A Poem for Matthew from Devyn and Mommy 10/06/07
I like that you're my brother.
I like that you're my son.
Violets are blue
Flowers are red
How I love to see you
bouncing on your bed
Violets are blue
Flowers are green
Smiles are happy
As happy as can be
I love you Matthew
I think you're very neat
and you're very sweet
When you're not clobbering me in the head
And Matthew I love you more than the Universe
So if you fall down, like you always do, I'll pick you up
and put you on the couch and the rest of the poem is by mom
Here you are darling. A big boy now.
Four years working every single day
How to share your brilliant smile, keep your head up high
Tell Devyn with a meaningful squeal. "Hey brother, that toy is mine!"
Crawl along the RV floor then...uh oh...right up the wall!
Chase and fly with Devyn over our Mississippi couch
Teeth steadily emerging without a single hint of fuss
running with cousins, falling in love with Maya...
In Texas now, finally together...able to spend so much time just being...mostly silly, night walks with Daddy, sometimes asleep in his arms.
Tomorrow? Next year?
The alphabet, memorized prayers, learning checkers, seeing the country from our very own truck, running the family business together. We'll find all the best rest area playgrounds, health food stores and museums...only God knows this part really. I simply pray we remember to invite Baha'u'llah to guide us in His will every day.
He was 9 months old then...
Matthew
I would rather have no time for poetry
if it's because
I'm your mother
Loving you in my arms
smiling
struggling to grow
Engrossed in a pile
of toys
needing to be waited on...tended to
guided...taught...disciplined...shaped
enjoyed...kissed...hugged...and fed
Then, later, when you sleep
or in a cafe at 11am while you watch
people
talk to lights
drop keys and wonder
where the rice puffs are
I will write a poem for you
I'm too tired to be articulate about this week, but need to share. Saturday my mom and I opened a chapter of the Children's Theater Company which entailed 4 hours of children's classes and 2 hours of parent introduction meetings. The connections and love were palpable. Others felt it too and said so. We've been working to get this project to the starting point for months...I'll let my mom tell it.
Then this morning before my first baking class at Mettler Center, as part of the Baking Bakers (our new business), I was interviewed by local news channel 3 here. I was nervous but had a wonderful time. The class an hour later was even more fun as I spent time with 4 other women who have been working to figure out alternatives now that they or a close family member has had to give up wheat. Networking beyond the framework of the class happened and lots of laughter :). Of course baked goodies abounded, excellent reviews and hopefully new friendships.
Our new website, in it's infant stages is bakingbakers.com
I cried all the way home from the work site where the camp bus dropped us off. I curled up in a ball in the hatch. My heart ached like I had never known. I remember a light sky, my wet face, that I rocked as I cried and the physical pain in the center of my body, pain of home sickness for a place I would never return to. Even now as I write this, I'm crying. I know that little girl holding tight to her knees. I know her sincere heart, her intense desire to grow, to shine out. She has company all over the world. O God, let us reach the children while they still know they can sing. That's the thing. Rick Weiland believed in each of us. He gave his heart and soul to Earn and Learn. Ease is not the way to happiness, nor is discouragement. Challenge, loving mentors, accountability and loving encouragement grow a child. Love is the key and respect. We had all that.
I was going to work over the summer, after camp. I must have hated the first day in the institutional feeling building next to Haven Middle School. Maybe I worked all day or only 2 hours. However it went, it wasn't the joy of nature. It wasn't full of laughter, feeling the afternoon breeze on my skin. I decided not to go back. I quit.
Instead of returning to the work site the next day as I'd said I would, I went to Allison's house. My parents showed up there after a while, said it was time to go. This was not unusual, so okay, whatever. Then I noticed we weren't going home. Where to then?? NO! Not back to that place, not back to the work site. I don't like it. I don't want to be there! They responded with silence. They ignored my tantrum, ignored me kicking the inside of the car, being called liars, told they couldn't make me. They were helping me honor my commitment to see this program through for a year. Again, I was huddled up crying, this time very angry.
When we pulled into the Earn and Learn driveway Rick came out to get me. He didn't get tough or stern. He saw me. He smiled so kindly. He joked around and made me laugh. Then he led me into the work site, now willing, though still tender and scared. There were only a few others there that day. We stuffed envelopes for what seemed like hours. How long was it? I sat across from someone named John. He was funny and sweet. We laughed all afternoon, tears running down our cheeks, the kind of laughter that makes every sad thing fade for a time.
Once school started, each Earn and Learn student took a slip of paper to school. After every class, the teacher marked the appropriate box with a 1 or 0. Categories included getting to class on time, doing class work, homework, I think something about participating in class discussions. The more 1's in a day the longer one could work at the site that afternoon, the bigger one's paycheck. I liked school so this was fun. Being on time became a happy game.
Once at the work site, we were divided into stations. These included, on various days, envelope stuffing, small parts assembly, collating and many other simple repetitive jobs. A short time into the school year I was allowed to work in the office which was way more fun to me than being on the work floor. I remember the office being a privilege for those who showed themselves to be reliable and wanted the change of scene.
Earn and Learn was considered a dork program by the general student body at my school. I knew I was seen as a bit defective but I didn't care. I may have disliked it a bit, but in a way a 14 year old knows things, I knew I was in a lucky position. I remember 8th grade better than any year of school. My closest friends went to two of the other Evanston schools. I was part of a group, the core being Leslie, Chuck, John, Melissa and I. I wish I could remember the names of others. I see their faces against the plain walls, the metal framed windows, their smiles when bonuses were passed out.
Friday was payday. We were a sight. A line of 7th and 8th graders shuffling on the lobby carpet of the bank. Cash in hand we'd stroll out into the sunlight. A diner was nearby. We easily spent our money on cokes and french fries. I see us in a booth, merrily conversing, full of antics and laughter. One day I pretended I was going to spray coke from my straw onto...oh, which one was it...Leslie I think, but since she didn't know I wasn't going to really, she hit the straw toward John. He received a lovely blessing that afternoon. Or was it the opposite?? Either way, I was amazed that friendship could be so independent like this...money, time, a common bond.
We even worked voluntary overtime during weekends putting advertisements on door handles in little plastic bags. Street by street, house by house all day. Mary and Ray drove the bus. The work was hard, sometimes tiring,but I usually signed up. Purpose has that effect.
I took in that wonderful year with Earn and Learn the way a fish swims in water. It needs the water to live, but hasn't a name for the air.
I don't remember 7th grade. I loved my school, teachers, friends. I often showed up late. I did my work. I didn't talk back to any teacher. I just didn't take notice enough to remember. I didn't notice, but my teachers did. Toward the end of the year two important things happened. First, I was called to a conference with all my teachers. Just me and them. They told me that if I continued to be late I would miss the end of year picnic. Egg tosses, water balloon tosses, outdoor silliness, that I looked forward to. Done then, I was on time after that. But an impression had been made. An impression of a sad quiet child lacking motivation to perform certain expected tasks. Second, I was recommended for a work study program for the following year.
Though I was well behaved and academically present, I wasn't actually present. I was also lucky enough to be growing up in Evanston Il in the 1980's where Rick Weiland lived and cared for children in the program he was passionate about, Earn and Learn.
Earn and Learn started with camp. It set the stage for what would be, hopefully, a positive turning point for students heading the way of a problem. I wouldn't call us "at risk" because I don't know what's really meant by that, but also because it's difficult to see oneself as an at risk youth. So I told myself we were the ones in the middle. Not too problematic, showing promise, heading astray, therefore steered this way, into Rick's guiding care.
First of all, I had to make a commitment. Yes, I would see the year through. Yes, I would try, I would show up. Easy to say to a piece of paper asking for my signature. Easy to enjoy at camp. Camp was the first activity. Camp where the main lesson I learned was that the individual is accountable to the group, but the group is also accountable to the individual, that we were one entity when gathered, that one could hold up progress for all. While I don't like to think that life is this way, it is. The upside is respect, the downside consists of many character building moments when patience must be called on, courtesy, honesty, where walls tumble and we are all in one room, vulnerable, waiting. This being when one person was not cooperating, therefore keeping the group from moving to the next activity. We knew it going in. No less annoying, no less frustrating.
Camp was like most others, tucked into nature, surrounded by tall trees. The dining hall was large, cabins for sleeping, cabins for activities. Worn dirt paths, grassy earth.
I learned about deliberate meditation at Earn and Learn camp. Mats on the floor, we were to lay quietly, let ourselves relax...quietly. I loved the idea, It felt cool. It wasn't easy to do as a group. The meditation cabin was dark on a bright afternoon.
Other character building at camp included some kind of points or "bucks" system (wish I could think of the exact name). There were many ways to earn points. At camps end, we would all go to the Dells, a supposed high point. There we would convert our points into money. I was so completely unimpressed by the Dells that I almost didn't enjoy being there. Just seemed like a man made bunch of nothing compared to the week I'd just spent expanding as a human being. The only way to earn these points that I remember was to swim across a small lake as many times as possible. I think I went across twice, though maybe only once. I believe a guy named Andrew surprised us all going back and forth more than anyone, many times more. I say the lake was small. Standing on the shore at 5am, cold, tired, determined, I did not think small. I tried not to think, just dive in and go. I would have thought "huge", but that would have stopped me at the start. I wonder what I said aloud?
We went on an all day bike ride, 48 miles?, with 3 or 4 stops along the way for cheese sandwiches, juice, probably some fruit. At the first stop, I glided in ahead of the front pack of boys I'd been riding with. After a bit,one of them realized this and alerted all the rest. So this pack, all boys and me, stayed ahead. At each following stop and the end, a great race set up, incredibly intense. Those boys were so upset at the idea a girl might beat them. They stayed upset because I won every time, though they gave a great effort, with lots of hollering to encourage whoever was at the very front with me. I held onto that triumph for years, proof that I could win, that being a girl made no difference even in a competition with boys.
We repelled from a small cliff too. I was so ready for this to be exciting. It was a lot of waiting at the top of a bit of rocky wall where each of us was securely wrapped in straps and buckles. In the sunshine, I see a swarm of wasps tucked in to the side of the rock. That was the excitement, listening to the concerned confusion that followed. Going down the side of a rock with what felt like a diaper was not. I enjoyed talking to Ernie too. Of all the counselors, he was my favorite.
Structure in nearly every moment. We knew they were growing us. We knew they were serious...usually...until, one evening, outside the dining hall which was near the lake, a fantastic ketchup and mustard fight was loudly, messily enjoyed.
I thrived there. I was home. I did not miss the city with it's hot cement, sunlight reflecting in slicing glares off tall buildings, the incessant roll of rubber tires, synthetic reality. Camp was simple. I grew there.
Camp set the stage for the year ahead, which is another story, the test of commitment.