Sunday, August 30, 2009
A gathering of different things tonight. First, the poem:
When I was rooting through my storage unit the day Kate left, looking for A Writer’s Book of Days, I didn’t find it, as it was actually in my apartment on the bookshelf. But it was not wasted time. I found other treasures I’d been missing, like some old journals of mine, some old photos, my “soccer mom” folding chair, an Aussie hat (bought at the San Diego Zoo the time I went with Kate and John when I was presenting at the Pop Culture Conference in April 1999), and a bar to hook my bike to the rack for the car. (Phooey, if I’d realized that, I could have saved myself $30-40 buying a replacement… but I digress.)
One treasure I found was Something Creative at 2000 Vine, the annual literary journal put out by DeLong Middle School in Eau Claire, which has a wonderful English department, with teachers who encouraged the students’ creativity. I’m thinking particularly of Rosie Bejin, who had students do a cafe on Friday afternoons, with a bongo drum and the lights low as they read their creative works. Mike Garrity was also a terrific English teacher, and Lars Long for science, who had the kids do hands-on things, the kids of hunting families brought in deer hearts for the students to explore, and that was the year they did a unit on Mt. Everest, as well.
Anyway, Kate had a poem in Something Creative in 2001, the year she graduated from DeLong, and here it is:
A Forgotten Shoe
A worn out old running shoe
Alone and forgotten.
Holes in the toe
And rubber peeling off.
In its past slick and fast
Pounding the track with speed
Laces flying.
Carrying the runner
Across the asphalt of the track
Now alone and forgotten
Only memories of speed.
_____
Speaking of speed, it’s a theme in Crash by Jerry Spinelli, the first in the set of kids’ and young adult books I’m reading as part of this blog and project.
"Crash" by Jerry Spinelli (1997)
I actually finished it today at Common Roots Cafe, while drinking coffee and eating sourdough French toast with nectarine sauce, just a table away from where Kate and I sat (for four hours, I think!) the Friday before she left for Senegal.
It was so good to get into a book like this again. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the race that takes place near the end of the book, when Crash tells Webb “Lean.” I could imagine how much Kate, being a runner at that age (and still), must have been drawn into that scene. And I was so happy that the mom went back to part-time work so that she could be home more and paint again, and Crash even bought her a set of new paints. I really identified with that part of the story… beautiful!
I’ve always thought I still had to prove myself, to justify my space on this earth, that I haven’t done enough. But I’ve been thinking — and somehow reading this book reinforced the feeling — that being there for your kids is the most important thing. I’ve done plenty good in my life — other than being a mom, too — but, much as I want to achieve some things, my existence is already “paid for,” it has been enough, and whatever else I do is gravy. And that’s a much more solid platform on which to live and joyous a springboard from which to jump to new accomplishments.
It reminds me of something Maya Angelou said when I heard her speak at UW-Eau Claire in the late ’80s. She started her talk by saying something like, “You’ve already been redeemed,” or “ransomed,” “paid for,” something like that. That’s already been done for you, so you can go forward, freely, from that.
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