The Final Countdown; or, A Vagabond Heart

"WALKER PERCY ONCE wrote that at a certain point in his life a man draws strength from living in some authentic relationship with the principal events of his past. I have often pondered what it was that brought me back to stay [in the South]. I am forever drawn to the textures, the echoes, the way things look and feel, the bittersweet tug of certain phrases: 'We crossed the river at Natchez.' The South is a blend of the relentless and the abiding for me, and an accumulation of ironies so acute and impenetrable that my vagabond heart palpitates to make sense of them."   Willie Morris, from the essay "Is There a South Anymore?" Southern Magazine, October 1986. 

My favorite memoir is from fellow Mississippian Willie Morris. North Towards Home tells of Morris' childhood in Mississippi, college life in Texas, and life as a writer in New York City---and all in an attempt to find "home."  When I read his book in college, I couldn't help but feel it spoke to me. And I love his term "vagabond heart" in the above essay because it encapsulates how I feel. Morris did some wandering of his own before finally giving in to that tug to return to his native Mississippi, where he died in 1999. 

part of my heart---the Mighty Pearl River, MS

In one of my earliest blog posts, I wrote about not knowing where home is and my forever quest to find it. It's been a quandary as long as I can remember. I was a shy, strange child, and moving from the Delta to southern Mississippi was a rather traumatic experience. I didn't like having to meet new friends. I didn't like change. I didn't like people's prying questions, or having to deal with going to school (I had only attended kindergarten part time), and I remember thinking if I were quiet, I could make myself invisible. It's a trick I held on to for several years, until being part of a community over time made it impossible to do anymore. I was part of something. I had become part of the collective memory of my classmates with whom I attended 1-12 grade. My biggest pet peeve of life in that small town is when certain classmates would like to say, "Do you remember in kindergarten when. . . oh yeah, that's right, you didn't live here then." It was their not-so-subtle way of putting me in my place because I wasn't born there. Maybe this is why I never wanted to stay. Or maybe I just never took root and after reversing my original stance and working hard not to be invisible, realized that to some, I would always be. My hometown is not my birthplace, nor my sister's, nor my parents. Despite living there for twelve years of school and countless years of going back annually, I am in many ways still not "one of them." 

And I am totally okay with that. I love many people there. The adage goes, "Home is where the heart is," but truly, can you aimlessly travel from one place to another, holding those you love close, while knowing they live thousands of miles away and you'll be lucky to see them once a year? For me, yes. For others, not so much. 

These are the things I have tried to explain to many of my friends and even family members who have deep roots and love their towns. They have a sense of place I have never had. 

That brings me to this. We have a pack out date now, meaning that for three days in the beginning of June, a moving crew will invade our house and pack up practically every possession we have. We made the choice when we plunged into this peripatetic life to not put anything in long-term storage. Family valuables we left at home. Years of paperwork we finally shred. Many things---linens, furniture, pots and pans that we have had for the majority of our 24 year marriage---we have finally given away. 

Today we took the ferry over to the airport to pick up our son who is returning from college in Spain. The next time we take that same ferry will probably be when we leave here forever. As we left for the Leeward side and watched people jump off the dock to say goodbye to those leaving island, I wondered, who is left to jump for us? Will anyone come out? Teachers tend to leave the day school is out; we will stay another week, probably. So many dear, wonderful, close friends have already left GTMO forever. There's part of me that wants to sneak over to the other side the night before and stay at the hotel there so we don't have to say goodbye. I always get a little lump in my throat watching people jump and swim out to the ferry, even knowing they aren't there for me.

It's been a great four years, six months, and 22 days in many ways. Despite my whining and complaining at what are truly first world problems (no diet Coke, no eggs, the pool is closed---again), there have been rewards that we have reaped and will for years to come. I'm still a little freaked out when I look back and think that in 2012 we walked away from a house, two stable jobs, friends and family, and a community we lived in longer than anywhere else in our marriage (10 years---and for my husband, the longest he's lived anywhere). We took a leap of faith and I have no regrets. The big stuff for those of us here that adds up to low morale at times is still small stuff compared to some of the big challenges of our life living in Texas.

part of my heart, this crazy, crazy place

I'm hoping my wandering spirit and vagabond heart will find a place to call home once we get to Spain. With a son only a few hours away, and the ability to get on a commercial airplane and get to our families faster from Europe than from GTMO, it's already got some things going for it that we don't have here. I will miss those here who I hold in my heart---and I hope they will take me up on our offers to visit. I don't think we will ever come back here to visit, and knowing we don't really have that option, unlike other places we've called home all over the U.S., makes me a little sad. 

The possibility that we will spend the next 10 years or so in Spain make me very happy. Could this be the place? Or, like Willie Morris, will I one day find that pull to the South so strong that I will want to go back to live? 

It is very possible that in six weeks from today, if all goes as planned, we will leave GTMO forever. How will I feel? Relief? Grief? Sadness? Giddiness? 

Maybe a little of all above? 

In the same essay, Willie Morris also wrote, "To escape the South, however — all of what it was and is — I would have to escape from myself."

The South is my home, who I am. As much as I have worked to lose the accent (some find it charming, but it comes with its own set of detrimental stereotypes), I am a southern girl through and through. However, it is not where I live. A wanderer is what I am. That cliche "citizen of the world" is also me. 

And Spain is calling. Onwards to more purging and packing for the next great adventure of someone consumed with wanderlust. 

read all of Willie Morris' essay here.

What Fresh Hell is This; or, Boxes of Feelings

Teachers do this awful thing during our "down time," i.e. unpaid vacations scattered throughout the year.

(No, we do not get paid for the times your kids are not in school. Our districts just spread our paychecks out evenly over the school year, or, in most states, the entire year, so we don't go completely broke during those long vacation months).

So now that we have ascertained that it's MY unpaid time---I've decided to treat my unpaid self to a week of----wait for it!---cleaning like a madwoman.

And that's the other crazy thing we teachers do.  Are we lounging around, watching soap operas, baking, doing whatever people supposedly do who don't work? (don't worry, those of you who work as domestic gods and goddesses---I know all of these are ridiculous stereotypes and myths). At least in my case, I am doing all the deep cleaning I can't do during the school year because I'm spending (unpaid) hours after work and on weekends doing my job that I can't do because of 1001 meetings (or because---heaven forbid---I chose to spend time with my own family instead of work on some weekends). 

Not that I don't love my job. Please, please don't get that impression. Good grief---I've been at it since 1991, so yeah, there's something there.

I've been reminded SO MANY times this week of why I love teaching. More about that in a bit. . .

Here's the deal: I have this horrible habit during moves (13 times in 24 years) of throwing those things we don't want to deal with in a box and repacking them over and over and over and over again.

Some people eat their feelings. I don't eat my feelings; I pack them in a U-Haul or moving company box and throw them on a shelf in a closet or garage to deal with, well, never. And one box has become seven or eight boxes, and I HAVE to deal with those things because I don't want to leave them for my kids to deal with, once the eight boxes have become 10. Or 20. Or a whole basement.

I am a hoarder of feelings. 

In anticipation of move #14 to our second overseas location, I don't want to move SEVENTEEN freakin' THOUSAND lbs. of goods to a new house. I still can't believe that's what we brought with us. I want to have only things we want, we need, we love.

So Dorothy Parker, whom I adore and wish I had 1/10 of her wit, had a habit of saying, "What fresh hell can this be?" any time anyone came to her door. Over the years, this became, "What fresh hell is this?" For some reason, it's one of my favorite expressions, and I have said this ad nauseum while opening those boxes of feelings I've been avoiding for years. Spring break has been SO much fun. It's been a fun-fest of feelings and shredding. Because the best way to get rid of feelings is to shred them----it's become quite satisfying, actually, to hear the constant hum of my trusty old shredder. 

There is paperwork for the four houses we have bought and sold. Each house meant so much---the first house in Colorado, which was still one of my top two; the house in Washington, where we brought home a baby boy; the haunted house in Texas that made me decide to never, ever live in a house built in the 1940s ever again (the ghost had nothing to do with that, btw); the last Texas home where we brought home another baby boy and lived in the longest of any house we've lived (8 years). Some of those houses were bought hastily and were probably not the best fit for us; others cost us money to unload, and caused a little resentment that things didn't go as planned. Today we have chosen a life where we will probably not own another house for many, many years. So seeing the former life of home ownership spread before me has dredged up many feelings, and shredding all that paperwork has been a little bittersweet. 

There are mementos from my childhood. Do I need yearbooks and scrapbooks and autograph books and diaries from my childhood? I took hundreds (I'm starting to think thousands) of photographs, starting in middle school, and although I've managed to mail several of them to friends in the US, I am finding even more that I need to get in envelopes and give away. My children are not going to want school pictures of kids they don't recognize. And honestly----I don't even recognize some of the people in the pictures. I am at the point of NO guilt over throwing out some of these things. It's all beginning to feel like clutter, and it doesn't have that official context of mortgage paperwork that had me holding onto it for so many years. It's sentimental stuff, and I'm trying to be tougher about throwing out something that's been thrown in a box for 15 years and I haven't thought about since. 

Those are the easy things. The harder things are those associated with feelings of failure and shame: paperwork and letters and pictures from what started as a lovely relationship (or so I thought, at 16 years old) and ended as a rather nasty divorce at 22. If you haven't been through a divorce, then you don't know this fun little fact: you will carry your divorce papers with you for the rest of your life. You need them to buy or sell a house. The military asked for them several times when I was a military spouse, and again as I am a civilian working for the government. I honestly forget about that first marriage (as a friend calls it, it's my "starter marriage") until I have to gather them again for official government paperwork. Incidentally, I recently gave my starter marriage an annulment (long story, too boring for a blog) and I did shred that paperwork. I am not Catholic, and no offense if you are, but I think annulments are silly and pointless. And the ridiculous amount of paperwork it required was taking up way too much room in my boxes of feelings. 

The more difficult boxes have paperwork to remind me of times of financial hardships, of very stressful health issues, of friendships that just petered out for some strange reason or another. I don't know why, but I had people I thought would be in my life forever, and I see now our relationships have just dissolved. It's neither person's fault; it just happens. It's life. And like a set of divorce papers, those cards and letters and photographs are reminders of something that maybe I should have fought for (or maybe something I should have never tried to make work). Unlike divorce papers, they can go to the shredder. 

There are letters and cards from people I have loved who have died. What do you do with letters from your Granny, especially when they make you smile and laugh every time you re-read them? What about cards? If they don't have a note in them, do you throw them away? But just being able to touch my  father in law's handwriting again, and chuckle at the types of cards he chose for me---he knew my personality so well---keeps me from throwing them out. This is the guy who called me EVERY SINGLE WEEK for the entire year that my husband was deployed to S. Korea to check on me. His loss 15 years ago isn't any easier today, and I grieve every week for what my kids missed. Will they get to know him by reading his funny little sarcastic notes and postscripts on cards and letters? I hope so. Those I kept. 

my Granny Ann's chicken scratch---she was a dreamer, a cloud gazer,
 a lover of small animals and children, and believed in sending and receiving letters.
As a college student, if I went over a few weeks without sending her a letter,
I got a note reminding me that I should write her.
And I did---often.  

I really do suffer from hyper-sentimentality, if there is such a thing.

That being said----I have shredded EIGHT extra large black garbage bags full of materials. I feel like I'm doing some illegal operation for the mafia (or the government). And those eight boxes are now 2 bins, very neatly organized into materials I am keeping for legal (and yes, some sentimental) reasons, and one more box to go through. I feel so accomplished. That supersized box of extra large ziploc bags came in SO handy. I can see everything neatly organized, and seeing everything spread out gives me reasons to do a second and third sweep and get rid of even more. 

Coming back full circle to teaching---one thing I have never thrown out is the letters students have written me. 

Since my first year of teaching, students have given me Christmas cards or even thank you cards at the end of the year with wonderful little notes. 

Some notes are written with sloppy handwriting and bad spelling; others are in the student's very best print. Sometimes they have a photograph or even a piece of poetry the student has written for me. And other times there is no letter or card---it's just a piece of artwork done for me.

I will be honest---I can't picture the face of a few of the students, especially the ones from way back in the 1990s. 

But have you ever gotten a thank you note for doing your job or a piece of poetry written for you? It doesn't happen to me a lot---and I will be honest, it has happened very little since I have been here. I don't know why; maybe it's just this generation communicates almost exclusively electronically. I have several emails and facebook messages that have made me smile and thankful that I get to work with teenagers.

An email isn't the same as a hand written card, however. Getting something so personal, especially when I know how hard it is for so many teenagers to express themselves to adults, has made me hold on to these things. They were a labor of love, and something I will definitely keep. 

YOU'RE, Tyrone, YOU'RE. But the sentiment is appreciated
Wonder if he'd feel the same of me at 47? And don't worry, kid;
I've had administrators at the above-school level
who didn't know the difference
between your/you're, either.
Also, Tyrone is 34 years old today. Ouch.

This process has been somber, and in a lot of ways, it's created feelings of grief. I won't even go into some of the personal things I have found, but there are little things you throw in a box, and when you reach in and take them out, they can give you all sorts of feels. If they can be shared with someone else, I'm boxing them up and sending them on. If I no longer have a relationship with that person, they are being thrown out. If it's something that makes me feel regret, I try to throw it out, too. Why hold on to sadness?

Here's to a life that eventually contains no boxes of feelings, where everything can be unpacked and displayed, and with no boxes to shuffle from one house to another. It may not be completed over spring break, but I have a manageable project that won't have me hollering, "Oh what fresh hell is this!" every time I pull out another tidbit of my past from a messy, unorganized cardboard box.

Más Purge, por favor; or, Quiero tener duende

The Great Purge of 2017 continues.

Oh. My. God. Becky, would you look at her books?

Or movies? Or games? Board games AND video games?

Not to mention all the electronics that will eventually have to go?

Yesterday I came home to the husband on the back porch burning up the shredder double time like a mad man. I feel like we are in an illegal organization with the amount of shredding we are producing. Good grief.

Of course, this takes a lot of time, as does listing tons of stuff on one of the base fb selling sites. I'm really trying to figure out why I am doing this.

Here's what happens---I get some of the following messages:

a) "Yes! I want this __________. Please hold it for me and I'll be over at _____ to pick it up!!!"

(24 hours later-----"oh yeah, forgot to tell you, sorry, I don't want it after all" and the 3 other people who were once interested are suddenly not interested anymore).

b)."I know it's listed for $60, but will you take $5?"

c). "Very interested!"
(I send a message and never get a response).

d). "I'd want it and I'll pay for it. I don't have a car. Do you deliver?"

So WHY am I doing this?!!?!?

As it's all sitting around on my dining room table, never being sold, I'm rethinking the need to get rid of all of this stuff by selling it and just throwing it away. Or giving it away. Or anything but dealing with flaky people and SO MUCH STUFF. Ugh.

The point of the story: I have too much stuff. I also hate selling things. And I don't hate people, but I sort of hate dealing with people.

Otherwise, I'm making preparations for a big PCS move (that's Permanent Change of Station for all you non-military/DoD, real-world people).

In more exciting moving news (no, no orders yet), I got this in the mail:

Do you know how exciting it is to organize all of my toiletries, clothes, etc into 100 extra large ziploc bags?

No, you probably don't. Take my word---it's exciting.

If you've done a big move, you know the more organized you are, the better. Just like the less junk you have to move, the better.

In other news, I've been researching Everything Spain and sometimes I get so excited, I can't even sleep at night. I've also had a hard time doing my job.

It's not because of the moving excitement; it's because NOTHING TECHNOLOGICAL EVER WORKS IN OUR BUILDING.

If it's Monday, either a) the internet, b)the server, or c) the network will be out. Of course, today is Wednesday and it's the same. I am an idiot and can't say "no" to sweet, begging children, so I got suckered into doing yearbook which I cannot do without any of the above. I am in technological hell. Some things haven't changed in five years. I think it's the universe's way of telling me that if I had any remorse over leaving, fuggedabouit.

Also, H and the rest of the elementary school are moving into either extra classrooms (okay, we don't have extra classrooms---they are taking over labs we actually use) or "learning cottages" (aka "portables" aka trailers) on the grounds of our school while they are tearing down the old elementary school to build a new K-12, two storey, high-tech, 21st century, *insert educational buzzword here* school in its place. You know, the school that was supposed to be opening this year but has been delayed for years.

Yes, they are moving during spring break instead of over the summer. No, I don't know why.

My husband keeps telling me that I need to quit getting so riled up over things here because it's not my fight to fight. He is right (he always is, dammit) but I can't help it; it's like a genetic defect.

My future focus will be trying to quit fighting the good fight and focusing on things I can control. That leaves. . . looking up Everything Spain and daydreaming about a house that's hopefully a little less cluttered (our clutter is well hidden in drawers and closets, mind you). It will have its own sets of frustrations, and I will be reminded, again, that I need to quit fighting and just give in. But I also will try to let go and give into a new culture and let the stress of our final months of GTMO wash away. . .

Duende. From the page "Spanish words that don't translate directly into English"---I really liked this one.It's used with tener (to have)---"Tengo duende."(pic source: http://bit.ly/2nkDv9A)
From another website, loosely translated: "To have the art, the magic, the spell of captivating people with art and the will and affection of other people" (www.significadoode.org/tener%20duende.htm) 

I want to try to find things to make me feel this word. Isn't it a beautiful concept? It's usually used in conjunction with flamenco, which originates in the area of Spain where we will live.  I am SO ready to feel that way about the food, the art, the architecture, the people of Andalucía. . . and to stop fighting so much to control things that are, well, not my things to change.

No More Rock-n-Roll Lifestyle; or, Bocas Cerradas

"En boca cerrada no entran moscas."

I had to learn a huge list of Spanish idioms in college, and this is the one I liked and remembered the most.

Basically it means, "in a closed mouth, no flies will enter."

In other words, learn to close your big mouth so you don't have to put your foot in it.

I've had to do that with much frequency lately. I don't know if it's because with a somewhat/certain end date I feel free to finally relax and be me, but I am losing patience with certain types of people and situations. Sometimes the real me needs to sit back and keep her big mouth shut. 

Part of it is my never-ending frustration with the bureaucracy that is working for the federal government. Part of it is I finally don't have to deal with certain types of personalities much longer, and I am having a hard time biting my tongue. I try to be professional, and on the occasions that I have been rude or inconsiderate, I have really tried to apologize. I know I'm not perfect and I own it.

But maaaaan. . . the closer I get to leaving, the harder it gets to keep my big fat mouth shut.

And to answer the question many of you keep messaging me---still no budget resolution, so still no orders, so no definite summer plans of when we'll move and where we will be en route to Spain. I now have two sets of orders waiting in the queue. The first is RAT in conjunction with PCS orders (in other words, our yearly paid trip back to the US coupled with our trip to Spain). Everything is still on hold until a budget is passed. I'm also waiting for our child's educational orders so he can---wait for it---move back to Cuba for 2 months and then move back to Spain. Makes a lot of sense, right?

Actually, it does, because he will have nowhere to live for the 2 months between the end of the semester (mid-May) and the time we get to Spain (hopefully mid-July). And most importantly---he gets to clean his room before the big move. Oh boy! 

I'm trying not to be fatalistic and think something will go wrong, so hope springs eternal in GTMO! This means I am throwing out 4-5 big black garbage bags of stuff a week. Things like worn out clothes that I can't give away. Living in 365 days of summer means you wear out your shorts rather quickly---I have several pairs I love that have frayed so badly and the pockets have completely worn out, but I just can't get rid of them yet. Who the hell has sentimental shorts? That would be ME. Broken toys, old catalogs, worn out shoes, the list goes on.  Expired medications and toiletries, dried out nail polish---it's exhausting. I went through my gardening stuff today and threw out broken pots and tools. It's just the tip of the overwhelming iceberg full of crap we have managed to accumulate through 25 years together.

Today it was a also trip down memory lane during my cleaning binge, and I threw out hundreds of CDs. I could have donated them to the thrift shop, but their shelves are full of CDs that nobody is buying. I could load them onto my computer and iPod, but really, I bought most of those for only a few songs. Remember when you bought a CD for one song? The brutal truth is unlike all the books I've given away, most of them are too embarrassing to take them to school to offer up for free because I didn't always have the best taste in music.

This reminds me of a favorite song from Cake's very first album I bought when we lived in Colorado Springs and listened to non-stop (where did that CD go?!?!), "Rock and Roll Lifestyle":

Well, your CD collection looks shiny and costly
How much did you pay for your Bad Moto Guzzi?
And how much did you spend on your black leather jacket
Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?
Now tickets to concerts
And drinking at clubs
Sometimes for music that you haven't even heard of
And how much did you pay for your rock and roll t-shirt
That proves you were there
That you heard of them first?



I kept all the David Bowie, REM, Pixies, Hole, and the Replacements.  My first Fiona Apple album---still love it---and the Jane's Addiction CD I listened to non-stop in college. And there were CDs I listened to all the time I can't find---all the Beatles and Stones (Some Girls was my favorite in college), Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, Nirvana, the list goes on. Yes, I am dating myself. I didn't have much from the 80s, but I could supply a throwback 90s store with all I just threw out. And I really feel a little guilt for all the plastic that will be burned---they burn garbage here, and when I lived in the neighborhood nearest the landfill, you could always tell plastics day---my eyes would burn fiercely and I would have a horrendous headache for 2-3 days afterwards.

The flip side of downsizing is I have taken 3 big loads of books to school to donate to teachers, and they are almost all gone. I took a huge box of children's books to the thrift store---some were in pristine condition---which is exciting, because their kids' collection isn't the greatest. I took a huge basket of both of my kid's clothes that were also in great condition. Hopefully someone can use them here, and part of the proceeds from the thrift store goes to scholarships for high school kids, so I feel really great about that.

My favorite college professor whom I have mentioned in this blog numerous times, Dr. Karen Austin, once told my husband and me before we married that all adults should have to make a big move at least once every five years of their lives. It forces you to continually downsize. I've realized a few things about my life during our move here and now getting ready for another move: I attach myself to sentimental items (shorts? CDs?!?!) I can live without. I can live with half of the clothes, toiletries, and even food I have and survive very comfortably. My parents raised me to be frugal (and we gave away tons of clothes and toys every year), but I have somehow managed to let the weeding go by the wayside and accumulated more stuff. The little bit of traveling I have done has shown me how much less most people in the world need, and I am on my never-ending goal of retiring with what will fit in a few suitcases and not much else. 

Letting Go; or, Finding (or Losing) Joy

A couple of years ago, a friend turned me on to the book The Life=Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. She has a whole method of basically stripping your house down to only things that "bring joy" into your life. 

You are supposed to look at each object and ask if it brings joy. If it doesn't, you let it go. 

I know, it's like a new age-y, touchy feely way to see things, but I really have taken it to heart, even if I didn't make my way through the entire house. 

In the last few weeks, I've managed to get rid of about 50 books. If you know me, you know this is sort of monumental. 

In attempts to get through about 20 books that I really don't want to drag to Spain but really don't want to get rid of yet, I'm doing the Popsugar Book Challenge where you read books from several categories. I'm zooming through books and then adding them to my give-away pile. I'm working on my third give-away haul now and making progress through the list---so far, I've read 6 out of the 40. I started a couple of books and knew immediately I just wasn't going to finish them, so that was easy---onto the stack they went. 



I have found dozens (probably more like hundreds now) of pictures I have mailed to high school and college friends. Pictures bring me joy, but they are also sitting in a huge Rubbermaid container in my garage, so I'm hoping they bring someone else even more joy where they can put them in frames, or an album, or even throw them away if they want. They are no longer mine, and I'm glad to be rid of them. They belong to people who can enjoy them now. The hardest has been sending photos of siblings, spouses, or parents to friends who have loved and lost them. I love when someone in my family posts pictures of family members who are gone (or even pictures from my childhood that I have never seen). 

I can't open a drawer, a cabinet, or a closet without throwing something away. It's sort of Marie Kondo, guerrilla style. I am taking great joy in taking out the garbage. 

I'm also working my way through the pantry. My husband did a fantastic job of cleaning out the fridge last week, and this is after we both had done a thorough cleaning out during the winter break. How many types of mustard can one family have, really? We are soon going to get to that really funky stage of a move where you have weird combinations of food just because you are getting rid of it. Pot stickers and salad and corn! Why not? Shrimp and black eyed peas and sauerkraut! Yum. I'm working my way through the pantry and hoping to move very little more than spices, because those are expensive to replace and because in my librarian/OCD way, I have alphabetized my spices and have them neatly spaced out in 2 drawers. (I take my spices seriously---even if I don't always cook with them). 

I have given away some items from my garage and closet that I haven't used since I got here. I am accumulating clothes to give away. Most things we are going to give away because the sheer pain of having to have a garage sale for 50 cents here, 1 dollar there, outweighs the chump change we'll get for it. I'll give it away and spend that Saturday at the beach, thankyouverymuch. 

When Son 1 went to college, he did go through several pieces of clothing and we sorted into throw away, give away, and save for brother piles. Good thing, too, since brother just went through a hellacious growth spurt in the last couple of weeks and hardly has any clothes that fit. And our one and only store does not carry any shorts for boys in sizes 12, 14, or 16. Yes, you read that right. You cannot buy shorts in a tropical climate where it's hotter than seven hells half the year, and hot as one hell the rest of the year. I'm going to scour the thrift store this weekend in hopes of getting him through until the few pairs I bought online get here. (It's now taking about 3 weeks to get mail. I will not miss a) the inefficient mail service or b) the slim pickings for clothing in our little tropical paradise). 

My husband always has said this isn't a bad place to live if you aren't into material things, but dang, somethings "things" are pants. One thing you really can't go without is pants. 

How Transfer Season is Hell; or, Time to Do a Ferdinand

Sometimes, I wish I could be more like Ferdinand, my favorite hero from one of my favorite children's books by Munro Leaf, and illustrated by Robert Lawson.

Comparing Ferdinand to the other bulls in the ring, who snort and cavort and show off, Leaf writes, "But not Ferdinand. When he got to the middle of the ring he saw the flowers in all the lovely ladies' hair and he just sat down quietly and smelled." 

Everyone expects him to be a fighter, but all he really wants to do is sit in a field and smell the flowers.

Why can't I just sit around and smell the flowers? Why do I always want to fight the good fight?

(as an aside, I always wondered if this was a protest book for Franco and the Fascist regime. I guess all roads lead to Spain and to Guernica. . . ) 

Instead, I am still obsessing over things I can't change. Argh!

It's the government system, including inefficiencies and inconsistencies and just people who are supposed to know the answers not having a clue. Have you called HR lately? Then you know my pain.

And you are probably laughing at why I think fighting the world's biggest bureaucracy is going to change it.

I am OCD'ing it by checking my email and fb messages to see if anyone has heard anything about our transfer round that was supposedly finished up on Friday. Not a soul has heard anything that I know of, so maybe I'm in good shape? Who knows.

And I posted about this on facebook a few days ago, so my apologies if you've already seen it, but it was too good to miss again.

http://datarep.tumblr.com/post/54007624407/dantes-inferno-a-helpful-diagram-to-eternal

If you aren't familiar with Dante's Inferno, it basically tells of Dante's journey through Hell, which has many levels and layers. Students love it.

The sign above hell says, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here" or something to that effect (there are several translations). 

My former colleague and I used to laugh and laugh about how GTMO should have that over the gate. Like many of my colleagues, she is now gone, so who's laughing now? 

I've had several people call and write and message, all asking about the transfer. I turned in my application over a month ago, did a little tweaking to the final version and resubmitted by deadline, and now I sit and wait. And wait. And wait some more. They only inform those who get the job. They don't inform you if you don't. I know this because I have already applied for a transfer 2 years in a row, and I didn't get a "we're sorry" or "you're outta luck" or "sucker!" email or anything.

I also applied for an ISS position, which is something of a promotion (well, sort of, anyway) and was very hopeful when I actually got an interview a few weeks ago.  It was in a field I want to be in and in a place I'd like to live. But alas, that did not pan out, either. My options are getting shorter.  I wish I could just sit and smell the flowers and be content, but it's just not happening. 

I haven't heard anything but as soon as I do, I PROMISE I will post about it. The future is uncertain. For those of you who keep writing and texting and calling, I am not ignoring you. I just have NO information. Nada. 

In the meanwhile, I am circling Dante's 1st level of hell, Limbo. I hate living in limbo and that's what the transfer season does for those people who want to leave. You don't just jump up and move to another country; even if you are given several months notice, it takes months to gets everything in motion for a smooth transition. My son is overseas and doesn't know if he'll be coming back here for summer to work or going somewhere else with us until his school starts. Our youngest will be transitioning to middle school and we'll need to find out about new schools. Summer plans depend on the transfer. What I'm teaching if I am stuck here next year here will yet again be up in the air, and that's a whole other sort of limbo.

Let's hope good news comes out by tomorrow. I will tell you this: there will be people in this transfer process who will move to Wrathful if they don't get a transfer. I'm hoping I can continue to stay philosophic about why I'm stuck indefinitely in a hardship location, but there's a good chance I may slip along the way. Hopefully I can find my way back up to Limbo, if that happens.

I've got to stop and smell the flowers. The last words of Leaf's book? "And for all I know [Ferdinand] is sitting still there, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly.

He is very happy." 

Sewing What You Rip; or Sowing What You Reap

There is this noise I love. It's a ringtone of my kid calling me from Madrid to tell me "hi." 

Sometimes it's just for a few minutes; other times it's for an hour. I love that GTMO finally got decent internet and we can talk. I love that he wants to talk about seeing Guernica (best anti-war art ever) or telling me about a lecture in class or describing the friends he's met from all over the world. And last weekend, he called to proudly tell me that he was repairing a hole in his favorite pants. This from a child I could have handed a sewing kit a few months ago, and he would have promptly handed it back to me.

As he repaired his pants with a sewing kit he bought at a thrift store and we talked about the subtleties of sewing (using a needle threader, how to end your stitches, basically one of a million things I should have taught him before he left for college), I was so proud of him. 

And we are so, so serious during these conversations, as you can see.

I love that he got out of here and he is living in another country, learning another language and experiencing another culture. This is what I wanted for him when I accepted this job, and I am glad he is actually getting to do it, and as a bonus, getting to go where he wants to go.

Speaking of experiencing cultures and getting out of here---I'm also anxiously awaiting to hear some news. But I'm not going to talk about that at all.

What I am going to talk about is the fact that I am an addict. True confession time. I am addicted. . . to school.

In fact, I'm currently taking college classes (again). I know, WHY?

Well. . . I miss my kid (even with the fun phone calls) and I most days I am OVER dealing with little things that have become big things here. I'm tired of inefficiency and inconsistency and simple things like a lack of Coke products or sour cream. I'm tired of the same small stretch of road and the 2 hours it takes to get ready and then clean up from going to the beach for 45 minutes. I'm just tired, y'all. I've even started taking naps when I get home from school because. . . I am tired.

I have many factors causing horrific anxiety in my life. I'm working on ways to get better, but it's a process. Part of it is doing things that make me feel in control.

In the most stressful times in my class, I buckle down and sign up for a few classes because I LOVE SCHOOL. It seems counterintuitive and rather self-destructive, right?

Taking classes brings order in times of chaos and in times of uncertainty. There are deadlines. They are strict. It's college, dammit, so I can't turn things in any old time and get credit. It's the real world. And because it's online, it's totally anonymous and I don't have to make awkward small talk or ever wear real clothes. I'm in boxers shorts, eating yogurt and drinking coffee and learning about linguistics, because linguistics is sexy, y'all. Noam Chomsky rocks my socks.

And I'm not taking one but two grad classes. One is linguistics---seriously something I would love to have a degree in if I could just figure out what to do with it---and the other class is a methods of ESL in Math classes, because I haven't taken a math class in over 20 years and I need to use that part of my brain. And because I'm probably a little crazy.

And also because taking classes actually relaxes me. I get my highlighters and markers (god, I love school supplies) lined up, and I do all the little critical reading strategies I've taught my students for years. Marginalia makes me happy.

If all goes as planned, I will be a TESOL certified teacher by summer.

And why does this matter?

I love teaching English, but it's no longer my bliss---that boat sailed and sank YEARS ago.

Now I am forward thinking. I am working towards a reward somewhere. Maybe it will be teaching ESL with DoDDS, maybe it will be an ESL career somewhere else at some other time. Who knows. I loved the year I taught it at EF school on the Evergreen State College campus in Olympia, WA. That was one low-pressure, high reward job. My students thanked me at the end of every class. Yes, teacher friends, THEY THANKED ME. Seriously. If you aren't a teacher and people thank you for doing your job, you are lucky. It just doesn't happen much in teaching.

I'm hoping I can reap the rewards all of the classes I have taken and certifications I have added since moving here.

Missing Metaphors, Roller Rinks, and More Books; or, Perchance, to Dream

Random thoughts of the last few weeks below. Follow at your own peril. 

Conversation with a colleague a couple of weekends ago:

So every time I get out of the shower, I get bitten by a mosquito. In my own bathroom! A mosquito! And that pretty much represents life here. 

Friend, befuddled:
What is that, an analogy of something? What are you talking about??? 

Me:
More like a metaphor. What does it mean? I don't know. I'll let you know when I figure it out, because I'm sure it's deep. 

I can't even make a decent metaphor. It's somewhere in there, I'm sure. Just not sure where.

And then, there is also this:

Posted on one of our community online facebook groups is a plea for GTMO peeps to get together and skate.

Husband:
We're going. We have to support people who are trying to make this a better place and come up with things to do. We need to go out, even if it's just us. We're going. 

Ends up that another friend and her daughter were able to come out, too, so we had a great time at our own little skating rink. The next week, it was just the guy who put out the call, my husband, and me. But it was so much fun---I really do love having something different to do to break the monotony.

When I first got here in 2012, we had some kids from the school who would play roller hockey. In all the time I've played soccer and then used the track at night to run since those first few months here, I haven't seen anyone on the rink. I'm happy it's not just sitting there deteriorating in the sun without anyone using it.

Now, if we could just get more people to come out, it would be even more fun.

I spent a large chunk of my childhood in Monticello, MS, skating on quads around my subdivision (called, creatively, "the subdivision"---it is a really small town). Then I married and eventually moved to Colorado Springs and bought some rollerblades so I could take my greyhound and mutt out for exercise every sunny day. This was part of how I kept my sanity the year my husband was deployed---I would rush home from work, lace up my skates, grab the dogs, their leashes and poop scoop supplies (because I'm not a jerk), and skate until the sun went down.

view of the chapel and Bay from the rink, sunset

Skating helped me escape life's frustrations when I needed it most. Flash forward 22 years, and I'm finding myself enjoying it more every week. Thankfully I now have something else to focus on other than transfer season, yearbook deadlines, and the stack of ungraded essays on my desk.

Yes, it's that time of year again. I'm not going to talk about transfer season, because that just seems to jinx the entire process. Let's just say I hope to hear some good news in the next 2 weeks. If not, hopefully a few other options will come open before summer begins. 

In the meanwhile. . . I'm going to keep skating through like (see what I did there?) and waiting, because that seems to be the one thing I have gotten really good at doing here in GTMO. 

Book challenge conquest of the week: Australian Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies (a book you bought on a trip---yes, Jacksonville counts as a trip!)

"“Every day I think, ‘Gosh, you look a bit tired today,’ and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.” I am going on about week 3 of a major bout with insomnia, and people are coming out of the woodwork to tell me how tired I look. (How are you supposed to respond to that? "Um, thanks so much!") That quote then had me more than relate to the speaker's feeling. If I could just sleep through an entire night and get more than a few minutes of uninterrupted sleep, I may vanquish the dark and now omnipresent circles under my eyes and may even start having dreams again. 

Great beach book, meaning it's a quick read and a page turner, with a lot of intrigue to keep you hanging on, but not too many allusions or word play or historical events to make you slow down---many times----to catch your thoughts (I'm talking about you, G. Cabrera Infante). I hear this is going to be a television series and it should be excellent. Moriarty does a good job of fleshing out a few of the characters so by the end, you are vested in what happens to whom and how. It's a mystery with many voices, and you aren't sure who did what to whom until the very end of the book. I was happy with the ending and read it in bed over the MLK 3 day weekend. It was a satisfying way to spend a relaxing weekend. 

I look over at my bedside table is see that also still working on Blackass and a collection of Haruki Murakami's short stories, The Elephant Vanishes, because I'm a book baller and that's how I roll. Do I feel guilty on cheating on one book with another? No. . . I don't see it as cheating as much as multi-tasking. I'm hoping to get a book a week read in 2017. Onwards to #s 4 and 5!

New Year; or, Changes to Come

Hello, 2017!

source: https://www.instagram.com/p/-OdTxIsw46/?taken-by=the_real_iman

Tomorrow is the first day back to work in 2017 but I won't be there. Why not? Because I am spending a week in exotic Jacksonville, FL, waiting for my oldest son to go to college.

Because of the ridiculousness that is travel on/off GTMO, we have to come here for a solid week and stay in a hotel because he is traveling to college on a Thursday. The flights are Fridays and every-other Tuesday. If he were flying to college on a Saturday, we could just fly in on Friday and set him on his merry way the next day. However, we will still be waiting here an entire week for the return flight. And if Space A/UEML flights were guaranteed (that's technically what the "rotator" government flights are called), we would have just come on Tuesday of this week. But nooooo, things are complicated, nothing is ever guaranteed when it comes to the government, even a flight with orders, so we ended up staying a week because of the completely and utterly inconvenient flight schedule.

So what do you do for a week in a hotel? 

You catch up. My parents came to visit. I'm lucky that they are a (long) day's drive away and were able to visit a few days. We did a little eating out (choices! so many choices!). We did a little shopping. Some of it is for our son who will be moving to a country that has actual seasons, and after living in GTMO 4+ years, he needed a few colder winter clothes. The high is 49º the day he lands in Spain. The high the day we return to GTMO is 89º. 

This trip has also been a time to think ahead of the future. We met with my cousin and talked a lot about the future of the country post-election. My father gave his best fatherly advice to our son about succeeding in college, which he also gave me---and when I actually followed it, it worked. (The secret: do your homework the day you get the assignment, and read your notes EVERY DAY. Then you will barely have to study for big tests. Try it; it really works). 

We've talked about classes and possible jobs in Spain. We've talked a little about our youngest and his new role for the first time ever as the only kid at home. We are forward focused, and this also includes work. 

This year will be a year of change for me. I don't know if that means I will be doing a new job at my same location, or doing the same job at a different location, or doing a different job at a different location, but I am determined that next school year WILL be a different type of school year. On one hand, you can't make a year change for the better by sheer force of will; on the other, I am tired of waiting for change, because every additional year I am here, I feel more and more like I'm being run completely over. I have tried working the transfer system, and I am getting nowhere. There is being flexible, and there is learning a completely new curriculum you are told you are teaching the first day of school. There is offering everything you can for kids in a small school, and there is taking hundreds of hours away from your own children at home. There is carrying your weight, and there is being crushed to death.

Changing with the times is one thing; Quixotic or last-minute change is another. Sometimes in a large organization (like, say, a school system run by the federal government), it's the later, not the former. Year five of an indefinite sentence, and I find myself feeling more inefficient and, frankly, unhappy as ever.

I will make things change. They WILL change. Even if I am stuck here for (god forbid) a sixth year, it WILL be a different year in 2017-2018. 

I am not quitting my job; however, if I am still here in GTMO next year, I am going to make it a different job. 

If you are reading this and thinking, how?, I don't have all the answers myself. After all, it's just January and I have until August to figure that out. 

But I do know this with upmost certainty---next year will be more efficient, I will doing something I want to do, and if it kills me, I will be happy. I refuse to be stuck; I am moving forward. There will be a method to the madness that is working in a small, isolated, limited resource school.  I am doing formal research and asking other teachers who work in similar locations how to do it all. And with the little I've done towards change so far, I do feel like my voice is being heard, even if things can't change immediately.

The inimitable Will Rogers said, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." I am tired of feeling like I am being run over. I think I am on the right track, but I am no longer waiting for changes to come to me. I am working on making change happen.

Anyone feel like joining my one-woman, sort of cheesy, albeit really sincere revolution, the more the merrier---please come along. Bring your ideas and free yourself from the confines of beating your head on the wall because you've been doing things the same way every. single. year. And you know where to find me---it's not like I'm going anywhere any time soon. 😜