A Batman v Superman Rant

Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers

Zack Snyder, I am an educator, which means I believe in Positive Affirmation when I'm trying to manipulate someone to behave the way I want them to.  So, let me just say, thanks for Wonder Woman! Her armor, her candor, her fight scenes, was everything I wanted in that character. Her lasso was a straight up weapon. She looked and acted like the warrior and goddess she is. Amazing. A+.

Ok, now let's talk about the parts of the movie that were "satisfactory"....

Ok, now let's talk about the parts of the movie that need some improvement....

Ok, my teacher voice is officially done. Get your act together Snyder!

After two hours of torture, I was actually a little excited for Doomsday. One of the biggest issues I face as a Superman fan is having so few bad guys that Superman can just fight. He's normally up against magic or a natural disaster. But you brought out the big bad who is infamous for being someone who Superman could go into combat with, and to the death.

But the problem is he has fought him to the death. And come back. So I'm sitting through two separate funerals just kind of bored and annoyed at the lazy way you chose to take this movie, until finally some dirt levitates off of Clark's coffin, but I'm sorry what exactly is levitating dirt supposed to show? Because I already know Superman is alive. Or if he isn't he just needs a little yellow sun to get better. But when did someone secretly still being alive, meta-human or not, make dirt levitate? That's a pretty poor way to close this story arc. Although it does remind me of how this movie started, with the bats making Bruce levitate, which turned out to be a dream sequence, which of course was the moment the audience needed to steel itself for how this was going to go down.

Any scene where anything remotely cool happened turned out to be a dream, prophecy, vision, or something so confusing viewers couldn't tell which one it was. Which made it hard to get excited for any scene, because in the back of my mind was the constant thread of "does Wonder Woman even exist??? Is she just a figment of Bruce's imagination???" And until the next installment how can I really be sure??? Again, this is just so freaking lazy.

But let's go back to Doomsday. Again, I was excited at the creation of Doomsday. But the way it played out was frustrating. Listening to Talks from Superheroes (McCallum and Ivimey) helped me put my finger on it. Talks from Superheroes points out that it was a waste of Zod's body, who could have been revitalized with intelligent motives and intentional operations. That's an excellent point and made me realize that it was also a waste of Doomsday. You took a big bad with an intriguing backstory who was logistically unstoppable, and you brought him to life and destroyed him within a half hour while erasing anything interesting about the character himself. You wasted two villians' storylines in one fell swoop.

And why did we spend so little time on Doomsday, when that fight scene was the best part of the movie? (Which is arguably because it was the only fight scene we got to see Wonder Woman in...) Because you spent two hours giving us backstory for characters we know everything about! The only interesting nuances about these characters were hinted at and never explored. Was there a Robin killed in your universe? Were they killed by the Joker? I can kind of gleam as much, but mostly your hints at story arcs you don't actually explore make me feel frustrated and comic book universe inferior. That is so frustrating and turns more people off of the overall canon, making fans feel like if they haven't made keeping up with the Infinite Crises within the D.C. Universe their full time job, they shouldn't bother with your movies.

I want to change this diatribe a bit here to let you know that Lois was my favorite part of Man of Steel. I don't think any director, or possibly comic book writer, had written Lois in a way that captured her essence as much as you did. She is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and she ran the story she came across to the ground immediately. No three years of falling in love with two people who turn out to be the same man behind a pair of glasses. Just an intelligent, career driven reporter who does her job well. So why is it that in this movie she only does weird things like ask her boss for a helicopter but "it's not for a story" and throw a kryptonite spear into water, as if that does anything. What happened between Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice to make you hate women so much you would try to use Lois to back pedal us three or four decades?

Now I'm starting to wrap up the many angers and confusions and overall bafflement I felt while sitting through the experience you called a "superhero movie." And I have to talk about Lex. Lex Luthor has been interpreted in many different ways. Sometimes he is viciously evil and cruel. Sometimes he is sweet and charismatic on the surface, and only once you get to know him do you see his manipulative and controlling side. Sometimes he starts out as a nice guy and the viewer/reader sees him go through a devastating experience that pushes him to the dark side. New interpretations can be interesting. They can keep overdone villains interesting.

But what did Lex do in this movie besides attack Superman and be a millenial? I know he blew up a Congressional hearing and cut off a disabled victim of Zod's from his income, pushing him to an unstable position and taking advantage of him. But these acts were to get at Superman. Did Lex do anything evil besides challenge Superman? Because if his evilness was centered around Superman, couldn't Superman have solved whatever beef Lex had with him? Lex needs a evil path that runs deeper. A crime ring, a capitalist 1% agenda, bribing and blackmailing his way to power, etc. That's what should catch Superman's attention and pit him against Lex. Otherwise Lex is just a scared human fearing for his species when a more powerful being comes into play, acting on self-preservation instincts. And if Superman is one ounce of the charming, empathetic character we know from the canon, he would at least see and acknowledge this in Lex and have some sympathy for him.

Well, I'm running out of rant for now, so I'll close this shit sandwich with a positive affirmation reminder. I'm hoping that out of the 2.5 hour misery I lived through will come a CinemaSins shout out to Wonder Woman. Here's how it could easily go down:

Batman: "Alfred, I need to lead the abomination back to the city."

Wonder Woman begins fighting Doomsday.
Wonder Woman to Batman: "Why did you bring it back to the city?"
CinemaSins: "Wonder Woman would be great at Cinema Sins."

(1) McCallum, Diana, and Andrew Ivimey. "Talks from Superheroes: Batman v. Superman." Audio blog post. http://fromsuperheroes.com/post/141838670228/talk-from-superheroes-batman-v-superman-this. From Superheroes, n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

(2) "CinemaSins - No Movie Is without Sins." CinemaSins. Sins Media, 2016. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.

A Morning Person's Observations #7: Nesting

I recently spent a week with some of the Blythes in Colorado, then a few days with my Aunt Angie outside of Denver, then took a long road trip with my friend Matt back to Seattle. The morning after we got to Seattle, I took Matt to the Pea Patch so he could see where the magic happens. We sipped our coffee and he identified all the plants (he's much better in a garden than I am!), and I saw the prayer flags dangling from the tree. They made me smile.

flags on fence, with flags in background

more flags!

There are a few flags in the Pea Patch. On the fence, on the trellis, but my favorite is that one hanging from the tree. It's my favorite because a few weeks ago I saw a squirrel bite it in half and then try to run off with one of the pieces, but struggling because there was still an end attached to the tree. Eventually the squirrel figured it out and gnawed off part of the flags from both ends, bunched all the flags together, then took off up the Douglas Fir, I'm assuming to pad its nest. It was hilarious to watch.

flag leftovers

While at the Blythe Spirit, I went out to the Peace Fort, a treehouse my cousin made, to write in The Pine (her log for the treehouse). The cabinet she made to store the log in had a massive pile of sticks leaned up against it, almost like a miniature beaver dam. It seemed too perfect to be made by a critter, so I assumed she had built it to keep critters out. But when I opened the cabinet there was a pile of green leaves to the left of the box that holds the log. The leaves were mashed to perfectly take up the space between the box and the other side of the cabinet, it was so memorizing to look at the way they had been sculpted it took me a good fifteen seconds to realize there was someone home. A critter that Aunt Angie and I later identified as a Ringtail Raccoon (but of the mountain variety, so incredibly small) was pressed as far away from me as possible, probably freaking out.



My Uncle David got the box out and we left the treehouse to Steve Ringtail (we called all raccoons Steve at IslandWood) to winter in. Looking through the log, I was able to deduce that Steve had moved in since the week before, when my Aunt Diane wrote in The Pine. Or possibly she interacted with Steve and his newly created habitat, but didn't think it was impressive enough to make note of it in The Pine. I'm going to assume the former, which means Steve only took a week to nest and secure his dwelling in the Peace Fort. I like that quality in a organism, because I can feel connected to an area after one cup of coffee.

hummers

Drinking coffee at the breakfast table for the past week with my grandfather was a treat. As he cycled through his frequent questions and memories, it felt like a reset to the day. Aunt Angie says there are four languages we rely on when our minds stop working for us and begin to work against us, confusing us, frustrating us. We can still relate to smiles, music, gentle touches, and chocolate. I didn't know this list until the week after cabin time with Grandfather, but one of the things he remembered during both of my visits this summer was the hymn, "Day is dying in the west," that he sang at two sunsets two months apart.

And then the following week would be full of travel and moving before I made it back to my alleyside Pea Patch for my morning coffee. I had my coffee some mornings on my aunt's back patio, watching the hummingbird feeders as the dogs came and went. I had coffee at a campsite in Wyoming. Matt and I drank it while walking toward the water. We stumbled upon a damp sandy expanse just soft enough to capture ALL the prints. It told a story of birds, herons, mice, deer, other critters scurrying across the opening. The next morning I sipped my coffee as we drove through a hazy, hazy Montana. They cut the power in one town as a preemptive measure so we had to go to the next town to get gas.

Whahatoya, one of my nests

And finally back to Seattle, to drink coffee in the Pea Patch with Matt, looking at the flags taken away by the squirrel. When EJ first put flags up at the original Alleyside, she hung them inside, then realized they needed to be rehung outside so as the shreds of fabric came apart, the prayers would travel out to the world. At this moment I like to imagine the squirrel was helping carry the prayers of those prayer flags forth, sending their energy and intention further into the world, so wherever I travel I can carry the feeling I have drinking coffee in the mornings in the Pea Patch, and nest as easily as Steve Ringtail.

How to Raise Girls with High Self-Esteem, or Movie reviews by Rick Goodman

As a teacher, I’ve worked with a number of students who have had parents who were less than supportive of who they were. So it’s been exciting to see some of my friends become parents recently, especially knowing that their kids will be loved no matter their gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, differing abilities, and the list could go on.

But even with the most supportive parents and family, kids are going to get some messages from the media, their peers, and society that don’t affirm who they are. Messages that tell them “if a, then b.” If this is true about your identity, then this also must be true about your personality.

How do you send a child out into the world, knowing all the challenges they’re going to be up against? Or as Anne Lamott puts it in Operating Instructions, how do you bring a kid into the world, knowing someday they have to go through 7th and 8th grade? You can’t shield them from the negativity that’s out there, the negativity that would have them hide their light away.

Which is why I want to offer Rick Goodman’s technique. Expose them to all the mainstream cartoons they want (or see at a friend’s birthday party), but provide a feminist review.

Credit where credit is due, the idea to capture what my dad said during the movies we watched growing up came to me after reading The New Yorker’s humor piece titled Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies.

Some of the movie reviews are direct quotes from Rick Goodman. Others are the general ideas he tried to convey. I hope you enjoy, and I hope any kids you raise enter the world with a fierce social justice lens.

Snow White “Two mother figures, one absent, one evil. What a great stereotype to perpetuate Walt, thanks a lot.” One star

Boy Meets World: First Episode of the College Season “Topanga didn’t go to Yale?!?!” One star

Little Mermaid “Another absent mother. That’s what I’m focusing on to ignore the part where she gives up her voice for a prince she just met.” One star

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope “The Rebel Alliance (of Baptists) took down the Death Star (of patriarchy) by blowing it up (by ordaining women, folk who are LGBTQ, and partnering with radical groups in developing countries).” - Four stars

Buffy: Season 7 “I’m so over this misogynist priest guy. Buffy needs to cut him into a million pieces.” Four stars (after she splits him in two)

Mulan “There was a lot of action in this movie, and Mulan had some great adventures. But why does she have to choose at the end between an amazing job opportunity with the Emperor and her family?” - Three stars

Avatar “So the white guy becomes the savior for an indigenous population having their land exploited? These producers should have read a history book, preferably by Zinn. The special effects were cool.” Two stars

Friends: The Last Episode “Rachel had a great job opportunity in France. Why didn’t Ross go to France if he was so in love with her?” One star

Sleeping Beauty “Another absent mother. And some royal classism from the fairy godmothers saying Aurora can’t marry someone beneath her.” One star

Daredevil “Lots of good fight scenes. But I didn’t like it when the CIA tortured people, and I don’t like it when Daredevil does it.” Three stars

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (seen on a plane from Kansas to D.C.) “Another lead role with a great career prospect, why did she have to turn down the job to stay with her boyfriend?” No stars.

Beauty and the Beast “I like Belle because she reads so much, but we’ve got yet another absent mother, and she falls for her kidnapper?” Two stars

Smallville “This is like Dawson Creek but with superpowers. And what are those mountains in the background! You can’t see mountains like that when you’re in Kansas!” Two stars

Aladdin “It’s getting tiring to point out this absent mother thing. And a lot of negative stereotypes about the Middle East in this movie.” One star

Avengers “I liked it when the Hulk punched Thor. And Black Widow was cool, but why do female superheroes always have to have a ‘dark past’? Why can’t they just kick some butt like all the other superheroes?” Four stars

Peter Pan “This movie has some good action scenes, but unfortunately some racist portrayals of Native Americans.” One star

The Dark Knight Rises “Catwoman, another female with superpowers who has to have a dark and elusive past. Also the hero has to do more than some extra push-ups to be able to climb out of the cave and make a comeback.” Two stars

Man of Steel “Lois Lane is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, of course she would immediately run that story to the ground! Well done directors.” Four stars

Follow That Bird “This movie is great. A band of lovable misfits convince Miss Finch the value of diversity and dispel the myth of the nuclear family by saving their friend. Action, adventure, and a song by guest star Waylon Jennings. Plus some great quotes: ‘Don’t forget to breathe, in and out!’ Something for the whole family.” Five stars

The Greatest Job in the World

I was not in a good place last spring. Professionally, I was not being treated well. My co-workers and I went on strike for a week to address some major safety concerns and workers' rights issues, and we were condescended back into our jobs for a few months before we all left, got let go, or were bullied by supervisors into quitting. It really sucked. (Side note: that's the first time I've been able to talk about that situation in such a succinct way, instead of rambling on for hours about all the details of how the cards intentionally got stacked against us. I think that's progress.)

The summer was a time of relaxation and low finances. I stayed with SEA part-time, keeping an ear open for any alternative classrooms looking for Instructors.

I went in to interview with SEA's partner site at South Seattle Community College, wearing new slacks, a button up shirt, and my hair in "teacher mode", pulled back and held up in a clip, hoping to be taken seriously and look older than 15. The directors explained their program to me, I handed over a template for how I tutor math and a storytelling lesson I designed. They said they'd let me know, and did I have any questions for them. "How are the dynamics of the entire staff?" I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could.

The directors started explaining how they don't want people to sit alone in their office, the whole team really likes to know what everyone is going through and help each other. "In fact," said one director. "We don't actually want you dealing with any discipline issues. You're the teacher, your job is to teach. We're the directors, we want to handle any discipline issues you're facing." I almost started crying at the idea of a boss being so supportive, but held back and reminded myself I was in an interview and to be professional.

The second director chimed in and told me I wouldn't have many discipline problems anyway, the students were really great and really serious about their education.

I got offered the job, and I've been teaching Junior English and Pre-Algebra for several quarters. And that director is right, these are the greatest students in the world. There's hardly any apathy in the classroom, each student is incredibly engaged. I assign a persuasive essay, and I get emails asking if they can design a poster and present their essay to the class, it's an important topic that they want to share with their peers. I walk by the group of students known as the talkers sitting in the back of math, and see them explaining to each other how to divide decimals, jumping over one another to figure out these problems.

I hand out an evaluation and ask them how they feel about math. "Bittersweet," writes one student. That's one of the more positive remarks. "I don't have a problem with math," writes another student. "Math don't like me." Despite their anxiety and negative history with math, they put in 11 weeks of diligent note-taking and studying and piles of homework, and by the end they are multiplying improper fractions, then breaking them into number bonds to convert them to mixed numbers for final answers.

English is a little easier to goof off in, it's not going to help you figure out how to pay off your student loans someday. But still, the discussions students have after reading novels and plays are enthralling. My favorite question to ask them is, "How is our society different from this book?" followed by, "How is it similar?" Slowly they started to draw some similarities to The Giver, "We're told we can do what we want, but we're kind of set on certain paths in our education that lead us toward specific jobs." After we read A Raisin in the Sun, the comparisons flowed a lot faster. "People will still try to tell you where you can and can't live." The students hated Walter Lee at first, all he did was whine while the women in his family worked so hard. Then came the scene when he was finally going to invest the money, and he scooped Travis up and told him how things were going to be different. They paused. A few of them are parents themselves. "He wants his kid to be proud of him." Connections developed. Empathy was enhanced.

Their final assignment was to do a text response in class. They could write an essay on how the time period, author, genre, impacted the work. They could write a scene that wasn't in the play (What was it like when Walter borrowed his friend's car and drove and drove and drove? What was it like when Mama went around looking at houses? What happens when they move, and Bennie doesn't have money to finish school, and Mama can finally grow a whole garden, but the neighbors are threatening?). They could write a poem from the perspective of the main character. They could draw a scene that represented an important theme in the text.

One student had written his persuasive essay on climate change and greenhouse gases, which he had learned about in History that quarter. His text response was a picture of Chicago in the 1950s. The sun radiated dreams for the Younger family: school, investments, a house, a garden, a new baby, an office, travel. Then the greenhouse gases of bigotry and prejudice trapped their dreams, until they dried up like a raisin in the sun.

I pace around the classroom for hours, feeling like a hummingbird jumping to each student with a question. I run to grab lunch and pick up the copies before class starts. I stay late to get the student who missed class caught up, then finish my lesson plan and order my supplies for the next day. And I still leave more energized than when I came, feeling content and smiling to myself about something a student said.

I'm sorry to sound so sappy, but I have the greatest job in the world, and I'm so grateful to have found it.

A Morning Person's Observations #6: Life and Death in the Pea Patch

One professor who introduced the concept of sit spots to my class told us to not always sit in the same spot. "Get up and explore around your spot," he said. "See if you can find the paths and homes around your spots, where other travelers are coming through."

This has been a dry, sunny, not too cold, clear winter in Seattle. One morning before daylight savings, there was still only a corner of the Pea Patch in sun. I went and stood under the Doug Fir hanging over the fence, the opposite corner from my usual bench sit, to soak in the morning Vitamin D while I sipped my coffee.

The chickadees were out that morning. I know I'm not running late if the chickadees are still in the Pea Patch. They grew more and more comfortable with me standing below the Doug Fir, and flitted to branches closer and closer to me. Finally, one hang upside down from a cone and started pecking at some of the seeds. I hadn't been close enough to them yet to see what they eat, it was amazing.

It's been a year since David and I moved to the Pea Patch apartment. A year of sitting and sipping my coffee back here. I just noticed this morning that the white flowers on the tree have blossomed again. It's important to notice this when it happens, because in a week or two the first spring storm will take them all down. I love that I've sat under this tree for a year and am familiar with this pattern.

But I love how the Pea Patch continues to surprise me too. A gray cat slipped under a bush and came up to me meowing, and rubbing against my legs. I pet this gray feline for a bit, then the cat went down toward the tulips and slipped out of site. About five minutes later, the chickadees started a call and response. Some other birds chimed in, one that did four long high notes. And the arpeggio bird, which I haven't heard in a long while! I've never seen it, or I should say I've never connected its call with a bird I could see, but when I first heard it at my sit spot at IslandWood, it sounded like a young child learning arpeggios on the piano, eagerly jumping up and down along the notes.

The intensity and rapidness of the responses toward the calls made me wonder what the cat was up to. It seemed like they were pointing the feline friend out to any other birds, which was good of them since no one had belled the cat.

Somehow or other a crow died in February. Its carcass hangs from the one of the top branches of the chestnut tree, swayinh ominously above the apartment building in the breeze. As the weeks go by, it doesn't seem to have decayed much. There are certainly more flies in the Pea Patch at first, then not too many. I wonder if they've eaten out the core of the carcass and moved on, and all that hangs now are feathers on bones. But there'd have to be meat holding the feather to the bone, right? No way to explore this further, the carcass is so high in the tree. It will be a fun item to pay attention to, what happens to a decomposing crow that's so far out of reach? Can't get scooped up like roadkill, can't get eaten by anything except creatures that can fly/climb that high.

Some patterns are repeating in the Pea Patch, and some new intriguing ones are just starting.

Missing a Misanthropic Humanist

"O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again" by Thomas Wolfe was one of his favorite quotes. I slipped it into an email once and he was elated.

This has been the most confusing grief I've ever felt. I don't know what happened, so please don't ask, and I don't think that matters anyway. I find myself getting irrationally annoyed and upset when someone asks, and with many other things recently.

When I first heard the news I was completely and entirely numb for a matter of seconds. Time stopped in that moment and it was meaningless, pointless, no big deal.

Zohar didn't buy it, which was smart, and then five seconds passed and I felt sad and lonely and grateful and confused down to my core. She later told me when she heard the news the night before her heart broke for me. "To have loved someone, that's such a particular experience."

It was a very particular experience. I stayed up that night and calmly read through all the emails I had. I was away from home, so I didn't have the letters, the pictures, the notes, but I had the emails. I read them until 3 in the morning, then I crawled under the covers and bawled for what felt like hours. I was staying in my sister's old room, and I thought about the time Jesse visited me in D.C. when the Blythes were there over Christmas. He and I took a nap together in that very room. He went upstairs first and lay down. I felt exhausted and almost all the family was gone so I gave in and went up to the trundle bed rolled up against the window. He had his headphones in and was listening to music. I asked if I could crawl in and lay down with him, and he was pleasantly surprised by my tenderness and scooted over while encouraging me to slide in next to him. I felt the presence of that moment so strongly.

There were so few precious moments like that, because we were long distance the whole time we were together, which makes all the tangible moments stand out in such a special way. But most of our relationship was the emails, and the phone calls, and the letters. The 14 page letter about philosophy and existentialism and the way the world works and how we all have a scared bunny inside of us. I'm so grateful for all those words and thoughts now, but I remember throwing that specific letter on the floor of Lizzy and Rachel's room. Jesse later admitted he realized how frustrating it must have been to get that letter instead of one about...feelings. We both would get so scared, and would say anything but how we really felt about one another. I was talking a big talk about vulnerability and the power of it at the time, but I wasn't practicing it with Jesse, at least not about him.

These feelings are so complex and painful. I can't imagine what his family is going through. One of the feelings I have is that I'm not supposed to feel anything, that it's unfair to carry this grief compared to what others who have been closer to him in recent years must be carrying. But then I look through the pictures, and I see the tattoo on his ankle, MH with arrows at the ends of the letters. And I know that he was very special to me and I was very special to him, and there's plenty of feelings for Jesse to go around.

We had one year together, when we went sledding and then drank hot chocolate in the kitchen, talking until very late. We would sneak into the graveyard or an older building on campus at night to write poetry. We would go for road trips, always daring one another to try new and exciting things. Jay But's love for life and adventure was infectious. I couldn't help but get swept up in the moment when I was with him.

But that year flew by, and then there were long distance phone calls with my calling card from my dorm room. One conversation in particular jumps to mind. We'd just seen each other and had a lovely time, and then got into pointless fights on the phone afterward because we missed one another and didn't know how to face that, and then I was struggling with a completely separate demon from our relationship. I remember Jesse's calm voice through that conversation as I admitted how hard things had gotten for me, and how negative I felt. He told me to find a mantra that grounded me, and to repeat it and breathe. The atheist say all things shall pass he informed me. "But don't use that as your mantra!" he quickly added. It was funny, but also so touching, how quickly he disregarded the worldview's advice which he so fiercely defended in every other conversation, because he wanted me to find something more comforting in that moment.

It was through those conversations on theology and philosophy with Jesse that eventually pushed me to want to go back to church. I stopped believing in the need for a church as an adolescent, when most of us reject the traditions and myths we're raised in. But suddenly in discussions and debates with Jesse I felt myself defending churches and organized religion, and wondering why I thought it so important that they not be misrepresented. His intellectual search for the universe's meaning pushed me to wrestle with my own.

The summer I first ran Fraser and was in way over my head, I remember calling him every weekend and processing everything that had happened throughout the week. I was completely overwhelmed and he would just listen and remark on how impressed he was with what I was doing, so supportive and so attentive.

I didn't tell him for a long time after, but I remember when I first fell in love with him. He wrote in an email to me, "My phone is always on for you, my door is always unlocked, and there's always a space and pillow for you in my bed." It was such a poetic, and vulnerable while protected at the same time, way to tell me his feelings, and I suddenly felt so grateful for how he was in my life. Even though we were so physically far apart and couldn't have a traditional relationship with dinners and movies and hanging out together, I loved who he was and I loved how he was a part of my life.

One of the longest emails he ever wrote me was a two page rant after he finished the 6th Harry Potter book and found out Dumbledore died. He confessed he wanted to write me an email longer than Jeana's but have it be about absolutely nothing but Harry Potter.

I feel it's really important not to romanticize how things were between us. We had a bad phone conversation in 2011. He texted me the next day and apologized and I asked him to not contact me for a while. Looking back through the email chain, there are memories of other arguments, miscommunications that became fights, and times when we flat out hurt each other. I wouldn't take any of it back. I grew so much through those formative experiences, even the ones that stung or weren't the nicest sides of me.

I also don't want to demonize things. When we were together, he was such a thoughtful person. The Christmas he visited me, he played his guitar and came to church for Grandfather. He tried so hard to befriend the cousins, although some of them were not impressed with an older cousin's boyfriend crashing the family party, but he didn't let it phase him. His gifts to me were always so thought out. He gave me a pocket journal before I left for New Zealand, so I could carry it on any adventure and record my happenings. He didn't know I'd bought a journal, to make for him. Those five months eventually helped us realize we would only hurt each other the longer we tried to pretend long distance was working for us. But I spent the five months with him gentle on my mind, and put every experience, every adventure, every thought and feeling into my journal for him. When I sent it to him, he promised me he'd give it back to me in five years. He said there was no way he could keep it forever. I told him I'd love to see it again someday, but I made it specifically with him in mind, every single page.

He respected my wish and we didn't talk much since 2011. Then, last spring, I wrote him an email:

• One of the volunteers in my classroom was looking through the etymological dictionary she got for my students.  She was talking with the students about the "mis" words.  Misogyny, misandry, misanthropy. "What would be the opposite of a misanthrope?"  Lisbet asked.
• 
  
• "A humanist," I explained. I couldn't help but smile.  Hope you are well.

Jesse replied:

Wow.... I wish reading that message didn't have this visceral response I'm prone to where my eyes kind of light up, my smile slowly creeps up, with one side higher than the other (this is my signature after all)  and I wish I there wasn't a warm feeling that was slowly and radiating from my heart outward in a manner so graceful and sage it acts more like water. 

Susan, right now I am in a place where my mind is allowing clarity, sanity, happiness, optimism and even this fossilized sentiment of hope and excitement for what's to come.  So am I doing well? In the past five years I have lived, mentally and physically in places so horrible, demonic and just dark that where I am now is something akin to enlightenment. 

Long story short, I am good.  

I hope you are well also, you know, even with the physical distance and the dispassionate temporal march which carries us on our own separate trajectories, creating further distance - nature's inevitability I suppose, I digress.  Even with all that, when I reflect upon you, our friendship and the MH times nothing but happiness and contentment for the times we had together were indeed incredible, amazing and just as magical in our hearts and minds now as they were when we set out as four innocent freshmen.  

Shit... Closing words. I would wish you well but I have not an iota of doubt in my being that you are anything but.  Life's never perfect, but my faith is that you are well. Take care Sweet Susan, One day there will be a one in a million recess which will inevitably bring us to the same swing set, until then - au revoir.

This was a hard winter break. When we got on the plane to Dayton and I realized we'd have to drive straight through Richmond, Indiana, I wondered if subconsciously I hadn't realized that and was pushing for it. I bought a six pack of Guinness at the Meijers off the highway and drank most of it over several nights in Kansas. My body has changed a lot in the ten years since Jesse and I downed Guinness' together while trying to figure out what exciting thing we could do in Athens (Sarah took us to the cherry trees on OU's campus so we could climb them). The beer was delicious and heavy and slow to go down.

We played Mafia as we have for the last 6 years, and all I could think about was getting back to my parents' house from Shabbat at Zohar's with Jesse and Josh. We didn't hear anything, and we walked around the main floor and it was completely empty. How could none of the 16 of them be here? They obviously weren't hanging out upstairs, so we went to the basement and found all of them chanting about who to eliminate.

"We need an anthropologist to help us figure this out!" my dad yelled and looked at Jesse.

"All I can say is, that no matter how this game goes, I hope we can all agree that we're going to play this again!" Jesse responded.

When the round came up where he became Mafia, he killed me off first, knowing I would read him better than anyone else. It was the second game when I was killed off the first round, so he got a lot of trouble from everyone for that. Aunt Julie was watching the next game and saw he was the Angel and saved me. "I've got a message for the angel," Aunt Julie said while the narrator tried to move us along. "It's too little too late!" Jesse got a kick out of that.

I look through the emails and I see some darkness and guilt and heaviness that he was carrying. I also see some beauty and inspiration. I remember the phone conversation when he told me he had gotten on a plane and was looking down at the earth, and knew his purpose was to create. I didn't say anything in response, which must have sounded weird on his end, but I felt chills, and I thought about that anytime he'd play me some music or share a piece of writing with me, how he was living out exactly what he knew he wanted and was supposed to be doing, and how beautiful that was.

I'm taking his advice to pick a mantra to keep me grounded. When I think about him and feel sad and lonely and confused, I frantically repeat "Beatpeacebeatpeacebeatpeace be at peace be at peace...be at peace.........be at peace..................be at peace" until I can begin to believe that he is.

Lullabies

My family helped me craft the Children's Sermon about Lullabies I gave during Advent, so I promised to post what I said.

I started with one I assumed they would all know:

Picnic time for Teddy Bears

The little Teddy Bears are having

A lovely time today.

Watch them, catch them unawares,

And see them picnic on their holiday.

As I recited the words, I looked at blank faces. I glanced up at Pastor Ned, but he shrugged and shook his head, and seemed to indicate with his face that only a crazy family would make up a song about Teddy Bears' picnics. We used to read a book that had this song in it, how could they not know it? (After the service, one set of parents said they not only sang this song to their daughter, but had played it for her on guitar, and were surprised she didn't say anything!) Things weren't looking good, since I thought I would start with the one they were most likely to recognize.

Little Ducky Duddle

went wading in a puddle

went wading in a puddle quite small (quack quack)

said he it doesn’t matter

how much I splash and splatter

I’m only a ducky after all (quack quack)

Crickets chirping and more blank stares. Again, after the service, one of the children's dad's acknowledged this one. He said it'd been a long time since he'd heard it, but he definitely remembered it. Back in the children's sermon, and we have zero recollection and a slightly panicky Susan. I decide to skip Camels and Bears altogether and move on to Waltzing with Bears.

Waltzing with Bears

My Uncle Walter goes waltzing at night!

Chorus

He goes wa-wa-wa-wa, wa-waltzing with bears,

Raggy bears, shaggy bears, baggy bears too.

There's nothing on earth Uncle Walter won't do,

So he can go waltzing, wa-wa-wa-waltzing,

So he can go waltzing, waltzing with bears!

One of the kids threw me a bone and said he recognized it, but his dads told me afterward he was just being polite, they'd never heard of that one either.

So for the grand finale I went with one they most definitely wouldn't know, since it was by the Beach Boys and altered by my dad.

Sloop John B by the Beach Boys

We come on the Sloop John B

My grandfather and me

Around Nassau town we did roam

Shopping all night

Looked at the sights!

Well I feel so broke up

I want to go home

I remember that one sounding the saddest and darkest as a child. Let that poor sailor go home!

I told the kids what my mom said about why we sang lullabies: "The lullabies we sang to you were the ones Grandmother & Grandfather sang to us. It was nice as an adult singing it to my kids and remembering my mom & dad singing it to me. . . and to have a quiet time together as day slips into night and we’re surrounded by love."

Then I told them what my Aunt Gretchen said, that lullabies were a good way to calm down a fussy niece or nephew, and in turn it calms the adult down who's singing to the child, which then calms the child down.

So, I said, we don't just sing lullabies when things are good. We could sing them when we're scared and things aren't so good. I told them about Mary's Magnificat. How Mary was pretty freaked out when she found out what was happening to her and probably pretty scared. So she sang herself a song to calm herself down and comfort herself. She wasn't expecting this to happen to her, but she had faith and hope that this would bring someone into the world who would tear down the mighty and bring justice for the poor. She sang it until she could believe it. And we can sing ourselves through our crises and into a state of peace. I didn't put it quite so eloquently or succinctly, but they got the idea, maybe.