writing

Cover Me Up

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

It is Sunday night, and I haven’t thought about you all weekend. You have been sitting in ungraded piles on the tables by the door of my classroom. You have been unread and unmarked emails that I have chosen to ignore. Because I am raising three kids. And I am raising thousands of kids. And I have to have a balance between the two.

Because Saturday was running from store to store to party to party to house to house to out to dinner to home/friends/love/hate.

Because Sunday was more running (to the Lego store) to appease my middle child who always feels a bit left out. And another party, and another set of meals to make.

Because I need to breathe for a moment and think about what is most important. Is it my administrator telling me she’s tracking our usage of tablets that don’t work half the time so she can send the data to the district? Is it the kids in my first period who have been pushed into lockers and called faggot/whore/freak/thot [that ho over there]/cunt and causing me to stop the entire lesson to beg me to listen?

Or is it my girls, who beg me to teach them cross-stitch and ask me to stay at the advisory party and want me to skate with them and want me to wake them up at 6:15 so that I can make pumpkin spice bagels and vanilla chai tea and spend a moment before work with them?

You tell me. Tell me how to decide. Tell me how I am supposed to carry the weight of a thousand students inside the hazel eyes of the three girls I gave birth to.

Because thirteen years in, I am still not sure.

Because it’s Sunday night, and I am sitting in my dream house, that, thirteen years in, I can afford. Because the candles are burning and the music is playing and my girls have gone to bed. Because I’ve had a few glasses of wine and I have thank-you cards to write and grocery lists to make and weekend plans to destroy and a thousand kids, including my own, to raise.

Because there is never enough time.

And that is why I write. Why I love them. Why I hate how much they take from me. Why I live for how much they GIVE me.

And why I will not live by administrative threats. By school district doomsdays. Why I choose to live by these small requests that pile up around me like leaves falling in autumn. “Do something, Miss.” “Listen to us.” “Take me to the mall even if you hate it.” “Stay at my party, please?!” “I need you to cover me up.”

Because we all need that soft touch. That quilt of love wrapped around all that is evil in the world. That mother’s love. For all the thousands of kids who have it, who will never have it, who long to have it.

That is why.

Neither Here Nor There

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rain-forced overtime
 and a club cancellation
 poured on my evening
 
 frazzled two incomes
 shuffle life like laundry loads:
 nothing’s ever clean
 
 quick pasta in pan
 (middle one waits for boil)
 i mad-dash the town
 
 make my appointment
 where my essay’s dissected
 by native speaker
 
 who can’t tell me why
 subjunctive is needed here
 yet, not here (nor there)
 
 disgruntled, i sit
 choose the last row, and listen–
 same two birds chirping
 
 pecking the rest out
 our Spanish words now swallowed
 by extroversion
 
 and i can’t do it
 i cannot sit in this class
 with my girls at home
 
 i can’t speak Spanish
 or use subjunctive bullshit
 —just say what it is—
 
 it’s like our lunch talk:
 Midwest culture won’t allow
 taking last cookie
 
 and if you offer,
 offer three times before, ‘Yes’
 (no cookie for me)
 
 so i leave the class
 i walk out, i give up, lose
 (win time with my girls
 
 who ask for reading
 aloud, in poems stories,
 mine and theirs and ours)
 
 and we read Spain poems
 remember Gaudí’s madness
 in place of our own
 
 and that’s my Thursday
 just like any other: lost,
 but not forgotten

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

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at graduation
 she begins, paper ready,
 take a pic with me–
 
 you’ve helped me the most
 and you’re my favorite teacher
 what i needed now
 
 for all failed attempts
 at being the dream teacher
 now, she’s my starfish
 
 (that favored fable
 old man, beach, saving starfish
 one throw at a time)
 
 and i am observed
 and my kids type their life tales
 (no internet woes)
 
 and i find the book
 with audiobook to match
 (my reluctant reader)
 
 i read two chapters
 she proudly tells me later,
 Spanish class now done
 
 and just like i guessed
 there is always tomorrow
 to shine its bright light

Hoods

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Because I’m supposed to be watching a Spanish crap TV show right now and reading a Spanish book. Because I have a moment. The first one in ten weeks. Where I can sit back and breathe… And suck it all in. And think about all I haven’t done, all I have ever wanted to do. Because life is supposed to be perfect now that I live in this castle.

Never mind the kid who mumbled, “I hate this class.”

The daughter who dropped the garage door to the netherworld, the never-to-be-opened-again purgatory we’re all trapped in.

The Internet that wouldn’t work for half the day, ruining my entire team’s lessons and setting our high expectations for student success back three weeks… because that’s the next time the computers are free.

The youngest, in fourth grade, who has to do a full-on science fair project, a poetry anthology with twenty poems completely analyzed, illustrated, and with a Works Cited MLA-formatted bibliography … AND read 57 pages in a novel a week, do twenty math problems a night, and fight with her tiny face in the mirror at the top of her alley-product “desk” about what she can accomplish at the ripe old age of nine.

That kid in my class who comes every day and won’t even lift a pencil. Who won’t respond to questions. Who won’t look me in the eye. Who won’t, who won’t, who won’t.

And the part of me that will never understand why he and she and they don’t have it built into their capillaries this work, work, work ethic.

Because I’ve failed. I’m failing. I’m failing at this. This teacherhood. This motherhood. This homeownership-hood. This hood that masks our lives, that covers up who we really are as we place ourselves into tiny boxes that will never quite close.

And it’s only Wednesday.

And I want to go to bed tonight thinking about M, the boy in my class who sat head down for half the lesson, and wouldn’t write down a single question. Yet I called on him anyway, and he glared at me, and snapped back, “Why me? You know I don’t have any questions.” And D, the Afghani-trek-across-Iraq-to-Turkey-survivor, shouting across, “Come on, M, you can do it,” and the smile I forced on my face as I said, “But I know you CAN make good questions” and all twenty-seven of them waited, and he asked, “What would the world be like without guns?” and I thanked him and moved onto the next kid and by the end of class, he came up to me proudly, all ten questions filled in, even answers, to show me he could do it… Which I already knew he could.

And I want to go to bed tonight thinking about their goofy faces. Spoons over eyes waiting to lap up Bonnie Brae Ice Cream at this new restaurant in my new ‘hood… because BBIC follows me everywhere, and because they are kids. Kids who slam down garage doors and fail math tests and forget to bring home books and play with dolls and fight each other over who gets to see the mirror in the restaurant bathroom and race each other to the car and put spoons over their eyes like aliens. Kids who live, fully live, their childhood.

   
 And this ‘hood is my ‘hood, my home, my home.

And I want to go to bed tonight thinking about El Amante Turco, and all the hours I’ve spent listening to Esmeralda Santiago’s soothing Puerto Rican accent, and all the words I’ve learned and bilingualism I’ve infused, morning noon and night, even if it isn’t what my Spanish teacher told me to listen to.

And I want to go to bed tonight underneath a hood big enough to cover my broken-down, brand-spankin-new, seventeen-year-wait king size bed. One that will cover me up, block out the light, and remind me of the dawn that will break through tomorrow.

Because there’s always tomorrow.

Denver ReCycled

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through cycling
 in and out of neighborhoods
 brick by brick, i fell
 
 love lost, and then won
 bungalow to bungalow
 my city wooed me
 
 the wheels spun me back
 (sold my heart to Cheesman Park)
 from bad-boy breakups
 
 all along back streets
 Park Hill, Cole, Cory Merrill
 like love at first spin
 
 bikes are trendy now
 (they’ll dress like freaks to prove it)
 but my bike love lives
 
 in this uphill ride
 with mountain sunset backdrop
 my girls guiding me
 
 i see them falling–
 street by street, scraped knees and all–
 in love with my love
 
 

Stolen

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she mentioned poem theft
 when i went to Toronto
 and i laughed and laughed
 
 would someone steal poems
 so specific to my life
 day after day… kids??
 
 would they steal this pic
 formulated by daughters’
 view of this bright world?
 
 would they steal these plates
 drying when hot water broke
 no plumber can come?
 
 would they steal our ride
 our dip in the river, creek?
 and claim it’s their poem?
 
 would they fix plumbing?
 be my man–wire phone lines?
 they couldn’t be me
 
 my poems, words, are mine
 trapped here for worldwide view
 no one would steal them
 
 

Because Riona Would.

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All three of my children were born in the evening. If you are a mother, you can acknowledge the significance of this. They were twenty-one months apart, so when I had my third, my oldest was just three and a half.

The first two spent their first night in and out of my arms, crying because of a reaction to the pain medication I’d taken during labor or because she was THAT starving.

But Riona?

I barely heard a sound from her… for EVER.

She lay next to me in the bed for all of that first night. She murmured a little, nursed a little, and settled back into sleep, happy to be near me.

And so it began. The ending of my motherhood with the child who came into the world as peaceful as a lamb.

And that is why I am crying now. Because you didn’t take a moment to see her. To listen to her soft calls, to her murmurs in the night. Because you thought an eight-almost-nine-year-old’s protests meant nothing.

What you. DON’T UNDERSTAND. Is that SHE never protests. She gives in. She listens to her older sisters’ whims and plays along, whether she really wants to or not. She fits into the jealous eye of her eldest sister, who often teases her because “no one can ever be as nice as Riona.” She is just like her father, same birth sign and all: born with a pure heart, giving, generous, willing to sacrifice all for the love of those around her.

Riona is the one who, back in March, cried herself to sleep because I told her we couldn’t afford camp this year. Riona is the reason I have sacrificed four weeks of my summer for summer school and home visits and Spanish class, all in the futile hope that I could pay for that one week of camp for all three girls.

So. NO. I do NOT want to hear that you “lost” her paperwork, sent in the SAME envelope as my other two daughters. I don’t want to come back from 50 hours of class in 5 days to hear that my youngest daughter was told she was leaving on Tuesday, was not allowed to participate in any camp activities because of this even though she ADAMANTLY TOLD YOU SHE WAS LEAVING ON FRIDAY AND YOU NEVER CALLED US TO CHECK, was told her camp store account was EMPTY WHEN SHE HAD $16 DOLLARS LEFT AND COULD HAVE BOUGH CHAPSTICK FOR HER DRIED LIPS, or that she was just… some other eight-year-old.

Because she’s not. If you could see her, really see her, for the gentle soul that she is, you would understand why I can’t stop crying. You would understand why I have given up half of my summer for my daughters to have the experience that you have now stripped from her. You would understand that a protest from a small voice should be THE LOUDEST PROTEST YOU HAVE EVER HEARD.

But you are not a mother. You are eighteen years old and have yet to learn the reality of this kind of pain.

And that is why I forgive you. Because Riona would.

Guidebook for Twelve Years Old

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I am the working mother, and he is home with them right now. This is why I receive a call from him–not from the school–after the incident has already occurred. First rule of being married to the person who knows me better than anyone on this planet: my phone does NOT ring while I’m at work unless there is an actual emergency. And that is why, as I stand surrounded by fifty students from seventy countries (whose names I spent 36 minutes taping to the backs of seats in preparation for the flag rehearsal), I walk out of the high school auditorium to take his call. That is why, three minutes later, I am picking up my backpack and running out the door, running against the violent spring wind uphill for 1.4 miles to meet my younger two daughters, to intercept their questions before they meet their oldest sister.

All the time I make the dash, I am thinking about what he said. A simple text to a girl whose name neither of us has heard. A quote found online that she was just telling me about yesterday: “Life doesn’t have a Control Z button.” (Our conversation continued with–Me: “What does Control Z do?” Her: “You know, UNDO.” Me: “That’s true!” Smile. Nod. Think of regrets, mistakes, times I wish I could have done something over. Perhaps she thought the same. “Cute quote.”)

And that girl’s email to their advisor: “I think Isabella is having suicidal thoughts.” And her advisor’s email to the interim school dean. And that dean calling her down to the office. And Isabella, first time in her entire school career being called to the office, becoming completely distraught. “Do you want to harm yourself? What is your home life like? How are things with your parents? Do you have friends at school?” And I don’t know what else. All I know is Bruce’s words related to me, of receiving three phone calls while he was in the shower and not understanding the dean’s heavy accent and walking into the school to see our twelve-year-old daughter crying in his office when he arrived, one hour before the school day was over.

And my two young babies, still in elementary: “Why can’t we stay and play, and why are you here instead of Daddy?” “Well, Daddy is home with Isabella.” And the momentary lapse of understanding, followed by questions. “Why is she home? Why isn’t she at school? What happened?” And the lie, one of eleven lies all adults make per week according to Riona’s read-aloud proclamation from her Weird but True book yesterday, “She wasn’t feeling well.” “Well what’s wrong? Her stomach or her head?” (Oh, Mythili). “Her head.” “Oh, I remember this one time when I had a headache and Ms. _____ wouldn’t let me go to the nurse and….” That is my life.

And I need a guidebook for Twelve Years Old. Man I thought fifth grade was hell. No friends, fresh from Spain, a little behind in all her schoolwork, and seeing nothing but pain flash across her face. But tell me, please don’t fucking tell me, that I have carried this child across the world and back with this ever-loving family wrapping its heart around her every tear, her every obnoxious teasing of younger sisters, for her to think at twelve years old that she wants to UNDO HER LIFE.

These are the things I don’t say to Mythili. The constancy of doubts that inundate a mother’s entire existence. The waves, weight of those doubts. Of the Spanish none of us really learned. Of the pieces we had to put back together, a world of debt and a house lost and a new career and a new everything, all sitting in that damn twenty-pound backpack her militaristic school makes her carry every day.

When I arrive home with the babies in tow, I go straight to her, already in pajamas at 3:52, fully engulfed in her fantasy novel. Just like my sister, her namesake. Trying to escape … something. Me? Him? School? The analysis could kill me. (Allow me this small irony). I sit beside her on the couch. “Hey sweetie… you OK?” Mythili pokes at her hair. “Looks like your headache’s gone” and Isabella flashes me the “I-know-Santa-doesn’t-exist” look. And she gets it, and I get it, she’s so my mini-me.

I text her father before I go to Spanish class (already mentioned–didn’t actually LEARN SPANISH while in Spain). “Were the phrases ‘Suicidal thoughts’ or any other such phrases used in her presence today?”

He doesn’t respond. I heat up pasta and wish for another night for this event. “We’ll talk later.”

He fills me in after they’re in bed. “I pulled over when … We talked about it. She knew what it was and started crying all over again, saying she’d been afraid of death her whole life and couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that…”

And he showed me the texts. The girl, the “friend,” didn’t even know at first who it was who was texting her. As soon as Isabella sent the text, the girl asked her if she wanted to kill herself. Isabella’s response: “What? I just thought it was funny.”

Is it me? Us? Our society? My children have lived nothing less than a sheltered life. Barely a PG-13 movie in their entire existence. Is it my daughter who should be pulled from class, made to think these thoughts, or the girl who had the idea in the first place? Why would she so rapidly jump to the conclusion that a silly little Internet quote meant suicidal thoughts? Why must the dean be informed, the school day cut short? Why bring this on all of us in this house, this home, this safety net we have wrapped around the twelve years of her precious life?

These are the questions I cannot answer without my Guidebook for Twelve Years Old. My working-mother-love-them-to-death-father-who-asks-the-true-questions lack of a guidebook. These are the questions I ask you: Does it ever get any easier? If so… when? (Please don’t say deathbed).

Testing, Testing…

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

four hours of tests
 in this windowless hell fest
 Spanish comes to mind
 
 lunch union meeting
 complaints about white privilege
 first world problems
 
 (i want to tell them
 comparison is joy’s thief
 but they won’t listen)
 
 afternoon calls home
 to parents of failing kids
 Spanish practice dos
 
 then video view
 lesson to evaluate
 slim chance at progress
 
 audio walk home
 on a windswept cloudy March
 words too fast to grasp
 
 (Alice wonders why–
 in Carroll’s Spanish version
 –so many choices)
 
 then daughters’ chess meet
 and oldest’s plea for pi day
 (dough pulled from freezer)
 
 kitchen now stolen
 by eggs, bowls and pastry cream
 we drive to Wahoo’s
 
 kids eat free tonight
 run wild while hipsters drink

 (we rush home to bake)



 
 tripod ends my night
 (yoga the only answer
 to this chaos)
 
 and now i’m writing
 resolution of ideas
 not broken by tests

Wildlife

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renewal of youth
 snow melts a fresh round of spring

 riding carousels



 
 why wouldn’t you want
 to see their sunny faces

 romping through the zoo?



 
 i don’t understand
 ask peace from yoga nightcap
 after goodnight hugs
 
 i won’t stop writing
 or being the mom i am
 my words hang, waiting
 
 you’ll analyze them
 and wish that things were different
 when they’re just the same
 
 perfection scares me
 i’d rather be secondhand
 not worry for stains
 
 for we are all marked
 by the pieces that make us whole
 glued together here
 
 in this photo, see?
 her eyes are my eyes, your eyes

 wild through and through