Put A Candle in the Window

"Long as I Can See the Light," Creedence Clearwater Revival 

  

As the memorable William Parrish in Meet Joe Black, Anthony Hopkins, gazing out at the illustrious scene of his birthday party, says to his daughter: "What a glorious night. Every face I see is a memory. It may not be a perfectly perfect memory. Sometimes we had our ups and downs. But we're all together, and you're mine for a night. And I'm going to break precedence and tell you my one candle wish: that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say, 'I don't want anything more.' 65 years...don't they go by in a blink?" It's poignant and endearing and impossible to watch through clear, dry eyes. Two nights ago, we celebrated my great-uncle's 89th birthday, and I was reminded of this scene as I sat next to him. 

"It feels like yesterday," said my Uncle Jim, "that I was turning 69. And I remember thinking, 'I hope I make it ten more years; I'd really like to see the turn of the century.' And now here I am, a decade after that, and I'm still blowing out my birthday candles. The time just flies by..."

On the heels of Uncle Jim's birthday celebration, however, I joined members of my community to celebrate the years of a life taken too soon. Last night, I attended a memorial service for a student of mine who was killed in a hit and run last week. It was heartbreaking. I watched former and current students wipe their eyes and bow their heads in remembrance, cautiously placing their hats in their laps and tripping over their Vans, which were caught in the awkward length of their hardly-worn black pants. I watched photos of Steven's short life flash across the screen; an 8-year-old with a missing tooth and a baseball bat, a 12-year old with a goofy grin and a face full of birthday cake. I watched his mother hug an almost-endless line of people expressing their condolences. Memories. Hurt. Love. It was devastating. As beautiful as it was to watch the students of Carlsbad come together in reminiscence of their peer and friend, it was equally disheartening to accept the death of an 18-year-old. It was one of life's most dramatic reminders that, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, a tomorrow is never guaranteed. And in the wake of my uncle's 89th birthday and my student's extinguished life, it's easy to appreciate life's little things today. Bailey waking up this morning, tangled in the blankets, stretching with half-closed eyes. The e-mail from a former student informing me she was accepted to New Mexico State. Grilled chicken in the fridge and 2 new episodes of Always Sunny saved in the DVR. The harder part, however, is remembering to appreciate life's little things always. To not get too angry at the impatient driver who cut me off on the 5. To dust off today's mistakes and move on, with a clear head, to tomorrow. Because to do so is to plan for a life where, one day, I can look around and confidently say, "I don't want anything more."

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!

-"The Charge of the Light Brigade," Alfred Lord Tennyson


Steven Anthony Kelley
1992-2010
Rest in Peace

A Place Where it's Always Safe and Warm

"Shelter from the Storm," Bob Dylan

Like all professions I'm sure, some weeks of teaching are easier than others. Some weeks I leave school relatively early, with only a few class sets of assignments looming on my desk or in my storage cabinets; next week's tests copied and the IEP kid's itemized grade print-out ready to go for Monday's meeting. Some Most Fridays, I leave school with piles of essays spilling out of my hands, 3 dirty coffee mugs bursting out of my book bag, and ink/food/Expo marker stains across my shirt. Lately, however, I feel like I've been leaving with a heavier heart. This is a common occurrence, I think, around this time of year. Kids feel more comfortable in class-- as do I, I'm sure-- and therefore feel more confident, inclined, and relieved to talk. To discuss their personal frustrations, familial ailments, lives. For the most part, it's great. I love learning about my students, knowing their interests, families, friends, sports. Some teachers I know create an invisible wall around themselves, never allowing students to understand or appreciate their personal lives. At the same time, these teachers silently ask students to keep their own personal, emotional, and social conquests and demons swept under the rug, away from the classroom and curriculum. While of course I understand the importance of maintaining classroom respect and ensuring students recognize authority, I also think allowing students to see into a window of your own life, as a teacher, makes you that much more accessible, genuine, and human.

I love almost every single part of my job. I know I've written so before, and perhaps that statement sounds a little trite and unnecessary. But it's true: I get to teach some of my favorite books in the world to teenagers, many of whom actually give a damn about the literature. As for the ones that don't-- sometimes they're the best challenge of all. I get to talk with my team-teacher, excitedly, about the color symbolism in Gatsby-- "Did you notice the Buchanons' house went from red and white to rosy to crimson! Fitzgerald's a genius!" I get to watch my sophomores tackle East of Eden, a 600-page monstrosity full of Biblical allusions and the ultimate struggle of fate vs. free will and good vs. evil, and enjoy it. Discuss it. Argue (effectively!) about it. READ AHEAD.

However, I never had any idea how much I would take home with me, emotionally, as a teacher. As rewarding as this profession is, over the last two weeks I have found myself worried about certain students, wondering about home lives, and questioning kids' decisions. Questioning parents' decisions. Questioning my own decisions. Should I have used a different tone with her? Did I refuse to listen and send him outside too fast? Was it really his fault? Should I have taken her phone away? Forced him to go to try-outs? Called her mom back sooner? Given him more credit? Given her less? Warned his parents? Watched my mouth?

And I get overwhelmed. And frustrated. And I wonder if the "difference" I'm making is counteracted by the mistakes I make. And then, it's easy to forget they analyzed every color reference throughout all of The Great Gatsby today, understanding why Jordan's eyes are grey while Eckleburg's are blue but his spectacles are yellow. It's easy to forget her telling me it's the first book she's ever really read, and enjoyed, and did Zusak write any others? It's easy to forget him coming to my class for the entire period, and taking grammar notes because he "misses it" and "needs to know the fourth sentence type," even though he was transferred to a home education program two weeks ago. Because it's easier to dwell on the errors and the faults and the oversights. It's easier to remember I let a bad word slip--two!-- today, and I should have let that parent know about his behavior weeks ago.

I let school consume me too easily. I know that. I'm trying to get better about over-analyzing and worrying, but it's hard when the "product" happens to be measured in human lives, and there isn't a scripted response for "My dad told me he can't love me like my brothers because I look too much like my mom" or "Do you and your husband have an extra room because my mom kicked me out?" So I'm doing my best to enjoy the hundreds of successes and smiles and achievements and stories that result from A Day in the Life of a High School Teacher. I'm taking deep breaths and crossing my fingers for all of my kids; the veritable array of shining, glazed, or detached faces that grace my classroom every week. And I'm remembering, with a full heart, the boys awaiting me at home:

Because I have to find the happy medium where I can care about my students and address their needs while at school, but fully embrace these two lovely, wonderful, happy souls who add immeasurably to the quality of my life. Because while my kids are absolutely one of my biggest priorities, my family has to come first:

Remember to Breathe

Dashboard Confessional

Tired.

Sore. 

Impatient.

Exhausted.

Underpaid.

Restless.

Temperamental.

Busy.

Late.

Stressed.

Detached.

Bristly.

Apologetic.

Agitated.

Human.

Well sometimes this life is like being afloat
On a raging sea in a little row boat
Just trying not to be washed overboard
But if you take your chances and you ride your luck
And you never, never, never, never, never give up
Well those waves will see you safely to a friendly shore

-"Charmed Life," Divine Comedy 

And the Embers Never Fade

"Tonight, Tonight," The Smashing Pumpkins

I wasn't cool in high school. At all. I was the semi-nerdy swimmer who floundered through AP Bio and wore Birkenstock-ish shoes on an almost-daily basis. Sometimes I chalk this up to moving after 8th grade to Granite Bay and then returning to Santa Barbara before junior year of high school, but really I was just socially awkward and unsure of who I was. Granted, I know the notion of "knowing your identity" escapes all high school kids, but some people (clearly, not me) are/were better at hiding it than others. Sometimes I see myself in the faces and phrases of my current students-- lost, uncomfortable, perpetually embarrassed-- and I cringe knowingly. I've been there. It sucks. It'll get better.

However, while I may have tiptoed through the shadows of high school relatively uninvolved and silent, my small group of close friends provided a safe-haven of laughter, unity, and the collective despise of taking the tarps off the pool for early morning swim practice. Last weekend, three of my best friends from high school congregated in Carlsbad for a reunion. For the last few years, these three women have been honing their professional, respectable, and exceptional interests and skills in expensive universities and impressive careers. It had probably been ten years since the four of us spent time as an assembled unit, yet we fell into our old habits, jokes, and intricacies as though mere weeks had passed. We spent hours filling each other in about our lives, reminiscing about our high school adventures, and remembering the unique bond of our teenage days.

By definition, we're adults now. Moving forward in the professional world, approaching thirty, and paying our own car insurance. Filing our taxes and remembering to get an oil change. Defrosting the chicken and buying slacks. But really, the sixteen-year-old within each of us is just underneath that outer shell, surfacing to do cartwheels on the beach or double over in laughter remembering an inappropriate instance with a particular SBSC teammate. You know, circa 1998. And it's funny, because while our content and lethargic behavior may have been cheese-platter-and-wine-induced last weekend, it's eerily redolent of our Gatorade-and-trail-mix post-swim practice couch-lounges a decade ago...

"Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend."

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Night Will Weave its Magic Spell

"Bella Notte," Lady and the Tramp Soundtrack

We saw Avatar on Saturday. In 3-D IMAX. Impressed to say the least, we left the theater talking about Sam Worthington's atrophied legs, the revolution of film over the past few decades, and James Cameron's inability to subtly imply our society isn't protecting the Earth and its resources. Oh, and the fact Joel Moore, who played Norm in Cameron's motioncapture-CGI-fest, is JP from Grandma's Boy. Once home, we watched Liz Lemon try to get out of jury duty by impersonating Princess Leia AT LEAST ten times, and then talked about our Valentine's Day plans.

"So...a nice dinner, right? La Jolla?"
"That's the plan."
"Or...we could just go to Disneyland."
"OKAY!"

And so we did. Go to Disneyland. All day yesterday. We left our house around 8:30, after filling the car with coffee, extra layers of clothing, and the perfect Disney road mix. It took us less than an hour to exit at Disney Way and park in the Pumbaa section. We went to Tomorrowland first because, well, it's the least fun of all the lands. Actually, before yesterday, I kind of hated it, since my links of association with Disney's idea of "the future" (via my 12-year-old self) go like this: Tomorrowland = Space Mountain = Nausea = "Let's sit on this bench and 'take it easy' for the next half hour" = "Paul can get a churro but Chelsea should probably just have water because if she barfs then we'll have to go home." Yesterday, however, we skipped Space Mountain entirely and instead embarked on Autopia, a ride I had never been on.

"Do you want to ride together?" Tim asked politely. "You can steer."
"Hell no. I want to race," I said, clutching my Disney-administered driver's license and getting in line.

It turns out, I am just as bad of a driver in a fake car as I am in a real one. With or without hands.

We spent the rest of the day weaving in and out of strollers, eating double-scoops of ice cream, joking and taking silly pictures in line, playing What Potential Quasi-Celebrity Is That? (Tim won with "Don Henley's dad"...so spot-on it was scary), flaunting our FastPasses to less-fortunate park-goers, and wondering why so many adults own so much Disney clothing and memorabilia.

 

Tim wishing the Finding Nemo ride included an actual SCUBA segment...

The Matterhorn was closed. This was REALLY upsetting to me, because I had secretly been hoping to see how those onion rings tasted on the way back up.

 

"Eddie would probably have gone," said Tim, when I voiced a little fear about Thunder Mountain

Because we were having so much fun (and perhaps also maybe because we had stuffed ourselves full of amusement-park junk food throughout the day), we hardly wanted to take time out for dinner. 

"There's that clam chowder in a bread bowl you like over by Pirates," mused Tim, glancing around unconvincingly at our rather meager options.
"What about a turkey leg on a stick? They're at all the food carts," I grinned, envisioning us sitting on the curb in front of Tom Sawyer's Island and the Pirate's Lair, chewing on scrappy bird bones like vultures.
"Or! There's a Denny's right outside the entrance," Tim glanced away, perhaps embarrassed by the suggestion.
"That's it! Perfect!" I said, starting towards the front of the park without hesitation. "Let's hurry. The fireworks are at 9:25, and I think we can get in both Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain before then."
"But...it's Valentine's Day..." 
"I know! And we're at Disneyland! And Denny's is fast and cheap and good! Plus, it's our fake restaurant, right?" 
"True," Tim said, cringing a little. Funnily, poignantly, (sadly?), Tim and I have all kinds of fond memories from various Denny's establishments all over California-- (okay, New Mexico, too). "Alright, let's do it," he said. "This one'll go down in the books."

We hurried out of the entrance, pausing only to have our hands slapped with the fluorescent stamp which would later deem us re-entry, and half-walked/half-ran to our romantic destination. The woman at the front desk (podium? kiosk?) greeted us with a hearty (and also, inaccurate?) "Good morning!" while simultaneously sweeping the discarded bits of trash and dignity off the floor. Before we were even seated, I noticed the Valentine's Special taped to one of the restaurant's bulletin boards:

"Well, we don't have a choice. We have to do that," I told Tim.
"Oh man. Really?"
"Absolutely. It's Valentine's Day, after all. We need to have champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. From Denny's."
Tim's pained expression was enough of a response. "You're right," he said. "We totally do."

Our Valentine's dinner, it turns out, wasn't a fancy meal in La Jolla. We didn't eat oyster shooters or Bouillabaisse or spicy prawns garnished with cilantro. We didn't have cloth napkins or Pelligrino or waiters bringing us quality wine lists-- (our waiter, instead, said, "Uh...happy Valentine's Day?" in an articulation best described as equal parts pity and shame). But it was fantastic. We were silly and happy and ridiculous. We laughed and quoted movie lines and whispered about other patrons. Our food was filling and fast, and we were out of there with plenty of time to spare for our next FastPass bracket.

 

 Drink up me 'earties, yo ho!

We stayed at Disneyland until 11 PM. We climbed Tarzan's tree house and took the Jungle Cruise at night, able to mouth some of the tour guide's bad jokes verbatim. We fought each other in the Toy Story Astroblaster (I lost dismally), and the fireworks started when we reached the top of Thunder Mountain. The park was twinkling with lights, people were screaming gleefully aboard the rocky coaster, and in the distance, the upbeat notes of Disney's "Wishes" were audible above all else. It was easily the best Valentine's Day I've ever had.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

The Music Ignites the Night

"Rent," RENT Soundtrack

"What are you doing this Saturday?" said my dad over the phone last Wednesday, rain pattering dully outside.
My internal movie projector silently propelled itself into the future, where I envisioned myself wrapped in old grey sweats and a Snuggie on the couch, drinking a glass of cheap chardonnay, and (unsuccessfully) trying to convince Tim why he might actually really like this Lifetime movie.
"Uh...nothing. No plans."
"Good. Great. Wanna come to Sacramento?"
"What?"
"Sacramento."
"What for?"
"It's a surprise. I'll get you a plane ticket. You can leave Saturday morning, and I'll fly you back down on Sunday morning."
"Um, okay!"

So I flew to Sacramento last Saturday. After a quick hour spent pursuing the latest Us magazine and listening to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix on repeat, I arrived in our state's capital. Jen had driven in from San Francisco and picked me up at the airport, and we were off to my dad's Woodland house. Once there, my dad wanted to give us the "grand tour." While small, the house is perfect for him (especially considering he spends so little time there). It's a three-bedroom cottage, although only one of the rooms is actually set-up for sleeping. You know, in a bed. The first bedroom was completely bare save for a plush armchair and footrest, perhaps from the Hoover administration.
"This is the sitting room," said my dad with a smile.
We continued on through the rest of the house, finally reaching the kitchen and a connecting door.
"This is the best part," said my dad, hovering above the connecting door's first step. "It's the wine cellar. Best part of the whole house."
"I didn't know you had a wine cellar!" I said, surprised I hadn't heard of this room before. We crept slowly down the dark and cobweb-encrusted stairs, each loose board creaking under our feet. "I feel like I'm walking into a Poe story," I said uneasily, heading further into the obscure darkness. Suddenly, a giant sheet-covered figure leapt from the depths of the blackened room, roaring loudly and rushing towards Jen and me. We both screamed in fright, and my brother pulled the sheet off of his head gleefully, laughing hysterically.
"Surprise!"
It took a few minutes for me to regain my composure. I had no idea Paul was going to be in Sacramento, and so naturally I figured this was the surprise my dad had boasted of earlier in the week.

We went to dinner at a great barbeque place around the corner from my dad's house, where of course Jen and I wore the extra cowboy hats we found lying haphazardly in the backseat of my dad's Tundra.

 

Afterwards, we headed downtown. We stopped by my dad's office, and then started walking down the street. 

"Where are we going?" I asked impatiently.

"You'll see."

"I looked up Arco Arena, but nobody's playing there."

"The Kings play there."

"But not tonight. Plus, I know you wouldn't take us to a Kings game," I said. He didn't answer, because he knew I was right. We continued walking, and suddenly we were at the Convention Center, where we turned in. We were inside the building before we were able to catch a glimpse of what was actually happening there. Surprisingly, no outdoor marquee was broadcasting the production. Beyond the box office and the front doors, a RENT poster hung invitingly on the wall, and my heart pounded.

"It's RENT!" my dad said, beaming. He held the tickets out to us.

We squealed. Hugged. Exchanged elated smiles and thanked my dad profusely.

"AND!" he added, barely able to contain his smile, "It's with the guys from the original Broadway show. The guys from the movie!"

"Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal?" we squeaked, our anticipation growing. My heart beat faster as I realized the two hours ready to unfold in front of me. Because the stars had aligned; because the gods were on my side; because I have an incredible father; because sometimes I am just really lucky, I was about to hear Adam Pascal's Roger belt "One Song Glory" again. I was going to witness Anthony Rapp's Mark lead a what-was-sure-to-be phenomenal ensemble charge "La Vie Boheme." I was going to fall in love all over again with Jonathan Larson's nearly-flawless script, melodies, lyrics, and message.

And of course, because RENT is as important to my life as Splenda and the ocean and oxygen, it was magic. I saw this performance less than a year ago, and yet I could see it once a week and have the same reaction every time. I still get anxious butterflies when the house lights go down. I still feel a surge of excitement and empowerment when Mark clearly announces, "December 24th, 9 PM." I still catch myself holding my breath when Roger effortlessly begins strumming the notes for "Your Eyes." Beautiful, poetic, heart-breaking, eye-opening, candid, and unparalleled, this play changed my life. Ten years ago. A year ago. Last week. And, I'm pretty sure it will continue to do so...

 

 

 

 It's time now, to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate

Remember a year

In the life of friends

Love is the Weapon for this Wounded Generation

Never Shout Never

 
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

-Edward Lear