Test

I am currently enrolled in a class of lovely aspiring teachers.  The midterm exam is upon us.  It is described as a written examination designed to evaluate comprehension of material covered up to this point.  I have not taken a test of this kind in two decades.

Dictionary.com offers the following for the noun test.
1.  the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial
2.  the trial of the quality of something
3.  a particular process or method for trying or assessing
4.  a set of questions, problems, or the like, used as a means of evaluating the abilities, aptitudes, skills, or performance of an individual or group; examination

As anxieties over the impending test were discussed I mentally departed the fretful dialogue to ask my external observer for her take on things.  She said, “Name what a test is.  Name what a test is not.” 

A test is a written set of questions, a normal part of taking a class.  A test is a tool for school mentors to evaluate the amount of information learned in their course.  A test is indicative of my performance in one area not in my life at large.  A test is something that requires preparation.  A test is not punishment.  A test is not an indication if the instructor likes me or not.  A test is not to determine if I am smart in general.  A test is not for telling me I am a success or failure in life.  A test is not a party, a vacation, a gold medal or a death threat.  A test is what it is and any other power it possesses is given it by the person scratching their number two pencils across its pages.

Am I thrilled over the set of questions ahead?  Nope.  I may have a headache during the test.  My dinner may not be digesting comfortable.  Life may have sucked me dry that day and I may just not be in the mood.  I likely will not have all the time I want to spend reflecting on my notes and handouts. 

So what is a student to do?  Study.  Reread.  Breathe.  Move through the material.  And know most of the time we are able to do so much more than that for which we give ourselves credit. 

Questions

Is there a God who knows why or all the answers

problems on the test of patience in showing a high grade

or fever when really the point, the success is finding

confidence in what you are uniquely capable of and can do

because nobody can instill matter if too afraid to be

tested with temporary parchment in fire fanned by breath

Yellow

The world outside my window is yellow, double saturated – once by the yellow accumulation on the panes of glass and once by powder inundated air.  The annual dust emitted from pine trees descends and every year feels shocking even though the onslaught is a repeat performance.   You’d think it would no longer astound me, but every year about this time my world turns yellow and I am in awe.

The first entry listed at dictionary.com in defining the noun yellow is “a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nm.”

Yellow is also defined in adjective and verb forms, but I’m sticking with the noun as the yellow of my day’s thoughts is surely a thing.  A spring thing.  Tomorrow is the official first day of spring but calendar or not there is no missing the color blasted action going on outside in South Carolina.  I sit in stunned amazement that there could actually be so much color of egg yolk everywhere. 

When you breathe outside the air smells fabulous.  And your sinuses fill with powder that requires a series of snot-locker cleaning sneezes.  The air seems to bear visual weight because it is thick with floating plant pollen whereas just days ago it offered no sensory sensation at all.  And you know that as much of the pollen we can see is matched by the rest we cannot emitted from plants whose pollen is much smaller than that of the pine.  Eyelids get puffy.  Heads feel swollen.  Noses run.  And we query, why must this happen every year?  But we know, plant procreation. 

Pollen is amazing potential male matter on a mission.  From Wikipedia I learned that each pollen grain contains vegetative, non-reproductive cells (only a single cell in most flowering plants but several in other seed plants) and a generative, reproductive cell containing two nuclei: a tube nucleus and a generative nucleus that divides to form two sperm cells when proper pollination occurs.  All that microscopic virility is floating around looking for a receptive place to land and join with the female half of the genetic material needed to keep on keeping on.  Amazing!  Allergy inducing.  And yellow. 

 

Yell, Oh!

dewy blonde daffodil faces sing, look at me!  look at me!

silt of pine tree sex sifting sufficiently through the air coating

every surface and cranny, cars, porches, sidewalks, swings

even open eyeballs in a fine dusting of golden grit, silent

signs of other living creatures insuring their seasonal survival

soon washed as yellow chalk streams in short showers

dogwood blooms center open four pure petals, pervasive

honeysuckle scented sunlight tantalizes tiny human hairs

across winter-pale faces, inhaled specks insure sneezing

seeing obvious signs, flaxen flip-flop lemonade sundress time

as cool buttery mornings proffer crisp apple-flesh air, sweet

smelling spring releasing colorful reproduction everywhere

Grown-up

I am totally not feeling like a kid.  This should not seem such a surprise to me since I have been alive over forty years.  But every now and then, like today, it sinks in that I am absolutely, no doubt, can’t deny it, a grown-up. 

Dictionary.com lists the following definition for the noun grown-up:  a mature, fully grown person; adult.

This definition is one of the shorter I have encountered and offers no nuances, no alternative meanings, just one plain and straightforward.  I do, however, aver there is some wiggle room in the adjective “mature” for certain.

How do I know that I am a grown-up?  I own shoes that I have had for over ten years (you know, the black heels for funerals and weddings) indicating my body is fully grown because they still fit.  I am a registered voter, a licensed drive, a parent of three children, married thirteen years, and an active member of two school communities.  I actually want to go to bed at 9:30.  I think a cup of coffee is a treat.  My taxes take way more than one page and one hour to complete.  I have a mortgage.  I drive a white minivan.  I know how much money is in my bank account and budget accordingly.  These are the facts folks and I embrace every one of them!

Being a grown-up is not a bad thing.  I still have toys albeit they are typically kitchen gadgets or fingernail accoutrements.  I totally love it when someone will play a card game of virtually any kind with me.  Hanging out with my friends is super fun.  Museums and parks continue to entice and amuse me.  A trip to the public library brings joy and unending discoveries. 

The part that sneaks up and gooses me is the one that gets tired, feels the responsibility of all the things that offer proof of my adultness.  I don’t want to be a kid.  Been there, done that, ya know?  But sometimes it seems like a little less fun to be mature and full grown, like maybe less is possible because so much has already happened and so many obligations promised?

         Fully Grown

         Big body holds the beating heart that has been

         bumpity bump pumping red blood since birth

         before even the world heard her scream.

         Big body bears tiny freckles formed during family

         frolics fra-la-la-ing from swing to slide singing

         songs of watermelon and sprinklers.

         Big body stretches palms to the sky showing blue

         veins voluminous vessels grown large with time

         providing prayer and packing lunches.

         Big Body still feels there is so much to learn even

         after becoming teacher, adult reacher for days

         ahead with the same sense of a child.

Embodied

We all have one – a body.  Life experiences we have are manifested through physical selves.  My mind, the psychological self which resides in my body, is chewing on this idea with its mushy, lumpy, fleshy little teeth and the digestion seems slow and attentive.  It is the embodied self that is the real deal, the package in which we rest. 

Embodied is listed as a form of the verb embody in the entry found at dictionary.com.
1.  to give concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form:  to embody an idea in an allegorical painting.
2.  to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporal:  to embody a spirit.
3.  to collect into or include in a body; organize; incorporate.
4.  to embrace or comprise

Also at dictionary.com The Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010 Douglas Harper offers that embody traces to c.1652 in reference to a soul or spirit invested with a physical form.  This word history captures what I am pondering this morning.  I happen to hold fast to the idea that we are spirit.  But at this moment we are bodied spirit.  I cannot be otherwise.  I am corporal.  My fingers are typing.  My belly is digesting.  My lungs are filling and emptying.  My brain is chug-a-lug-lugging along crafting sentences for this blog, listening for the laundry cycle timer, wondering what’s for lunch, anticipating the grocery store, thinking I should have some hot tea.      

Being embodied is so straightforward and obvious yet for me has taken a long time to figure out.  How can that be?  Perhaps because in my social history exists years of learning that the body is to be denied, is bad, is an enslavement, that all help for me is outside myself.  But new ideas offer me the body as a path to the soul.  Knowing it.  Moving it.  Being present in it.

I’m not advocating a wild physical free for all, for that is not honoring the body or the soul.  Abusing one’s body is not a path to true self but a numbing agent.  Understanding how our human body works, how best to care for it and live in it, knowing how to make choices that are good for our physical selves lends itself to the spiritual growth that blossoms into contentment.  Or at least that’s where I’m placing my bets.

              Physical Education

              Roaring flame-red rubber ball stings soft stomach skin
              skidding from fingertips fired fast behind the lines, telling

              in and out of traditional bounds, the court rules everybody
              fools somebody sometimes selling distractions.  Nobody

              knows the great guts it takes to build a balanced body, baby
          first swimming, screaming into prerequisite skin life begins

              cells and senses, bones, limbs and lips, lungs, eyes, elbows
          hunger and feces finding happy homebody hasten to rest

              sitting with a neighbor getting the scoop of being anatomy
              busybody breathing the business of life, learning incarnate.

Falsehood

The silent observer of self is powerful.  To watch (without judging) one’s actions is amazing.  I recently watched myself react strongly to something in essence small, washing dishes.  It happened while reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness in which he suggested one could wash dishes mindfully, simply for the act of washing the dishes and not for any later moment but for simply being there, doing dishes!  Luckily I was reading for a yoga weekend which offered opportunity to move toward what motivated my anger.  I realized I had attached a falsehood, a non-truth for me, to daily dish washing. 

Dictionary.com defines the noun falsehood.
1.  a false statement, lie.
2.  something false; an untrue idea, belief, etc.
3.  the act of lying or making false statements.
4.  lack of conformity  to truth or fact.

Somewhere I stored a belief that dish washing is a menial task reserved for the subservient.  Where did I learn this?  Dunno.  How long have I believed this?  Dunno.  Is it true?  Absolutely not.  Turns out, after quiet listening, I don’t believe the idea I was clinging to.  Other falsehoods I have over time discovered in myself sound like this:  Boys don’t like smart girls.  I am not naturally athletic and therefore will never find any exercise I enjoy.  Cooking a fabulous meal every night is essential for being a good mother.  A big house will make me happy.  I don’t need sleep as long as there is caffeine.  If I have eaten one cookie I might as well go ahead and eat the entire row.  When someone is yelling it means I have done something bad.

Generalizations that we ingest and make our own sneak into our lives often unnoticed.  Perhaps from personal experiences or the media.  Perhaps from unhealthy relationships or too much time alone.  My dish washing dilemma is a superficial one in terms of what else is possible, but I use it because it is fresh and a reminder that we are allowed to (in fact I think supposed to) examine our beliefs and see if any of them lack conformity to our own truth or fact.  Leonard Pitts, Jr. recently wrote an editorial for the Miami Herald that was picked up in my local paper.  He offered the axiom, “if you repeat a lie long enough, people will accept it as truth — even the people being lied about.”

What falsehood about ourselves do we accept as truth?  Some are easy to find, others challenging and often painful in the actual story unfolding of ourselves. 

            Certainty

            Finding truth is labor.  Shoveling
            what lies atop layers of life, blood
            and guts, somewhere we have it
            the source, Truth, that which slices
            paper sharp edges thin and fierce
            found at last.  Real hurts and heals,
            soft seeking  finger pads, tiny cuts
            when touched throb for attention
            sting while being washed clean
            set soul free body breathing I am.

Monday

Seriously?  It’s Monday?  How did this happen?  In the un-normalness of this national holiday with no school offering a defined schedule to stick to, I forgot it was Monday until somewhere beyond the middle of the day.  Sitting with friends in a sunny spot I realized I had not pondered a term this morning!  At that moment I knew that since morning’s opportunity for musing passed there was going to be a first-time event this week – musing Monday evening. 

Monday is, as defined at dictionary.com, the second day of the week following Sunday. 

Indeed, today is such.  And my prediction six hours ago has come to pass.  I am typing a few final far-flung thoughts for the day after tot-tucking.  Life energy after bedtime is very different than at dawn.  Once the inertia of a day full of kids kicks in there is no stopping for shopping the shelves of my brain for thoughts of any substance.  Today’s middle was riddle with a Monopoly game, Polly Pockets, pizza, the park, and soccer practice.  Evening brought a failed attempt at a new recipe that resulted in cereal for dinner, flannel pajamas and some days’ end thoughts.

       Following Sunday

       Sometimes a whole day gets away

       utterly without wondering at all

       no thinking, just dance doing flash

       dash from sun salutes through snack

       fruits, a pizza buffet, friends come

       to play the mind found nothing to say

       busy being bit of a sunny social holiday

       whose history kids meant to look up

       empty dawn seated spot for choosing

       a word worked for a musing moment

       moved past living day fast, full, fleeting

       as it was:  the second day of a week.

Pile

The New Year verve leading to a totally clean desk has come to a sliding end.  Testament to this are slipping stacks of stuff scattered beside my computer and on the floor beside my filing cabinet.  Seriously, over the winter break after Christmas I went through and filed, trashed, or otherwise processed everything on my desk.  I was scrupulous!  It has only taken forty-four days for it to regrow!  And today, my friends, is the day I must again attack the pile. 

Dictionary.com offers the following entries for the noun pile.
1.  an assemblage of things laid or lying one upon the other:  a pile of papers; a pile of bricks.
2.  a large number, quantity, or amount of anything:  a pile of work.
3.  a heap of wood on which a dead body, a living person, or a sacrifice is burned; pyre.
4.  a lofty or large building or group of buildings:  the noble pile of Windsor Castle.
5.  a large accumulation of money:  They made a pile on Wall Street.

I hear the good advice, “Only touch each piece of paper once.”  I believe it.  I don’t know how it is possible.  I go through the mail every day and kids’ papers when they come home every week.  I trash a ton of stuff, truly.  Yet there is still a mound of things laid upon one another that need to be looked at later or kept for financial files or stashed for story ideas.  All valuable, right?

The devil over my left shoulder would love to scoop the entire stack and stuff it ceremoniously in the garbage while offering an evil laugh at such rebellion.  The angel on my right will not, however, let that happen.  That guardian reminds me that I put those papers and things in half-processed places because I valued something about them or found them essential for keeping.  The invisible convincing goes on to say that considering how much I do throw away, far more than I keep, there certainly must be value in that pile – stuff I believe I cannot do without.  This is a mental situation as much as a physical one.  Removal of accumulated stuff suggests a life-long task, perhaps one on which we might lay a few sacrifices to burn.

          Unfinished Business

          adding pages and papers, properly paid
          partnered with perused articles that might
          some night need to be reread, receipts
          for things one could need, valued as what
          to keep and file, responsible pile
          grows deep and festers finally
          fetid with old ink and printed text
          telling worth or thoughts from Oz.

          Well-meaning think must keep the heap
          that climbs and slides, often moved aside
          so people can eat at the family-time table
          where junk abides rising higher
          the stack remains, old book reviews
          carried, carted, divided, parted
          sorted eventually when it masses
          too large to carry, hide or ignore.