first, i have decided that if i ever get another cat, i will name it wingnut. don't know why, but that sounds like a good name for a crazy cat. it also sort of fills the bill for me right now...spinning round and round...
i am trying to adjust to some new meds, and hope that they will be taking effect soon and i will get a little energy and life back. i have been listless again recently, and i think the cymbalta is not doing as much as i had hoped. i discussed this with my doctor last week when i finally got to see her, and i asked about the layering effect that kathy h. had told me about. we decided that going back to lexapro might not be the best, as i have noticed a cessation of the migraines since being off the lexapro. so she decided to layer the cymbalta with a low does of zoloft. i just started taking that this weekend, so i suspect it will take awhile for it to kick in and for me to see some sort of effect. i am also taking a new medicine for my kidneys/blood pressure. i had been on the same medicine, for the kidneys, since i was at midlo in 1992. it served something of a double duty in keeping my blood pressure down. however, it has gone up, so she has prescribed a medicine that is designed to do both. i have been on that almost 2 weeks, but last week when i went, it didn't look like it was doing much. because my cholesterol is also up, she decided that if this one doesn't work, she will try another one designed to do all three. we'll see. i also need to set up an appointment to see the gastroenterologist about the choking incidents and make sure there is nothing more going on there. he can also do a colonoscopy as well, so i can kill two birds with one stone.
there seems to have been a lot of drama with my students last week, and it sucked me dry. i am finding that kids are either really adept at putting on a front, or i am getting really bad at detecting it! i have two "project" problem kids that i am trying to mentor, and last week both sucked me dry. i cannot do much for either, and it makes me sad that my role is such that i can't seem to make an active difference. i worry about he paths both are trotting right now, and i can't see a way to divert or stop either from the courses they have chosen to take. it is very frustrating. i also have the dramas and worries of austin, who is in baseball season with something everyday to be a distraction or a worry. right now, he is trying to decide where to go with his relationship with amy. should he break up with her? what does he want from her? does he still care for her? right now, he says he doesn't have the feelings for her that he used to have, but he doesn't want to hurt her, and he doesn't know how to break up with her. it is another end to an era i guess, and it makes me feel weird, again, the spinning wingnut.
all of a sudden there has been this leap, or little jumps, in austin's life, jumps that i am seeing are natural, but i am also seeing that he is growing up. and while he talks to me about his life, i can also see that he is now made a step away from me with the driver's license, and that realization has been pretty profound for me. some days i see some maturity, and other days, i really question his reasoning on things, or lack thereof. sometimes he wants to be all manly, and other times, like last night, he calls me and he is crying on the phone about amy. it is all very confusing to me. my new idea is to try and stay on top of things, but not to stay overly involved. dealing with him is no less stressful than dealing with my 2 spare kids at school.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
closure
my first year of teaching was a long time ago, and was marred by a tragic incident that i have never completely had closure on. this weekend, via facebook, i got that closure, and it has given me a little peace.
in the mid 80's richmond had a serial killer, the so-called SOUTHSIDE STRANGLER. before he was finally caught, 4 women were raped and strangled to death. his name was timothy spencer, and he was the first person in the usa to be put to death based upon DNA evidence. his last richmond victim was a student of mine, diane cho.
at the time, i was searching for a place to move to, and even though i had always lived on the southside of town, i moved across the river simply out of fear. as it turns out, spencer apparently was scoping out his victims at cloverleaf mall, then stalked them, then killed them. these murders were the number one thing on most people's minds during those months, so when his third victim turned out to be my student, i was affected in a way that i cannot describe. the effects seem to tumble over and over, striking in many areas, touching a lot of lives. and there were lots of "coincidences" that i don't see as such. things happen for a reason, but i still wonder why i was selected.
two weeks before she died, diane had an after school detention with me. too many tardies. so she stayed, washed the board, made a writing box to put kids papers in. after she had finished the busy work, she sat down in front of my desk and we talked. in the course of the conversation, she told me about how she and one of the other korean girls would open up their windows at night after their parents thought they were asleep, and would talk to each other. jenny lived upstairs, diane on the first floor. at any other time this kind of activity would have gone down as quaint and silly. but not during that time. i remember saying to diane "hey, you can't do that anymore! there is a killer out there who is killing women and going through their windows to get them."
and then the strangest things happened. she just smiled at me, and suddenly a shaft of sunlight came through the window and illuminated her face. and i knew then that she wasn't going to close the window. and she didn't.
i came back to school on a monday morning after having been out of town, and i heard teachers whispering in the english workroom "whose student was she?" and i asked what they were talking about. someone said the strangler had killed again over the weekend, and it was a korean girl. and then i knew it was diane, and it was.
she was in a class of 13 kids, and when you have a small number like that, it makes for a more intimate, family like atmosphere. most of the kids in there were from all sorts of backgrounds and brought all sorts of issues to the table. they got along. they argued. but some of them were scared beyond belief when murder and rape struck someone so close to them. one of the boys had seen them take diane's body out on the stretcher, had seen her mother hysterically throwing herself on diane's body. another boy spent the class period that day snapping pencils in half, one by bone. and then there was desi, a tough puerto rican girl who had come from new york. she and diane were friends and lived near each other, and apparently rode the school bus together.
a day or so after the killings, another student approached me and said that desi had info about diane and the person who had killed her. desi apparently was willing to talk to me, and i took her out in the hall and asked her about it. she did have info, and considering the nature of the incidents, it was something i felt had to be turned in. i went to the office and called the cops, and the detectives on the case came to school. desi would only talk to the cops if i was going to go with her. so i did. they covered off my class for the 2 hours it took for them to get there and to conduct the interview. they asked a lot of really strange questions of both desi and i that day. did diane carve herself? did we know anything about her drawing the figure 8 on herself? other things that i couldn't understand that day. desi told them how diane had seen the guy when she had gotten off the bus on that friday afternoon, and she had screamed and run away. she had seen him before and he had stalked her. desi gave a description of what the stalker looked like...and it was eerily close to what timothy spencer actually looked like...only it took them a long time finally to get to him and arrest him. he was caught, convicted and put to death and now it has been 20 years. what was the closure i needed?
years after the incident i worked as a reporter for one summer for the old richmond afternoon paper, the NEWS LEADER. one of my days was spent with the crime reporter at the time, gordon hickey. he had written an article for reader's digest that i think won some sort of award for journalism. in it he had recounted the story of how timothy spencer had operated, how he was caught, and how ultimately he was put to death. i relayed my story about diane to him and he inadvertantly answered a lot of the questions that i had had about what happened to her. most importantly what i learned that day was that desi had been right, and that her information could possibly have led to finding him. desi might have saved some lives, but she would never had known.
and then came facebook, and former students, and the friends and links you click on and the pictures of former students that you look at. yearbook pictures, things from the day. and in looking at one of those, i saw desi's picture, and remembered and wondered about her. another former student asked to friend me, and i looked at her friends, wondering which ones i might know or remember...and there she was.
tentatively, i sent her a short message, asking if she was that desi. she wrote me back...she was that girl, and she, too, remembered diane. i told her what i wanted to say, about the information that gordon had given me years later, and how she had told the truth. she told me that even her own mother hadn't believed her, but she still talked. and it made a difference.
desi is now living in puerto rico, is 37, and has 6 kids. she seems happy. she said that she did what she did because diane was her friend. and that must have meant more than being scared or worrying about whether or not someone would take a 15 year old kid's information seriously. and all these years later, it is still worth something...
in the mid 80's richmond had a serial killer, the so-called SOUTHSIDE STRANGLER. before he was finally caught, 4 women were raped and strangled to death. his name was timothy spencer, and he was the first person in the usa to be put to death based upon DNA evidence. his last richmond victim was a student of mine, diane cho.
at the time, i was searching for a place to move to, and even though i had always lived on the southside of town, i moved across the river simply out of fear. as it turns out, spencer apparently was scoping out his victims at cloverleaf mall, then stalked them, then killed them. these murders were the number one thing on most people's minds during those months, so when his third victim turned out to be my student, i was affected in a way that i cannot describe. the effects seem to tumble over and over, striking in many areas, touching a lot of lives. and there were lots of "coincidences" that i don't see as such. things happen for a reason, but i still wonder why i was selected.
two weeks before she died, diane had an after school detention with me. too many tardies. so she stayed, washed the board, made a writing box to put kids papers in. after she had finished the busy work, she sat down in front of my desk and we talked. in the course of the conversation, she told me about how she and one of the other korean girls would open up their windows at night after their parents thought they were asleep, and would talk to each other. jenny lived upstairs, diane on the first floor. at any other time this kind of activity would have gone down as quaint and silly. but not during that time. i remember saying to diane "hey, you can't do that anymore! there is a killer out there who is killing women and going through their windows to get them."
and then the strangest things happened. she just smiled at me, and suddenly a shaft of sunlight came through the window and illuminated her face. and i knew then that she wasn't going to close the window. and she didn't.
i came back to school on a monday morning after having been out of town, and i heard teachers whispering in the english workroom "whose student was she?" and i asked what they were talking about. someone said the strangler had killed again over the weekend, and it was a korean girl. and then i knew it was diane, and it was.
she was in a class of 13 kids, and when you have a small number like that, it makes for a more intimate, family like atmosphere. most of the kids in there were from all sorts of backgrounds and brought all sorts of issues to the table. they got along. they argued. but some of them were scared beyond belief when murder and rape struck someone so close to them. one of the boys had seen them take diane's body out on the stretcher, had seen her mother hysterically throwing herself on diane's body. another boy spent the class period that day snapping pencils in half, one by bone. and then there was desi, a tough puerto rican girl who had come from new york. she and diane were friends and lived near each other, and apparently rode the school bus together.
a day or so after the killings, another student approached me and said that desi had info about diane and the person who had killed her. desi apparently was willing to talk to me, and i took her out in the hall and asked her about it. she did have info, and considering the nature of the incidents, it was something i felt had to be turned in. i went to the office and called the cops, and the detectives on the case came to school. desi would only talk to the cops if i was going to go with her. so i did. they covered off my class for the 2 hours it took for them to get there and to conduct the interview. they asked a lot of really strange questions of both desi and i that day. did diane carve herself? did we know anything about her drawing the figure 8 on herself? other things that i couldn't understand that day. desi told them how diane had seen the guy when she had gotten off the bus on that friday afternoon, and she had screamed and run away. she had seen him before and he had stalked her. desi gave a description of what the stalker looked like...and it was eerily close to what timothy spencer actually looked like...only it took them a long time finally to get to him and arrest him. he was caught, convicted and put to death and now it has been 20 years. what was the closure i needed?
years after the incident i worked as a reporter for one summer for the old richmond afternoon paper, the NEWS LEADER. one of my days was spent with the crime reporter at the time, gordon hickey. he had written an article for reader's digest that i think won some sort of award for journalism. in it he had recounted the story of how timothy spencer had operated, how he was caught, and how ultimately he was put to death. i relayed my story about diane to him and he inadvertantly answered a lot of the questions that i had had about what happened to her. most importantly what i learned that day was that desi had been right, and that her information could possibly have led to finding him. desi might have saved some lives, but she would never had known.
and then came facebook, and former students, and the friends and links you click on and the pictures of former students that you look at. yearbook pictures, things from the day. and in looking at one of those, i saw desi's picture, and remembered and wondered about her. another former student asked to friend me, and i looked at her friends, wondering which ones i might know or remember...and there she was.
tentatively, i sent her a short message, asking if she was that desi. she wrote me back...she was that girl, and she, too, remembered diane. i told her what i wanted to say, about the information that gordon had given me years later, and how she had told the truth. she told me that even her own mother hadn't believed her, but she still talked. and it made a difference.
desi is now living in puerto rico, is 37, and has 6 kids. she seems happy. she said that she did what she did because diane was her friend. and that must have meant more than being scared or worrying about whether or not someone would take a 15 year old kid's information seriously. and all these years later, it is still worth something...
DAILY OM
March 16, 2009
Emerging From the Grey-Ways We Numb Ourselves
We are born equipped to experience a complex array of diverse emotions. Many of us, however, are uncomfortable confronting our most powerful emotions. We may shy away from delight and despair and deny life’s colors by retreating into a world of monotone grey. We may numb ourselves to what we are truly feeling. It’s easier to suppress our emotions than to deal with them, so we may momentarily turn to pleasures such as alcohol, food, sugar, shopping and too much television. We may even numb our hearts. While it’s normal to temporarily seek distractions as a means of coping with intense emotions, numbing yourself prevents you from confronting your issues and keeps you from ever finding resolution or peace. When you are numb, there is no pain or powerlessness, but there can also be no joy or healing. The activities that numb you may seem harmless or pleasurable, but using them to numb yourself diminishes the quality of your life. Numbing yourself so that you don’t have to feel intense emotions can often satisfy a surface need while blocking your awareness of a deeper need. You may find solace in food or shopping when what you really need is spiritual nourishment. The less you feel, the less alive you feel. Your feelings add vividness to your experiences and serve to connect you to the world around you. It is possible to disavow yourself of numbing behaviors a little at a time and once again taste life’s rich flavors. When you sense that you are engaging in a particular behavior simply to deaden your emotions, stop and ask yourself why. Examining the feelings that drive you to numb yourself can help you understand what is triggering your desire to emotionally fade out. With each numbing activity that you cut out of your life, you’ll find yourself being more aware and experiencing a greater emotionally acuity. Senses once shrouded by the fog of numbness become sharp and acute. Traumas and pain long hidden will emerge to the forefront of your consciousness and reveal themselves so that you can heal them. You’ll discover a deeper you—a self that is comfortable experiencing and working through intense emotions with courage and grace.
well, i know i am pretty guilty of this, big time. the problem is that i don't know how to get to the core issues that make me eat, which i guess is my addiction. i guess when it is time, it will be time.
March 16, 2009
Emerging From the Grey-Ways We Numb Ourselves
We are born equipped to experience a complex array of diverse emotions. Many of us, however, are uncomfortable confronting our most powerful emotions. We may shy away from delight and despair and deny life’s colors by retreating into a world of monotone grey. We may numb ourselves to what we are truly feeling. It’s easier to suppress our emotions than to deal with them, so we may momentarily turn to pleasures such as alcohol, food, sugar, shopping and too much television. We may even numb our hearts. While it’s normal to temporarily seek distractions as a means of coping with intense emotions, numbing yourself prevents you from confronting your issues and keeps you from ever finding resolution or peace. When you are numb, there is no pain or powerlessness, but there can also be no joy or healing. The activities that numb you may seem harmless or pleasurable, but using them to numb yourself diminishes the quality of your life. Numbing yourself so that you don’t have to feel intense emotions can often satisfy a surface need while blocking your awareness of a deeper need. You may find solace in food or shopping when what you really need is spiritual nourishment. The less you feel, the less alive you feel. Your feelings add vividness to your experiences and serve to connect you to the world around you. It is possible to disavow yourself of numbing behaviors a little at a time and once again taste life’s rich flavors. When you sense that you are engaging in a particular behavior simply to deaden your emotions, stop and ask yourself why. Examining the feelings that drive you to numb yourself can help you understand what is triggering your desire to emotionally fade out. With each numbing activity that you cut out of your life, you’ll find yourself being more aware and experiencing a greater emotionally acuity. Senses once shrouded by the fog of numbness become sharp and acute. Traumas and pain long hidden will emerge to the forefront of your consciousness and reveal themselves so that you can heal them. You’ll discover a deeper you—a self that is comfortable experiencing and working through intense emotions with courage and grace.
well, i know i am pretty guilty of this, big time. the problem is that i don't know how to get to the core issues that make me eat, which i guess is my addiction. i guess when it is time, it will be time.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
the lovely awaited storm...
When it finally came, it was a good one. an all night snow, a thick, wet afghan. i kept flicking on the lights outside around the shed and on the porch, just to make sure that it was still there, it hadn't stopped or gone anywhere else. after so many years, i just couldn't accept the fact that it really was going to snow, snow hard, and stick.
so i stayed up until 5:30, long past the time for any sane person to go to sleep. i was by myself, drinking diet lime coke and washing and folding laundry. i was on the computer, i was peaking through the window into the night to see if those flakes were continuing to fall. and they did and did and did. and i was happy like a little kid, feeling silly. but it didn't matter much. you take your small pleasures where you can find them.
we ended up with eight inches or more. i spent time watching the birds pecking around the bird feeders, wondering how they would get to the feed. i needn't have worried. they found a way, called their friends, came and went. i just made a perch by the sink, leaning into the window to get closer.
i didn't go out in it but once on monday, just to get the newspaper. some part of me didn't want to put a footprint in the snow. i just wanted it to stay clean and smooth, unblemished. i guess the snow got to be a moment with infinite possibilities.
we were out of school for 3 days. the sun came out, austin created a meltdown of a different sort when he put my car sideways in the backyard. at that point, the snow moment morphed into a whole different memory. schizophrenic snow.
and then in the course of 3 days we went from 9 degree overnight to 80 degrees and shorts. the switch was astounding and startling. i dragged out my bike and fixed it so i could ride it. i did the spring yard things, pruning my butterfly trees and wacking down the old, dried husks of last year's zebra grass around my fountain/pond by the porch. i didn't quite finish the task, deciding to let the wind blow the rest of the loose grass to wherever it chose to go. now it is raining, and spring seems somewhat hung up like a piece of laundry on a clothesline. it flaps around, out there waiting for someone to take it down, smelling clean and fresh, and put it on and wear it, even if the weather is cold and opposing. i just watch it hanging out there, suspended, and wonder when i will want to walk and unlease it, free it.
march 13, 2009...a wintry mix
for most people, friday the 13th is a day where you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder to see what is going to catch you, or looking forward to make sure you don't do anything that could come back to haunt you. yesterday's friday the 13th dawned with snow, a snow that really fell all day, a snow that gathered on the ground enough to create the illusion that there would be more, that maybe we could go home from school early, all the things that exhilarate you about snow.
for me, the vacillation between snow and rain, the big flakes coming down, forming things, the little specs blowing in the wind, all of them represented me yesterday. a wintry mix.
i love snow, and i have missed the peaceful nature of it for the last three years. i like the cold, the silence, the challenge of walking in it and the fact that when you do, you are almost always physically breaking new ground and leaving behind a trail. the snow is like your life in a lot of ways...you can see a vast, unpainted canvas of white, and you have the freedom to make your mark in it anyway that you like. you can just walk aimlessly and enjoy it. you can lay down and make a snow angel. you can just go from point A to point B with purpose and no thought to your footsteps. and no matter what you do in the snow, one thing is guaranteed: your footsteps will be erased as the weather turns and heats up. i guess that is just a reminder in many ways that what we do is like those footprints in the snow...lovely, clean, creative and temporary.
being a teacher is a lot like walking in the snow. you can do all of those things, but once the sun comes out, life moves on to different things and different paths. i guess as a person, i have needed the snow to remind me of what i can do, what the palate is ahead of me, and that maybe i can still paint on it, make footprints still, even though i don't get the snow opportunity all that often.
yesterday it snowed and it rained, two swinging pendulums of plus and minus. i walked out to the front lawn in front of the school between classes and just stood in the snow. then i expressed myself, as if it were just me and the weather. it ended up turning into a fun spectacle, as the students in many classrooms saw me, and the cell phone cameras started clicking. i went from having a silly snow moment to a youtube/facebook 15 minutes of fame. i admit i did ham it up by doing tai chai in the snow, but in some weird way i just wanted them to see an adult doing something silly and fun because she wanted to. no harm, no foul.
in between snow and rain, i was working on things for one of my "project" children who was having a sinking moment. working for him, trying to arrange stuff for him, sucked me dry. it was the rain, but then again, it was the snow. it has been awhile since i dug in and got my feet wet in advocating for a kid who needed one. i walked away from school wet and tired.
it is raining today, and the snow is gone. but it is in my mind and i am walking still.
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