FTF.

     I woke up today, to the first weekend not scheduled to the hilt with visits, dinners, work obligations, or family obligations. I love all of these things, but there have been a lot of them lately, and we really needed a weekend home, as a family.

I asked Ben, my 12-year-old son, what he planned for this vast expanse of unscheduled time, and he said, without even looking up from his book, "Write." 

You see, it's November. NaNoWriMo time. National Novel Writing Month, and he means business. Fully half of my students (29 outof 50) are signed up to write their novels this month, in word counts raging from 10,000 (6th graders restricted by me due to their organizational challenges) to 30,000 (Ben) to 50,000 (Me). I have to get my butt in gear as it’s the 5^th and I am behind on my word count. 

Last year, 28 students "won" NaNoWriMo and were presented with a gift certificate at one of a few self-publishers. The coupon offered up the promise of a bound galley, with free shipping, and their very own ISBN. According to Ethan, the ISBN was about the coolest part of the project. Two examples of completed galleys are pictured above. One student, Sophia Higgerson, is editing her galley and plans to sell it online. As their loyal teacher, I had to read the books. Sophia would only lend me her galley for 24 hours, so last night, I tucked in with A Promising Child. It opens:

Frost stayed late in the winter of 1899. He froze carriage wheels in the streets and curled his way across every building so that the windows shamelessly revealed the kisses he had bestowed upon them the night before. So subdued was Frosts' hostess, New York, that she still lay in the arms of Morpheus when she was meant to wake up and face the coming spring. 

And the days dragged on; morning after frigid morning followed by freezing night; Frost would not relent. Businessmen refrained from going to their work before noon, as carriages were not warm means of transportation; ladies would not leave their houses to visit friends for fear that they would die of cold before they reached the inviting entrance halls that sat like warm, golden ovens, waiting to bake any visitors golden brown.

Sure, the opening paragraphs reveal the author’s affection for British Victorian novels, Edith Wharton, and Leo Tolstoy. She channels the stiff yet lavish atmosphere of Wharton’s turn-of-the century New York and captures the sense of longing and loss that pervades Anna Karenina. Such evident imitation would make for a book review rife with labels such as “derivative” and “imitative,” but in this case she is to be forgiven. At least by me. I lent her both Anna Karenina and The Age of Innocence, last year, when she was an eighth grader at Crossroads Academy.

That’s right. Sophia Higgerson was thirteen when she wrote those opening paragraphs. 

And then there’s my book, a steaming heap of putrescence, a rapidly decomposing collection of words that is worth little more than the record of its stunted word count and horribly problematic narrative structure. I think there might be a couple of good phrases in there, if I’m lucky. The beginning is no “Twig: population 189,” that’s for sure.

But then a bit of magic descended on P.O. Box 214. I opened my box and there was Teri Carter’s name. Hallelujah.

Teri is a talented writer I met, along with about ten other talented writers, over at Betsy’s blog. We became followers of each other’s blogs, and before I knew it, I was sending Teri drafts, urging her on to write, receiving photos of her new puppy. Ah, the internet. Writers as far away as the U.K. and Australia, writers of memoir, opinion pieces, literary fiction and erotica, women I have never met, have become friends. Smart, kind, talented writer-type friends. These writers are meeting in Chicago, and I can’t go. I was terribly bummed out, but I am all better now.

From Teri: "On the one side, The Forest For the Trees, in honor of where our small but sarcastic support group got our wheels. Betsy gets her due. On the flip side, the letters FTF (yes, you guessed it) with an open book-in-progress on one side and a closed book on the other. A reminder that we can - we will - get from here to there.

I’m feeling the love. Thank you Teri, thank you ladies, thank you Betsy. Raise a glass for me out there in the windy city. I will be at home, finishing the fucker. 

A Barbaric Yawp, O My Soul.

It's family movie night, so I showed my kids The Dead Poet's Society tonight. Ben's 13, loves to write, wants to be an actor...how much more perfect could a young Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard paired with Robin Williams be for a young wannabe writer and actor?


Unfortunately, about halfway through the film, Finn started complaining of an upset stomach and headache. He started doing that moan and groan thing little kids do, and then he said,


"Mommy, I think I'm gonna barf."


Just as Robin Williams was introducing his children to the words of Thoreau, ripping out that boring palaver in the Prichard text, with all his sucking of marrow, Finn was emptying the contents of his upper gastrointestinal system onto the sunroom, dining room, living room, and hall floor. We made it to the bathroom and he hurled the rest of his guts out into the toilet. Ohhhhhh....it was messy. And, as Ben added, when he brought me towels to clean up the mess, smelly.


One towel was so gross that I put it straight into the wood stove. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Incinerate.


Finn decided he needed to eat some noodles in order to feel better (we were having reheated venison stew for dinner) and, looking from the film to the bowl and back to the film, I said yes, that's a good idea. "Eat some novels so your tummy will feel better."


Novels, noodles, whatever. Same diff.


Finn feels better now, having purged his stomach and refilled it with egg novels, and Ben's transfixed, watching the scene where Robin Williams' character John Keating teaches Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) to sound his barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.


I watch my elder son watch this scene, and I know he will, in fact, yawp. Not egg novels, like his little brother, but from the marrow, from the deepest part of his soul, the yawp of words into the universe, "...Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, / Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, / Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul." 

Yawp. 

The Wrath of Achilles and Rabbit Pee

If Narcissus had not gotten waylaid by that glassy pool and had lived to see the advent of blogging, the "Stats" function on Blogger may just been his Waterloo (hell yes, pun intended).

Ah, Stats, how I love thee. I could spend my days checking on the number of hits I receive, the traffic sources, referring sites. I like to picture readers in far-flung locales reading my blog over a morning pain au chocolat or masala dosa or steaming bowl of pho. I wonder about my one reader in Saudia Arabia, that new reader in Singapore.

My favorite feature of Stats, however, is the search keyword category. I can see what search keywords led to a hit on my blog. Until yesterday, my favorite search term was "attractive well-dressed teacher." While I appreciate that the accumulated content of my blog somehow satisfies those search parameters as long as the searcher does not put quotes around the term, it does raise some troubling questions. Was that searcher hopeful when he or she located a hit on that term, clicked on the fourth one down, only to be disappointed by my profile photograph? What was the purpose of this search? Did he or she find what he or she was look- wait - oh, wait - Tim read over my shoulder and told me - oh, really? Oh....gross.

Nevermind. I have a new favorite search term - terms, actually. I checked my stats last night, and under "Search Keywords," I found two of interest. "Wrath of Achilles" and "Rabbit Pee." The first, I get. Maybe some student was looking to crib some essay on The Iliad and came across my story about weasels and chicken death. Sucker. Serves you right for cheating.

And the rabbit pee...some frustrated housewife was probably looking for a way to remove rabbit pee from her children's clothes and came across my post about using shredded report card drafts to create raised garden beds. I can tell you from experience that OxyClean or Shout works well, as long as you treat it as soon as you can after the rabbit has committed the offending act. If the pee sits untreated, it's all over. Now, if you have been feeding your rabbits beets, as I have been this harvest season, and they pee on, say, a really nice white blouse you were hoping to wear to Back to School Night with the new pants you got at the consignment store, forget about it. That shirt may as while go in the compost heap because that stain is never coming out. Unless your kid is working on a Civil War project for school, and he needs a shirt that looks as if it's been through a battle, so he can earn points by talking about Civil War infirmary practices, then simply wash the shirt without treating the stain. The smell will come out and the bright red stain will remain, and you will look like some sort of hero for creating the perfect walking wounded costume. Your son might even say thank you under his breath. Unless he's almost thirteen, in which case you will have to remind him to say thank you.

Huh? Oh, yeah - search terms. So I noticed last night that four people have arrived at my blog looking for the "Wrath of Achilles", and six wanted more information about "Rabbit Pee." I hope I have provided useful information for at least a few of those readers. I am going to stick with the assumption that no one was searching on both terms - "Wrath of Achilles" and "Rabbit Pee" - at once.

Because that would just be weird.

Breaking Radio Silence

Yeah, yeah, yeah...long time no write.

The school year has started but it's all jarring and interrupted by holidays, trips to the Hulbert Outdoor Center for teambuilding, emergency faculty meetings called to deal with snafus...next week will actually be my first full week of classes, and it's about time.

I am currently on Lake Morey in beautiful Fairlee, VT, and the rain. It is incessant. We come to Hulbert each year in order to bring our small middle school together and foster leadership in the 8th grade. So far, so good. We spent yesterday on teambuilding exercises in the pouring rain, and I heard not one complaint, not one peep of discontent. Well, until two sixth graders went for the same football and collided. One kid is fine, one kid has a lump the size of said football on his little addled head.

I am in charge of the 8th grade girls' cabin. It's wet, it's smelly, it's loud with the hot whispers of pre-teen angst and gossip. Despite all that, we fell asleep last night to the call of two owls, and that makes up for a  lot.

Today, more team building and the high ropes course. One year ago, I wrote an article about what this experience means to our school, and as I head out for breakfast, I will post it again, for good times' sake. The full piece, with photos, is here.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[1]

In the common day of my Crossroads Academy classroom, I encourage my students to wander into their own regions of supernatural wonder. I teach my students to understand the journey of the hero – Aeneas, Moses, Arthur, Huck Finn – in order to prepare them for their own quests, their own battles, their own victories. The journey of these heroes – and of my students – inevitably leads into the wilderness, where the true exploration of heart and soul takes place.

In order to allow our students to embark upon their own heroic journeys, we take them into to the wilderness of the Hulbert Outdoor Center for three days each fall. Under the firm but gentle tutelage of the Hulbert instructors, and with the encouragement of their classmates, Crossroads students challenge themselves to go into the dark places they must visit in order to make the big discoveries about themselves.

Crossroads Academy is a small, independent school with a very large mission. We educate children in kindergarten through eighth grade according to the Core Knowledge Curriculum set out by E.D. Hirsch, and the Core Virtues Curriculum outlined by Mary Beth Klee, our the school’s founder. Our academic curriculum is interwoven with an education in the core virtues of justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence, and, through the study of these virtues, our students are continually challenged to assess who they are in and what sort of people they want to become. We explore the meaning of character as it is expressed through history and literature, but there is no better place to explore one’s individual interpretation of justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence than at Hulbert Outdoor Center.

Hulbert allows us to build a strong and trusting community in a matter of days rather than the months it would take in a normal classroom environment. We assign cross-grade teams for the three days, teams that get together for lunch over the course of the school year in order to re-connect and reflect on their Hulbert experience. Older students partner and mentor their younger schoolmates on the ropes course while the younger students are encouraged to establish their place within the larger community.

In our surveys of their experiences at Hulbert, students reflect on the things they learned there:

“One of the most important things I learned at Hulbert that I can use at school is the ability to believe in myself.” Seventh grade student.

“By the end of these three days, I feel I have learned so much about each and every person in my group. I also feel that I have made bonds with the people in my group, which cannot be broken. Also, I feel that during these three days I have learned how to be the best team member I think I can be.” Eighth grade student.

“I learned that you shouldn’t ever underestimate anyone, including yourself.” Sixth grade student.

“I learned that I can be a strong leader, but that there are also times when I need to hold back and let other have a chance to lead. It took empathy to understand that others besides myself wanted to lead as well.” Eighth grade student.

It’s not just the students that learn about themselves. Students are able to get acquainted with their teachers informally, outside the rigors of the classroom. Often, students are nervous about being away from home, and the support of their teachers in the cabins at night fosters a special trust that cannot be created in the classroom. Teachers take part in the ropes course and teambuilding exercises, and it never fails to thrill the students when their French or math teacher comes barreling down the long zip line. I have learned so much about my students – their fears, hopes, and dreams – through my participation in our annual trip to Hulbert.

After their successes in the physical and emotional challenges presented to them at Hulbert, my students are well equipped for the academic rigors ahead. The bond of trust formed in teambuilding exercises at Hulbert extends into the classroom, and holds our school together as a community. Our students arrive at Hulbert individuals and emerge as part of a larger community. When we return to the common day of our classroom, my students are ready to learn. They trust me, they trust their classmates, and they are more able to take the intellectual leaps of faith I ask of them.

Each year, in our budget meetings, the Crossroads Academy staff looks at the expense of Hulbert, the luxury of three whole days in the woods when the budget is tight. Ultimately, we all agree. The trip pays for itself daily in returns of diligence, fortitude, perseverance, and a spirit of intellectual bravery. I am a better teacher and my students are better learners because of the foundation laid by Hulbert staff in the opening days of our school year.

The character instilled in those three days at Hulbert is a boon to our school, and even deep into our school year, those three warm days and cool nights they spent in the wilderness together continue to bind our community. Crossroads Academy students go into the woods in Fairlee in order to find themselves, but emerge having found their place in a community of heroes.

---

[1] Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Rather an Extraordinary Girl

Pip has been gone for ten days, and it's been hard for all of us to face the possibility that he will never come home. The kids listen for the jingle of his bell, and the neighbors are on high alert. We spent two days walking the woods in pursuit of a false lead and have reluctantly begun to mourn his loss.

Pip charmed his way into our home. He followed me around Robie Farms, rolled over on his back and looked over his shoulder with a come-hither invitation to fall for him. He bestowed his affection on me and I was grateful, so when he withdrew his love, I felt jilted. Dumped.

In the meantime, our dependable house cat, Clementine, remains constant. We adopted her five years ago from the Upper Valley Humane Society despite her overbite, toothlessness, and bow legs. Her appreciation is tangible. Every night, she meows plaintively at the top of the stairs with impatience, then moves to the end of the bed nearest the door as I conduct my evening routine, and finally takes up her position on my pillow when I slide into bed. She's restless at first, frustrated with my book for monopolizing the prime real estate in front of my face, but when I finally get rid of the extra reading pillow, she settles in. She stalks purposefully up on to the pillow, then lies down in the shape of a comma, her back against my ear. I fall asleep to her soft down and the soothing purr of her contentment. Like a puppy soothed by the tick tock of a blanket-wrapped clock, she has become my white noise machine.

In the thrall of Pip's sexy and alluring newness, we stopped seeing Clem. I have grown so accustomed and dependent on her presence that she became part of the set dressing of my life. The irony is that without Clem, I would be lost. In order to sleep, I need my bed, my husband, and Clem. If she left...well, the wounds would be deep.

Which brings me back around to the novel Great Expectations. It's the first text I teach in the fall, so it's been on my mind a lot as I plan the coming academic year. I have stuck with this book year after year because my students love it. They connect to the characters, and as most teachers know, that's half the battle in teaching literature. The boys tend to see themselves in Pip, a the main character, who falls in love with Estella, an untouchable, beautiful and cruel first love. The girls, however, are divided. Some girls, the ones who have discovered the social power of emotional manipulation, see themselves in Estella. Others, the girls who have been manipulated, taken for granted, overlooked, see themselves in Biddy, Pip's childhood friend. Estella and Biddy act as foils in the novel - Estella is all regal, refined beauty, while Biddy is plain, understated comfort.

Pip's journey from poor orphan to educated gentleman is punctuated by his love for these two women. Biddy was there at the beginning, a fixture in the life he abandons for a brighter future. Along the way, he's blinded by his yearning for Estella's affections, and wrecked by her cruel disdain. But in the end, Biddy is the constant, the home he returns to when he realizes he's strayed from his true path. His realization comes too late, however, for Biddy has moved on and married a man who appreciates her for her understated yet and comforting embrace. Pip realized a little late that the thrall of a cruel woman may be heady and exciting, but happiness more often lies in the comfort of a reliable, uncomplicated love.

This morning, I received an call from a neighbor who was sure he'd trapped Pip in his house. I raced out the door, jumped in the car and sped up Pout Pond Lane, almost out of my head with excitement. I closed my eyes as I reached the second floor landing, too anxious to look.

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew. This was not Pip. It looked a lot like him, but this cat had five pounds on Pip and a birthmark on the tip of his nose. There was no recognition in his eyes, no bald patch on the back of his neck, no come hither glance over his shoulder as he rolls over for a belly rub.

I couldn't contain my disappointment as I made small talk with my neighbor. He was disappointed, too, and as we watched the cat head out into his territory in the general direction of his house and family, I teared up a little.

But when I got home, Clementine was sitting on the dining room table, watching the door for my return. Her bowed front legs splayed out at odd angles, and there was a drop of drool on her chin, but she was waiting for me to come home. And tonight, when it's time for bed, I will fall asleep to her comforting softness, grateful for her constancy.

Addendum: I took the photo of Clem (below) and realized she was not acting like herself. She was grumpy (see photo) and making frequent, yet unproductive, trips to the litter box. I watched her for a while and when it became clear that she was insanely uncomfortable, I took her down the road to the vet. Our town vet diagnosed a UTI, and sent her home with antibiotics. She'll probably be fine in a couple of days. Tim thinks there are darker forces at work, however. His theory is that our newly neutered Pip, who still had plenty of testosterone roiling in his blood, took advantage of our poor Clem, gave her a UTI and the took off, in true tomcat style.

Debriefing: Kill Your Darlings and Absence of Pip

As I lay in bed last night, thinking about how on earth a deadline can come down to the last couple of hours, I calculated - estimated, actually - how many words, how many sentences I write for every one that ends up in the final draft. I actually think my ratio is high; I think I keep in more of my darlings than I kill, but lordy, there's a lot of time spent writing stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor.

Is this normal? I think it is. According to all those books I read, all those interviews, all those advice blogs, I have to write shitty first drafts and put in the hours, and write when it hurts, and write when it's crap. And I do that. I do - and I can't think of any other endeavor where there's so much time and attention put into stuff that ends up in the virtual trash can.

My favorite writing program, Scrivener, won't LET me throw stuff away permanently. Those people, they know writers. They know that we get pissed off and throw stuff away and regret it later. They know that sometimes I write with a purging hand, that sometimes I write with a 5-lucques olive martini by my side, that sometimes my cat accidentally deletes things...the Scrivener people, they are wise. I urge you to check them out.

In the meantime, it's actually really nice for my words to be in my agent's hands, to have time away from them while I prepare for the new school year. I am heading in today to make my classroom look great for the first day of school. I have an old, trashy copy of The Odyssey that I will take apart and use for the background of the main bulletin board, then put images from an old copy of a gorgeous mythology book over the top. I'm going all Martha Stewart on that converted-trailer classroom. There will be laminating. There will be decorative borders.

I also have some sad - no, not sad yet - news. Pip has been missing for about five days. I know he's probably fine, and I have not given up hope yet, but I think the neighbors are getting a little sick of my "Heeeeeere kitty kitty kitty" each morning and evening all up and down the street. I will go exploring in his territory today in case he's trapped somewhere. Keep the faith. He's wily and, as a barn cat, I remain hopeful that he's out there somewhere foraging and courting all the female cats in the area.

More news when I hear from said agent, or if - when - Pip shows up.

The Day After

Well, I made my deadline, but I think I have brain damage. Very early this morning, I scanned for errant red or green squiggly lines, checked the formatting one last time, and hit 'send.' I thought I'd feel relief when I hauled myself into bed, but for the next two hours, all of my grammatical, syntactical, and continuity errors showed themselves in my mind's eye.

All I have to do today is help set up for our town's library book sale and take a riding lesson with my son Ben, but I am hoping to do a coherent blog post later on today.

Time for coffee.

Did I mention I made pickles earlier this week? It was therapeutic and the sight of those jars all lined up in the cellar stirs a Little House in the Big Woods sort of contentment in me.