Battle of the Sexes at Starbucks

            There are new tribes. Some of the men of Philly over colognate and grunt new deals, “I’ll tell ya, one ting about dis business here.” It is not the vernacular of the  New Jerseyans, or the New Yorkers.

            Three of them sit outside the Starbucks discussing:

            “You know adopted girls all stay the same age.”

            “But you always dated young girls.”

            “Yeah, 21. I love 21.”

            “But they don’t know what they want.”

            “That’s the great part, you shape’em,” he lights a Parliament and continues, “You teach ‘em. They show you that they are learning, and then they start wanting things of their own, and that’s when I’m like : I’m out!  Time to move on. By the time they reach 25 they are too old.”

            “Yeah you always like’em young.”

            “Yeah, I’m 36, getting old. 25 is too old though, marriage is always in the back of their minds even the ones that say it’s not. It’s there.”

            “Alright, where we going?”

            “My parents house, just about two blocks away from the Buck hotel.”

            “Oh, yeah.”

            “Yeah, my Mom will be cookin’ something.”

           

Stand Tall: Don’t Ask Others to Be small

            This is my neighbor and friend. When I first met him, I called him “Fella.”

            Early in the morning or for a post-dinner stroll, I  would saunter down to his corral, ripping up the lighter, fresher grass on the outside of the fence for him, relishing in his nibbling lips and velvet nose in my palm.

            As nights continued, I started to pet his shoulder and admire his trembling muscles, noting their strength, stunned by his grandeur, inching closer and closer to him, pressing carefully around the barbed wire fence.  One day he rested his head, just for a moment on top of mine. The sheer magnificence of an animal’s allowance spiraled down my spine. After the grandness of his gesture, I excitedly turned towards him, and he sheepishly or stoically turned away.

            As days progressed, I would recount my events or my quandaries to him. When my sister was in labor, it was to Fella I ran to seek solace and ask for peace. Sometimes he would turn his head, so I could reach his ears. Sometimes he would just stare into my eyes, silencing my doubts. I fed him carrots, or kale -  even fennel for his breath – but mostly carrots. He was so pleased with his carrots, and I with him that one meeting I kissed the white paint-stroke between his eyes. We were both a little shocked, but neither receded.

            I have ridden horses, maybe  a dozen times in my life. I have no training in being with them, what to do what not to do. Once when Fella’s lips moved a little too forcefully, I quickly pulled my hands away. He brought his nose even closer, right to my hand, mimicking the same movement, but with the lightness of a feather. I  was humbled and touched and learning.

            The more enamored I became, the less I feared his strength. On a particularly sunny afternoon I strolled with carrots in hand to an empty corral. My eyes searched the horizon and I noticed a horse, tethered in a tall grassy field across the street.  I walked cautiously and called, “Hey handsome,” and he turned. It was Fella.

            Picking up my pace, I made my way over; he too turned and began strutting towards me. We were a few feet apart in a field; me free, he with yards and yards of thin rope, ending upon a metal stake. Fear snapped and flooded my system. He, all muscles and hooves, was free: the rope a facade of safety. My heart pounded. If I turned, he had enough room to catch me; if I made an insulting move, he had room to strike me. The illusion of equality that the protection of the corral had afforded me was gone – and I was scared. And ashamed.

            Fella, sensing, stopped and lowered his head to the ground.

             I could hear my breath and feel his soft exhale. Me, the free, intelligent one, standing still. He tethered, willing to relinquish what little freedom he had, head bowed.

            “I’m so sorry,” slipped out. My not as steady hand, held out a carrot, as he slowly lifted his head, meeting my eyes, nibbling.

            “I think, I think,” I offered, my breathing ever so slowly returning to normal. My focus – a heart exhale. “I think I should call you Prince.”

            Prince shifted his weight, accepting a second carrot. I could still feel my heart pound, but I intended a request to him to accept my fear, to know that I respected him, to show me how.

            How often do we endeavor into our own adventures, so proud of our accomplishments that we do not realize the humble hands that lift us? The arms of mothers, the shoulders of fathers, the hands of teachers, the silence of beloveds, the bones of animals, allowing us to stand strong while they bow.

            I moved closer to Prince when he finished his carrots, stroking his long, long neck, massaging around his scapula, scratching his ear, and patting his cheek. He wrapped his neck around my midriff, ear pressing into the small of my back, and I was full - stunned to be loved so regally.

"We come nearest to great when when we are great in humility." 

Rabindranath Tagore            

Feed your soul: feed your seahorse.

  I listened to Kathryn Schulz's talk about the gifts that emerge from being wrong.

     She notes interestingly that  the feeling of being wrong and the feeling of being right feel the same. It’s not until we know that we are wrong that the feeling of wrongness overtakes us.  And it’s this fear of being wrong that freezes us into doing nothing, or sends us to blaming someone else, or lashing out sideways because we have been duped into a corner and hurt. 

     We’ve been taught that being wrong is wrong. We aren’t taught that being wrong teaches us something. That we will be wrong, and we will be right, and that is the nature of life.

     I had a poster of a dog swimming in my old classroom, with Picasso’s quote:

     I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

     Or:  I allow myself to be wrong, so I can learn.

     I thought it was a good mantra for a classroom. Of course, they say we teach what we need to learn. Ahem. Ok, I suck at being wrong.

Can I get a stapler?

The next time you walk to your office supply closet and grab three extra packs of post-it notes, and a color coded pack of paper clips, please remember your lesser siblings in academia.

            Tired of schlepping my stapler from home, passively resisting buying another, forlorn for the days of corporate office supplies, and frustrated by even putting this much thought into locating a flippin’ stapler on a community college campus, I walk into the English Education Office.

            “Hi Sue^*, is this a good time?” Sue looks at me, disgruntled that I have interrupted her perpetual conversation with the other administrative coordinator.

            “Of course Kate,” she mocks. “What do you need?”

            “Well, if it isn’t too much, I was wondering if I could get a stapler –“
            “Don’t you have one? Didn’t I already give you one?”

            “Ah, no actually," I retreat. "I just stopped schlepping my one from home, and I thought if there was an extra –"
            “Well, I normally only provide for the full time staff.”

            Sue: One. Kate: Zero.

            “Oh yes,” my part-time self, who teaches just as potent classes, grovels, “but I was wondering if there was any chance that there was an extra stapler around.”

            “Normally I give the lecturers one stapler and they leave it on the desk and share,” Sue assesses my contracted gold standard.

            “Oh I see,” I bite my words and slip them through my teeth, “but I am not in this building. I am in the other building and the kids have been having difficulty. There’s no stapler in the classroom, or in the library -"
            “I don’t furnish the library. Are you going to leave the stapler there? I don’t think I have any.”

            “Oh no, no,” I  plea to the officiator of office supplies and quickly redirect my supplicant ways, “ I just wondered if there was an extra one; I have bought all the other supplies I use, and I thought if there were one laying around, you know John,” the history adjunct that she adores because he is a full fledged government employ who graces the campus, “doesn’t have a stapler either and we share an office. So he needs one, too.”
            Sue’s hand, not on the locked supply cabinet, turns.

             “I mean, we would share one.”

            “Oh, for the two of you to share in the office?”

            “Yes.”

            “Well, I’ll look but I doubt I have, oh, well: Here. I have one,” Sue reaches the stapler out to me but clearly has not decided to let it go.

            “I will carry it with me to and from class.”

            “You should mark it. With the Language Department,” she demonstrates where for my half employed intelligence.

            “Oh, I will. Good idea.”

            “Here’s the box.”

            “Thank you.

            “You should keep it.”
            “Would you like me to return it in the box?”
            “Yes.”

            I walk back to my office, not bothering to turn on the lights as one is almost out, and it courts apoplectic headaches. Sitting at my desk, I wonder if there will ever be a time when education is revered, even if only by the world of academia, or will this fight for hierarchy continue through common areas and course schedules, through rumor mills and re-structured salary scales?  But, it’s ten minutes to class: it doesn’t matter. Teachers never do it for the money, but we do appreciate the staplers.

*Of course, that is not Sue’s real name.

Menehune Market 9

Menehune Market 9

10-19-11

I saw them standing in a row

On the go

From work to home,

each carrying a twelve pack and some exhaustion

Waiting to uncork their evening

and dull the morning of the next day

Like magic

Of their forefathers

Creating a miracle out of another’s taking