Always the Stories

The room is buzzing. The energy in the air is palpable. It always shocks me, this picture I see. Forty junior high students fill my classroom. The bell has already rung to end the school day, but they are here for Power of the Pen, the writing team I coach. I marvel every year with the other coach; over two-thirds of our junior high turn out to tell stories after school. Teens have a lot of angst and a lot to say. It is a safe outlet for them to live out their dreams and nightmares through the characters they create. But I still marvel.

And this year there is another side story. My daughter, age seven and full of stories herself, is a de facto member of this team. But I didn’t really realize how much she understood or enjoyed story telling until this week. While I was busy explaining the machinations and inner workings of our club, she polished off her spelling homework so she could get to work on her own stories. I joke that she loves math too much, and has a mind like a naturalist, but apparently she has picked up a few things in the realm of verbal expression as well. She just needs a little more practice with that spelling!

Story one:
I am a aorfin my nam is kara.
I liv in a aofanij I am paor I war rags.
I et drt
I clen
I dot like it!
I got a doptdid I wish my paris wil come back.

Story two:
I am a indein
I liv on a i lid
I liek to clim on thes cocanoos
I love the wotr
Im a good sooimer
I like to drik coknoot melk

I love how language develops. I have been awed as my babies each in their turn made sense of nouns, then verbs, and adjectives and adverbs too. Words fly through the air first as mere repetitions, and then with life and breath of their own. I am amazed by what I do not understand: like synapses linking and thoughts developing. Children understand so much more than they can say. They know innately about character. They understand conflict and longing and the magic of happily ever after too. They can put together a story filled with suspense and drama long before they have the motor skills to do so.

But I feel bad for the legacy of our English language that stymies young writers like my daughter. I am almost jealous of the simple Spanish conjugations and spelling rules that make sense in other languages. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t know the difference between wear, where and were. Or the double consonants on words like will or the world of silent e’s at the end of words. But for a fledgling writer, the rules are cumbersome and awkward, the exceptions that prove the rule too widespread.

But the stories remain. Whether simple stories of Indians and orphans penned by my daughter with slanting lines and misshapen spelling, or more mature prose recounted by teens and egos forging a place in the world, the stories last. And that is what matters.

Mining for Gold

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately. Huge, world renowned tomes, like the epic narrative Moby Dick, whose history and lessons far surpass simply staying away from giant whales. Or smaller works like Dahl’s Witches, which weaves a clever tale spooky enough to keep my children awake long after dark. There are the family stories of my history students: the Polish baby born on the boat to America, the great-grandfather with one glass eye as a result of a war injury, the great-great grandmother that owned a speakeasy in the Flats during prohibition. And my own family stories, like my grandpa playing at FDR’s inaugural ball and having to leave his sax as collateral at the hotel when the banks all closed, or the day my dad rescued some boaters from their sinking dinghy in Lake Erie.

They move us, these stories. They make us who we are. And I’m beginning to think that life is a constant dance of getting the story told, a search for voice and genre and meaning. Maybe we all have a STORY and our life is the fight to figure out how best to express it. And a fight it is. The surface is too easy and the story is too deep. I find the digging complicated on the best of days; mining has always been a dangerous occupation. And the soot and avalanches keep only the bravest from the task.

But really, everyone has a story to tell. I hand pen and paper to reluctant teens and with a little time and effort they mine diamonds from the muck. My offspring recount stories at the top of their lungs with eyes wide as saucers and mystery in their smiles. I have told stories through drama with battered women hiding and re-building, each line a link in their chain to breaking free. And I have witnessed the closing lines of stories cut abruptly short.

And oh, how I worry about these stories that might not be told. The pictures haunt me: a slight boy in a typhoon-ravaged arena, or an elderly man eating dinner alone, glancing endlessly at the wedding ring that he still reverently wears. The young man orphaned early, but too proud to beg or run the streets, or the little girl I know who wants nothing more than to go to school without the burden of the side effects of her disease, and its cure.

But mostly it’s just about me. Stories show me who I am in the dark of a powerless night with only candlelight to illuminate the way. Themes and conflicts spin me as gently as a jackhammer unearthing a treasure. Characters play out on the page and learn lessons far beyond my scope of teaching. My spelunker’s helmet holds just enough light to illumine these nuggets of gold. And they are mine, these stories. Musty, encrusted, none-too-pretty sometimes, but singularly, powerfully mine. What a gift. And I would be a fool not to exhume them.

Can-Do

No offense to Peter Durand. I’m glad I can enjoy canned foods. Who doesn’t love the metallic taste of peas, or chili that has spent a few months convalescing on a grocery shelf? I love his lack of foresight though; he figured out how to seal food in, but patrons needed a hammer and a chisel to get it out. It only took 48 years to find a solution. That makes me laugh. My praise goes to Ezra Warner, who in 1858 figured out a way to open cans less forcibly; the only problem was that each can had to be opened before it left the store. And so that is why my heart belongs to William Lyman, who in 1870, developed a can opener that could open cans in the comfort of one’s own home without the threat of shrapnel. Sweet William, I thank you for the pleasing taste of peaches in the middle of Ohio’s dark iciness, for soup that melts my snowman children, and for refried beans straight from sunny Mexico in the dead of winter.

And while we are on the topic of cans, I cannot fail to mention America’s favorite, beer in a can. January 24, 1935, the Kruger Brewing Company of Richmond, Virginia sold the first canned beer, “Krueger Cream Ale”. One week to the day before the birth of my father. I hardly think that is a coincidence. I think I speak for my dad when I say we are both grateful for the pop top tab and its unmistakable sound and refreshing taste. Just wonder what took them so long!

Things I Don't Know How to Do

I don’t know how to bake a clam or make a cake from scratch.
I don’t know how to assemble Tranformers with speed and accuracy.
I don’t know how to drive a stick shift or stick to a topic.
I don’t know how to watch movies without falling asleep or fall asleep without dramas racing through my head.
I don’t know how to French braid or twist pretzels like an Amish girl,
But I do know how to make a tangled mess of things.

I don’t know how to fire a gun or build a fire in my living room,
or my heart for that matter.
I don’t know how to do a front roll dismount or
Get myself out of these tasks that spin me
Endlessly.
I don’t know how to tie knots in rope:
Only in myself.
I don’t know how to water ski or balance on a beam,
Or pet dogs and horses without cringing.

I don’t know how to juggle bowling pins or torches or the myriad tasks
that each day brings.
I don’t know how to run without being chased or
Catch up to the moments in my life that I should cling to.

And I don’t know how to live without spaghettio kisses and crumbs in my bed from
The midnight snack that chased the monsters away.

Autumn Dark

The grey storm skies of fall
Remind me of that man
Shuffling through the discount store
Counting out his pennies for a half jug of milk.
And the bloated girl whose tumor-ravaged brain
Finally gave up the fight.
And then again the harvest.
Rotten pumpkins and gourds twisting
In the tired soil.
And the moldy apples you pick off the ground
To feed me for my dinner.
The grey suffocates like a too-thick blanket
That never covers my feet.
And so it goes.

Soundtrack of my Life

A Play in Perpetual Acts
September 30, 2009
7:00-7:15 a.m.

Mom: Get dressed.
Maura: Can we get apples next time we shop? I want to get Jonathan.
Mom: Get dressed.
Marty: Mo-om!!!
Mom: What?
Marty: Help me inside in this.
Maura: (singing at the top of her lungs) Shalom, my good friends. Shalom my good friends. Sha-
Marty: (nearly screaming) That’s the one that gets me scared! It’s like a ghost singing.
Mom: Get dressed.
Maura: No, it’s God’s praise.
Marty: You’re getting me scared.
Mom: What would you like for breakfast?
Maura: Spheres! I told you I wanted spheres, not flakes!
Marty: Maura, Sam Baker is really real, but he losed his eyesight.
Maura: Mom!
Marty: He was riding on a train and some bad guys blew it up.
Mom: Marty, put your shoes on.
Sean: Mom, picken me up!
Marty: (noticing Mom pouring juice which we have not had in a long time) Mom, it’s like old times!!
Mom: Finish your breakfast and brush your teeth. Marty, put your shoes on.
Maura: Shalom, my good friends….
Marty: STOOOPPPPP!
Sean: Mo-om. Shoes on. Two shoes. Open door me.

Theater of Justice

A field trip like no other. Sixty kids in plaid skirts and belted blue trousers enter the courtroom of Judge John J. Russo, trying to be invisible. Kind of like elephants trying to do ballet. We do not belong here, and are conspicuous in every way. We have come for the drama of real life in the city of Cleveland, currently the nation’s poorest. It’s like a play; we audience members wait nervously for the actors to get in place.

Instead of the curtain, the pounding of the gavel and “All rise” bring us to attention. Scene one: one defendant and his defense attorney share a whispered conference, and incongruously, a giggle. Case 525655 rises to his feet, and the tag he forgot to remove from his new shirt flaps under his arm. Drug trafficking the charge, a fifth degree felony, but he was merely complicit. Trying to make his life work on his eight dollar an hour job at Brown’s Stadium, and trying to help a friend without a driver’s license. Got caught in the driver’s seat and the web of justice. It was his nephew who ran from the cops that night. They both get another chance. He notices his audience and takes a moment for a monologue to the crowd: “This incident was a bad choice. Shows you how a quick bad decision can lead to trouble.” I’ve said it to these students a million times. Maybe they will learn it better from a man who just avoided a year in jail.

The next character was not so lucky. There is nothing inconspicuous about a man in an orange jumpsuit with his hands handcuffed behind his back. I can see his id bracelet, like the kind they give newborns to keep them from getting mixed up; unfortunately, this man is already lost. Case 526428 is convicted of attempted rape of a five-year old boy. I can see my girls across the courtroom wince. Took the breath right out of us to see this monster in real life. A tier-three sex offender, he will report to authorities every ninety days for the rest of his life. I can’t believe that he didn’t even say he was sorry. Like some strange audience interactive theater, I find myself sitting between the now nine-year old victim, and the rapist’s sobbing lady love. Her flowered shirt pops into my line of vision as the judge hands down six years in the Grafton Correctional Facility. The sentence for young Andrew will not be so brief, I’m afraid.

Scene three opens with a large man stuffed into his pin-striped suit; white tube socks and ripped up black shoes complete the ensemble. Case 5171817 is charged with 134 counts of pandering and child pornography, and has previously pled guilty to 16 second degree felonies. Today he wants to change his plea because, as his lawyer claims, he just didn’t understand what pleading guilty meant. The judge doesn’t buy it. I watch the grimaces of my students as the prosecutor outlines the sordid details of pornographic assaults on minors that the defendant was accused of disseminating. The defendant apologizes and cannot stifle his sobs. His children at home need a daddy; there is a baby on the way. And he has been married for seventeen years. I cannot help but notice that she is not in the courtroom today. As he pleads for his freedom a deputy walks in, a dramatic tool of foreshadowing. I marvel that he is sentenced to two years in prison in front of a room full of the same type of children he victimized. This dramatic irony is a ghastly final scene for us.

Back on the bus the students joke and giggle to let off steam. But we don’t get much done for the rest of the day. Even eating our lunch is difficult this afternoon. We are caught in a new web of understanding; the play was a little too vivid, and our lives just a touch too sheltered. But this is not like Halloween and its fake costuming. The world houses some real-life monsters that we have just witnessed. My students seem very thankful somehow to be back to familiar scenery. But I think it is a play that will long be remembered.