Ch-ch-changes Invite to Write prompt #2

Live the Life you Love

By Dana LaLonde

I am in the midst of changing my life in ways I'd only dreamed of. I have had a dream version of myself my whole life. I imagine many of us do.

I've always wanted to be a citizen of the world, stranger to none, lover of my fellow man. I have always wanted to go somewhere unfamiliar and call it home. I've always wanted to immerse myself in a life full of communal joy. I have visions of a house in the woods, jazz streaming through the yard, friends new and old passing through, celebrating the sweet joys that only creating community can bring.

I want to make the world my home and strangers my family.

I want to live in a tiny house in the Andes.

I want to take away all the comforts I cling to see what I really need.

I want to live in harmony with nature and an ancient culture.

I want to create a sustainable life on a small farm, minimizing my ecological footprint.

I need this. I need to be someone I am proud of.

In the end, we live the life we must.

We make the choices we can live with.

My whole life I've devoted to creating a normal, American suburban life. I did. I am a soccer mom, a teacher in my hometown, the proud mom of an American soldier. The problem is, I'm not normal; I'm a writer.

I've realized recently that my need to create new worlds on paper stems from my need to create a new world for myself. My life didn't suit me.

Thanks to various changes this year, another woman has moved seamlessly into my old life, giving me the opportunity to create a new one. I am thankful for this chance, for the opportunity to be unabashedly myself.

I have the opportunity to be the woman I admire. I have the opportunity to show my sons another way of being. I have the opportunity to create myself, on my terms, in my way. I have the opportunity to chase my dreams, giving my decade of former students an object lesson of living.

I can't wait to see who I become.

Dear Maya

I too know why the caged bird sings.

She sings for peace,
For freedom.
In anger
At being caged in the first place.
In pain from beating her
Wings against the bars
That hold her in, she sings
In defiance of
The indignities she's suffered.

She sings, enraged.
She sings because the truth
Flies from her mouth, unbidden.

She cries,
Seeking solace, seeking refuge.
Desperate to retain that final
Shred of dignity.
She sings
For her homeland,
Out of pride
For who she would have been, uncaged.

She sings
In longing, lamenting that the cage
Exists at all.
She mourns
Her own soul,
Knowing the cage is her own
Design, fashioned to keep
The world out, soldered by
Fear of freedom. Imprisoned
By her younger self.

Maya, I know this wasn't your
Answer, but it's your fault.

Thank you.

Silent All These Years

I am a rape victim.

It took me 23 years to be able to say this sentence.

To be able to call myself victim.  To be able to call how I lost my virginity.  To recognize that my abuser took more than my innocence, stole more than my girlhood.  He continues to brutalize me.  I continue to blame myself.  I could kill him with my bare hands for what he did to my sons' mother.  My boys deserved to be raised by a woman who felt whole.  They deserved a mom who didn't see a killer in every shadow, threat behind every smile.

I have to forgive him.  Not yet.  I just left denial.  I need to feel rage for a little bit.  I need to feel anger towards someone other than myself.  I need to cleanse myself in my ire, to learn to protect myself, to save myself, to value myself, to love myself.

I've been hurting for 23 years and I thought I deserved it.

I can take a couple weeks of sheer rage, knowing that I didn't.

Fifty Shades of Grey movie review

On the way home from seeing Fifty Shades for GNO, or more specifically, mom's night out, we started asking ourselves, why?
Why do we like this story? And not just us, why do so many women feel drawn to Ana and Christian's love story? Why, like Twilight before it, are forty-ish women flocking to this story like a siren call? Could it be that we are sex-starved and desperate? Nope. Not our group. Sex-crazed perverts? Closer, but no. That doesn't feel right either. Uninformed about violence against women and unwittingly glorifying abusive relationships, as Twitter will undoubtedly claim?
No. That's not it. I follow Femen and support Pussy Riot's cause. I am notorious for posting what my friend's husband calls "bra burning" messages on Facebook. While I am not raising a  daughter, the rest of my friends are. And they do so conscientiously.
So what made us leave our families to trek to the theater en masse to see a bondage flick?
That's the million dollar question.
The answer is, I'm not sure there is an answer. Not just one, anyway. Maybe there are fifty reasons why.
One reason is curiosity. Some women, and some men, might be curious about the lifestyle, or nontraditional sexual relationships in general. Maybe, like Ana, we are curious as to why someone would choose to be a Dominant, or a Submissive.
Maybe. Or maybe it's not so much about the unfamiliar. Maybe it's about how rampant violence against women is. And that women aged between twenty and twenty-four years old are at the greatest risk of becoming victims. Maybe it has to do with our knowledge that romantic relationships are a dangerous place for women. That domestic violence is the most common cause of injury to women between the ages of eighteen and forty-four.
The CDC reports that twenty percent of women will be victims of sexual violence by a lover, and thirty-six percent report being a victims of sexual assault, rape, or stalking. This means all of us know someone who has been victimized.
Recently, there has been an influx of female leads in dystopic fiction. It is becoming commonplace to see a woman running for her life through the woods onscreen,  not as the victim of a killer, but as a victim of society. This seems relevant here. While on one hand we are taking our children to see women take on the world, we are taking ourselves to see a young woman be willingly brutalized. For love, no less. Talk about your mixed messages. We would have to be blind to not see the issues many groups are taking with this film.
That said, I don't think this film is speaking to the domestic violence that is undeniable, but more the gray areas. The sixty-four percent of women, not the victims of attack, but subject to horror stories and media images, leaving them wondering just how safe they are.
Our fascination with Mr. Grey is that he gives us things life doesn't. Like safe words. We have no such thing in real life.  Ana intentionally ires Christian. This is not the behavior of a woman in fear. She stands her ground and says how she feels.  She has no fear that he will hurt her out of anger.
How many of us can say the same, unequivocally? Without reservation? Knowing the statistics?
We watch Ana get tied up and struck, yet she is in no real danger. She can leave anytime.
This is not to say they have a healthy relationship; he follows her on vacation.  While our current selves are thinking, red flag, our younger selves are remembering the times we sacrificed pieces of our privacy, our dreams, our independence, for love. Our age has made us wiser, more cautious, but we remember too clearly the overwhelming need to please our lover, to do whatever he asks, to be whatever he wants, and that feeling is fifty shades of f***ed up, as Christian says.
In How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster claims that anything in literature can be about sex except sex; sex is always about power. Mr. Grey is asking permission to have power in their relationship, but he is at her mercy. Too many women feel powerless in their relationships. While many abused women stay in their relationship at their peril to help their love through his or her illness, Ana leaves when she feels her happiness is compromised. Despite her love and compassion for Grey, she feels no obligation to him.
This movie is pure fantasy. We wish we could surrender control and still feel perfectly safe.

Tell Him About It

I received a phone call recently.  A friend.  "Can you come get me?"
"Sure. Where are you?"
"Home. I don't feel comfortable."
We had just been out with her and her husband.  They are going through a rough spot, which happens, and had just been dancing together, looking happy together, which also happens.  I have no doubt that he would never hurt or, or of his love for her.  Nevertheless, I picked her up right away.

The next morning, my husband, too tired the night before to realize what happened when we got home, asked about it.  I told him: They started arguing in the car, and when they got home, she felt afraid and called me to pick her up down the road.  I said, "You don't understand what it's like to be a foot smaller than someone who is inebriated and yelling in a booming voice.  Even when you are sure you're safe with someone, it's scary."
He got quiet, and asked in a small, scared voice, "Have I ever made you feel like that?"
"Of course.  Dozens of times."
"But you know I'd never hurt you."
"I know.  But in that moment...it's scary."
That was the end of the conversation. He was quietly more affectionate and gentle than usual that day.  Pensive, seeking forgiveness for something he didn't even know that he'd done.

She and I can't be alone. Couples argue.  We fight.  We choose hard words in the dead of night, after a few drinks.  It happens.  But so does this fear.  Even when we feel safe in a relationship.  Even in a happy marriage.

My Siblings

I miss them terribly.  Most of them are dead, or dying in a nursing home.  They are not my blood relatives, and I am not speaking now of those people who called my parents mom and dad. I miss them too, and love seeing them when I can, but they are not the people with whom I shared my childhood.  They weren't my playmates; they were too "old", too "mature". No,  I am speaking of those people I always referred to as "the residents".  Although when it comes down to it, they are my brothers and sisters.

The "residents" were the adults who lived in the group home which was also my childhood home.  My mother owned such homes from before I was born until she died. I spent my first fourteen years living in an adult congregate living facility.  The residents were adults who could not quite live on their own and who required more care than their families could provide.  Many had aging parents, some were aging parents.

  I came home from school and talked about my day with Jane, who sometimes forgot she wasn't a warden any longer in a women's prison and who, once, mistaking me for an inmate out of area, struck me with her cane. She taught me how elusive both memory and truth are, which has given me patience and understanding.

 I played checkers (both types) with Leroy, whose developmental disabilities left him mentally closer to my age of 8, which I thought was a great excuse to demand the right to smoke cigars like him, after all, we were the same age! I awed at how gracefully he took being beaten at a board game by a child.  Day in and day out.  He never wanted me to take it easy on him, so I was ruthless.  He just laughed and had just as much fun as I had, which taught me how it's the journey that matters.  He taught me all the important ways of being smart.

Bobby swung by as I was doing my homework in our living space each night just to say hi.  Just to share a smile.  Bobby sustained severe head trauma after a motorcycle accident at the age of 18.  I learned so much from him.  Not moving too fast to share a smile or say hi being chief among them.

My baby sitter was Judy.  She loved my mom.  They all did.  And mom loved them right back, but Judy was special.  She suffered from both manic depression and schizophrenia.  Most days she was great, indulgent to me (which I loved, of course), really interested in what I had to say, fiercely loyal to my mother, a hard -worker (she cleaned and did odd jobs for extra cash).  A couple times a year, though, she'd go for a drive with my mom.  Oh, I'd scream and pout that I couldn't go.  They left after dinner or near bedtime and I always hated missing an adventure.  It was years before I discovered the cause of those trips.  Mom was driving her to an institution a couple hours away.  Of course I never knew this because they were usually back by morning.  Mom almost always talked her down.  She was good at talking people down. What struck me the most about Judy, and what drives so much of my heart, was more her backstory, so to speak. 

Like Bobby, her life changed at 18.  For her though, it was emotional change rather than physical.  Judy had been prom queen, beautiful, smart, really going places.  That is, until her sweetheart left her at the altar.  She spiraled downward and latent alcoholism reared its ugly head.  By the time I knew her, she looked nothing like the girl with long flowing blond hair in the faded photograph she showed me. 

Her blond hair severe, cut bluntly, died bright beige, almost yellow, with dark roots.  Her fingers stained from cigars, nails bitten to the quick. She taught me how fleeting youth and beauty are.  I blame her for not letting me relate to the 'it' girls in school.  Their concerns didn't mean anything to me.  I found them trite and boring. 

What's the point of caring about looks or popularity when we are all just one bad break-up, one tragic ride away from living a life unrecognizable to Bobby and Judy in their youth.  Bobby and Judy taught me the trick of time; how quickly reality changes; how severely our lives can change; how easy it is to not recognize yourself in the mirror.

Then there was Jeannie.  Like Leroy, closer to my eight than her forty-eight, but she was all girl.  We sat in her room for hours making collages.  Just cutting out pictures we liked.  Jeannie taught me this truth; life is one great big art project, and we are the end result.

I could go on.  There were twenty two such teachers, friends, confidants, gurus, in my childhood home.  There was the woman who never left the house without her pearls and frequently had tea with the queen.  Although, she snuck out in broad daylight on foot, in nothing but those pearls (and sometimes sneakers) quite regularly.  She taught me how persistent the mind is, how much it overrides the body, how we all live in our minds, exactly where we want to be.

 There was Ron, who suffered severe epilepsy and had a whole host of other conditions.  He'd stop by for a hi too.  He didn't drool as much as Bobby, whose mouth had all the control of a Walking Dead walker, but he had a roving eye (just one) and a nervous tic.  Those guys taught me how to look past people's actions and just see who they are.

When I think about who really knew the child I was, who fostered her, who taught her right from wrong and just damn near everything I know about life, I just can't keep them to myself.  If I have a compassionate, understanding, kind, tolerant bone in my body, it is due to them.

I've been to some great trainings for teaching students with special needs, and specifically, for creating more inclusion in the school.  Most people think it would benefit the students with special needs to spend more time with the rest of the students.  I am lucky enough to know it's the other way around.

I find it ironic that the best parts of me, the parts of my worldview that others respect, have been gained by people so frequently marginalized in society, in schools.  So much money and time is spent in trying to encapsulate the kind of emotional education that I received.  So much credence is now given to those "soft skills" and researching how to best help our children acquire them.

Zora Neale Hurston said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer."  In so many ways I feel like I had the answers long before I knew the questions.  I feel lucky to be in a place where I see them both so clearly, and sometimes I wonder if my students know who is really teaching them.

Life in an IB School

I feel very blessed today.  I am feeling physically ill and am scheduled for a much needed dental procedure in the morning, but I feel fine otherwise.  Life, for me, is good.  Mostly because of what I get to do all day.

Currently, I am watching the rain while 11 and 12-year-olds are running Yoga Club for me.  They are walking each other through our poses to the sounds of relaxing music.  One of my Drama students just asked to play a quick round of Improv.  I teach at an IB school.

Today, my 6th graders read two poems as master texts and wrote poems in the same styles for the poetry books they are creating.  They took books from my bookcases and searched for two minutes for literary techniques and wrote the examples on the board as a mini-review.  Then they taught me the poem I assigned for reading over Spring Break. I teach at an IB school.

My Drama students planned the filming schedule for their independent film projects demonstrating their perspective of aesthetics, got to know everyone in the class a bit better by finding a compare/contrast detail for each student, and in small groups categorized words that exemplify characteristics of ideal learners, presenting their results to the class and providing their rationale.  I teach at an IB school.

Every day I watch these young people become more tolerant, self-assured, resourceful, and gracious.
Every day I leave work feeling satisfied and relaxed, almost as though I hadn't been working at all.

Yet I have.  I have to satisfy not only district and state requirements, but those of myself and the IB world school community. I am sitting at my desk right now as a volunteer. My work is never done, and I am constantly adding more things to my to-do list.  Nonetheless, I am lucky enough to do what I feel like I was born to do: create a more peaceful world through literature. I teach at an IB school. Yep, life is pretty darn good.