of late-night car rides, a New Mexican meal, other delicious food, wonderful people, and a gorgeous hike in Shades (after a scrumptious cook-out breakfast). We took the train home to Santa Fe, spending the afternoon in Chicago with my best friend Sarah. All thoughts to her on her first days of teaching! . . . the remainder of the train trip was gorgeous as well. 
• I've read another hunk of books. After tearing up maybe four times in a three-minute preview of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," I have pushed that text to the top of my reading list. So while I'm also communing with Holden and Ina May and Martha Ballard and Charles Mann (1491, still exceptional), I'm right there with Charlie. Totally recommended: La Partera: Story of a Midwife. It's the narrative of New Mexican Jesusita Aragón, and it's wonderful. Also recommended is Lolita. I can't wait to read more Nabokov, though old Humbert Humbert certainly knows how introduce pathos to a road trip (I listened to it on CD). 
• received 40 copies from dear friends and relatives of Angela's Ashes. Now I can teach it at the end of the year with a unit on the essay (along with Kingsolver's "High Tide in Tucson" and McKibben's "End of Nature." 
• had a lovely visit from my friend, Julia! We had delicious Indian food, fry bread, Ancient Way, blue corn pancakes (home made). We went hiking at El Morro and took a long stroll all around the plains surrounding the pueblo: twin buttes ahead, sunset on the left, DY on the right. Behind us, the deep rain clouds of the monsoon season. Mmm. She also helped weed the garden and set up my classroom. She made an excel spreadsheet of ALL my classroom books. Yes, there are about 400 in my person free reading section. Yeah, that's not counting the school's sets of books. Here we come, independent reading program!

Oh, yes. Right. Do you really want me to talk about the elephant in the room? Well, here he is. 

School starts tomorrow. 

Oh, buddy. . . I'm not quite sure how to react, really, because I'm actually kind of excited and not very nervous. My room is lovely, my plans are made, I had a successful community theatre meeting, and I have a co-coach for cheer. And, as my mum said this morning, "It's like you turned from a Dickens novel into the end of a Shakespeare comedy." Truth. For, dear readers, my department is like Christmas to a three-year-old: I LOVE IT! Our three new teachers are sweetness and light: Anne, our new chair, is a lovely and sage woman from whom I cannot wait to learn. Ed is a delightful new teacher from Long Island, who accepts all help with such gratitude and has wonderful ideas for journalism. And Bret is our Neropa-divinity-degree-clown-Southern-gentleman who is pure fun to be around. It's looking to be a true, sugary year. In our two meetings, we've collaborated, laughed non-sarcastically, and I've been listened to with openness. None of these things happened last year. . . bring it on, 2012-2013!

And, hey! To top it off, another photo history:

Oh, hello there. Sorry, I'm too invested in reading towards my 25-book goal for the school year to really acknowledge your presence.

Oh, wow! There's even a rug, and soon to be bean bags. I'll just have to keep reading. Feel free to look around the classroom, though.

The door is perhaps even more fabulous than last year. Featured: the "Go in the direction of your dreams" quote by Thoreau, Lady G encouraging everyone to pass the NMSBA, the infamous Safe Space sign, CC, nature quotes, 20 ways to bring goodness into your life by the Dalai Lama, Think Indian, and ZPSD "weaving the future."

Oh, yeah. I have TABLES. I have tables AND a circle. This year, it's kind of a blastocyst-shape, with two little bulges at a diagonal from one another. Also visible is my junior timeline, reading corner, "Like Chicks?" poster, and the edge of my cabinets. One is storage that doubles as a Shout-Out Board; the other is going to be my journal and props closet. YES.

Here is my cabbage poster ("Grow your brain. . . BIG"), Bloom's verbs, and the featured texts from unit 1. My students made the posters at the end of year one. The other half is a Call Board, for theatre.

Yup. All my students, in one way or another, will be using "The New Yorker" as their introductory text into my course. 

You bet I look smug. Behind me are ALL my copies for my first day. Huzzah!

Here is my Long-Term Plan for my juniors. Yup. I've got a list of all my texts for the year with the standards they correspond to. 

I am SO thrilled to teach my critters. We'll be working with real literature and real issues, and slipping in my natural birth agenda as is appropriate.

My AP Lit seniors are reading (in their entirety or excerpts):

• Both contemporary and classic short stories and poems
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Beowulf
• The Canterbury Tales
• The Tempest
• Frankenstein
• Invisible Man
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• House Made of Dawn
• Metamorphosis
• Cry, the Beloved Country
• The Poisonwood Bible
• Oryx and Crake and other dystopias
• Inde reading off an AP list

My juniors, like last year, are doing a survey course in American Literature. 

Their essential questions for each unit.

• Unit 1: Dawn of time to 1800. 5 weeks.

-       Essential Question: What is literature? How is literature Power?

Unit 2: 1800-1870. 4 weeks.

-       Essential Question: What is our place in Nature and Society?

Unit 3: 1850-1914. 6 weeks.

-       Essential Question: How do we face Adversity?  

Unit 4: 1914-1946. 10 weeks.

-       Essential Question: What is Heroism in the modern age?

Unit 5: 1945-1970. 3 weeks.

-       Essential Question: What does it mean to be Post-War?

Unit 6: 1970-Today. 7 weeks.

-       Essential Question: How, then, shall we Live?

Borrowing liberally from the genius-y Donalyn Miller in The Book Whisperer, my kids will be reading 20+ independent reading books this year. Hence the 10 minutes at the beginning of each hour, hence the excellent in-class library. . . let's see if we can't get the NMSBA scores up!

And don't even get me started on my drama class. In the words of Barney Stinson, it's going to be "Legend- wait for it - dary!"

Well, I should be off to review Catcher and plan my board decoration assignment (soles of summer? New Yorker cartoon captions?) 

If you've made it this far, thank you thank you. I hope that all is well in your world.

Wish me luck?

Over and out ~

Sweeping the Corners with Juniper Brooms

These past few weeks have been incredibly rich. I feel like I am holding a musty shoebox full of Polaroids, shuffling around through their overwhelming and jumbled hues. One here of me slowly kneading the thick floss roots of one traditional corn seedling from another; another of me tearing through Little Children and Mr. Pip in our new circle chair named the Egg. Ah! Here's one of me processing up the aisle with my blue-and-gold corsage. I'm wearing a black dress instead of robes because central office returned my package bearing them (after giving their address to my father). There's a tumult of photos from the last day of school: happy, sad, frustrated, climactic, anti-climactic. Oh! One's a closeup of the letter I read to my students. It says:

Here we are on June 1^st, 2012. This morning I spaced out in the parking lot listening to “Pay Phone.” It was totally cheesy, so I didn’t bring in the song and make you listen to it. But I did have the line – where has the time gone? Truth, I have no clue. I was reminded of a time in September where I sat in the car on a Friday morning and tried not to cry. It’s Friday, I thought to myself, only one more day until the weekend and I can totally do it.

Because yeah, like or not – or really like it -, you guys have made me cry. To be fair, I’m a crier. It’s not a big deal. A cute ad can make me tear up and both Smoke Signals and Whale Rider made me cry all FOUR times I watched them with you. Your sharp words and apathy have hurt me; your kind or insightful words have moved me more than you know.

I know I’m a teacher. My job is to encourage you, keep in school, show you things to learn. But I don’t sugarcoat, not really. Sure, I may have said, “good job” when really I meant “keep trying,” but the comments were always accurate. Same thing in class discussions. When I said, “EXACTLY,” I meant, exactly. When I say, “That’s brilliant! You’ve got potential. What a great mind and great talent!” I meant exactly those things. I meant that you can articulate and beautifully craft – like a weaving or a painting or a prayer – you can beautifully craft ideas that I wouldn’t have ever thought of, that no one else would have thought of ever. That is the grace and great beauty of being a critical thinker.

I heard a couple of seniors yesterday say, “Why would anyone ever become a teacher?” On a lot of days this year, I thought the exact same thing. What have I gotten myself into? I thought. No one cares. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. You care, I care, and together we can make something incredible. I live for your analyses of Mr. Hooper, Tom Shiftlet, Janie and Frederic and Paikea. I live for your thoughts about where birds go for school and the color of the sky, the ducks like Black Hawks and your life symbolized by a loaf of oven bread.

I treasure these gems; my memory, like a student once said regarding Walt Whitman, like the fitful flame of the bivouac.

Most of all, however, I’d like to thank you. I know you weren’t 100% every day; heck, I wasn’t 100% every day. But overwhelmingly, what I saw was a dedication to me, to school, and most importantly, to literature. So thank you.

And nurture it! This summer, take time to breathe in the air and sink your toes into the red earth. Read a book that you’ve never seen before but looks interesting. Listen to NPR. Write a story, write a poem, write a 5-page persuasive essay on something that makes you angry. Revel in your good mind and your good soul and your good self.

I will miss you. I will miss every single one of you. But it’s just a summer. Live it up! And in one way or another, I’ll see you next fall.

Cheers, and best of luck in all your endeavors!

And, as Garrison Keillor says on his Writer’s Almanac poems, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

Perhaps here too are a couple of pictures of my students applauding and a collective sigh of summer and community. To accompany, of course, some fraught pix of department head nonsense and a student or two who chooses to be a turkey even on the last day. 

Oh! Another closeup. This one's of my book log for the 2011-2012 school year. Here are the titles, at least:

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth 

Love that Dog 

Giving My Body to Science

 Big Mouth & Ugly Girl

The Poisonwood Bible

Esperanza Rising

Keeping You a Secret

My Name is Memory

 Angela's Ashes

Fahrenheit 451

The Light in the Forest

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (GROSS!) 

Sources of Light

 Our Babies,Ourselves

Operating Instructions

Room (*****)

Red Scarf Girl

 Matched

 The Hunger Games

Best American Short Stories of 2011

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

Midwife, Monster

 Giving Birth

A Farewell to Arms

Their Eyes Were Watching God

 Feed 

Hanna's Daughters

Everything is Illuminated

Kissing Kate

Protector of the Small: First Test

Geography of the Heart

A Girl Named Zippy

The Hobbit

Luv Ya Bunches

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

This is shared mostly so you, dear readers, can exhort recommendations on any of them if you so choose. The summer list has 6 titles, and I'm currently gnawing away happily at 1491 and dutifully on King Lear. The latter is for my AP conference next week, and so I'm trying to really delve into the text. My first time round, I found it (sorry! sorry!) boring. This time, I find it perplexing so far. I have yet to see why Goneril and Regan are the "bad guys." I'm also irritated that Edmund, who had such a beautiful don't-discriminate-because-I'm-illegitimate speech, has turned out to be a. . . bastard.

But back to my figurative photo box. There's another snapshot of my AP Literature kids requesting to be in my course next year and receiving their copy of Catcher in the Rye and their quest to find a good free-read book. 

And then, for last, two of my fondest images since the beginning of the summer. The first is the brightly-colored group prenatal room at the Zuni IHS Hospital. I am presenting a short workshop on labor support and we are all trying greeting breaths as a group. There's one of an expectant mom's sister, grinning with surprise at the double-hip squeeze, another of a devoted dad massaging his wife's back. Oh! And great. My figurative paparazzo did a great job with closeups. Here's the last, which is the handout (three-hole punched, notes scribbled in the margins) for the session:

LABOR SUPPORT & DOULAS

What is a Doula?

·      The word "doula" comes from the ancient Greek meaning "a woman who serves." It is now used to refer to a helper who provides continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother before, during, and just after birth.

·      A doula is not a doctor or a midwife, just as she is NOT a replacement for your family or partner. She seeks to affirm the dignity and involvement of all you have chosen to attend your birth.

Models of Care.

·       Sometimes, a doula is on call with a birth center or hospital and just comes for the birth.

·       Sometimes, a doula has a more long-term schedule with an expecting mother. In that model, she usually has 1-2 prenatal visits to go over introductions and hopes, concerns and plans. She assists at the birth, often coming to the mother’s home for early labor and then transitioning to the birth center or hospital. The doula also often makes one visit one or two weeks postpartum.

All Doulas Provide Support With:

·      Relaxation:

-Visualization: centering on a physical or mental picture.

- Breathing (with the flow): yoga, down your back, greeting, full chest, butterfly, sheep’s.

- Music: do you want a birth playlist? Any songs to be sung?

- Mantras: think of phrases or prayers in Zuni or English that you can 

  repeat over and over again.

- Massage: back, shoulders, thighs, feet, hands

·      Energy Maintenance:

-Positions: Standing, squatting, kneeling, leaning, lying, swaying, with

    the Kaya stool ... see the Labor section of your notebook!

-Eating / Drinking: hydration is essential! Think of light, high-energy

     snacks to have during labor: honey sticks, soup, crackers, fruit,  

     cereal…

-       Cow noises / Opening: focus on opening your whole body. Low sounds – “cow sounds” – help open more than high-pitched ones, which can constrict.

- Resting in labor: Remember: if you and Baby are well, labor should go at YOUR pace. Follow your body’s rhythms. If you can, it’s often helpful to rest in early labor to prepare for the hard work ahead.

·      Communication:

-       With family members

-       With healthcare providers

-       Doulas never speak FOR you, but act as advocates for what YOU have expressed you want.

·      Immediate Postpartum:

-       Breastfeeding: positions, good latch-on, signs of hunger

-       Chores: cleaning, organizing, etc.

-       Pictures

-       Anything else

Remember:

It’s your body and your labor. You choose what is best for you!

This sounds appealing during labor:

My birth partner(s)	Their role

Yesterday brought a whole album of mental photographs - some carefully composed, others hurriedly shot. I, along with Emily, headed to a friend's house and helped bake 60-some loaves of oven bread for the rain dances. We fed the fire in the hornos and watched the creation of the juniper brooms (long poles with bunches of juniper branches trimmed and bound to the pole with nylons. "Careful, Ladies," one woman said as we untied the nylons. "Don't put a run in those. We use them for graduation." and we all laughed). We ate and ate and ate and then grabbed the apple-bobbing-size-buckets of dough. We kneaded, our rounds and loaves sadly bumpy and wrinkled compared the shining beauty of the other ladies'. As soon as we had laid them all on the boards, it was time to knead them again, and this time fold and cut them into their shapes. Roses, rabbits, mesas, mountains, twin peaks rose from the dough. Then, they swept the ash from the ovens with their juniper brooms, their clay sides still radiating an air-rippling heat. We were quiet, except for the hiss of the wet juniper fronds cleaning the oven's brown floor and the shovel of charcoal into the metal barrels. They were "tested" for their heat (a mysterious process involving handfuls of tossed flour) and then we were put to work hauling the boards of bread to the ovens. In they went, with large paddles resembling 10' pizza paddles. Midway through, they were rotated. Then, the air a riot of juniper and smoke and fresh bread, Audrey paddled them back out into their buckets. We lay them on blankets on the floor and took one loaf, saying it was clearly "going to break soon any way." We grinned and placed the fresh bread, still steaming, in our mouths.

Emily and I headed home after watching the Zuni pilgrims return, feeding the ancestors, and watching the welcoming ceremony in the plaza. The rest of the women returned to feed their pilgrim a meal and begin to prepare the stew. The stew, and some of the bread, will be brought to the Halona Idiwanna today. The women, dressed traditionally, will bear the vessels on their heads.

Anyone who doubts traditional "women's" roles as less important or less sacred has clearly never baked oven bread.

***

Enough, enough. The lid goes back on the shoe box. But now, I'm ready to take some more summer snapshots! Onto the garden, onto Albuquerque.

Happy summer.

Over and out ~