Heidi Beth

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.

If I were eating smoked salmon and goat cheese at home right now, it would taste like a jubilant wild song, unedited conversation, a wide open room with flowers and lots of bright noises just beyond the edge.
If I were eating the same meal at the beach it would taste like a breath of immensity, blue as far as blue can be, a bit of earth mixed with the color yellow. I’d turn my head often, brush hair away from my face, searching out the source of each immense sound.
If I were eating such delights on my door step, home alone on a hot summer afternoon it would taste rich and almost too big, even heavy, like quiet knowing, slow speaking, nearly missing the turn to Jenny’s house on a long windy road.
In this cafe they taste like gentleness, a peaceful mind, a smile, sweet echos of happiness, gratitude, walking among fragrant purple blooms, stooping to observe their gifts.

I’m sitting cross legged, white satiny slippers still on my feet, on the soft white living room chair from Grandma Amy. I’m still in my pjs at three in the afternoon, resting, eating, trying to hold off a cold. Over them I wear a thick black robe tied at the waist. I normally forget I own this robe, but when a scratch in my throat, a tickle, a few sneezes and a cough tipped me to the need for extra care, I remembered the last garment all the way to the right wall in my side of the closet. I’m eating a second bowl of gf pasta, veggies and bison sprinkled with cayenne, garlic powder, salt and oil with the last spoonful of homemade tomato sauce. David is snoring on the couch. The curtains are drawn for David’s benefit. I’m listening to the sound track on a friend of a friends blog, mostly mellow female vocals.
The boys are on their grand adventure through every room of the house with great enthusiasm and creativity. First one then the other guides the dialogue with a “Now you say….” And the other one does. Back and forth like this for a while until a Gameboy or modeling clay slide their attention over. Their voices are a steady music in our house. Listening to them navigate reality is one of my treasures.
The list includes making gf blueberry muffins that aren’t vegan to see how main stream I can make them, writing another post for the 30 in 30, lots of liquids, getting the laundry current, staring at sleeping David while thinking appreciative thoughts, and just maybe drumming with Matthew and Devyn…later, once daddy wakes.
Normally I like the curtains pulled back. I like all the days light to stream through, attach itself to every surface, dance with the colors. But today, only a line of light rests across David’s blanket by his feet. Otherwise the room is dim, almost demanding gentleness, though demanding is not it’s way.

Though I didn’t want to think it, I did. I thought I needed a perfect space to write, a clean house, quiet room, clear beginning mind, desire to write at that moment. Well, not write, but write well. Until now, I was unaware that a poem could be created in the same room as Matthew flying through with red cape and sunglasses as Superman, Devyn reading Superman trying to read the funnier bits to me, laundry in a clean heap on the couch, dirty dishes in view and a couple empty bowls painted red from frozen fruit the boys made fast work of at the table beside me. I still ask the boys to wait on requests that aren’t time sensitive, but pausing to do that doesn’t throw me off track.
Including today’s entry, I have 5 pieces left to write of the 30. Swiss Family Robinson (book on tape) is on in the kitchen (for the umpteenth retelling in a week), Matthew is playing on a Gameboy that sings a tink tink song for jumping graphics, dishes are in the sink and I don’t feel particularly like writing…but I’m going to anyway…right after I get the kids to bed, the house in order and make a bit of chocolate frosting (Just because I know I can write in the fray now doesn’t make it necessary every time :).
It’s the next afternoon. I didn’t return to writing as I’d intended. But I just reread what I wrote last night. Almost a piece of writing? Okay, not, but it may have to qualify. Maybe if I write a quick poem…
Little man little man what do you say?
Let’s explore the universe today!
Little man little man what do you do?
Make up a world for me and you.
Little man little man I love your smile
your little kisses and huggable style
(Written at the table with my sweet little men while they decide if Devyn’s going to read Super man aloud to Matthew while they eat their noodles and tomato sauce)

Mrs. Rogers thick, rich accent came from growing up in the south I’m sure. She sat straight in her teachers chair at the front of the room, the east wall, in front of the chalk board she used often. If I had to say a school teacher taught me how to write it was her. Others helped me think a thing through, calculate, experiment and catch a ball. Mrs. Rogers was Serious about English and writing.
She wasn’t interested in our self esteem. She was interested in expanding our knowledge of the parts of a sentence, grammar, how to “sharpen the focus” of an idea until the reader could sit with your mind, be a part of the memory, because you were so clear. I can’t think of a time I ever saw her smile, but I never wondered if she cared. I knew she did. And she was focused!
I sat on the east wall, first row, windows at my back. I don’t think she ever turned the overhead lights on. I wanted an A on something in her class, but don’t remember if I ever managed to get one. Here’s how it went. At the beginning of the year, she told us how many papers we were to write. Then she told us that she expected each one of us to rewrite each paper until it was finished. This meant working on more than one assignment at a time. After I turned in a paper, she would mark down her comments, expectations and corrections in red, then hand it back to me. Now my part was to rewrite the paper according to her notes. The challenge was that she would give us a new assignment before we were done with the previous one. I think I managed to only ever have 2 papers going at the same time, which was no small task.
I naively thought that what she meant by “sharpen the focus” was the same as describing what a camera sees when it zooms in on a single spot. One time I used many words to describe a drop of rain on a leaf. Then I described a world of fairies living in the drop. I was bound and determined to sharpen that focus, even if I had to make up a new world smaller than a dime!
But this isn’t what she wanted. To this day I don’t know how to describe what she meant by “sharpen the focus” but I have my own idea I follow. Follow the focus could be it’s name. Follow the heat, when writing comes alive. Follow the heart, the energy. Follow it even if I’m a puddle of tears on the sofa with my little laptop lighting up my wet face. Be there again, wherever it is, hand it to the reader carefully, but remain open.Beyond this, just write. No editing , no judge, no excuses, no critic. Practice in this way for years, as many days each year as possible.
In a way, Mrs. Rogers gave me a willingness to practice writing like one practices ballet or sketching. During the two years I was her student, her assignments were my main homework, the greatest challenge from the academic side of school. For her work, for her no-nonsense attitude, for the time she must have spent reading our countless drafts, I am incredibly thankful.

Kitchen timer click ticks consistently form it’s perch on the back of the stove, keeping time for the experimental blueberry muffins in the oven. I’m in the funk I get in at this phase of any effort, the beginning after a minor setback that some would reasonably call a bit of learning.
I come out of the gate with an idea, ready to charge to the fruit of success, shining ideas twinkling before me. I begin with a serious energy and optimism. But…if my first attempt is less than I hope for, my shoulders drop and I am touched by a sliver of sadness. I no longer sit with this bit of pity. I look at it, agree with it, that yes, this could be seen as very annoying, then I continue toward the goal.
The way this played out tonight was through an effort at making vegan, gluten free, soy free, agave sweetened blueberry muffins. The first batch was too dense, too sweet, too much like bread pudding, not much like a beautiful blueberry muffin. My mom stayed around our house an extra while since muffins were on the way. The boys happily sat on either side of her, listening to Cricket in Times Square. She sipped decaf tea. And she really liked the first test batch, and the second. She didn’t stick around for the third.
By test batch, I mean 2 muffins. Depending on how they come out I either add flour or liquid to the existing batter. This time I added a 1/2 cup of flour, then another 1/2 cup for the following test batch. Oh well then, I thought. If these are fine with Grandma, I’ll add the blueberries and bake the remaining batter.
Once the bowl and measuring instruments were clean and dry I set to work again with a different angle toward the same goal. All the while that voice of doubt, of just enough discouragement to keep me quiet and serious, kept up a whisper. It wanted me to know this second batch might not work, that I may need to wait, maybe through several attempts, countless really. Yuck. I dislike this voice, but there it is.
Fortunately the second batch seems fine, fluffy, moist, much like a blueberry muffin ought to be. Hmmm….tastes good too! A little too rich for my taste, maybe a bit too sweet, but I can easily remedy this and I know from experience that many people would enjoy them just as they are, no complaints, even complimenting them. As I have no one available to taste them tonight I’ll have to take my word for it, from the inner voice that is kinder, encouraging, the one that helped me wash the dishes, dry the mixing bowl and try again.

I look all around me at the campus cafe. Each in his own world, face engaged in the study of their choosing or some requirement needed to get there. It’s Important work, studying. Studying for a degree, that symbol of hours of persistence, dedication to a task, the ability to see a thing through, to think in many directions on a certain matter. In different cities the University name changes, but not the scene.
I hear the espresso maker hiss, the foam form behind a half counter where skilled staff pump out caffeinated drinks for their customers, along with beautiful sweet 3 layer cake slivers, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and mildly sweet scones. I sometimes look up to the slightly moving legs of those in line as they shift the weight of their back pack from left to right and back, staring at a far wall or visiting with the employee they know well. The counter sees a steady flow of faces, counted out change and grateful smiles.
This cafe is a place of comfort, a cross between the dining room and kitchen with rectangular tables, wobbly chairs, amazingly soft couches with little end tables beside and little lamps. The hum of steady soft voices conversing peppered with the occasional burst of laughter add to the charm.
This is where I have come since I was fifteen years old. Not a University student or even a high school student. I was a drop out, encouraged by some, ignored by others, simply a friend to most, a friend who made an unpopular decision. Having no external agenda for my cafe time, I almost always had a book to read, a notebook to fill and a pen, money for a latte and a pack of Marlboros. Sometimes a walkman, but often not.
My first love was Steep & Brew on Church. Smokers in the back, near the bathrooms, past the dishwasher, which was still fine and nice, despite it’s surrounding areas. I usually showed up by 1pm. With drink in hand, I’d find an empty table, set my books down, pour two turbinado sugar packets into the center of my latte, watching the crystals fall through the foam, making a perfect little hole. I enjoyed the foam first, slowly, focusing on the sweet milk in the middle before slowly sipping the rest. Once I finished the foam, it was time to study.
I wouldn’t have called it that at the time. I was not in a school, not engaged in work society seemed to consider important. Some might even say I was squandering the hours away. But I wasn’t. I was studying my perceptions of the world, of reality. I was studying my voice as a writer, a human, a friend. I was listening to the quiet of my being. I was also developing two important habits, a love of reading and that of writing practice. At fifteen, even sixteen, seventeen on up to twenty, I didn’t know this consciously. Then at twenty one I found a book called Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I ate it for every meal, filled an entire notebook during spring break (by this time I was in college, though the experience was short lived), and began inviting all my friends to write with me, to follow this new mentor closely, for she gave me gold and I couldn’t help but share.
After Writing Down the Bones I moved on to her second book about writing, Wild Mind, then onto her first book about becoming a writer, Long Quiet Highway. For years that third book was a comfort. Her experience, though different from mine in the external details, was incredibly familiar in the inner details. Her voice was soothing, real, honest and compassionate without being soft. I read her first novel, Banana Rose as soon as it came out and have read it many times since as well. From her I received guidance, but also permission, even encouragement to bring my notebook and a pen only to the cafe table, to tilt my neck and write for hours, which I did often. It’s not that I ever considered staying home because I didn’t have “important” work to accomplish, but she helped me see that the work I was engaged in was important, as well as helping me develop my art, painting with words.