3 Cigarettes in an Ashtray

Patsy Cline’s, Three cigarettes in an ashtray, is playing on my way home from The Hill. I laughed out loud to myself as this song began to play, thinking of how sobby and gritty her songs are and how sad and excitedly she sings them. I am back in St.Louis, it is a new-old town for me. I raced other joggers today in Forest Park, amazed that the trail was cleared in our snowy winter. Later getting a pint, or two, with a dear childhood friend, I felt the peace that always sweeps over me driving into the heart of a city with the cityscape reminding us that we are home, safe. The brick city houses, full of windows, with steep, short front yards are like my family, they have been there since my beginning and promise to offer comfort and protection as I, like the city, grow and change.
Yet no longer are we kids. We act like grown-ups, knowing when we should go home and looking forward to a fresh, productive morning. Many friends are moving out of my memory dream of my life as a St.Louisan, with kids, mortgages, bedtimes, yet this city comforts me, even as I drive Frida, my trusty, funky, metal companion, down a quiet Clayton Rd, knowing how to get anywhere by heading North, South, East, West.
I am in my nest, a big, beautiful brick home behind Tilles Park, welcomed by the people who knew me when I learned how to navigate ice-covered turnpikes and realized just how important it is to stay in touch. I hear Saturday Night Live is on in the living room downstairs, I am home.

Can I ask you a question?

I lost my earring at the end of this night. They wanted us to leave so quickly, after I just pulled up a seat. His name is John and I was growing enamored. My friend was his teacher, but I sassed him asking why he made a face. That was the start of it all. He told me people always acknowledge him from above like they know him. It was true, it happened all night. Sitting there with him, he was a celebrity, Mr. Popular. Though I learned his name was John from all the people calling out to him as they passed, I don’t think he ever knew my name, really. The teasing kept us taught, intrigued, engaged, alive. I followed him to the bar outside for another round. He reassured me as I tried to decipher the path of least resistance to the bar and waited for a clearing. There, leaning over, finally feeling in his space. When we sat back down, I ventured to the next level, “Can I ask you a question?”, “Yes, I dove into a pool my senior year of high school and hit the bottom.” I wanted to find out so much more, to delve into this source of strength, to absorb wisdom and grace. I asked him how tall he was, 6’1 in real life he told me. When my friends told me it was time to go, I kissed his cheek, knowing I was in the presence of someone great. When I asked him what he was going to do, now he had finished with college, he replied, keep being awesome.
A few blocks down the street, I turned back to find my missing earring. When I returned through the back door, he had it in his lap. I leaned down and kissed him and he told me he thought it was destiny, safe in his presence, owning his life and immeasurable in his effect.

Marbles under the lamp light

 

 

 

 

In times of apprehension, sometimes we wonder who is there watching out for us. It is our greatest fear to be left alone, left without our community, our love rejected. It is during these times that the kids fill my soul. Anticipating a dark and muddy walk home to my apartment, that night, I was met by my angels. They would laugh if you told them they were my knights under the shining street lamp. When the kids are there, the night is friendly and safe. Thank you to my Sandy Bay Marble Knights.

Koby & Mauri

Forgotten Sweethearts

He is straight out of the teaching textbook. He looks around the room, always, until I ask him by name to look at me while I address the class. We read a book together in the mornings before school starts. He is willing to listen and fumble with the words that are so new to him. Born on Roatán Island, he is fluent in spoken English, but struggles to read and write in his native tongue. I love this kid. He is rock solid character. At times he looks so defeated sitting there in his classroom, surrounded by much younger and far more literate classmates. When he is serious he looks sad, this must be why he is the clown. He speaks with a deep, froglike voice, already becoming a man.

Exasperated, he tries hard to read the context clues. Although every other word is frightfully foreign and demanding, he garners much success. He gets right to work, calling me over, asking me how to spell this or that. He is writing about his mom in a 3-paragraph, basic composition assignment for his 4th grade English class. Leo’s mastery of wit or conversation and charm do him little good as he attempts to write his paragraphs. Some say he is dyslexic. Or his mind has been forgotten by the society that gave birth to him. He is at a loss to define any sort of details about his mom’s childhood beyond the city where she was born. He says that, although he lives with her, he knows little about her life. It is difficult to know if the communication breakdown is between Leo and his mom or his thoughts and his written word.

Like Leo, Tania often finds herself bound by her life circumstances, making obscure any vision of potential intellectual triumphs. In class, she becomes a stone with eyelashes wet as I, yet another in a long list of disappointed adults, insist that she can do a massive amount of advanced math problems, an impossibility. She doesn’t even know how to protest this colossal assignment, so she bows her face and goes somewhere in her mind to find enough pride in herself to sit there, still.

They have so many lessons to teach us, the charming, witty sweethearts forgotten in a system that draws the line every day of their lives. School, for kids left behind, is some form of cruel punishment. It is here that they are exposed. These kids who show up day after day, they are soldiers. They risk mockery and shame, confusion and blame.

The world does not tenderly consider the gap in which these students must trounce. They grow, they are willing. They tire and test. There is a resting place for these warriors. There is no need to fail. We are there, we are here. The opportunities abound, if we help them to see. Easy for me to say, the examples of academic and social challenge and triumph were countless in my youth. Each way I turned, there was success. There might have been failures, but with those came character growth. We laud our forgotten sweethearts, lacking the societal safety nets many take for granted, as they scale the tightrope of learning.

A Note to the Third World Goddess

She is a fiery, sharp-witted pirate.
She got here be way of the Do Gooder Train.
With belly full of Punta Gorda's mashed plantain, her mind wanders west.
She hunkered down and now after the years of life here, there are no surprises.
She has lent her compassion and realistic humor to our communities as we work towards solutions.
She has earned the respect of an island. She does what she says as we all watch through the slats in the unpainted, picket fences.
With friends in many places, hers is the world.

Prayers of peace for all those born into lives with burdens too great to be anything less than ethereal creatures.

Prayers of peace for all those born into lives with burdens too great to be anything less than ethereal creatures.