By Angela Rufo Singer
The weak winter brilliance dazzles.
Sugar crusted mounds crackle underfoot.
The landscape beckons,
But I reject its invitation,
Retreat into the unpeopled cave of the old home,
Our old home.
I look through papers, china, books,
Things that are left behind,
Items of interest, of no interest.
I search for clues of you.
A message in the lines of old furniture,
A hint in the faded photographs
To let me know.
The invasion mounts each week,
Each foray tentative yet determined,
I regret the end’s approach.
It comes too soon.
Drawers and closets pillaged,
The rape complete,
I tote a hoard to its new home
Where it settles in, or rests uneasily,
As you do in your sterile prison.
Waiting while large Jamaican women
Bathe you and kiss your cheeks,
Welcome you to dinner,
Waltz you off to rest.
What do you wonder? Do you wonder?
By Cynthia Conway Waring
"Callie don’t talk.” It was the only narrative, scrawled in her mother’s awkward handwriting, on the seven-year-old’s registration form at the beginning of Callie’s second grade year, her first in Massachusetts. Callie’s two sisters, in fourth and fifth grade, did talk, as Callie had until just before her mama drove away from their life in Tennessee and headed north on the interstate. She’d never been north, so Callie’s mama just drove that big old car out of town late one afternoon in April with the sun streaming across her elbow sticking out the window.
Removed from the life of her classroom, Callie spent her days
mute with her head bent, the crayons or colored pencils she wasn’t
using clutched in her chubby little fist, her face intent over the
drawing paper that was her constant and only companion. I didn’t learn
from Callie about how they managed that spring and summer living out of
their car – sleeping in the parking lots of malls and used car dealers,
truck stops, and even cemeteries. I learned from Callie how to sit by
a child who does not speak, how to release the prattle of uneasiness I
felt at first, how to open to the possibility and honesty of silence.
I learned from Callie about redemption.
At first, Callie’s drawings were color – free-form shapes and color. She pressed on, pressed hard to squeeze color from wax or colored lead. Paper after paper she covered with swatches of color. By early October, the boundaries of shapes became more clearly defined. There were spaces, suggestions of representation. Page after page filled.
Like Picasso, Callie had style periods. Hers appeared in succession throughout that fall. She worked at each until she got it right, it seemed to me, or until she could let go of the familiar to travel toward the uncharted territories. Clearly, she was on a journey, explorer without a guide, venturing into wild places, treacherous dark places that called her. Undaunted, Callie remained silent. The wispy halo of curly black hair that encircled her intense little face nodded slightly with the movements of Callie’s hand as she drew, colored, worked and worked until late October when phallic symbols emerged from the bright backgrounds then transformed into penises. Again and again she drew them, squinching up her nose above her lips tightened with the effort. She would get it right. She would get it right.
Every morning at 9:30, Callie met with the school counselor, eagerly stuffing bright orange peanut butter crackers into her mouth and playing with the anatomically correct dolls; but the playroom was not the place, therapy not the venue, the dedicated counselor not Callie’s guide.
In November, before the ground froze, and a seven-year-old could still dig a shallow hole and cover what she buried every day for weeks – with dirt and bits of gravel, acorns, oak leaves, and browned pine needles – I waited until after Callie’s bus left the circle in front of the school at the end of the day before I unearthed, from their graves, Callie’s pictures. After the counselor and I witnessed the images, one of us always returned them to the site Callie had chosen beneath the fringe of trees that bounded the playground. The November drawings were, remarkably, identical – prints from the same negative, burned onto the drawing paper.
The first snow the year Callie came to us was a dusting. It was easy for me to brush it away the day we heard Callie speak. Her first words rose out from her and up, like bubbles released through water by one forced to hold her breath below the surface.
What I found in the last miniature grave Callie ever dug was a drawing identical to the others but with one crucial addition. She had gotten it right. Over the bed, where Callie’s two-dimensional likeness lay, next to the cartoon bubble overflowing with HELP in her little girl’s block letters, was an angel pulling her up and away, an angel with big strong wings – and her mama’s determined face.
By Hoshi
I am a lonely only child seeking for a
sibling This is ironic and weird. I have asked around and many children
who has siblings told me that I was lucky to be an only child. People
who are only child like me wants a sibling. I have wanted a sibling
since I was very little. All my cousins have someone only I don’t. They
said that I was lucky because there is no one to share fight or hand me
downs for the only one and that I’m the center of attention of my
parents. I could have everything I want but the one thing I always
wanted… Someone around my age to share laughter jokes fear joy and
sadness with. I Know I am lucky to have such a great mother who’ll give
me anything I need and want as long as it isn’t some thing too big or
expensive since we are not so rich. I have seen mostly all children
with siblings… They fight a lot even twins as they get older. I noticed
younger twins play well with each other. All siblings fights, But there
should be times they don’t and have fun with each other. Friends… They
are okay but I don’t have many who have time to hang out with me or
even I can’t find ones who are really are true friends unless they are
mom’s friends’ children. Because of Mom they are my friends. A lot of
people I “called” friends pick on me uncaringly. Some of them were just
using me for I am too nice and took advantage of me. They want me to do
things for them but won’t do things for me. Calls me names and treats
me unfairly and I try to gain fairness and they says I’m a spoiled
brat. Only one person would really stand up for me and really cares
about me before high school. I met her in third grade and she is still
my good friend now. I managed to keep her as a friend after moving away
from where we lived in the second semester of 8th grade. But
she is also a family friend who I met and became friends with her by
myself so keeping contact was easy because her parents are my parents’
friend. She has an older sister who was always so mean to her. She says
I am lucky to be an only child or at least I don’t have a sister like
hers I met another ok friend in high school and I know she is very
loyal. She is just annoying though. Many things she helps too much and
butts into too much into my interests. She introduced a friend to me…
This new friend is nice but she is too overly obsessed with doing
unnecessary helping things. We were in the same class for the second
semester of my freshman year. She did things like telling me to stop
reading stories I printed from online while she won’t stop reading her
own novel or flipping pages in my text book for me when I was gonna do
it myself. Then we became close friends in the last quarter of that
same year. She lived with her grand parents. She moved in to my house
when they went to live in a senior center. We became so close we were
like twins. My dream came true! I found my sister… But nothing could
ever stay… Her parents… They came here from another country and now
she’s gone… She was like my twin for a long while. All people who
didn’t know us thought we were twins although we look nothing alike…
Fraternal twins I guess. A teacher once asked us if we were twins. We
have similar clothing. Same jacket her grandmother gave us. Now to
contact her we have to beg her mother who for some reason hates me.
“How and where can I find a friend like you? Or how did I used to live
before you came into my life?” I want a sister. Her mom won’t even let
her use the phone! She has an older brother who didn’t come here, An
older sister who lives in a different state and a baby sister who is
only 7 years old… Spoiled brat. My friend says she hates all her
sisters and wishes to be an only child or have a sister who is like me.
So ironic that an only child wants nothing more than a sibling that
they can share with while children with siblings wants to be an only
child. Strange.
J. K.’s Sonnet
I’ve heard that love is friendship caught afire;
Two kindred souls ignite when blessed to meet.
To feel that flame-- I’ll walk upon a wire,
Light caution in a blaze--for this, so sweet.
A buoyant spirit floats in my heart’s gloom,
Washing out a lonely, darkened lair.
A rising tide, a wave in my life’s June,
A drop of hope in smiles of true care.
The utter blissful days that yet may be,
If lived out with impassioned fire’s rage,
Will quite divert pain’s river flow from me,
And forge our molten, tempered golden age.
Enkindle, and bring joyful times anew--
Rapture-- ardor-- baptize us, just we two.
Marty McEvoy
Sonnet
One chance at love, but I had not a thought
For I had you, so what had I to fear?
Mistook for commonplace when it’s so sought
Suite movements from you, sole--I did not hear.
So then the flame did flicker, fade, and die,
No fuel too dear but fools ask only “why?"
And never more did love join us as “we.”
Since then the days have only played their gray,
The fugue that is my life without its tone,
Our cat string lute-- no notes has it to say,
So when the one you love does come to you,
Refresh the flame and keep the soul sweet new.
Marty McEvoy
The Radical Life of Billy Forest
A story of personal checks and balances
By Kevin Hodgson
| Name: William Forest Address: 34 Meadow Drive |
| Name: Cynthia Forest Address: Valley Living Center 18 Elder Row, Apt. 13-C Haydenville, MA Date: Sept. 12, 1977 To: Crazy Comics Amount: $13.24 Memo: Billy Jr.’s comic collection |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 34 Meadow Drive Northampton, MA Date: Nov. 24, 1977 To: Pioneer Funeral Home Amount: $9,340 Memo: Mom’s burial |
| ame: William Forest Sr. Address: 34 Meadow Drive Northampton, MA Date: Jan. 20, 1978 To: Pediatric Psychiatric Services Amount: $20 Memo: co-pay, Billy’s grief counseling |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 34 Meadow Drive Northampton, MA Date: March 30, 1978 To: Outlandish Travel Services Amount: $2,500 Memo: Vacation to Disneyworld |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 34 Meadow Drive Northampton, MA Date: April 23, 1978 To: Disney Corporation Amount: $180 Memo: Broken Mickey Mouse Statue |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 20 Shadow Drive Southampton, Ma Date: Dec. 20, 1984 To: Mother Jones Magazine Amount: $24 Memo: Billy Jr.’s special request |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 20 Shadow Drive Southampton, Ma Date: Jan 3, 1986 To: Parties to Go Amount: $120 Memo: Billy’s 16th birthday |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 20 Shadow Drive Southampton, Ma Date: Jan 5, 1986 To: We Clean You Up, Inc. Amount: $250 Memo: Fix broken windows, etc. |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 20 Shadow Drive Southampton, Ma Date: Jan 6, 1986 To: Pediatric Psychiatric Services Amount: $20 Memo: co-pay, anger management |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 20 Shadow Drive Southampton, Ma Date: Aug. 15, 1988 To: University of Massachusetts Amount: $6,000 Memo: tuition, Billy Jr |
| Name: William Forest Jr. Address: 18 University Drive Amherst, MA Date: Jan. 4, 1989 To: Radical Book Club Amount: $304.31 Memo: books, books, books! |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 16 Woodcut Lane Leeds, MA Date: June 3, 1989 To: Billy Forest Amount: $600 Memo: moving expenses |
| Name: Billy Forest Address: 13 Harvard Road Seattle, WA Date: Sept. 18, 1989 To: All Things Army Amount: $220 Memo: flak jacket, gas mask, ear plug |
| Name: Billy Forest Address: 13 Harvard Road Seattle, WA Date: Jan. 4, 1990 To: Free The World of Politics, Inc. Amount: $100 Memo: donation, birthday present to me |
| Name: Billy Forest Address: 13 Harvard Road Seattle, WA Date: Feb. 3, 1991 To: Adios Rental Cars Amount: $99 Memo: ride to Portland - WTO protest |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 16 Woodcut Lane Leeds, MA Date: Feb. 18, 1991 To: Mary Senegal, esquire Amount: $1,500 Memo: bail for Billy, court fees |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: 16 Woodcut Lane Leeds, MA Date: Feb. 18, 1991 To: Plates of Glass Company Amount: $850 Memo: fix broken windows |
| Name: Billy Forest Address: 28 Dribble Street, Apt. 18-K Portland, OR Date: Aug. 19, 1991 To: Rings and Things Amount: $88 Memo: engagement ring |
| Name: Billy Forest Address: 28 Dribble Street, Apt. 18-K Portland, OR Date: Oct. 8, 1991 To: Burst a Bud Flower Company Amount: $132 Memo: flowers for wedding |
| Name: Billy and Mary Senegal-Forest Address: 29 McDougal Lane Portland, OR Date: Nov. 29, 1992 To: Portland Medical Center Amount: $25 Memo: co-pay, birth of Cynthia |
| Name: William Forest Sr. Address: Valley Living Center 18 Elder Row, Apt. 2-B Haydenville, MA Date: Nov. 30, 1992 To: Billy Forest Amount: $15,000 Memo: Down payment for house |
| Name: Billy and Mary Senegal-Forest Address: 134 Colonial Avenue Portland, OR Date: March 3, 2002 To: Mental Health Clinic of Portland Amount: $25 Memo: co-pay, grief counseling |
| Name: Billy and Mary Senegal-Forest Address: 134 Colonial Avenue Portland, OR Date: March 4, 2002 To: Pioneer Funeral Home Amount: $15,250 Memo: Billy’s dad |
| Name: Billy and Mary Senegal-Forest Address: 134 Colonial Avenue Portland, OR Date: Nov. 28, 2008 To: Party Central Amount: $300 Memo: 16th birthday party for Cindy |
No Surprise
By Ann C. Averill
As a nation we stand transfixed by the aftermath of Katrina. It’s as if Katrina opened the floodgates of truth - that
poverty, bigotry and injustice still exist in America, even after
Roosevelt’s New Deal, even after Johnson’s War on Poverty, even after
Martin Luther King’s protest marches. But this
is no surprise, not to a teacher. Teachers are the great equalizers who
daily tip the scales of justice by putting our weight on the side of
those who little feet hold little weight in society. In a time when no
child is to be left behind, we see that some are behind before the race
even starts. We have on our rolls the haves and the have-nots, the kids with fetal alcohol syndrome alongside the prodigies. We
teach in an atmosphere pervaded by the standardized test. The education
system is set up as if all children start with a clean slate and an
equal playing field, as if every child could and should be doctors,
lawyers or President of the United States. However Katrina evidenced the contrary. John
Edwards' two Americas parades across the TV screen moment by moment
like a prophecy come to pass. We view a Garden District man who’s
annoyed he has no ice for his martini along side his fellow citizen
wadding in toxic soup up to his armpits. It comes as no surprise then
that the student with fetal alcohol syndrome will never pass the
Massachusetts MCAS, the Colorado CSAP, the Texas TAS or any other
standardized test. Kids are not standardized. Our society is not standardized. This is a national dilemma.
It’s no surprise to teachers that the bowl that is the city of New
Orleans filled with the storm surge. Our classes fill daily with the
storms that are every day life for the children we serve. No
surprise that basketball- crazed middle school boys with no money in
their pockets would love to loot a shoe store and carry off every pair
of cool shoes they can get their hands on. No surprise that kids, who qualify for a free lunch at school, don’t have a free SUV at home in which to evacuate. No
surprise that young, single moms on food stamps are looting grocery
stores when the little food they have at home is washed away. No
surprise that their children, like the ones in your class who ask you
every day at 9:30 if you brought in pretzels again because they are
hungry, are helping their moms fill the carts. No surprise that parents
who won’t let their kids play outside because of gun shots in the
street, won’t leave their houses to evacuate. No
surprise that the same students who bring guns to school are shooting
at the cops who are trying to help them. No surprise that when men with
histories of domestic abuse, substance abusers and sex offenders are
herded into the Superdome alongside the innocent that a witch’s brew of
misfortune ensues. No, not for teachers who teach in classes where
angry, emotionally disturbed students are among the many on their
rooster. No surprise that when poor, desperate, scared people are without food or water or toilets that they are angry at police, the mayor, the president, the army, any
official face of the government that’s promised to be the father
they’ve never had, the father who promised he’d come visit for the
weekend, but didn’t show - again. And,
no surprise at all that Governor Blanco issues a shoot to kill order
for looters when you’ve witnessed administrators shouting angry threats
at students in the cafeteria and on the playground through a bullhorn. No
surprise to teachers that the rich man from the Garden District without
ice for his martini has hired a private security guard to protect his
property. Not after hearing that some of your students’ parents have hired private tutors to boost their child’s SAT scores. No
surprise that his black neighbor is wading in toxic soup up to his
armpits when you’re heard the heartfelt thanks of a darker skinned mom
for finally teaching her son to read in the seventh grade No,
no surprise at all for a teacher like me who’s taught students from
kindergarten to college in two states in John Edwards' two Americas. I
am only one teacher, but I know what all teachers have always known - that
one child can disrupt a whole class. That when one of us suffers we all
do. As a nation, God forgive us for being surprised.
Wax Paper
By Casey Burton
The window faces north, out over the driveway and onto the neighbors’ front yard. Small, inexpensive prisms and stained-glass sun catchers dangle on fishing wire from the dark wood of the window frame; the wood itself, soft and damp with fifty years of steam from the dishes washed below it. Plants crowd the ledge, their branches and stems tangling into one another and creeping downward toward the sink. The aloe plant came from Great Aunt Annie, a clipping from one of her aloe plants cut before they sold the farm and moved to town so many years ago. Some of its plump leaves are scarred where the ends have been snapped off; the salve pressed out and dabbed on fingers burnt at the gas stovetop, or grandchildren red from summer sun. Potatoes and avocado pits stuck through with toothpicks hang like crude satellites over juice glasses filled halfway with water. Small stalks of bamboo lean precariously out of a painted china vase.
In the early afternoon, sun filters into the kitchen, onto the giant formica table with the heavy wrought iron legs. My Grandfather built this table, or rather cobbled it together from a table found second-hand. He either removed a leaf to make the table fit the kitchen or added a leaf to make the table fit all the kids. I forget which. Either way, the table is older than the house. And either way, it fills half the kitchen and the youngest had to eat at the breadboard that slides out from under the kitchen counter until the oldest left for college, opening a space at the table for her. In some spots the top sheet of off-white or maybe once-white formica is chipped at the edges or warped just a bit, but the table itself is as sturdy as I’ve always know it to be.
My grandparents bought this house brand new, a few years after the war when this was the last road of town and there were no trees or apartment buildings to block out the rumbling of the trains running down the tracks behind the house four, five, six times a day. As neighbors have filtered in and out of the similar one-family homes on either side, houses that realtors now call “starter homes,” Darrel and Eleanor stayed. Only the tiny, odd bookbinder at the end of the street with his plump chatty wife and his oversized adult son have also stayed, and even they haven’t been there as long.
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**
At the kitchen table, you sit seething at this woman moving through your space. When she leaves, your sink will shine and your bathroom smell vaguely of bleach. At some point, you’ll fire her again. Maybe not today, but soon. “You know, I don’t really need you. It’s just me now. I can do these things myself,” only partly hiding the disdain in your voice. And as always, she’ll mildly reply, “Well, it’s really your kids I work for. Have you talked to them?” “No,” you will say and return to your silent fuming. This woman, an insult and a betrayal your daughters have planted here, will then vacuum and go, returning the next day with groceries—fruit, cereal, whole milk. “I make powdered milk,” you’ll snap. But you’ll drink it anyway and fire her all over again.
**
NOTES ON PRACTICALITY
Washed and reused
bags
—breadbags, ziplocks, and flimsy plastic fruit and vegetable bags from the Family Thrift.
tin cans
jars of every shape and size
tinfoil
styrofoam to-go containers (really)
A middle drawer of old junk mail
For
grocery lists, notes, and phone numbers
—stored low enough for crayon users
Fake Crayons
A ringer washer not replaced until 1999
—dryer not allowed
Powdered milk in washed out mayonnaise jars
Canvas shoes from Walgreen’s bins
Left over popcorn from the American Legion
—good for birds and grandchildren
**
Food fills the table, the fridge in the basement and the giant deepfreeze too. The price of being Lutheran. As soon as he slipped away, Emanuel Lutheran knew and the food began to arrive in his place. Our mothers and aunts have been rushing aimlessly through the house worrying aloud to each other, “What are we going to do with all this bread?” Or joking, “Any body want some rolls? We got about seven hundred down there, and I’m pretty sure they’re self-multiplying.” Our mothers aren’t here now. They’re at the visitation, where Grandpa lies stretched out at the front of the room. When they sent us home for dinner someone called behind us, “Eat some of that bread,” not really joking at all. We are trying to eat, picking at the rolls, the meat and cheese trays, the fruit salads coated in sugar and Miracle Whip. Across town, Grandma answers words of concern with, “Well, I have lots of support.” Over and over again, “I have lots of support.” But I was standing there today when she leaned over to kiss him, then stood back up and said, in a little girl voice I’d never heard, “He’s ice cold.”
She is our Grandma. I don’t know that any of us remember her as soft. She hugged and she smiled, but she was never soft. There were twelve of us and twelve is too many to spoil. She didn’t baby anyone and we never knew her to worry about us—worry that we’d fall, that we weren’t warm or hadn’t eaten enough. She trusted us to be smarter and more resourceful than that, and for the most part we were. We ran up and down the stairs and in and out of the house, playing with toys older than any of us and each cousin mercilessly picking at any other cousin who happened to be slightly younger. We wrestled. We chased. We tossed <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>Trent</st1:place></st1:City> into a wall. We bribed Jasper not to tell. We pretended to give <st1:City><st1:place>Trent</st1:place></st1:City> a swirly. We bribed Jasper not to tell. We convinced <st1:City><st1:place>Trent</st1:place></st1:City> to let us send him down the laundry chute. Jasper must have told. And when things got too noisy, Grandma was always standing in the kitchen ready to send us up the street to the park with sheets of wax paper. “Do you want wax paper?” she’d ask. We did. Wax paper to sit on, slicking up the giant metal slide until we slid so fast we flew over the worn down dirt where all the other kids landed. Those unfortunate kids with grandmothers who worried, kids who didn’t have a chance at the swings or the giant teeter totter when we trooped into the park.
Practical and stubborn, our Grandma’s backyard has never been a yard, but a garden—a garden with more vegetables than flowers because flowers are pretty (and the ones she grows have always been the prettiest) but you couldn’t eat them. In church she sat between the two most likely to fight, and handed out half sticks of gum to everyone, scowling if we asked for a whole one, and scowling harder if we fidgeted or talked. There are no dandelions in her yard. Ever. She won’t buy new clothes. And you can’t expect her to be happy when you tell her what to do.
**
Our bodies grown, we fill the kitchen;
seven of twelve, we are the youngest.
The youngest of the youngest
still lanky armed and oily faced.
Idly, one of us spins the ancient lazy susan,
sticky with honey and homemade jam.
We wonder aloud about our parents,
about Grandma, where we’ve left them
at the funeral home.
Someone kicks at the green linoleum.
Josh grabs one of the metal chairs.
“You know what makes me think of this house?”
He pushes the chair forward,
The noise it makes across the faded linoleum
part squeal, part scrape.
But somehow not harsh.
“That’s the sound of Grandma and Grandpa’s house,” he says.
We nod. Because it is.
*
Eleanor sits at the table sorting and resorting the mail, forgetting what she’s already read. Turning to gaze out the window, then turning again to this suddenly new pile of mail on the table. Waiting to be sorted.
Eleanor sits at the table, the seat nearest the sink that has always been hers. The seat across that has always been his is empty. She waits for Jim, maybe Betty, or maybe Anne, to pull into the driveway. They will take her to see Darrel—her husband, their father—in the hospital across town, where monitors beep and he can’t speak through the mask covering his face. But he hears and watches and squeezes her hand as she sits beside him.
Eleanor leans against the sink. Listening to her daughters and daughters-in-law talk. She hmphs and clicks her tongue in time with their stories, then walks to the stove to check the potatoes.
Eleanor stands near the sink supervising the dishes the youngest two are washing.
Eleanor stands at the stove, the youngest balanced on her hip. She glances behind her, where Anne is at the table, her head bent over Connie, helping her with her homework.
Eleanor walks through the back door, looks over the empty kitchen, down at the shiny new green linoleum. This will do. She smiles at Darrell and nods. He slaps her bottom and walks ahead to show her the rest of the house.
A Family of Shoes
by Jenna Kakimoto
July, 2005
Big shoes, medium shoes, little shoes, tiny shoes
Neatly lined by the purple door
Where are your feet?
Size 10 hiking shoes
Good support
Solid, dependable
Exploring the wilderness, exotic jungles
National Geographic locales
Okay, the woods in the back yard
Size 7½ sneakers
Lined with purple of course
Well-worn, treadless
Old friends saved beyond their useful life
Reminders of paths trodden−
Soothing, abundantly green Vermont hills
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Waipahu loops and gentle Waimanalo sands
Leaf-strewn trails through nameless forests−
Now content to roam Huntington country roads
Size 5 light blue shoes
But I love PINK
Hearts and flowers
I LOVE hearts and flowers!
Velcro strap for capable little hands to maneuver
BY MYSELF
Damp on the toes
from running through rain-splashed grass
with abandon and joy
gathering flowers treasured for their singular beauty
weed not yet a concept interrupting tolerant blissful unawareness
Size 3 Pooh work boots
Sturdy
Bits of chaff clinging to Velcro straps,
Grassy memories of cherished adventures
Small and chubby
Just right for toddling
hop-stepping
exploring
giggling
down
your
path
Big shoes, medium shoes, little shoes, tiny shoes
A minute ago, scattered about the porch
A few minutes hence, scrambling in different directions
Momentary order,
a rest,
a respite,
for a family of shoes
and their feet.
PERSONAL SPACE, PERSONAL PEACE
Nourish your spirit,
Replenish your energy
With a gift to yourself-
A writer's retreat
for the parts of you that need tending.
Just when you've had
the limits of stress and pressure
You can drive to Stump Sprouts
and sit atop the mountains.
Shades of purple,
cloud shows and shadows
gliding over the snowy hills
facing east as the sun shines us awake
before the breakfast feasts.
You will gather energy from
the most nutritious, visually appealing, taste-sensational meals,
and,
in-between,
invitations to write in the fireplace room,
safe and warm,
supported by fellow teachers and writers,
each trying to find voice for personal writing.
Walk away the delicious calories or
walk in the snow-glittered hills
to become inspired for another write.
The views outside are spectacular.
The views inside ourselves are intricate, unique, and equally vivid.
When shared together,
our souls were fed with a special energy
that made us leave wanting more,
planning for the next time.
Don't pass up this opportunity to
connect with yourself as a writer
and also as someone who responds
to the words of others with curiosity, appreciation,
and an open heart.
So worth doing!
Yulia's Reindeer
by Ann Averill
A note from Ann: Here's a new story for a children's picture book. I'm looking for pointing in general. I'd like to know if you can easily visualize the story. If there are any details that jump out as out of sync with the style of the story. Thanks gang.
Yulia’s Reindeer
By
Ann Averill
Once upon a time in the swirling snows of Siberia a little girl named Yulia was born to a little old woman and a little old man who’d wished and wished for a child of their own.
Yulia played beside her old mama as she baked the bread.
And she sat beside her old papa on the ice as he fished in the frozen lake.
One spring when the ice melted, Yulia went to the edge of the lake and skipped stones across its smooth surface. As her eyes followed the small waves across the water, she saw a herd of reindeer approach from the other side. They raised their heads to listen and wait, and when they bent their graceful necks to drink, she saw a fawn in the middle of the herd. Its soft brown eyes looked at her from across the water.
She ran home across the tundra and told her papa what she had seen as he split wood beside the cabin.
"It’s that time of year," he said, "when the reindeer have their young. You’ll see many more fawns before the heat of the summer."
Her papa was right. Everyday at dawn she ran to the edge of the lake to watch and wait. The reindeer came out of the thin birch forest on the other side to drink, and every day there seemed to be a new fawn with its speckled coat amongst the herd. Still, there was one that always looked across the lake as if he thirsted more for the sight of Yulia than he did for water.
When the sun seemed never to set and the dawn and the dusk were twins only napping upon the horizon, Yulia ran to the lake as usual and slipped into the water. She swam and swam until her lungs would burst to reach the other shore. There at the edge of the forest was the fawn as if he’d been waiting for her. She extended her hand and he licked it with his soft pink tongue only moments before his mother appeared in the bush and they both scampered off.
Yulia ran panting through the forest, but they seemed to have vanished. Finally she walked home around the small lake and stood dripping wet before her mama.
"Where have you been my child? We were worried you’d been eaten by wolves."
"No, said Yulia. I swam across the lake and tamed a fawn."
"You can’t tame a fawn, Yulia," her papa said. "They grow up to be wild animals with antlers that can kill a man and hooves that run like the wind.
Yulia heard her father’s words, but her heart paid no mind. She knew before the summer’s end, when the lake became ice once again, she would tame the fawn, for he was her only friend.
But winter came to pass once more before this dream came true. All winter long she climbed on top of the oven into her bed where it was warm and drowsy, and before her parents climbed up too, she was dreaming.
Every night he was there, the little fawn, dashing through the snow with her on his back as if they could fly. She clung to his neck and felt the warmth from his soft fur. It was both thrilling and comforting to hold onto the little animal under the twinkling stars.
Every morning as the family awoke she questioned whether her dream wasn’t more real than the small bowl of porridge in front of her.
Spring came slowly, teasingly with wild flowers peeking out from under the snow, a warm breeze one day, a squall the next.
But the sky was getting lighter every day and when the dawn and the dusk were again a thin lavender ribbon tying the day to the night, Yulia went once more to the small lake to look for the fawn. There were other fawns, but not Yulia’s. She tried again to swim across the lake, but the herd lifted their heads, twitched their noses and sprang into flight across the tundra until none were near.
Summers came and went like hope unsatisfied. Winters pressed one upon another like heavy blankets that bring no warmth, but she never saw her fawn again.
Then in the autumn of her seventeenth year when the crisp air began to curl the birch leaves around the cabin, there was a knock upon the door. It came at dusk just as Yulia and mama were finishing the dishes. Slowly papa shuffled from the fireplace where he’d been smoking his pipe and opened the heavy door.
There stood a young man with light brown hair and eyes that quickly swept the room as if looking for something.
"Come in from the cold, my friend," said Papa. "It feels like the first snows are upon us."
"Yes, warm yourself by the fire," said Mama. "We have so few visitors."
"I’m used to the cold," said the stranger," remaining outside the cabin."
"Very well," said the old man. "Why have you come?"
"Sir, I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage."
"How do you know my daughter? Who are your parents? Where are you from?" Papa said pulling the door almost closed behind him.
"My parents live in the woods as you do sir. We are from across the lake where I’ve seen your daughter every summer since I was young. I know she goes there to swim and watch the reindeer."
At these words Yulia peeked from behind the door and met his eyes. It was as if she recognized him from long ago, but surely she was a stranger to all men but her own father.
"Impossible," her Papa growled like a bear. Yulia had never seen her father angry. "Who will take care of us in our old age? We waited so long for this child, surely our hearts will break if we are parted."
"But, Sir, I am lonely too. You have your own wife, and I have none. I know your daughter to be sweet and kind, and I long for her love just as you do."
Mama had tears in her eyes as she looked from her daughter to the young man, but she would not interfere with her husband.
The door was shut, and Yulia watched the stranger walk away into the night.
The next morning was gray and clouded. The first snow covered the ground all around the cabin. Mama woke first and rolled over to wake her husband. Yulia’s covers were empty.
Papa hurried into his heavy coat and hat and followed the footprints that ran towards the lake. There at the edge they vanished. Papa turned in frantic circles looking for the trail, but all he saw were hoof prints. He called her name across the frozen lake, but it only echoed Yulia, Yulia.
Word spread of her strange disappearance. Some said she was drowned, others that she’d frozen or been dragged off by wolves, but none of this consoled Mama or Papa in their loneliness.
When the long winter had thawed, and the leaves on the birch trees were bright green once again, Papa was beside the cabin chopping wood into kindling. At first he thought they were twin fawns because they wore speckled deerskin coats, but as they toddled towards him, he realized they were twin girls with light brown curls and soft brown eyes. He looked for their parents, but there was no one. Only as he gathered the babes into his arms did he notice a rustling in the thicket beyond the cabin. His eyes met the eyes of a doe anxiously watching him. He took a step looking intently into her face. His eyes widened as he whispered, "Yulia?" The reindeer’s tail flashed, and she was gone, flying through the forest beside her mate.
Lucky Shirt—By Sara Barber-Just
Grandma cries as she holds you in her grip.
You’ve decided to leave for Vietnam.
It's 1967. You’re her lean, sandy-haired, blue-eyed middle-child,
cocky, 19 years old, and a C student,
not college-bound like your showoff of an older brother.
She’s heaped all of her hopes on you, not wanting you to turn out like your father —
angry, bitter, drunk, needing to be dragged out of bars by his teenage sons
before he spends his whole paycheck.
Still, she’s used to letting go of the men she loves,
and of praying they’ll survive.
On your last day, she cooks you an elaborate meal of kielbasa, pierogies, galumpkis,
to remind you that you'll always be a Polish boy from New Britain
and that no matter what anyone else says about you,
she’ll always love you.
Some guy who’s done his duty to Vietnam wills you his Army-issued shirt.
He won’t need it anymore and yours looks a little worn out.
It’s a drab green like the rest of them, black numbers stamped on the sleeve,
sturdy, buttoned pockets lining the front.
Who knows when it became your lucky shirt? Other guys have things, too —
photographs, rocks, pantyhose, letters; you hold on to someone else’s shirt,
a comfort in the terrifying nights at the guard post.
There you are, a teenager, stationed on a truck four to five miles around the
perimeter of the base, your only company the seven men in the darkness with you,
a heavy machine gun, radio, set of warning flares, and the holes you’ve
dug to jump into when mortars and rocket-fire hit.
Two hours on patrol, two off; this post is the nastiest part of the job.
But the lucky shirt sticks to your tanned, sweaty flesh
and somehow, miraculously, you live another day.
Growing up you never speak to us about the war, except to joke with us on
the hottest days of the year, “This is a cool day in South Vietnam.”
Your shirt lies folded haphazardly in the trunk in the basement.
I wear it when I have to dress up like Mao Tse Tung for a school project and
need to transform myself from a little girl into a Communist leader.
Otherwise it remains out of sight, tucked away with your rusting dog tags
and a few black and white pictures—
you in front of a helicopter, eyes gazing straight ahead.
As kids, we ask you if you ever killed anyone and you always promise no.
It’s okay if you did. We can forgive you.
The Vietnam Memorial Wall is traveling across the country
and on the spur of the moment you hear of a local gathering of vets,
vets you knew. You rush down to the basement for your lucky shirt,
and comb your thinning hair, stopping in front of the mirror.
You’re not as young or tanned, the mustache is new,
but you can still button the shirt which is more than a lot of guys you’ll see at the
American Legion Post that night can say.
Your family waits at home for you, while you enter the shadowy bar,
you who used to take in a 6-pack in an hour,
and hasn’t had a drink in over 15 years.
When you come home, you’re laughing,
your eyes twinkling and a broad grin spread across your face,
in honor of the family we’ve never met and probably never will.
You must have loved them.
A few years later, your only son and namesake is at war with heroin.
Just like your mother with her prayers, you pray he’ll survive, come home.
You sacrifice everything for him.
You even take to running for an hour each morning on a wounded knee,
restricting your diet so much your stomach starts caving in.
I think you want to suffer and survive — if you can do it, maybe he will too.
But he doesn’t.
It’s not natural for parents to bury their children —
everyone says it, and watching you I know it’s true.
Before his funeral you beg the Catholic church to play
“Desperado” during the service but they refuse to allow secular music.
You’re set on it, blaring it through the house the day before, the words echoing from
room to room.
Desperado, oh, you ain’ t getting’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone.
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
But I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow.
We bury Billy just after the 4th of July, a bright, hot day,
with daylilies bumping into each other for room on the side of the road.
You walk up to his coffin, the red velvet enfolding all of him,
looking for a spark of recognition in his bright blue eyes,
but they are clicked shut,
so you gently slide the lucky shirt beside him.
Later, I ask you if you think
your luck has run out, the shirt having failed you after all these years.
Instead you simply say,
This shirt got me through so much and I thought he just might need it,
to help him, wherever he is.
The Sand Blows Softly—By Angela Rufo-Singer
The sand blows softly.
Carried by a light breeze,
Adhering to every surface,
It coats books, news, skin,
A universal sheet, a film—
To cover, to abraid, to cleanse—
Whittling away the layers.
How can I judge its effect?
A mortal dusting off its grains,
Smoothing the surface,
Discarding granules—
Dismissing its hold—
So much sugar icing.
What meaning is there
In its tenacious glazing,
Its ubiquitous wrap?
Kiss of the earth mother,
A reminder of power and mortality,
Rocks ground fine.
Reflections on Writing a Book
By Mary Cowhey
The idea for writing Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades came mostly from teaching. I’ve always been a storyteller, and I love to tell stories about my students and their work. There’s a bit of difference between liking to tell stories and actually publishing a book, so I guess I’ll have to fill in a few blanks. When I was a graduate student at UMass/Amherst in Sonia Nieto’s classes on multicultural education and curriculum development, I started writing down classroom stories in reflection papers and journal entries. She suggested I should start writing for publication, but between graduate school, teaching, and taking care of my family, it didn’t happen right away.
Sonia asked me to write an essay for her book What Keeps Teachers Going? I was really supposed to be working on something else one day, when I got Sonia’s email about it. I had just put my young daughter down for a nap. My husband and son were out at the library, so it was quiet. I didn’t know how to write something and then attach a document, so I wrote the whole essay as an email reply… not very sophisticated, but it got written and sent. I guess writing that piece helped to shape my approach to writing, finding the discipline to just sit down and write.
I wrote a couple of other pieces, one for Sonia’s next book, Why We Teach and another for Teaching With Fire. Meantime, Sonia kept asking me when I was going to write my book. I finally said I had no idea how to begin. She sent me a sample prospectus. I took a year’s worth of the weekly family letters I had written to my students’ families, wrote some essays on themes that emerged from the letters, and put together a prospectus. I sent it out and got two interested replies. One recommended extensive revisions and another was a request from an editor my proposal had been forwarded to, asking for a different proposal. About that time, I realized I had no real time to write, so I took a gamble. I know my district doesn’t give sabbaticals to teachers to write. It struck me as ironic that student teachers and practicing teachers in graduate school are mostly reading books written by academics who get paid sabbaticals every few years to write but spend little time in classrooms with children, but there seemed to be a dearth of writing by actual teachers of children. I thought no wonder teachers hardly write; we’re too busy teaching children all the time!
I am always telling my students how important it is to have a dream, how you have to work hard and make sacrifices, even take risks, in order to make your dreams a reality. Clearly, no one was going to give me a semester-long sabbatical to write my book. I decided to give myself a sabbatical. I requested a two-week unpaid leave and recruited a parent (a biology professor) to substitute for me. That really got me focused. Since it was unpaid leave, it was clearly not a vacation; it was an investment. Some teachers asked me if I got distracted by washing the dishes or cleaning closets. Well, I never clean closets (they just stay awful) and I’ve developed the skill of being able to turn my back on a sink of dirty dishes without a second thought. I taught myself to sit down and write from 9 to 3, with breaks for tea, cookies and fire tending at 10:30 and 1:30 and lunch at noon.
I wrote a new prospectus and sample chapter and sent it out at the end of the two weeks. When I came back to school, my students were curious about what I’d written, so I shared some excerpts and told them about the process, that I was learning how important the conferencing was and how hard the planning was. The editor who requested it was less than responsive. After a few months, he said he’d need another chapter before sending it out for review. I wrote and sent another. Two more months passed, and he said he’d need another chapter before sending it out for review. I sent another, but was feeling like I was being strung along.
That summer, I participated in Lucille Burt’s Teachers and Writers weeklong workshop through WMWP. It felt liberating and luxurious to just write: poetry, fiction, personal essays. I loved the opportunity to be in a community of other teacher/writers, to share and listen, give and receive feedback.
At the end of that summer, I was visiting one of my students and her parent, a published writer, suggested I break up with the unresponsive editor and send it elsewhere. After getting advice on how to do that, I did, but then got busy with my new school year. Sonia gave me a nudge later that fall. I revised that prospectus and sent it out again in December of 2004 to the editor who had expressed interest in the first proposal and another editor for whom I had reviewed another teacher’s book proposal. I sent it out. Three days later I had a message on my answering machine requesting an electronic version so it could be sent right out for review. I had just gotten a new computer, so it took me a few days to slog through my technical difficulties. Within two weeks that editor had gotten back four positive reviews and a week later she offered me a contract.
I took another two
week unpaid leave and began writing, with the input from the reviewers and the
editor shaping my work. I had kept up with the monthly writing and response
groups at UMass. Some of the pieces I
wrote there became public radio commentary, a Rethinking Schools article on discussing gay marriage with first
and second graders, an essay that became a workshop and later a commencement
address, and chapters for the book.
Writing this book confirmed my passion for teaching and was a wonderful
opportunity for me to reflect on the connectedness of these different threads
of my own learning as a child and adult, my own identity formation in relation
to issues of race, class and family diversity, my experience as a community
labor organizer, as an NGO delegate to the United Nations World Conference
Against Racism and my work with schools in South Africa. I had started with this basic idea of
illustrating and exploring the theory and practice of critical pedagogy with
young children, and then wove in all these other threads. Sometimes as I wrote, I found myself
laughing or crying, and still the stories kept coming. Sometimes I got off track, and wrote whole
chapters that weren’t in my proposal, because one thing would remind me of
another and I’d just start writing about that.
Eventually I had to rein myself in and set those extra pieces aside in a
“next book” file and discipline myself to stick with my original proposal.
I took another two weeks of unpaid leave during the spring of 2005. In the summer, I signed my kids up for day camp and wrote Monday through Friday from 9-5 for several weeks. I finished the manuscript (400+ pages) by the end of the summer and spent what felt like every weekend of the fall and early winter revising, working on the bibliography, selecting art, and proofreading. At each stage, I shared the process with my current and former students, showing them the copyedited manuscript and the galleys, asking some for additional artwork.
After writing this book, I think I agree more than ever with the writing project premise that actually writing improves the way teachers teach writing. I still have lots to learn about teaching writing well, and don’t consider it my strongest area. I think the two most powerful ways my writing has influenced my students is that they see me as a published writer (making them more willing to take risks to put their work out there) and that they see the validity of an adult authentically using all of the steps of the writing process.
My first reading for Black Ants and Buddhists was at Smith College on May 5. We had a crowd of about 200, which included current and former students and families, from four year old little sisters up to former first graders who are now in high school. One of the most gratifying and moving things about the reading was that many of the questions at the end were articulately posed by former students, asking about aspects of the writing process.
Being part of the Western Mass Writing Project, a community of teachers and writers, gave me the confidence and encouragement to keep trying, keep writing, to learn as I go. Even now that this first book is written and published, I have to keep learning about how to publicize and promote a book, how to write a press release or organize a reading. Although it never feels like I have enough time to write, I have developed the habit of mind to constantly stop and say to myself, “I should write this story down.” Then, as I walk to work or wash dishes, I think how to connect that story with theory or current events or life experience. As I teach, I listen to the children and reflect on what they say and do, and connect that back to the story. I weave it all together and sometimes it gets too tangled and overgrown, and then I have to get tough and prune some of it away. Again, that is where it is vital to be part of a community of writers, who are as willing to listen and respond as they are to write.
I’ll close with some input from my husband, “Let them know how much time it takes to write a book.” At one point about seven years ago, my husband and I were both teaching fulltime, going to graduate school, raising one child and expecting another. We realized we were pushing the limits of sanity and resolved that only one of us should attend graduate school at a time. I was further along, so I finished first. When it was his turn to finish graduate school, I promised I wouldn’t disrupt the family schedule or create any additional stress by taking any courses until he was done. “It’s okay, honey,” I said, “I’ll just write.”
By Mark A. Staples
Source:
The Republican (Springfield, MA)
Monday,May 10, 2004
Sometime during my junior chemistry class, my teacher, the aptly
named Mr.
Poison, asked me to come to the front of the class. Being inclined
toward
prankishness, then as now, I wasn't surprised by the summons. I
remember the
look ofplayful malice in his eye as he poured a touch of acetate
in my palm.
He proceeded to conduct a spark test on the acetate, now
thoroughly absorbed
in my skin. One is not inclined toward rational behavior
when one sees one's
hand go up in flames, so I did the most irrational thing
I could do: I
frantically waved my hand in the air, feeding the flames,
toasting my tender
flesh. He soon stayed my hand and quietly ushered me back
to my seat, not a
little nonplussed. The hair on my hand was thoroughly
charred, and the skin
assumed a deep tropical-like burn. I later reported the
event to my parents
at the dinner table. My father's response: "What'd ya do
to provoke the
guy'!'
Needless to say, no litigation was
pursued.
Now as I sit across from parents on parent-teacher conference
night I have a
renewed appreciation for the depth of insight in my father's
seemingly
offhand comment. In spite of the loss of potential millions, I see
a wealth
of wisdom in my parents' laissezfaire attitude toward my education.
It
appeared to me then that the main goal of parent conferences was for
the
parents to find out the truth behind the lies - Mark's not doing
his
homework, he's playing class clown again - and then to institute a series
of
corrective measures, determined at the parent's discretion, of course,
when
they returned home. It was a sinister, unfair alliance; what we call
an
instance ofasymmetrical warfare.
In today's educational environment
we're dealing with a whole 'nother
ballgame. Alliances have shifted. The old
rules of the game? Gone. During
one parent conference I suddenly saw myself
as a member of the team
management being hectored by the pesky agent of an
overpaid, spoiled
athlete. One parent told me rather bluntly that his child
needed A's. "What
are you going to do for him, Mr. Staples'!' Confounded, I
assured him that
his son would get what he deserved...and, perhaps, I'd have
a talk with the
brass, see what I could do.
I don't quite understand
why things went awry, but now many parents see
conferences as a chance to air
their grievances, to speak up for the rights
of their misunderstood children,
children who are fighting against an
educational system that stifles
creativity and fails to take their child's
learning "style" into account (I
must admit to being curiously insensible of
any connection between style and
education).
Parents as agents, lobbyists, working to ensure the success
of their
children - I couldn't have dreamed up a better solution as a high
school
kid. What I'd give to see Mr. Poisson before the jury as my father, in
high
dudgeon, and accompanied by a team ofwell-trained psychiatrists,
'unfolds
the details of my trauma, my blighted prospects for a career in
chemical
engineering (alas, my intended career), my newfound fear of fire.
The shift,
sadly , occurred after my time.
There are several forces at
work here. Parents know what many kids do not:
The market for expensive
college educations is tightening up. The
competition is maddening. Kids need
to distinguish themselves early. Parents
watch their kid's grade point
average as anxious investors watch their
stocks. If there's a dip, they get
on the phone, talk to their broker. I'm
still taken aback when parents say
things like, "I was surprised she got a B
on that paper, I thought it
deserved a least an A-. Could you explain your
reasoning?" My parents were,
as I recall, surprised I was emolled in a
chemistry
class.
Fortunately, the vast majority of my interactions with parents
are
bestcharacterized by mutual concern and trust. My subject here is,
in
Nixon's terms, the vocal minority . Perhaps my mission might be
best
achieved by laying out a few suggested ground rules for parent
involvement.
Parental involvement is the most important for students who
are not
succeeding. If you see lots of A's on the report card, stay home,
save
yourself the trip, take your child out for dinner. Don't worry, we know
you
care. If your child is not prospering, consider what kind and level
of
involvement would best suit the situation. Some kids need the threat
of
weekly progress reports hanging over their heads; some a little
reminder
that you care about their education. Some kids need to be pushed;
some just
kick back, resent the intrusion. The worst thing a parent can do,
in my
mind, is become a full partner in the education of a child: writing
papers,
petitioning for better grades, taking responsibility for homework,
the
works.
Parents must also give teachers the benefit of the doubt.
Teachers, the vast
majority, don't have the time, inclination, or the will to
do your child in.
Many students mistakenly believe that the reason they are
doing so poorly is
because "the teacher doesn't like me." If your child
suffers from a teacher
persecution complex, it makes good sense to contact
the teacher to get a
better understanding of the problem, but parents should
not immediately
assume that the child's perspective is a clear perspective.
Yes, there are
still some Poissons out there, but few are deadly. Think of
yourself not as
your child's prosecuting attorney, but as a fair and balanced
judge. Parents
who undermine teacher authority teach kids that force and
persuasion will
always win the day.
My general emphasis here, as you
may have noted, is to discourage
overactive, or should I say hyperactive,
participation in a child's
education. The burden of responsibility ought to
rest securely on the backs
of the children, not that they need any more
weight with those backpacks
they haul around. Also, I wish to strongly
discourage the kind of parent
involvement that assumes that the child's grade
point average and
self-esteem supercede all considerations, including
fairness and decency and
integrity. In fact, I would like to issue a call for
the return to the code
of deference that reigned between parents and teachers
when I was a child
(such is my luck, I'm always on the wrong side of things).
Lastly, I hope I
don't get burned for speaking my mind.
How to Turn a Straight Guy Gay
By Sara Palmer
(Written during the Summer Institute 2003)
Break up with him. Do it on the phone about four months into your relationship. Do it the day after your best friend tells you that he told her he’d never break up with you, ever. Allow that terrified “don’t box me in” feeling to kick into self-preservation mode. Let it ride. Console yourself with the thought that he will no longer have to endure all that relationship terrorism. He won’t hear your self-piteous whining that he never does or says anything nice for you; as soon as he complies, you mock him unmercifully. Encourage him to talk more and promptly cut him to ribbons with sarcasm. Decry the way he doesn’t own a car to drive you around. Ignore that he’s only 15. Share with everyone you know that he kisses like he’s trying to suck your face out through your lips. Do not spread it around when he kisses you so well in his pool at his summer party that it still ranks on your Top Five list nine years later. Make the final decision to break up with him on the sound basis that you two started going out on April 4 (4/4) and that it has been 4 months and 4 days that you’ve been a couple, and that today, at his house, you won the Game of Life on a tycoon spin of 4, a sure sign from the gods (and your best friend) that the gig’s up. Make it obvious to him that the day will not end well. Refuse to have your lips sucked off one last time. Flounce out the door. Oh, and post break-up, do not squelch rumors propagated without your assistance that he is gay, which is pure social anathema in 1994 suburban Pennsylvania. This is a label he can never escape – when he has a girlfriend, he’s just hiding that he’s gay. No girlfriend? See, he’s gay. Hear how he attended his 5th year High School reunion with his male “roommate” and that he’s a bike messenger. Apologize to God. Ask him to pass it along.