April 24, 2008
Before I picked up my life and moved it to Colombia, I spent every Thursday night at a little restaurant right outside of Oxford. I’d leave school, headed toward home, and stop at The Sizzler to wait tables and make some extra money for the week. It was just a job at first and a chance to hang out with a family I’d worked for at a summer camp what seemed like ages ago. But that sentiment didn’t last long.
Thursday nights were the slowest of the weekend, but packed full of regulars that weasled their way into my Southern heart. The couple that always sits by the door and likes glass glasses and lots of sweetner. A man and his aging mother, him with his paper and her watching him eat, glad to be out with her son for awhile. Grandparents that drink real Coke with a straw and always order fried oysters and turnip greens. And university professors whose husbands carry chocolate in their shirt pockets.
A retired English teacher was the other Thursday night waitress and she and I would bustle through the place, slinging steaks, pouring tea over clinking ice, and topping off coffee cups. She taught me how to carry four plates at once and two glasses in one hand and how to sweep like a mad woman and use a dust pan with a giraffe stance. We dodged each other effortlessly, sweating, giggling occassionally at ill mannered diners, rarely slowing down before closing time. And then we’d sit across from each other counting our tip money and talking about life a little before we called it a night.
Yesterday, I got two boxes in the mail. Two boxes packed carefully and mailed from that little restaurant just outside of Oxford. Magazines, peanut butter, gum, school supplies, and handwritten letters. I recognized all of the writing easily and smiled at the thought of that rowdy cook scrawling me a note and teared up a bit as I read a letter from Judy who said, “I’m the new Thursday Emily although I haven’t been able to fill your shoes just yet.”
But the letter that I read over and over again was the one in the flowing script of that retired English teacher. The script I’ve seen on countless tickets hanging from an order board. And I couldn’t help but smile a little and picture her sitting across from me talking about all the animals that she feeds, the children that she raised, the husband that she loved.
It is, after all, Thursday.
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April 23, 2008
Yes, I really taught all of these children and yes, they really said all of these things.
From Mississippi 4th graders
“It feels like a fluffy cloud when I hug you.”
Me: “Do you think I could wear your jacket?”
cute boy that’s smarter than he realizes: “Prolly not.”
Me: “Why not?”
cute boy that’s smarter than he realizes: “Your arms are longer.”
“If the world is upside down, does the water fall out?”
“I need some serious counseling for this poetry stuff.”
kid that knows me really well: “Scoot back! She’s claustrophobic.”
another kid: “Does that mean she’s afraid of Santa Clause?”
“Okay, I tried context clues and the dictionary, but I still don’t get it. What exactly are the birds and the bees?”
From Colombian 3rd graders
kid: “Is this the right word?” (written on a test) “Dragon poot the food in his car.”
the beginning of a Halloween story: “One saponet time at night…”
“I like the way you smell.”
“You know one thing? I love you so much.”
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April 21, 2008
My parents have been married for 34 years today. 34 years. I talked to them both about it yesterday for awhile and am still just amazed. That is SO LONG. I told Momma that that was like half of her life and she quickly informed me, “Honey, that it was more than half of my life.” I did the math and, as per usual, she was right.
Now, I have a two date rule. There hasn’t been a man that’s lasted more than two dates with me in a long, long time. I’m picky. I’m panicky. I’m impossible. I always find something that bugs me. That isn’t short enough or tall enough or smart enough or wrong enough or fun enough or good enough at grammar or… well, you get the picture. So, I’m working on it. I really (sort of) am.
Momma’s helped me an awful lot to be less demanding and more open to the possibility of someone that might warrant at least a third date. I usually try and take her word to heart. She is, after all, an expert on the topic. I mean, she’s been married to THE. SAME. MAN. (that snores and leaves his towel on the sink) for 34 YEARS. I asked her once if he didn’t get on her nerves and she said, “Sure he does, but I’d rather it be him getting on my nerves than any one else in the world.”
I thought about that for awhile. I still think about it. And I think about the way that he kisses her in the kitchen (gross, but sweeter as I get older) and picks her up for lunch in the Wonder Bread van. And the way that she washes his underwear and socks (except for the one time when he politely informed her that “he’d been going without drawers for 2 days and could she please wash some”). And the way that he moves the trailer for the one thousandth time while she’s working in her flower beds (until he bought her a Gator because he was tired of moving the trailer). And how he says things about “what a good looking woman” she is when she walks by (except for when that makes me want to vomit). And how she cans his tomatoes and peppers in the summertime. And the way that they go for Sunday rides in the old pickup truck. And the way that I can hear her laughing at him in the yard or with him while they sit in the living room.
And I think that maybe some day (like someday. not today. or any other day close to today, but someday.) I might just be interested in a man to get on my nerves for the next 34 years.
Happy Anniversary, Momma and Daddy.
“Sexiness wears thin after a while, and beauty fades. But to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.”
—JoAnne Woodward
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April 18, 2008
Home for me is a house on a hill in Nowhere, Mississippi. There’s an old Dodge pickup in the driveway that smells like Skoal and sawdust and drives like a dream and pots on the sidewalk with flowers brimming over their sides. My mother is there her hands covered in earth and sweat dripping from her nose. There’s the familiar buzz of a John Deere lawnmower and my daddy wearing a fishing hat sitting in it’s bright yellow seat. A little Jack Russell terrier bounds through the grass, his hind legs barely touching the ground.
Saturday mornings there smell like biscuits and Tuesday nights smell like supper at the barn. There’s a pool in the backyard where my sister learned to swim and a creek in the pasture where my brother almost taught her to drive. There’s a kitchen table heavy laden with Southern tastes and the weight of countless family meetings. There’s a garden teeming with life and twelve acres of childhood memories that time and distance cannot erase. There’s love that has healed bloody knees and arms that have hugged away unworthy boyfriends and undeserved heartbreaks. There are calloused hands that have wiped noses, thrown baseballs, rubbed a runner’s feet and carried bread to cities I could never name.
And there’s a spot on a living room floor worn bare by a girl who grew up and moved away. And today that girl dreams of sliding the length of the hardwood as her Daddy covers up his baby, tucking in her feet, and muttering, “Somebody loves his big girl.”
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April 17, 2008
Posted in colombia Comments Off on Is it wrong to have favorites?
April 16, 2008
I’ve always loved the water. I love the way that chlorine smells and the feeling my skin has when I finally pull myself onto the pool deck. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve gotten to swim, but today a friend and I ventured out to the new pool in a park nearby. Now, you should keep in mind that when we saw “new Olympic size pool” advertised, we were seriously expecting something akin to a wading pool, but for once Colombian advertising came through.
We walked down the hill toward the back of Bosque Popular and there, like an oasis of sorts, was ten lanes of crystal blue, chlorine filled heaven. We both changed quickly desperate to beat the ever impending rain and dove right in. The water was chilly at first, not unpleasantly so, but chilly and so much better than the bath water this guy, this girl, and I use to swim in at the good ole Turner Center. Now that I think about it, sweet Brent‘s still swimming there which is not funny at all. It really isn’t, Brent. I promise.
Moving on.
I was surprised at how easily it all came back. Stroke after stroke I pulled myself through the water, leaving the day’s messy desks and cluttered cubbies in my wake. Hands slicing through the water, my feet propelling me, the breathing easy and rhythmic. And somewhere between the first lap and 1,000 meters or so I realized that I wasn’t thinking at all. Just swimming. Length after length, weightless and free for awhile.
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April 14, 2008
I spent the weekend at a teacher’s conference in Cali. It was good fun and I learned lots, met lots of people, and saw some really fast salsa dancing. I also played basketball with a crowd of teachers from Colegio Bolivar on Friday afternoon. They play harder than we play here and there were fewer people, so I was sucking wind like the old woman that I am. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is this. Mississippi skeeters ain’t got nothin’ on Cali critters.
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April 10, 2008
A friend asked me a couple of days ago:
Is work just work there? Or do you wake up everyday and think “dang, i’m going to work today in Colombia!” I’ve always thought it would be so neat to live/work in an exotic place but wondered if it gets mundane, too.
I read over it and laughed initally because this friend of mine has an itch to just get up and go and a life that hasn’t let him yet. And then I took a second to think about it. The answer was a pretty easy one. Sure, somedays work in Colombia is just work, but most days I see something entirely different.
I see the fog rising, hiding from the sun, and the peaks of the Los Nevaros shimmering with fresh snow in the distance. I walk out of my classroom door and see flowers and birds in colors that I’d only dreamed of before. I hear the children chattering in Spanish and the thump, thump, thump of a jump rope in the corridor. I watch as these little Colombian children hang on to my stories of Mississippi and the United States — a place they’ve only seen in movies — and how they keep the wrappers of Rice Krispie treats like they’re treasures just because they were mailed from there. I stand totally stunned as my students dance with each other unashamedly and hold hands with their siblings and friends as though it’s the most natural thing in all of the world. I melt at afternoon goodbyes that come with, “I’ll miss you til tomorrow”s and mornings that start with traditional Colombian kisses. I hear the sounds of bongos, the rhythms of salsa, the beginning hums of a brand new day and I know that work here is anything but mundane.
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April 8, 2008
So, all because I blog and I read blogs, I got a free CD! I love Jesus. I love music. I love free.
I’d like to thank the Academy because everyone thanks the Academy, Matt because it’s his CD and I love the title and the music, and Boomama cause she keeps me in the know about all things fashion, free, and well, hip.
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April 8, 2008
Families are dysfunctional. Sure, there are degrees of dysfunction and I get that, but my family, well, we’re sort of functionally dysfunctional. And I couldn’t be happier that my family is my family. No, I can’t pick favorites, but the highlight today is my sister. Sisser, that is.
She wrote a paper for school a couple of weeks ago about how the world is headed toward gray. A sort of complacent state with a falling sense of standards and how she’d rather be a bright red dot than join the gray masses. She talked about our parents and my brother and how they’ve shaped her thinking and her life and she said this about me:
“My sister has helped mold me into a kind and loving Christian. She’s taught me how to see Christ in the most inopportune times, how to find Him in every sunrise and sunset and every moment in between. From my sister, I have learned that kindness is a choice and that it requires very little effort. “
I hate to discredit her or belittle her writing, but at the very least, I must interject in order to add a bit more truth. See, my little sister, Sisser, she’s the toughest person I’ve ever met with the sweetest heart. She cries at television shows (that for the sake of her reputation will remain nameless) and she pours all of herself into her friends and one thousand kids in the summertime at Camp Lake Stephens. She packs her bags and moves across an ocean to a big city all by herself and she’s not afraid to go to an afternoon movie on her own.
She has an unwavering, albeit secret, hope in fairy tale endings, but not an ounce of her is willing to settle. She’s got a radical taste in music, devours books, and is the best road trip buddy on the planet. She’s not afraid to stand up for what she believes and doesn’t back down from people that are older or more established than she is if she’s fighting for what is right. She leads by example and loves with all that she is. She’s fiercely loyal to friends, plays cards for hours with our grandmother, and plans more trips than we could ever possibly take in a lifetime. She’s brutally honest even when it’s inconvenient and as moved to action by her emotion as anyone could hope a 21 year old would be. She loves summertime and Oreo blasts and swimming and words and music and me. She’s my Sisser and my best friend. Now, how dysfunctionally functional is that?
Check Brody out for more positivity.
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